Sin is like an epidemic that has made slaves of all of us, because we have all sinned. As the Bible says, “None is: righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3: 10). Sin seems like such good news at first, but it always ends up as bad news. As the catechism...tells us, it weakens us so we cannot know or do God’s will. This means that the temptation to sin gets stronger and stronger and we get less and less able to do what God wants us to do. We get farther and farther from God until sin finally leads to everlasting separation from him.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), God’s Friends: Called to Believe and Belong (1985), p. 36.
Spener could also address those specific sins that were the symptoms of our common disease. His previously discussed cataloging of corruptions in the three social classes of his day need not be recounted here. Throughout his ministry he attacked certain obvious sins. His sermon “On the Creation,” for example, afforded him an opportunity to castigate prostitution, adultery, and unchastity (Unsucht) as all being sins against the body and denials of responsible stewardship for the good creation to which God has called. He condemned not only the obvious “sins of the flesh,” however. The Holy Spirit rebukes not just coarse outward sins, but also the inner sins and hypocrisy of those who seem outwardly righteous. Sin is a condition, but it appears in various manifestations. Both require serious consideration. A simplistic understanding of both will not do, but neither will a pessimistic one. After all, our sinful condition and its ugly or hypocritical expressions are both redeemable by God's grace in Christ.
K. James Stein (1929- ), Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (1986), p. 164.
One of the most difficult verses in the Bible to accept is Romans 3:23: “Yes, all have sinned, all fall short of God's glorious ideal.” We confront that again in 1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.” Most of us, before we became followers of Christ, tried to fool ourselves for a time. We goofed. We made an error in judgment. We were standing up for our rights. We made a few mistakes, but surely these didn't come under the category of sin. But the day came when the Holy Spirit made us realize, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we put on our prized robes of righteousness, we find they are but filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6a). For some it was a real struggle; for others it was easier to admit; yet we all remember the day we confessed our sins and experienced the faithfulness of God, when he forgave us as he promised to forgive all who come in contrition to him.
Martha Dwight (1923- ), “To Share the Mission,” from Bound to Be Free, James R. Hawkinson, editor (1975), pp. 44,45.
The effects of spiritual life are cumulative. If you have worshiped a god only designed to serve you, that god leaves you painfully short. All your views of yourself and your relationships will be distorted by the “me first” attitude of such worship. Normal life requires continual cleansing to keep guilt under control and self-justification from taking us over. But worshiping the God of the Bible who can remove sins “as far as the east is from the west” will generate clear self-perception and great joy, even in declining years....
C. S. Lewis suggests [in The Great Divorce] that to everyone who has never said to the heavenly Father, "Thy will be done,” the Father will respond similarly, “Then thy will be done.” Thus the individual gets to live forever with the promises of the god he or she has chosen to serve. All the false gods will be unable to deliver redemption and eternal separation will result. God never invades the sovereignty of human will. He only asks gently for its surrender. Then he enters and remakes us in his image and redeems every aspect of our being. Old fears and guilt dissolve. He exceeds our highest estimate of his grace in our behalf. Peace is ours; eternity invites us and we eagerly enter.
Lloyd H. Ahlem (1929- ), Living and Growing in Later Years (Covenant Benevolent Institutions, 1992), p. 17.
So must [we] ... surely not think that it is enough if [we] know the outward so-called coarse sins such as cursing, whoring, stealing, drunkenness, and the like which even the heathen can avoid, but rather [we] must better look into [our] heart to test [ourself], yea, [we] must ask and plead with God with true earnestness and steadfastness that [he] would give [us] to recognize in which manner [we] by nature lack his wisdom, righteousness, and holiness, and in contrast [are] conceived and born in sin and thus [are] dead to, and incapable of, all goodness, but [are] inclined to wickedness and [are] a child of death, and particularly how [our] disbelief, that [we] do not rely upon God with [our] heart, was hitherto [our] greatest and most grievous sin, yea, the root of all [our] actual inner and outward sins.
