Reformation John 8:32 (2021)

The Word Of Christ Conquers The Lie

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

St. John 8:32 “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…  Truth is a powerful thing.  The truth of Scripture – particularly the truth that Jesus is the only way to the Father and that He is the only Savior from sin – that truth is the very thing that liberates you from the slavery of sin.  The truth of Christ crucified for sinners releases you from the ignorance of unbelief.  It also protects you from the traps and the schemes of the devil, who is the father of lies.

Truth, however, is also very dangerous.  Since truth is so powerful, evil cannot tolerate it.  Evil wars against the truth; evil is always trying to corrupt the truth.  Darkness hates the light; darkness cannot exist where light shines brightly, and so it does everything in its power to snuff out the light.  Wherever the truth is spoken, evil is right there to stir up trouble; wherever truth is spoken, evil is right there to fuss and fume and make it seem as if the truth-tellers are the problem.  The more clearly the truth is spoken, the louder evil will shriek.

Just consider how things are today.  If you speak the truth and say that unborn children are fully human persons from the moment of conception who deserve to be protected by law, then the pro-abortionists, the pro-choicers will scream and yell and rant and rave, “My body, my choice” and promote “safe” abortions at every stage of pregnancy, even up to the moment of and after birth.  But tell me, how safe is abortion for the baby?

If you speak the truth and say that there are only two genders, male and female, and that those who insist on anything other than two genders are mentally ill and that you can’t change how you were created and go from one to the other, then you are hated and despised for not recognizing these people’s freedom to choose their own gender and affirm their humanity.

If you speak the common-sense truth that marriage can only rightly exist between one man and one woman, then you are vilified for being hateful to the many people who insist that men can marry men and woman can marry women, and you are accused of being the one who is mentally ill and a hater.

 And above all, if you say that the only way to enter eternal life is through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, well then you are attacked as being hateful or unloving or bigoted; those who insist that there are many different ways to heaven cannot stand the fact that you even exist and are allowed to breathe air.  In his prescient book 1984, the famous author George Orwell remarked, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”  This is more intensely true now than it was when he wrote that book.  Truth is powerful and good, but there is always warfare against it in this fallen world.

And that includes not only the evil that is outside of us in our truth-denying society, but also the evil that is within us, in our old Adam.  We may nod our head in agreement when we hear “the truth will make you free,” but the closer someone gets to the truth of our own sin, the louder we protest and deflect blame.  The Psalmist puts it rather clearly when he says, “All men are liars” (Ps 116:11).  And as the former teacher and theologian in the Lutheran Church, Rev. Dr. Kenneth Korby once said, “The only truth a man can tell is, ‘I am a liar.’” 

Our sinful nature is quite skilled at the art of shading and spinning the truth to our advantage.  We excel at trying to make our sin seem respectable.  We’re good at distorting and twisting the truth to justify ourselves and rationalize the way we are.  And that is precisely why an essential element of being a Christian is repentance; we must come to terms with the truth and honestly admit that we are by nature enslaved to the Lie, and that we are focused on what we want to hear, not what we need to hear.  And what we need so desperately is to be released from the power of sin and death and the devil.

The truth which sets you free is more than just information that is factually correct; it is more than some bit of information that you download into your brain in Catechesis.  Truth is a person; truth is Jesus Christ Himself.  Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6).  Our Lord Jesus is the embodiment of Truth; He is eternal and ultimate reality, the One in whom this whole universe holds together.  Jesus has come into the world to destroy the father of lies forever and to rescue you from the deadly power of sin.  When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, He said, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice” (Jn 18:37).  All Pilate could do was to respond cynically, “What is truth?”  Truth incarnate – truth in the flesh – was standing before him, but the Lie was controlling Pilate who loved his power and position.  

On that very first Good Friday it appeared that the Truth was overwhelmed by the Lie; it appeared that the darkness had snuffed out the Light.  But as He died, Jesus spoke the truth that neither death nor the devil could conquer.  Jesus said simply and clearly, “It is finished.”  By His suffering and death, everything that needed to be done to pay for man’s sin had been fulfilled and completed and accomplished.  Everything necessary to undo the curse and defeat the Lie had been done.  Even though it didn’t seem like it, the Truth had won the day and victory was certain.  Jesus had crushed the serpent’s head and had paid for your deadly sin in full.  That is the truth that liberates you; that is the truth which makes you free.  It is finished; it is all accomplished for you in Jesus.

Most certainly, mortal combat between the truth of Christ and the lies of the evil one still continues.  And for long periods of time, it may seem as if the Lie is winning.  In the 1400’s there was a man named Jan Hus who lived in Bohemia, in the modern-day Czech Republic.  Jan Hus spoke the truth of God’s Word against the false teaching in the church of his day.  At the Council of Constance he was condemned by the church as a heretic and burned at the stake.  The truth seemed to have lost.  

However, before he died, Hus made a very prophetic statement.  The name “Hus” means “goose” in the Bohemian language; and he said, “You are now going to burn a goose, but in a century you will have a swan to whom you will be forced to listen.”  And almost exactly 100 years later, Martin Luther, the trumpeter swan, posted his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg.

