These days, people think it is fun to be scared. Around this season, around the fall, as we get closer to the date of Halloween, people like to entertain themselves with feelings of fear. They wear scary costumes, go to scary movies, take tours of haunted houses or a maze or even amusement park so that people dressed in costumes can jump out at unexpected times to give them a little bit of a fright. People think it's fun, it's a diversion from the every day for the sake of pure entertainment.
While we like to dabble in fear and experience a contrived and “put on” fear, I would venture to guess that this is a far cry from real fear, from genuine terror, from actual fright. We can sit through a movie or walk through a corn maze knowing that what we are experiencing isn't real, that it will soon be over and life will be back to normal. But to know true fear, a genuine fear that we will suffer harm, destruction or even death, that is much less entertaining and much more serious.
While we dabble in fear for the fun of it, prior to the reformation, and prior to his discovery of the Gospel, Marin Luther lived with real, with actual fear. Martin Luther lived in mortal terror. And not of ghosts, not of some bogey man with a chain saw, not even of the devil. Luther lived in fear, in terror of God. Luther lived with a real genuine terror of the judgment of a righteous God who would judge all those who were unrighteous and all those who were sinners. He was afraid that God was going to judge him for his sin, and that he was going to spend not just an hour, not just an evening, but that he was going to spend an eternity in God's judgment and torment in hell. The reformation set him free from that fear and introduced him to the loving and merciful and gracious nature of God's character. Luther came to know Jesus and the forgiveness that he brings to sinners on the cross.
In some ways, Martin Luther was right to fear God. After all, Jesus even said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus is telling us that it is right for us to be afraid... to be afraid of God.
These days people are afraid of lots of things. Aside from the ghosts and goblins of Halloween, people are afraid of terrorists or the economy or joblessness or ridicule or loneliness. Most people are not afraid of God. Most people don't have room in their personal theologies for God's judgment and wrath over sin. Most people think that God doesn't really care what you do or what you think, he will just love you anyways. Scripture paints a much different picture; a much different picture of you and me and our sin and a much different picture of the character of God. We are sinners. He is just and holy. We deserve his punishment. He doesn't ever overlook sin. These truths should cause us fear.
The Medieval church understood the severity of sin and the justice of God. Therefor Luther was afraid. He was terrified. When Luther looked into his heart he saw sin. When he looked into the Word he saw God's righteousness. He knew he did not measure up and so he was afraid.
What the medieval Church did not understand was God's mercy. They did not understand God's generosity. They did not understand God's kindly and forgiving heart that shows itself in the gift of God's only Son to die for the sins of the world. This message is clearly taught in our Epistle lesson for today.
Our text for today is Romans 3. Verse 21 talks about the Righteousness of God that is manifested apart from the law. The righteousness of God that is manifested apart from the law, separate from it. The law is the commandments, those things that we do and do not do that condemn us for our sin. The law points us to our disobedience and hard heartedness. We look into the ten commandments and we will see countless ways that we have not measured up to God's expectations for us. But there is another righteousness, a new righteousness that God has revealed to us.
Through the old righteousness we come to realize our sin. We realize that we and everyone else in God's creation aught to be terrified and frightened of our Lord and Creator, but... BUT!!!! But we are justified!!! This word, this “justified” is an important word. It is a glorious word. To be justified means nothing other than to be made righteous. We need to be righteous. We are not righteous. So God makes us righteous. God does the work, gives the righteousness. Accomplishes the righteousness for us, on our behalf, freely by His grace. There is a new righteousness, a righteousness apart from the law. Luther understood the old righteousness that was earned through obedience. God gave a new righteousness given by grace, given through his Son, given as a gift. Given for the sake of Jesus.
But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it – the Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:21-25)
It all hinges on this word “propitiation”. We don't use that word much so it is good to take a moment to remember what it means.
In ancient pagan religions, when the people offended their gods they believed that there was a debt that they had to pay so that they could make things right. They thought of their gods as not too different from a mafia boss. When you cross him you owe him. And depending on how big the offense, you might owe him a greater debt. And if the debt was too big to pay, sometimes the the only way to make him happy was to pay with your life. Mafia bosses are notorious for exacting revenge. They always get their man. Pagan worshipers thought of their gods in the same way. Strict code of justice. Obey or else. Disobey and you pay up. One way or another, you will pay up. The word propitiation was the term for the payment rendered to satisfy the god's sense of justice.
But that was the remarkable thing about Paul's use of that word in connection with the true God. Because there was a strict code of justice, obey and live, disobey and die, but what happens when you disobey? God in his grace sent his own son Jesus to be that propitiation, to be that sacrifice, to be that blood offering and to die in our place.
God in his justice was angry at our sin. But God in his grace paid the debt for us. He sent Jesus to be the propitiation. To be the satisfaction of the blood debt that we owed to God, but that God didn't make us pay. We owed God but he paid the debt by himself to himself to satisfy his anger at our sin all for the sake of his grace and his joy. We are set free, given this new righteousness, manifested apart from the law and given freely as a gift for the sake of Jesus.
Luther had been living his life in fear. He saw the old righteousness that demanded his perfect life, but he hadn't yet discovered the new righteousness given by God's grace. And therefore he was afraid. He was truly, mortally and legitimately afraid of the wrath of God over his sin.
Psalm 46 identifies God as our refuge and strength, our ever present help in times of trouble. Therefore, it says, we will not fear, even though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.
Hebrews 13 says The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me.
1 John 4 says, “There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
In God's love he has made us perfect. He has paid the debt for our sin and he has given to us his son as the propitiation for our sin. Therefore there is no need to fear. The fear is gone. The question is, what remains?
What remains is God's grace. Now this in not immediately apparent in reading the English text, but if you were familiar with the Greek language you would understand that the words “grace” and “joy” share the same root. They are from the same word. If fear is gone, if the fear has been taken away, then what remain? What is left in its place? Joy. God perfect joy. God's everlasting joy. God's joy that won't ever be taken away, that can't be taken away.
Ironically, on October 31 most of the world celebrates fear by dressing up to mimic death. Today the Lutheran Church understands that fear, and specifically the fear of death has been taken away because of what God has done for us in Jesus on the cross. There is no fear, not even fear of death. There is only joy. May the joy of Christ Jesus given to you in God's grace be yours this Reformation Day.
Amen.
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