August Hermann Francke (1663-1727)
Quoted in Gary R. Sattler, God’s Glory, Neighbor’s Good (1982), p. 90.
The heavenly citizens are all weak, imperfect, failing, faith-people who ought to have been perfected by appropriating God's grace, who ought to have lived as saints, yet people for whom the thing has gone to pieces so that they are now without any merit or comfort except to hasten to the Comforter and in everything rely on God. Often, indeed, we are ashamed because of what we are and confess that we are poor Christians, but if we rely on the Lord and live the hidden life in God, confessing ourselves to be pilgrims and strangers, he is not ashamed to own us as his own. Well do we know our weaknesses and failures, but if we cannot live without him we are nevertheless blessed, for our life in the faith does not rest on any shifting sand, but on the sure rock which shall not pass away.
C.V Bowman (1868-1937), “Strangers and Guests” (1920s)
From Herbert E. Palmquist, The Word Is Near You (1974), p. 143.
Who can condemn if he really knows himself, his sinful self? When the accusers of the sinful woman saw themselves as God saw them and as Jesus revealed them, they had no desire or courage to judge and condemn. They belonged to the same class as the woman. Exceedingly sinful! Who of us wants to condemn when we know our own frame? We, too, have feet of clay. We are all weak. We have probably been spared falling in grievous sins because we have never been tested; we have never been face to face with terrific temptation and in morally adverse circumstances in life. We have always lived sheltered lives. Our own weakness, the same as the fallen one's weakness, has been so protected. Why should we as more favored individuals condemn the fallen or condemn anybody? How can we if we know ourselves?
Who can condemn when he has himself been forgiven by Christ? It is an outrageous injustice and it is most merciless to condemn anyone when we have pleaded for God's pardon ourselves and been assured that our sins have been forgiven.
Carl G. Charn (1894-1967), “When No One Condemns”
From The Covenant Pulpit, G. F. Hedstrand, ed. (1954), p. 33.
"How precious to me are your thoughts, 0 God!
How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17).
From childhood, I have heard that I was a sinner. I think I took that to mean that I was no good. It's true that we are all sinners. God says so. When he describes our good works as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), however, he is not saying that we are no good. Otherwise, why would he “spend” so much to redeem us?
Do you know how much God paid for you? You cost him his Son. So special are you to God that he became like you, a human being. Remember baby Jesus? That was God in human flesh.
Since God took the trouble to become like you and me (excluding our sin), since he gave his only Son for us, and since he made a way for us to become his children, he must think we're worth the trouble, the price, the ownership. That's love. We are special!
Lucy Daniels (1946- ), You are Special (1987).
Confession Is Good for the Soul
Saint Augustine (354-430), while still] a youth, stole pears from a neighbor's orchard--not because he needed them in any way, for there was better fruit in his own backyard, but simply because “they were forbidden.” With characteristic honesty he sees beyond that act of stealing to the real problem: “Such was my heart, 0 God, such was my heart. I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul and I loved it. I loved my own undoing” (italics mine).
Sin, that saint had to confess, was more than the committing of sins. It was not what he did that mattered most--sins as sin--but the state of his heart--a sinful heart expressing itself in sinful ways. Unless our confession of sin is as dear and as real as that, how can we ever be truly forgiven?
But confess your faith as well. That is the other side, equally important. “Such was my heart,” he said, only to cry out in the very next breath, “which thou didst pity even in that bottomless pit” (italics mine). No confession seems complete for Augustine unless clearly set in the context of God's free grace. To know and confess one's sin--the state of one's heart beneath one's sins--is absolutely crucial. But, thank God, there is more. The deeper one plumbs the real depth of his or her sin, the more one sees with amazement the richness of grace. We have been faithless, but God remains faithful. He never turns his back on those who come to him in repentance and faith.
James R. Hawkinson (1930- ), “Confession Is Good for the Soul,” Covenant Tract (1988).
