Apology to Augsburg, Article IV. Justification, Part 4 - Forgiveness by Faith - March 14, 2018 - Lenten Midweek 5 - Text: Apology to Augsburg Article IV

This year during the season of Lent through to Easter Sunrise and Easter morning we are continuing our celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation as we did at Advent through Christmas. During Lent through Easter we are covering what is considered the most important doctrine of the Church and the Lutheran Church, Article IV of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Article IV is the article on Justification and how we are made just and right in God’s eyes. Indeed, this article is the article on which the Church stands or falls, because we are saved either by ourselves, our good deeds, our obedience, and so forth or our salvation comes from outside of us, namely it comes from Jesus, who has earned and paid for our sins by His suffering and death and the cross and which He gives freely to us with out any merit or worthiness within us.

Today we take up the most important issue of forgiveness of sins. Indeed, forgiveness of sins is our greatest need because without forgiveness our sins would remain on us and we would be eternally condemned, but as we know with forgiveness is life and salvation. So, what is our situation in which we find ourselves in need of such forgiveness. We need forgiveness because we are conceived and born in sin. Sin is in our DNA, it is in our genes, it has infected our entire being. As David reminds us, we are conceived and born in sin. We are born selfish, rotten to the core sinners. We are born spiritually blind, spiritually dead and enemies of God, every intention of our being is evil all the time.

Because we are conceived in sin, because sin permeates our genes, it has also affected our will, our physical, spiritual and mental will. Our will has been so tainted by sins that all we truly can do is reject the gifts God has to give and that is exactly what we do. This total rejection can be seen on any given Sunday when, in our own congregation, in congregations across the country and even across the world more than fifty percent of the population refuses and rejects the gifts of God by absenting themselves from the Divine Service. And yes, that is what absence from Divine Service truly is, refusing and rejecting the gifts of God. Could you imagine anyone refusing bodily food? Yet we do not seem to have a problem rejecting the most important spiritual food.

Our nature is sin. We are conceived and born in sin. Sin permeates our DNA. Sin affects our will so that our will is in contradiction to God. How then are we to come to any type of reconciliation? How can we be brought back into a right relationship with God, a relationship in which we are pleasing in God’s eyes.

God’s demand on us is that we are perfect. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). As we have seen, we are far from perfect. So how do we restore our perfection? For some the thought and what is taught and believed by some, even by many people, is that forgiveness is something that must be earned. It is thought by many that one must work off one’s sins. A person must do so much good to counter the sins one commits. The two extremes, if you will, are the teaching that one is saved by faith and works and the other is that one is saved by grace and obedience, which is truly another way of saying the same thing, even though it is denied that this is the same thing. After all, what is obedience except a personal work.

It is thought by some that one must pay a price for one’s sins, that is that one must suffer while living in this world for the sins they commit. This misunderstanding of forgiveness always points to self. When we point to ourselves for paying the price for sin the accusation then is for what reason did Jesus die on the cross. Was Jesus’ suffering and death not enough, so that more needs to be done? This teaching obviously contradicts Jesus’ Word that His sacrifice was once and for all.

It is thought by some that forgiveness is a do-it-yourself job. Do a good deed, plant a tree, help a friend, say a prayer, give a token, even purchase an indulgences and the sin is covered. Perhaps we would do well to be reminded that the price for sin was set in the Garden of Eden and the price was death, physical death for sure and apart from Jesus, eternal spiritual death, or hell. Thus, any token offered on our part simply is not enough, only our blood would be enough.

Indeed, none of these options brings any certainty of forgiveness because there is always the question, how much good counteracts how much evil? Personally, if I were to buy into this system of forgiveness I would want a chart so I could match up my sins with my good deeds to see if I had done enough. And quite frankly, one trip through the Ten Commandments would easily remind us that we are always in arrears when it comes to reconciling our account with God. We always owe.

The good news is there is true forgiveness. True forgiveness must and does come from outside of us. Just as a drowning person cannot save themself so we cannot do enough, pay enough, pray enough, and so on to work off the price of death for our sins.

Not only must our forgiveness come from outside of us, it must also come from someone who does not owe. How can one person pay for the sins of another when they owe for their own sins? Before I can offer to pay for your sins I am liable to pay for my own sins, and I cannot even pay for my own.

The answer is in Jesus. Jesus is true God and He had to be true God in order to be born without sin. Jesus is perfect. Jesus has no sin. Jesus owes nothing for sin because He is perfect and holy. Jesus had to be God in order to be perfect and holy. As God He was and is perfect and holy as well as all powerful and in heaven being given all glory, yet He gave up the glory of heaven as well as much of His power so that while He was on earth He did not use His Divine power to its full extent.

Not only is Jesus truly God He is also truly human. Jesus had to be a human in order to be our substitute. Just as in making comparisons and just as making trades, one must trade like for like, as in apples for apples and oranges for oranges. Jesus had to be a human being in order to trade His perfection for our imperfection. If He were not a human He would not be able to trade His life for ours. The good news is that Jesus was born as a man, as we confess being conceived of a woman, and yet He was still God, again as we confess being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus was truly God and truly human, and it is not that He was half God and half man, rather He was one hundred percent God and one hundred percent man. Jesus was born in perfection and lived a perfect life never sinning even once. The fullness of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a perfect life for us in our place because we cannot. Jesus perfectly obeyed all God’s Laws and commands perfectly for us because we could not and cannot. Jesus fulfilled all God’s promises, all His prophecies concerning the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus then took all our sins as well as the sins of all people of all places of all times upon Himself. He suffered the complete punishment of hell for all sins and He died. He paid the price set in Eden for all sins. Yet He did not stay dead, but He rose from the dead defeating sin, death and the devil.

What does this mean? As we have used this illustration many times so we bring it up again, just as a drowning person cannot save themself, so we can do nothing to gain forgiveness for ourselves. As a matter of fact when we offer our seeming good works before God as an offering for our sins, Isaiah reminds us that our good works before God are seen as filthy rags. Yet, by faith in Jesus, faith that He gives to us through His means of grace, His life, His perfect life becomes our perfect life. His perfect death and resurrection becomes our perfect death and resurrection. His eternal life becomes our eternal life. By faith in Jesus He robes us with His robes of perfect righteousness so that when God looks at us He sees our perfection and He is satisfied.

As always we get it right when we point to Jesus. And we do point to Jesus. Jesus forgives us because He paid the price for our sin and He gives the forgiveness to us without any merit or worthiness within us. Thus we rightly say that Jesus saves us.

Again we are reminded, it all comes from outside so we have this certainty, sins forgiven, eternal life given. We can never be certain of ourselves, that we have done enough, prayed enough, anything enough, but we can be certain that what Jesus did was enough, because He did it.

As we confess quite boldly in the explanation of the second article of the Apostles’ creed, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death,  that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness,  just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.” To God be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.