Christmas Day Is Almost Here, Isn’t It?

Many sources can be found on line for countdown clocks until Christmas Day, such as this one found at Countdown Widget.

A couple of other such clocks can be viewed at Christmas Countdown 2012 and Countdown to Christmas.

Throughout most communities, especially in America, Christmas lights are a very common sight.  Christmas music is played on the radio and in almost every place of retail business.  Most advertizing includes references to the Day of Christmas and the number of days remaining to purchase Christmas gifts.

Amazingly, no one seems to object to this until the connection of the birth of the Christ is considered.  Then, suddenly, debate ensues both over whether it is proper to have this holiday celebrated and whether this date is actually the date of the birth of Jesus.  Many have set forth laboriously to “prove” that this date was actually borrowed from pagan celebrations.

Why?  What do such self-acclaimed scholars have to gain from this?  What is the objective?

There have been some very well written articles sharing information on this, especially from the perspective of the selection of the date for celebrating Christmas Day being entirely of churchly origin.

Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies — Christmas

Why Christmas is on December 25

How December 25 Became Christmas

Christmas is NOT based on the feast of Sol Invictus

The date of Christ’s “genesis”

After all is said and done however, the question remains: “Does it really matter?”

For those who do not believe in Jesus, the Christ, and the salvation that He brings to the world and is received by all who through faith trust in this great miracle, why do they care?  Most of these objectors don’t object to Santa Claus and the reindeer nonsense.  Most of these objectors do not complain about the marketing exploitation of this seasonal celebration.  Most of these objectors do not complain about the date of Christmas for any of the reasons that people observe it apart from the birth of Jesus, the heralded Savior of mankind.  But from this perspective they do object and argue and debate, often vehemently and even voraciously.  Do they even know why they react this way?

As for those who profess to be Christians, there is some cause for searching for the truth on this matter.  Knowing the why behind the selection of this date has at least some value, especially concerning what is revealed in this matter.

Those whom the Holy Spirit inspired and moved to write the Scriptures did not give detailed explanation of the date of Christ’s birth, except, to say that it was fully in accord with God’s promises and in complete fulfillment of His plan of salvation.

The actual day and hour really was not all that important for anyone to know.  The only ones to whom this day was truly important were Mary, the theotokos, and Joseph, her husband and legal father to Jesus.  Both were chosen and appointed by God for these very special vocations.  They were called and set apart for this special day and the following days and years of the nurturing and growth and maturation of this special child.

It was a very special day.  All the hosts of heaven rejoiced to see it.  They had eagerly awaited the celebration of this day.  These events are recorded for us in the Gospel accounts.  But the specific calendrical accounting is not recorded.  This is because the birth of Jesus is meaningless apart from the fulfillment of the great work that He was born to accomplish.  Thus the exact dates of His institution of the New Testament, His betrayal and hypocritical trial, His torture and crucifixion, His death and burial, His resurrection, and His ascension are recorded with great accuracy and precision.  These are the dates that most matter to those who celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Yet in terms of when any of these are celebrated, this is not really an important issue.  These celebrations are set in a calendrical order simply to assist in proclaiming the fullness of the Gospel within the gathering of the saints to the means of grace.  These dates and even these specific celebratory designated observances serve the greater continual observances that the historic liturgy includes in every divine service.  For the order of service that is used every Lord’s day carries those gathered through the entire Church year each and every service.

For example, the Creed alone carries us through each of these important seasons of the salvific plan that the Lord Jesus was born to fulfill for us.  Every time that the Creed is recited, including all three of the Ecumenical Creeds, Christmas is confessed.

However, the true celebration of Christmas is the pinnacle of the divine service, the administration of the Holy Communion in Christ’s body and blood.  This is, after all the very meaning of Christ-mas, that is, the Christ Mass, the order of service in which the Holy Supper is distributed and received.

