Immanuel Lutheran Church (LCMS)

God does not forgive you BECAUSE you repent, confess, and believe.

Must you repent? Yes. Must you confess? Yes. Must you believe? Of course. But none of those are the reason you are forgiven.

Think of it this way. If you are sick, should you go to the doctor, tell him your symptoms, and fill the prescription? Of course, but none of those will bring you healing. The healing comes *because* of the medicine.

Jesus is the divine medicine. He and he alone is “the because” of our forgiveness. He is The Reason God justifies us.

There is a widespread confusion about this in the church. It’s partly based on a misunderstanding of 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This is true, of course, just as we might say, “If we go to the doctor and tell him our issues, he is responsible and qualified to heal us of our ailments.” How does he “heal” us? By giving us medicine. How does God forgive us? John tells us three verses later, “Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’ (2:2).

But people often believe and speak as if a mannequin full of their repentance, confession, and faith is on the cross. Don't put your faith in your faith, your faith in your confession, or your faith in your repentance.

Your repentance was not crucified for you.
Your confession did not die for you.
Your faith did not rise from the grave.
Jesus, and Jesus alone, lived, died, and rose again for you.

When God the Father forgives us, he forgives us as people who repent, confess, and believe. But it is not our repentance, our confession, or our faith, that is our salvation.

Christ, and Christ alone, is our salvation. Forgiveness is based 100% upon the atoning work of Jesus Christ. His atonement is enough. His sacrifice was perfectly sincere.

His blood covers not only the sin of which you repent but also your imperfect repentance for that sin, your less-than-100%-honest confession, and your lackluster faith.

Our hope is built on nothing less—and nothing more—than Jesus’ blood and righteousness alone.

•Let your prayers be common. For indeed a house is a little Church. Thus it is possible for us by becoming good husbands and wives, to surpass all others.
-John Chrysostom

Our Spiritual Heritage When relationships are broken, our Lord speaks words filled with hope. Find articles, discover upcoming events, preview this weekend's program and more in this week's newsletter by clicking below.

When Jesus entered the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers in Matthew 21, he was not merely upset that the sanctuary had become commercialized. Much more was happening.

Jesus was engaging in an Old Testament-style prophetic sign, a symbolic act meant to communicate that the temple stood under God’s judgment and was headed for destruction.

Again and again in the Old Testament, prophets used dramatic actions to proclaim God’s message. Isaiah walked naked and barefoot. Jeremiah wore a yoke upon his shoulders. Hosea married a pr******te.

These actions were visual prophecies, living sermons that communicated God’s word to the people.

Jesus is doing the same thing in the temple courts. His overturning of the tables is not an outburst of random anger. It is a prophetic declaration that the temple has become corrupt and ripe for judgment.

And when Jesus calls it “a den of robbers,” he is echoing Jeremiah 7:11. In Jeremiah’s temple sermon, the prophet stood in the temple and warned the people not to trust in the building itself while they continued in idolatry and injustice. Because of their rebellion, Jeremiah warned that the temple would be destroyed.

By using Jeremiah’s language, Jesus is saying that history is repeating itself. The temple of his day has become another “den of robbers,” and it too will fall under divine judgment. And indeed it did when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70.

But there is an even deeper message here. The old temple is passing away because a new and greater temple has arrived. Jesus himself is now the true temple. As he says elsewhere, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), speaking of the temple of his body. His body would be torn down in crucifixion and raised again on the third day.

He is now the dwelling place of God among men, and by faith we are living members of his body, the church, his holy temple.
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We read both Matthew 21 and Jeremiah 7 today in Bible in One Year. Join us at https://www.1517.org/oneyear

“Why are you treating me this way? What did I ever do to deserve this?” That complaint summarizes what Moses, Job, and Jeremiah said to God.

When things were falling apart in the wilderness, and the Israelites were bellyaching and weeping, Moses cried out, “Why have you treated your servant so badly?” (Num. 11:11). When Job lost his possessions, his health, and his children, he cursed the day of his birth and hurled Why? Why? Why? toward heaven.

Jeremiah does the same in Jeremiah 15, which we read today in Bible in One Year. Echoing Job, he turns Happy Birthday into Woeful Birthday. He feels born only to be a burr under the saddle to everyone around him. It’s not as if he’s been a provocative evildoer. He has simply been a faithful prophet. But no good prophet goes un-persecuted.

Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you” (Matt. 5:10–11). Indeed, they persecuted the prophets, prophets like Jeremiah.

But Jeremiah was not rejoicing and being glad. He was lamenting and being sad.

Persecution comes in many forms, from mocking to martyrdom. Most Christians will not be martyred, but few disciples of Jesus have escaped ridicule for remaining faithful to the Lord and his Word.

When things do not improve, and especially when they get worse, it is not hard to understand why Jeremiah accuses God of being “like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail” (Jer. 15:18).

When we long for a cold drink of hope from heaven, sometimes we get a mouthful of sand instead.

But God answers Jeremiah with grace and steel. “If you return, I will restore you” (Jer. 15:19). He promises to make him “a fortified wall of bronze” (15:20).

The sweetest and most joy-filled words God saves for near the end: “For I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord” (15:20). You bet he is, for the “I-am-with-You” God is Jesus the Emmanuel, the one who comes to save us and deliver us.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because they are thereby united with the One who was persecuted unto death, died that death, and rose from the grave, so that, no matter how lukewarm or hot the persecution we face, we know that we are safe in Jesus, for “who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?... I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38-39).

Q&A with the Rev. Dr. Christian Tiews - Engage Tiews is an LCMS missionary to Germany, where he works primarily with Persian refugees.

Christ, the Second Adam, redeemed us from our sins. Thanks be to God!