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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers, sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. There were some pretty harsh words exchanged in the gospel reading between those specific Jews and Jesus. They began their conversation calling Jesus a demon. They, who were created by the God whom they are addressing, standing in front of them, called their God a demon.
But Peter… He said it correctly when he said, when he was reviled, that is Jesus, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to the one who judges justly. Now these Jews who accused their God, though they did not know him as God because Jesus stood in front of them, and all they could see in Jesus is flesh and blood, and they could not see a deity, so they said he is not God in the flesh.
And yet you, since you were a little boy or little girl, have confessed, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Jesus is God in the flesh. And these confirmands know one of the questions that I have taught them as well as you who have been already confirmed. True or false? Jesus died on the cross. True. When Jesus died on the cross, God died on the cross. True or false? True. Thank you. They made me so proud.
God died on the cross. True. Jesus was born of a virgin. Miracle indeed. When Jesus was born of that virgin, God was born. True. Two for two, we are on fire today, guys. These mysteries of which you and I confess aren’t just things to confess so that we can be right in order to be right. These mysteries that we confess and that Jesus was very clear about have everything to do with his death on the cross. And where his death, the benefits of, are given to us in the supper.
For if it’s only man’s blood that died on the cross, then there is no benefit in the supper. If it’s only man’s flesh that was crucified and not God with man, then the flesh that we eat in the bread has no meaning, and it is empty and vain and idolatrous for us to do so. So this truth about Jesus being God and man at the selfsame time is very important. It is our salvation and hope and truth that we cling to.
Now, where these Jews were half right, and you remember, I mentioned to you before, all false doctrine begins in the name of God. These Jews had it correct in that they saw that there are only two truths in the world. They knew that there is either God’s truth or the demons, Satan’s truth or Jesus’ truth. That’s all that there is. They got that right. Their problem was that they tried to understand truth according to their head and not what God revealed by His Spirit through the prophets of old.
These Jews chose to believe what made sense, not what God revealed. And their false teaching was that Jesus is not God and man, just a man, a special prophet. The Islamic religion is based on Jesus just being a prophet. Everyone in hell believed that Jesus was just a great man. Before they died, now they know different. Jesus did not revile these men. Jesus did not at all try to drive them away.
Jesus did preach law to them. What was that law? You dishonor me. And in dishonoring me, you dishonor God. And in dishonoring me, dishonor the one who sent me to save your soul. And in dishonoring me, you dishonor the Father who sent me to save your soul. You dishonor the very Spirit who had revealed that truth to you, and you said, Nay, it shall not be. It does not make sense.
Jesus followed that strong law, you dishonor me, with beautiful, sweet gospel. And he gets us to pay attention to it by saying, amen, amen. Truly, truly, verily, verily, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death, eternal death. He will be rescued from all things that separate us from the Father. This man’s word, this man born of a virgin, this man who was crucified, this man who is God, says if you keep my word you will never taste death.
Do you know the whole reason that those creeds that we confess, and there’s only three, and that Christians around the world confess were all written because people taught Christ differently than what the Scriptures revealed? So they had to write these creeds to reflect exactly what’s said in the Scriptures. And when that second creed, the one that we’re familiar with on Sunday mornings with communion, the Nicene, the reason it was written that way was because so many people were being led astray.
Or they said it doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus as long as you believe he died for your sins. Well, if a man died for your sins, then you’re still in your sins. Because flesh can’t die and save flesh. And then this is all a joke. This Lord’s Supper. Right? If only a man died and not God in the flesh. But if God in the flesh died, then flesh and blood can give life. As Jesus says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life, and I will raise him up on the last day. John chapter 6, check it out.
Peter, in the sermon that he preached in the second reading, says, David foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Messiah, the Christ. He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up, and we are all witnesses. You are a witness. No, you did not see it with your own eyes, but you have witnessed it by your faith that believes in, trusts in, finds comforts in, and will even die in that faith that believes that truth about that one who is both God and man, Jesus.
They do not keep Jesus’ words, these Jews, and they hold fast to Satan’s word. Now, it does not benefit you or me to go out and say, those people, they believe in Satan and they teach Satan. That doesn’t benefit you or me if all we’re doing is using it as a club. It benefits you if it protects your hope, your faith in your Jesus that he alone has revealed to you.
Yes, we need to proclaim this. Yes, we need to make sure we tell others this important truths are not child’s play or they’re not merely mental gymnastics. They are God’s truth that God revealed in God’s word by God’s prophets and God’s apostles. Jesus goes on and says, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.” There are enough men and women in this world who glorify themselves and do not proclaim that Jesus is true God and true man.
He goes on, Jesus says, “It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. You have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I do keep his word.” Jesus pronounces that there are only two truths in this world. We have talked about that in the last several Sundays. God’s truth, man’s and Satan’s truth. There is no third alternative.
Either we are for God and against Satan, or we’re for Satan and against God. Either we are a liar and do believe in God, or we’re not a liar and don’t believe in God. Which is true? There’s only two. Two. Jesus said at the end, I do know him and I keep his word. Jesus kept the Father’s word. He never violated what Jesus gave to you and me. He never violated what the Father gave to him to give to you and me.
