God – Page 8 – What Does This Mean?

Jesus is the Good Shepherd

God tells us He is our Shepherd. He tends his flock, leads them to green pastures and still waters, guards them from danger, dresses their wounds, carries their lambs and is always with them. (Isaiah 40:11) This imagery is so powerful that, in ancient times, Kings often compared themselves to shepherds as well.

In the Middle East, shepherds often build a common sheep pen for their town. They would build a wall to keep the sheep from wandering away and to keep wolves and other predators from attacking them. A watchman would guard the gate or door to the pen so that only shepherds could enter. This discouraged thieves. When a shepherd was ready to feed his sheep, he would go into the pen and call them by name. They recognized the voice of the man who cared for them and would follow. He’d take them to good, green pastures and nice, quiet waters. (Psalm 23) He would protect them from wild animals, often doing battle with them, as King David describes what he did as a young shepherd. He would risk his life to save his sheep. (1 Samuel 17:34-37)

Jesus is our Good Shepherd. (John 10:1-18) He calls us by name. He leads us, guides us, corrects us and comforts us with his word. He gives us living water to drink and washes us clean in the waters of Holy Baptism. He feeds us with his own body and blood in his own supper. He appoints assistant shepherds to help feed us, protect us and guide us. He gave his life for us, his sheep. He will be with us always, even to the end of time itself, when he will lead us home, where we will live in his house forever. A Good Shepherd indeed.

Fear, Love and Trust God

“You will have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

In a previous post, we considered what it means to have a god. What it really is all about, Martin Luther tells us, is who or what are you going to trust. As Christians, we know that well. After all, the Holy Spirit planted trust — faith — in our hearts. So, we love God. We also remember that God is holy and know that sin has its consequences. So, we respect and fear him too. What challenges us is the “above all things” part.

There are many precious things that claim a place in our hearts. We love our spouses. We love our children. Perhaps we love our country, our home, our hobbies or possessions. These are great blessings that do have a proper place in our lives. The trouble comes when they compete with God. We can easily come to invest a trust in them. We build our lives around them, invest time and money in them. It is easy to come to trust them as much if not more than God.

The problem is that, no matter how precious these things are, they cannot bear the weight of our trust. Spouses and children become ill and die. Our nation may turn on us and make us choose between it and God. Possessions break, fade away and are lost. The only thing that endures forever is God’s word. God made the world by his word, his Word became flesh and lived with us. His suffering, death and resurrection earned for us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Because he lives forever, we know that we will rise to live with him forever.

So we fear, love and trust God above all others. Then other blessings fall into their proper place as we thank God for them. This love and trust, then, in turn, leads to obey the rest of the commands as well.

The Law of God is Good and Wise

Encore Post: The natural world often calls to us with beautiful sunrises and sunsets, filled with colors that contrast with snow during the winter, complement in spring and summer the green of forests and fields and the green-blue of lakes and oceans, and that complete the wide range of colors in northern mountains, clothed with fall foliage. Even in our world damaged by the fall, there is order, symmetry and rhythm. All of these things are ordered by our Creator with unseen and often unknown principles — laws — that provide for us a place to call home and allow us to plan our lives in it.

The law of God is knowledge of God’s will and the way he wants his children to live. When God formed Adam from the dust of the earth, God built into him was the law of God, written into his heart. Adam loved God, wanted to serve him and knew what pleased the Father. When God formed Eve, this knowledge of God’s law passed down to her as well. Only a few of God’s commandments were spoken to him: be fruitful and multiply, rule over the living things on the Earth and eat plants (Genesis 1:29-30), work in and keep the Garden of Eden and do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and of Evil. (Genesis 2:15-17)

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and brought sin into the world, the image of God within them was destroyed. Some knowledge of his law remains written in our hearts, but it is very distorted, so that, ironically, we no longer know good from evil. When God in his love and mercy promised that the Messiah would come one day to crush the head of Satan, (Genesis 3:15) he began to reveal his law, giving it in detail to Moses. It now serves three purposes, which we will take up in another post.

To:Child and Pupil of the Catechism

How Good is Good Enough?

Encore Post: One day, a sincere rich young man came to ask Jesus a common question — perhaps you have asked yourself the same question: “What do I have to do to get into heaven?” (Mark 10:17) From the way Jesus responded to him, we know the man wasn’t arrogant, looking for an easy way out or looking for a loophole in God’s law. He truly wanted to live with God forever. Yet he was asking the wrong question. He thought salvation was something you earn, even though his own polite words should have told him that. You do not earn an inheritance. It is something given to you by your father.

