Posts tagged “Sacraments”

Sacramental Meditation on the Gospels

Posted on December 25th, 2012

All the words and stories of the gospels are sacraments of a kind, sacred signs by which God works in believers what the histories signify. Just as baptism is the sacrament by which God restores us; just as absolution is the sacrament by which God forgives sins, so the words of Christ are sacraments through which he works salvation. Hence the gospel is to be taken sacramentally, that is, the words of Christ need to be meditated on as symbols through which that righteousness, power, and salvation is given which these words themselves portray…. We meditate properly on the gospel, when we do so sacramentally, for through faith the words produce what they portray. Christ was born; believe that he was born for you…

Categories: Theology

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Let God be God

Posted on March 17th, 2008

“The God who is in Christ, very God and very man, is also the God that has no difficulty in being found in the bread and wine made for us the body and blood of Christ.” So writes Stanley Hauerwas in his volume on St. Matthew in the Brazos series. They are well-intentioned, but I remain convinced that the Reformed will not let God be God. Imagine it! The “sovereign God” bound by the “limitation” of His infiniteness! I am so thankful to the LCMS for rescuing me from the horror of religion bound by human reason. The Reformed teaching on Sacraments is what drove me into the arms of the LCMS in 1992, and I recall vividly that beautiful morning that Spring when…

Categories: Theology

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The Sacrament of Penitence

Posted on November 3rd, 2007

I was asked last Sunday evening about the beginning of my sermon for Reformation, namely, the so-called Sacrament of Penitence. “You don’t really believe it’s a sacrament, do you?” said my well-intentioned and sympathetic interrogator. Well, yes and no. The best way to put it is the way our Confessions put it. If we start with the Explanation to the Small Catechism‘s definition of “sacrament” in the abstract and work backward, we can lose sight of the gift of holy Absolution, and define it out of the life of the Christian. The Apology, Article XII states: The power of the keys administers and offers the Gospel through absolution, which is the true voice of the gospel. In speaking of faith, therefore, we also include…

Categories: Theology

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The Spiritual and the Material Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Posted on May 1st, 2007

Commonly heard is the false distinction between “spirit” and “matter.” This leads to a false understanding of Sacraments, particularly the Lord’s Supper. “Spiritual” does not mean something only immaterial, non-physical. In the stream of Scriptural (and orthodox Lutheran) teaching, “spiritual” in the positive sense means something that comes from, is done, or seen by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The opposite of spiritual is not physical but “fleshly.” “Flesh” is that which pertains to man’s condition of inherited sin. Spiritual and physical are not, strictly speaking, theological opposites, though Spirit and flesh often are. In the words of Luther, “[t]he Spirit cannot be with us except in material and physical things such as the Word, water, and Christ’s body and in His saints on…

Categories: Uncategorized

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