Words of Encouragement – September 16, 2009
September 16, 2009
Paul’s Letter to the Believers at Colosse (continued)
“Ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” Colossians 2:11-14
Why would anyone want to insist that it is necessary for a Christian to be circumcised and follow all the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament to be saved when believers are complete in Jesus and are blessed with all that they need through their baptism into Messiah Jesus?
Old Testament circumcision (Genesis 17) was a cutting away of the flesh, performed by human hands, which indicated that one had entered into God’s covenant with man in which God promised to send a Messiah and Savior of the descendants of Abraham to redeem fallen mankind. It signified that a man could not stand before God in the power of his own flesh, but through the promised Seed of Abraham – Jesus Christ.
Baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19; cf. Acts 2:38-39) has replaced and superseded circumcision as the sign and means of becoming a part of God’s covenant with man. But baptism is so much more.
Circumcision was performed by human hands. Baptism, though administered by the hand of a minister or believer, is a work of the Triune God and administered in His name.
Baptism is called “the circumcision of Christ,” because the one who is baptized into Christ is joined to Christ in His death and in His resurrection.
The sins and fallen nature of man – his sinful inclination, the flesh – are buried with Christ in baptism; for Christ Jesus, on the cross, paid in full for the sins of the entire world. He died our death for us and took the just condemnation of God’s law in our place. He blotted out “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” Though God’s holy law condemned us all, Jesus suffered our punishment and we are acquitted.
Not only is the Christian joined with Christ in His death through baptism, having all his sins paid for in full and washed away; he is also joined to Christ in His resurrection, so that as God raised up Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day, after He had made atonement for the sins of all, so also He through the “operation of” the Holy Spirit raises up to faith and new life those joined to Christ.
As Paul writes, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”
In his letter to Titus, Paul writes by inspiration of God’s Spirit: “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).
Thus, we see that through Baptism God washes away sins and grants His life-giving Spirit, who creates and strengthens faith in Christ Jesus. Through baptism, God offers and gives to us all the blessings which Jesus won for us upon the cross and makes them our own. In and through baptism, God offers and gives forgiveness of sins and life eternal in His Son, Jesus Christ!
Baptism is so much more than an outward profession of faith in Jesus. Rather, it is the means through which God graciously works to make all of the blessings won for us by Jesus our own!
Therefore, if one has been baptized into Christ and has God’s forgiveness, His life-giving Spirit and the certainty of life everlasting for Jesus’ sake, why would he want to go back to Old Testament circumcision and the old covenant which pointed ahead to Christ and the salvation he has provided for all? In Baptism, Christians are joined to Jesus and are complete in Him!
Thank You, gracious Father, for working through our baptism to wash away our sins for Jesus’ sake and to raise us up to new life in fellowship with You through the gracious working of the Holy Spirit. Keep us in the true and saving faith unto life everlasting for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Pastor Randy Moll
We All Believe in One True God:
A Summary of Biblical Doctrine
(The entire book is posted under Pages on the Church Web log)
II. The Triune God
“We all believe in one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” So we often sing in our orthodox Lutheran churches. But this statement is not merely a line from a Lutheran hymn; the hymn itself is a metrical form of an ecumenical (or world wide), catholic (or universal) creed which all Christians in the world have confessed since the earliest Christian centuries, which indeed the Christians (or believers in the promised Messiah) believed and confessed even before God’s Son came in the flesh, on the basis of the revelation of this doctrine in the Old Testament. There never has been a child of God, nor ever will be, in whose heart there has not lived this faith in the Father, who sent His Son to be our Savior, to whom the Holy Spirit testifies in the Gospel of our salvation, one eternal God in three coeternal and coequal Persons — and this for the simple reason that, as Luther puts it so forcibly in his “Battle Hymn of the Reformation:” “There’s none other God.” Any so-called “god” aside from the Holy Trinity is an idol of the sinful human imagination and has no real existence. This is the clear statement of Holy Scripture, which all true Christians receive as God’s own Word: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also” (1 John 2:23). “All men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him” (John 5:23). “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9).
Every Christian believes in one true God, and confesses one only God who is infinite (unlimited), and beside whom, therefore, there can be no other God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:4, 5). He recognizes in the false worship with which he is surrounded, not only in heathen lands, but in so-called “Christian countries” like our own, that “there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many),” 1 Cor. 8:5; yet he cannot regard any of this false worship as being really addressed after all to the one true God, because God Himself does not so regard it. It is God who says: “All the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens,” Psalm 96:5. It is God who says: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God,” 1 Cor. 10: 20. All attitudes which are more tolerant than God’s Word in this respect, giving “respect” or “reverence” to the worship of other objects than the one true and living God (such as lodge-religion and Boy Scout religion), are recognized by true Christians as manifestations of polytheism (the worship of more than one God), with which they can have no fellowship (“I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils,” 1 Cor. 10:20); for every Christian confesses with God’s Word: “There is none other God but one,” 1 Cor. 8:4.
Every Christian believes in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He finds this triune God (three Persons in one divine Being) revealed on the very first page of his Bible, where God is said to create all things through His Word, that Word being explained in the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel as being in the beginning with God, and as being Himself God, through whom all things were made, “and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). The same Word, we are told in the fourteenth verse of this chapter, “was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” That is our Lord Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary. As for the Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, the first chapter of Genesis tells us that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” thus participating in the work of creation. Later in this chapter (v. 26), in connection with the plan of the Holy Trinity to create man, we are told that God said: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” Of such testimonies to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity the Old Testament Scriptures are full, so that to give a mere listing of them would exceed the limits of this summary. One very familiar passage is the Trinitarian benediction customarily pronounced at the close of our Morning Service, taken from the Book of Numbers, ch. 6, vv. 24–26.
The New Testament is even more clear and explicit in identifying the one true God as three distinct, but inseparable, coeternal and coequal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This manifestation is given in visible and audible form at the baptism of Jesus, where the Word made flesh stands in the Jordan, the Father speaks from heaven, proclaiming Him as His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased, and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16, 17). In the baptismal formula, commanded for the use of His disciples until the end of the world, our Lord tells them to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” Matt. 28:19, thus naming the three Persons of the one God (“name,” not “names”) in the customary order. In that benediction, however, which we commonly call the Apostolic Benediction (2 Cor. 13:14), the order of naming the Father and the Son is reversed, thus showing the complete equality, the one Essence or Being, of the three Persons: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” On this and other passages of Holy Scripture is based the admirably clear statement of our “Athanasian Creed:” “And in this Trinity none is before or after other; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons are coeternal together and coequal, so that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped.” Of this faith the concluding sentence of the Athanasian Creed correctly states: “which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” Please read this entire Creed, as you will find it on page 53 of your Lutheran Hymnal.
The personal distinctions within the Holy Trinity are defined in Holy Scripture as follows: The Father eternally begets the Son, and the Son is from eternity begotten of the Father (Psalm 2:7; also the many New Testament passages where Jesus is called the “only-begotten Son of the Father” — knowingly and intentionally falsified in the RSV, but correctly translated from the original Greek in our King James Version); the Holy Ghost from eternity proceeds from the Father and the Son (John 15:26: “Who proceedeth from the Father;” not, however, from the Father alone but also from the Son, being called “the Spirit of God’s Son” and “the Spirit of Christ,” Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9).
We do not wish to anticipate some later chapters of this book by giving in detail at this place the Scriptural evidence for the Christian faith in the full and perfect deity of each Person of the Godhead. But we may at least mention one passage for each Person. While no false teachers, except the fools who profess to be atheists, deny the Godhead of the Father, yet none except true Christians even know the Father, for there is no God the Father except “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3, etc.): “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him,” John 1:18. Every Christian worships Jesus Christ as true God, equal with the Father: “Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever,” Rom. 9:5. (Here the RSV text deliberately mistranslates, giving the correct rendering of the Greek, in agreement with the KJV, only in a foot-note, though no other translation is at all admissible). Every Christian worships the Holy Ghost as true God, equal with the Father and the Son: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. 3:16. Certainly the Spirit of God, dwelling in the temple of God, is God. Every Christian believes, confesses, and worships the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, “the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity,” the Triune God.
By Wallace H. McLaughlin
Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday
The Adult Bible Class will continue on Sunday with its study of Revelation, in chapter 22, verse 7. What does Jesus mean when He says, “Behold, I come quickly….”? Consider v. 11. What does this mean? Who will be outside of heaven and God’s eternal kingdom? What warning does Jesus give about altering the words of the Book of Revelation? Does this apply to all of Scripture? Cf. Deuteronomy 4:2; Matthew 5:17-20.
The Catechism Class is studying the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed and considering the foremost invisible creatures of God – angels – and the foremost visible creatures of God – man. Catechumens may find it helpful to read Genesis, chapters 1-3, and consider what the image of God is and how it was lost.
Sunday School Classes are scheduled to study wisdom of Solomon. Bible texts behind the lesson are in 1 Kings 3.
The Sunday Sermon will take the next section of Peter’s Second Epistle – 2 Peter 1:16-21. Is our faith built on fables and myths or upon solid testimony? What proof does Peter offer to prove that Jesus is indeed God the Son and the promised Messiah and Savior? To what are we to give heed and why?
What Do We Believe?
What do we believe about Jesus Christ and the Redemption accomplished by Him? Consider the following summary statement and look up the supporting Bible passages:
JESUS CHRIST AND REDEMPTION
We believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God from eternity, and also true man, being conceived by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless and holy life under God’s Law in the stead of all mankind and then suffered and died upon the cross, paying the just penalty for the sins of the whole world, and rose again from the dead on the third day (John 1:1,14; Luke 1:26-38; 2:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25; Galatians 4:4-5; Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:21-24; 3:18; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4). We believe that Jesus Christ, by His holy life and innocent sufferings and death in our stead, has redeemed and reconciled the whole world of sinners to God (Hebrews 2:14-17; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Colossians 1:19-22; Galatians 3:10,13; Romans 3:23-26; 4:25; 5:6-11,18-19; John 1:29; 1 John 2:1-2; Isaiah 53).
Remember to Pray
Remember to pray for our church and for our families that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom but that all continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. Continue to pray for Sam Rusch; for Ron Wellander; for Dave Brown; for Tonny Mayer; for Rick and Karen Hawes and their family; for any others who have been sick or suffering among us; and for the soldiers we have adopted.
Mutual Encouragement
Now, more than ever, it is so important that we encourage our fellow believers to stand fast in the faith and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together for mutual encouragement and the comfort of God’s Word. We have been so blessed by God to have the precious promises of His Word and the assurance of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ Jesus given us each Sunday as we remember our Lord’s death until He comes. I encourage you to come and be with us as we worship and hear God’s life-giving Word, and I urge you to share that encouragement with others that they too might come and partake of God’s blessings with us.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.” 2 Corinthians 13:14
Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at randy@mollfoto.com.
[Scripture in this Newsletter is taken from the King James Version of the Bible]
