LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 100

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sther and Jesus Christ whom He has sent to us”
Ed. V, 271).

HI

Word to which we are captive is a transform-
anctifying Word. Jesus says in His high
rayer, “Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy
truth” (John 17:17). He says to His disciples,
are clean through the Word which I have
ou” (John 15:3). He affirms that we are
e give heed to His Word and treasure it
3). When we hear His Word, He says, and
have eternal life, we have already passed
ith to life. Again and again Jesus tells us that
ets us free, transforms us. And it has that
elous power and capacity not only to make us new
ures, but to sustain us and bless us and work in us
ry faith and hope and love it solicits from us.
ily the Word can do this. God does not quicken us
w His grace and forgiveness upon us, He does
ké us captive and rule in our hearts in any other
yan through His quickening, pardoning, and
rming Word. “Faith cometh by hearing, and
ing: by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). And Luther
inthe Smalcald Articles (III VIHI, 3 and 10): “We
hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one
Spirit or grace except through or with the external
id“, We should and must constantly maintain that
‘does not deal with us except through his external
itd and sacrament.”
‘How ‘do we respond to God when He speaks to us
ay in His written and preached Word? There is only
Ppropriate response, the response of faith. That is
t Jesus refers to when He speaks of “hearing,”
éiving,” “continuing in” His Word. Luther says
ptly: “God has not dealt with men nor does He

BAG

I

‘Simultaneous saints and sinners!’ When did it all
in? The “sinner” part certainly did not begin this
ming when we perhaps gave God, His Word, and
yer only a passing nod while preparing to attend this
tion. It didn’t begin yesterday when we spoke that
ind word out in the hall or last week when we tried to
wheat either the Board of Elders or our pastor. It
it even begin “when you and I were young...” and
ed little girls or pulled the wings off butterflies.
‘tin Luther, who will do much of the speaking for us
‘to us today, talks about when it began in the
ulcald Articles and says, ‘““We must confess what St.
lsaysin Rom. 5:12, namely, that sin had its origin in
man, Adam, through whose disobedience all men
2:made sinners and became subject to death and the

SIMULTANEOUS SAINTS AND SINNERS

101

deal with men in any other way than through His Word
of promise. We in turn cannot deal with God in any other
way than with faith in that Word of promise.”

How very little God requires of us in His Gospel
Word, that Word which gives us life and pardon and
transforms us! He does not require good works, for He
knows we are lost in sin and can never please Him by
our lives. He does not ask for acts of sacrifice and
propitiation, for He has already sent His Son to sacrifice
Himself for us on the altar of the cross, and Christ “is
the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Really,
God requires nothing of us. He only invites us to believe
His Word. And that’s not a requirement but a gift. Our
response of faith is His gift which He works in us
through His Word to which we respond.

What a joy! What an utter privilege! What an inesti-
mable blessing to be taken captive by the Word of God!
When we are tempted to compromise our faith and the
saving doctrine, we confess with Luther: “I am con-
quered by the writings [of Scripture] cited by me, and my
conscience is captive to the Word of God; I will and can
recant nothing, neither is it safe nor honest to do
anything against one’s conscience.” When the secular
world entices us, and we shrink from Jesus’ easy yoke,
we cry with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are
sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living

God” (John 6:68-69). When we grow indifferent or
reluctant, hesitant or afraid to confess our Savior before
men, then we recall His Word, the last, sure, and
irrefragable Word of promise before He ascended into
heaven, “I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20).

Our theme this convention week is, “Him We Pro-

claim.” We shall do this because we are captives of the
Word.

Robert Preus, Ph. D., D. Theol.

Simultaneous Saints and Sinners
(Tuesday Morning Devotion)

devil. This is called original sin, or the root sin” (SA III
I, 1). And a little later he adds, “This hereditary sin is so
deep a corruption of nature that reason cannot under-
stand it. It must be believed because of the revelation in
the Scriptures” (SA III I, 3).

Indeed, this original sin is the cause of all the so-
called actual sins that we commit day by day. One ofthe
passages that Luther referred to in the Smalcald Arti-
cles is the 51st psalm, where David says by the inspira-
tion of the Spirit, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity: and
in sin did my mother conceive me.” Ina previous lecture
on this psalm the great reformer reminds us, ‘We are
not sinners because we commit sin—now this one, now
that one—but we commit these acts because we are
sinners before we do so; that is, a bad tree and bad seed
produce bad fruit, and from an evil root nothing but an

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