FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS ALWAYS BEING REFORMED ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF GOD

FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS ALWAYS BEING REFORMED ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF GOD Scripture Lessons: Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 22:34-40 This sermon was preached by Dr. L. Holton Siegling, Jr. on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Matthew 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Leader: People: This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let us pray Almighty and Everlasting God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be pleasing, acceptable, and even joyful in your sight, for you are our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The period of history known as the Renaissance took place over the span of several hundred years, with the first traces of that era beginning as early as the 14 th century. From then until well into the 17 th century our world experienced unprecedented reform - a renewal - a rebirth, if you will, thus the name Renaissance. Changes were happening in nearly every aspect of life: religion, art, education, architecture, literature you name it, advancements were happening all over the place. More printed information was available than ever before; people were getting smarter. There was an emerging sense of self-sufficiency and creativity the spirit of individualism was being nurtured; the notion someone could actually be about the business of making history was beginning to flourish. Yet of all the extraordinary changes that the world was experiencing during that period of time, few were more significant, and in fact, more revolutionary, than the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation itself began with a seemingly simple event in a charming little German town called Wittenberg, where, on October 31 st, 1517, a friar, priest and theologian a composer, who wrote the hymn we sang as our processional hymn this morning, A Mighty Fortress is Our God a renaissance man by any standard, Martin Luther, he walked up to the Wittenberg 1

castle church doors and he nailed to them his 95 Theses for debate which were essentially 95 brief points of concern that Luther wished to raise with the presiding church, which, at that time, happened to be the Catholic Church. For example, the church had long since been in the habit of offering people the opportunity to buy what were called indulgences it was like paying for forgiveness, because for having purchased an indulgence, it was suggested that a person had somehow made themselves right with God. Not surprisingly, one of Martin Luther s 95 Theses read as follows: Christians should be taught that the pope s indulgences are useful only if one does not rely on them, but most harmful if one loses the fear of God through them. In posting his 95 Theses, Martin Luther sought to engage the larger church, that she might rediscover certain basic Biblical truths, that through a much needed theological debate, she would recognize her mistakes and correct her faults, that she would be, in a word, reformed. Nearly 501 years have passed since October 31, 1517, but the reverberations of that day can be felt even now. Not only can we as Presbyterians be counted among those churches who have been significantly impacted by the reformation, but, in fact, to this very day, we still call ourselves reformed. And for us to use that term reformed, it is to communicate certain things that are distinctive about who we are and how we understand the church of Jesus Christ. To be clear, reformed means a lot of things, but it means one thing in particular. Most notably, it means that we subscribe to a set of theological principles which fall under the broader heading called Reformed Theology. Now, time does not permit us to go into great detail about the particulars of reformed theology, except to say that such convictions relative to being saved by grace through faith and not by our works, convictions about God s sovereignty and how we are all called to be ambassadors of Christ, convictions about how the Bible is the only rule by which we can know how to live and love, and yet how we are still sinful and yet how by God s grace there is healing and forgiveness that s reformed theology! A wonderful statement has come to encapsulate much of the spirit of the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps you have heard it before The church is reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God. We should acknowledge that there s some debate as to where that statement originated, though many will affirm that it first appeared in a devotional from within a period of Dutch reform, in the late 1600 s. To hold to that statement is to affirm that: 1) The Protestant Reformation did reform the doctrine of Christ s Church; 2) that God never ceases to be about the business of reforming the lives and practices of His people; and 3) that the reforms of God are always in accordance with the Word of God. Sometimes, however, the church has chosen to leave off the part of the phrase, according to the Word of God, which is like trying to quote the Westminster Confession of Faith by saying, God alone is Lord of the conscience, without including the rest of that statement which reads: and hath left it free [the conscience, that is] hath left it free from the doctrines and 2

commandments of men which are in anything contrary to the Word of God, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. What I m trying to say is that, that part of that Reformation statement which reads, according to the Word of God is absolutely essential, because, without it without affirming God s ongoing work as existing in harmony with that which God has already said in the scriptures the church runs the terrible risk of becoming like a mirror to the world, and thus wrongfully presuming that any and all changes must be the work of God. Consider our New Testament Lesson this morning. It provides us with some wonderful insights into how Jesus effectively reforms the understanding of God s people relative to the Law of God, and how such insights are wonderfully consistent with God s overarching and covenantal faithfulness. In Matthew chapter 22, beginning with verse 34, Jesus is approached by a group of Pharisees a very religious group of people, leaders they are. One of them speaks for the group and says: Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? Now to better understand Jesus response, let s first think about how God s Law was operative in the life of those people. To begin, the religious leaders of Jesus day would have considered a vast array of laws relative to God s will. For our purposes, the Law of God, in a general sense, fell into three broad categories: there was the ceremonial law, the civil law and the moral law. An example of a ceremonial law would be the kind of dietary laws which loomed large in the life of Daniel in the Old Testament. So much so, that we recall how Daniel simply would not eat the royal rations that were provided to him while in captivity. But friends, that kind of law and others like it were beginning to change upon the advent of Jesus Christ, to the point that some parts of the Law, namely the ceremonial and the civil, they were no longer going to apply to those who put their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, at least not in the way they had for those who operated under God s old covenant. As witnessed in the sheet that came down from heaven for Peter in Acts chapter 10 that sheet which presented him, as if a picnic, with so many varieties of food, many of which had previously been labeled profane. It s a surprise that Peter, knowing the Law as he did, he wasn t about to touch that food, and yet a voice from heaven declares: What God has made clean, you must not call profane. The rules about circumcision also fell under the ceremonial, yet we would do well to remember that, when it comes to that important and ancient practice, the Apostle Paul asserts in his letter to the Galatians that, to require circumcision of the Gentiles, would be essentially sinful. So what s in and what s out, we might ask? Well, here s the difference, and this doesn t answer every question, but there are some laws - laws that speak to the divine and natural character of God that are forever in force, but there are other laws that have fulfilled their purpose (cf. R.C. Sproul). 3

