Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

What Should Faithful Lutherans in the ELCA Do?

by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; gagnon@pts.edu

Sept. 30, 2009

I give my permission for this article to be circulated widely in print, email, and on the web.—RG

With a process that gives new meaning to the expression “stacked deck,” the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August 2009 voted to allow for the blessing of homosexual unions and the rostering of pastors in homosexual relationships. I salute the efforts of the renewal group Lutheran CORE, which courageously fought against the homosexualist agenda at the assembly (I had the great privilege of addressing them). Just this past weekend they had a meeting attended by 1200 persons that began the process of defining a new vision and structure for those who recognize the ELCA’s hard-left departure from normative Christian faith and practice.

How should faithful Lutherans—that is, Lutherans who affirm the male-female requirement for sexual unions so important to Jesus and the scriptural witness to him—deal with these new heretical and immoral actions? In particular, do the recent actions of the Churchwide Assembly justify beginning a trajectory that will lead eventually to disaffiliation with the denominational structure known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America? Let me suggest a syllogism that goes something like this:

A       MAJOR PREMISE

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains persons actively involved in adultery, incest, polyamory, or like acts, and blesses sexual unions constituted by such behavior.

B       MINOR PREMISE

Adult-committed homosexual practice is, according to Scripture, at least as bad as—and probably worse than—adult-consensual adultery and adult-committed incest and polyamory.

C       CONCLUSION

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains homosexually active persons and blesses homosexual unions.

Simply put, would you stay in perpetuity in a denomination that officially sanctioned adult-consensual incest, adultery, and polyamory (i.e. concurrent multiple-partner unions) and even set up as leaders of the church persons who engaged unrepentantly in such immorality? If the answer is “no,” consider this: Scripture treats homosexual practice of any sort as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, these offenses. And the ELCA hierarchy has now endorsed adult-committed homosexual practice.

Few will contest the major premise (A) that a denomination ceases to be a faithful representation of the body of Christ to the world once it endorses adultery or consensual, adult-committed incest or polyamory. Perhaps a few would argue for the continuing legitimacy of a church that both blessed such unions and rostered leaders unrepentantly involved in such unions. Yet such advocates would be a tiny minority that could be identified and isolated as extremists.

The main point of contention will be over the minor premise (B); namely, over whether adult-committed homosexual practice is at least as bad as (and probably worse than) consensual adultery and adult-committed incest or polyamory. Yet the point can be easily demonstrated by three considerations. As I note in an online piece entitled “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/HomosexHowBadIsIt.pdf):

1. Homosexual practice, committed or otherwise, is the violation that most clearly and radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). According to the story in Genesis 2, the differentiation into man and woman is the sole differentiation produced by the removal of a “rib” or (in my view a better rendering) “side” from the originally undifferentiated human. It is precisely because out of one flesh came two sexes (a story line that makes a transcendent point about the exclusivity of male-female complementarity) that the two sexes, and only the two sexes, can (re-)unite into one flesh (2:24). Since Jesus gave priority to these two texts from the creation stories in Genesis when he defined normative and prescriptive sexual ethics for his disciples, they have to be given special attention by us. Paul also clearly has the creation texts in the background of his indictments of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9.

1. Every text that treats the issue of homosexual practice in Scripture treats it as a high offense abhorrent to God. That this is so is evident from (a) the triad of stories about extreme depravity, Ham, Sodom, and Gibeah (which incidentally are no more limited in their implications to coercive acts of same-sex acts than is an indicting story about coercive sex with one’s parent limited in its implications only to coercive acts of adult incest), to (b) the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic legal and narrative materials that rail against the homoerotic associations of theqedeshim as an “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” (men who in a cultic context served as the passive receptive sexual partners for other men), to (c) the Levitical prohibitions (where the term “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” is specifically attached to man-male intercourse), to (d) texts in Ezekiel that refer to man-male intercourse by the metonym “abomination” or “abhorrent act,” to (e) Paul’s singling out of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 (compare 1 Cor 6:9) as a specially reprehensible instance, along with idolatry, of humans suppressing the truth accessible in the material creation set in motion by the Creator, labeling it sexual “uncleanness,” “dishonorable” or “degrading,” “contrary to nature,” and an “indecent” or “shameful” act. These views are also amply confirmed in texts from both early Judaism and early Christianity after the New Testament period, where only bestiality appears to rank as a greater sexual offense, at least among “consensual” acts. There is, to be sure, some disagreement in early Judaism over whether sex with one’s parent is worse, comparable, or less severe, though most texts suggest a slightly lesser degree of severity. Yet while Scripture makes some exceptions, particularly in ancient Israel, for some forms of incest (though never for man-mother, man-child, man-sibling) and for sexual unions involving more than two partners (though a monogamy standard was always imposed on women), it makes absolutely no exceptions for same-sex intercourse. Indeed, every single text in Scripture that discusses sex, whether narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes a male-female prerequisite. There are no exceptions anywhere in Scripture.