Yet December 25 remains a significant part of the Church Year, counting backward from Good Friday nine months to the day of celebrating His birth into the world for this great day of the redemption of sinful mankind.  For the true Christian, the ChristMass Day is a day for great celebration and Eucharisting (Thanksgiving).

It is sad to realize that most of the world is willing to settle for something that has no real value beyond sentiment and tradition and giving and receiving of material things.  Even among most who call themselves Christians, the true Christ of Christ-mass is not even confessed, let alone received and adored.  But for all who do, the comfort and joy is immeasurable.

May such a Christmas Day be yours!

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Crap! Crap! Crap!

I am really tired of all of the crap!

Yet I find myself neck deep in it every day. Everywhere I turn, more of it. It piles up all around me. It stinks! It makes moving forward in a positive manner seemingly impossible.

Thank God for Sunday and the divine service! Thank God for the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer)! Thank God for the Creed! Thank God for the Catechism! Thank God for the gift of my loving and faithful wife! Thank God for the life that we share in Him!

Suddenly the crap is gone!

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I Believe In . . .

The Christian Creeds, particularly the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, clearly state “I Believe in . . .” These are credos, statements of faith.

Many people today, and in times past but even more so today, reduce these to “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” They insist that this is all that really matters and that it does not matter what form this confession of faith assumes. Very often, if a person is asked to explain what the person believes and why, the simplistic “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and that is what matters,” will be what is given.

Occasionally an additional “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior,” and “My Lord lives in my heart,” will be stated rather vehemently.

OK. How does Jesus come to be a person’s personal Lord and Savior? How does He get into one’s heart?

To step back and ponder this question from another perspective may be helpful.

If a person has a dreadful infection and that person adamantly declares, “I believe in antibiotics!” does this save the person from the infection? How do the antibiotics get inside the person to do the saving from the attacking bacteria? If a physician tells the person, “You need to be injected with this antibiotic or you must take it orally in order for it to have effect,” will saying, “I believe in antibiotics and that is what matters” accomplish the same thing? Will the infectious invading organism be driven out by saying repeatedly with sincerity “I believe in antibiotics and that is what matters”?

Regarding sin and salvation from sin, the Scriptures very plainly teach that Jesus is the answer. But do the Scriptures leave it at this? Do they not give specific answers regarding how Jesus gets in to accomplish this salvation?

How is it that when St. Peter plainly says in Acts 2 that Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and for imparting the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then says again in 1 Peter 3 that water saved Noah and his family and today we have the antitype of Baptism which now saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, how is it that people think that this can be ignored, or worse, rejected? When St. Paul in Titus 3 calls it the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, how is it that people think that this is not a “basic doctrine” of salvation? How is it that when Jesus explains to Nicodemus in John 3 that no one is able to enter into the kingdom of God except through water and spirit, that people insist that Baptism is not necessary and can even be rejected as a means of salvation?

The same is said regarding the Holy Supper. St. Paul warns the Corinthians that misuse of the Supper is equal to falling asleep or death. He equates the eating and drinking of the Supper with forgiveness and with communion in the body and blood of Christ. How can this be treated as anything but the very life of the Church? The Lord Jesus says:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:53-58)

How can anyone imagine having a personal relationship with Jesus apart from the communion of His body and blood?

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are two of the ways in which the Scriptures say that Jesus comes to us and enters into our hearts and lives. The other is the preaching of the Gospel, which of course, is included in these two Sacraments.

So why do so many people imagine that these can be reduced to only hearing and believing? Is this what the Scriptures teach? Is this what Jesus says?

Many people struggle with the Scriptural decrees that say a person is saved through faith apart from works and on account of these cannot hear what the Scriptures say about this being worked through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper by the Lord Himself. Instead of hearing God declare that these are His works many people insist that these are their works.

Why is this? If the physician orders the nurse to give an antibiotic by hyper dermic injection when the patient is at the office, and then prescribes an oral form of the antibiotic to be continued throughout the course of the treatment, does the patient then say that the injection was not one’s own work of healing but that swallowing the pill or liquid is? And if in the hospital an attendant washes an infected wound and applies antiseptic to the wound, does the patient insist that by allowing this that a work has been done on the patient’s part?