CONFESSION
Father, I am a rebellious servant,
If indeed a servant I am.
I invert the words of Christ
And cry,
“Lord, why have I forsaken You?”
Why?
I want to run barefoot in the sand of faith,
Laughing and holding Your hand.
Inside I feel like Older Brother, outside at the feast,
Welcome but begrudging.
I have questions I want answers to,
But living by faith is accepting unanswered questions.
I still cling stubbornly to my personal foibles;
I am still awkward when I praise the Lord;
I still grumble when a neighbor asks for help.
I am a rebellious servant,
If indeed a servant I am.
But the words of Christ
Are still my hope,
And you have not forsaken me.
Pauline Lenore Larson (1951-1977), Broken Arcs (1979), p. 39.
Kind and merciful God, we have sinned in your sight,
we have all wandered far from your way;
we have followed desire, we have failed to aspire
to the virtue we ought to display.
Kind and merciful God, we’ve neglected your Word
and the truth that would guide us aright;
we have lived in the shade of the dark we have made,
when you willed us to walk in the light.
Kind and merciful God, we have broken your laws
and in conduct have veered from the norm;
we have dreamed of the good, but the good that we could
we have frequently failed to perform.
Kind and merciful God, in Christ’s death on the cross
you provided a cleansing from sin;
speak the words that forgive that henceforth we may live
by the might of your Spirit within.
Kind and merciful God, bid us lift up our heads
and command us to rise from our knees;
may our hearts now be changed and no longer estranged,
through the pow’r of your pardon and peace.
Bryan Jeffery Leech (1931- ), “Kind and Merciful God”
The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 358, © 1973 Fred Bock Music Company.
COMMUNION (1 PETER 2:4-10)
Can I give a friend absolution?
Can I be the priest?
You said it, Lord. I did.
Can a friend give me absolution?
Can she be my priest?
You said it, Lord. She did.
Great day in the morning
Cared for,
Forgiven.
A faultless life separates me from the one who lives it.
A vulnerable life...an invitation to be me.
You try to live in perfection, a kind of lawful state
That separates you from you
That separates me from you
That separates you from us.
Adaline Bjorkman (1916- ), While It Was Still Dark: One Person’s Pilgrimage Through Grief (1978,1993), p. 116.
One need not join in the criticism often leveled against the Rosenians that they were “a group of the wretched” because of the way they examined their inner lives and found themselves continually wanting. Then they should have been pitied rather than criticized. Their continual probing into their inner lives and what they discovered reminds us of what depth-psychology finds in all of us today. What does it reveal but what they said? Nor can we forget that this probing went on in the framework of the Scriptures and the remembered presence of Christ. A thoroughgoing diagnosis by a skillful physician is a part of wisdom. This was really a school of training in good spiritual manners. The group and its simple principle is not to be judged by the aberrations of a few or by the person who, as a confessing Christian, has not taken a good look at himself for a long time. They knew what the Word said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), to which Paul adds, “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Perhaps it was easier for them to see this ultimate dimension of grace. They had nothing but themselves and their humanity. We have wagon loads of virtue to bring with us. How can we come as we are? Even being a Covenanter becomes a shield against the appreciation of grace rather than remaining a mercy.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 28.
“Nevertheless I am continually with thee, thus dost hold my right hand” (Ps. 73:23)
How good it is to say this, for even as the psalmist you are “pricked in heart” when you realize that you are “stupid and ignorant,” but in all shifts and changes the Lord holds fast and you are close to him. This gives you courage and you begin to sing: My joy it is to be with God, my hope is in the Lord.
C. J. Nyvall (1829-1904), Travel Memories from America, 1876, E. Gustav Johnson, tr. (1959), p. 98.
In identifying himself with us sinners Jesus felt our sins as though they were his own. He felt the awfulness of our separation from God, and he felt this more keenly than we ever could have, for only he has known the full potential of this fellowship. Hence, he understands our lostness. He hears the “least of these” his brethren from the vast sea of humanity, calling out: “My God, why? It is not fair! . . . It is not fair!” And he feels their pain, for he has become one with them. He has joined himself even to the lowest dregs of the populace, to those doubtful characters from whom the “respectable” turn away. He seeks them out that he may belong to them. “I must stay at your house today.” He knows their need. He is their friend, the Friend of sinners.
In identifying himself with us sinners, he opens the way for our identifying ourselves with him. In his death we may die to ourselves. In his life we may live to God. Thus, Jesus' death was “for us.” It was “for us” chiefly in the sense that his death was the means whereby our death was brought about. This happens through faith, through a faith union. “If [by faith] we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). Again speaking of his own experience, Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Our representative, in identifying himself with us, made it possible for us to identify ourselves with him.
Henry A. Gustafson, Jr. (1924- ), Studies in Mark (1958), p. 74.
Jesus stands outside the door–why not bid him enter?
Though your weight of sin be sore, he can life and strength restore:
hear his voice so tender. Troubled soul, I do implore,
why not bid him enter?
With a weary, troubled race hear the Savior pleading:
“Come to me, and my embrace, I am meek and full of grace
that your souls are needing.” Child of earth, whate’er your place,
will you spurn his pleading?
Come to me, O Jesus good, open now your treasure.
Cleanse me in your precious blood, that life giving, healing flood
flowing without measure. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus good,
be my lasting treasure.
Swedish, based on Revelation 3:20, tr. Herbert E. Palmquist (1896-1981)
The Covenant Hymnal (1996), No. 327.
[Jesus] comes so softly. He does not come with a lot of clatter. He does not make a great deal of noise. Perhaps nobody but the broken-hearted know that he is out and about; but they get to know it, and in such a way that they cannot forget it. He does not stamp with his feet and bang away so as to frighten them. He comes so quietly that the broken-hearted know nothing at all until Jesus himself stands in the midst of them. That is always the way it is with him. Oh, how softly he proceeds! He knows how to deal with sinners according to their needs and not according to their deserts. When he comes to one crushed in heart he does not stamp with the feet and say: “Be glad! Rejoice!” No, he knows better than that. How would it help you if I, for example, were to come to you and say with a lot of bluster, “Now, you must be glad”? Would that raise you up? No, on the contrary, it would push you deeper down. But if I were to creep down beside you and weep with you in your trouble, that would lighten your suffering. It is a greater art to weep with those who weep than to rejoice with those who rejoice.
Jesus lays his hand tenderly on the broken in spirit and says: “Do not be afraid, it is I.” The soul begins to listen: “Which I?” “Why, the friend above all friends; I am radiant and ruddy, and see, I have pierced hands, and therefore I can heal the wounded hearts.” Have you known the tender hands of Jesus? Have you experienced with what hands Jesus touches the broken in spirit? No mother could handle a sick child so tenderly as Jesus places his hand on the broken-hearted. Oh, how softly and quietly he stoops down to where you lie. He says, “My son, my daughter, your sins, the many, are forgiven you.”
And all of a sudden one does not need to ask you to become glad, because at these words you
rejoice. One does not need to exhort you to rejoice, for when you have been bound up by the
Lord Jesus, then you do rejoice and praise the mercy of the Lord; and when you meet other
children of God you say, “Dear friends, help me.” With what, then? “Why, to thank and praise
the Lord, for he has shown me grace. He came to me where I lay bleeding and said, ‘ you will
live.’ He comforted me; he saved me on the verge of the dark darkness; he forgave me my sins;
he gave me life and health and healed my broken heart; help me to thank his name.” This is what he does for the broken-hearted. No one is able to bind up our wounds as he.
August Pohl (1845-1913), "The Great Physician"
From The Word Is Near You, Translated by Herbert Palmquist, pp.87,88.