1. The male-female prerequisite is the foundation or prior analogue for defining other critical sexual norms. Jesus himself clearly predicated his view of marital monogamy and indissolubility on the foundation of Gen 1:27 and 2:24, texts that have only one thing in common: the fact that an acceptable sexual bond before God entails as its first prerequisite (after the assumption of an intra-human bond) a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). Jesus argued that the “twoness” of the sexes ordained by God at creation was the foundation for limiting the number of persons in a sexual bond to two, whether concurrently (as in polygamy) or serially (as in repetitive divorce and remarriage). The foundation can hardly be less significant than the regulation predicated on it; indeed, it must be the reverse. Moreover, the dissolution of an otherwise natural union is not more severe than the active entrance into an inherently unnatural union (active entrance into an incestuous bond would be a parallel case in point). The principle by which same-sex intercourse is rejected is also the principle by which incest, even of an adult and consensual sort, is rejected. Incest is wrong because, as Lev 18:6 states, it involves sexual intercourse with “the flesh of one’s own flesh.” In other words, it involves the attempted merger with someone who is already too much of a formal or structural same on a familial level. The degree of formal or structural sameness is felt even more keenly in the case of homosexual practice, only now on the level of sex or gender, because sex or gender is a more integral component of sexual relations, and more foundationally defines it, than is and does the degree of blood relatedness. So the prohibition of incest can be, and probably was, analogically derived from the more foundational prohibition of same-sex intercourse. Certainly, as noted above, there was more accommodation to some forms of incest in the Old Testament than ever there was to homosexual practice. Adultery becomes an applicable offense only when the sexual bond that the offender is cheating on is a valid sexual bond. It would be absurd to charge a man in an incestuous union or in a pedophilic union with adultery for having sexual relations with a person outside that pair-bond. One can’t cheat against a union that was immoral from the beginning.

For further study: Additional brief arguments are put forward in my online article, “What the Evidence Really Says about Scripture and Homosexual Practice: Five Issues” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexScripReallySays.doc.pdf), especially p. 7 under “5. Significance” and p. 1 under “1. Jesus.” For more on the analogy with incest and polyamory see my “Why Homosexual Behavior Is More like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender” (7 pgs.; http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexIncestPolyAnalogy.pdf).  For a more extensive analysis of Scripture texts, see my The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001; 500 pgs.); my 55-page contribution in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003); and, with some updating, my 120-page “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?” in Reformed Review 59 (2005): 19-130, esp. pp. 46-100 (online: http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf; table of contents athttp://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoReformedReviewTableCont.pdf).

The Exploitation-Promiscuity and Orientation Arguments

Claims have been made by ELCA “homosexualists” that Scripture’s indictment of homosexual practice is an indictment only of promiscuous or exploitative forms of homosexual practice and not an absolute indictment of homosexual practice per se. This argument is akin to asserting that Scripture’s indictment of incest or the New Testament’s implicit indictment of polygamy extends only to promiscuous or exploitative forms of these relationships and not to adult-committed forms. The exploitation-promiscuity claim shows ignorance of the historical record. Both the conception and reality of adult-committed homosexual relationships existed in the ancient world. Moreover, we have texts where Greco-Roman moralists and Church Fathers acknowledge the presence of love and commitment in homosexual unions and yet still reject the unions as unnatural and immoral. Finally, Paul gives numerous indications that his indictment of homosexual practice is absolute, including his echoing of creation texts, his nature argument, his indictment of lesbianism, his stress on the mutuality of affections, his derivation of the term “men-lying-with-males” (arsenokoitai) from the absolute prohibitions in Leviticus, and the historical context of early Judaism’s absolute opposition.

