What Does This Mean?

Grace alone, Faith alone

[Eleventh in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

You’ve seen plenty of ads on websites, TV, billboards, in stores, and just about everywhere you go. You can lose thirty pounds if you just eat the new diet. You do not even have to exercise! If you buy that brand new sports car, you can hang out with beautiful women! That brand-new pan will make you a chef, and you can clean it in no time! People who know better will tell you if it’s too good to be true — it is! There is no such thing as a free lunch! And most of the time, they’re right!

So, it’s not surprising that people think they need to do something — anything — to earn God’s mercy and eternal life. Every religion on earth is about what you have to do to win the love of their gods. Their gods bless those who do the most. Those who fail have, at best, a second- or third-place position in their blessings.

Some Christians believe God expects them to do some good works to match the grace God gives them in order to be saved. This may be as simple as accepting Jesus as their savior, inviting him into their hearts. Others feel they must perform certain rituals, confess all their sins, speak in languages they don’t understand, or give substantial amounts of money for God to bless them. They may even say that they are saved by grace, just not grace alone.

The problem, as we’ve discussed in other posts, is that we cannot please God by what we do. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, we are dead in our sins. That is why it is such good news that Jesus has already paid the price for our salvation on the cross. Because he did this, God loves us, is gracious to us, and gives us salvation as a gift — without strings attached. So it is by grace alone that we are saved. He even places the faith in our hearts that trusts this good news and cherishes this gift. It is this faith alone that saves us, for Christ’s sake alone. This precious truth is the very center of Christian teaching and the most important of all the insights of Martin Luther and the Reformation.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

What does it mean to be saved, anyway?

[Tenth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Puffy, white clouds. People all dressed in white, wearing feathery wings, going in and out of golden gates. All of them strumming on harps they carry everywhere. This image often appears in American culture when the subject is eternal life. Is this really what salvation is all about?

Not at all. People do not become angels when they die. There is a lot of singing before God’s throne, but nowhere in the Bible does it say everyone will play the harp! The truth is, we do not know what being with God forever will look like. The Scripture uses many images. Jesus himself describes it as paradise and a great wedding feast that never ends. Other passages talk about a shining, gleaming city, full of mighty rivers. Life is described as very happy and as eternal rest. The images of a great judgment seat and a reward ceremony are also there. But salvation really is not about us — it is about living with God, seeing His face and being with Jesus.

The Bible describes the relationship between God and his people as a marriage. In Eden, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve. When they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they traded another god for their creator. They were unfaithful to him. This broke the bond between God and his children. Jesus reconciled God to us by paying the price of our unfaithfulness. Salvation is all about our return home to live with God again — this time forever.

What this means for us is salvation begins now. When we were baptized, God adopted us as his children. He drowned our sinful self, and a new life began in us. In this life, the old Adam or Eve fights back. We still sin a lot, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we no longer have to sin. We can now do good deeds. Our relationship with God grows as we receive his gifts in worship, especially when we eat Christ’s Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper.

When we die, Christ takes our spirit to live with him, kept safe until the last day. When he returns, we will return with him. He will raise our body from the grave, and we will be restored to life. Our new life will be like his. What it will be like, we will not fully know until we get there. But what is sure is we will live with him forever. Sin and death will be no more, and all suffering, grief, and pain will be gone forever.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Hope

[Nineth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Hope is another one of those words that is hard to pin down. In everyday English, it means something like a wish that something we very much want to happen will come true. There is something about it that makes us doubt we will be so lucky.

In the Bible, hope is different. Hope is something you have no doubt will happen, so much so that you can build your life on it. In theological terms, the Christian hope is the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Because it is God himself who promises these blessings, we can count on it and live our lives knowing it will happen. This is how Christians can suffer and die rather than deny their faith in Christ. It is why the burial service calls it “the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection of the dead.”

Why is the Christian Hope so sure and certain? First of all, because God himself promises it in his Word. Second, because Jesus proved these promises by dying and rising again from the dead. So, he can be trusted to keep his promises that where he is, we will also be. For us, hope becomes reality when we die. He comes to bring us to be with him forever. Exactly what happens then is a mystery.

But this is just the beginning of the blessings kept safe in Heaven for us. On the last day, Jesus will return in glory, and he will bring us with him. He will raise our bodies from the grave and change us to be like him. We will then be gathered before the throne and our names read from the Book of Life. We will then live with him forever in Paradise, where there is no more sorrow, crying, grief, or pain. God will make everything new. He will bring us to the great marriage feast of the Lamb, which will never end. This great hope gives us joy even in suffering, since we know it will pass away.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Salvation Guaranteed

[Eighth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

When we hear God’s Word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. He also comes to live within us. This faith clings to God’s grace and his promise to save us through Jesus. In Holy Baptism, he places God’s seal on us. We belong to God as his heirs. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is God’s down payment on the resurrection of the dead and eternal life with God in paradise.

What this means is we do not need to worry about whether we will go to Heaven when we die. We do not need to worry whether we did enough to earn a second chance from God. We do not need to worry about whether God chose to send us to hell before we were born. We do not need to worry whether we were sincere when we accepted Jesus as our Savior or if we cannot remember whether we ever made a decision for Jesus at all. God has done everything to save us even before we were born.

God the Father loved us before he made the world. He chose us then to be His children and set things in motion to adopt us as his heirs. He sent God the Son to die for us. God the Son was born of the Virgin Mary, becoming God with us. Jesus lived a perfect life for our sake, obeying God’s Law and fulfilling it. Jesus then went to the cross, bearing our sins and paying the full penalty for our guilt. He suffered, died, and rose again so that we might be declared “not guilty,” forgiven of our sins, and rise from the dead on the last day. God the Holy Spirit comes to us through the Gospel, Holy Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Through these Means of Grace, He created faith in our hearts, so that we trust in God’s promises and the sacrifice of Jesus to save us. He seals us with the name of the Holy Trinity and enters our hearts as a down payment on our salvation. So our salvation is guaranteed by God Himself, because everything depends on him.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Faith

[Seventh in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Faith is one of those “church words” that everyone knows and uses, but finds hard to pin down. We use it to mean everything from a family of church bodies to a system of beliefs people hold to trusting in God to accepting that something is true but that we cannot prove. The Greek language uses one word for both faith and belief. (πιστεύω — pisteoo — to believe, πίστις; pistis; Faith) When the New Testament uses the word, it refers to both what we believe and our trust in God to keep his promises to save us.

When the Bible talks about faith in God (Saving Faith, Justifying Faith), it means trusting God to keep his promises, especially his promise to save us. This trust is not something we create by things we do. It is created in us when the Holy Spirit comes to us through the Gospel, Baptism, or the Lord’s Supper. (Romans 1:17, John 20:30-31, Ephesians 1:13, Romans 1:16-17) Our faith clings to Jesus, believing that his sufferings and death on the cross forgive our sins and give us everlasting life. This faith responds to the Grace given to us in God’s Word and the Sacraments. It thanks God for his mercy, praises him, and gives us the desire to serve God and our neighbors. (Much more on this later. For now, see Ephesians 2:10)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Means of Grace

[Sixth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Now and then, the news is filled with excitement over lottery jackpots worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Long lines form at convenience stores as everyone wants to buy a ticket. For all but a handful of people, the only value of the ticket is entertainment. Yet the very lucky winner is very happy indeed. She has won a fortune! Yet her bank account hasn’t changed a penny. Until the money is deposited, nothing has changed — other than she discovers she has more cousins than she ever knew she had!

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have amazing riches in heaven. God loves us and gives us his grace. We are his children. Our sins are forgiven, and we will live forever. Yet without a way for these things to come to us, it is not yet applied to us. To give these gifts to us, God uses the Means of Grace.

The Means of Grace are visible means by which God the Holy Spirit gives the gifts Jesus earned by his death on the cross. He uses these to plant faith in our hearts and to strengthen and preserve it. Through them, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. He uses this to enter our hearts and live there.

These means are the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and perhaps Absolution. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and sometimes absolution are called sacraments.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

God’s Masks

[Fifth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Children love to play dress-up. They walk in their parent’s shoes, try on their clothes, put on costumes in their toy chest, or use other toys as masks. Adults sometimes do the same on Halloween or at a masked ball. Most often, actors will go to great lengths to look the part.

