Baptism of Our Lord—Slaves and Sons under God’s Unchanging Law
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We Lutherans are blessed in many ways.
Our fathers before us, through the gracious work of the Spirit, renewed, purified, reformed, and restored the true doctrine of Christ that had been obscured for centuries leading up to the Reformation in the sixteenth century. We are blessed to retain that heritage, that Reformation. The Lutheran reformers weren’t introducing anything new or novel.
The Church existed before them and still exists today. We don’t believe that the Church ceased to be until Martin Luther came along, figured things out, and started it again. So we weren’t interested in introducing new and novel things to the Church.
But during the Reformation, we did have—our fathers did make use of—ways of speaking that might have sounded new, but clarified certain ancient Christian teachings found in the Scriptures in ways that helped people who had been confused through works-righteousness preaching, through acting like the Lord’s Supper was something that we offered to God as a sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the dead, things like this. So they had ways of speaking that clarified the ancient Christian teaching of the Scriptures, though it might have sounded new at the time. One big thing that we as Lutherans offer to the rest of the holy Christian Church—not a new teaching, but a newer way of clarifying something that already was taught in the Bible—is the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel (Formula of Concord, Epitome V–VI).
It’s a way that—it’s a Lutheran thing. Even Protestants that talk about Law and Gospel, usually they’re aware of the fact that that’s a thing we get from Lutherans, talking that way in particular. Not a new teaching.
The Word of God teaches properly distinguishing between God’s Law and His Gospel, but we brought this to bear, especially in the Reformation, when things had really been obscured when it comes to sin and grace and works and the righteousness that avails before God. The way that our Lutheran Confessions speak about this proper distinction is this way. This is from the Epitome of the Formula of Concord, the article on Law and Gospel (Formula of Concord, Epitome V).
We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be kept in the Church with great diligence as a particularly brilliant light. By this distinction, according to the admonition of St. Paul, God’s Word is rightly divided (2 Timothy 2:15).
We believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine. It teaches what is right and pleasing to God, and it rebukes everything that is sin and contrary to God’s will. For this reason, then, everything that rebukes sin is and belongs to the preaching of the Law, and this is the Law in what’s called the narrow sense (Formula of Concord, Epitome V).
Because if you read things like Psalm 119, “Lord, I love Your law,” that’s talking about divine revelation in general. It’s talking about the whole Bible (Psalm 119). So you can use the word Law to talk about the whole Bible, but what they’re talking about here is the Law narrowly defined, being what we are to do, what God expects of us, summarized in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1–17).
So that’s what the Scriptures teach about the Law in the narrow sense.
Moving on, for this reason, but the Gospel is properly—and this is Gospel in the narrow sense, because Gospel can also be all of the Bible—but the Gospel narrowly is properly the kind of teaching that shows what a person who has not kept the Law, and therefore is condemned by it, is to believe.
It teaches that Christ has paid for and made satisfaction for all sins. Christ has gained and acquired for an individual, without any of his own merit, forgiveness of sins, righteousness that avails before God, and eternal life (Romans 3:21–28; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Formula of Concord, Epitome V).
That’s distinguishing between the Law and the Gospel narrowly.
The Law being what God expects of us, not giving us the power to carry it out, but making certain promises—do this and you will live (Leviticus 18:5; Luke 10:28). But we don’t do it, and so we won’t live by it (Romans 3:10–20). And then the Gospel narrowly—what God has done to fulfill that Law in our place, to do everything required of us (Matthew 5:17; Romans 8:3–4).
While we ought to consider this clarifying of how God’s Word fits together in both what God demands of us and what He does and fulfills in our place, we can often misuse and misunderstand this great and important distinction. One way—and maybe none of y’all have thought this way before, and I’m just introducing this new thought, sorry if I am, but still you need to steer clear of this—one way that we can misunderstand and misuse the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is really sort of to treat the Law and the Gospel in the way that the world treats drugs and the human body and mind.
At times we Christians of the Law/Gospel distinction can think of the Law and the Gospel like uppers and downers. If we have heard what is perceived to be a Law-heavy sermon, we have been conditioned to think that we are now out of balance, that something is wrong. It’s kind of like the mistake of thinking that we’re celebrating Good Friday to pretend like Jesus is still dead.
It’s the same sort of weird mind game, but we can be conditioned to feel this way, like there’s something wrong. We heard a Law-heavy sermon and now we’re out of balance, like a chemical imbalance. And so since we’ve had too many depressants, too many downers, we need a few Gospel-heavy sermons to balance things out.
