Pentecost
May 23, 2010
“Preaching Peace to the Church”
Ephesians 2:17-22
And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Have you ever been on the outside looking in? Maybe you have visited with a family that knew one another but did not know you. Or maybe you’ve travelled to a foreign country where they spoke a language you couldn’t understand. It feels a little strange. You don’t belong. They know it and you know it. But it’s not a problem, really, since you do belong somewhere else where they don’t belong. One family is as good as another. One country is as good as another. It all depends on where you call home.
But what if you are outside of the family of God? What if there is a nation to which you must belong if you are to know God and you are a foreigner? You don’t know who God is. You don’t know him. You don’t know what he has to say. You are a stranger to him. You don’t live with him or honor him. He doesn’t know you, at least not as his child. Instead, he is angry with you because of who and what you are.
But is God angry with anyone? Is it even possible to be outside of God’s family? The prevailing religious opinion on this subject in America is that all religions have equal validity and all can serve as the means of finding true fellowship with God. But that’s not true. Only Jesus can bring us to God because only Jesus is God in the flesh and only Jesus has established peace between God and us by his obedient life and his innocent suffering and death.
The reason folks deny that Jesus is the only way to God is because they deny their own sin. If we have no sin there is no need for a sin-bearer. Why suffer for what doesn’t exist? Why pay a price that need not be paid? Only those who know their sins against God can appreciate the gospel that tells them their sins are forgiven for the sake of the suffering and death of Jesus. If you hunger and thirst for righteousness you know that you cannot satisfy that hunger or quench that thirst. You hunger and thirst for what you do not have within yourself. This is why you hunger and thirst for it. Inside of you is selfishness, greed, lust, malice, envy, and every other form of sin that bursts forth into sinful words and sinful deeds. You know it. And you know that this is what keeps you away from God.
Then Jesus comes preaching. As St. Paul writes in our text, “And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.” Those who were far off were the Gentiles who did not know the Bible. They did not know God’s law. They did not know his promises. They did not know God. Those who were near were the Jews who had the Bible and the promises but were blinded by a false religion of worksrighteousness. Those who were afar off and those who were near were all alienated from God.
Jesus came and preached peace. He established peace by shedding his blood for us on the cross. He bore the world’s sin, God’s anger against it, and his punishment of it. After making peace, he preached it. He sent out preachers to preach peace. This peace has been preached throughout the whole world.
While God has since the beginning of time spoken to his people through the mouths of men, it was on that first Christian Pentecost that this preaching assumed new power. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven he said to his apostles,
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1, 8)
The Holy Spirit came upon them on Pentecost. There was the sound of a mighty wind. Tongues of fire settled on their heads. They spoke God’s word in languages they had never learned as a sign from God that the gospel of peace was intended for all people everywhere.
The gospel sets us at peace with God. This is what sets us at peace with one another. As St. Paul writes, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ. There is no distinction. Trusting in the same blood shed for us, sharing the same Holy Spirit, we come to God the Father as one body. Elsewhere, St. Paul speaks of this spiritual unity all Christians have in Holy Baptism. He says:
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3, 26-29)
Our unity with one another is not our achievement. We didn’t do it. God did. We were on the outside looking in. We were foreigners, strangers, people who didn’t belong. Now listen to what we are! St. Paul writes:
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.
Those who belong to God’s family are those who are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. This is a reference to the Word of God. We speak of God’s Word as the prophetic Scriptures and as the apostolic Scriptures. The prophets wrote the Old Testament. The apostles wrote the New Testament. The prophets and apostles did not write what they chose to write. They wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit so that what they wrote was God’s Word. We call this inspiration. God inspired or breathed the text of the Bible. The Bible is therefore God’s Word.
Since the Bible is God’s Word to the Church, the Church is established on God’s Word. As the apostle says, the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” This means that the Bible judges the Church. The Church may not judge the Bible. When God’s word speaks the Church listens in humble faith. This is what makes her the Church. She does not question God’s Word.
When someone claims to be speaking for the Church and questions something the Bible plainly says you can be sure of one thing: that person is not speaking for the Church. Just because an organization that calls itself the Church says something does not mean that the Church is saying it. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. She has no business preaching any other teaching.
If a churchman says that Adam and Eve were religious myth and not historical individuals, he isn’t speaking for the Church. If a pastor or priest says that our good deeds help get us to heaven he isn’t speaking for the Church. If a preacher says that Holy Baptism does not give us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation he isn’t speaking for the Church. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and has no authority to preach or teach anything contrary to the Holy Scriptures.
But how do we interpret the Holy Scriptures? Listen once more to St. Paul. He says that the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.” The cornerstone sets the foundation of the building correctly. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the Word of God. He is the key to understanding what the Bible says. The central truth of God’s Word is Jesus Christ the Savior of sinners. This is how we confess this truth in the words of the Augsburg Confession:
Our churches also teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven on account of Christ, who by his death made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in his sight. (AC IV)
When this precious truth is at the heart of the preaching, and remains the focus of all the teaching, and assumes its rightful place as the center of the Church’s faith and confession, then the Church is in good shape. For then she is trusting in Christ and not in herself. As St. Paul says:
The whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
We are all part of the same building. It is God’s temple. The temple is where God meets his people. The Church is God’s temple. It is as the hymnist says:
We are God’s house of living stones,
Builded for His habitation;
He through baptismal grace us owns,
Heirs of His wondrous salvation;
Were we but two His Name to tell,
Yet He would deign with us to dwell,
With all His grace and His favor.
The Holy Spirit makes the Church the Church. He joins the saints together as one body. Each saint is an individual believer. We become saints through faith in Jesus our Redeemer whose righteousness is reckoned to us. All of the saints and only the saints belong to the Church. They are the dwelling place of God. The Church is the Church because she is comprised of holy people who are justified through faith alone. The holy Christian Church is the Communion of Saints. She shares the same Holy Spirit, has access to the same Father, is covered by the same righteousness, and confesses the same faith. She is one, holy, Christian, and apostolic.
And she shall never perish from this earth. Every nation of the world shall fall into the dustbin of history, but the Church will endure forever. She is at peace with God. This peace cannot be broken by war because the war has been fought and won by the Lord Jesus Christ when he suffered for us on the cross and shed his blood to wash away all our sins. His promise stands firm:
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
So we celebrate Pentecost today with confidence that we are at peace with our Creator. We are not on the outside looking in. We are members of God’s own family. We are citizens of his kingdom. We are stones in his temple. We are the dwelling place of God. We are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Amen