There is something about Jesus that makes any meeting with him like the dawn of new hope. He is so solid, so secure, so immovable; and we can always depend on him. He is the unshakable rock on which we may stand. Christians are able to hope, not just because being a Christian makes you feel so good, but because no matter how badly you feel, no matter how deep your despair, no matter how great your guilt, no matter how impossible it is for you to meet the expected standards, the door will always be open to you. You never fall so low that you can't get in. He knows all about you, and he still welcomes you. What vindicates Christianity for most Christians is that there are no barriers for the repentant person to climb over. There are no hurdles making it impossible to belong. Everything that needs to be done to let us in has already been done. There's a new day coming, and it's already here. That's why we can have hope for today as well as for tomorrow. There is no reason why we can't be accepted. Jesus will neither reject us nor fail us. "Come, see a person who knows everything about me and still offers me an open door.” It is his unfailing presence and his unchanging welcome that provides an unmovable ground for hope. That’s the meaning of grace, the meaning of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), “Don’t Park Behind a Truck” and Other Chapel Talks (1982, revised 2000), pp. 4,5.
Are you good enough to be a Christian? Everyone wonders once in a while, even the saints--maybe the saints most of all. Who that knows his or her humanness can help but wonder, God being God and we being who we are?
Struggling to be “good enough” for Christ, most people know they are not. And that bothers them. Maybe it bothers you, too. You want to be known as a Christian, but somehow you just don't feel worthy. And people who act as if they are only make you wonder all the more.
What then can you do? Not much, really, if “doing” means trying to overcome those feelings. That's a trap known in the Bible as “works righteousness,” that is, proving to yourself and others that you really can make it in God's sight. Seems like a good idea, but it just never gets proved--to yourself or to others. The harder you try, the worse things get. Some may think for a while that you're really making progress. You may even think so yourself. But then it all caves in, like a house built on sand, and you have to start all over again. Sound familiar?
Many get so frustrated that they quit trying and just “play the game,” like others they judge to be doing the same. Going to church, singing in the choir, serving when asked here and there, they go through the motions. But there isn't much joy in it all, or any real sense of purpose-not to mention excitement.
Others get so discouraged that they just stay away; not wanting to play games, they wonder what's the use. And the longer they stay away the less worthy they feel. They're not really happy to be “outside.” They just don't know how to come in. Wherever you may find yourself in this picture, I've got good news for you. Real “good news"! It's not like the false messages some
might be trying on you, like “Hey, you're as good as anyone else.” No, not like that at all.
It's rather an invitation from God to “face up,” to admit what you already know. You
aren't worthy! Nor am I! Nor, for that matter, is anyone else!
But right there is the point. You don't have to be “good enough.” Welcome to the fellowship.
That's what the Christian message is all about. God in Christ has done for us what we simply cannot and never will be able to do by ourselves. It's his goodness that counts! Because of him, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in [him] has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1,2).
You don't need to prove yourself worthy anymore, “good enough” to be a Christian. Just “come home” to the Father, like the lost son or daughter you are (Luke 15:11-32). He is already waiting your return. Enter into his goodness, accept his forgiveness, and discover again his love for you just the way you are. He'll do the rest.
Sound incredible? It is, but it's true! You and I can count on it--if only we will.
James R. Hawkinson (1930- ), “Are You Good Enough to Be a Christian?” (Covenant Tract, 1987).
In the springtime fair but mortal, in the day of fragile flow’rs,
Christ is waiting at your portal, faithful through the passing hours.
Open now, before the autumn sweeps the summer’s flow’rs away;
open while the sun is shining–all too brief our earthly day.
Though at ev’ry moment near you, is the Lord unheeded still?
For how long will he continue speaking to your shuttered will?
Open now, before the autumn sweeps the summer’s flow’rs away;
open while the sun is shining–all too brief our earthly day.
Lina Sandell (1832-1903), tr. Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996)
The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 340.
If ever our souls have magnified your holy name or our spirits rejoiced in your salvation, let them praise and glorify you now! How can we look upon so much and understand so little? How can we hear the words of everlasting life but turn away as if they had no meaning? How can we live in daily debt to your beneficence, yet speak as if we condescended to acknowledge your existence?
