“The Gift of God”
The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, October 29, 2006
Ephesians 2:4-9
"As for purgatory, no place in Scripture makes mention thereof, neither must we any way allow it; for it darkens and undervalues the grace, benefits, and merits of our blessed, sweet Saviour Christ Jesus. The bounds of purgatory extend not beyond this world; for here in this life the upright, good, and godly Christians are well and soundly scoured and purged."
"One may say: The sins which we daily commit, offend and anger God; how then can we be holy? Answer: A mother's love to her child is much stronger than the distaste of the scurf [dandruff!] upon the child's head. Even so, God's love towards us is far stronger than our uncleaness. Therefore, though we be sinners, yet we lose not thereby our childhood, neither do we fall from grace by reason of our sins."
"He that can say: 'I am a child of God through Christ, who is my righteousness,' and despairs not, though he be deficient in good works, which always fail us, he believes rightly. But grace is so great that it amazes a human creature, and is very difficult to be believed….'Tis an exceeding hard matter to believe that God is merciful unto us for the sake of Christ. O! man's heart is too straight and narrow to entertain or take hold of this."
Quotes from Martin Luther's Tabletalk, Luther's Comments on Life, the Church, and the Bible, Christian Focus Publications, 2003, pp.315, 229-230.
Ephesians 2:4-9
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
That On Which The Church Stands or Falls
In these words from Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul sums up, short and sweet, what has been described as "The doctrine…and chief article of faith with which the church stands or falls….": "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Take a few seconds to let those words sink in.
This doctrine of which I speak is known as justification by faith alone. To understand what justification is, just think of it as simply, "just-as-if-I-never-sinned." Justification is a judicial term that describes God's gracious judgment in declaring a person righteous, restored and reconciled based solely upon the redeeming work of His Son, Jesus Christ. One who has been justified is no longer considered an enemy of God, but clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
I speak of this glorious truth this morning because this is Reformation Sunday. This is the day that commemorates the beginning of the Protestant Reformation on a castle door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. A young university theology professor and priest by the name of Martin Luther filed a protest to some questionable practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther called the controversial document a Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, but over time, it is has come to be known by the more popular designation, the Ninety-Five Theses.
Luther in Context
Legend has it that the trouble began when Luther happened upon one of his parishioners lying drunk in the gutters of Wittenberg. As the young priest rebuked him for public drunkenness, the man pulled a piece of paper and waved it in front of Luther's face. Brother Tetzel had sold him an indulgence from the Church that guaranteed him "complete forgiveness of all sins - past and future." There was no longer any need for the normal Roman Catholic process of penance: No need for contrition, confession or satisfaction -- the purchase of the indulgence paid it all!
To understand how radical this new development of selling indulgences really was, you need to understand a little better the practice of the medieval Roman Catholic Church:
Justification was understood as a gradual process that began at baptism. At baptism, a sinner started out on the road to perfect righteousness by having God's own righteousness literally poured into them along the way through their own faith, their works of love and the entire penitential life - regularly going to confession, making satisfaction and receiving absolution by their Confessor.
Only when the sinner is so transformed that he or she is no longer really a sinner at all does God justify in the full and complete sense. Even though they believed that baptismal grace washed away the guilt of original sin; that grace still had to become a habitual grace that grew through the various Church sacraments to become sinless perfection.
In medieval Catholicism, justification came gradually all through the salvation process, but ultimately and perfectly only at its end. For the vast majority of good Catholics, this process needed to be extended beyond death into a place called purgatory. Purgatory was where the faithful were purified of all of the remaining imperfections and stains of a sinful life. This was necessary before they were able to enter into God's presence in heaven. (The above analysis indebted to The Story of Christian Theology by Roger Olson, pp.389-390)
Luther scholar David C. Steinmetz summarized well the bottom line for all good Catholics in Luther's day: "Although God is merciful and Christ has died for the sins of the world…the responsibility of the sinner [is] to act on behalf of his own soul by rigorous self-examination, by good works and self-denial, by prayer and pious exercises. God is willing to forgive the sinner, but there are conditions which must be met and which lie within the power of the sinner to perform. Above all, the sinner must be truly contrite and must make a sincere and complete confession." (Steinmetz, Luther in Context, p.5)
Luther's Struggle
Now this system was absolutely maddening to a young Martin Luther. His daddy wanted him to be a lawyer, and paid good money for him to attend a fine university, but on a walk one summer day, a 22 year old Luther was nearly struck and killed by a bolt of lightning. In his fear he screamed for the help of St. Anne and declared that if she delivered him, he would become a monk! She did, and Luther immediately dropped out of school, sold all of his law books and moved into the local Augustinian monastery.