As even Louis Crompton, a homosexual historian and author of a massive and influential historical-cultural study of homosexuality, has written:

According to [one] interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or early Christian. (Homosexuality and Civilization [Harvard University Press, 2003], p. 114)

Note the similar comments by the lesbian New Testament scholar Bernadette Brooten, who has written the most important book on lesbianism in antiquity and its relation to Rom 1:26, who criticized both John Boswell and Robin Scroggs for their use of an exploitation argument:

Boswell . . . argued that . . . “The early Christian church does not appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se.” The sources on female homoeroticism that I present in this book run absolutely counter to [this conclusion]…. The ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women and girls, undermine Robin Scroggs’s theory that Paul opposed homosexuality as pederasty. (Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996], 11, 361)

In addition, the claim that the ancients knew nothing akin to our concept of homosexual “orientation” and had no conception of congenital influences on homosexual development is also false. Such theories did exist in the Greco-Roman world. Some are close to modern theories, others more distant, but all presuppose the critical point that at least some homosexual behavior is traceable to influences beyond a person’s control. Also erroneous is the claim that knowledge of homosexual orientation would have made a significant difference to Paul’s indictment of homosexual practice. Let’s remember that Paul defined sin in Romans 7 as an innate impulse passed on by an ancestor, running through the members of the human body, and never entirely within human control.

As classicist Thomas K. Hubbard notes in his magisterial sourcebook of texts relating to homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world:

Homosexuality in this era [viz., of the early imperial age of Rome] may have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity, exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation. (Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook, 386)

Classicist and church historian William Schoedel in a significant article on “Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman Tradition” (an article that, incidentally, favors ecclesiastical acceptance of homosexual unions) states that “some support” exists in Philo for thinking that Paul might be speaking in Rom 1:26-27 “only of same-sex acts performed by those who are by nature heterosexual.” But he then dismisses the suggestion:

But such a phenomenon does not excuse some other form of same-sex eros in the mind of a person like Philo. Moreover, we would expect Paul to make that form of the argument more explicit if he intended it. . . . Paul’s wholesale attack on Greco-Roman culture makes better sense if, like Josephus and Philo, he lumps all forms of same-sex eros together as a mark of Gentile decadence. (Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture, pp. 67-68)

Schoedel also acknowledges that a “conception of a psychological disorder socially engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be presupposed” for Philo (p. 56).

Similarly, Martti Nissinen, who has written the best book on the Bible and homosexuality from a homosexualist perspective and whose work I heavily critique in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, acknowledges in one of his more candid moments:

Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is, female and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotic relationships, but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to believe that he did), it is difficult to think that, because of their apparent ‘orientation,’ he would not have included them in Romans 1:24-27. . . . For him, there is no individual inversion or inclination that would make this conduct less culpable. . . . Presumably nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotic behavior. (Homoeroticism in the Biblical World [Fortress, 1998], 109-12)

The ecclesiast who claims that the authors of Scripture would not have opposed a committed homosexual union entered into by homosexually-oriented persons simply doesn’t know the historical evidence well; or, if knowing it, has deliberately sought to hide the historical evidence to others in the church. Our so-called “new knowledge” about homosexuality is not so new after all.

For further study: For a brief presentation of evidence against the use of exploitation and orientation arguments see again my “What the EvidenceReally Says,” especially “3. Rom 1:24-27 and the Erroneous ‘Exploitation Argument’” on pp. 3-4; my “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?,” especially pp. 6-8; and my “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?,” especially pp. 62-83. For a look at the Greco-Roman evidence for committed homosexual relationships and the conception thereof see my “A Book Not to Be Embraced: A Critical Review Essay on Stacy Johnson’s A Time to Embrace” [Part 1: the Scottish Journal of Theology article] (Mar. 2008; 16 pgs.; online: http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf), especially pp. 5-8; and for a more detailed look at orientation theory in antiquity see my article “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?” in Christian Sexuality: Normative and Pastoral Principles (ed. R. E. Saltzman; Minneapolis: Kirk House, 2003), 106-55, especially pp. 141-46.

