Editor: Pastor G L Winter – [email protected] Vol LIV November - December 2019 No 6 Contents: Page 65: What Luther Says About—Spiritual Liberty Page 66: Devotion—Matthew 21:1–11 – Part 1B—Pastor T Winter Page 67: Dear Christian, Don’t Be Unequally Yoked with the Godless, Corrupt World!—Pastor B Winter Page 70: How Firm a Foundation—Part 2—Pastor S Wood Page 71: Christmas Greetings Page 72: Latest news in Archelogy Page 75: The Happy Farmer Page 75: Notes and News …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… W h a t L u t h e r S a y s A b o u t — Spiritual Liberty A Glorious Liberty that is a Blessed Bondage. A Christian is a free lord of all and subject to no one. A Christian is a ministering servant of all and subject to everyone. (SL 19, 988) A Liberty of the Soul of Man. We are not dealing with political liberty but with a different one— one which the devil intensely hates and opposes. It is “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” not from some human servitude of Babylonian or Turkish captivity but from eternal wrath. Where? In the conscience. There our liberty stays. It does not go any further; for Christ did not free us in the political and in the carnal sense but in the theological or spiritual sense, that is, He has so freed us that our conscience is free and glad because it does not fear the wrath that is to come. This is real and inestimable liberty, in comparison with the greatness and majesty of which the others (political and carnal) scarcely are one drop or speck. For who can tell how great a matter it is for anyone to be sure that God is not angry or will never be angry, but that to eternity He will be a gracious and kind Father for Christ’s sake? The fact that we enjoy the favour, protection, and help of the Supreme Majesty and that He will finally so free us also corporeally that our body, which is sowed in corruption, in shame and in weakness, will rise again in incorruption, in glory and power— this fact is certainly a great and incomprehensible liberty. (SL 9, 603) The Sin of Restricting. This liberty, friend, do not consider it a trifle to forbid what God does not forbid, to destroy the Christian liberty that cost Christ His blood, to burden consciences with sin where there is no sin. He who has the audacity to do this will also be audacious enough to commit any wrong yea, he has thereby already renounced all that God is, teaches, and does, including His Christ. (SL 20, 207) The Gospel Liberates Man for Loving Service. We must distinguish between the Christian life lived in faith and that lived in love. Faith is queen over all laws: the Christian means to be justified Page 66 Vol LIV, November – December 2019, No 6 through grace alone, and so he is free from all laws…But in the other area (that of love) the Christian is subject to all laws, bears the Law and the burdens of the Law according to the old man, seeks to serve and to promote the good of his neighbour. Here Romans 13 applies. (W 26, 17) Acknowledgment: From What Luther Says , Book 2, Nos 2409, 2410, 2412, 2421, 1986 Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Reproduced with permission under licence number 19:2-2. Devotion Matthew 21:1–11 Part 2 Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (Continued from September – October 2019 edition) The prophecy fulfilled: (v4-5) All this was done The point is: Jesus was consciously fulfilling that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by prophecy that He would come as King. Luther: the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of “He is a peculiar (unusual) King: you do not seek Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, Him, He seeks you; you do not find Him, He meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the finds you; for the preachers come from Him not foal of an ass. from you; their preaching comes from Him not from you; your faith comes from Him not from Kretzmann: “The daughter of Zion is the Church you; and all that your faith works in you comes of Christ, the sum total of all believers in the from Him not from you.” salvation gained through His blood. The King is Jesus Himself, at that time still in poverty and The triumphant entry: (v6) And the disciples humility, but still a King most mighty. His went and did as Jesus commanded them. coming banishes all fear, for it means the subduing of all enemies. Only people must not They openly proclaim Him as the Son of David, get the idea that His kingdom is of this world, as as the true Messiah, they wish Him blessing and a great many modern theological leaders are salvation from above. Far and wide, the people dreaming. In His kingdom, in which He is King joined in this demonstration in honour of the and Lord, He does not teach how we should till lowly Nazarene. They gladly sacrificed their the soil, plow, sow, reap, attend to household holiday garments, their festival ornaments, they matters, collect money, wage war, govern land brought the palm branches and waved the green and people, but places that in charge of worldly fronds of early spring to give full expression to kings and lords....For Christ in His kingdom their joy, to their confession of their Lord, the teaches us through His Word that we are poor, Messiah. It is most unfortunate that this lost sinners, condemned to death, subject to the exultation was only temporary, and quickly devil; but that He through His death and blood, forgotten. And yet the Spirit of the Lord had here, has delivered us from all sins, from death, and for a short while at least, taken hold of the from the power of the devil, in order that by faith people. God wanted thus to give testimony on in Him we should be justified and saved. behalf of His Son, before the shame and the horror of the cross would be laid upon Him. And “‘Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King it was prophetic of the time when every tongue cometh unto thee, meek;’ as though he would would confess that Jesus is the Lord. say: He comes for thy benefit, for thy peace, for the salvation and joy of thy heart; and since they (v8) And a very great multitude spread their did not believe that, he prophesies that it should garments in the way; others cut down be spoken and preached. Whosoever but believes branches from the trees, and strewed them in that Christ comes in this way has Him thus. O the way. what preaching, singular and at this time almost unknown!” Another act of homage instigated by the will of the Lord to fulfil the prophecy. 2 Vol LIV, November – December 2019, No 6 Page 67 (v9) And the multitudes that went before, and of the Passover. The most often quoted Messianic that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Psalms in the New Testament are: 2, 22, 69, 89, Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the 110 and 118. name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest! Reception in Jerusalem: (v10) And when He was They were now proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, and He let them do it. “Hosanna” means “Save, saying, Who is this? we pray thee.” They repeat words from the Hallel (Psalm 148:1) “Hosanna in the highest.” Cf The Greek word for “stirred” means “shaken as Luke 2:14. by an earthquake;” hence Jerusalem was “thrown in an uproar” or “in turmoil” or “went wild with It is a burst of acclamation, prayer and praise to excitement.” The response: (v9) And the Jesus, involving Messianic titles, the nature of multitude said, This is Jesus, the Prophet of His person and the nature of His work. Psalm Nazareth of Galilee. 118:25–26 is quoted by them, a Messianic Psalm —TJW and also a Hallel Psalm, always used at the time Dear Christian, Don’t Be Unequally Yoked with the Godless, Corrupt World! 2 Cor 6:14: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Some of the members of the Corinthian congregation were in danger of joining in with the vile, Godless ways of the world in Corinth. Immorality, stealing, drunkenness, indecent living, gambling, idol worship and homosexuality were widespread and unchecked (1 Cor 6:9–10). Paul appealed to them that by grace through faith in Christ they belonged to Christ and are called “the temple of the living God” (2 Cor 6:16). As a result God says: “I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (2 Cor 6:16). How then could they even think of being joined closely and intimately as with a yoke to unbelievers in common worldly activities! The Greek is so strong here that Paul tells those who are doing this to STOP it. For blood-bought redeemed Children of God it is absolutely monstrous and abhorrent that they pollute themselves with the poisonous, vile filth of the sinful world and endanger their faith! Paul also refers to the Church Law of the Old Testament (Deut 22:10) which forbade the yoking of an ox and a donkey, a clean and an unclean animal, together to a plough.