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January 2, 2022
but by the indwelling of Christ with His essential divine righteousness in a person. Ah, do heed these warning examples!
Preach so that every hearer feels: “He means me. He has painted the hypocrite exactly as I am.” Again, the pastor may have described a person afflicted with temptation so plainly that the actual victim of a temptation has to admit: “That is my condition.” The penitent person must soon feel while listening to the pastor: “That comfort is meant for me; I am to appropriate it.” The alarmed soul must be led to think: “Oh, that is a sweet message; that is for me!” Yea, the impenitent, too, must be made to acknowledge: “The preacher has painted my exact portrait.”
true oratory is a matter of the heart. Indeed, the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is properly learned only in the school of the Holy Spirit, in tribulation.
“Quit your despair; the grace of Christ is greater than the sins of the whole world.”
it would be incorrect to say: “As long as a person is afraid of dying, he is not a child of God.” That is a great falsehood. True, it is correct to say that Christians are not afraid to appear before God, but they still dread becoming a prey to corruption and decomposition in the grave, etc. A statement of that kind must promptly be struck from the sermon.
Christians are in far greater anxiety, worry, and tribulation than worldly people. Yet, spite of all this, the Christian is far happier than worldly men.
“Any one sinning purposely and knowingly falls from grace.” For true Christians occasionally sin with intent and knowledge, namely, when they are, so to speak, rushed by sinful passion from within or by allurements from without. Such sins are called hasty sins.
Not man, but God, makes theologians.
This claim of the papists is evidence of their blindness. To them applies what Paul says 2 Cor. 4, 3: “If our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”
“If our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”
Up to the sixth century we still find glorious testimonies exhibiting this distinction, but from that time on we notice that this light is growing dim and that the distinction is gradually forgotten.
He says that he pried into every book in the Bible, and now all its parts became clear to him. The birth of the Reformer dates from the moment when Luther understood this distinction.
You must now quit Sinai and go to Golgotha. See yonder your Savior, bleeding and dying for you!” Not until you enter the ministry, will you realize the great importance of the distinction between Law and Gospel and the fact that only the knowledge of this distinction, and nothing else, will make you capable to discharge the office that is to save the world.
If these two doctrines are not kept separate, the merit of Christ is obscured; for when I am afraid of the threatening of the Law, I have forgotten Christ, who says to me: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” These facts will not be rightly proclaimed by the preacher unless he has received an indelible impression of the distinction between the Law and the Gospel.
for when I am afraid of the threatening of the Law, I have forgotten Christ, who says to me: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
As a result, people who have read these writings are on their dying bed often harassed with doubts. Many a one among them dies with the thoughts in his heart: “I’ll see whether God will receive me.” Any one dying in such uncertainty does not depart in saving faith. Now, whose fault is it, at least in many instances? The preacher’s.
“I’ll see whether God will receive me.” Any one dying in such uncertainty does not depart in saving faith. Now, whose fault is it, at least in many instances? The preacher’s.
we are on the right way to salvation the moment we are convinced that we are ungodly.
The principal passage of Scripture establishing our thesis is Rom. 10, 2–4: For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Principle passage of scripture…
However, still more appalling and lamentable is the fact that of these 400 million nominal Christians nearly one-half are still followers of the Pope, the Antichrist.
still more appalling and lamentable is the fact that of these 400 million nominal Christians nearly one-half are still followers of the Pope, the Antichrist.
People see the rule of Antichrist in pantheism, materialism, atheism, socialism, nihilism, anarchism, and other horrible isms to which the modern age has fallen heir. But why is it that from the aforementioned premises men will draw the conclusion that the Papacy is not the rule of Antichrist and the Pope not the veritable Antichrist?
I find that the Pope is the only one in the entire Christian Church who is an outspoken enemy of the free grace of God in Christ,
that Christ is represented as a new Moses, or Lawgiver, and the Gospel turned into a doctrine of meritorious works, while at the same time those who teach that the Gospel is the message of the free grace of God in Christ are condemned and anathematized, as is done by the papists.
In Canon 21, adopted at its sixth session, this synagog of Satan decrees: “If any one says that Christ Jesus has been given by God to men that He should be their Redeemer, in whom they are to trust, and not also their Lawgiver, whom they are to obey, let him be anathema.”
If Christ came into the world to publish new laws to us, we should feel like saying that He might as well have stayed in heaven.
