LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 310

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
companionship. In the language describing the baptismal life, Paul
writes to the Colossians:
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put
off the old man with its practices and have put on
the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge
after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,
Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Col
3:9–11).
Through daily repentance, Christian men and women, whether
single or married, whatever their place in life, become more like
the One who created them.
Image of God
In the towering confession of Christ in Colossians 1:15–20, Paul
speaks of the incarnate Son of God as the visible image or mirror
of God the Father. To see Him is to see the Father (John 14:9). To
see Him is also to see the image of what men and women are and
will be in Christ. As the apostle reminds us, God is conforming
us “to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers” (Rom 8:29; cf. 2 Cor 3:18). Finally, on the
last day Christ will come again in glory and “transform our lowly
body to be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21). Baptism unites us
with Christ through whom God restores His image in us. Through
this precious treasure God also places us in His family of believers,
with whom we are one in Christ:
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body—Jews and Greeks, slave and free—and all
were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:12–13).
We are adopted children of God, with the same Brother and the
same heavenly Father.26
Reconciled to God and each other
The New Testament everywhere teaches that God has not only
reconciled us to Himself but also to each other as baptized Christians. St. Paul calls the Gospel he proclaims the “message of reconciliation,” with specific reference to the relationship of Jew and
Gentile. Christ has broken down the wall of hostility between Jew
and Gentile “that he might create in himself one new man in place
of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God
in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph
2:15–16). Note Paul’s language: God has created “one new man.”
The word “man” denotes humanity: one new human race, one huge
new person. In this new humanity created by Christ, the old divisions between Jew and Gentile no longer separate.
The New Testament applies this reconciliation of Jew and Gentile also to male and female. Men and women in Christ are at peace
with God and, therefore, with each other. They belong to Christ and
are members of His one body, the church, “co-heirs of the grace of
life” (1 Pet 3:7).
The apostle Paul presents this exalted vision of oneness in
Christ that transcends human differences in his letter to the Galatians:
Now before faith came, we were held captive under
the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would
be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until
Christ came, in order that we might be justified by
faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer
under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons
of God through faith. For as many of you as were
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
there is neither male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you

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are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise
(Gal 3:23–29).
This paragraph is a tightly written unit of thought. Apart from
Christ and faith, the Jews were held captive, enslaved to the law.
Now that Christ and faith have come, they are no longer under the
law. “In Christ Jesus,” says Paul, “you are all sons of God, through
faith.” All the Galatian Christians are now free as mature “sons
of God.” This “sonship” is the same for everyone—both Jew and
Gentile, slave and free, male and female. All who are baptized have
“put on Christ,” like a new garment. Each man and woman has
been given a new identity before God as a child of God clothed in
Christ, the Son of God.
Paul makes his argument with mounting rhetorical force. He
first insists that the old division between Jew and Gentile no longer
counts in the Galatians’ position before God. He then states that the
Greco-Roman division between slave and free no longer divides
Christians before God. And to top it all, he proclaims that not even
the created distinction between male and female determines their
standing in God’s sight.
The apostle’s emphasis on the unity of the church is made
crystal clear in this one little sentence: “You are all one in Christ
Jesus.” This oneness is paradoxical, for it does not change our gender, stations in life, or ethnicity. Rather, our oneness in Christ influences how we are to live out these differences in life.
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THIRD ARTICLE:
GOD RENEWS MAN AND WOMAN
The Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, and enlightens the whole
Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ
in the one true faith.”
Luther’s Small Catechism

To the Christians at Ephesus, St. Paul wrote:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk
in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have
been called, with all humility and gentleness, with
patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to
maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace
(4:1–3).
In the chapters that follow these words the apostle reveals, like
new handiwork unfurled, how God by His Spirit forms the new
life in Christ. We are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works,” says the apostle (Eph 2:10; cf. Ps 143:5, 10). In
this creative work, God conforms us to the image of His Son (Rom
8:29), not on some abstract spiritual plane but in everyday earthly
callings (e.g., as citizens, governing authorities, children, parents,
employers and employees, and wives and husbands). Though
seemingly mundane callings, they are the very places in daily life
where God does His work in and through His sanctified people.
Jesus said, “You are the light of the world … Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father in Heaven” (Matt 5:14–16). Several New Testament
epistles contain a “table of duties”27 that unfolds what life “in the
Lord”28 looks like in our varied callings. The words “table” and
“duties” may connote to some today a catalog of suffocating rules
intended to stifle healthy relationships, not enrich them. To regard
them this way would be to misunderstand seriously the content and
intent of these scriptural sections. In them, God is actually inviting
us to know and experience the restoration of His original creation
through Christ, now made possible by the Holy Spirit’s power—including especially God’s creation of man and woman in their re2010 Convention Workbook

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