LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 102

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life, stand squarely in the path of those who are pursuing
earthly perfection.

we are called in Baptism to actualization in Christ the wisdom
of God.

The embrace of the notion of a worldly paradise in rejection of
the life to come leads, almost inevitably, to a rejection of the
third fundamental aspect of Christ the wisdom of God upon
which this essay focuses. That is, we see all around us the
rejection of the truth that the purpose of life is loving God and
serving neighbor. What we see instead is the widespread
adoption of ourselves as the purpose of this life. In the words of
Friedrich Nietzsche, “One thing is needful: namely, that man
should attain to satisfaction with himself.” 14 And who among
us has not been taught by Abraham Maslow and his famous
hierarchy of needs that the highest of human needs is selfactualization? That might be the most influential idea in
America today. It drives our consumer culture, our need to
define ourselves (even against our own nature), our extreme
sensitivity to criticism, and our needs for participation trophies
and bucket lists and constant entertainment. Self-actualization
may feel like the ultimate human need, but it is an evil need. It
is a need that is mired in our fallen nature. It is, quite simply,
pride. We were not created for pride. God does not call us to
actualize ourselves. God calls us to love Him and to serve our
neighbors. Indeed, He calls us to become as Christ, suffering all
for the sake of our neighbors. 15 If I may take a linguistic liberty,

IV
There are, of course, other fundamental aspects of Christ the
wisdom of God that are rejected by the modern world. Among
the obvious ones are that God created the world and everything
in it, and that marriage is an image of the relationship between
Christ and His church. The rejection of these also feeds the
moral disorder of our world. Whatever aspect one chooses to
emphasize, the problem is the same: rejecting Christ the
wisdom of God jeopardizes the soul and visits moral chaos
upon society. That chaos is mounting with breathtaking speed.
So, what does this mean for us? How are we to respond to so
much obvious evil and decay? The answer is unsurprising. We
respond with Christ the wisdom of God. We respond with the
Law, spoken in love because the Law is a loving gift from God.
We respond with the Gospel, also spoken in love and for the
same reason. We respond with Christ crucified. It is not the job
of the church to take back this country for Christ or to follow
some other triumphalist path that places the moral law above
the Gospel. Whatever our context—in the family, in the church,
and in our communities—we speak in love the transcendent
and powerful truth of the whole counsel of God. We speak
Christ, the wisdom of God.

We Preach Christ Crucified: The Redemption of the World
Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese Bishop Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola
68th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • August 2, 2023
Over a hundred years ago in Finland, a young man was going
through a spiritual agony. He was walking down a country road
and stopped by an old fence. While he was looking at the redpainted fence, it crossed his mind: The fenceposts certainly look
wretched inside, but the red color covers them all. With a new
joy he confessed: “The righteousness of Christ Jesus covers me
totally. Although I am a sinner, I receive forgiveness.” This man
later became a pastor and wrote a hymn: “Go to the ends of the
earth preaching the Good News from the cross: It is fulfilled!”
“But we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23). This is the
mission statement of St. Paul. This is the Gospel that he
preached. This message, which is the wisdom and the strength
of God, has only one goal: to save us. “... It pleased God through
the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor.
1:21, see also v. 18).
1. The cruciform content of our salvation
We know that the words save and salvation are used in a generic
sense. We had a parliament election last spring in Finland and
one party had as its slogan: Save Finland. We need to be saved
from many things: war, famine, accidents, illness, poverty, or
even from boredom and too long meetings. The New Testament
14
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom (New York: Russell &
Russell, 1964), 224, emphasis original.

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

also speaks of salvation in a non-theological sense. When the
imprisoned Paul was in a storm, Luke writes, “All hope of our
being saved was at last abandoned” (Acts 27:20).
The apostle Paul, however, had a specific meaning, a cruciform
content, for the words Gospel of salvation. This was passed on to
him from the eyewitnesses directly in Jerusalem. And he had
handed this sacred and immutable apostolic teaching to the
congregation in Corinth: “... the Gospel I preached to you,
which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are
being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you. …
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
that he was buried that he was raised on the third day” (1 Cor.
15:1–4). The content of the Gospel of salvation is this and this
only: Christ was crucified for our sins, and since he was raised
from the dead we are no longer in sin and do not perish (1 Cor.
15:17–18). Redemption is not a utopian dream to be fulfilled on
earth, not a spiritual opportunity to achieve and earn final
salvation, and not even something that our faith in Christ
causes. Redemption of the world is an existing reality. Paul is
preaching the Gospel of salvation in a world that is already
atoned for and redeemed on the cross and declared forgiven in
15

Luther, On the Freedom of a Christian, 38–39.
Convention Essays