SANCTIFICATION • Peace

Luther says we are only half pure and holy in this life and that everything in the Church is ordered to one single end: that we daily obtain nothing but the forgiveness of sin through Word and Sacrament. This is the Lenten examination the Third Article performs. Where in your congregation’s life are the Word and Sacraments being used as the daily medicine for the half-pure condition Luther describes, and where are they being treated as confirmations of an achieved sanctification rather than the ongoing supply for a work still in progress? Our Saviour Lutheran Church • After Matins • Book of Concord After Matins • Large Catechism, Creed, Third Article: Sanctification The Maternal Bosom of the Church Luther’s most striking image for the Church in the Third Article is the maternal one. The Holy Spirit has a peculiar congregation in the world which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God. To place a person in the Church is to place her in the bosom of the Church, where the Spirit illuminates and enkindles hearts to understand and cling to the Gospel. The image corrects the modern assumption that faith is a private relationship between the individual and God that can be adequately maintained without the assembly. Luther’s point is structural: outside the Church, where the Gospel is not preached, there is no forgiveness, and without forgiveness there is no holiness. The maternal care is not supplementary to private spiritual life; it is the condition of its possibility. Isaiah 66:13’s maternal comfort is addressed to Jerusalem collectively: as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. The city is the context; the maternal comfort is mediated through the city’s corporate life. Psalm 122’s pilgrim prays for the peace of the city, not only for his own spiritual welfare, precisely because the city is the context in which the tribal gatherings occur, justice is administered, and the brothers and companions dwell together. Luther’s Third Article reads both texts as descriptions of what the Spirit-created community provides to its members: the ongoing maternal care of Word and Sacrament that sustains and completes the faith it begets. Discuss: Luther says that outside the Church where the Gospel is not preached there is no forgiveness, and that the Spirit places the believer in the bosom of the Church as the maternal context in which faith is kindled and sustained. Isaiah 66’s comfort is mediated through Jerusalem. How does this shape the way a congregation thinks about the pastoral responsibility of its own preaching and worship for the specific members in its care, rather than leaving sanctification to the individual’s private spiritual initiative? The Buried Treasure The Large Catechism’s most vivid image for the Spirit’s work in the Third Article is the buried treasure. The Second Article describes Christ’s completed redemption, the full payment of the debt, the destruction of sin, death, and the devil. But Luther asks: what if this remained concealed? It would be in vain and lost. The Holy Spirit is the one who unearths the treasure and applies it: He brings this treasure home and applies it to us. Luther defines sanctifying as bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves. The Spirit is not a supplement to Christ’s completed work; He is the one who makes sure it does not remain buried. This image gives the Church’s assembly its precise function. The preaching of the Word is not a reminder about a fact the congregation already possesses; it is the ongoing unearthing of the treasure and its distribution to those who need it. The Sacraments are the same distribution in tangible form. Psalm 122’s city where the tribes go up is the city where the treasure is regularly unearthed and distributed, and the peace of that city is the peace of a people who have received what they could not have attained on their own. Isaiah 66’s maternal comfort is the comfort of one who has been given rather than one who has achieved, and the ongoing presence of that comfort requires the ongoing maternal ministry of the Church. Discuss: Luther says the Spirit’s work of sanctification is to bring the buried treasure of Christ’s completed redemption home and apply it to us, to bring us to Christ to receive what we could not attain on our own. How does this change the way a congregation thinks about its own Sunday assembly: is it gathering to be reminded of what it already possesses or to receive again what can only be given from outside? Half Pure and Holy: The Lenten Examination Luther’s most honest statement about the present condition of the Church appears in his treatment of the Third Article: in this life we are only half pure and holy. The Spirit carries on His work of sanctification without ceasing to the last day, because the sinful flesh we still bear around our necks means we are never entirely without sin. This is the Lenten realism the Third Article provides: sanctification is genuinely in progress, but it is not finished, and in this life its incompleteness means that everything in the Church is ordered to the ongoing provision of what the half-pure condition requires. That provision is not an inspiring program; it is a single thing: daily forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs. Psalm 122’s prayer for the peace of Jerusalem is the prayer that corresponds to Luther’s Lenten realism. The peace the pilgrim prays for is not the peace of a perfectly achieved holiness; it is the peace of a community where brothers and companions dwell together under the Spirit’s governance, forgiving, bearing with, and helping each other. Luther’s description of the Communion of Saints is precisely this: by the Spirit’s power, every believer becomes a sharer and joint owner of all the spiritual goods the Church possesses, and the community’s peace is the reciprocal peace of mutual forgiveness as well as divine forgiveness. The resurrection will bring the completion when the flesh is finally purged of all its uncleanness; until then, the Church is the daily distribution center for the forgiveness the half-pure condition requires. Discuss: Luther says in this life we are only half pure and holy, and that everything in the Church is ordered to daily obtaining the forgiveness of sin through Word and Sacrament. Psalm 122’s peace rests on brothers and companions dwelling together, which Luther identifies as mutual forgiveness. In the Lenten season of examining faithfulness to the Spirit’s work, where in your congregation’s life is the half-pure condition most honestly acknowledged, and where is it being covered over by a performance of achieved sanctification that the Third Article does not support? The Payoff Isaiah 66’s maternal comfort, received in Jerusalem from the One who comforts as a mother comforts, and Psalm 122’s peace of a city where the tribes gather and the brothers and companions dwell together, are both images of what the Spirit creates and sustains through His work of sanctification. Luther’s Third Article is the doctrinal form of both: the Church is the mother who begets and bears Christians through the Word, the community in which the buried treasure of Christ’s redemption is unearthed and distributed daily, the assembly of the half-pure and half-holy who receive the forgiveness their condition requires and who, by receiving it, are daily being brought toward the full purity the resurrection will complete.