We need to take some uppers, some stimulants, so that we can get back on an even keel. This could even be boiled down to a single sermon where we have been conditioned to think that there needs to be a certain percentage of time or words spent on the preaching of the Gospel versus the Law. And even—and some of you may have heard this before—even requiring that sermons never end on the Law, but always end on the Gospel.
What often comes up on this topic are quotations from Lutheran fathers like C. F. W. Walther, the first president of the Missouri Synod. This is Thesis 25 from—not a book he wrote—but lectures he spoke to his students when he was close to his death that were written down and published posthumously. But this is Thesis 25 from a book that we have it as a book now, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel.
Thesis 25 says, “You are not rightly distinguishing Law and Gospel in the Word of God if you do not allow the Gospel to predominate your teaching.”
This can easily be taken as a statement against what I sound like I’m saying. But if you look at the Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions, as well as the preaching of Luther and other Lutheran fathers, including Walther, who first spoke that thesis, you’ll start to notice something interesting.
And Luther’s Church Postils are online for free. P-O-S-T-I-L. Does it have two L’s? No, one L. P-O-S-T-I-L.
They’re free. So you can go and look at this and check my work. And you can get Walther’s sermons, too, on the same lectionary that we follow.
You’ll notice something interesting. First, if the Law in the narrow sense is what we are to do and the Gospel is what God has done for us, then is this Law or Gospel? “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21)
You can say it out loud. Is that Law or is that Gospel? Law. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
That’s the last sentence of 1 John (1 John 5:21). And we know from the way the instructions given in the epistles themselves of the New Testament that these were things meant to be read when a sermon would have been preached in a gathering of the congregation (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27).
So the last thing, theoretically, the people would have heard when that letter was being circulated, the last thing they would have heard is this Law statement: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
That’s how it ends.
If you look at the preaching of orthodox pastors of the past, like Luther and Walther, you see that they frequently had no problem preaching sermons almost completely concerned with instructing their congregation in behavior, like preaching a sermon on what the Bible says about marriage on the Sunday where you’re going to hear the Gospel account of the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1–11).
That’s the sermon we have of Walther. If you look at his Gospel sermons, it’s a sermon almost completely just instructing on what the Bible says about marriage, how you’re supposed to live out marriage, which would be Law, not Gospel. And most of the sermon just has to do with how you’re supposed to be a husband and how you’re supposed to be a wife.
You can also find plenty of sermons where they end on what we are to do, the Law, and not just instructing like that wedding sermon that you could go and look at, but even ending on harsh rebuke sometimes for the sins of the people in their congregation, ending on it.
Maybe some of you, like I said, aren’t dealing with that sort of conditioning where that would be very problematic, where you feel in yourself that you’ve got to balance it out, that you’ve left with something wrong in you. Maybe some of you can hear the Word of God, whether it is Law or Gospel, properly distinguish it, let it have its way with you, and have a settled and peaceful conscience knowing that your standing before God isn’t based on your keeping of the Law.
Maybe you are in that situation, but whether or not you are, we need to have a good understanding of how this works, the proper distinction between Law and Gospel in preaching and teaching so that we do not fall into the trap of this kind of conditioning.
Today we commemorate the Baptism of our Lord. The Gospel according to St. John that you heard read is the way that St. John the Apostle presents the testimony of St. John the Baptist, kind of as an after-the-fact look—this is what I saw (John 1:29–34). The other Gospels just give the narrative, obviously based on the eyewitness account of St. John the Baptist, but they just tell it as a story.
And it goes this way in the Gospel of Matthew. “Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?’ But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:13–17).
When Jesus comes to Baptism at the River Jordan, He is not coming as One who needs it. We know from the Gospel according to St. Mark that the people were coming to John’s Baptism, confessing their sins, receiving a Baptism unto repentance for the remission of sins (Mark 1:4–5).
That’s what they were coming to receive. We know that Jesus doesn’t need that. He’s the sinless Son of God. He was tempted like us in every way, but without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
So what’s the deal? He’s not the One that needs to come confessing sins. He’s the Lamb that bears away every single sin that we have ever or will ever commit (John 1:29).
Now, instead, He’s standing there to fulfill all righteousness. He is there to give us His Baptism and everything He receives in His Baptism to us in our own Baptism.
That’s what it means that “thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Christ our Lord comes to be baptized, fulfilling all righteousness, doing everything required of us for us, so that we won’t lack anything, so that we might be able to enter into God’s Kingdom as His children, not as slaves (Galatians 4:4–7).
So Christ our Lord comes to be baptized, fulfilling all righteousness, being anointed with the Holy Spirit and being declared God’s beloved Son as God and Man by the Father in heaven Himself.
So that all of this would come to pass in your Baptism.