This is where statements like: Are we now going to stop eating shellfish? or Are we going to prohibit tattoos? - this is where those kinds of statements begin to break down, as if we are subscribing to some haphazard or arbitrary determination of which laws count right now. And it is not that the various laws of God do not impact God s people both before and after Jesus Christ, but the Reformation, the Reformation by God s grace, has given us the scriptural and spiritual maturity to understand the richness of God s laws, how it functioned then and how it function now. So, we return once again to the Pharisees, and we acknowledge that they are grappling with aspects of God s moral law - the very covenants and commandments of God which are rooted and grounded in God s character. In their case, the very Ten Commandments are in play, and here again, to void those laws those commandments it would be in violation of God s character, and Jesus knows this. But Jesus also knows the curse of the law that we can never keep it, that we re always going to sin and fall short of God s glory and of this, we are acutely aware, for the commandments make our sins so evident, so apparent! And, try as we may, we ourselves, we simply cannot make ourselves right with God! And praise be to God, for that s where Jesus comes in! Jesus brings to bear upon the human condition a new covenant, a better covenant. In him there still exists the moral law that perfect rule of righteousness (19.2), as the Westminster Confession of Faith refers to it, but now there is the grace of Jesus Christ! What s more, because Jesus knows that the purpose of the commandments of God are to reveal our shortcomings, to restrain us from doing wrong and to help us know that which is pleasing in God s sight, Jesus never once turns his back on the commandments; on the contrary, Jesus fulfills them. In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus said, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. And here in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus says, On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And what were those two commandments? Well, listen to them again beginning at verse 37: He said to him (to the Pharisee who asked which commandment was the greatest) Jesus said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Two things of note about Jesus response, the first is that, in Jesus own answer, he provides a summary of the Ten Commandments. We don t need to be Biblical scholars to notice that the first four commandments have to with our love for God and that the final six commandments have to do with our love for neighbors. So if we love God and love our neighbors, we are honoring God s will; we are doing the work of following his commandments. The second thing we notice about Jesus response is that what he is saying has other deep and abiding Biblical connections, roots, if you will. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 Moses says: You shall love the Lord 4

your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might. And in the Book of Leviticus, Moses says on another occasion: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The reason I bring up these important Biblical connections is because they were important enough to God in Christ to make them! For this reason and many others, we simply cannot say the Old Testament doesn t matter anymore, because it matters to Jesus. One of the gifts of the Reformation and reformed theology is the blessed awareness that all of Scripture is to be read in light of its witness to Jesus Christ, even the Old Testament. In this way, the Old Testament finds it partial filment in itself, but it finds its fulfilment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Martin Luther struggled mightily to discern what was good and acceptable and holy, not only in his own life but also in the life of the church that he loved. But let us make no mistake about it, the reforms that Luther brought to bear upon the ecclesiastical landscape of the world they were not his they were God s. Luther s 95 Theses his points of emphasis, they rested not on his own understanding - not on what others had to say, certainly not on what the culture thought was appropriate. No! Luther based his reasoning his very faith he based it on what God has revealed to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and in the full breadth of Scriptures, which bear unique and authoritative witness to Jesus himself! Goodness knows, there is not a church in the world today that is not in need of reform! There is no human soul so right with God that it is not in need of that newness of life, that kind of abundant life that Jesus offers to all those who put their trust in him. But know this, it is Christ alone who gives it, and it is Christ Jesus will and intention the very heart and mind of our Savior as revealed in the Scriptures and through that inward witness of the Holy Spirit. Oh, that is not only the key to reliably determining if any current or future reform is of us or truly of God, but it is also the only way by which we will ever know how to live and how to love both God and our neighbor! Let us pray Almighty and Everlasting God, help us to live our life together as a church reformed and always being reformed according to your Word. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. *The following sermon has not been edited by the author; therefore, there may be discrepancies. When in doubt please refer to the audio version of the sermon on this website. 5