Author: Robert Smith

[Thirtieth in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: In our post on Justification, we talked about the very good news that Jesus saves us by grace alone, through faith alone for Christ’s sake alone. When God declares us “not guilty” from his throne, we really are “not guilty” for our sins and will not be punished for them. This is because Jesus was punished in our place on the cross. We are now holy in God’s sight, as if we had never sinned in the first place.

There is one problem — we still sin. In one setting of the Divine Service in the Lutheran Service Book, we recite to each other during confession a passage from the First Letter of St. John, which makes this clear. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we don’t sin. (1 John 1:8-9) St. Paul discusses the war within himself between his new Adam and his old Adam in Romans 7. God solves this problem by sending his Holy Spirit to make us holy. This process is called sanctification.

The word is borrowed directly from the Latin word that means, “to make holy.” Lutheran theologians use it in two ways. In general, sanctification includes everything the Holy Spirit does to make us holy from when he uses baptism and the preaching of the gospel to create faith in our hearts to the day we die or Christ returns and he purges sin from our lives forever. Because Catholics believe a person isn’t fully saved until sin is completely gone from their lives, they include time in purgatory after death. Lutheran theologians prefer to use it in a more specific way to everything the Holy Spirit does after God justifies us.

When we talk about sanctification in general, we talk about it as a process. Using God’s word and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts. Now we want to please God — not to bribe him to save us, but to serve God because we love him. We now do truly good works and these, in turn, help us in the battle between our sinful self and our saintly self. Even then, these works are not strictly ours — God prepares them for us to do in the same way a teacher prepares homework for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) This struggle lasts all our lives, but is complete the day we die. On that day, Jesus will greet us and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and welcomes us into his eternal kingdom.

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

©2019-2025 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

[Twenty-Ninth in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: When you talk to people about what they believe, you hear a bunch of ideas that sometimes do not seem to fit together. More often than not, they tell you more about what they do and not why they do it. A catholic might tell you they go to mass every Sunday and do not eat meat on Friday. A Seventh-Day Adventist might tell you they go to church on Saturday or a Muslim that they pray five times a day facing Mecca. If they do get to what they believe, the teaching might seem random. What you need to know is their most important teaching — the one on which all the rest are built.

For Lutherans, the teaching on justification is the doctrine on which the faith stands or falls. The question is, how does God make a sinner a saint? We believe that justification is a legal proceeding — a forensic action. From his throne, God declares sinners not guilty, even though he knows full well that we are guilty. He does this because there is no longer a penalty to pay for our sin. Jesus took the sins of the whole world and paid the full price for them on the cross. In our place, God declared him guilty and sentenced him to death. When he said, “it is finished,” the debt we owed was stamped “paid in full.”

Yet justification does more than grant us forgiveness. When God said, “Let there be light,” it was created by the power of his word. When he says, “not guilty,” we are recreated. A new Adam or Eve is born in us. So it is not simply a legal fiction. We really are righteous because God says so. And that changes everything.

When we use a computer to write something, we can choose to right, left or fully justify the document. What we mean is that all the letters will line up at the left, right or both margins. In theological terms, God lines up our actions with his will and the law by a process called sanctification. It is not completed in us before we die. God completes in when we enter his presence at the end of our mortal life. But that is another post. It is on this point that we differ with Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Holiness denominations, among others.

Yet God’s word clearly teaches the truth of the Lutheran teaching of Justification. The gospel is really true — we are justified only because God is gracious to us, that we believe and trust that it is true, all because Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, suffered, died and rose again for our sake. It is what makes the gospel such sweet, good news.

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

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

[Twenty-Eighth in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: A child is born in ancient Rome. The baby is carefully cleaned and tenderly wrapped. She is brought to the father of the family (pater familias) and set at his feet. The household watches to see what the father will do. If he picks up the child and says, “this is my son,” the baby will be an heir in the family, even if the mother is a slave. If he turns and walks a way, the child will be set outside in the street, exposed to the fates and not a part of the family. By this and similar legal proceedings, a free Roman could adopt anyone he wishes and grant all the rights and privileges due to his children to that person. In Greek, the word is υἱοθεσία (υἱοθεσία — huiothesia — the placing as a son, the adoption as a son)