Yet this is what people who reject Baptism and the Holy Supper say of them. But by saying these things, what do they say of the Holy Spirit who inspired the apostles and evangelists to record what Baptism and the Supper do?

Is it a small thing to call the Holy Spirit a liar and a fraud? Is it possible to deny the inspired doctrine that has been recorded and to have true faith in the God whose name is invoked in Baptism? Is it possible to have a personal relationship with Jesus that depends upon true faith while saying that He does not do what He promises in the Holy Supper?

How much of what Jesus and His apostles and Scriptures say does a person believe in? How much of what is recorded in black and white can be minimized and reduced and interpreted without losing it altogether? If a person has a personal relationship with Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior, how much of what Jesus has commanded for the discipling into His kingdom (Matthew 28) will a person ignore or reject?

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THE Born Loser

Many times I begin to feel like a loser. Sometimes I even imagine myself to be the born loser, as though I were the worst off of anyone.

Yesterday, as I finally made it out to do some work that actually counts as work, after allowing various interruptions to alter my day’s schedule, I was feeling down on myself. I was thinking what a loser I am so often to be giving of myself, taking time for others, scrambling to shift funds to pay creditors, doing work that makes men half my age quit. My thoughts ran to the comic strip, The Born Loser. I was equating myself with that mentality.

Before long that line of thinking was overthrown by the realization that I have no business thinking of myself that way. After all, there is one who truly qualifies as THE Born Loser. We celebrate His birth at a season we call Christmas. He truly is THE Born Loser. He was born into the world for that very purpose. He was born to lose everything.

He was born of a virgin at a time when unwed motherhood was way beyond unacceptable. His adopted father was a poor carpenter. He grew to be a man and had no possessions except a little house in Capernaum. He sojourned from village to village, preaching the Gospel and healing the sick and driving out demons, all at no charge. He was ridiculed and demeaned throughout His ministry. Finally He was condemned for everything that He was and did and claimed to be. He was tortured and killed by a horrible and inhuman method. He was hung up naked on a cross for everyone to gawk at Him. He was spit upon. He was mocked. Finally he was buried.

He lost everything. He did so willingly. He did so for the sake of those who were born losers according to their inheritance. He did so in order to take their place as losers and give to them the riches that were His from eternity.

On His account St. Paul writes: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

This the apostle writes in response to all of the things that would make us imagine ourselves to be losers. “In all these things,” we are more than conquerors.

MORE than conquerors? Yes! For the victory has already been won. All of the things that would bring us down, all of the things that would work against us, they have all been defeated. Christ suffered them all and rose again, ascending to heavenly glory, where these things do not even exist. He rose from the dead in order to guarantee that our lives would not be lost. He not only paid the price to release us from the punishment that we deserve, but He also rose again in His body to guarantee that death would not be our end. Our greatest enemy, death, has no hold over us. The victory has been accomplished. We cannot lose, not while we are bound to the life that is in Christ Jesus.

So how dare I imagine myself to be a loser? How dare I blaspheme against the grace of God by counting myself a born loser when Christ has taken that from me? Yes, by my own stupid choices I am a loser, but even these and their consequences are temporary. They have no power to defeat me so long as my gaze is fixed on Christ, so long as I am in communion with Him through His means of grace. For this reason I and my house refuse to bind ourselves to communions that corrupt these gracious means. After all, if we surrender to compromise the things by which Christ’s victory is made to be ours, then we truly shall be losers. What do we gain if for the sake of earthly fellowship we cut ourselves off from the Holy Communion that we confess in the Creed?

No, the way of victory is the way of the cross. The preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the hope to which we shall cling. The pure administration of the means of grace is sufficient to ward off all of the aspects of living in this world of sin that would make us to be losers. When we have these, why would we look to anything else? Why should we ever imagine ourselves to be losers?

