READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Jeremiah 23:16-29
Romans 8:12-17
- St. Matthew 7:15-23
Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying:
“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits”
This is the Lord’s Holy Scripture and He includes it for you to hear of fruits, or works, one more time. Not only are you required to do good works, but prophets have their own set of works, as St. Jeremiah teaches today in our Old Testament reading. Different from your commanded works, a prophet is to proclaim the Christ, the Messiah. And the only Good Tree is the cross of Jesus. If a prophet does not preach and teach the Blood of Christ, then he is false.
The Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God for anything. And yet, there are still those who teach that works merit salvation and sanctification. Those teachings are presented to us to fool us into thinking a diseased tree can bear good fruit. Their falseness is found in that they will turn to a dictionary, rather than Scripture, to make this point.
And the dictionary reads like this:
a) Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths.
And, b) For the performance of a morally good action, Sanctifying Grace is not required.
Although the sinner, they explain, does not possess the grace of justification, he can still perform morally good actions and, with the help of actual grace, even supernaturally good works, and through them prepare himself for justification. Thus all works of the person in mortal sin are not sins
The works of sinners are not sins? That’s convenient. The dictionary goes on:
c) The Grace of Faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, they say, even infidels can do morally good works. Thus not all works of infidels are sins. And,
d) Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, for fallen man can perform good works without the help of Divine grace, by his natural powers alone. Therefore not all works which are achieved without actual grace are sins
Hopefully you can already hear the rise of the false doctrine of theosis. That, if there are works you can do which are not sin, then continuing to do them will cause you not to sin, and therefore not be a sinner any longer. The problem we all have is our sin. If we get rid of them, then we have no problem.
Grace seems to be their focus here, but its used in a strange way. That grace is sufficient for you in weakness, the false prophets will quote from 2 Corinthians 12:9, but “grace” used their way appears to be just a wink and a nod. As if God looks at your works and says, “Well, at least you tried” and that is good enough for eternal life. “Do your best and God will do the rest”, they preach.
Faith is not even mentioned; much more is the glaring omission of Jesus in all of that. We can work ourselves into godliness with “grace” without Christ. He may be our mediator at first, but then passes the baton to us, to greater heights of holiness. Thus, we peek into their million dollar dictionary of theological terms and find these two gems: condignity and congruity.
Both describe this imagined acquisition of God’s Grace. Condignity, or de condigno, declares that God will dignify human works with the grace of forgiveness and righteousness, no matter who does them. Congruity, or de congruo, promotes a grasping at any good work in the hope that God will offer His grace in return.
How can either of those offer hope to the despairing soul? They cannot, because they are primarily meant to elude Scripture. If we can define away “sin”, “death”, and the “power of the devil”, then we can redefine and be “sinless”, “deathless”, and in control ourselves. He who defines the terms, wins the debate; apparently even against God Himself.
Repent. The intention of the one who works does not distinguish the kinds of merit he earns because of the work. In their security, hypocrites simply believe their works are worthy, and that for this reason they are accounted righteous, in their own minds. If you speak over yourself, “I am a good tree” enough times, even you begin to believe it.
However, there are also always conditions to being good enough. According to the false prophets, your “good enough” works must be morally good and in accordance with the moral law in object, intent, and circumstances. It must be done freely, without coercion, within or without. It must be supernatural, aroused and accompanied by actual grace and proceeding from supernatural motive.
That’s a lot of big words there, miss… But how can works be accompanied by grace if we are seeking grace through them? How can we do supernatural work, when we are only flesh and bone??
This is St. Paul from our Epistle reading today. We are not debtors to the flesh, that is we have nothing that we owe to God in our flesh, to perfect our flesh for faith, before He gives us faith. Living according to the flesh, including good works, is to be a debtor to the flesh, having no Spirit. To live by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit. Not by your whims and fancy, but by His Will as the Third Person of the Trinity, only revealed in the Word.
