Romans 3:19-28 - The Source of Salvation - November 3, 2019

Today we celebrate the 502nd anniversary of the Reformation of the Church. I looked, but I couldn’t find a prescribed way to celebrate the 502nd anniversary of the Reformation. But that’s not important. What is important is what you think the Reformation and our commemoration of it is all about. What do you think the Reformation is about? How a lowly German monk spoke truth to power – like a certain civil rights leader who assumed his name? How it’s important to stand by your convictions, no matter the cost? Or perhaps today is the day Lutherans pat ourselves on the back and brag about how we have it all right and everyone else is wrong. If our commemoration of the Reformation were about any of those things, we would be better off not doing it. But the Lutheran Reformation was about much more than social justice or moral convictions or denominational distinctions – the Lutheran Reformation was all about saving souls by clearly identifying and maintaining the source of salvation.

What is the source of salvation? Your salvation. It doesn’t get more important than that, does it? When you close your eyes at night, when you are lying on your deathbed, how can you be certain you will be saved if you don’t wake up? Some point to their repentance. You’re a sinner and in order to get rid of those sins and be saved you must repent. There’s no arguing with that first part. Paul declares that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable. Like it or not, by virtue of birth in this world we are under God’s Law; and the verdict isn’t pretty: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I fall short of God’s glory every single day and so do you – and so repentance is a daily necessity. This was one of issues at the heart of the Reformation. In the first of his 95 Theses Luther wrote: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” [Matthew 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” [1] He wrote this because the Roman Catholic Church of his time was teaching people that they could skip repentance by purchasing an indulgence – a piece of paper that promised release from punishment. They taught this even though the Bible testifies that all the money in the world can’t pay for a single sin (Psalm 49:8; 1 Peter 1:18).  

So repentance is necessary. But is it the source of salvation? It’s rather naïve to think so, isn’t it? Think of the child, the driver, or the celebrity who gets caught doing something wrong. There will be a confession, an apology, maybe even some tears. And then it’s just human nature to do something to make up for it, to make it right. The child will promise to never do it again, the driver will swear to keep it under the speed limit, the celebrity will make a generous donation to a politically correct charity. Why? Why do all that? To escape punishment, to avoid the consequences of sin.

The question is: does it work? Can repentance save anyone from punishment? Can repentance save the child from a spanking, the driver from a ticket, the celebrity from losing their career? No. So can repentance save us from hell? No. Repentance cannot remove either the reality of our sin or its consequences. If you’ve ever thought that your repentance saves you, it’s probably consumed you, driven you to the brink of despair. All you can think about is how sorry you are and how you will do anything to make things right. Like Luther, you might even torture yourself, beating yourself up mentally or physically in a foolhardy attempt to pay for your sins yourself. But even a child can tell you that no matter how sincere, no matter how complete, no matter how sorry you are – repentance can’t save you from the consequences you deserve.

Well, if repentance can’t save us, then it must be faith, right? Isn’t that what Paul says? This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. There we have it. The righteousness we need to be found innocent on Judgment Day comes to us through faith. That’s sola fide – faith alone. We are saved by believing in Jesus.

Faith was another one of the issues at the heart of the Reformation. The formal response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of the reformers, known as the Council of Trent, declared “If anyone saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be [cursed].” [2] Even Catholics believed that Lutherans believed they are saved by believing.

Are we? We had better hope not. Why? Well, do you believe enough? Saying that you believe every word in the Bible implies that you’ve read every word – have you? You know that the Bible commands us to believe some things that are pretty hard to believe, don’t you? It says that the universe was created in six normal days by God’s command (Genesis 1), that Jesus was born of a virgin (Matthew 1:34), that he physically rose from the dead (Matthew 28), that Baptism saves (1 Peter 3:21), that his true body and blood are really present in, with, and under the bread and wine on this altar (Matthew 26:26-28), and that Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead (Matthew 25:31-32) – can you honestly say that you’ve never doubted those things? Would any of us dare claim to be better believers than the man who cried I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief! (Mark 9:24) Are you willing to bet your salvation on the fact that your faith is stronger than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who all tried in their own ways to circumvent God’s plan because they didn’t believe his Word and promises (Genesis 16; Genesis 27)?

