LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 91

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CONVENTION BIBLE STUDIES
peatedly to that hope. Chapter one, verse 7: “So that the
tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in
praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.” Chapter one, verse 13: “Set your hope fully on the
grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.” Chapter two, verse 12: Keep your conduct honorable . . . that they may see your good deeds and glorify God
on the day of visitation.” Chapter four, verse 7: “The end of
all things is at hand; therefore, be self-controlled and soberminded.” Chapter four, verse 13: “But rejoice insofar as you
share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and
be glad when His glory is revealed.” And when you get to
2 Peter? The entire third chapter (and there are only 3
chapters!) is completely given over to teaching about the
Last Day!
This is the land toward which we journey, this is the
goal of our salvation—the day of God’s final victory in Jesus
on the earth, in the whole of creation, in the new heavens
and the new earth. And this is the hope that the Bible
wants to hold before our eyes, so that we would actually
look for it, and live in light of its coming! We confess it in
the Creeds: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the age to come.” We pray for it in the Lord’s Prayer:
“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on the earth.” St.
Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, writes about
this future in Romans 8: “For the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the sons of God . . . And not only
the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption
as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we
were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who
hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not
see, we wait for it with patience.”
“Be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks from you
a word concerning the hope that is in you all.” Peter assumes (since he has written about it), that the believers
then are filled with this hope. But in our day, it seems like
it’s been a long time. And we are Americans, and we tend to
think of ourselves as individuals, separate from the creation. And in our society, there is a strong tendency to
think of salvation and spiritual things as “up there,” as
“non-physical”—as if our souls were the important thing—
as if our bodies didn’t matter all that much to God. After
all, when we die our souls go to be with Christ, and to rest
with Him in Paradise, don’t they? Yes, they do. Yes, they
do. And, after all, death is just a part of life, isn’t it?
No, death is not just a part of life! And the Bible does
not hold out as our chief hope—our chief hope—only our
souls’ blessed rest with the Lord, where we are at home
with Him but away from the body, as Paul specifically says
in 2 Cor 5. I exhort you in the Lord Jesus Christ to think as
the Scriptures teach us to think, and to live as the Scriptures would lead us to live, and to hold fast to the hope of
which Peter and Paul and the Lord Jesus Himself teach so
wonderfully and so often. God offers hope in Christ not just
for your souls—for all of you. And not just for you as an individual, but for you as the church, the body of Christ. And
not just for redeemed humanity, but for the whole creation.
Adam was the crown of creation, and when he (not Eve!)
sinned, he pulled down the whole creation with him and

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death entered in. But the second Adam has come, our Lord,
Jesus Christ, the crown and head of all things. By His
death He has destroyed . . . death! And through His resurrection God has caused us to be born again unto a living
hope—for ourselves, for all creation and for all people who
will place their trust in Him!
If we are going to have hope-filled hearts, and to be
ready to speak about that hope, let it not be only a truncated, individualized, down-sized, disembodied, personalized hope. Christ Jesus Himself is our hope, just as He is
our faith. Christ’s first coming caused us to be born again,
when God joined us in Holy Baptism to His death and resurrection, and He forgave our sins and gave us a new life—
and an inheritance. Christ’s second coming is the content
of our hope. And 1 Peter is merely one voice in the NT chorus. Over and over that choir sings the hope that we, as a
pilgrim people, have received from our loving, gracious, crucified, risen—and returning—Savior. Christ has died.
Christ is risen. Christ will come again!
That day. What will it bring? It will bring to completion
all that we have already received. Already now, we have
been set free from the power of sin. Sin can no longer accuse or damn us, because our sins are forgiven. But you
know, and I know, that sin still plagues our lives and our
bodies and our mouths. We do the things that we despise.
Wretched people that we are! But on that day, Christ will
rescue us completely from the power of sin, and no longer
will we dishonor Him and hurt one another, no longer.
That day will bring to completion all that we have already received. Already we died and rose to new life—in
Baptism. But you can’t see it—it’s by faith, not by sight. On
that day, all who are Christ’s will see it; full resurrection to
new and holy bodies. And yes, already now we are able to
feast with Christ at His table. But on that day—we will sit
at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the reign
of God, in the great feast that has no end.
That day will bring to completion all that we have already received. Already the Holy Spirit has been poured
into our hearts, and we have begun to have a new will and
new desires. Already by the Spirit’s power, we are able to
honor God with our words and our actions. But so often I
do not honor Him. So often you do not honor the Holy Trinity. We bring shame upon His name and division to His
Church by the things that we say and the choices that we
make. But that day, that day will bring a purifying and a
cleansing. St. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 10: “According to the grace of God given to
me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and
someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care
how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation
other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if
anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become
manifest, for the day will disclose, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each
one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work
is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be
saved, but only as through fire. Do you [plural] not know
that you [plural] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit
2004 Convention Proceedings