Reformation Day, (Observed)
October 27th, anno + Domini 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
Reformation, or Deformation?
Keeping the Commandments and Faith in Jesus
Here is the perseverance of the saints, who keep the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. (Revelation 14:12)
And yet, verse 12 of chapter 14
might do a better job of capturing the heart of the Lutheran Reformation: Here is the perseverance of
the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of
Jesus. Saintly perseverance is
directly connected to God’s Law, the Commandments, and to
trusting in Jesus, the faithful One who has revealed Good News for sinners in
His life, death and resurrection. After
centuries of becoming more and more buried under layers of false human ideas,
the Reformation brought back the reality of Christians living in God’s Law,
rightly understood, and rejoicing in His glorious, free, life-giving Gospel,
the Good News of sins forgiven, for Jesus’ sake.
Revelation is a lively and
challenging book, full of symbolism, and wonderful visions of victorious
heavenly worship, myriads of myriads of saints in white robes, surrounding God
on His throne, and the Lamb. Revelation
is also full of graphic warnings against idolatry and godless living,
chapter 14:1-13 offering a superlative example.
This passage proclaims the starkest contrast between the faithful and
the wicked.
In chapter 14 verse one, John sees
a wonderful image: Then I looked, and
behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with
Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and
the name of His Father written on their foreheads. 2 And
I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like
the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I
heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their
harps. 3 And they sang a new song before the throne
and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one
could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who
had been purchased from the earth.
All happiness and
light so far. But the contrast is
coming: 4 These are the ones who have not been defiled
with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the
ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased
from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. 5 And no
lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless. The victorious saints are described as both
saved by grace, worshiping the Lamb who purchased them with His blood, and
also as keepers of the commandments, not committing adultery, speaking
the truth, and following the Lamb, wherever He goes.
Next comes today’s First Reading,
with the Luther-like angel proclaiming the Gospel, the Good News. But the next two angels are not such pleasant
preachers. The second angel
announces: “Fallen, fallen
is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of
the wine of the passion of her immorality.” 9 Then another angel, a third
one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the
beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his
hand, 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath
of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and
he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of
the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And
the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no
rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image,
and whoever receives the mark of his name.” Yikes!
Thankfully, in good Waltherian
fashion, the Gospel predominates in the end of this passage: 12 Here
is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments
of God and the faith of Jesus. 13 And
I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they
may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.” Blessed indeed, to rest in Christ.
Have you ever bought a brand new
car? Ever admired the beautiful skin of
a little child? You don’t take a car to
the body shop till it has dents and dings.
Wrinkle cream is not for 17-year-old girls. A thing only needs to be re-formed if it has
become de-formed. The Church on earth
is full of redeemed sinners who still struggle with sin, and she is under
constant attack by enemies without and within.
So, the Church will from time to time need some reforming.
In these 13 verses of Revelation
14 the Holy Spirit gives us a window into the deformations that afflicted
Christ’s Church in the 16th century, errors which Luther worked to
reform. These verses also help us to
recognize the many recurring challenges to the teaching of Christ that have
continued since 1517. These
deformations, by every indication, will continue to threaten, until Jesus comes
on the Last Day to usher in the new heavens and the new earth.
So, as we celebrate the
Reformation this morning, let’s take a few minutes to consider some of the most
common de-formations, so that we can be ready to reject error and promote the
Truth of Christ in our day, 507 years after Luther unintentionally sparked the
Reformation and changed the world.
First, we should consider
deformations of the Law, at which we fallen men and women really excel. Our first carnal instinct when the rules come
up is to claim that we are obeying them.
“Are you kids behaving?” comes the voice from the other room. “Yes, Mom,” we all reply, as we involuntarily
hide the cookies we snitched behind our back, as if she might be able to see
through walls.
This pitiful pretending is common
to all humanity. Think of the rich young
man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus points him to the Commandments, and the
young man claims to have kept them all since his youth. He is lying to God and himself, of course, a
sad reality Jesus points out by telling him to sell all he owns, give to the
poor, and then come, follow Me. The rich
young man goes away sorrowful, because he loved his wealth more than he wanted
to follow Jesus. It is no different for
you or me, a sad truth Paul states plainly in Romans, chapter 3: There is no distinction: [23]
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. As it is written: There is no one who is
righteous, no, not one. (Romans 3:10)
A more subtle way to deform and
pervert God’s Commandments is to go God one better by making up new
rules. This could be done by Jewish
rabbis, adding 613 new laws to the Law of Moses. Or a liturgical Lutheran like myself might
falsely, even unintentionally, give the impression that to be truly Christian
“we must use this liturgy or wear these certain clothes.” Liturgy and vestments are wonderful tools to
support communicating the Gospel. But
they are not commands of God.
Whatever they might be,
self-chosen rules tend to become our focus, and then allow us wiggle room to
ignore God’s original commandments. God
is never impressed when we claim that the commandments of men are the teaching
of God.
This is to try to take the
kingdom of God by force. The Scribes and
Pharisees, the inventors and enforcers of those 613 man-made laws, know
something special is happening with John the Baptist and this Jesus
fellow. They are threatened, and so try
to overwhelm John and Jesus with their rules and their show of holiness, all
the while burying God’s true Law and His true plan of salvation under a
mountain of rules and accusations.
Of course, God’s Kingdom is not of
this world, and so is not subject to the violent efforts of this world’s wise
and powerful. Despite John’s violent
death, despite their hounding of Jesus, the Truth they preached did its work,
attracting crowds of sinners, seeking mercy, and provoking the religious elite
to a murderous jealousy.
There is a subtlety required to
rightly handle the truth of God’s Law.