The young man was likely a Pharisee, but not an opponent of Jesus. He called Jesus a good teacher. Jesus reminds him gently what he should already know — there is no good person. Only God is good. He then set out to show him this path was a dead end. If someone was going to earn salvation, Jesus in so many words said, you needed to obey the Ten Commandments. The young man still didn’t get it. He told Jesus he always had kept these.

The fellow must have been very good at it, for Jesus did not challenge him directly. He dodged the question entirely. Rather than talk about what someone can do to be saved, Jesus told him how he could make his obedience to God’s law complete — he could become his disciples — sell all his goods, give it to the poor and become Jesus’ disciple. This is was not ready to do, because he was very rich. The scripture does not tell us if the man ever conquered his trust in riches to trust in God. Some people think this man might even have been the Evangelist Mark himself. But at this moment, he was not able to do this.

Eternal life, after all, is not something we purchase, but something we inherit from God. It is a gift that comes in Jesus’ last will and testament — the New Testament in his blood, shed upon the cross. Jesus is good because he is God himself. So he was able and willing to take all our evil upon himself and pay the price for it — death. Now that he has done so, he gives us that inheritance — his body to eat with bread and his blood to drink with wine. With this gift, God writes his law upon our hearts, so that we want to follow him now and forever.

When Jesus Walked Through a Storm…

Encore Post: It had been a long day. Jesus had just fed the five thousand. The people had tried to grab him and make him king, so they would always have bread. He sent the disciples ahead, while He went to a mountain to pray. (Mark 6:45-60)

The apostles worked hard all night to row against the wind. As professional fishermen that worked at night, they were very familiar with this kind of labor. Yet this night was particularly difficult. What they did not expect was to meet someone walking on the whitecaps.

So, when they saw Jesus coming, that was the last straw. They thought Jesus was a ghost. When Jesus told them who he was, they were no longer afraid.

Peter, who was known to rush in where angels fear to tread, asked Jesus to call on him to walk on the water to meet the Lord. (Matthew 14:28-31) When Jesus called Peter, the disciple walked on the water. As long as he focused on Jesus, he was fine. The moment he focused on the wind and the waves, he began to sink. It was all a member of trust. Peter called out to Jesus to save him. Jesus pulled Peter out of the water. Jesus scolded his star pupil for his lack of faith.

When Jesus returned to the boat, the wind stopped. The disciples then worshipped Jesus as God.

We should be careful how critically we view Peter. We like to think we have everything under control, especially in areas we are experts. When events demonstrate we really are not in control, we panic rather than trust God. To us God says “do not be afraid.” He cares for us now and forever.

Jesus Does What God Does

Encore Post: The New Testament calls Jesus God in many ways. It uses the name “God” and “Lord” and applies titles the Old Testament uses for God to Jesus. (see The Bible Calls Jesus God) Jesus also has qualities that belong to God alone and demonstrated them. (John 3:2) There was little doubt on the part of either his disciples (Matthew 14:33) or his opponents that he claimed to be God. (John 10:33)

According to the Scripture, Jesus is almighty or omnipotent. (Matthew 28:18, John 3:35, Revelation 5:12) He controls the weather. (Matthew 8:23-27) He heals the sick and raises the dead. (John 11:38-44) He created everything. (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16) Jesus is present everywhere his people are. (Matthew 18:20, Matthew 28:20, John 14:23) He is with us forever and never changes. (Matthew 28:20, John 8:56-59, Hebrew 1:12 Hebrews 13:8, John 17:5) Jesus allows people to worship him. (Matthew 28:9, John 9:35) Jesus forgives sins by his own authority. (Mark 2:5-11)

Because of this witness of the Scriptures, the church believed and confessed from the very beginning that Jesus is both God and Lord. They also continued to believe what the scripture told them about the nature of God — that only one God exists. Concluding that human reason would never understand how this could be so, they trusted God and his word instead. They continued to confess the mystery in the face of one heresy or another that changed doctrine in order to make sense of God’s nature.

The Father and the Son: The Greatest Relationship of Them All

Encore Post: If you watch carefully, you may observe great beauty in unexpected places. An elderly couple, slowly walking hand-in-hand in the park is one such sight. Their marriage has grown through decades of life, thriving in times of great joy and unimaginable grief. If you have the privilege of speaking with them, asking about their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you will have the sense that you are speaking to one individual, yet two persons. They complete each other’s sentences, think the same thoughts and share a lifetime of memories.

