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Introduction to the Athanasian Creed

Encore Post: On Trinity Sunday, most Christian churches confess together the Athanasian Creed. The creed was composed in keeping with his theology about the Trinity, though not by St. Athanasius himself. The creed flagrantly uses the term “catholic” in a way that can startle us sensitive snowflakes of the Lutheran tradition.

St. Athanasius? Catholic? Are we Romanists, now?

No, we are not now, nor do we desire to be a part of the Roman Catholic church. “But, Pastor, we just said the ‘catholic faith,’ like three times in the Athanasian Creed last Sunday.” Yes, yes, we did. And I have good news! At Mt. Calvary, we confess it again on several Sundays throughout the church year.

Our Sunday bulletin at Mt. Calvary included this little note concerning our catholicity. “catholic faith* — The term catholic does not refer to the modern Roman Catholic Church, but rather to the universal, invisible, orthodox, faithful church of Christ on earth. We retain the use of the term “catholic” in the Athanasian Creed in opposition to the papal church of Rome. “Catholic” simply means” universal,” and as such, we boldly confess it from our Lutheran understanding.”

There are Christians that eschew the use of creeds in the church. They’ll say things like, “No creed but Christ” and, “no book but the bible.” But, those statements are creeds of their own. We derive the English word creed from the Latin credo, which means, “I believe.” So, our friends in the “no creeds” crowd are creedingly creeding a creed against the use of creeds. (The large majority of the global Christian community are from credal faiths like ours.)

The Three ecumenical creeds are: The Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed. Creeds, as a whole, exist to speak contrary to positions held outside the faith. Each of these creeds exists solely to communicate the faith we all hold in opposition to a novel heresy against the faith. Ecumenical refers to that which pertains to the whole Christian church. The ecumenical creeds are embraced and confessed by all of Christendom.

The Athanasian creed speaks primarily against the Arian sect of the early Christian church. Arius, for whom the sect is named, struggled with the stuff of which God is. He taught against the idea that God the Father and God the Son are of the same substance.

Now, the Nicene Creed says, “… of the same substance with the Father…” After the first ecumenical council in Nicea (325 AD), the notion that there are differences in substance should have been put to bed with all the subordination it entails. But, Arianism remained a problem for the church.

The creed can be treated as two or three parts. Three parts will work adequately for this discussion. The first part deals with the unity of our Triune God. He is uncreated, infinite, and eternal, “not three gods, but one God.” This language rejects Subordinationism, that the Son and the Spirit are less God than that Father is God. Rather, God is of one substance, not “three gods or lords.”

In the second section, we confess personhood, each distinct from the other. This rejects Modalism, that God changes masks, appearance, or function, but is the same in person in each case. Rather, we confess that the individual persons of the Triune God possess unique attributes to the exclusion of the others. The Father: unbegotten, The Son: begotten, and the Holy Spirit: proceeding, are all unique in function for us Christians. There are not three of any, but one of each person within the Trinity in Unity.

The third section deals with Jesus’ incarnation. The two natures of Christ are on full display here. The Son is “equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We reject Eutychianism, that Jesus’ human and divine natures merged into a new, different nature. “He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age: perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We also reject Nestorianism, that the two natures of Christ are not unified in His person. “He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”

The third section also rejects the Gnostic notion that we will be free from matter and our bodies, specifically in the next life. On the contrary, we confess the resurrection of our bodies! “At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies.”

Dear Baptized, let us celebrate the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity!
Thanks be to God!

Read section One of the Athanasian Creed next.

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. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

Reading the Bible: Avoid Anachronism (or don’t make Jesus time traveler)

Encore Post: [Eighth in a series of posts on how to read the Bible] Anachronism is taking any historical custom, person, object, or event into a time period other than its own. The Biblical narratives exist in time. (Narratives are those passages that relay specific events as a narrated story). They are to be heard and read from within their contextual window.

There was a common refrain around twenty years ago: What Would Jesus Do? The notion was that Jesus, as revealed in the scriptures, could be used as a moral guide to aid your decision-making process. If you would just imagine Jesus in your situation, the correct answer would become clear.

The anachronistic fallacy here is that Jesus does not walk the earth in my time. By trying to drag Him here into my situation, I’m ignoring the teachings in their context. And, I’m about to put my words into Jesus’ mouth somehow to sanctify my choices into biblical truth.

Let’s try another fitment. “Jesus was a socialist, distributist, capitalist, or anarchist.” Jesus lived 1800 years before most of the codified economic systems we know developed. His experience with taxes, market forces, production, and consumption looked far different from our own. The application we should pull from “render unto Caesar” is simply: be a faithful Christian first and the best citizen, resident, or alien you can be second. Anything further pulls Jesus into our temporal context.

For a more timely application that will likely age poorly, would Jesus wear a mask? He came healing the sick. So, surely, that means that he would wear a mask. Again, our specific time and concerns applied to Jesus. We couldn’t discern the answer to that question.

This one dials in more tightly upon the problem with that question. It’s not a good question. Jesus came healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, casting out demons, and forgiving sin as signs of what was to come. These signs demonstrate the fullness of God in human flesh subsisting. Jesus healed, recreated, forgave, and even raised dead to life again to teach what His death meant. Jesus died to forgive the sins of the world. All the brokenness and other evidence of the corruption of sin will fade away in the blinking of an eye at the resurrection of all flesh. His life and ministry testify to that. Who cares what political system, hand sanitizer, or chicken sandwich he may or may not have preferred?

Dear Baptized, let us abandon anachronism and bless the Lord of time and eternity!
Thanks be to God!

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. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

Green Sundays: Ordinary Time After Pentecost and Trinity Sunday

Encore Post: With the celebration of the Sunday of the Holy Trinity, the liturgy of the church switches themes. From Advent to Pentecost, the focus of all the lessons in all lectionaries focus on the earthly ministry of Jesus. With Holy Trinity, we consider what this means for our life and the life of the Church. The color of all our paraments and vestments is green to reflect growth in our faith in Christ. Together with the Season of Epiphany, Pentecost/Trinity Season is called Ordinary Time.

These Sundays are not called ordinary because there is something routine about them. It comes from the fact that each week in the season is numbered rather than named. It is the tradition of the church that each Sunday between Advent and Pentecost has a unique Latin name. You may have seen these in bulletins. The weeks of ordinary time, however, are numbered by the weeks after Epiphany, Pentecost or Trinity.

There are so many Sundays after Pentecost or Trinity that most lectionaries change the themes twice or more. Most make these changes at the celebration of St. Lawrence Day and the celebration of St. Michael and All Angels (Michaelmas) If your church uses Graduals between the Old Testament and New Testament lessons and/or a thematic alleluia verse, you will notice the shift. The Gradual and the alleluia verse changes.

In some American Lutheran churches, another feature of the liturgy in ordinary time is there is a shorter preface. The preface is the prayer of praise said by the pastor before the Sanctus. In these churches, the pastor goes directly from “that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto You O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God …” to “therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising you and saying…” In the first half of the church year and on special days, they add a proper preface to it, related to the day itself.

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

Joel Sermon

Campus Ministry Night
Joel 2:12-19
October 9, 2024

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The theme is this: Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love!

Tonight’s reading is the most famous passage in the book of Joel. What we heard tonight is the Old Testament reading for Ash Wednesday, and the passage that follows these words is the Old Testament reading for the Feast of Pentecost. These are some of our most cherished days in the life of the Church.

But there’s more! Every year during the season of Lent, we sing the passage that we just heard tonight; we sing it at the announcement of the Gospel reading each week. And that song is our theme for today: Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

What I learned this week about the prophet Joel, I pass on you, dear people of God. Joel is unlike the other prophets because he speaks so broadly. The other prophets deal with specific sins and with specific kings and with specific tragedies that the nation faces. But on the other hand, Joel speaks to everybody. The prophet Joel speaks to you.

As I prepared for this text, I noticed that there are five verbs that define Joel’s message. The five verbs are these: RETURN, RELENT, WORSHIP, SPARE, AND SEND. It’s actually pretty easy to memorize because the first two words start with “r.” And the last two words start with “s.” And right in the middle is the word we all know, “Worship.”

And I think that this passage in Joel is so famous because it expresses to us our lives in this world as Christians. The first thing that we must do is RETURN! Our text declares, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” There are any number of reasons that people leave the church, and there are any number of reasons that we forsake our God. But here it is clear: Joel calls us to return to the Lord with all of our heart.

No, God does not want robots, followers that obey at all times. Actually our God wants us to love Him. Our God wants us to return home to the church. Our God wants us to return completely. Fasting can sometimes help us to refocus on our Lord. Certainly, weeping and mourning are common experiences in our human lives that often cause us to seek out Jesus. Finally, the last phrase is one of the best known: Rend your hearts and not your garments. The Lord does not want nakedness for its own sake. The Lord really wants repentance and faith.

