LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 73

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

'
|

THE CONVENTION ESSAY 73

and friendship with God. But katalassein, as describing
the work of God, or katallage, as describing its imme-
diate result, do not necessarily carry us so far. The
work of reconciliation, in the sense of the New Testa-
ment, is a work which is finished, and which we must
conceive to be finished, before the Gospel is preached.” 7

But lest we relax and say, “Let the ambassadors stay
home or let them busy themselves only with deeds of
love for a suffering mankind,” note that the Gospel
needs to be preached. Paul says that “God has entrusted
to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). Then
he urges the Corinthians, “We beseech you on behalf
of Christ, be reconciled to God” (v. 20). God has recon-
ciled us to Himself. Now we are to be reconciled.
Through the Spirit’s power we need to make God’s
verdict of reconciliation our own.

Franzmann says: “This Word is brought home to me
and is appropriated to me by the fact that the Holy
Ghost creates faith in me. God’s verdict of acquittal
upon the sins of the world becomes God’s verdict upon
me by the fact that I believe it. So it is that I am justi-
fied by faith.”18 Luther says the same thing in his
Large Catechism: “But if the work remained hidden
and no one knew of it, it would have been all in vain,
all lost. That this treasure might not lie buried, but be
appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to
go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy
Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it
to us,” 19

This then we call subjective justification and subjec-
tive reconciliation. God’s great redemption in Christ is
offered to me when the Gospel is preached. By the
power of the Spirit I am then subjectively awakened
to new life. I believe and God appropriates to me recon-
ciliation and justification.

But as Paul told the Romans, this personal appro-
priation will not happen unless I hear the Gospel; it
will not happen unless there is a preacher of the Gospel,
and there will not be the preacher unless he be sent.
And this great truth that God’s reconciliation must be
proclaimed reminds us that ambassadors for Christ are
an essential part of God’s great plan for the world. We
bring the message of reconciliation.

lil
The Way We Are Equipped

When one looks at the great message of reconciliation
and then looks at the ambassadors whom God has
chosen to carry the message, we wonder if perhaps God
did not make a mistake. Humanity is a sorry lot, and
we Christians are no exception. But God has made no
mistake. He who has reconciled us to Himself in Jesus
Christ has also equipped us to be ambassadors. Let us
look at the glorious way God has equipped us for our
ambassadorship. Then we will see that indeed in every
generation, in every church that is truly Christian, in
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, yes and in this
convention, we may expect great things to happen.

In the rich text that forms the basis of our essay, in
verses 14-15 of 2 Corinthians, Paul says some stirring,
exciting things. “The love of Christ compels us [leaves
no choice]... . [We] live no longer for ourselves but
for Him who for our sake died and was raised.” This
is what happens to a reconciled Christian. He is taken
over by Christ. The same love that brought Christ to
the cross to “die for all” influences us as we look at our
world and our generation. How can we then look with
stony indifference at a world where hundreds of mil-
lions do not know Christ? Each day death comes to
100,000 people. Most of them are people who all their
lives long have suffered from malnutrition, who have
been ill clothed, poorly sheltered, uneducated, exploited,
often living in political slavery — the miseries of the
human race, they have known them all. But the great-
est, the enduring, tragedy is that they have perished
without having been fed the Bread of Life and without
having been refreshed by the Water of Life. And so
Christ’s love, the love that brought reconciliation for all
men, that love now compels us and moves us to bring
the Gospel to the nations.

Our native selfishness and laziness move us to invent
excuses. We keep busy with many things. We expend
our financial resources for many items. Sorne are essen~
tial, but many are luxury items. We are often indifferent
to the physical needs of our fellowman. Too often we
care little for those trapped by drugs or bound up in
poverty and prejudice. Even less often, perhaps, do we
worry about whether they are heading toward heaven
or hell.

But it cannot be so for the Christian. Paul says we
no longer live for ourselves. We live for Christ as His
ambassadors to get the message out. Our ambition, our
personal goals, our frustrations and hang-ups all need
to be set aside as we pay attention to the chief thing in
our lives. Again, that is what we are about today in
this convention. We seek to do those things, lay those
plans, and finance those ventures which Christ our Lord
has in mind. All else is trivial by comparison.

Powerful motivation is needed for this work. For our
native human nastiness and selfishness tend to drag like
a rusty anchor. But on the other side there is a powerful
dynamic to move us forward. Second Corinthians 5:17
says: “If any one is in Christ he is a new creation.”
It is interesting that the Greek word used by Paul is
an old word for the act of creating. Paul is saying that
in our coming to faith, our being reconciled and justified,
something fantastic happens. We become new, just as
Adam and Eve came as a new creation from the hand
of the Creator. Even so Christ told Nicodemus that to
enter the kingdom of God one must be born anew of
the Spirit.

When a man comes to faith, he may look the same,
weigh the same, have the same height and the same
shape. But he is different; he is a new creation, The
Jewish rabbis expressed a similar idea. They said that
he who brings a foreigner to faith and makes him a
convert is as if he created him.

The Christian man is a new creation because he has