Luther says that outside the Church where the Gospel is not preached there is no forgiveness, and that the Spirit places the believer in the bosom of the Church as the maternal context in which faith is kindled and sustained. Isaiah 66’s comfort is mediated through Jerusalem. How does this shape the way a congregation thinks about the pastoral responsibility of its own preaching and worship for the specific members in its care, rather than leaving sanctification to the individual’s private spiritual initiative? The Buried Treasure The Large Catechism’s most vivid image for the Spirit’s work in the Third Article is the buried treasure. The Second Article describes Christ’s completed redemption, the full payment of the debt, the destruction of sin, death, and the devil. But Luther asks: what if this remained concealed? It would be in vain and lost. The Holy Spirit is the one who unearths the treasure and applies it: He brings this treasure home and applies it to us. Luther defines sanctifying as bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves. The Spirit is not a supplement to Christ’s completed work; He is the one who makes sure it does not remain buried. This image gives the Church’s assembly its precise function. The preaching of the Word is not a reminder about a fact the congregation already possesses; it is the ongoing unearthing of the treasure and its distribution to those who need it. The Sacraments are the same distribution in tangible form. Psalm 122’s city where the tribes go up is the city where the treasure is regularly unearthed and distributed, and the peace of that city is the peace of a people who have received what they could not have attained on their own. Isaiah 66’s maternal comfort is the comfort of one who has been given rather than one who has achieved, and the ongoing presence of that comfort requires the ongoing maternal ministry of the Church. Discuss: Luther says the Spirit’s work of sanctification is to bring the buried treasure of Christ’s completed redemption home and apply it to us, to bring us to Christ to receive what we could not attain on our own. How does this change the way a congregation thinks about its own Sunday assembly: is it gathering to be reminded of what it already possesses or to receive again what can only be given from outside? Half Pure and Holy: The Lenten Examination Luther’s most honest statement about the present condition of the Church appears in his treatment of the Third Article: in this life we are only half pure and holy. The Spirit carries on His work of sanctification without ceasing to the last day, because the sinful flesh we still bear around our necks means we are never entirely without sin. This is the Lenten realism the Third Article provides: sanctification is genuinely in progress, but it is not finished, and in this life its incompleteness means that everything in the Church is ordered to the ongoing provision of what the half-pure condition requires. That provision is not an inspiring program; it is a single thing: daily forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs. Psalm 122’s prayer for the peace of Jerusalem is the prayer that corresponds to Luther’s Lenten realism. The peace the pilgrim prays for is not the peace of a perfectly achieved holiness; it is the peace of a community where brothers and companions dwell together under the Spirit’s governance, forgiving, bearing with, and helping each other. Luther’s description of the Communion of Saints is precisely this: by the Spirit’s power, every believer becomes a sharer and joint owner of all the spiritual goods the Church possesses, and the community’s peace is the reciprocal peace of mutual forgiveness as well as divine forgiveness. The resurrection will bring the completion when the flesh is finally purged of all its uncleanness; until then, the Church is the daily distribution center for the forgiveness the half-pure condition requires. Discuss: Luther says in this life we are only half pure and holy, and that everything in the Church is ordered to daily obtaining the forgiveness of sin through Word and Sacrament. Psalm 122’s peace rests on brothers and companions dwelling together, which Luther identifies as mutual forgiveness. In the Lenten season of examining faithfulness to the Spirit’s work, where in your congregation’s life is the half-pure condition most honestly acknowledged, and where is it being covered over by a performance of achieved sanctification that the Third Article does not support?