As it says in the passage for our theme this evening, Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Dear people of God, we do not return to a hateful God. We do not return to a God who kills us. When we return to the Lord, He is gracious and merciful. When we return to the Lord, He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

That is our God. And He is our God who relents over disaster. That brings us to the second verb of our text tonight: RELENT! Joel declares to us these words, Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? These are magnificent words. Have we not seen it with our own eyes that God relents? Consider Noah, that when God destroyed the whole earth, He kept Noah alive.

Consider the slaves in Egypt, that after 400 hundred years, the Lord delivered His people out of certain destruction. Consider Nineveh, a city that did not deserve God’s mercy, and yet the Lord relented and did not destroy that city. Consider Jesus, that God relented and sent His own Son to give grace and to forgive sins and to save souls by His death on the cross.

This is why Joel calls us all to worship the gracious and merciful Lord. The next verb in our reading tonight is WORSHIP! Isn’t this the natural response in our Christian lives? We returned, and by God’s grace, God relented and did not punish us. Now it is time to acknowledge the Lord and to believe in Him. What I love about this passage is that when the people of Israel worship, they ALL worship. Listen to the detail of the procession of people who worship our Lord. Joel says, Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. While we usually think of repentance in a personal way, Joel shows to us what repentance of an entire congregation looks like. Usually we focus on our own hearts and souls and what God has done for “me,” but here are words that remind us that the whole congregation returns and the God relents from disaster for all the people in the Church. We all gather together and worship the Lord.

And at that service, the priests preach, SPARE! What better sermon can we imagine than a “spare us O Lord!” sermon? Joel has moved us from Law to Gospel, then to worship and to preaching. Consider and imagine what a moment this was for God’s people. Joel writes, Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. When the preachers preach the fervent prayer of the people, that is much greater than torn clothes. When the preacher preach the fervent faith of God’s people, that is much better than a burnt offering.

This is our life as Christians. That the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and sanctifies and keeps us in the one true faith. This is the beauty of our faith that day by day we return and repent. And that God loves us dearly. That the Lord relented and that He Himself delivered us from all the evils in this world. What Joel has preached we have heard and believed this evening.

What then is the final verb of our text? SEND! It is most common throughout the Scriptures that our hearts are changed completely and that we fervently follow the Lord. And it is just as common that the Lord sends us blessings that we do not deserve because He loves us. Consider these words from Joel’s passage this evening, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.” What a Lord that we have! For the Christian life is never easy, and many times we have to start over believing in God and living for Him. But on the journey God will provide for us all that we need to support this body and life.

Why? That’s simple. Our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So as often as we sing this in the liturgy, and as often as we worship in this sanctuary, and as often as we return to this Lord, let us remember who our God is and how He has changed our hearts to the fervent faith that we have because of His grace and mercy.

In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.

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. James Peterson
St. John Lutheran Church
Curtis, Nebraska

Haggai Sermon

Lent Midweek III
Haggai 2:1-19
May 26, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

On the 26^th day of the 3^rd month, in 2025^th year of Christ’s reign, the theme is this: The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.

Have you ever noticed that the church is better in our minds back in the olden days? Back then, there were more people in the pews and our kids were here with us. Back then, the building was newer, and there were more people willing to serve on committees. Or the really big reason … back then, the preacher was more to my liking. Back then, we had this thing or we did that thing. It’s a bit of a trap to think this way. There is always this desire in the back of our minds to return to the glorious golden age of St. John’s in Curtis, Nebraska.

Or maybe we think even further back. Surely, when CFW Walther or Francis Pieper were alive, that was the golden age of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. There were these larger-than-life church leaders that wrote extensively and worked tirelessly for the sake of the church. If not that, then the good old days of the LCMS was back when the hymnals were in German or Danish! Related to this idea, I have been reading Martin Chemnitz from the 1580s and every Lutheran parish had a school, and everybody went to individual confession and absolution, and the preacher preached for two hours every Sunday. (That sounds impossible, but oh so glorious!)

That obsession about important dates in the life of the church is something that Haggai knew well. He put a date on each of his sermons unlike most of the prophets and indeed most of the Scriptures. He marked the life of the church by the proclamation of the Word. And he preached on this occasion about the good old days. Haggai preached, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? Haggai is the preacher about 60-70 years after the Babylonians exiled the people of God and tore down the temple and the Ark of the Covenant was destroyed or removed from the house of God and His people. Can you imagine preaching to the church after all that they had been through?

