The Third Article of the Creed, Part 2

Sermon for Sts. Simon & Jude (Small Catechism Review)

1 Peter 1:3-9  +  John 15:17-21

So you believe in the Holy Spirit. That is, you believe that you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified and preserved you in the true faith, even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and preserves it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all sins to you and all believers, and on the Last Day He will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. That’s what you mean, isn’t ?, when you say you believe in the Holy Spirit. And you’re absolutely sure about it, aren’t you? Because to all this you say, This is most certainly true.

Last week we talked a little bit about the Person of the Holy Spirit, how He works through the Church and the ministry of the Word to call people by the Gospel and to enlighten them with His gifts. We noted that Luther called His work “Sanctification.” Let’s expand on that this evening.

There are two uses of the word “sanctification” in Scripture. We talked about the first one last week. The very first sanctifying act of the Holy Spirit is when He brings a poor sinner to faith in Christ, separating him out of the devil’s kingdom and setting him apart in God’s kingdom. In that sense, “sanctification” is really a synonym for “justification” and “reconciliation” and “regeneration” or “rebirth,” which are all synonyms for the forgiveness of sins. That’s why we confess “the forgiveness of sins” in the Third Article of the Creed, because while Christ earned the forgiveness of sins for us, it is the Holy Spirit who has to bring us to faith, so that our sins can actually be forgiven. Because without faith in Christ, no one stands forgiven before God.

This is the problem with “Objective Justification” or “Universal Justification.” Those who believe that God forgave all people when Christ died on the cross or rose from the dead are removing the Holy Spirit from God’s act of justification, whereas Scripture is clear that the Holy Spirit is directly involved in that act of forgiveness. Paul writes to the Corinthians, You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. That’s because it’s the Spirit of our God, working through the Church, who calls sinners by the Gospel and brings them to faith in Christ Jesus, in whom we have the forgiveness of our sins.

Justification is an act. It’s a declaration on God’s part. It’s a state in which the believer stands as God regards us as perfect saints, as He chooses to judge us through Christ, being covered with the perfect righteousness of Christ. But the more common use of the word “sanctification” involves more than justification. In the narrow sense, “sanctification” is the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of helping the saints to live like saints, carefully avoiding sin and zealously doing good works. It’s synonymous with the term “renewal,” the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of helping God’s children to live like God’s children, nurturing the New Man to live a new life of obedience to God.

Both parts of sanctification are summarized in one verse from Hebrews 10: For by one offering He (that is, Christ) has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. He “has perfected,” that is, he has justified, those who “are being sanctified,” that is, in the ongoing renewal that the Holy Spirit is working in us.

This ongoing renewal is also sometimes referred to as “new obedience.” Why is it “new”? How is it different from the “old” obedience?

The “old” obedience was the obedience the Old Testament Law required, unfailing, unflinching, strict obedience to every detail of the Law of Moses, whether it was a moral law or a ceremonial law or a civil law. In fact, that obedience was part of the Israelites’ part of the covenant. “We will obey,” they promised. It was the obedience that was required to keep the covenant, to avoid punishment. It was the obedience that, in the end, resulted from fear and coercion.

The “new” obedience is described by Jeremiah as he prophesies the New Testament of Christ: Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” When the Holy Spirit brings people to faith in Christ, He also write God’s law in their minds and on their hearts, making them willing imitators of God, willing servants. Love is still God’s commandment, and His Ten Commandments are still guides for us to understand what “love” looks like. But our motivation is different than it was under Law. We love Him because He first loved us. We don’t obey God’s commandments in order to earn forgiveness, but because we have been freely forgiven through faith.

And so St. Paul urges us to “walk with the Spirit,” as the Spirit pulls and prods and encourages us to say “no” to sin and “yes” to righteousness, to love, even when it’s hard, and to show mercy to others, because of all the great mercy we’ve been shown by God.

That’s sanctification, and it won’t be complete in this life, because we still carry around our Old Adam, our sinful flesh, who’s always fighting against the Spirit and the New Man. As Luther once wrote, This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is the road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified. Or, if you will, “sanctified.”

Now, before we finish our discussion of the Third Article and the Holy Spirit’s work, we have to mention that other work of His called “Preservation.” The Preservation of the First Article was God’s preservation of His creation and His protection of His children from harm and danger. The Preservation of the Third Article is the Holy Spirit’s work of keeping us or preserving us in the one true faith, keeping us with Jesus Christ. How does he do that? It all comes back around to the means of grace. To the word and sacrament. Those are the Spirit’s special tools for keeping us in the Holy Christian Church. Without his ongoing help and preservation, we would quickly fall away. We would quickly give in to our flesh. We would quickly, or at least eventually, stop relying on Christ alone for our salvation, and the devil would have us back.

But St. Paul gives us reason to hope: I am confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Holy Spirit won’t abandon you after He brings you to faith. He will preserve you. But He insists on doing it through means, through the instruments of Word and Sacrament. Through those means, He’ll continue to preserve you in the faith and to help you stand under the cross, in times of persecution and hardship and doubt and fear. There will be the Holy Spirit working in you until you’re complete, that is, until the Last Day, when He will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ. Then, and only then, will His work of sanctification finally be done.

This is most certainly true. That’s what you confess at the end of each article of the Creed. Now remember that it’s all certainly true, and live and believe accordingly! Amen.