Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
[Intro]
As the executioner was about to light the pyre at the feet of the reformer, he said, “Now we will cook the goose.”
The condemned man replied, “Yes, but there will come an eagle in a hundred years that you will not reach.”
This “cooked goose” was John Huss, for “Huss” is Bohemian for goose. Huss was burned at the stake as a condemned heretic for his attempted reformation. As he felt the heat of the flames, Huss spoke of an eagle who would not be condemned to death.
Some 102 years later, on October 31, 1517, another Reformation was sparked when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses for Debate on the Wittenberg Castle Church door. Later on June 25, 1530, the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were first subscribed in the Augsburg Confession.
Between October 31, 1517 and June 25, 1530 a miracle happened: The Triune God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – led Luther to rediscover the Gospel that had been hidden for too long of a time. Now, do not be mistaken, the Gospel was not totally hidden, but the Gospel was severely repressed from God’s people, including most of the clergy, as it was rarely heard.
For Luther, the Triune God lined everything up for him. You see, God worked through Luther to get the Gospel – the good news of Christ’s forgiveness – out to the people. God worked these events. As Luther did not know what would happen tomorrow, God foreknew His saving work that He would accomplish through His servant Martin Luther.
Today on this Reformation Day, God the Father reveals His heritage that has been passed down to us through His Son Jesus Christ that all who abide in Jesus have been set free from the bondage to sin.
[You Will Know the Truth]
To the Jews who had believed in Jesus, He said to them: “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
Today, many of us hear people say, “my truth” when referring to “the truth.” You see, our sinful nature – which on its own is blind to the truth – believes self is the source of authority. What is really going on here is a confusion between objective truth and subjective opinion.
Here Jesus is giving us a preview to John 14:6 where He says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” So, when Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” He is referring to Himself. Christ is not saying, “I have the truth,” like another Elijah; but “I am the truth.” Christ is not merely of the truth, but He is the actual embodiment of the Truth. He is the very reality of God the Father’s plans of grace and their execution.
To the Jews that day, they avoided the truth. They believed that as God’s chosen people, they were set free. So, when Jesus said: “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32), they were offended.
They thought: “How dare this Jesus say this about us?!” “We are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?’” (John 8:33)
Oh, how quick they are to overlook their current condition. At that very moment, these Jews did not have their own nation as they were subjects of the Roman Empire. And not too long ago, these same people were ruled by the Persians and the Babylonians. At present, they are held in bondage to the laws of outsiders.
[Slaves to Sin]
But Jesus – as He always does – goes deeper. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
The bigger issue is sin itself. Sin indeed separates us from God and also separates us from each other. You see, sin’s focus is inward – to our wants and desires – instead of loving God and serving our neighbor.
And when we are in sin, we are unable to keep God’s Law perfectly. But the thing is, the demands of God’s Law are still required of us by God. So, in our sin, we are doomed to eternal separation apart from God. We are doomed to the depravity of our sins, which is eternal damnation. Even if we don’t like hearing the following, it is most certainly true: everyone who opposes the Gospel is working for Satan. So, if we continue to live in our sin as if our sin doesn’t matter, we are on the side of Satan, rather than on the side of Christ.
What Jesus is teaching us is to not be superficial. By saying “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples,” Jesus is requiring all His disciples to be genuine and accept all of Christ’s teachings and remain faithful to all of it.
This means that as a follower of Christ, we are to at all times and in all places abide in Christ’s Word. For Jesus never said, “My disciples can pick and choose what they want to believe.”
But the thing is, even if we desire to keep all of God’s Law as revealed in the Ten Commandments, we can’t. “For by works of the Law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the Law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). So, by works alone, no human being can be justified. We are stuck, since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
So, what would life look like if we were enslaved under the demands of the Law? It would not look good. It would be sad and extremely depressing. Whatever I could do would never be enough. This is what life was like before God led Luther to rediscover the Gospel.
[In Christ, We are Declared Not Guilty]
Now, God is just. God is holy. So, if God is just, He cannot be unjust. If God is just, then a little sin is akin to great sin. Sin is sin and all sin separates us from Him. Sin is against His very nature.
But God is also the justifier who declares us not guilty, so we can be in His perfect realm of holiness. If He is just, how could this be?
“[We] are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:24). The only way sinners could be found not guilty of sin is if there was payment for that sin. Jesus Christ was that one payment for all time. He paid the price for our sin, so that the just God can declare us not guilty. So, God the Father put forward His only begotten Son Jesus Christ as a propitiation by His blood, so through Christ’s suffering and death, God the Father is satisfied, so that by grace through faith in Jesus, we too, are covered in Christ’s blood and are redeemed as righteous with God the Father.
So, we are justified just as Abraham was – by faith. Abraham had faith in the promise of the Messiah. We have faith in that promise fulfilled, Jesus Christ alone.
In response to being justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, we live out our faith in Jesus in our sanctified life. Through Christ alone, we uphold the Law (Romans 3:31).
Now, the Law that the Apostle Paul is referring to is Moral Law. You see, we ought not be following the winds and waves of the sinful world, but instead abide in God’s Word. If we are no different from the unbelieving world in how we think, speak, and act, then we are in an extremely bad place.
You see, if we are no different from the unbelieving world around us then we have replaced the one true God with a false idol that we put our faith and trust in, such as the god of safety and the god of comfort, which are popular these days. So, if you find yourself trusting in a false god, then you are still under the bondage of sin.
But no matter what, the Triune God is a loving God since His steadfast love endures forever, even if we fall into sin. Again, when we sin, we are unable to keep the Law. But the thing is, when we confess those sins to God the Father by repenting of them, God says to us: “You are forgiven. Now go and sin no more.” Those sins that once separated us from God are wiped clean as if they never happened.
These sins are wiped clean, since God the Father sees everyone in Christ as He sees His own Son: righteous. We are at perfect peace, due to our faith in Christ. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
Christ is offering us something that is forever: the eternal Gospel. He is offering us His inheritance that He won for all people through His suffering and death upon the cross: the forgiveness of sins, which begets eternal life and salvation.
Our reading this morning highlights three aspects of this eternal Gospel.
First, the content is Truth (John 8:32). Truth is more than a body of truth but is embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ Himself.
Second, the vehicle is the words spoken about the Truth and what Jesus has done for our salvation, so if you abide in Christ’s Word, you shall know the incarnate Word. You shall know Jesus.
Third, the result of the Truth, which is freedom. Now, this isn’t political freedom, but a spiritual freedom. The result is freedom from bondage to sin and bondage to Satan, a freedom in which we are free indeed and a freedom that we shall enjoy forever as sons and daughters of God.
Christ has won the battle for us. Through His death and bodily resurrection, He has destroyed the power of sin, death, and Satan. “Our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.” In Christ alone, we are set free. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
Preached at Trinity Lutheran Church in Gallatin, Tennessee.
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