God’s Law is good and right. We
should keep it, perfectly. If we did
this, we would achieve our own salvation.
But we do not, we have not, we cannot.
There is no hope for us to win our own salvation through keeping the
Law.
And yet, as Christians, as
followers of the Christ who did keep the Commandments perfectly,
the Law is still important for us.
Forgiven and reformed by the forgiving sacrifice of Jesus, delivered to
us through the Word, the Holy Spirit also transforms our hearts to love His
Law. Christians are being untrue to
their new identity if they do not seek to keep the Commandments. Christians pursue the Law freely, without
ever trusting in our efforts, for our efforts are imperfect. Rather, we daily rejoice to have received
full salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus.
Remember that the recreated
believer in Christ is a living soul, with a God-given purpose, which includes
the joy of serving God by serving our neighbors. The Christian soul needs to fulfill the
desire God has given to share His love that we have received in Christ. To ignore or deny the sanctified life of good
works is also to deform Christ’s teaching.
The Life of Good Works is a place of joy, and of repentance, of sharing
the love of Christ, and understanding ever more deeply how amazing His grace and
mercy for us sinners truly are.
Keeping the Commandments is
important. It should occupy much of our
attention, and shape our daily lives.
But our efforts are never our hope. Rather, we try because of the
sure and certain hope we have, in Christ Jesus.
It is false to teach we can or
must, on our own, keep the Law of God perfectly and so be saved. This lie will lead us to one of two
disasters. If we are honest with
ourselves, we will fall into despair, for we daily sin much, and deserve
nothing but God’s wrath. Despair is a
daily threat for those souls who believe they must keep the Law
perfectly to be saved.
We pray that the crushed sinner
quickly hears the Good News of Jesus, and is rescued from despair. But there is also an opposite temptation of
Satan, the temptation to water down God’s Law, in order to wriggle out from
underneath it. Some examples:
Sure, sex outside of marriage is
forbidden in the Bible, but in today’s world it is hopeless to ask people to
live lives of restraint. So, we’d better
not reject or condemn any sexual sin.
Sure, women were not to be pastors
in Bible times, but we live in a different, more enlightened age.
Sure, the Bible says Jesus is the
only Way of Salvation, but in our day we know that respecting and affirming all
religions is really the primary thing the Church must do, to be loving.
Watering down the Law is the more
dangerous error, I think, because it also deforms the Gospel, the Good
News. If we despair because we believe
God’s Law is true, we are ready to hear the forgiving Good News of Christ. But if we water down the Word that contains
God’s rules, we will also water down the Word that declares God’s merciful
salvation. So, with Luther, by God’s
grace we stand on the whole counsel of God, delivered to us in His Word.
The main Satanic deformation of
the Gospel is to try to sneak in a requirement for works, however great or
small, in order to be saved. Good works
are necessary, God expects them from His children. But good works can only follow
and flow from saving faith in the completed work of Jesus
Christ. We must first be re-formed, made
new creatures by faith in Jesus. Because,
as Paul declares, anything that does not come from faith, is sin.
(Romans 14:23)
But by our nature, we want to
contribute something to worthy and important causes. We want to help, we want to think we are part
of the solution, we want some credit. We
may even feel the fact that salvation is a free gift insults our self-esteem
and spiritual competence. And it
does! In terms of our salvation, we echo
the LORD’s word through the Prophet Isaiah:
All our righteous works are as filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6)
And yet, Lord, You will establish peace for us, Since You have
also performed for us all our works. (Isaiah 26:12)
Today we also face some special
variations of deformation. As we
mentioned, the exclusivity of the Christian faith is denounced as bigoted and
discriminatory by many. So be it. We, with charity and patience, cling to and
profess the faith of Jesus, who said: “No one comes to the Father, except
through Me.” (John 14:6)
The very idea that objective Truth
exists for all people is widely rejected today.
Since Jesus is the Truth, made flesh, we promote Truth, and kindly point
out the many ways the denial of truth runs aground on the rocky shoals of life
experience. All for the chance to share
the highest Truth, that is, the life-giving Good News of Jesus.
And of course, the secular faith
of Scientism mocks the Biblical witness to a Creation and a Creator. Some professing Christians say we can blend
the faith with Scientism, but Jesus, John, Peter, Paul and all the Scripture
tie Salvation to the Creation as described in Genesis. The Word through whom all things were created
is the Man who hung on the Cross and rose from the dead. If the Creation is a fable, then so is the
forgiveness of sins. But you do not need
to fear the seeming wisdom of Scientism.
Their belief system is built on human presuppositions that do not bear
up under scrutiny. But Christ and His
Word do hold up, because He is the Creator and Redeemer of the World.
Luther, with faithful and wise
preachers and teachers of every age, understood Rev. 14:12 well. As he teaches in the Small and Large
Catechisms, God’s Law does not only serve to show us our sin, although
this is always its chief function. The
Law also shows us the way to live, as redeemed Christians. After the Exodus, God gave Moses the 10 Commandments,
to help Israel, a nation of former slaves.
The commandments were a guide for living for former slaves, now set free
from bondage to Pharaoh.
God’s Law serves us in the same
way. For we have been freed from
slavery, slavery to sin, death and Satan.
We have hearts made new, we are heirs of heaven, by faith in Jesus. We have nothing to do to earn or guarantee
our salvation. But there is much for us
to do: rejoice, love, share, promote, proclaim.
And the Commandments of God help us to do this. This is the true life of freedom, the Kingdom
life, the Reformation life. Here
is the perseverance of the saints, who keep the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
A Happy Reformation to you, today, tomorrow, and until you meet your Savior
face to face, Amen.
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