Here’s what Scripture tells us about our Baptism. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise—the promise of the forgiveness of sins and receiving the Holy Spirit—is to you and your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38–39).
“And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16).
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11).
And corresponding to the flood in Noah’s day, through which God saved him and his family, “Baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body, but the guarantee of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:20–21).
Those are just a sampling of what they tell us about our Baptism. And in all those passages, you see all righteousness being fulfilled. You see the Holy Spirit descending upon you as a guarantee of inheritance and assurance that you are a beloved son of God (Ephesians 1:13–14).
And it’s important—not a son and daughter of God, a son of God—because the son gets the inheritance. That is what it means that you were sealed in the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of that future inheritance.
You are a son of God, and everything that happens to Jesus in His Baptism happens to you in your Baptism (Romans 6:3–5; Galatians 3:27).
And you are sealed in it again and again. Every time you are reminded of what happened to you in your Baptism, every time you see the Body and Blood of Jesus given and poured out for you in the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26–28; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23–26). And when you partake of it, you’re sealed in that sonship again and again—that anointing of the Holy Spirit, that righteousness, all of it being fulfilled, fulfilled in you and for you and covering you.
If Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness, which—that’s what He’s saying He’s coming to do when He comes to be baptized—then you don’t need to be cast to and fro on the basis of whether you are hearing about what you are commanded to do or what God has done for you. You don’t need to be cast to and fro by that.
I don’t mean that you’re not going to be burdened by your sin struggles and that you aren’t going to need to hear consolation in that, or despairing in affliction and not need to hear the consolation of the Gospel to bring you up out of that.
What I mean to say is you don’t need to atomistically, point by point, pick out the amount of content to one—the Law or the Gospel—and think that this is really like taking uppers and downers. You’re more settled than that because Christ has fulfilled all righteousness for you. If He’s done that, you don’t need to be cast to and fro by that.
Every righteous act required of you according to the Law has been fulfilled and bestowed on you. You who were a slave being driven by the Law like a tutor—like Galatians talks about, a tutor—not like a nice one that you might have for your kids now, but like probably even worse than, you know, the cartoonish nun swatting the fingers with a ruler, more like a whip (Galatians 3:23–25).
You were a slave, a child no different than a slave, being driven by the Law before faith and the promise of Christ came. But no longer—He has fulfilled it all.
You who were a slave being driven by the Law have now been brought to faith in the Gospel that Jesus has perfectly and completely fulfilled the Law of God for all people. And if He did it for all people, that means He did it for each and every single one of you apart from anything you could ever do.
You are complete in Him. That’s what Scripture says (Colossians 2:10).
And now there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
If Jesus came to give you the Holy Spirit, then you don’t need to wonder whether you are really a son or not. You don’t need to sit and wonder whether you are under the Law’s condemnation either, for Scripture says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26–29).
“Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:1–7). Not—”you might be if you are…”.
Yes, the Law will always condemn our sinful flesh in this life. It will always be driven like a slave. That’s what works of the Law means. And I’ve got a quotation at the end here that I’ll share with you that talks a little bit more about that.
That’s the difference between the works of the Law and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16–26). Okay. So yes, your sinful flesh will be condemned by the Law always in this life, but that is a good thing, not something to distress you.
That is part of the chastisement that our loving Father sends us (Hebrews 12:5–11). We want Him to kill our sinful flesh with the preaching of the Law. We want sin to be condemned in our sinful flesh (Romans 8:3).
And we want finally for that sinful flesh to drown and die and rot away so that we be raised up at the last day with a perfect and sinless body in Christ (Romans 6:6; 1 Corinthians 15:42–49). We want that to happen.
So it is a good thing even to hear that condemnation. That is part of that chastisement.
Don’t think of the Law and the Gospel as downers and uppers. Christ has fulfilled all righteousness.
He has washed every single sin of yours away in His blood (Revelation 1:5). And He has delivered that washing to you personally in your Baptism (Acts 22:16).
He delivered it to you again in the words of absolution you heard today (John 20:22–23). He has given you the Holy Spirit that assures you that you are a son of God, a beloved child of the heavenly Father (Romans 8:15–16). No reason ever to doubt that.
You’ll need to hear that over and over again, but you don’t need to act like when you hear the Law of God, either instructing or rebuking you, you don’t need to act like someone on Good Friday pretending Jesus is dead. That’s not why we do Good Friday.
When you were enslaved to sin, death, and the devil, you could only hear the Law as a tutor, an oppressive one, constantly beating you over the head, reminding you that you were not a son but a slave (Galatians 3:24).
The Law of God was just what reminded you of why you had no business sitting at the dining room table with the heavenly Father. No business whatsoever. That’s what the Law served as—only that—when you were enslaved to sin.
