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Hope AFLC Church of Enderlin

Born of the Virgin Mary

3/26/2019

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 by Pastor Christian Andrews
​
     From a human point of view, it might have been reasonable for Mary to lie. It would not have been right; it would not have been moral; but it would not have been surprising. She was promised in marriage to Joseph. They called it betrothal which was legally the same as being married. To break a betrothal was divorce. Infidelity was a cause to break the betrothal, and Mary was pregnant. She knew the baby was not Joseph's, but how could she explain it? Who would believe her? So, it seems plausible that Mary could have made up the story about the visit from an angel and a pregnancy resulting from a visit by the Holy Spirit. It would have been a far fetched story, but possible.
     But then there is Joseph's account. He had no reason to lie. He was well within his rights to divorce Mary. He knew the baby was not his. He could have made a scene. He could probably have demanded Mary be stoned. But, being righteous, he chose instead to secretly “put her away” … until he was visited by the angel in a dream. The angel said to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20, 21 NASB). Aside from the angel's words, there was no reason for Joseph to marry Mary. What would people think; what would the neighbors say? There would be no stigma in sending Mary away. There would be all kinds of stigma in letting her stay. But stay she would because the child conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit.
     “And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus” (24, 25). That's it. And so, as John wrote, the Word who was with God and the Word who was God and the Word through whom everything that is made was made became flesh (1:1, 14). In the Apostolic Creed we confess, “conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary.” In the Nicene Creed, we confess belief in one Lord Jesus Christ who “was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
     In this way, God chose to come to us. Mary's initial disbelief was in her question, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”(Luke 1:34). God's confirmation was in the angel's reply to her, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (35). These words were repeated by Jesus to His disciples when they wondered how it was that anyone could be saved. “They who heard it said, 'Then who can be saved?' But He said, 'The things that are impossible with people are possible with God'” (18:26, 27). So it is that God did the impossible for us. Jesus, the Word, was born into humanity conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. Jesus, the one who knew no sin, became our sin so we could have His righteousness. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became the perfect man so that He could be the perfect sacrifice to appease the wrath of God. “...being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (Romans 3:24, 25).
     Mary knew the Child in her was of the Holy Spirit as the angel had promised her. Joseph also came to know whose Child Mary bore. They both, in obedience that comes by faith, believed the promise God made to them and to us. In this Child, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, God came to us in human flesh. In flesh He took upon Himself the sin of us all, suffered on the cross through His shed blood, and became in our place the final and prefect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
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One in Three, Three in One

3/19/2019

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by Pastor Christian Andrews         

         A common critique of Biblical Christianity is that word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. How can it be, it is asked, that you believe in a triune God when the Bible itself does not even have the term anywhere in it? Or, it is asked, how can worshiping a triune God be such an important part of your faith when there is no one place in your Bible where there is a declaration that God is Trinity?
          It’s a valid critique, to a point, because the term “Trinity” isn’t in Scripture nor is there any one reference we can point to where we are taught that God is indeed a Trinity. But if we take the whole teaching of the Holy Bible, it is clearly proclaimed that our God does exist in the form to which we give the label “Trinity.”
         There are two fundamental truths that come together in our belief in a Triune God. First, we have only one God. Second, this one and only God exists in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At its core, this truth is beyond human reason. We don’t have the language or even the wisdom to fully express or understand how one God can be three Persons or how three Persons can be one God. Yet this is a core article of our faith, and we believe it to be so because it is what Holy Scripture teaches. Without being able to explain it, then, we simply confess its truth.
        That we worship one God is seen throughout Scripture as that one God is confessed from creation to Law to the revelation of the Last Days. Our Scripture begins with the confession, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God, not the gods, created. This truth is more specifically expressed as Moses reminded the Israelites of God’s Law: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV). Then, as God introduced His revelation to John, we read, “’I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (1:8).
         If there is one place where we see God at work in Trinity, it might be the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians. The first two persons of the Trinity are named in chapter 1 verse 2 and again in verse 3: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…” The third person of the Trinity is added in verses 13 and 14: “In [our Lord Jesus Christ] you also, when you heard the world of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance…”
         The divinity of the Father is a core teaching of all of Scripture and in essence not questioned. The divinity of Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, permeates the New Testament; but a few specific passages highlight it. John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” John 20:28, 29, “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”
         So too with the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. In the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, Peter told Ananias he had lied not to men but to God (4). When he spoke just a few hours later to Sapphira, he asked her, “How is it that you have agreed to test the Spirit of the Lord?” (9). It is clear that in Peter’s confession the Holy Spirit is God. Besides all the places where the attributes of God are assigned to the Holy Spirit we have, also, 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
         The Father is Lord, Jesus is Lord, the Spirit is Lord; and yet we do not have three Lords but only one Lord. While the Bible itself does not call God a Trinity, we have and do use the term “Trinity” to put an understandable label on this piece of our confession. When we say we worship a Triune God, we are declaring that we believe in one God who is three Persons. We are declaring that we believe that the Father is God, that Jesus the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, but that we have only one God and not three Gods.
 
