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Reformation Sunday , 10/30/2016
Sermon on John 8:31-36, by Richard O. Johnson
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. [ESV]
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” For quite a few years now, that has been the gospel text for this Reformation Day in Lutheran churches around the world. It’s a good text, an appropriate text for summarizing the truth confessed by the Reformers. It’s also, unfortunately, a text that has sometimes been misused as Lutherans have tried to articulate just what the “truth” is that sets us free.
Often on Reformation Day—maybe not so much lately, but in years gone by—that concept of “truth” has been interpreted in a way that tries to set Protestants in general and Lutherans in particular over against the Roman Catholic Church. So Lutherans in times past would rail against the Pope as the antithesis of the truth proclaimed by Luther. That’s actually a misunderstanding of Luther, who would have been glad to live happily under the governance of the Pope, if the Pope would just permit the Reformers to preach the truth as they understood it. Or Lutherans would rail against the teachings about Mary—again, not really the issue at the time of the Reformation. Luther had a great reverence for Mary, and in fact the Roman Catholic teachings that he would have found problematic didn’t emerge until centuries later. Or sometimes Lutherans would rail against the doctrine of transubstantiation—once again, not really Luther’s concern. While he didn’t believe transubstantiation was the only acceptable way to articulate what it means that Christ is truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, he was willing to accept that it was one valid way. What was more important for him was the belief that Christ is truly present, not just symbolically but truly; beyond that, he refused to speculate on the science of how that might happen.
The truth on which the gospel stands or falls
No, for Luther, the most important “truth,” the one on which the gospel stands or falls, was something quite different. When he nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg 499 years ago tomorrow, the very first of the 95—the first sentence, we might say, of the Reformation itself—was this: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” For Luther, that sentence embodies the “truth” of which Jesus speaks in John 8. The “truth” is that the Christian is one whose entire life is one of repentance.
But we need to unpack that a bit more. What can it mean that the entire Christian life is one of repentance?
It means, first of all, that Christians acknowledge that we are in bondage to sin. That’s a phrase we sometimes use in our general prayer of confession—perhaps not often enough, because we seem to have trouble remembering it. But you can see it in the gospel text itself. Jesus says “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So the truth presupposes that we are in bondage. That’s how the Jewish leaders hear it: “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone!” They don’t believe, you see, that they need to be made free because they do not think they in bondage.
In bondage to sin
But in Luther’s view—and it is the view of St. Paul as well, and indeed the view of the Scripture as a whole—we are indeed in bondage, not to some earthly ruler or master, but to sin. We are in bondage to sin. We are trapped by sin. We are mired in sin. You can put it many different ways, but it all amounts to the same thing, the same acknowledgement that King David made in Psalm 51: “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” We human beings are sinners from the get-go.
Now I know that this is not a popular idea today. We prefer to think that human beings are mostly pretty good—and if that’s not true of everyone, at least it’s true of us. We’re pretty good—not perfect, but good enough. That’s a popular idea. But it’s not the truth. The truth is, in St. Paul’s words, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All. No exceptions.
And so the next step is that you and I—we who think we’re pretty good, but who need to be confronted with our sin—that we are called to repent, and that this is not just a once and for all thing but a constant, daily aspect of life. We do not ever escape the need to hear that call to repentance. We never grow beyond the need to repent.
On the other hand . . .
There was a time when Lutherans focused on that much more intently than we tend to do today. In the liturgy of public confession in the old Service Book and Hymnal, one option for the absolution after the prayer of confession was for the pastor to say this: “As a Minister of the Church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare unto you who do truly repent and believe in him, the entire forgiveness of all your sins. . . On the other hand, by the same authority, I declare unto the impenitent and unbelieving, that so long as they continue in their impenitence, God hath not forgiven their sins, and will assuredly visit their iniquities upon them, if they turn not from their evil ways, and come to true repentance and faith in Christ, ere the day of grace be ended.” Well, that’s pretty stern stuff! I don’t think we’d want to go back to that, and yet as harsh as it sounds, it does articulate the importance of repentance. It reminds us that it isn’t enough to mouth the words, but repentance must be rooted in the heart.
But the next step is even more important. Once we acknowledge our own sinfulness, once we recognize our unending need for daily repentance, then comes the realization that our salvation, our acceptance in God’s sight comes entirely by God’s grace. It is not our own doing. We don’t earn it—not by being good, not by following the commandments, not by saying the right prayers. No, to finish Paul’s thought, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” so “they are now justified by his grace as a gift.”
Because Christ is good
It’s very simple, really—and yet it’s very difficult for us to get our minds around it. I’ve mentioned before my very dear great aunt, a life-long Christian, active in her church. I went to visit her when she was close to death, and she said to me, “I just hope I’ve been good enough to go to heaven.” All those years a faithful Christian, and she still didn’t get: We don’t get to heaven by being good! We get to heaven because Christ is good, and because he welcomes sinners who turn to him in repentance and trust his grace. It’s all about God’s grace.
And that’s the truth that makes us free. It makes us free from sin—not that we stop sinning, for we never do, but we know that sin has no more dominion over us. We may suffer because of our sins—many sins, after all, lead to suffering of one kind or another, physical or emotional or spiritual. But we know that in the ultimate sense they cannot harm us. We have been set free by Christ.
A big difference!
When I was a kid, I couldn’t see very well. I had to sit in the front row in school, because otherwise I couldn’t make out what was on the chalkboard. I wasn’t so good in sports, in part because I couldn’t see the ball. One day my mother finally recognized this problem and took me to the eye doctor. Turned out I needed glasses. I didn’t think I really wanted glasses, didn’t imagine they would make much of a difference. But when they finally came? They made a difference! A BIG difference! Recognizing my need set me free! Now here it is 50 years later and I need glasses more than ever. But I’ve come to admit it! I’ve come to realize the truth—I’ve got bad eyes! I can’t get along without my glasses—actually now my contact lenses. I wouldn’t be able to manage otherwise. But I don’t dwell on; I don’t keep trying to see better without them. I just admit it, and then life becomes a lot easier.
It’s like that with Christians and sin. Sometimes Christians—and perhaps especially Lutherans—have been accused of dwelling on sin. And we do talk a good deal about sin. We have to—not because it’s pleasant, but because it’s the truth. But we don’t really dwell on it—rather we recognize that it is the truth which, when acknowledged, will lead to repentance and to freedom. The life of repentance is the life of faith, the life of trust that God loves me, and forgives me, and receives me with joy. That is the truth that makes me free—a life of repentance, a life of faith in Christ’s wonderful grace.