But now that the fullness of time has come and you have been redeemed from this curse of the Law by the God-Man Jesus (Galatians 3:13), this Law that condemns your sinful flesh has lost its sting for you in Christ.
You no longer live under the condemnation of the Law. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
The Law of God has lost the power to accuse and condemn you who trust in Jesus for salvation. You are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).
You are free and a son.
For you, ultimately, now, the Law of God are household rules. My children are my children whether they do their chores or not.
Will they be disciplined if they don’t? Yeah. And if you want to check, you can ask James after this. He gets in trouble when he doesn’t put up the dishes.
But if you asked him—hopefully he would know this, I hope so—if you asked him if he thought that him being a son or him being a slave depended on whether or not he did that chore, he would tell you, “No, my dad is my dad, and he loves me.”
The Law for the Christian—not the sinful flesh, but for your new man—are household rules. They show you what good works truly are. They’re not a reminder that you don’t belong at the dining room table.
They’re household rules for the children that do sit at that table as sons, forever free.
And let us rejoice when it rebukes our sinful flesh and kills it. That’s a good thing, because you stand before God, dear Christian, as a beloved son, perfectly righteous, no longer condemned.
Right after our Confessions speak on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel, they go on to say this about those who have been made sons of God through the precious blood and merit of our Lord Jesus and how they relate to the Law of God. And this is where I’m going to leave you. Okay. Last bit.
“We believe, teach, and confess that even though people who are truly believing in Christ and truly converted to God have been freed and exempted from the curse and coercion of the Law, they are still not without the Law on this account. They have been redeemed by God’s Son in order that they may exercise themselves in the Law day and night” (Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
“Even our first parents before the fall did not live without Law. They had God’s Law written into their hearts because they were created in God’s image” (Genesis 1:26–27; Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
“We believe, teach, and confess that the preaching of the Law is to be encouraged diligently. This applies not only for the unbelieving and impenitent, but also for true believers who are truly converted, regenerate, and justified through faith” (Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
“Although believers are regenerate and renewed in the spirit of their mind in the present life, this regeneration and renewal is not complete. It is only begun. Believers are by the spirit of their mind in a constant struggle against the flesh” (Romans 7:14–25; Galatians 5:17).
“They struggle constantly against the corrupt nature and character which cleaves to us until death. This old Adam still dwells in the understanding, the will, and all the powers of humanity” (Ephesians 4:22; Romans 7:18).
“It is necessary that the Law of the Lord always shine before them so that they may not start self-willed and self-created forms of serving God drawn from human devotion. The Law of the Lord is also necessary so that the old Adam may not use his own will, but may be subdued against his will. This happens not only by the warning and threatening of the Law, but also by punishments and blows, so that a person may follow and surrender himself as a captive to the Spirit” (Psalm 119:105; Hebrews 12:6; Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
Now consider the distinction between the works of the Law and the fruit of the Spirit. We believe, teach, and confess that the works of the Law are those that are done according to the Law. They are called works of the Law as long as they are only forced out of a person by teaching the punishment and threatening of God’s wrath (Romans 3:19–20; Galatians 3:10; Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
Fruits of the Spirit, however, are the works wrought by God’s Spirit who dwells in believers. The Spirit works through the regenerate. These works are done by believers because they are regenerate spontaneously and freely (Galatians 5:22–23).
They act as though they knew of no command, threat, or reward. In this way, God’s children live in the Law, not under its condemnation, but live in the Law and walk according to God’s Law (Psalm 119:97; Romans 8:1–4).
St. Paul calls this the Law of Christ and the Law of the mind (Galatians 6:2; Romans 7:22–23).
In his letters, the Law is and remains—both to the penitent and impenitent, both to the regenerate and unregenerate people—one and the same Law. It is God’s unchangeable will. The difference, as far as obedience is concerned, is only in the person, whether you are an unbelieving slave or a believing son (Romans 6:16–22; Formula of Concord, Epitome VI).
For one who is not yet regenerate follows the Law out of constraint and unwillingly does what is required of him, as also the regenerate do according to the flesh (Romans 7:18–19).
But the believer—you—so far as he is regenerate, acts without constraint and with a willing spirit to do what no threat of the Law, however severe, could ever force him to do (Psalm 110:3; Romans 8:14).
Let us pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your grace that You have reached out to us with the blessing of Baptism and the knowledge of Your holy Word. Give us Your Holy Spirit. May He dwell in our hearts that we be diligent in Your Word and not forget or despise it, but take it to heart, so that it may bear proper fruit within us, that we live and grow in faith and the fear of God, and finally die in Your Word and be saved through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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