Noah, the Flood, Christ, and Baptism

This is from my quiet time journal. Quiet time is a period I try to spend with God about five days a week. To see how I approach it, read here.

If you haven't yet been baptized and would like for Christ to claim you in this way, I urge you to contact a local congregation close to you to set up a time to talk about the meaning of baptism and what faith in Jesus is all about. Here is a list of congregations in the denomination of which I'm a part; one may be close to me. (In sharing this list, I'm not insinuating that Lutherans are the only Christians around. It's just offered as a handy list for your convenience.)

Look: “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’” (Genesis 8:21-22) 

After the world-destroying flood, Noah and his family worshiped God. They offered a sacrifice which we can infer was no pro-forma performance, but an act of true worship and gratitude to God for His grace. 

In the Old Testament we see that God has no regard for “going through the motions” worship. 

For example, God says through the prophet in Amos 5:21-24: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” 

And in his great prayer of repentance, King David notes: “...you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17) 

In the New Testament, John recounts Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman by a well near the village of Sychar. Perceiving that Jesus is a prophet, the woman tells Jesus that His people (the Jews) saw Jerusalem as the proper place to offer worship to God, whereas her people thought it was properly offered in Samaria. But Jesus told her: “...the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him…” (John 4:23) 

What God wants when we worship Him, pray to Him, and interact with Him is authenticity: authentic repentance, authentic praise and honor. No going-through-the-motions. No trying to find the right feelings or the right words or the perfect gestures. No desire to get what we “need” (read, want) out of it, whether it’s goosebumps or material well-being. 

Noah’s worship pleased God. And it wasn’t because Noah was perfect or “religious,” whatever that means. Nothing had changed about Noah or Noah’s family or the human race of which they were a part. 

Before the flood began, Genesis 6: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) It was human evil that caused God to regret making human beings and to cause the flood (Genesis 6:6). After the flood, Genesis says, “... the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 6:21). Nothing had changed about the human race. 

But God hadn’t changed either. I see from the verses that so struck me today how much God loves us, in spite of our evil. He doesn’t want to see us destroyed. He loves us and wants to spare us the consequences of our sinfulness (“the wages of sin is death”: Romans 6:23). God wants to extend His grace to us. When we meet His grace with our trusting faith, as Noah and his family did, God saves. God acts on our behalf. 

Listen: God entered our world in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1-2, 14; Colossians 1:15-20) in order to immerse His sinless life fully in the chaos of our sin and death and, after dying, rising in order to open up the only pathway to a resurrected life with God.
Jesus referred to His submersion into death and His rising to life as His baptism: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50) 

And it is through baptism into Christ, the baptism of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19) that we are today spared the consequences of sin and death. The old self dies and the new self, the Christ self, rises. 

First Peter talks about how Jesus’ accomplishment is sacramentally imparted to us. Recalling Jesus’ death and resurrection, Peter writes: 

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because] they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22) 

After this amazing action of God, giving us a share in Christ’s victory over sin and death through our Baptism, our call is just this: to trust, to believe, just as Noah and his family did. 

 

As the apostles told their jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." (Acts 16:31) 

Authentic faith in God as revealed to all the world in Jesus. 

Authentic repentance in Jesus’ name. 

This is what God asks of us whose hearts and minds are still soaked in evil. His promise of new life with Him will hold, overcoming our sin and death; our part is to trust in Him and His promises. 

Respond: Today, Lord, help me to trust in You and not lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

What is 'Original Sin'? (Augsburg Confession, Part 2)

Last week, we began a series of sermons that will seek to answer the question, “What is a Lutheran Christian?”

You’ll remember that we said that this is an important question to answer not because of some desire to continue a human tradition. Lutherans have always believed that if our understanding of Biblical Christian faith can be shown to be wrong through the Bible or plain reason based on the Bible, we will admit our errors and bring an end to the Lutheran movement.

So, what does it mean to be a Lutheran?

