LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

90 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW XV
We may find it silly that fish, or even people, remain confined when
barriers are removed. But more serious is confining our faith and our hopes
for life with God on what we can do ourselves. Before our text we are
reminded: “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is
written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things
written in the book of the law’” (10). (And it does mean all the things)
There is an alternative: an inexpensive, 100% reliable alternative. Instead
of thinking “everything depends on me”, believe “everything depends on
God”, because it does. Faith is a gift. Gifts do not depend on the recipient
but on the giver. The law was our guard, our disciplinarian, until Christ came
so that we might be justified by faith. By God’s grace, through the power
of His Word and the promises He attaches to His Sacraments, we become
and remain “sons of God”, children of God, “for all of you who were
baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
This means two things. First, faith is the great leveller. When the word
says, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female”, it
is not wiping out all the obvious physical or social differences. We may be
one in Christ but we are still each individuals, with varying backgrounds,
interests, skills, etc. Just as you may say of your children, “no two are alike”,
so God may say the same of His. What it does mean, however, is that
regardless of our state or status, we each may be sure of the “redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches
of His grace that He lavished on us” (Eph. 1:7). Or in simpler terms, no one
gets forgiveness and eternal life except by the grace of God. Anyone who
believes differently is deluding himself. “If we say we have no sin we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (I Jn 1:9-10).
Secondly, it means we are free to do as we please. But what pleases us,
Luther would ask Surely it brings us no pleasure as forgiven children of
God to indulge in every kind of sin or vice imaginable. Surely it does not
please us as recipients of divine mercy to ignore invitations to worship and
to serve. Surely it does not please us who have been relieved of the burden,
fear, and guilt of trying to save ourselves, to refuse to serve and love God
and our neighbour using the same commandments that condemned us as a
guide to what pleases Him. To do as we please means we are free to do what
pleases God. Nothing less than our best will do. We still seek, strive, deprive
ourselves, behave ourselves—not because we think we are somehow earning
our forgiveness that way, but because we are so enormously grateful for
what God has promised and delivered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and
because the Christ whom we have put on through our Baptism “constrains”
compels, directs, and drives us to do so.