LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 93

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has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his
friends” (John 15:13). “God shows his love for us in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). “This is love,
not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his
Son to be the [reconciling sacrifice] for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
“Christ died for sinners,” the Bible says. 8 “Christ died for all,”
the Bible says (2 Cor. 5:14–15). 9 So when you hear the preaching
of Christ crucified, you can be certain that Christ died for you
and that God loves you.
Jesus’ cross proclaims God’s love for you—and for all. “He who
did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom.
8:32).
We preach Christ crucified. And, we preach Christ crucified.
Statement number four: God Himself died on the cross.
Behold, dear friends, behold and marvel at who it is that bleeds
and dies at Calvary. Our hymns express this sublime truth,
beautifully: 10
“O wondrous Love, what have You done! The Father offers up
His Son, Desiring our salvation.
O Love, how strong You are to save! You lay the One into the
grave Who built the earth’s foundation.” 11
In a sermon on John 3:16, Martin Luther emphasizes the
supreme value of God’s own Son dying for us on the cross:
“Christ…is…the Creator of heaven and earth and Lord over all
creatures. His sacrifice for me was not St. Francis or any other
monk or the mother of Christ or St. Peter or an angel…; it was a
far more precious treasure. Salvation and deliverance from
death call for a greater service than any human or any angel
could render,” Luther writes. “Only God’s only-begotten Son
can render it.” 12
Do not doubt, dear friends, that our Gospel, the message of
Christ crucified, is really something. It is earth-shattering.
History-defining. Salvation-bringing. Eternity-winning. Sinforgiving. Hell and death-defeating. And life and worldrenewing. For the Almighty, Ever-living God Himself, has taken
upon Him your sin, death, and shame. You are God’s own flock,
the church “obtained with [God’s] own blood,” St. Paul says. 13
We preach Jesus Christ crucified. God Himself died on the cross
to save you, that you might belong to Him. 14
Allusion here is to Romans 5:8, as well as 1 Corinthians 15:3; 1
Peter 3:18; and many others.
9
Note also the many verses that say His saving work was for the
“world” or “the whole world,” such as John 3:16; 1 John 2:2; 2
Corinthians 5:19.
10
See also the hymn “O Darkest Woe,” LSB 448, sts. 2, 6: “O
sorrow dread! Our God is dead, Upon the cross extended; There His
love enlivened us, As His life was ended….O Virgin’s Son, What Thou
hast won, Is far beyond all telling: How our God, detested, died, Hell
and devil felling.” Another example is “O Dearest Jesus, What Law
Hast Thou Broken,” LSB 439, st. 5: “The sinless Son of God must die in
sadness; The sinful child of man may live in gladness; Man forfeited his
life and is acquitted; God is committed.”
11
“A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” LSB 438, st. 3.
12
Luther’s Works, AE 22:359–60.
8

Convention Essays

Statement number five: The long-promised Messiah died on
the cross.
We preach not only that God’s own Son, God of God and very
God of very God, died for us on the cross. We preach also that
he was the Christ, the Messiah, the seed of the woman, the
offspring of Abraham, the son of David and heir of David’s
throne, the great King, Savior, and Restorer who was longpromised by the prophets, whom believing men and women
had been waiting for since Adam and Eve were first banished
from the Garden. He came to crush the serpent’s head and to
destroy the works of the devil. He came to give rest from the
pain, suffering, and toil of the sin-cursed world. He came to
bear sin, to be pierced for our transgressions, to bring us peace
with God and healing by His wounds. He came to swallow up
death forever. He came to bring light to the nations. To settle all
disputes. To make the world fruitful again. To restore the voice
of celebration and joy in the world. To turn mourning into
dancing and tears into laughter. To give us rest and safety from
all enemies. To shepherd God’s people once more, in
faithfulness and fairness. To gather us into one flock. To feed us
and give us drink of clear waters. To forgive sins. To bind up the
brokenhearted. To set the captives free. To give sight to the
blind, hearing to the deaf. To heal all diseases. To restore the
dwelling of God with man. And to restore God’s righteous
dominion over all things. And all of these promises, in the
saving death of Christ, the Messiah, all of these promises are
being fulfilled. 15
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor 1:20).
It is the long-promised Messiah who died for us on the cross. We
preach Christ crucified.
Statement number six: We preach the Jesus of the
Scriptures.
We do not test-market our message for today’s culture. We do
not custom-design a Jesus who resonates with the spirit of our
times. If we were to come up with a religion that would really
“sell” today, it probably wouldn’t be centered around a
crucified Messiah. The Lord has not called us to invent a new
message, but to proclaim the crucified Messiah of the Holy
Scriptures.
In Ephesians 2, St. Paul describes how, through Christ’s death,
God is gathering His one church, His one household “built on
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus
Paul makes this statement in his farewell speech to the pastors
at Ephesus in Acts 20:28 ESV.
14
In stressing the divinity of Christ and His sacrifice on the cross,
this is certainly not to deny or downplay His true humanity and the
significance of His full humanity for this sacrificial, substitutionary
work of atonement. Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross,
Third Revised Edition (London: Tyndale, 1965), 303, notes, “When we
speak of substitution in connection with His death, we should bear in
mind that He made Himself one with those for whom He suffered, so
that the substitution which results is not the substitution of a casual
stranger, but of one who stands in the closest possible relationship
with those for whom He died.”
15
This litany of Old Testament messianic promises draws
especially on passages from Genesis, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
13

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2023 (68TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 93