Because he loves us, God arranged for us to be adopted as his sons (Ephesians 1:4-5). At just the right time, the Father sent his Son, to be born of the Virgin Mary, to redeem us by his sinless life, suffering, death on the cross and resurrection, so that we might be adopted as his sons in our baptism. He then sent his Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that now we can call him “Abba” — “Father.” (Galatians 4:4-7) The Holy Spirit testified to all of this. Now, since we are God’s heirs — heirs with Christ, we share in his sufferings in order to share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17) We await the final adoption decree, the resurrection of our bodies at the end of time. (Romans 8:23)

Because we are adopted as sons of God, we are now a part of his family. Jesus is our older brother. All Christians are now related. We are each other’s brothers and sisters in Christ. God has given us to each other. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is blessed, we are all blessed. We care for each other, protect each other, and worship together. When our older brother returns, we will live and reign with Christ. That is why Jesus prays for us, that we may be one, as he and the father are one. It is also why we all go by one name — Christian.

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

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

[Twenty-Seventh in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: When the Bible speaks about good works, it really is not talking about the everyday things we think about when we mention good things people do. You know these kinds of good works: someone stops to pull a child out of a burning car. A famous person sneaks out, gives her entourage a slip and goes to the homeless shelter to care for people in need without cameras. Or just the simple good things people do to make life better for others.

As noble as a good deed is, the good things people do are always deep down colored with mixed motives. Maybe we did them so that people would sing our praises. Maybe we expected to get something from them, a reward, a trophy or a good deed in return. The Hindu idea called Karma is supposed to work that way. If you do good, good will be done to you.

Sometimes the things we choose to do are our own ideas. All-night vigils, long fasts, pilgrimages and similar feats are very impressive, but God never actually asks us to do these things. They all have the effect of making us feel better about ourselves. Jesus had a simple but biting evaluation of their worth. “You have received your reward.”

The bottom line is no good work done saves us or even especially pleases God — unless we do them because we have faith in God and want to thank him for his love and mercy towards us. Strictly speaking, non-Christians cannot do good works. All the things they do are motivated by the desire to get something out of it. Even Christians who love and trust God aren’t perfect when it comes to doing good with pure motives.

Truly good works, then, are the product of faith in Jesus Christ. Every thankful thought, grateful prayer of thanksgiving, things done because we love God, are good works. Even though a sinful thought or motive might tarnish them, because Christ earned our forgiveness on the cross, God does not count these sins against us, but sees only those things done because we love him.

So, good works are not worthless. Nor are they a trivial thing that really doesn’t matter because God has already saved us. What is important is to put things in good order. Faith in Christ comes first. Then, because we already love God, we want to do good things to thank him for his grace and love. With the strength he gives, we do what he created us to do — good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do.

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

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

[Twenty-Sixth in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: “You won’t die,” hissed the snake. So, what could it hurt? So Eve and then Adam ate the fruit. What they didn’t realize is they had ruined everything. In effect, they told God they knew better than him. They built a wall between God and us. But that was not all. They built walls between them and set their descendants up for constant warfare in one form or another forever. And, it turns out, God was right. Cut yourself off from the source of life and you die. Slowly, but surely, your body wears out. Creation itself tries to kill you, and everything lives for itself and nothing else. Thorns infest the ground.

When two people are angry with each other, someone has to bring them together. Often it is an apology sealed with a small sacrifice, — one man buying his angry friend a beer, a husband bringing flowers to his wife or other sign of giving a part of themselves to reconcile. The bigger the breach, the more dramatic the sacrifice. An employee resigns to save the company and restore faith in it. A child works off the cost of the window her softball broke.

God told us from the beginning what that sacrifice must be. A holy God cannot live with a sinful, selfish being. To be reconciled to God means to die. Yet God loved us from before he made the world and does not want sinners to die. So God himself provided the sacrifice to bring about at-one-ment — atonement. First, it would be prize lambs or other livestock that would hurt for a shepherd to lose. Yet that would never really do. So his people still die.

It would take the sacrifice of sinless human life to bring God and his children back together. Yet they are in short supply — all humans are born sinful. And God himself is sinless — but he cannot die — or so it seems. God is his grace decided to redeem us with the sacrifice of his Son — his only Son– whom he loved. This is not divine child abuse as the atheists charge because God is the Holy Trinity. When the Son of God died, God was sacrificing himself. So, the Eternal Son, the author of life, became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. When he died on the cross for us, he saved us with his own blood. The curtain of the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom and the walls between us came tumbling down.

Now we are at-one with God. In every Divine Service, the Lord Jesus seal the New Covenant in his blood. He gives us his body to eat with the bread and his blood to drink with the wine. It is a down payment on the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, which we will join all too soon. Then fully reconciled with God, we will live with him 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

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com