You might be a little confused at this point, and I wouldn’t blame you. For 500 years, Lutherans have taught sola fide, that we are saved by faith alone apart from observing the law. It’s true, we are saved by faith alone (Romans 3:28), but that’s not the whole story. The phrase “saved by faith” is really shorthand for “saved by grace through faith.” Follow Paul’s words (especially the prepositions) in Ephesians 2: It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). Faith is the open hand through which we receive Jesus’ righteousness as our own. But faith IS NOT the cause or source of our salvation because 1) no matter how much you believe, your faith can’t remove sins and 2) our faith is never perfect. It is plagued by doubts, fears, and worries. If you’ve ever really examined your faith, you know this. You might try to pump it up by saying “I believe; I believe; I believe” but all it takes to pop that balloon is the devil’s whisper: “Do you? Really? Even the parts about Baptism really saving and Jesus’ body and blood being truly present?” Faith cannot be, and thank God, is not the source of our salvation.

We Lutherans do repent. We do believe. But neither is the source of our salvation. Then what is? Grace. Grace is at the heart of these verses. After Paul says those dreadful, damning words: there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God he continues and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. There you have the entirety of Scripture, all of the Law and Gospel boiled down into one sentence. We have sinned and rightly deserve damnation. But instead God freely justifies us by grace in Christ.

The grand theme of the whole Bible, the golden thread that ties it all together, from Genesis to Revelation, is salvation by grace alone: sola gratia. And unlike repentance and faith – which are activities of God inside of us; grace is outside of us. You can’t look inside yourself to find grace. If you do you will find what Jeremiah found: the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9) You will see what Jesus saw: out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander (Matthew 15:19). If you’re honest, you will confess along with Paul: I know that nothing good lives in me (Romans 7:18). Even when we are repenting and believing with everything we have, it will never be enough. Don’t believe me. Believe your own heart. Or better yet, believe Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul.

But God’s heart is different. Remember how Jeremiah described salvation in our Old Testament lesson? The new covenant is not about us doing anything, but rather God doing what we could not: I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (Jeremiah 31:34). Even though we cannot forget our sins, we cannot pay for them, we cannot erase them, God can. And he does, for Jesus’ sake – before and apart from any of our repenting or believing. That’s grace. That’s God’s undeserved, freely given, love and forgiveness.

Repentance and faith – no matter how sincere, can’t free you from the punishment your sins deserve. If your salvation was based on your repenting you would always have to wonder “Have I repented enough? Did I forget to confess any sins?” – which, incidentally, is the very thing that drove Luther into near despair and then deep into God’s Word. [3] The same goes for faith. If your salvation was based on your faith then you would always have to wonder “Do I believe enough? Do I really remember everything from catechism class?” Some days you might possess super-hero faith, but then your life falls to pieces or the devil whispers did God really say (Genesis 3:1) or your pastor says you should believe or do something that you don’t want to believe or do and you can’t help but wonder – “do I really believe?” But it all boils down to this. Imagine you’re lying on your death bed. You’re helpless, tubes and needles sticking out of you, doctors and nurses poking and prodding you, you can’t feed or clean yourself. At that point, do you really want to put your hope of salvation on something in you – the comprehensiveness of your repentance or the heartiness of your faith? How certain of your salvation would you be, if that were the case?

That’s what the Reformation was really all about. That’s why, neither Paul nor Luther pointed to repentance or faith as the source of salvation. Where do they point? Jesus. Jesus is God’s grace in historical, preaching, teaching, living, dying, rising, human flesh and blood. If you want to be certain about your salvation, look to Jesus. Why? Because Jesus kept the Law perfectly in your place. He never had to repent; never once had to apologize. He didn’t fall short of God’s glory. He earned his Father’s approval by his perfect, sinless life. And he gave his perfect life to you in Baptism. And he also took care of those sins you’ve spent a lifetime repenting of. He carried them, all of them, even the ones you forgot to confess to the cross and he paid for every last one of them with his precious blood. And he gives you proof of that forgiveness right here, by giving you his true body and blood. And, perhaps the part we might tend to overlook, Jesus also believed perfectly, for you. He never doubted his Father’s Word, not even when it meant suffering starvation and temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11) or into a garden to drink the cup of God’s wrath (Matthew 26:36-46) or to a cross where his own Father turned his back on him (Matthew 27:46) – Jesus believed perfectly, right to his last breath (Luke 23:46) – and his perfect faith is now yours. Because of Jesus you can be sure of your salvation even if your repentance is spotty or your faith is weak – because he took away your sin and gave you his righteousness. He – not Martin Luther, not the denomination named after him, not your repentance or your faith – he – God’s grace in the flesh – is the source of salvation.

That’s why Paul says that boasting is excluded. We cannot take credit for our salvation because our salvation is not in our hands. It’s in the heart of God and the bloody, outstretched hands of Jesus on a cross. And that’s a good thing. It means that your salvation is secure. And if you believe that, then you should celebrate today, because you are a Lutheran, an heir of the Reformation. Amen.  

[1] LW 31:23

[2] http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch6.htm

[3] Kittleson, James M. Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2003) 84