And what he gave to you and me, he’s saying to you, as he said earlier, if anyone keeps my word, they will never see death, never taste death. To keep his word implies two things. The first is, to believe in and find comfort in His Word. That that is how you and I live our life. Not by our logic, not by our posturing, not by our trying to avoid or to rush headlong into. We find comfort in, we believe in His truth, period.
The second is that we guard and protect it. You can’t guard and protect something unless you know what it is that you’re guarding and protecting. So then at each turn, you can guard and protect it appropriately. There are many people who are blindly protecting or guarding something and they have no idea. They are either ignorant or willfully choosing not to. One of the two.
For us to guard and preserve his word from falsehood is to teach these things that we’re proclaiming today and every Sunday. They’re mysteries. They are not simple intellectual truths that we can assent to or say no to. That’s man’s reason and that’s Satan’s domain. These truths that you hold to and that you will close your eyes in death to are truths that were not conjured in your mind but revealed to you by the Spirit.
They were truths that you close your eyes in and pray about every night and you wake up with it on your lips every morning. It is truth that keeps you confident. If you love someone, you want them to be confident of your love for them. You don’t want them to be questioning and wondering whether they really love you or not, or whether you really love them or not. The Father wants you to be confident of His love, so He has sent His Son.
But He has not revealed to us a Son of our own making. He has revealed to us a Son that can only be believed by His Holy Spirit for the sake of you being confident of His love toward you. This is not mental gymnastics. This is not ethereal contemplation. This is truth that brings confidence. It’s Satan who comes up with all kinds of arguments that fill your brain and my brain and cause us to doubt and question and to wonder.
It is not God’s will that you doubt, question, and wonder, which is why he wishes to have it all revealed to you by the Spirit, through the Word, His truth. And only his truth. Because again, either one is a liar or one is of truth. There is no two other possibilities. Jesus completely defies their concept and calls himself something that only God called himself.
So hearken back to the Old Testament. Since these Jews were all about the Old Testament because that was all that was written at the time, he reminded them, that is Jesus, of a very important truth. They would never have discussed it or argued about it. When Moses had God revealed to him in the burning bush, remember Moses saying, “Hey God, who am I supposed to say revealed himself to me on this mountain when I go tell them that I’m the one you sent to bring them out of Egypt and when I go tell Pharaoh and all of his people that they need to let him go? Who should I say you are?”
Moses was told by God, “Tell them, I am sent you.” That’s what he said. Tell them, I am sent you. So when Jesus, before these Jews, tells them, before Abraham was, I am, who is Jesus saying he is? God. Eternal God, he is saying. And the reason we know for sure he’s saying that, not just because of those words, look at the Jews and what they did.
Why would they all of a sudden pick up stones to stone him except what Jesus was saying they didn’t believe in because they accused him of blasphemy? And yet they’re the ones who are the blasphemers, not accepting God as God revealed himself in Jesus. Jesus called himself the great I Am. If this flesh and blood has any benefit to you, it cannot have it unless it’s God’s flesh and blood.
And yet, that statement is not logical. God has no flesh. God has no blood. God can’t be born. God cannot die. And yet, in the person of Jesus, Scripture declares that. Scripture says that, not man says. And not a denomination. Scripture says that. It’s what you and I do with this revealed truth. Because either God’s lying or we’re lying. There is no third alternative.
I don’t understand. It is a mystery. The biggest mystery is why are you a believer? Because if you can come up with a rational reason, then it’s not because of Jesus. It’s because of something you’ve come up with in your head. Everybody in hell has thought that. Everybody in heaven does not think that. They know that there’s nothing within them, why God died for them and rose again for them. They know there’s nothing within them that says, I’m going to live forever because I hold this man who is God’s word.
There are no new teachings about Jesus. There is no generation that has arrived on the scene that all of a sudden has an insight into Jesus that no one else ever had before. There are only reconfessed truths about Jesus. There are only truths about Jesus. The prophets confessed what was given to them by God, and they reconfessed it throughout the millennia of the Old Testament.
Jesus comes. He does not even bring new truth about himself. He goes back to the Old Testament to prove who he is and to show them who he is. When the apostles come onto the scene, they don’t invent something new. They go back and confirm what the prophets spoke about and what Jesus revealed. So there is no truth new that is about Jesus and about his teachings. There is only reconfessed truths.
But if that’s true, then there are no new lies about Jesus either. For there are only reconfessed lies. Because there is no new lie under the sun. The same lies that duped Adam and Eve were the same lies that duped Abraham and David and all of the prophets of old who struggled with their flesh like you do.
So there is either only reconfessed truths or there is only reconfessed lies. We choose to reconfess truth. So that you find comfort in Christ, who is your Savior. So that you can be sure and certain He feeds you His very flesh that brings life and His very blood that brings life as only He said it did.
No, it does not make sense to our minds. Listen to what Jesus said. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, He will never taste death. We will keep preaching this and proclaiming this even though it is not a new truth. It has been around since Moses began to pen the Old Testament because we do not want to reconfess a lie.
In the name of Jesus who is both God and man, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