To help us answer this question, we’re going to The Augsburg Confession, one of the basic confessional statements of Lutheranism. Written in 1530, it was the first place in which Lutheran Christians systematically explained their beliefs about Biblical Christianity to the greater world.

Today, we’re going to look at Article 2 of the confession, which deals with the subject of Original Sin.

You may be thinking, “Sin? Don’t we talk about sin all the time?” If you feel that way, you must not be alone. When I do the morning crossword puzzles in the newspaper, one of their gimme clues is, “Topic of sermon, three letters”: S-I-N.

But before your eyes glaze over, let me share three things that the doctrine of original sin is not.

First, the term original sin is not a reference to the first time human beings sinned. We inherit original sin from Adam and Eve, but their biting into the fruit that God told them not to touch is not what we’re talking about when we say, “original sin.”

Second, original sin does not refer to a specific sin like giving the importance of God to people or things rather than to God Himself, or craving blessings that other people have, or gossiping, or speaking falsely or uncharitably of others, or using God’s Name for other than prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, or committing murder. Original sin is the condition that makes these sinful acts attractive, enticing, sometimes irresistible. Those are all sins we commit because of original sin.

Third, the doctrine of original sin is not disposable. That's because we cannot understand the depths of God’s love, not just for the world or for the human race, but also for each of us as individuals, unless we understand original sin. This is probably why Philipp Melanchthon, the Wittenberg University colleague of Martin Luther’s who was charged with writing The Augsburg Confession,  made an explanation of original sin article #2, right after article #1, about God!

Do you remember last week when I pointed out that the term trinity doesn’t appear in the Bible, that it’s only a bag believers created to hold a single truth revealed about God in a bunch of different places in the Bible?

The same can be said of the term original sin. It never appears in the Bible. But the Bible reveals the existence of what we call original sin in many places.

So, what do we Lutherans mean when we talk about original sin?

Please pull out the editions of The Augsburg Confession from the pew racks and turn to page 12, where you’ll find Article II, Original Sin. The first paragraph says:

Our [Lutheran] churches teach that since the fall of Adam..., all who are naturally born are born with sin..., that is without the fear of God, without trust in God, and the inclination to sin, called concupiscence. Concupiscence is a disease and original vice that is truly sin. It damns and brings eternal death on those who are not born anew through Baptism and the Holy Spirit.

Original sin is an inborn condition we inherit from our parents. We are born without fear (or respect or awe) of God and without a capacity for trusting in God. And we are born with an inclination to sin, something that the confession describes as concupiscence.

Original sin is why seemingly nice, mature, thoughtful people (like you and me) commit acts of sin.

Original sin drives us to have our own ways, to be our own gods, to be answerable only to ourselves.

Original sin is our inability to trust God or to trust that God’s will is superior to what we might will for ourselves.

Now, I want to show you a couple of passages of Scripture.

Turn please to Genesis 6:5. This verse comes as God, disgusted with the sin of the human race, is about to destroy all of humanity except for eight people--Noah, his wife, their three sons, and the three sons’ wives--in a great flood. It says: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of [humanity] was great in the earth, and that every intent of his heart was only evil continually.”

Now, we might read that verse and think, “Wow! People had become pretty sinful before the flood. It’s a good thing God saved eight people who believed in Him, so He could start all over with them. A fresh start with good people!” But take a look at another verse, Genesis 8:21.

This passage comes after the flood. Noah has just made a sacrificial offering to God and we’re told: “And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground for [humanity’s] sake, although the imagination of [humanity’s] heart is evil from his youth...”

Despite the flood that had destroyed all but eight believing members of the human race, the eight survivors were still afflicted with original sin. Nothing had changed!

And according to the Bible and the Lutheran confessions, we human beings are helpless to overcome original sin. We can't resolve to fear God, trust in God, or resist temptation. As we say in our confession of sin, "We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves."