It was here that Luther began a lifelong "search for a gracious God." But, he was mostly overcome by severe spiritual anxiety. He went to confession several times a day worried that he may have forgotten to confess possibly sinful thought, motive or deed; he practiced self-mutilation, starvation and even at times sleeping on the cold stone floor of the monastery, and when that didn't seem to be enough, going out into the winter night and sleeping naked in the snow.
It is said that his Confessor at the monastery, Johannes Staupitz, told Luther to stop coming to confession until he had a real good sin to confess!
But for Luther, his conscience was still troubled. He realized that he could never please God. He said in despair, "Man…sins even when he does the best he can, even in his best works." (Olson, p.390)
And now, enter Pope Leo X. Pope Leo was in the midst of a building project in Rome. With the Church treasury nearly depleted, he needed money to complete St. Peter's basilica. A monk tied to one of his patrons in Germany had an idea. Why not sell all-purpose indulgences to the people? Grant that they can purchase all or part of their own time out of purgatory! Even better than that, promise them that they can buy their loved ones out of purgatory! That'll preach!
This monk's name was Johann Tetzel, and he devised an elaborate system where the local priests would preach fiery sermons that Tetzel himself prepared. The topic was always on the pain and anguish of those loved ones in purgatory. And then, Tetzel would make his grand entrance into town, singing a jingle he coined himself:
"Every time a coin in the coffer rings,
A soul from purgatory it springs."
This was one of the turning points in the life of Luther. He knew this was corrupt and had no basis in Scripture, and it drove him to search the Scriptures even more. During this time, he began to mine the riches of the great proclamations of justification by faith, and only faith in the books of Romans and Galatians. He found the majesty of grace writ large in Ephesians. All of it must have made his head swim! Luther was on a one way street out of the medieval Roman Catholic Church!
He walked up to the castle door in Wittenberg on a cold Allhallows eve and nailed his 95 theses decrying the abuses of the atrocity of selling indulgences. Luther then challenged any qualified takers to a debate on the subject. The Protestant Reformation had begun!
The Heart of the Matter
And so, we stand in gratitude on this Reformation Sunday, remembering the courage of a young, impetuous and strong-willed priest who opened up grace in the Scriptures.
In the Scriptures, Luther found that God was rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us! "Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved"
We are justified by faith in Christ and Christ alone. The penitential system may be helpful, but the reality is that we have no tests to pass; no hoops to jump through. It is not about your righteousness, which, as Luther liked to say often, is but filthy rags.
It is the righteousness of Christ that counts. When you stand in heaven before God on the final day, it will be on the basis of what Christ has done on your behalf that ushers you to a seat at the great banquet.
It will not be your generous heart; it will not your be your likeability; not even the fact that you've been a member of this church for fifty years; not because you've served on every committee and volunteered a lion's share of all of your valuable time. None of that brings you one inch closer to "purchasing" your own salvation.
Shall We Sin That Grace May Abound?
Now this brings me to the point I want to leave you with this morning. I think we understand the justification by faith alone thing. It's been drilled in to your head over the years, I'm sure. In fact, conservative and liberal Presbyterian ministers alike share the joy of this great Reformation truth!
But, here's the rub: Critics in Luther's day decried the fact that if his emphasis on grace and faith was carried out to its natural conclusion, no one would care a lick about holiness. It would be an affirmative answer to Paul's question, "Shall we sin that grace may abound?" Of course! Perhaps justification by faith alone is the modern day free equivalent of Tetzel's indulgences?
I want you to turn to the verse immediately following our passage in Ephesians 2:4-9: v.10, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Now I don't want to get sidetracked with the inherent difficulty of the predestination-flavored language here; but, there is something very practical here: Our salvation has been bought and paid for by Christ. But there is a gratitude that follows this graciousness. We respond in good works. We respond in faithfulness and worship. We respond by walking in the Spirit and wrestling with the sin that still remains in our mortal bodies. We're not free to do whatever we want because the ticket has been punched to heaven!
On this Reformation Sunday, I want to point you back, with joy, to our shared heritage. It is good to know. It is health to the bones. It should elicit praise to God for what He has done for you in Christ. But, most of all, I want to remind you of it to move you to action and gratitude for the immeasurable gift God has given to us all. Happy Reformation Day!
Amen.
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