Trinity Sunday & the Athanasian Creed

At Necessary Roughness is an interesting post on Trinity Sunday. His pearl illustration, in which he compares the writing of the Athanasian Creed to the formation of a pearl, generates some helpful thinking, but it is generated by thinking that is not quite accurate.

As he indicates, a pearl is the product of covering over of something that is foreign and harmful to the oyster. But the Creed is not like this. Rather than a covering over of a foreign and harmful substance in the body of Christ with an inanimate and innocuous material, the Creed is an exposition of the all-powerful Truth, which actually exposes and expels what is foreign and harmful.

It seems that the most common response to the Athanasian Creed is to call it a refutation of the various heresies. It certainly was written in response to these, but not with refutation as the foundation. The Creed is written as an exposition of the true and catholic faith, without which salvation cannot be given and received.

When a person reads or recites this creed, what is encountered is not a refutation of falsehood, but a confession of the Truth. The Creed is very much more than a refutation. The Truth always leaves falsehood refuted, simply by the light that is generated by the Truth. In the light, that which is false simply does not match that which is true.

The Creed is written as a confession of the catholic faith by which salvation is given and received. It is written for the purpose of edifying the body of Christ, for strengthening the weak and faltering. Those who refuse to receive this Creed are surely exposed by their rejection of the Truth as it is clearly stated, but that is a secondary function of the Creed.

It is a mistake to view the Ecumenical Creeds as means of keeping heresies and heretics out of the Church. Rather, they are declarations of what the Church really is, so that people may freely come to the source of the Truth and not have the true faith stolen from them by false prophets and by people’s own misunderstandings.

Conservative Lutheran church bodies have often presented the creeds and especially the Athanasian Creed as refutations of false doctrine. Because of this much legalistic thinking has prevailed amongst those holding such. Then the notion that the Bible is counted as the Word of God and that the Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions are counted as true expositions of the Word of God is counted as being equal to and truly holding and believing and living the true faith. This is what happened with the Pharisees and the scribes and Sadducees.

The true Church does not have as its business the refutation of falsehood. Rather, it is the living body of Christ, founded upon and gathered unto the Truth. Where the Truth is taught and guarded, all that is false is naturally perceived as false and foreign. Where the activity is continual confession and exposition of the Truth, falsehood has no foothold and those who prefer falsehood expose themselves. Such shall be acknowledged according to what their own works/confessions expose concerning them and they are thereby refuted and ultimately excommunicated. But this is actually a foreign work of the true Church and of the Creeds of the true Church.

It is notable that in the Gospel accounts the Lord Jesus is not reported as having given orders to the apostles or to the others who were sent out that they should refute falsehood. Rather He sends them forth to preach the Gospel to all who will receive their peace. He said that where that peace is rejected that they should simply depart and make clear in their leaving that they are not one with those who reject their peace, which is the peace of God in Christ.

In contrast, consider the immense amounts of energy wasted in the building and defense and reclaiming of people’s church bodies. Consider the amount of time and money and energy thrown away on evangelism programs and on trying to win souls for Christ. If only those professing to be the Church of the Creeds would live by them, not counting their confession of them as anything more than the Truth at work in them. Then they would be true gatherings unto the pure Word and Sacraments, rather than gatherings of mangled church bodies where fighting for the Truth is the order of the day.

The Athanasian Creed is not written to be used as a refutation of heresies, but as a confession of the true faith by which all men must be saved. Salvation, not refutation, is the foundation of the creeds. Since this salvation is unlike any other proclamation in the world, it stands in such stark contrast to everything else that the foreign notions, when exposed to the Truth’s light are by their very nature exposed as foreign and false. Anyone who truly knows the God of the Athanasian Creed naturally cringes at the hearing of anything else and will gather only to the proclamation of the catholic faith confessed in this creed.

This is the purpose and nature of the creeds.

The Juxtaposition of Christ’s Divinity and Humanity

     In a discussion and debate regarding the claims of the Athanasian Creed, especially regarding the juxtaposition of Christ’s divinity and humanity, I was delighted to read Luther’s commentary on Psalm 122:5.

     The Scriptures plainly teach this as a mystery, a mystery that is often terribly misunderstood as struggling Christians attempt to make sense of what is beyond our capacity fully to understand or explain. Scriptural declarations of the Christ, especially such as Colossians 2:9 and 1 Corinthians 15:28, can seem to contradict the Athanasian Creeds explanation of the juxtaposition of the divine and human natures of the Son.

     Luther’s commentary is really quite a delight to read, and so I post it below.

     5. Because there seats have sat in judgment, seats over the house of David. A most beautiful verse and most beautifully expressing the characteristic of the church militant, if only I could achieve it in explanation. But be active in us, Lord, and we shall dare to try it. This at any rate is a difference between the church militant and the church triumphant other than what was said earlier, that there are seats in it and that they are manifest (that is, the powers and principalities of bishops, priests, etc.) but the sitter Himself, namely, Christ, does not appear and is hidden through faith and in faith, and yet He sits and is present, yes, extremely present, in them, since they are His seats. Therefore He in Himself does not physically preside over the church and His people, but His representatives, the priests, do. They sit and govern and rule over the people physically, as is clear. But lest they regard themselves as being lords and that it is their own possession, He humbles them and calls them “seats” and not “sitters,” as if to say: “Although you may be sitting, ruling, governing, and presiding, you are not sitters, kings, princes, and presiders over this people, but representatives and seats, on which sits the true King, Sitter, Prince, and Presider Himself. In the future however, when He will have put away every principality and power and will sit alone as king forever, you will not be seats, that you may sit, but you will be seats that you may stand, and He alone will sit. But now, since because of faith you are seats, you also have seats, namely, the subordinated people, on whom you sit in the stead and place of the Lord; but He sits on you. Yet when He Himself will enter upon your seat, you will give place, and you yourselves will also be one seat with those who are now seats for you because of Him who sits on you and subjects them to you. But as by this word He humbled and struck fear into the superiors, when He reminded them of the Sitter and called them seats rather than sitters, so that they might know that they have a superior, Christ, as they are themselves the superiors of others; even so He certainly and in a like manner also struck fear and reverence and obedience toward the prelates in the subordinates, that they might know that they are the seats of Christ. Therefore they ought to be humbled out of a sincere heart as before Christ sitting upon His throne, not because of the seat, but because of the seat of Christ, who without doubt sits there invisibly. As the ancient figure has it in the mercy seat, where the seat of God was, and yet He was there invisibly, so also now He sits in His church, which is His seat.
     Hence the corollary follows that since the church has a manifold order, there are always superiors when compared with their inferiors, who are sitters on the latter, and the latter are the seats of the former, but when compared with their superiors, they are themselves the seats of those who sit on them. But Christ is in them all. And, indeed, in this verse only the status of the superiors is expressed. For the seats are not sitting ones, except those who have inferiors on whom they sit and a superior or superiors who sit on them. Unless even the lowest are perhaps called sitting seats, because they do not rule over people but over their own subdued flesh. This is the tropology of all that has been said before.
     Thus with these things that have been said, look at the church, and you will see that it has without doubt been thus arranged in orders and ranks, as this verse has described. I say, the church militant. It will be otherwise with the church triumphant. Now see that it expresses another beautiful mark of a peaceful king. For to sit means to be peaceful and at rest. Therefore it is not the seat of a king of peace, unless he be at rest and peaceable in the conscience. But also the subordinates ought to exhibit to their own superiors, when they sit on them in peace, what they themselves exhibit to Christ their sitter. Otherwise, how will the seats sit and not rather everything be carried on riotously and rashly? But this will come to be if they are purely and humbly obedient and subject to them. In order that they might do this, let them contemplate and look upon the sitter, Christ, rather than the seat itself. For if they are seats, a sitter will certainly also be there, and this seat will not be vacant, although He who sits is not seen. Therefore let us fear and be reverent and humble before these seats as before Christ.
     But the words “in judgment” were not spoken for nothing. For power has been given to the priests not for capturing riches, honors, and pleasures, but for the purpose of exercising judgment. Every order and position of the church has been established and founded in righteousness, but only the position of power is “in judgment.” For it is its business to prohibit evil, note errors, drive out heresies, remove offenses and offer correction, and exercise discipline. For the power exists because of the insubordination of the wicked. For if we were all good and perfect, we would be saved and needed only to be saved, but not judged and condemned. Now, because we are evil, or at any rate mixed, there has to be a power which judges, accuses, and reproves. For an equal does not suffer reproof from an equal, as is clear, but the subordinate from the superior, and the weak from the stronger. It is not so in righteousness and wisdom, where without power an equal can instruct and justify an equal, yes, an inferior a superior. Therefore this David does not with a light thrust strike the brow of Goliath, that is, the extremely hard brow of the body of Babylonians, who are the heretics, with this stony word. Why are the heretics unwilling to be subject to the bishops and priests of the church? They say: “Because they do not sit in righteousness and holiness, for they are ungodly and evil, but we want to regard ourselves as holy and righteous.” To them we reply: “It is enough that they sit in judgment, that they forbid your error and heresy and those of others (since they will not be more fully described here), that they may sit in peace and be peaceable subordinates. But you break off the yoke, you abhor the judgment, and you boast of much righteousness. As if the righteousness of the subordinates were anything, unless they would obediently bear the judgment of the superior, although the judgment of a superior should be enough, as far as the church is concerned, even without righteousness. For righteousness is humble obedience alone. Therefore judgment pertains to superiors, righteousness to inferiors. For no one is righteous unless he is obedient. But a superior is not held to obey, and therefore he is not held to be righteous with respect to an inferior. But the inferior is held to obey, and consequently he will be righteous. You, then, want to establish righteousness in the superior and judgment in the inferior, namely, that they obey you, and not you them. Therefore, if they are unrighteous, they are so to their own superior. What is that to you? You be subject and permit yourself to be ruled in judgment. Because they are unrighteous and disobedient to their superior, Christ, should you then also become unrighteous by not obeying your superior? Therefore the true difference between righteousness and judgment is this, that righteousness pertains to the inferior, or to the extent that he is inferior, because it is humility, obedience, and a resigned subjection of one’s own will to the superior, while judgment pertains to the superior, or to the extent that he is a superior, because it is execution of the Law and chastisement of the wicked and presiding over inferiors. Hence also the apostle says, Rom. 6:7, that he who is dead to sin is justified. And the spirit is righteous when the flesh is judged by it and made subject to all obedience, so that nothing is left to the will and its desires. But the reason why I said ‘to the extent that he is superior and inferior’ is that the middle prelates, as are all except Christ, are at the same time superiors and inferiors. Therefore it is not for inferiors to demand righteousness of the superiors, because this means snatching their judgment to oneself. For it is for the latter to demand righteousness of the inferiors. And it is for these to accept judgment and to obey them, whereby the correction of the evil comes about in peace. Obedience removes every evil peaceably and allows the ruling one to be peaceable. Humility does the same, for it is nothing else but obedience and complete righteousness. For it depends totally on another’s judgment, it has nothing of its own will or opinion, but abases all its own and prefers and magnifies what is another’s, the superior’s.”
     Thereupon, after Goliath lies down, struck by the cast of the stone, he now cuts off the head, when he says “over the house of David.” For indeed, also the heretics preside over, and are subject to, each other, and the seats sit there in judgment. There is righteousness, obedience, and humility also among them, but it is lying. For they sit not over the house of David, but over the house of Bethaven, that is, of an idol. They have erected the synagog of Satan for themselves. Therefore, where their seats sit, Satan rules in those very seats, in the house of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. But the house of David is the church of Christ, persevering in the true succession, as of old the figure was in the kingdom of David. Hear, then, heretic, the counsel of this prophet who says: Pray for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem; and abundance for those who love thee. Let peace be in thy strength, and abundance in thy towers. This peace none but the heretic disturbs, who fights against the church without cause, for this is not of those who love the church, but those who hate her. This does not mean that Christ has two churches. One is His dove (Song of Sol. 6:8). And though there are many seats, they are all over the house of David, which is only one. But the church militant is called the house of David because of Christ’s humanity. For Christ now rules insofar as He is man and by faith in His humanity, which He has from David. But in the future He will turn this house over to God the Father, and He Himself will also be subject to Him who has subjected all things to Himself (1 Cor. 15:28), and it will be the house of God and the kingdom of God, so that then not only Christ as man may be in us, but also Christ as God may be in us. Therefore we now have Him only in part, because we are in the kingdom of His humanity, which is a part of Christ. But then the whole Christ will be clearly in us without the wrapping of humanity. Not that He is not God in us now, but that He is in us wrapped and incarnated in humanity. But then He will be revealed as He is (1 John 3:2). Now we know in part, but then even as also I am known (1 Cor. 13:12). Not that He will get rid of the humanity, but that He will clearly show also His divinity hidden there, which we now see confusedly and in the riddle of His humanity. And so meanwhile we are the house of David, and the seats sit. Not only that, however, but they also stand. For it belongs to seats that they stand. But they stand by comparing them with a superior, and they sit by comparing them with inferiors. Therefore, to show them that they preside and are subject at the same time, he said that they sit and also that they are seats. They stand by obedience and humility, and so they are righteous; they sit by power and authority, and so they are judges, whom we must obey and before whom we must humble ourselves, that we may be righteous. And so “righteousness and judgment are the establishment of his throne,” Ps. 97:2.
     “Judgment” is thus established to control evil. But there are no evils except self-will and private opinion. And these two need a superior power if they are to be removed and forbidden and subdued. Hence it is necessary for seats to sit in judgment, namely, for the condemnation of self-will and private opinion. Accordingly it does not matter what, what kind, how much is commanded, be it fitting or unfitting, useful or useless (as long as it is not against God), but as in the case of boys, these things must be done by not judging and estimating. Those who first consider a work that is commanded as to its reasonableness and usefulness, forgetting that God does not require the work, but the subjection and obedience of the will and opinion, want to stand in judgment themselves, that is, they want to obey and rule at the same time, those foolish and disobedient people.
     And therefore in Ps. 119 (what is to be noted very particularly) there is so frequent a prayer concerning commandments and law, for he is not praying to do such great or such fine things, but he is praying only for obedience to the Law and for the knowledge of obedience, so that the eye is rather directed not to the work to be done but to the obedience which the Law requires.


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Luther, Martin: Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan (Hrsg.) ; Oswald, Hilton C. (Hrsg.) ; Lehmann, Helmut T. (Hrsg.): Luther's Works, Vol. 11 : First Lectures on the Psalms II: Psalms 76-126. Saint Louis : Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1976 (Luther's Works 11), S. 11:544

The Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation. The appointed texts for the day teach marvelously the fullness of what the incarnation means. The more that a person grows in understanding this amazing mystery, the more one comes to appreciate the Athanasian Creed. This creed is commonly used on Trinity Sunday, but it is a marvelous explanation of the necessity and the wonder of the Lord’s birth.

The Athanasian Creed begins the last portion with these powerful words:

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The creed continues with an in depth explanation, very carefully bringing forth the reason for the incarnation and the importance of what the Scriptures teach. Yet the authors of the creed were also very careful not to say more than what the Scriptures declare, without speculating on those things that the Scriptures leave undeclared. It truly is a marvelous creed.

The texts for the Nativity of our Lord, Christmas Day, are wonderfully explained by this creed, and thus it is utilized as part of the sermon this year. The sermon, “In the Majesty of the Name of the Lord His God,” is available in text and audio here.