The genetic defect of original sin isn’t a little ill like a speeding ticket for which we can pay a fine and be in God’s good graces. That’s why the confession says that original sin is “truly sin,” something that blocks God’s forgiving grace from our lives, something that will prevent us from enjoying peace with God or ourselves, now and in eternity.

Apart from the intervention of God, original sin ensures that we will be forever sinful, forever incapable of being right with God, the world, or even ourselves, and forever enemies of God.

Original sin is what David was talking about in Psalm 51:5, when he said, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

It’s what the apostle Paul was wrestling with when, appalled by his orientation to sin instead of trust in God, wrote in Romans 7:15-18: “...what I will to do [the good thing I resolve to do], that I do not practice; but what I hate, I do...[verse 17]...it is no longer I who do it, but sin dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.”

Now, some people read or hear the honest professions of innate sinfulness coming from people like David and Paul and say, “Sheesh! That’s an awfully pessimistic view of human beings. It makes us seem like monsters. Surely, human beings do some good on their own steam, apart from God.”

It’s true that we human beings can be trained or may see it in our best interests to engage in what others of the Lutheran confessions call, “civic righteousness,” the righteousness that might help us get along with our neighbors or the people we come into into contact with every day.

But civic righteousness, the righteousness of going along to get along is unimpressive to God! And it doesn't get us any closer to reconciliation with the only One Who can set us free from sin and death.

Jesus, God in human flesh, you know, gave the great commandment to love God completely and to love other human beings with the same passion and consideration with which we love ourselves, But elsewhere, Jesus says that civic righteousness won’t do. He says that even unbelieving people who daily sin and ignore the will of God can perform the deeds that cause others to say, “What a nice guy! What a good woman!”

He says, “...if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors [well known extortionists who spent their time with prostitutes] do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even Gentiles [non-Jews who didn’t know God] do the same. Be perfect [meaning whole, complete, at peace with the world], therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

How many of you here this morning, even after confessing your sins, can say that you’re perfect, whole, complete, at peace with the world this morning? Me neither.

How many of you can say that after hearing the words of absolution today--”the entire forgiveness of all your sins”--that you have finally and completely jettisoned your desire to trust your own judgment or desires instead of the will of God? I haven't either.

As long as we live on this earth, our inheritance from Adam and Eve, original sin--our unwillingness to respect or trust God and our desire to ignore the ten commandments and do things our own ways--will nag us, dog us, tempt us.

We might well ask with the apostle Paul as he considered the reality of original sin in his own soul, “Wretched man [or woman] that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Now, I’ve painted a bleak picture this morning. But then original sin is a bleak reality. And it won’t do to sugar coat things. The stakes are too high. Let me try to illustrate what I mean.

You’re the passenger in a car driving through a rainstorm on a two lane road. The driver is about to switch into the opposite lane to pass the car ahead of you. You realize that he doesn’t see that ahead, about 1000 feet away, barreling down the hill, charging your way, in the opposite lane, the lane into which the driver is about to go, is a semi.

What would you do as the passenger in that car?

Would you tell yourself, “I won’t say anything. The driver is a good guy. He’ll figure things out”?

Would you think, “I’ve always lived a pretty good life. Even if I die, I’m sure I’ll be OK”?

Or would you, at the top of your lungs, yell at the driver, “Stop! Stay in this lane or that truck will kill us?”

Folks, original sin is a truck freighted with eternal separation from God for anyone who chooses to listen to their own ideas, rather than to those of God. It's barreling toward us from the moment we're conceived. The Bible tells us about original sin and I'm telling you about original sin again today because God doesn't want you to be ever separated from Him. God doesn't want any of us to die in our sin.

Though this has been a bleak topic, we are not without hope. Turn to Romans 5:8. It says: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners [still imprisoned by the sin into which we were born], Christ died for us.”

Jesus, the Son of God, is the lane, the way, we can follow to avoid the condemnation our sinfulness deserves.

And that’s what (and Who) we’ll talk about next Sunday. 

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]