It reminds me of when I visited churches in Russia and Latvia and Lithuania and Estonia. The communists slaughtered the priests and turned the churches into basketball gyms or swimming pools. And the people of God were not allowed to gather for Word and Sacrament for decades. Can you imagine if that was our history? Would any of you remember the church in its former glory before the pastors were killed and the buildings destroyed from the inside out?

To be sure, gathering together after such a long time would feel a bit empty and depressing. Haggai preaches along this vein when he says, How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? The church is small, and the destruction was great. The gold is gone, and the joy went with it. In fact, the Ark of the Covenant is gone. Where can the sacrifices take place? What would we do if the altar was gone and the sacramental vessels were melted down into swords and shields?

But hold up. I want to be clear: Haggai is by no means a doom and gloom preacher. In fact, he shows us exactly how to rebuild the church. First, he encourages the priests and preachers, Zerubbabel and Joshua. As I said before, Haggai defines the life of the church by the proclamation of the Word. Without new church leaders, the church in that time and place stood no chance of recovery.

And then he speaks to the church directly and encourages them: Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. What a magnificent Word from Haggai! Be strong, every single one of you! Work; I am with you! Haggai compares the Babylonian exile to the first tribulation of the people of God, the 400-year slavery of God’s people in Egypt. And they knew and we know that the 40 years in the wilderness were no glory days for the life of the church. But the point is that the Lord was with them then and was with them at the time of Haggai’s sermon.

And here come the present promises of God. Haggai preaches, God’s Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. And this is what I want you to think about. Certainly the temple at the time of Haggai was a worthy structure, but it too would be destroyed over time. The temple would be rebuilt again by King Herod.

But something way greater than a building in the capital city was in store. And when Haggai says, “Fear Not” I immediately think of the most famous “Fear Not” in the whole Scriptures. “Fear not, for behold, is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is the Christ the Lord.” What glory days of the Old Testament could compare to the glory days of Jesus Christ born of a virgin and walking the earth to eventually die on the cross? Didn’t Jesus say, “I will destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days?”

But let Haggai say it in his own words: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The Lord shook the heavens at Jesus’ baptism and spoke out of the cloud. And the Lord caused the sea to be calm and not to shake any longer. And the Lord shook the earth at Jesus’ crucifixion when He gave up His spirit. And the Lord shook the dry land in order to roll away the stone that lay in front of Jesus’ tomb on Easter Sunday.

And the Lord shook up the nations by the power of His Spirit and the proclamation of His Word throughout the whole earth. And like Haggai says, the treasures of nations have been given to God to continue the ministry of the Gospel even up to the present day and in this present place. Remember this: The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. It all belongs to Him, and we too belong to Him. What we thought were the glory days of the church do not compare to the glorious days of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ for each and every one of us.

What the Lord says is absolutely true: The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” In other words, Haggai points us to the future and to hope. In his day, he preached to the people who were preoccupied with the past, the good old days of the Old Testament. And he preached that what was to come is greater than what they currently were experiencing.

And he meant that Jesus would be greater than every temple. And Jesus most certainly was much greater than the sacrifices in the temple. But for us today, Haggai preaches to us about those good old days of Christ’s death and resurrection. And yet he also preaches to us that our temple here does not compare with the heavenly glory that we shall experience on the Last Day.

We are right now St. John’s Lutheran Church in Curtis. But we look forward to the day when we are St. John’s Lutheran Church in heaven. We await an even greater temple, the presence of God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, worshipping at his altar forever and ever. Indeed, the latter glory shall be greater than the former in every way! In the holy name of Jesus, Amen.

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. James Peterson
St. John Lutheran Church
Curtis, Nebraska

Church Words: Iconoclasm

[Thirty-first in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: Iconoclasm is a $0.25 word we don’t hear in our circles much these days. We are, however, surrounded by its effects in our American Christian culture. Iconoclasm is an English word derived from two Greek words (εἰκών, I-kohn, “image, figure” and κλάω, Klah-ō, “to break”). Iconoclasts throughout history, in various religions, and in the public sphere, have sought to “break images.” In earlier times, these breakings were literal, violent acts. We moderns are far more enlightened. We stick to character assassination rather than physical violence.

