~ Cantate ~
Readings: Isaiah 12:1-6 | James 1:16-21 | John 16:5-15
Text: John 16:5-15
It’s a recurring complaint about the Bible that it’s so ancient that it’s out of step with modern life. After all, the earliest authors wrote 3,500 years ago. It’s possible to take a mystical approach and say, like the Wheel of Time book series, that these are ancient prophecies that speak of a gradual unfolding of history. But that underplays the purpose for which the Holy Scriptures were written.
Yes, it’s true that there was a plan of redemption and salvation that was unfolding through the line of Seth, Noah, Abraham, and the patriarchs. The Law given through Moses was at the same time God’s will for His people of that time, and a foreshadow of the coming Messiah and sin-bearer. And in time, it became clear that God “sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4)
Without a doubt, a tremendous revelation of God’s will and heart was revealed in His Son, and people truly had a “new song” to sing to the Lord, “for he has done marvelous things!” (Psalm 98:1) In this new testament, the Holy Spirit also comes to do something new:
8When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
That’s quite a list of work to do, and with so many people! It would be reasonable to wonder how this could possibly be accomplished…if we were dealing with a mere human. But the ways and timing in which He does this are beyond our understanding. As Jesus taught Nicodemus, “The wind/Spirit blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) He convicts people concerning sin and bringing them to repentance…yet not all at once and in all places. He does indeed convince people of Jesus’ righteousness, causing all human works to appear as filthy rags [Isaiah 64:6]…but this doesn’t take place each time a proud person comes up against the vanity of his deeds, so that they hope in Christ only. And the ruler of this world is judged, but he still seems to have “royal scope and room” as the hymnist, Martin Franzmann, says.[1]
The truth is that the Lord knows how to prepare each soul for this, so that He says:
“44These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44-47)
At His bidding, our minds are opened to understand the Scriptures and recognize the import of it. So, the Lord says to His juvenile disciples:
12“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
We are not ready for all of Christian doctrine at once. There are stages to learning, despite our desire to go from 0-60 in no time at all. It begins with the very basics of the faith: Memorizing the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer. The teaching on Baptism, on Confession/Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. These are the foundation for the life of following Jesus.
In our day, we are often convinced that we can “Google it” and know it all. All we lack is information, regardless of a process of maturing. We don’t “know it all” and must recognize that. Our Lord, who holds nothing needful back from us, tells even His apostles that they are not ready for some things. Why on earth do we think we are above them? Repent of our pride, pray for God the Holy Spirit to set the pace.
However, we do have everything we need in the Scriptures. We can see this in the way that Christian doctrine is handed down from generation to generation. Children are taught by their fathers the text of the Catechism and its explanations. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s much more to learn about how the Commandments apply to adult life, the Creed in comparison to contrary teaching, the Lord’s Prayer in the midst of temptation. Baptism teaches us as we mature to find our identity in Christ, rather than our flimsy works or the fragility of even our strongest resolve to do better. Confession gives us a place as we live to lay our daily sins before Jesus and receive His grace. And the Lord’s Supper gives us a place where we kneel before Jesus and are renewed with His risen Body and Blood as a foretaste of our resurrected life.
There are those who see the imperfection of the life of faith, and offer a different solution. This solution, sadly, finds the fault in the witness of Scripture and claims fault in the men whom God chose to write the Scriptures for us. Here is what they say about the Bible:
“Human beings can’t do better than their very best at any given moment to communicate about God as they understand God, and that Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.” (Brian McLaren, “The God Question” p. 103)
It’s true from a human perspective that we are at the mercy of God for knowing divine truth. However, this interpretation puts all doctrine in flawed human hands. That’s not what our Lord says. He says that He has more that He will give His disciples when they are ready for it. That means that, like a master Teacher, He has in mind what they are ready to learn, and He will guide them to deeper truths through His unchanging and perfect Word.
There is an ocean of Christian doctrine in which we are invited to swim. None of it is of human imagination, but “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.” (2 Peter 1:20). We must not stop with the basics, as if Confirmation were the last thing that a Christian needs. If we do, woe to that soul who never moves beyond the very basics. The Lord modeled for us that the life of faith goes on from day to day:
“6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
Children grow, and must revisit the basic truths but encounter them in a new way that is consistent with how they mature. If we continually orbit only the basics, we will do them no service. It may be that they mature and see the inferiority of what Christian teach—if they only proclaim the foundations. Our faith must be something in which we grow.
Go further and read the Large Catechism. Read the Formula of Concord. Sing of these things because of what He has done, and we haven’t seen the fulness of what He has done. This is where we encounter a faith that is deep enough to support us in all our seasons of life. Every season of temptation is met with a mature faith given through the Word and the nurture of the Spirit. Meet the devil and his temptations not with human reasoning, but with the true and eternal Word!
So will we be upheld through the trials of our life of discipleship now, and brought secure through it to eternal life. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
[1] LSB 834, stanza 2 “O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth”
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