From the Pastor – July 2024
Our Lord has given His people many gifts; the greatest, of course, is the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. These are what we call, Second Article gifts, because they stem from the Second Article of the Creed in which we confess the truth of God incarnate in the person of Christ Jesus; His perfect life, His perfect death, His resurrection and ascension. All of this is where Jesus Christ wins the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation for the entirety of creation. No matter time or geography, the cross of Christ, His tomb of resurrection, and His ascension into heaven has accomplished and won for mankind a far greater gift than could ever be dreamed of by a poor sinful being.
And yet, even though God our Father, through His Son Jesus, accomplished and won all of these things over 2000 years ago, He did not distribute them in that way or at that time. By that, I mean, we do not receive the forgiveness of sins at the cross. … This certainly might sound weird and almost heretical, but I assure you it is not.
The gifts of our Lord that are often overlooked are what we might call “Third Article” gifts: The Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. And for our purpose, I am specifically referring to the first four from that list. For this is where our Lord gives the gifts of the cross to the people. It is the Holy Spirit who forgives our sins, in so far as it is He who gives what was accomplished 2000 years ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem, straight to you sitting in the pews of some Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge in the year 2024.
Our Lord works through means, through tangible things with audible Words in order to give the gift of the forgiveness of sins to His people in real time and real space. No mysticism here, just the Word of the Lord proclaimed into our ears. No magic incantation, just the Word of God combined with water that buries you into the death of your Savior and then raise you to new life just like Him. No mere remembrance of the cross for you, but God’s remembrance of His promise to you, spoken from the Fall, accomplished at Golgotha, given and shed in bread and wine that are at the same time the crucified, risen, and ascended body and blood of the Savior of the world.
This is the way of our Lord, He brings His salvation to you. And He does so in the Word in which He has tied Himself to and the Sacraments which are combined with that Word. … That is why we are so strongly rebuked from Martin Luther when we break the 3rd Commandment. For when we despise preaching and God’s Word, when we refuse to come to His house and regularly meet together as He has called us to do, then we are scorning the very place in which He desires to give to us His forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Summer is a busy time. Vacations are good. Accomplishing all of the things on our list that have been piling up throughout the year is great. But let us not do all of these things at the expense of receiving God’s good gifts of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Instead, may we rejoice all the more in these Third Article gifts and our gracious ability to receive them.
In the Name of Jesus,
Rev. Eli