For this discussion, We’ll treat iconoclasm, aniconism, and iconophobia as roughly interchangeable terms. The first refers to destroying images. The second implies the avoidance of images. The third suggests a fear of images. Since the thumbnail image would make them all similarly uncomfortable, we can speak of them all in a categorical group.

Iconoclasts are a historical minority in Christianity. Widespread use of Christian images, statuary forms, and crucifixes appeared only after Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the Roman empire around the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued edicts between 726-730 AD, against the veneration of images. Wealthier, Greek speaking Byzantines in the West resisted these measures. Poorer, Slavic, Arabic, and Farsi speaking Byzantines in the East embraced these policies. The issue may have been fueled by the strict outlawing of images in the theocracies of the Islamist world with whom the poorer Eastern Byzantines were interacting.

When the fires of iconoclasm dwindled again. The Eastern and Western Christian churches developed very different aesthetics concerning icons or images in the church. In the West, realism in painting and statues became the norm. Three-dimensional statues and paintings with a perceptible depth of field gathered common use in churches and homes, including primarily images of Jesus’ crucifixion.

In the East, iconography developed into a specific type of flattened painting style. Eastern Christian icons use a field of vision where the near ground is lower in the picture and sometimes larger. The background is higher and sometimes smaller. These also make significant use of words and names in the image to identify the subjects and events, including primarily the crucifixion of Our Lord.

In both cases, preference was given to events in the life of Christ, the prophets and saints of the church.

In the reformation era, Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt (associates of Martin Luther) sought to purge the reforming churches in Germany by removing their statues and stained glass imagery. Luther opposed them. Afterward, Lutherans retained a love of sacred art and statuary at home and in their churches.

The radical reformers of the 16th century, including Calvin and Zwingli, rejected icons and statuary in their churches. These groups and their progeny certainly influenced American revivalist Christianity and, as a result, the common American expression of the faith. Ours could be called a semi-iconoclastic culture.

In the 16th & 17th centuries, one could scarcely find an example of crosses in use without some or most displaying a corpus (Jesus’s body). In modern America, we are nearly afraid of seeing Jesus on the cross … in a statuary form … on our walls at home or altars at church. (Paintings at home were fine). I think for German-American Lutherans, this stems from a uniquely American German expression: das ist Katolisch (that is Catholic).

[“I would also add that the specific Old Testament Commandments concerning graven images are right after they have left Egypt and aptly describe the mixture of animal and human characteristics in the idols of Egypt. Whereas God, who says make no such graven images, then immediately tells the Israelites how to make the Ark, the Menorah, the symbols of the Angels on the Ark, how to stitch Angels into the fabric and tapestry of the paraments for the Tabernacle, and then the Temples. Even in the tablets given to Moses, the Lord is clearly not opposed to sacred images, but to pagan, idolatrous ones.” (Rev. Larry R. Görlitz, in conversation, 22 May 2024) (cf. Exodus 25-28, 30-31, 35:30-39:43)]

German-American Lutherans were very sensitive to being confused by Baptists, Methodists, and the Reformed with Roman Catholics. Our chanted liturgy, non-English services, use of vestments, stodgy hymnody, and short preaching may have fed that confusion. But, the reaction, das ist Katolisch, revealed a willingness to allow some practices and images to slip away. There was a need to be seen as uncatholic.

These days arguments will revolve around statements of Spiritualized Christianity like: “We worship a risen Jesus.” Or, “The empty tomb is our hope.” The rarity of a barren cross and the near complete absence of the open tomb in pre-enlightenment Christian art should warn us against those errors.

We are better to speak with Paul, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). The risen Jesus is the proof of it. But Christ and Him crucified is our salvation. It is the very price paid for sin. Jesus’s death frees us from the fear of the pain of death in ourselves. We ought to celebrate and revere it.

Also, don’t forget the condition of Jesus as the disciples saw Him in the resurrection. “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe’” (John 20:26-27). The lamb, who was slain and yet He lives, still bears the marks of our salvation in His flesh for 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. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

Church Words: Sanctification

[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

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Church Words: Justification

[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 b elieve 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

Church Words: Adoption

[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

Church Words: Good Works

[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

Campus Ministry Night Joel 2:12-19 October 9, 2024

Lent Midweek III Haggai 2:1-19 May 26, 2025

Campus Ministry Night
Joel 2:12-19
October 9, 2024

Lent Midweek III
Haggai 2:1-19
May 26, 2025