LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1995, Page 74

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Bible Study 1

In the 126th psalm, the holy writer says thus: “The Lord
~ has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.” The
- Lord has done great things for us. Each of us has our own
list. Certainly, we as members of the Synod have a list of
God’s blessings, and Dr. Walz has so beautifully presented
to us today the greatest blessing that we have; namely, that
God has washed us from our sins, that He has forgiven us,
in the blood of Christ granted us an open heaven, empow-
ered us by His Holy Spirit, nurtured, preserved, main-
tained faith and trust in Him, and granted us new life in
Jesus Christ.

Is your heart filled with joy? Would you let me know by
waving at me or smiling this morning. Great. Now just hold
that pose, and I'll be back Friday afternoon.

Dr. Sauer mentioned the Bible study, and most of you, I
_ hope all of you, have a copy of the first of three Bible studies,
with six lessons each, that are being prepared particularly
for the 150th anniversary. This first one is called Sent Forth
by God’s Blessing into God’s Word. We are going to look at
one of those lessons today. On Thursday morning, God will-
ing, we will look at the second one in the hope that many of
our congregations will use this wonderful material. And our
special thanks, not only to the authors, Tom Doyle and Roger
Sonnenberg, but also to Dr. Earl Gaulke, who has been such
a wonderful help to both Jim Boldt and myself, and to all the
people of CPH, particularly for making these copies available
to us gratis today. If some of you in the Advisory section do
not have a copy, maybe you can share. We won't be follow-
ing it page by page, but I will be making some references to it
in a few moments. I would like to begin, in fact, with the re-
sponsive prayer that is found on page 8 of this Bible study.
Let us use this as a beginning.

Leader:

Lord God, like the rich young man, we have
wondered and, yes, some of us have asked this

question:
Participants: “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Leader: “Obey the commandments.”
Participants: “Which ones?”

Leader: “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not
steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father
and mother. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
Ihave followed the commandments, every ...
Every what?

Every ... once in a while!

You must “be perfect ... as your heavenly Father is
perfect.”

Impossible!

Exactly! “With man this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible.”

But “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God.”,

But “are justified freely by His grace through the
tedemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

All: Thanks be to God! Amen.

Before we look at two texts from Holy Scripture, a word
about that other word: justification. Tough word, huh? Five
syllables, jus-ti-fi-ca-tion. Oh, we use a lot of other big
words—reconciliation, propitiation, atonement, and the

like. Justification—not a word to be bandied about in the

Participants:
Leader:
Participants:
Leader:

Participants:
Leader:

Participants:
Leader:

75

150TH ANNIVERSARY BIBLE STUDY

pulpit without explaining exactly what it means. And it’s a
tough word because we use it so much differently today in
everyday parlance than we do when we speak theologically
or spiritually. We say he was “justified” in doing what he
did. He was “justified” in saying what he said. And we
mean something entirely different from what we mean
when we say that God has justified us.

But even though it is a difficult word, we shouldn’t be

afraid of it. If the Bible uses it, and it is so important, then
certainly we also want to know particularly what it is and
what it means. The verb that is translated justify, or to be
Justified is used more than three dozen times in the New
Testament alone. So what is it? Our father in Christ, Dr.
Walther, expressed it both in very concrete, down-to-earth
terms and also in more theological terms. In theological
language he said (in Thesis 2 of 8 that he gave on the sub-
ject prepared for the Nebraska District convention in 1883):
“In the Holy Scriptures, when the justification of sinners
before God is referred to, the word Justification means a ju-
dicial act of God by virtue of which the sinner is viewed and
declared by God as righteous.” A judicial act, God acting as
judge and now declaring the sinner by virtue of work of
Jesus Christ as righteous.

Elsewhere he speaks in more down-to-earth terms, con-
crete terms, and says, “Everything has already been done.
You are already redeemed. You have already been made
righteous before God. You have already been saved. You
therefore do not have to do anything to redeem yourself.
You do not have to reconcile God to yourself. You do not
have to earn your’galvation. Only believe that Christ, the
Son of God, has done all this in your stead.”