The Spirit leads us to the Tree and Holy Scripture tells us plainly the Good Tree from the Bad tree: Jesus. The same Jesus Who promises to make us fellow heirs with Him, provided that we suffer with Him. Suffer what? Suffer the belief that Sinners sin. That we sin because we are sinners and any work done by a sinner is sinful.
At the foot of the cross, our Father declares to us His Will and His Judgement. That His lovingkindness, from our Introit, be found in the suffering of Jesus Christ, His Only Son. And that that same suffering was inflicted in the Temple, His holy Temple, the alleged center of holiness and righteousness for the entire world.
The Will of God accomplished there which is to be praised and rejoiced in, is that Christ became sin Who knew no sin, for you. He took on the spirit of the false prophet and ravenous wolf, demanding works too good for sinful man. The thorns and thistles He wore as a crown and was cut down in His prime, tossed and left for the fires of hell to care for Him.
But we know what happens next and this informs us as to what actual good fruit is. Good Fruit is Resurrection Fruit. Not only does the Spirit give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which any man can practice, but He will raise us from the dead to life everlasting with Jesus.
That fruit is only found in, with, and under the Body and Blood of Jesus. To please God, faith alone is necessary. To receive Christ’s own resurrection, baptism into His death and resurrection is necessary. To have the fruit of the Spirit: forgiveness, faith in Christ, and eternal life, eating and drinking the Body and Blood is necessary.
Necessary because that is where the Promise to be, is. The Promise is not, “in your works you will find salvation”. The Promise is “salvation belongs to the Lord” and “He will have mercy on whomever He will” (Ps 3:8; Ex 33:19). If He wants you to find salvation in work, He would have promised it and made a list for us.
But, salvation is His. It is His to hand out where and when He chooses. If He chooses.
In Jesus we know that’s what He chooses to do. There is no redefining of work or grace or salvation that will make a good tree a bad tree, or a bad tree a good tree. The standard is God’s alone, not man’s to weasel around with, redact, and find a another way in.
And the standard is the Cross of Christ. If a false prophet wants to be heard and believed, let him die and rise again, proving his words. A true prophet is heard, because he proclaims Christ Crucified, Who has died and risen for His own Word and His own glory. That He hands out His grace by His grace and that the sinner is justified for Christ’s sake, by grace, through faith alone.
Can sin be done in faith? No. In order to sin again, after we have been forgiven and saved, we must be lost. “It is false”, our Confessions state, “and must be censured, when it is asserted and taught…that [we] might or could act contrary [to the Law of God], and [yet]…retain faith and God’s favor and grace” (SD iv:20)
If you want your works to reach God, they must be baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you must be fearful that any one of your good works could be a condemning sin. “So you also”, declares Jesus in Luke 17:10, “when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
“If you live by the flesh, you will die by the flesh”, says Romans 8:13.
Our Confessions stand here:
“Here mercy has a clear and certain promise and command from God. The Gospel is properly the command that directs us to believe that God is reconciled to us for Christ's sake. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3:17). Whenever mercy is spoken of, faith in the promise must be added. This faith produces sure hope, because it relies upon God's Word and command. If hope would rely upon works, then it would be uncertain, because works cannot quiet the conscience, as has been said before. Faith makes a distinction between those who obtain salvation and those who do not obtain it. Faith makes the distinction between the worthy and the unworthy, because eternal life has been promised to the justified. Faith justifies. (Ap V (III):224)
So what is it that makes a tree good and healthy? Faith. What makes good fruit from the Good Tree? Faith. What causes you to be known by the Lord on the Last Day? You got it.
Not the faith you have worked up on your own, made your own, and which is impervious to anyone’s opinion or scrutiny, even from the Word of God.
But the faith given. That faith that has the Crucified as its object and looks to the cross to reveal, explain, and teach all things. For, the Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God. We are not here to make our flesh sinless, but to be baptized into the death and resurrection of our flesh.
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