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
The Messiah will not say: “You must be people of such and such character; your manner of living must be after this or that fashion; you must do such and such works.” No such doctrine will be introduced by the Messiah. He writes His Law directly into the heart, so that a person living under Him is a law unto himself. He is not coerced by a force from without, but is urged from within. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” — these
He writes His Law directly into the heart, so that a person living under Him is a law unto himself. He is not coerced by a force from without, but is urged from within.
“You are a lost and condemned sinner; you cannot be your own Savior. But do not despair on that account. There is One who has acquired salvation for you. Christ has opened the portals to heaven to you and says to you: Come, for all things are ready. Come to the marriage of the Lamb.” That is the reason, too, why Christ says: “I heal the sick, not them that are whole. I am come to seek and save that which was lost. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
John says in his gospel, chap. 1, 17: The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
God did not send his Son to pass judgment on the world, but to save the world through Him.
“Though You have broken every commandment of God, do not despair; I am bringing you forgiveness and salvation here and hereafter.”
“If any one says that men are made righteous solely through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ or solely through the forgiveness of sin, to the exclusion of the grace and love which by the Holy Spirit is poured out in their hearts and is inherent in them; or that the grace by which we are made righteous is nothing else than the favor of God, — let him be accursed… . If any one says that the faith which makes men righteous is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy, which remits sin for Christ’s sake, or that it is only this trust that makes us righteous, — let him be accursed…
says that a justified person does not, by reason of the good works which are done by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and the actual obtainment of eternal life, provided he dies in grace, — let him be accursed.” Unless you are utterly blind and know nothing of the Christian religion, I believe that a plainer proof that the Pope is the Antichrist cannot be offered you.
Unless you are utterly blind and know nothing of the Christian religion, I believe that a plainer proof that the Pope is th...
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For all sects without exception admit that the only way in which a person may be saved is by faith in the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
They are corrupted churches, but the Papacy is a false Church. Just as counterfeit money is no money, so the papal Church, being a false Church, is no Church. Compared with the corrupted sectarian churches, the papacy is a non-church, a denial of the Church of Christ. I am not speaking of the Roman Catholic, but of the papistic Church, the Church which submits to the Pope, accepts his decrees, and repeats his anathemas. This Church is the one which history knows as the ecclesia maligna, the malign, pernicious Church, and the synagog of Satan.
The most important resolution a person can make by the almighty grace of God is to became a true Christian. Yet this resolution cannot make him truly happy and save his soul if he is not in full earnest when forming this resolution. Many thousands have resolved to quit the world body and soul and to choose the narrow path of the children of God.
True, God is so patient, kind, and gracious as to forgive Christians their sins of weakness and frailties daily and richly. But He does this only to those who are really in earnest about being Christians. When this earnestness is lacking, a person is not a true Christian.
“A person becomes righteous in the sight of God by faith,” I mean to say: “He becomes righteous gratuitously, by grace, by God’s making righteousness a gift to him.”
Just that is what faith is — reaching out the hand.
There is to be no ranting about abominable vices that may be rampant in the congregation. Continual ranting will prove useless. People may quit the practices that have been reproved, but in two weeks they will have relapsed into their old ways.
By this spectacle God has indicated to us how we are to preach the Law. True, we cannot reproduce the thunder and lightning of that day, except in a spiritual way. If we do, it will be a salutary sermon when the people sit in their pews and the preacher begins to preach the Law in its fulness and to expound its spiritual meaning. There may be many in the audience who will say to themselves, “If that man is right, I am lost.”
The Law must precede the preaching of the Gospel,
he wanted to make them see how awfully contaminated with sins they were and how sorely they needed the Gospel.
What terror will seize Arius, who questioned the deity of Christ and wanted to snatch the crown of divine majesty from Christ’s head! What terror will seize Pelagius, who denied that a person is made righteous and saved solely and alone by the grace of God!
In the third place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and then justification; faith first and then repentance; good works first and then grace.
In Mark 1, 15 we read: Repent and believe in the Gospel. “Repent ye” is plainly a Law utterance. In the preaching of our Lord this comes first, being followed by the Gospel summons: “Believe the Gospel.”
The first requisite is to obtain wisdom, knowledge and the way of salvation. This is the primary step. Next comes righteousness, which we obtain by faith. Not until this has been attained, comes sanctification. I must first know that God has forgiven my sins, that He has cast them into the depth of the sea, before it affords me real joy to lead a sanctified life. Before that it was a grievous burden to me. At first I was angry with God; I hated Him for demanding so many things of me. I should have liked to cast Him from His throne. I mused in my heart, It would be better if there were no God.
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