God the Father and God the Son have an eternal relationship. Their love is perfect and profound beyond our ability to understand. No one understands the Father better than the Son. They have been together since the beginning. The Father made the world through the Son. Because He loved us, the Father sent the Son to seek and save the lost. No one has seen the Father and would die if they did. But the Son has always been seen by God’s people and he makes the Father known. (John 1:18)

The Father and the Son share everything. The titles given the Father are given the Son. The Father is the only God, the First and the Last, the only Savior (Isaiah 44:6-8, Isaiah 43:11) The Son is God, (John 1:1) the First and the Last (Revelation 22:13) and the Savior (Luke 2:11). What the Father does, the Son does. (John 5:18-29) Together, and with the Holy Spirit, they are life itself.

So, the depth of his love for us is beyond our understanding. To redeem us, the Father did what he did not require of Abraham. He sacrificed his Son, his only Son, whom he loves, for our redemption. By his death on the cross, he won eternal life for us so that we might live with him forever.

And There’s None Other God

Encore Post: The word “Trinity” is old — it was first used in second century AD. (100-200 AD) Yet, it is not a term used by the Bible. Christian theologians use it to sum up what the Scripture says about the nature of God. It helps to look at the passages that brought the Church to talk about God in this way.

The first truth that the Word of God reveals to us about God is that he is unique. There is only one God. On this point, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and a number of other religions agree. Here is how the Holy Spirit talks about the number of gods and the unity of God.

Judaism uses Deuteronomy 6:4 as its creed: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Jesus and Paul agree. (Mark 12:29, Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20). Other passages emphasize that there is one God. (Ephesians 4:6 1 Timothy 2:5, James 2:19).

There are no other Gods besides the Lord. (Isaiah 45:21, 1 Corinthians 8:4) None of the so-called gods of the nations are like him. (Isaiah 46:8-9) None of the false gods can bring rain (Jeremiah 14:22) Since they are not real, they cannot help, much less save.

From these, and many other passages, the Church concluded and still believes that there is only one God. It is this God that we fear, love and trust as our own.

The Bible Calls Jesus God

Encore Post: The Church knew from the start that Jesus was God. Yet both the Scripture and the Church from its earliest days confessed that there is only one God. They fearlessly proclaimed this truth when every culture around them believed anything but that there was just one God. They were even called Atheists because they didn’t believe in the Roman Gods or play the game of merging their religion with those around them.

The early church recognized that the New Testament clearly assumes Jesus is God. In some places, it calls him so point blank. (John 1:1, John 1:18, Romans 9:5, Philippians 2:11 (Jesus Christ is Lord), Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, 2 Peter 1:1) He is identified as the Son of God and calls himself the Son of Man. Jesus is called Lord, calls himself Lord or implies he is Yahweh.

The New Testament also gives titles to Jesus that the Old Testament reserves for God alone. He is the Savior (Isaiah 45:21, Hosea 13:4, Luke 1:47, Acts 5:31) God is our shepherd (Psalm 23:1, Ezekiel 34:15) and Jesus is the shepherd (Hebrews 13:20) God is the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6). Jesus is the first and the last. (Revelation 1:17) Other titles are also given to both God and to Jesus. These reinforced the conviction of the church that Jesus is both God and Lord.

The Eternal Son of the Father

Encore Post: Jesus has always been God’s Son and always will be God’s Son. “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity…” Martin Luther explains in the Small Catechism. “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds…” we confess in the Nicene Creed. It is why we sing in the ancient hymn Te Deum Laudamus, “you are the Everlasting Son of the Father.”

We can somewhat understand how Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. But how he could be “begotten” by the Father in eternity — outside of time — without having a beginning makes no sense to us. Yet that is exactly how God describes the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

So far, so good. The problem comes when we try to understand how this can be. As we discussed in a previous post, we cannot fully understand God because we are creatures and he is our creator. It is a mystery — a riddle human logic cannot solve. The issue has to do with the quality of God (attribute) that he is eternal — that time does not exist for God. For human beings, everything has to do with the fact that time passes. We are conceived in our mother’s womb, grow, are born, become adults, grow old and die. Even though we we live forever, it is at best difficult to imagine life without a beginning and an end.

Yet God, in his wisdom, uses this language to help us understand the closest relationship in the universe — the eternal Father begets his eternal Son. (Psalm 2, John 1:18, 3:16-18, Hebrews 1) So, we also use this way to describe the Son and be content to understand him this way.