Since it is the case that Scripture treats homosexual practice per se as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, adult-committed forms of incest and polyamory and adult-consensual forms of adultery, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly by its recent decisions has forced the faithful, against their will, to give sober and painful reconsideration of long-term affiliation with the ELCA.

Scripture does not offer any refuge for those who claim that their “bound conscience” requires them to support committed homosexual unions. The argument about unity in Rom 14:1-15:13 applies only to what the Stoics calledadiaphora, matters of indifference such as diet and calendar, not matters of significance involving sexual immorality (contrast Paul’s remarks in 13:12-14; 6:19-22 with 1:24; 8:12-14; 11:21-22; 1 Cor 6:9-20; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19-21; 1 Thess 4:2-8; Eph 4:17-19; 5:3-6; 1 Tim 1:9-11). When Paul encountered some at Corinth who prided themselves in their ability to “tolerate” a case of adult-consensual incest (1 Cor 5), he didn’t say, “respect the bound consciences” of those who think adult-consensual incest is acceptable. He didn’t put church unity over church purity; rather he defined church unity christologically rather than sociologically. Unity around immorality wasn’t worth a warm bucket of spit. Only the unity centered around the will of Christ is worth anything. So Paul insisted “in the name of the Lord Jesus” that they put the offender outside the community for the sake of the offender (who needed a wake-up call lest he be excluded from God’s kingdom), for the sake of the church (lest members get the mistaken notion that sexually impure behavior does not incur God’s judgment), and for the sake of God (who redeemed the community with the precious blood of the Jesus, the new Passover lamb, and who can still “take us out”).

The ELCA has gone beyond the Corinthian community. It has allowed for sexual immorality that Paul (and Jesus) would have regarded as even more extreme than the specific case of incest at Corinth. Furthermore, it has not only tolerated such immorality but also allowed for its blessing and the rostering as active leaders of the church the very persons engaging in the immorality. Moreover, unlike Corinth, this outcome is not just a recent development but part of an orchestrated effort for promoting homosexual behavior over the past decade. The faithful in the ELCA have been more than patient.

At some point—perhaps not immediately but surely down the line—those who remain in the ELCA run the risk of becoming enabling accomplices to a regime that has betrayed the illustrious heritage of the Lutheran communion, to say nothing of the worldwide church, Scripture, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. No doubt there is pain ahead, but also the joy that comes from dying to self and living for God. May God grant them wisdom and courage in their future decisions, which only they can make.

© 2009 Robert A. J. Gagnon Used by permission.

Do you have a question about the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America? Join the club!

It’s not an official club, but it does have it’s own web page – a “Frequently Asked Questions” page!

As more questions come, more answers will be forthcoming.

As always, your prayers are solicited! Thank you for remembering us in prayer.

The ancient kingdom of Armenia was the first country to become Christian, and it recognizes Gregory as its apostle. Armenia was a buffer state between the powerful empires of Rome and Parthia, and both of them sought to control it.

Gregory was born about 257. When he was still an infant, his father assassinated the King of Parthia, and friends of the family carried Gregory away for protection to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was reared as a Christian. About 280 he returned to Armenia, where he was at first treated severely, but eventually by his preaching and example brought both King Tiridates and a majority of his people to the Christian faith.

About 300, Gregory was consecrated the first bishop of Armenia. He died about 332. Armenian Christians to this day remember him with honor and gratitude.