O blessed Jesus, you who were the Son of God became the Son of Man; you who possessed a diving nature took upon yourself our human nature, so that we who possessed only a human nature might be partakers of a divine nature; you who were rich yet for our sakes became poor in order that we through your poverty might be rich. O thanks be unto you for your unspeakable gift!
William L. Peterson (1900-1990), Talking to God / Speaking to Man (Commend Books, 1978), p. 88.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 73.
I sing with joy and gladness, my soul has found release;
now free from sin and sadness, with God I live in peace:
his everlasting mercy to me has been revealed,
his truth in my heart has been sealed.
My former resolutions to lead a better life
were only vain illusions, my soul was still at strife:
now on the love of Jesus completely I rely–
for me he was willing to die.
When thoughts of guilt oppress me and I through weakness fail,
the Savior yet will bless me, his mercy does prevail:
forgiveness for the sinner his loving heart provides,
his faithfulness ever abides.
The evil adversary may in his fury smite;
I fear not, for I carry God’s armor in the fight:
the Word, divine and mighty, shall victory obtain,
its strength shall forever remain.
Now marching on courageous, with joy I see my goal:
the blessing of the ages, the haven of my soul:
and on the pilgrim journey my voice in song I raise,
my God and my Savior to praise.
Nils Frykman (1842-1911), “I Sing with Joy and Gladness,” tr. E. Gustav Johnson (1893-1974), from The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 498.
The word “grace” may be defined as the unmerited mercy, love, and favor of God toward unworthy sinners. It often is used with understanding in a general way, but when it is viewed in the light of God's eternal purposes this little word presents many difficulties. The doctrine of grace is very important, a primary one among the doctrines of redemption. Knowing God as the giver of grace is to possess eternal life.
It must be remembered that God's forgiving grace is always given through Jesus Christ. Only in a right relationship to him, the Son of God, do we become partakers of that benefit which he has prepared for us by his finished work of the atonement. What he has procured for us becomes ours as though we had accomplished it, and in this way we become beneficiaries of his grace.
No one can possess the grace of God unless he claims the fulfillment of the law through Christ. If we abide in him we possess all that he has done for us. Without Christ there is no grace. Then God must deal with unbelievers according to worthiness and merit. But there is no worthiness or merit except through Christ. However, those who believe in him and claim his saving power cannot be affected by sin and unworthiness. Such is grace. It is unequivocally opposite to works and worthiness. Paul wrote, “If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Romans11:6).
C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), Romans: A Devotional Commentary, J. Elmer Dahlgren and Royal F. Peterson, translators (1978), p. 4.
To have faith is to be justified before God–to be accepted as a forgiven sinner in the graciousness of his love. The familiar Protestant slogan, “justified by faith,” must not be misunderstood. Faith does not earn acceptance–that would suggest faith is a work we do. It is God’s grace, his unmerited love, which accepts and justifies the sinner; faith is the indispensable means by which grace is received. Hence the full Protestant statement must read, “We are justifed by grace alone, through faith alone.” In that relationship we become members of the family of those who are the children of God.
Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe (1981), pp. 5,6.
...The only way in which we can find freedom from the burden of sin is through something which God in his mercy does for us. The Gospel is the good news that God in Christ has opened the way to renewed fellowship with himself. On the cross he did what was required that you and I might find salvation.
It is important to see that we have not merited or deserved his mercy. "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). This unmerited favor or undeserved goodness we call grace. It is the free gift of God's love to us. At its deepest, it is his love acting for our salvation. It is the opposite of law. "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). The law says, "If you do all these things you will be saved." But human beings find they cannot keep the commandments. Grace is the goodness of God reaching down to help those who cannot help themselves.
Clifford W. Bjorklund (1921-1986), Harry J. Ekstam (1918- ), Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), and Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), According to Thy Word (1954, 1955), p. 376.
To honor the Ten Commandments we do not need to cling to some picture like that which Hollywood gave us long ago when a magic arm descended from the sky to engrave the Commandments on the rock with what looked like “a celestial pneumatic drill.” I hear them NOW as the Word of God and I listen again with awe to what Jesus said: “Do not suppose I am come to abolish the law.... I did not come to abolish but to complete it.” And what is that completion? There are a number of answers but I limit myself to one. That completion is what we can become by the grace of God. Anyone who has honestly tried to live by the Commandments becomes immediately aware of one important truth: his own inadequacy to live a life of complete love for God and one's neighbor....
The Law shows us our need for divine forgiveness! And the Gospel tells us lawbreakers that we are forgiven and gives us grace by which we may grow daily more like Christ. It is when we honestly recognize, in the presence of the Law, that we are “debtors” and “trespassers” trusting in the grace of Christ as the only source of true goodness, that we are ready to hear the word that says, “Go in peace, thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Paul E. Stohlberg (1927-1978), “Thou Shalt Not–Says Who?”. from Glen V. Wiberg, This Side of the River (Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota,1995), p. 56.
There are many vast and perplexing problems that confront the minds of human beings today. Sometimes we wish that we might have leaders of the caliber of those in former years, a Washington or a Lincoln, who might lead us into a promised land of peace and security. And yet it is not so much a lack of great minds in our day, as it is the sheer magnitude of the problems that face us, problems far greater than those of any previous generation. But so often we approach these problems at the circumference and leave untouched the central needs of life. They lie deeper than at any place where human intelligence and power can meet us. An educator can meet us at the place of our ignorance; a physician can meet us at the place of our physical illness with more or less success; but only Christ claims to meet us at the place of our moral failure and sin, where “deep calleth unto deep.” For that reason he went to the cross to grapple with the forces of evil, and thus through his death make possible our redemption.
A. Milton Freedholm (1899-1986), “Where Christ Meets Us”
From The Covenant Pulpit, G. F. Hedstrand, ed. (1954), pp. 42,43.
It is incredible enough that Jesus should pronounce forgiveness from a cross, without the second part of the active justification also being true. “He accepts such as righteous.” Acceptance in these terms means that though I accept my guilt in order to receive forgiveness, God does not. His acceptance of me is the same as the verdict of innocence in the courtroom. Jesus did not say the woman taken in adultery was innocent, but he treated her and accepted her as innocent. No matter what we have done or who we have been, when we are justified we are accepted as righteous. The justified rapist and the justified gossip stand on the same ground. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as wool; though they are red like crimson, they shall become as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
This wipe-out of guilt, blame, and responsibility is what the Bible calls grace. It is very
hard on our notion of what is respectable to realize that we all stand on the same ground before
him no matter what; for modern Protestants do not, on the whole, put grace to work at an
everyday level. We love to make distinctions between persons and to that degree have not learned the depths to which God goes in order to accept us as righteous.
Everett L. Wilson (1936- ), The Touch of God (1975), pp. 96,97.
Who is a worthy servant of the Lord? The Christian lives in the climate of grace, and just the privilege of having an opportunity to make a gesture in the direction of service unto the Lord and his church is a priceless gift. Who would have chosen us, but God? Surely we would not have chosen ourselves--knowing ourselves as we do. And yet, God knows us better than we know ourselves.
C. Milton Strom (1911-1972), Holy Curiosity (Board of Publications of the California Conference,1966), p.92.
The Christian life is begun in grace. It continues in grace. It closes also in grace. Blessed be God! ...If we make it at all–ministers, lawyers, doctors, carpenters, or thieves–the reason will be the unmerited grace of God out of whose depths the strength and inspiration to do our daily task must have come in the first place. “What have you that you have not received?”
Douglas G. Cedarleaf (1914- ), “The Gracious Pilgrimage”
From The Covenant Pulpit, G. F. Hedstrand, ed. (1954), pp. 25,26.