God also chooses to wear masks. Because he is absolutely holy, no sinner can stand in the presence of his full glory and live. (Exodus 33:20) So, God approaches people through priests, prophets, bushes, a donkey, and the person of the Son of God before he was born, in the person of Jesus. Most often, the Son of God is called the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, God appears to us in flesh and blood in Jesus. In him we know and see God. (John 1:18) Through him, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Through him, we can approach God and call him Father. When God sees us now, he sees his sinless Son and calls us saints — Holy Ones. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

God also chooses to give gifts of grace, faith, the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation through his Word, read and preached to us, and through the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In theology, we call these the Means of Grace. We have no promise that he will come to us in any other way. In these means, we know without a doubt that God loves us.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

For Christ’s Sake

[Fourth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

In the last post (So, Does God Hate Me?), I mentioned the mess that the sin of Adam and Eve made of the world. God intends to clean it up. But it isn’t easy. God is Holy and can’t just look the other way. Every sin must be paid for in full. Because we are all sinners from birth (Psalm 51:5), we must die and go to Hell forever. Even worse, we cannot make up for our sins by anything we can do or say. In fact, no one else can even offer to die in our place, since everyone sins. (Romans 5:12-21) Someone without sin must die to save us.

So, because he loves us, God sent his Son to die in our place. (John 3:16) That is why the Eternal Son was born a man, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Because Jesus is God, he never sinned, but remained faithful to His Heavenly Father. Because Jesus is a man, He could die for us. When He shed his blood on the cross, the price was paid for our sins and the sins of the whole world (Redemption). Our sins are forgiven, and God gives us his grace, adopts us as His own heirs, and reveals to us what He plans to do. (Ephesians 1:7-10)

One day, when the time is right, Jesus will return from heaven, raise us from the grave, restore our bodies to be like his and bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil. On that day, he will remake Heaven and Earth, and we will live with him forever.

That is why we speak of the grace of God as something he gives us, for Christ’s sake.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

So, Does God Hate Me?

[Third in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

So, does God hate me and you? He has plenty of reasons to do so. When God made the world, it was perfect, without sin, evil, sickness, or death. He made us male and female in His image (Genesis 1:26). He blessed us and called all He made “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But our first parents, Adam and Eve, believed Satan’s lie that they could become more like God by disobeying His command. (Genesis 3:4-6) This first sin (Original Sin), brought sin, sorrow, grief and death into the world. Since then, all men and women descended from them, including us, have been born as sinners. From the moment we were conceived in our mother’s womb, our every thought has been polluted by sin and evil. (Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, Matthew 15:19) So, God has every right to hate us.

Thank God that He is a gracious and merciful God (Psalm 103:8). In fact, St. Paul tells us that God loved us before He made the world. He picked us out to be made holy (Sanctified) and blameless (Justified) and rigged events so that we might be adopted as His sons through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. (Predestination). (Ephesians 1:3-6) So, God does not hate His children. He has always loved us. This attitude towards us is what we mean by the word “Grace“. God is gracious to us because His Son was born of the Virgin Mary at just the right time in history, lived a perfect life for our sake, suffered, died on the Cross for the forgiveness of sins, rose again from the dead (Resurrection), and ascended into Heaven so that we might live with Him forever. (Eternal Life)

So, grace is not some kind of substance that is given to us a little bit at a time or some kind of magical power that gives us a do-over. It is that God loves us and is bound and determined to save us — and does.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

How Do We Know What God Thinks About Me?

[Second in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2]

Encore Post:

Once in a while, you have a bad day. You know the kind. Your alarm doesn’t wake you for work. The traffic lights are all against you on the way to work. You get there late and spend the whole day apologizing. Your car gets a flat tire on your way home. You might begin to wonder if you did something to get God angry at you. This feeling is even stronger when you suffer from disasters — when you or your loved ones suffer from serious illnesses; when violent weather wipes out your home, your neighborhood, or even your city; when evil people steal your property, wound or kill those you love; or when you are dying and the doctors can’t make you well.

You are not alone. Everyone feels this way from time to time — even people who do not have faith in Christ. The world around us teaches us that there is a God; he is all-powerful, and that he has rules for us to live by. It also teaches us that he will punish us for breaking these rules and that someday we will die. This Natural knowledge of God is imperfect, though. It does not tell us what God really thinks of us, and how we can keep him from punishing us. We need God to reveal Himself to us so we can know the answer to that question.

Thank God that He, in His love and mercy, does this for us in two basic ways. He Himself became a man in Christ Jesus (John 3:16, Philippians 2:1-11). When we find it hard or impossible to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. (John 1:18) Second, God Himself has spoken to us through prophets and other authors in the Holy Scriptures, the books contained in the Bible. (Hebrews 1:1)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana