NEW CREATION

 

Sermon for The seventh Sunday after Pentecost

 

WNEW CreationW

“Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, and upon the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:14-17).

Almighty God and Father, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ into the world, not for the righteous, but for the sinner. Send us now your Holy Spirit, that we might be the sinners for whom your Son bled, so that we might also, through the hearing of your gospel, be made righteous through faith in him. Amen.

 

Dearly Beloved: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

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e moderns don’t like authority. The very word itself offends us. It seems to threaten our basic sense of what it means to be “fully human”—to be “self-ruled,” to be “autonomous.” After all, the root word of authority is “author.” To have an authority, then, means to be authored. It means to have all your aspirations of being the writer of your own life-story swallowed up in ruins, and instead to be written into the story of Another—a story you have neither created nor co-created, but a story that has created you.

The entire enterprise of sinners, from the Fall of Adam to the Final Day, may be summarized as the attempt to silence and put to death every authoring voice that is not my own. And so we hear the oft repeated mantras of our own dying age: “Discover yourself,” “Affirm yourself,” “Fulfill yourself,” and so on. The answer, so we think, lies within. “If only I could get rid of all those voices—commanding and demanding, forbidding and denying, accusing and condemning,” dreams the old being, “then I would finally be ‘free’: the author of my own destiny; the master of my own fate—a god of my own making!”

            The problem, of course, is that the project of getting rid of the Author of life by becoming your own autobiographer doesn’t actually set you free at all—in fact, it only makes your bondage that much worse. Jumping out of the frying pan, you are plunged headlong into the fire. Why? Because the authoritative voice of the law doesn’t actually stop accusing you; it doesn’t actually come to an end. What the sinner thought was an “extreme makeover” turns out to be nothing more than a mere rearranging of furniture—and a feng shui designer’s worst nightmare at that! Because no matter how one chooses to shuffle, shift, or modify, the law remains: steadfast and unwavering. The only difference is that now the law has moved from addressing you from the outside—in the form of a preacher—to addressing you from the inside—in the form of your own self-accusing conscience.

            This binding authority of the law is the common experience of every human being; it is universal. The law is the one and only authority this world knows to be true; and the world has spent its every waking breath trying to domesticate it—declawing it and defanging it—tailoring the law to fit the proportions of its own sin. But the law did not enter into the world to pardon sinners, or to make them righteous according to it. Rather, the law entered into the world to increase sin, to make it great (Rm. 5:20)—so great, in fact, that it becomes lethal! Through the law sin is not assuaged, diminished, or moderated, but instead becomes “sinful beyond measure” (Rm. 7:13). The very commandment that promises you life—on the condition that “If you do this, then you shall live”—can only finally deliver you into the depths of your own grave. “For the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (I Cor. 15:56).

            Now this all comes as quite a shock to the world. Not because the world does not know that the law condemns the wicked, but because no sinner actually thinks of themselves as being worthy of God’s wrath and judgment. “Sure,” we say, “I may need to make a few adjustments in my life, a few minor alterations here or there; but, hey, nobody’s perfect! So why is God picking on me, then? Why doesn’t he pick on someone else? Like that guy over there! He’s a far greater sinner than I am. That must count for something, right? Maybe if I just try harder—give it everything I’ve got. That should keep God off my back—at least for a while. After all, God wouldn’t damn someone for doing their best, for doing what is within them—would he!?” Yes, he would—and he does! God sends you a preacher, not to scratch behind the itching ears of your old sinful self, but to place the muzzle of the law around its big, fat yapper that incessantly howls praises for what it has done and yowls excuses for what it has left undone. The preacher comes, then, not to coddle, primp, or pamper the old being, but to put the damned thing to sleep!

            The biggest bombshell, however, has yet to land. Because, as it turns out, God is not interested in killing sinners as an end in itself, as a final goal. This is strange to us because we cannot think of what God could possibly want beyond the fulfillment of the law’s demands. The law demands the death of the sinner, and the sinner has been put to death. The law is thus satisfied—but God is not. Why? Because God is not the law. God kills to make alive; he crucifies to resurrect; he destroys the old to create the new.

And so, wonder of wonders, we find that there is not only one authority, but two: the law and the gospel. The law says, “Do this,” and it is never done. The gospel says, “Believe this,” and everything is done already. It is this promise of the gospel—God’s final word!—that breaks in like a bolt from the blue, so utterly unprecedented that no one could have ever expected or anticipated its arrival. Where the law could only demand what it could never give; the gospel freely gives and so has no need to demand—transforming everything it touches into the image and likeness of the one who, in the fullness of time, was born under the law to redeem us who were under the law, so that we might come to live beyond the law through faith in him, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Once this word of the gospel gets a hold of you, a totally different situation obtains—a completely changed state of affairs—so different and so changed, in fact, that we can only call it “new,” yes, even “good news.” And just as there is not only one authority, but two: law and gospel, so also there is not only one you, but two: old and new. You have been violently translated, by means of a promise held in faith, from your old story—entitled “My Triumph: How I Became Righteous By the Law” (found at your local bookstore in the “fantasy” section)—to God’s new story—entitled “My Cross: How I Justified You, a Sinner” (a true death-to-life story!).

The law does not come to an end where we sinners had hoped it would—with the law feverishly applauding our own righteousness—but in one place—and one place only!—in the one who, though innocent in himself, became your sin, your death, and your hell, and who now sends forth his preachers into the world so as to give you his own self: his life, his righteousness, and his kingdom—which, unlike this perishing world, is now and forever. Amen.

The law ends where Christ begins (Rm. 10:4). Far be it from you, then, to boast in anything except in the cross of your Lord, by which the world has been crucified to you, and you to the world. Because now that Christ has come, nothing else matters—neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither lawfulness nor lawlessness, neither virtue nor vice. The only thing that matters now is the new creature, the new creation, born of the word and the Spirit, who for freedom has been set free (Gal. 5:1).

 “That’s all well and good,” you say, “but if the word of the gospel really is so powerful as to change me—even to create a new me altogether!—then where is it? Where is this so-called ‘new creature’ you keep prattling on about that God has supposedly made me into? Because, to be honest, I don’t see it—and I don’t feel it either. Every day I struggle and am overcome; every day I am put on trial and found guilty; every day I am crushed beneath the weight of the same sin that I committed and repented of the day before. So tell me then, preacher, where is the glory?”

And with such a question as this, I myself am now tempted. My temptation is to backpedal, to retreat, to go on the defensive and tell you that, to be sure, the word has done its part, but now you must do yours; that yes, of course, the grace of God got you into the kingdom, but now you must prove to God why he should let you stay. My temptation is the same one that overtook the Judaizers in Galatia, who were so desperate to add something—anything!—to Christ, that they were willing to settle for a foreskin—or the lack thereof!

            But if St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians teaches us anything at all, we will realize that such a move is impossible. Because any addition to Christ is the negation of him. With our little added something we make Christ into nothing. For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ’s death was for no purpose (Gal. 2:21). If we retreat here, if we turn our ear away from the promise, even if for only a moment, then all is lost.

The word of God does not need our help—it is not waiting around for a deed to be added to it before it can be effective. The word is the deed itself! It does what it says and it says what it does. Therefore, when God says, “Let there be light,” there is light. When he says, “Come forth,” the dead are raised. When he says, “It is finished,” so it is. And when he says, “You are a new creation,” so you are!

            The old you can be seen and felt. The new you can only be heard. And so everything depends on to whom you listen, to whom your ear is bent, and emptied, and just waiting to be filled. So bend your ear now to the mouth of Jesus Christ, and listen to the word he has come to give—without any additions, subtractions, or substitutions: “I, your Christ, was once dead, but by the glory of the Father was raised again. Now it’s your turn. The old you has died; it is nothing. So stop boasting in it as if it were something. If you want to boast in something, then boast in me; boast in my cross; boast in the new creation I have made of you. Then your death might actually be of some use. Not to me—I don’t need it. And not to you—you don’t need it either! Your death is for your neighbor. So let it go, and pour yourself out like a drink offering, waiting in joyful hope for the promised age to come, when your new life, now hidden, will appear with me in glory.”

 

Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule of faith. AmenW