COLLECT
Almighty God, it is your great joy and desire to be glorified in the lives of your saints. You raised up your servant Gregory to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia. Shine, we pray, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth your praise, who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

John Wesley preaching at his father's grave

For a deacon in formation for the presbyterate…

Preaching is a divine enterprise and impossible apart from the Holy Spirit. Pray as Luke 11:13 encourages for the Father’s most amazing gift – the help, anointing and empowering of the Holy Spirit so that you and those who hear will increasingly grow in the grace of Christ through the Word. I have always sensed a great burden to be faithful to what I believed the text to be saying to me and those listening. I do not try to amaze myself or the listeners with too many big words, obscure quotes, or pretend to be some original language expert who says “The Greek means…” to the point that people do not trust their English language bibles to communicate the Word of God. I am a “big picture” guy who sees everything – and particular texts no less – through the sweep of Holy Scripture and therefore I aim not to declare them as individual “loose ends” but as parts of God’s great revelation and the unfolding of His plan. I preach the integrity and interrelatedness of Holy Scripture and defy those who consider themselves wise in the wisdom of this age to refute it. A resource like Alvin Schmidt’s “How Christianity Changed The World” will aid you in this task of explaining the wonders of what Jesus our Lord has done through His Body the Church concretely and objectively in history, not simply in the fond imaginations of the pious.

I remind myself and the people from time to time why the color of my stole matches the color of the paraments. As the minister of the Word I am not my own but am part of the furniture in God’s house. I as a preacher exist as a living stone in God’s Temple to declare the Word of God as Christ’s servant and not in my own service. That is why I am a man in clerical uniform – I am like any mechanic, fireman, or other person whose vocation is primarily a service instead of a “profession” per se. My service is not primarily to people but to God as the bearer of His Word for the people He providentially sends.

This is why I also preach from a lectionary. I know its inadequacies. I know that from time to time it is required that we change the text to address an urgent situation in the congregation or society. I know that other opportunities should be provided for indepth study of the text. But the most urgent need before us – the need that never departs from day to day, from age to age, in tumult and in alleged peace – is for we and those who hear us to be continually immersed into Jesus Christ. The Epistles exist to explain what this means to be sure and they must not be neglected. But study the epistles however we will, we cannot know the meaning they intend without continually reflecting on our Lord as He is revealed in the Gospels as the fulfillment of all God the Father’s promises to revealed from Adam onward. Those who would occupy the Lord’s Day mornings with extended expositions of the Torah or who preach for years through an Epistle in the name of expository preaching often claim Calvin as their guide in this. But even he, though he eschewed the lectionary, confined himself to preaching the Gospels and Acts on the Lord’s Day. How do lesser men dare to rob the Lord’s people of the Life of Christ and assume they know it as it should be known? God forgive us the horrible mischief that has been done by our reducing the Gospel to abstractions ripped from the narrative of our Lord’s life and presented as cold dogma!

Systematic theology has it’s place in preaching. Last week’s homily (in printed form at least) alluded to both Luther’s catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism. That is because they summarized a point I considered necessary to be addressed in the exposition of the text in question. Never forget that our confessions and our systematic theology must emerge from our reflection and submission to the written Word of God. Our “systems” and confessions aim to crystallize the thrilling revelation of the Saving Christ who unites us to Himself and ushers in a New Creation through His Cross, Resurrection and Ascension. We systematize in order to communicate but our systematics must never become an ax by which we chop the scriptures in pieces to conform either to our pride or our prejudice. When we do so, we have become hirelings who have attempted to master God and bend His ways to our convenience. God deliver us from that and forgive our ignorance and discipline our pride.

As you know, our lectionary covers the life of our Lord annually via the respective “Synoptic” Gospels with flourishes courtesy of St. John. Our other readings attempt to form a thematic unit to inform and expand upon the Gospel portion by way of cross reference, parallel, and biblical – theological continuity. These can be useful keys or preaching tools at times when you wonder “what should I say”? Other biblical-theological connections can be found readily in modern resources unavailable just a few years ago. For instance, Carson & Beale’s Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament will allow you to discern the proper connections between the testaments. You will learn that the Septuagint (LXX) is a fine bridge between the Hebrew and the NT Greek and that our New Testament is a Greek fundamentally shaped and informed by the Hebrew Scriptures mediated through the LXX.

Note these things now. I trust they will come alive for you as you engage in the act of studying and preaching. It’s hard when you don’t have a large congregation. But as my wife told me – preach as if you were preaching to a full cathedral. She’s absolutely right! Your audience of one deserves your full attention, because for them in that hour, you are God’s appointed messenger! The same goes for those who hear you online and those who may read your homilies on line.

