LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 72

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Oswald Bayer writes:
Those who justify themselves are under compulsion to
do so. There is no escape. We cannot reject the
question that others put to us: Why have you done
this? What were you thinking about? Might you not
have done something else? In the other’s view of us,
and in our own view, we always find ourselves to be the
ones who are already being questioned and who have
to answer. Complaints are made against us. We are
forced to justify ourselves, and as we do so, we usually
want to be right. …
There is no escaping the questions and evaluations of
others. If one accepts and welcomes the other or not, if
one greets the other or not, if one acknowledges the
other—either through praise or reproach, affirmation
or negation—or if one does not acknowledge the other
and regards the other as worthless, a decision is made
concerning our being or non-being. Only a being that
is recognized and acknowledged is a being that is alive.
If no one were to call and greet me by name, if no one
were ready to speak to me and look at me, then I would
be socially nonexistent. I would even be physically
non-existent, I would have no life at all, if my parents
had not acknowledged me and respected my life even
before my birth. I would no long have any life if after
my birth my parents had not smiled at me and talked
to me, thus opening a space for community, accepting
and acknowledging me. An unwanted child is aware of
this rejection. The denial of unconditional and
anticipated recognition, the denial of love, shows how
necessary recognition is. Its denial is a painful and
especially impressive indication of its necessity, its
necessity for life. …
As social beings we live by the word given and heard.
This word either grants or denies us recognition and
justification. (Oswald Bayer, Living By Faith:
Justification and Sanctification [Lutheran Quarterly /
Eerdmans, 2003], 1–2)
There is no such thing as an autocratic individual,
totally independent of the surrounding world and its
recognition. The individual is always socially formed.
… Striving to find approval in the eyes of others, being
noticed and not being dismissed as nothing by others,
demonstrates that I cannot relate to myself without
relating to the world. It applies to our social birth as
well as our physical birth. I constantly vacillate, even
to the very end of life, between the judgment others
make about me and my own judgment of myself. I am
constantly trying to ascertain other’s judgment about
me and my own judgment of myself I arrive at some
point of calm, and then become unsure of myself again.
My identity is a floating one. Who am I? Asked D.
Bonhoeffer. Am I what others say about me? Am I what
I know about myself? Am I balanced between these
different evaluations? … What I am, I am in my
judgment about myself, intertwined with the
judgment made of Me by others. Person is a “forensic”
term. (Bayer, 4)
72 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2023 (68TH) LCMS CONVENTION

“All reality is involved in the justification debate” (Bayer, 9).
We live in an era of mass delusion. People are confused. Young
people are hurting, angry, and disappointed. Families are torn
apart and divided. Our culture, social, and political life are
abysmal. Social media is vile. And it’s all about “justification.”
How do we respond? HERE WE STAND. HERE WE GO.
Jesus is the answer. Justification is the answer.
The third article of the Augsburg Confession describes the gift
obtained by Christ. “There is one Christ, true God and true man,
who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified,
died and was buried. He did this to reconcile the Father to us and to
be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of
mankind” (AC III). This reminds us of Luther’s wonderful
description of the atonement, of redemption obtained, then
doled out. “The work of redemption is done and accomplished.
(‘It is finished’ [John 19:30].) Christ has acquired and gained the
treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, and so on.
But if the word remained concealed so that no one knew about
it, then it would be useless and lost. So that this treasure might
not stay buried but be received and enjoyed, God has caused the
Word to go forth and be proclaimed. In the Word He has the
Holy Spirit bring this treasure home and make it our own.
Therefore, sanctifying is just bringing us to Christ so we receive
this good, which we could not get ourselves” (LC II 38).
Again, “Although the work is done and the forgiveness of sins is
secured by the cross, it cannot come to us in any other way than
through the Word. How would we know about it otherwise?”
(LC V 31). “We preach Christ crucified!”
Christ is the High Priest (Heb. 8:1; 10:11) who sacrificed Himself
once, for the sins of the world. “He has no need, like those high
priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then
for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he
offered up himself” (Heb. 7:27). “In Christ God was reconciling
the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). “Behold the Lamb of God
[the sacrifice! the pascha] who takes away the sin of the world!”
(John 1:29). Christ gave Himself as “a ransom for all” (1 Tim.
2:6). “He is the propitiation [hilasmos; means to appease wrath!]
for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world” (1 John 2:2). “Christ sacrificed himself by (a)
offering up His holy life, offering Himself ‘without spot’ (Heb.
9:14; 7:26), and (b) by offering His suffering and death for us.”
(Pieper 2:343)
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things
that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent
(not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered
once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of
goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing
an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11–12). He bought back all! Paid
the price of all!
His death was “vicarious,” “for us,” and that means “for all.”
Indeed, “no one is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). “God has
laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “He shall bear
their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). “He himself bore our sins in His
own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). All
in our stead!
President’s Report, Part 3