What is of special note is that one of Jan Hus’s fiercest opponents, a man named Johannes Zacharias, was buried in front of the altar in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, Germany.  And it was on that very spot that Martin Luther laid face down when he made his vows to become a monk.  How wonderfully and deliciously ironic that it was on the grave of Jan Hus’s mortal enemy that Luther would begin his journey that led to the Reformation of the church, including some of the very truths that Hus had preached.

Dear friends, let us be encouraged by this, that the Truth of Christ will always win out.  In spiritually dark times like we are living in now, we may not see or experience that victory.  But that victory is certain, for the crucified Christ is risen!  Let that embolden us to confess the truth of our Christian faith regardless of the cost, knowing that it will never be in vain.  The Truth of Christ will always have the last word.

Martin Luther had no way of knowing whether or not he would end up being executed like Hus.  In 1517 he set forth 95 his theses for debate which told the truth about the corruption in the Church of his day.  And like any whistleblower working for powerful bosses, his life would be turned upside down after that point.  In 1521 Luther was called before the Emperor to recant and take back his teaching or else face not only excommunication from the church, but death.  

After faltering on the first day of his questioning, Luther returned to make his famous speech in reply, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by sound reason (for I do not trust in the pope or councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and have contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted.  My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.  May God help me.”  And then as the room erupted into noisy jeers and cheers by the gathered crowd, including some shouting “To the fire with him!”  Luther spoke these words, “Here I stand. I can do no other.  God help me.  Amen.”  It was only by the grace of God and the skillful maneuvering of Luther’s prince, Frederick of Saxony, that he was able to escape with his life.

The matters in dispute during the Reformation were of the utmost importance, for they had to do with the very Gospel of Christ and God’s grace.  Can the forgiveness of sins be sold as a commodity based on the authority of a pope rather than the Word of God?  Can forgiveness and eternal life be earned by good works?  How does faith fit into the picture?  What is grace?

Martin Luther and the other reformers returned simply to telling these truths of Scripture: The Law of God is good, and we must obey God’s commandments.  But we dare never place our faith in how well we are keeping the Law, since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).  “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20).  Therefore, our faith is entirely in Jesus and what He has done for us.  We cannot justify ourselves; rather we are justified, declared righteous, “freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).  We are saved through faith in Him alone, apart from the deeds of the Law.  Salvation cannot be bought, either with money, or even with good works or good intentions.  “For by grace you are saved through faith – and this is not your own, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8-9).

In teaching these truths, the Lutheran reformers were not teaching anything new; it was all there in Holy Scripture.  And it had been taught by the fathers of the Church throughout the Church’s history.  One of the things Lutherans emphasized over and over again was the fact that they were being the true catholics, for they were simply restoring the teaching of the truth of Christ and of Christians everywhere, truths that had been corrupted and suppressed through the centuries.  They were not inventing any new doctrines; they were not making stuff up.  That is why they kept the liturgy and everything else that belonged to the Church that didn’t contradict the Word of God.  The Reformation was about a return to the eternal truth of Holy Scripture.  The truth can be denied and suppressed, but in the end truth is unconquerable.

The beautiful thing about the truth is that, unlike a lie, you don’t have to invent it, and you don’t have to “manage” it.  It just is.  Once you know the truth, you simply repeat it and proclaim it and say “Amen” to it.  By contrast, the lie requires a good memory to recall what you made up.  And it requires an army of lies to back up the original lie.  And eventually, that tangled web ensnares the liar, and the liar is caught.  So it is that Satan was trapped in his own deceit and ensnared by the death he brought into the world.  For through the death of Jesus, the deceiver was undone and his work destroyed.  The lie cannot suppress the truth forever.  For Truth in the flesh is risen from the dead.

This is why Reformation Day is a great celebration for us because it is centered in this unconquerable and everlasting truth of Jesus.  Our Lutheran ancestors in the faith courageously spoke the truth to power; and as a result, many things changed.  The authority of God’s Word was restored to its rightful place, being heard in the language of the people, and the preaching of the pure Gospel rang out again as the delivery of God’s free grace in Christ.

Though some things have changed for the better in Roman Catholicism, sadly the same underlying poison of false teaching remains – things like indulgences, rewards for good works, praying to saints, Mariolatry, transubstantiation, forbidding priests to marry, and ungodly superstition.  Today’s Pope is still engaging in his shenanigans, even bowing to the world with his endorsement of same sex civil unions.

As much as there is for us to celebrate this day, the Reformation must continue if it is to mean anything, and that must happen within Lutheranism, too.  Too much of Lutheranism today is a sad parody of what Luther taught.  Lutheran churches don’t always speak the truth confidently and boldly before the world but too often conform to the lies of this world.  So the best and greatest thing that Lutherans can do still to this day is stubbornly to cling to the truth, to preach the fullness of God’s Law that exposes our fallen condition, to announce with gladness that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), to proclaim without fear that He is the exclusive Truth, the only way to the Father and to eternal life, that by His wounds we are healed (Is. 53:5).  

We have no new truths to offer; for the truth of Christ is both ancient and eternal.  We cling to the promise of God that the Church, in her confession of this truth, will withstand even the gates of hell.  It is as we sang regarding the devil, “One little Word can fell him,” namely the Word of Jesus.

So hear again what Jesus says, and take it to heart this Reformation day: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit.