#steven paulson

[buggie-hagen]

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday (2/23/20)

Primary Text | Matthew 17:1-9

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Dear People of God,

         Jesus took the disciples up the mountain six days later. That is a fact that could be easily overlooked when reading from this passage. “Six days later” means that the Transfiguration took place of all days on the Sabbath. This is noteworthy because when the voice from the cloud speaks, who we can safely identify as God the Father it says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” A similar event with the voice from the cloud happened in January when we celebrated the Baptism of Our Lord—for when Jesus comes up from the water the voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.” The difference, is that this time, on the day of the Transfiguration, the voice from the cloud adds the words, “Listen to him!” We will understand more fully the significance of this if we consider the meaning of the Sabbath.

         The Third Commandment commands us to “Remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy.” We Christians often get confused about the Sabbath and what it means for us today. There are two ways that we commonly misunderstand the Third Commandment. The first way that we understand the Sabbath incorrectly is to understand it as a strict 24-hour period of which we do nothing but rest. When I was in college and had this understanding, I thought the purpose of the Sabbath was to not do my dishes on Sundays. To be sure, taking time for bodily rest from the hectic craze of our lives is important, but it’s not the big picture. As much as I love my Sunday afternoon nap, laying on the couch is not what it means to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Another common misunderstanding of the Sabbath is to dismiss it as irrelevant altogether. In fact, this position is so prevalent because when it comes to our time on Sundays, the first thing to be squeezed out is the Sabbath—hobbies, sports, and the whims of our emotions are quick to take priority over the holy things of God.

         What meaning then, are we to take about the Third Commandment and its decree for us to “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy”? We get a clue where God the Father says from the cloud, “This my Son…Listen to him!” Therefore, it is not enough to stand in awe at the majesty of God—whether that be the disciples on the mountain with the Transfigured Jesus or the feeling we get standing on top of White Mountain. It is not enough. That alone doesn’t tell us what God thinks on us. The Sabbath is holy in itself. But, what makes it holy to us is the Word about Christ. That is, the Word that assures you of God’s forgiveness of your sin for the sake of Jesus Christ. The Word that God graciously endured suffering the cross because he couldn’t leave you alone. The Sabbath is made holy for you because Christ went as far as to die, so that you will never be alone, because St. Matthew’s Gospel teaches us that in the person of Jesus Christ God-is-with-you. It is an external Word—the Word is not something your heart produces in any given situation. But it comes to you from outside yourself. Namely, the Word proclaimed and the Sacraments administered. (pause) The great contemporary theologian Steven Paulson puts it this way: “We need Christ who chose sinners in what can only be called the most blessed contingency ever to happen to a person, better than dumb luck or winning the lottery or surviving an earthquake, namely, to have some preacher predicate Christ of me.” (pause) To have Christ predicated of you, to put it simply—is to have Christ placed upon your head, upon your shoulders, and within your heart. For that, you need a preacher. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

[buggie-hagen]

The world can handle almost any opinion, any perspective, any prophet, guru, or leader, and any claim by persons or groups that think they possess the proper directions and advice to arrive at their goal. However, there is one thing the world cannot abide: Christ forgiving sinners. This incarnate word so offends reason and human desire that human will always rebel against it. ~Steven Paulson, Luther's Outlaw God, vol. 2: Hidden in the Cross, 152.

[considermycat]

To be one, holy, Christian and apostolic is to have the gospel preached to us. This living word (viva vox evangelii) of preaching itself is the successor to the Apostles – preached ‘for you,’ in the present. […] The preacher’s call is not as Rabbi, Enthusiast, Spiritual Guide, Disciple, Prophet, or Community Organizer – What then is it? The call is to preach law and gospel.

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, pp.242f.

It can never be emphasised enough that when Christianity is described as a religion of “the Word,” the Word is not primarily the written word of Scripture, but the living word that proclaims Christ in preaching, the sacraments, and the “mutual conversation and consolation” of Christians.

Lutheranism is (or ought to be), perhaps, the Christian tradition that is most conscious of this, and which articulates it most explicitly, but it remains true for the church as a whole: we are all constituted as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church by the preaching of the law that kills and the gospel that gives life.

[considermycat]

Luther summarized evangelical theology in three layers: first the foundation, which is faith in Christ's blood – apart from any merit or deed of law – that makes God favor us so that we have peace with God. Second, we then are free to lay aside traditions of human beings as our form of worship, and 'do nothing except love the neighbor.' That leads to the third matter: 'if you hold to this pure doctrine and abide in it, you will not escape cross and persecution, for the evil spirit cannot endure it…' From faith good works come in the form of love, and from love comes the cross.

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, p.234.

[considermycat]

Lutherans ruin the idea that good works have any standing before God, but does that mean that there is no such thing as a good work? God forbid! […] God does not need good works, he does not collect or count them or hold them in a treasury; good works are for the person who needs them, whom Scripture calls, 'the neighbor.' […] Before Christ's arrival the direction of sacrifice was from the sinner up to God – vertically. 'But now,' it is made horizontal, and is a sacrifice acceptable to God but made to the neighbor.

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, p.231.

[considermycat]

The law's end ruins Christianity as a teleological religion, since Christ crucified cannot be a desirable goal for anyone. 'For freedom Christ has set us free' sounds like gibberish in the legal scheme, but it means there is no goal humans must reach in Christ's new kingdom; instead, once the law ends, one can truly begin to live – freely – without any purpose in the sense of a path to perfection.

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, p.223. Or to put it more simply: what is the goal of the Christian life? There isn't one: there is just freedom in Christ, who is the goal we have already attained in our baptism.

[considermycat]

[Calvin] effectively replaced the promise with the call. Inner call was in time surrounded by various means of identification, but all of them refer to some inner movement of the Holy Spirit accessible through the individuals experience – the very thing the Lutherans referred to as enthusiastic. Suddenly, the human experience was added to the preaching of Christ, and the table was set for the whole revolution of subjective experience in theology. This is why Lutherans and Calvinists differ on the basic matter of catechism and preaching. Calvin taught the internal matter of how one knows when she has faith or not. Luther taught the external matter of which promises are to be believed. For him, promises that come from a preacher are God’s justification, predestination, call, and glory all at once.

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, p.221.

I’m always wary of people from tradition [X] making confident assertions about what people in tradition [Y] believe and teach, so don’t know whether this is a fair summary of what Calvin taught. It seems a fair description of where much of Protestantism ended up in practice, whether or not that’s Calvin’s fault.*

As Paulson puts it a few sentences earlier:

[Calvin] concluded that the preached word of promise is always general (e.g., "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13), and therefore it can deceive us, since we can never be sure it belongs to us in particular; however, the inner call cannot deceive us.

Again, whether or not that is a fair statement of what Calvin said, it is a fair summary of what many Calvinists have said; and it is the direct opposite of the Lutheran teaching, in which the external word ("I baptise you," "I forgive you," "this is my body given for you") can be relied upon, but our internal feelings are to be mistrusted.

(*For Lutherans, everything is always Calvin’s fault, in much the same way that, for the Orthodox, everything is always Augustine’s fault.)

[considermycat]

The most contrary of experiences in prayer is to learn to defy one's own death. Death, like sin, is governed in Christian lives by the joy of scoffing, ridicule, and sarcasm. The power of faith that makes praying possible is to laugh at death when the whole world cowers at its feet; it is to dismiss death, not because of one's own power, but because Christ has conquered it. Sarcasm is the basis of the vibrant new life of the Christian and the primary mode of prayer – which it freely applies to the powers of this old Aeon: 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology, p.207.