(See also the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds for brief confessions of God in Trinity and the Athanasian Creed for a more detailed explanation of the inter-relationships of the three Persons of the Trinity.)
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A Named God

3/12/2019

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     It is probably true that most parents take some care in choosing names for their children. Children are given the name of a relative: a grand parent or loved great aunt or uncle. Children are named for the place they were born. Sons are often given their father’s name so they become “Jr.” or their father’s and grandfather’s name which is notated with “III” and sometimes nicknamed “Trey.” As much care as we give to names, however, names for us do not carry the weight of Bible time names.
     God gave Adam his name. Through the first two and a half chapters of Genesis “adam” appears with an article: “the man.” In 3:17, however, the word is used without the article and is the name “Adam.” Adam gave his wife a name, too. Eve means “the mother of many.” Unique to many Bible names are the prefixes and suffixes “el” and “yah” (or “jah,” “yo,” and “ah”). “El” is from the Hebrew word for God: Elohim. “Yah” and its variants are from God’s personal name: Yahweh. “Joel,” meaning Yahweh is God, combines the “Ya” of Yahweh and the “el” of Elohim. “Elijah,” meaning God is Yahweh, begins with the “El” of Elohim and finishes with the “yah” of Yahweh. “Joshua” is a compound of “Yah” and the Hebrew word for “saves” and means “Yahweh saves.”
      God revealed himself to us in the first verse of Scripture with the confession, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Here God is “Elohim.” God’s attributes are found throughout the Scriptures. Psalm 90:2 points to an eternal God. Psalm 102:25-27 reveals an unchanging (immutable) God. John 1:18 shows us God who is Spirit. An omnipotent God is recorded in Luke 1:37. An omniscient and omnipresent God is found in Psalm 139. In Isaiah 6:3, the cherubim worship a holy God. In Deuteronomy 32:3, 4, a just God is proclaimed. A faithful God is declared in 2 Thessalonians 3:3. John 3:16 is probably the most well-known verse where a loving God is revealed. Romans 5:8 speaks of the God of mercy and Romans 3:24 of the God of grace.
     The first use of God’s personal name is in Genesis 2:4, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD* God made earth and heaven” (NASB). Here God’s personal name is transposed to “LORD” and used with God: Yahweh Elohim. The revelation of God’s name and its meaning is found in Exodus 3: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’ God, furthermore, said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations’” (14, 15). God Gave His name to Moses and established with Moses and the Hebrew people a personal relationship covenant.
     God—Elohim—and God—Yahweh—come together in the confession of Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” It was about this same God that the angel announced to Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David” (Luke 1:31, 32). “Jesus” is the same name as the Old Testament name “Joshua.” Jesus is “Yahweh who saves” and in so doing makes a personal relationship covenant with us.
     We believe there is one God who is the creator of all that is, both that which is visible and that which is invisible. We believe that this one God has give us His name “I AM” or “Yahweh.” We believe the giving of a name, as was the case in the Bible times, is part of the covenant God makes with us calling us and inviting us into an intimate and personal relationship with Him.


* Ancient Hebrews adopted the practice of saying “Adonai” (Lord) whenever God’s personal name “Yahweh” was written in the Scriptures as a protection against taking God’s name in vain. Translators today honor this practice by transposing “Yahweh” to LORD or GOD (notice the ALL CAPS with two font sizes).
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The Authority of Scripture

3/5/2019

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by Pastor Christian Andrews

     At His trial, Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” It's a question that has been asked in every culture and every generation. Western culture today has been called “post-modern” and “relativist.” We have shifted from objective to subjective. The question has changed from “what is truth?” to “what is my truth?” If we want to say that there is objective truth, that one can indeed know truth, then we need to be clear about our source of truth.
     It's hard to pinpoint exactly when and where relativism crept into western thought. Certainly by the mid 1800's the idea that one could know spiritual truth was being dismissed. USA east coast Lutherans had concluded by the 1880's that the Bible “contains” the Word of God. This was in stark contrast to mid-west Lutheran statements in 1919 (Chicago) and 1925 (Minneapolis) that the Bible is God's inerrant Word with infallible authority. While pockets of Lutherans continued to hold to a higher view of Scripture, by the 1960's the east coast view prevailed among the largest Lutheran groups (synods). In 1988 the formation of a 5 million member Lutheran synod formalized the belief that the Bible, instead of being God's inerrant Word with infallible authority, is “normative for faith and life.”
     Declaring the Bible to be a “norm” challenged truth. Norms are guidelines, and in this case guidelines authored by men bound by their patriarchal cultures. Instead of looking to Scripture for truth, then, truth was looked for in culture and changing cultural ideas. “Post-modern” sociology and psychology became more valuable than Scripture for determining “truth.” And truth became “my truth” and “your truth.”
     Against this subjective view of Scripture, a few Lutheran groups resisted and stood firm on an objective understanding that the Bible is God's inspired Word without error and with faultless authority. We believe that the Bible speaks this way about itself. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17 NASB). “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:20, 21 NASB). We believe that all Scripture, the sixty-six canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, is breathed (inspired) by God. We believe the the authors, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. The Bible is not merely a norm. The Bible does not just contain God's Word. The Bible is God's Word; and because it is God's Word it has no errors, and its authority is faultless.
     The challenges the Reformers faced were different than ours, so the language they used to affirm the authority of Scripture is not the same as ours. Their challenges were not so much relativism as they were multiple authorities. Written in the mid 1570's, the Epitome of the Formula of Concord confesses, “In this way the distinction between the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and all other writings is maintained, and Holy Scripture remains the only judge, rule, and norm according to which as the only touchstone all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or wrong.” Terms like “only judge, rule, and norm,” “only touchstone,” “all doctrines ... must be understood,” and “right or wrong” certainly show a view of Scripture that understands the Bible to be God's Word with faultless authority. Our belief that the Bible is God's inspired and inerrant Word is in keeping with this Reformation spirit.
     With the Bible, the sixty-six canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, as the source of truth, we can confidently state our fundamental and distinctive beliefs. We can also express without apology positions on the social and moral issues facing our “post-modern” world. This we will do here in the weeks to come.
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