Scripture Readings for this Lord’s Day:

Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18
Psalm 71
Hebrews 11:24-28
John 6:60-69

Our readings from God’s Word today have been about how we answer the question – where will we go to find LIFE?

As Joshua talked to the people who entered the Promised Land, he called them not to serve the false gods their fathers served in Egypt. Find life in the One who has delivered you, Joshua said.

Moses, the Book of Hebrews reminds us, “chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than enjoy the temporary blessings of sin”. By faith he turned his back on comfort and security and took God at His Word and was delivered from the judgement brought by the Angel of Death.

Jesus’ disciples this day in the Synagogue had plenty of examples throughout Scripture of taking God at His Word…trusting God to do the impossible and bearing the shame of following the Lord when the supposedly “smart bet” was on the power of the forces of this world.

Jesus has been looking them in the eye and telling them that unless they were fed by Jesus Himself becoming united with them in that mystery St. Paul calls “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col 1: 27), then there was no hope for them.

Now, even Jesus’ own disciples are grumbling just like the unbelieving Jewish leaders were!

It’s important to remember what has gone on earlier in Chapter 6 – Jesus has fed the 5000 in the Wilderness with a miraculous display of God’s Power… then Jesus has walked on the water.

They loved Jesus for doing these things!

In other words, they loved the things Jesus could do for them. They loved it when Jesus put on a good show. They loved having a Messiah at their disposal! They loved it when Jesus would pour out God’s blessing on them but when it came to being united with the one who is Truly God and Truly Man – they rebelled at that and were repelled by that.

And Jesus doesn’t water His words down to keep them around. He wants them to know that eternal life only comes to those who eat Jesus’ flesh and drink Jesus’ blood. “Eating His flesh” and “Drinking His blood” which we do sacramentally in the Lord’s Supper means to become one with Jesus and it refers to what happens when Jesus in His Ascension pours out the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ glorified Body becomes the source and wellspring of eternal life for everyone who is united to Jesus. Through the indwelling life of the glorified Christ applied to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we become people who are alive in Christ instead of remaining those who will die in Adam.

We have a perspective these disciples didn’t have. We have the entire New Testament and what I consider Paul the Apostle’s reflection on this topic in Colossians 1 to help us understand… but Jesus didn’t let them off the hook. He let them know He wasn’t talking about “cannibalism” or something earthly and carnal. He was talking about a new world coming where, to enter it, these disciples would have to be transformed by Jesus. But evidently even His disciples weren’t ready to hear about that.

They wanted blessings, but they didn’t want anything that would require them to become something they weren’t already. It goes back to thinking they were already fitted for heaven. Jesus says no, you’re not! You can only be fitted for eternal life if you are drawn by the Father and united with Jesus Christ’s lifegiving existence in ways they couldn’t – and didn’t care to – comprehend.

Jesus notes their unbelief – He essentially says “If that offends you, what’s going to happen when you see me ascend back to heaven?”

Jesus as the Son of Man is the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 7:1-13. Jesus is the Son of Man whose kingdom will overcome every other kingdom of the world and before whom the nations will bow! But Jesus tells us that His invincible kingdom will not come without Him, the Son of Man, first being lifted up on the Cross through His suffering and agonies on the cross. There will be an ascension – and incomprehensibly to the Jews – a shameful death along the way. (see John 3:14)

If there’s one thing they didn’t want more than to have to be transformed to be fitted for eternal life, they didn’t want to risk their eternal destiny on a Messiah who says He is going to ultimately conquer – but after a Cross. Nor do they want to be reminded that to benefit from our Lord’s Ascension, they must consider themselves sick and dying like those sinful Israelites in the Wilderness! After all, for Jesus to be lifted up like the Serpent in the Wilderness, those looking to Him must consider themselves as weakened, sick, vulnerable, and sinful as those dying Israelites who were healed there! And so they reject Him just like His enemies.

