During the past couple of months our Sunday morning Bible Class has been studying other denominations and religious bodies that teach very different doctrines than the doctrines and beliefs of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. At virtually every class I have stressed that we never want to judge the faith of another person. Only God knows what is in a person’s heart, and only God can judge if that person has a saving faith in the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in Holy Scripture.
But it is fair and appropriate for us to question the teachings of other religious bodies when those teachings obviously conflict with or contradict what God Himself teaches us in His Word. One church body several times the size of our own Missouri Synod teaches that God the Father had a wife and that all true believers ultimately become “gods.” Another large church body denies the Trinity, saying things like “Jesus was created at His birth and ceased to be God at His death” and claiming that the Holy Spirit is nothing but a fantasy. Some denominations say that the soul is not immortal and claim that human death is the end of all existence – period. Some say that there is no heaven, no resurrection of the dead, and no hell. Some totally reject the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Some denominations don’t actually reject the Sacraments, but they do reject the clear Scriptural proclamation that those Sacraments are for the forgiveness of sins and claim that both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are merely symbolic of what God does for us and what we do for God. One of the groups we studied corrupts and rewrites the Lord ’s Prayer, beginning not by referring to God as “Our Father who art in heaven” but calling him “Our Father-Mother God.”
As we have seen in our Bible Class, these are, indeed, very different religious bodies with very different teachings and beliefs. But ultimately, they all have one thing in common. They base many and sometimes all of their beliefs on the teachings of men and not the teachings of God. Some have created other writings and books and placed those writings on the same level of authority as the Bible. Some actually rewrite the Bible to serve their own needs and to try to make Scripture say things that it doesn’t now – and never has – said.
In today’s Epistles lesson, St. Paul wrote to his young friend and fellow pastor Timothy: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” “All Scripture” – not just some. “All Scripture” – not just what we want to hear but not what we don’t want to hear. “All Scripture” – not just the words that make us feel good but not the words that make us feel uneasy or make us feel bad. “All Scripture,” including the words that convict us of sinning before God and the words that tell us how Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins.
“All Scripture” – but only Scripture. Rev. Paul McCain, Executive Director of the Editorial Department at Concordia Publishing House, once said that Lutherans know less than any other denomination because when we don’t know the answer, we don’t make something up. And that is so true! The Mormon Church places the writings of Joseph Smith – including The Book of Mormon – on an equal and sometimes higher basis that the Bible, and Smith himself re-wrote the Bible to support his own self-proclaimed visions. The Christian Science Church places the writings of Mary Baker Eddy – specifically, a book entitled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures – on an equal and sometimes higher basis than the Bible. The Jehovah’s Witnesses use a so-called translation of the Bible which sometimes changes the words of Scripture and often adds words that are simply not in the original texts. Some of the churches right here in Pana base their understanding of the Sacraments not on what the Bible says, but on what men like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli falsely wrote and wrongly taught hundreds of years ago.
Sometimes it makes us Lutherans feel kind of lonely – after all, we’re left with the Bible and nothing more. Now some would rightly mention the Book of Concord but falsely claim that we Lutherans place the Lutheran confessions on the same level as Scripture. That is a bogus argument made by people who largely have never read the Book of Concord. As a friend of mine used to say, that dog just won’t hunt. Many of you may not have read the Book of Concord – I’ll admit that parts of it are not what you might call an easy read – but if you were to sit down and read its pages, you would find that every page is nothing more and nothing less than an exposition of Scripture which is based, over and over again, on nothing other than the words of the Bible. There is absolutely nothing in the Book of Concord that contradicts, replaces or supersedes what the Bible tells us.
As we heard St. Paul tell Timothy in the Epistle reading, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” A myth is defined as “an invented story,” and the bottom line is that many of the world’s religions have wandered off into myths and have turned away from the truth given to us in the Bible.
Why am I making such a big deal about this? Well, let’s put it this way. The final chapter of Luke includes these words which are – in my opinion – the perfect summary of the Holy Bible. Jesus is getting ready to ascend into heaven, but first He tells the disciples: “’These 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.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.’” Just 79 words to explain all 66 books of the Bible, to make known God’s magnificent and all-loving plan for the salvation of His people. So few words to explain that Jesus – and Jesus alone – is the focus, the foundation, the center of our faith.
One of my Seminary professors used to take it even further when he said that you can actually sum up the entire Bible with one word: Jesus. The entire Old Testament points to Jesus as the Messiah who would be sent by His heavenly father to save His people from their sins. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tells us how the Messiah was born, how He died, how He rose from the dead and how He ascended into heaven – all to fulfill the salvation promises made by God in the Old Testament. And the New Testament books that follow the Gospels – Acts through Revelation – tell us how the good news of our salvation through Jesus Christ was first spread to all nations by the Apostles just as Jesus had instructed them to do.
Six years ago Rev. Daniel Preus wrote an incredible book that I highly recommend, a book entitled Why I Am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center. In that book he wrote: “Why am I a Christian? Because Jesus is at the center and it’s all about Him. I am a Christian by grace, a simple yet profound work of the new creation in water and Word. Because of Jesus, I face no punishment for sin, nor do I face an eternal death. I am God’s child, and He has given me His family of believers wherein He feeds me. God is so kind and gracious. Thus I live with faith in Him and hope that is born from His promises.”
Preus then continues by saying: “I am a Lutheran for the same reason I am a Christian. It is not by choice but by grace. The teachings of the Lutheran Church place Jesus at the center because the teachings of the Scriptures place Jesus at the center. No other confession demonstrates such fidelity to the truths of God’s Word. No other confession so glorifies Christ by placing Him at the center of all it confesses and teaches. Being a Lutheran is truly all about Jesus.”
The real reason why we have been studying other religious bodies in our Bible Class is to understand how so many present-day church bodies take Jesus and make him something other than the “center of it all.” Those who deny that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper work the forgiveness of sins deny what Jesus Himself taught and, for all practical purposes, put limits on Jesus that cannot be placed on our almighty and all-powerful God. Those who invent myths about Jesus – creating incidents that never happened and putting words in His mouth that Jesus never said – create a fantasy Jesus who is not our Savior as He chose to reveal Himself to us. And as for those who deny the divinity of Jesus and totally reject the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity – well, those people simply could not be more wrong. They and unfortunately so many others today have those “itching ears” that, as St. Paul told Timothy, have turned away from listening to the truth and have wandered off into myths.
Is the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod perfect? No, that’s not what I am saying. When Matthew Harrison was elected President of the Synod in July, he told the convention delegates that they had “kept their perfect record of electing sinners as presidents of the Missouri Synod.” I could paraphrase those words to say that when you issued your Divine Call to me to serve as your pastor, you kept your perfect record of calling sinners to serve in this office. And when you came to Church this morning, you again maintained your perfect record of filling our pews with nothing but sinners. We’re all the same.
But we are Christians – we are Lutherans – and our sins have been forgiven – by grace. We have been redeemed and we have been brought to faith by grace and grace alone. By the grace of God, no matter how many times we may be tempted by our sinful itching ears, we return to the Bible. We return to Jesus. I fervently and wholeheartedly agree with Daniel Preus when he said that no other confession demonstrates such fidelity to the truths of God’s Word and no other confession so glorifies Christ by placing Him at the center of all that it confesses and teaches. If you ever feel that itching feeling in your ears, just remember this: being Lutheran truly is all about Jesus. And nothing else.
Return to Pastor page
