LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 62

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62 THE DOCTRINAL ESSAY

By “life” understand nothing less than that God
is alive in you. In the plan of God it is not enough that
man has muscle and nerves and the capacity for growth
and learning and science and art. But God plants into
the human heart the gift of the very life of God. God
takes charge of the impulses and desires, the aims and
ambitions of the inner self through Jesus Christ. That
life of God does not exist separately from the body. But
neither is the body to exist separately from that life of
God. (John 17:8)

We look forward to having that life of God forever,
and we speak a great deal of the resurrection of the
body to life everlasting at the Last Day. But God is
concerned that we have and use that life already now.
The world surrounds us with its need and shame. The
Christian company has its weak members as well as the
strong. Now is the time for every cell and grouping of
Christian people to sustain each other for their com-
mon task. Jesus and His atoning work is food for that
nurture. (John 6:35-40)

As Jesus spoke with His disciples in the lesson for
today, He put at the heart of that nurture of God’s kind
of life and at the heart of the existence of Christ’s
church the forgiveness of sins. God Himself has to
reach out to men who have rejected Him, to gather them
into His church, to build His church, and to make it
fruitful.

B

In His great word to St. Peter Jesus said that He
would build His church. There we have the Word that
turns our words at this moment from pious talk into fact
and action. There we have the edifying Word. This is
God’s action going on among us at this moment, and
we can carry it on in a great chain reaction back into our
parishes and out into our world. The heart of the story
is that God forgives sins.

The first step in that process is that Jesus Christ, the
Sent One, the Son of the living God, comes into the
world and bears our sins on the cross. That is God’s
way of not holding our waywardness and rebellion
against us. Think of this personally, involving yourself
and the members of your family and church, your block,
your factory and farm. God’s love comes flooding out
over the world in Christ (2 Cor. 5: 18-21). Even though
human sin is great, God’s love in Christ is greater.

The second step in the forgiveness of sins is people,
the people of the church, says Jesus. He tells St. Peter
that His church will not decay and give way, the powers
of the opponent of God will not win out over the
church. That means that our church work is a going
concern; we need not fear bankruptcy. What makes the
church work, the way by which He builds His church,
Jesus says, is people. He builds it on Peter, He says,
and St. Paul adds that He builds it on all of the apostles
and in the course of generations on every one of us,
wherever we may be. (Eph. 2: 20-22)

Jesus does this job of building not because Peter or
we are such wonderful people, of spotless faith and life;
Peter himself slipped. But Christ builds His church on

people as these people bring God’s forgiveness of sins to
men. The task of bringing that forgiveness to people is
like a key, Jesus says, which opens the kingdom of
heaven, the rule of God in the human heart, to people.
As Christ’s men do this work, it is as though He did it.
As Christ’s people fail to do this work, it will not get
done. This is the sober lesson of Matthew 16.

Cc

We are gathered in business of the utmost serious-
ness. The church is God’s building. It is Christ who
builds His church.

What is this Word through which Christ builds the
church? We have already been speaking it to one
another. We have not used the term “Word” but the
term “Call.” It comes through the forgiveness of sins
straight from God. In these mornings we are going to
talk about the Word that builds the church, and pray
that it confronts and moves us.

The Word that builds the church is Jesus Christ
Himself. “I will build My church,” He said. This means
that we have to be very sure in our minds what we
mean by the Word.

We usually employ the term to denote the Bible,
because it is the book which God has given us. Its au-
thors were inspired by His Spirit; its content and very
expression is for our profit. Much of the energy of The
Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod has been devoted
to proclaiming and defending this important fact, that
God has given us the Bible. Just as every preacher and
teacher of our Synod is pledged to do, I shall draw
these morning talks exclusively from the Bible.

But it is remarkable to note that the Bible itself
saves the term “Word of God” for God’s own action
through Jesus Christ.

There are two such great actions. One is that God
made the world and that He preserves and protects it.
He does it through Christ. “All things were made
through Him, and without Him was not anything made
that was made” (John 1:3). “In these last days He has
spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir
of all things, through whom He also created the world

. upholding the universe by His Word of power”
(Heb. 1: 2-3). “In Him all things were created, in heaven
and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or authorities — all things
were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16).
“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold
together.” (V.17)

When we hold the new baby or see the blossoms of
springtime and the spreading harvest of autumn, when
we scan the stars at midnight and follow the astronauts
exploring space, when we peer into the mechanism of
the atom or ponder the intricacy of the human brain
and thrill to beauty, we remember that Jesus Christ is
the Word of God by which all have come into being and
are kept together, and all are there to serve His purpose.

The other great action of the Word of God is that He
sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to put the
human being back on the track of doing God’s will. “He