Jesus explains that this unbelief has resulted because these people have not been given the gift of believing in Jesus from the Father (v. 64). When Jesus told the people that they must not have been chosen by the Father to follow Jesus because of their unbelief, that was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”! Jesus’ words strike at their own concept of themselves as the elect People of God by virtue of their lineage. St. Paul discusses this topic at length in Romans 9-11. Here Jesus simply states that trusting in Him is the Gift of God, of grace and not of works (cf. John 6:29)

Our Lord then asks the Twelve whether they will leave too…

St. Peter asks “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life! You are the Holy One of God!”

By calling Jesus the “Holy One”, Peter echoes today’s Psalter selection – Psalm 71 – and ascribes to Jesus the faithfulness and blessing Israel ascribed to Yahweh, the Lord:

Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. Psalm 71:19-22

Just who ARE we saying Jesus is when we call Him “Lord”? If Jesus is truly “Lord” in the fullness of the language of scripture, He is truly the one in whom the fullness of Yahweh dwells bodily (see Col. 2:9). Only in that way can He be the “Holy One of God” who is the “Holy One of Israel”. As such, He is the One who exists for His own purposes and not for ours. In His grace, His own purposes effect our salvation and blessing, but those mercies flow from His purpose to bless. They are not ours to command as we will.

Many who call themselves disciples, pastors, ministers today are like those who abandoned our Lord. They love the idea of Jesus for what they can receive. There are ministers who are “in it” for the money no matter what part of their soul must be for sale. There are many disciples who will follow Jesus because they hope He is a Messiah who’ll fill their belly, fatten their wallet, and build their (our!) little empires.

But tell them that everything must change about us, that even our ability to believe is the gift of God, that before the eternal glory is revealed, the agony, humiliation, and pain of a cross must be carried. Tell someone they must be born again and repent more profoundly than they have ever known before… and they will find another pastor who will massage their ears to avoid hard words.

Suddenly we reveal that, to us, Jesus Christ is not the Holy one of God. For us, if we will not repent, we show that we considered Jesus to be a Messiah at our disposal and the heavenly gifts at our command. We deny by our lack of repentance that our Lord has come for His own purposes and we are called to humble ourselves before Him!

Blessed are those who can hear these hard words of Jesus and not turn away!

Blessed are those who realize – there’s no place else to go to find eternal life!

Blessed are those who are willing to have their sins and shortcomings removed and to be filled with all the fullness of God!

Bishop Huckaby’s sermon on this topic is available here: To Whom Shall We Go?

Also available:

M. F. Sadler The Gospel According To Saint John

From ancient times, daily prayer has been a central element of Christian life. In the modern world, time for prayer is often difficult to come by, sour we are happy to present you with three brief orders of prayer for use in your own personal devotions.

Drawn from the 2010 Book of Common Prayer, these forms are simple, take less than ten minutes to offer, and only require you have a Bible handy (or an internet connection with a link to a website such as BibleGateway.com). Hovering over the WORSHIP tab on the site header above will allow you to choose the hour of prayer most appropriate to your local time.

Also avaliable from the Synod’s Prayer Book is The Confessional Service, which is suitable for adaptation at home in preparation for participating in the Lord’s Supper, or for any time of reflection on God’s commandments and mercy.

We hope these resources will be beneficial to you in your spiritual walk.

Yesterday evening, my wife and I were doing our evening devotions from the simplified office of our Synod’s provisional Book of Common Prayer. We read ahead to today’s commemoration of the Anglican Sister Constance and her Companions who lived, served, and died in Christ within a few hours of our home. In a world filled with secular heroes, and anti heroes, it is good from time to time to reflect on the lives of the saints to deepen our own understanding of faithfulness to Christ in the midst of a world devoted to “self”. May the Lord bless this commemoration to your spirit.

In Christ,

+Chuck Huckaby
Bishop
Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

In 1878 Memphis, Tennessee was struck by an epidemic of yellow fever, which so depopulated the area that the city lost its charter and was not reorganized for fourteen years. Almost everyone who could afford to do so left the city and fled to higher ground away from the river. There were in the city several communities of nuns, Anglican and Roman Catholic, who had the opportunity of leaving, but chose to stay and nurse the sick. Most of them, thirty-eight in all, were themselves killed by the fever. One of the first to die (on September 9, 1878) was Constance, head of the (Anglican) Community of St. Mary.

COLLECT
God of compassion, we give you thanks and praise for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death: Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.