This blog is excerpted from an article by Herbet C. Mueller Jr., published in a previous edition of Concordia Pulpit Resources.
“The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied!” That’s what we used to say in college when a preacher in the chapel service laid on us his pet peeve or hobbyhorse but didn’t give us the Gospel. The subsequent conversation might have gone something like this: “Where was the Gospel in that sermon?” Someone who liked that professor might have answered, “Oh, he assumed you knew the Gospel. He just had something else he needed to bring us this morning.” Perhaps it was sophomoric of us, and maybe it came from that hypercritical attitude common to pre-seminary students, seminarians, and even pastors who think they know more than they really do. But it is true: “The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied.”
Assuming the Gospel is the height of arrogance. It’s as if we were saying, “We all know what God has done for us in Jesus, so we can go on to teach and learn other things today.” St. Paul gave much apostolic direction for living the Christian life (ESV)—“bearing with one another” (Col 3:13), “speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15), “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16), and seeing the “more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31). Yet Paul always put such admonition in the context of Christ’s saving work for us. In fact, Paul was adamant about the priority of the cross: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2 ESV). What did he mean? No matter what else Paul had to say, the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our salvation are the center, the essence, the focal point of all Christian preaching. Whether the subject is justification or sanctification, it all comes back to the cross. No preaching, no Christian teaching, is complete unless it brings us back to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ on the cross. Indeed, anything else the preacher might proclaim is meaningless unless it flows into or out of the message that Jesus died and rose for us. Every doctrine of Scripture is designed by God ultimately to bring the comfort of sins forgiven and eternal life in Christ to the penitent sinner.
As Lutherans we wholeheartedly agree. We confess we are saved by grace alone, for the sake of Christ alone, through faith alone. And we insist that God works faith in us only through Word and Sacrament, his means of grace (AC IV and V). We Lutherans are known as Law-and-Gospel preachers. We understand that the Law does God’s “alien” work to show us our need for God’s proper work in the Gospel. Surely we have it right. How could we Lutherans ever be guilty of “assuming the Gospel”?
Perhaps we find it most often when we pastors preach with the assumption that God’s people already know the Gospel. Perhaps very creatively we urge them to share the Gospel with others, but at the same time we forget to include the Gospel itself as the power and motivation for its own proclamation. There are wonderful examples in the Book of Acts, for instance, that show us how Paul shared the Gospel. And Paul’s evangelism efforts provide a wonderful example for us. But if we preachers spend the whole sermon talking about how Paul explained the Gospel to Felix (Acts 24:10–21) and how our hearers can do the same to their friends and neighbors, we ourselves have proclaimed no Gospel, for advice alone, even good advice, is nothing but Law. If that Law does not come too close to my pet sins, I will be tempted to self-righteousness. I’ll become sinfully proud of my witnessing. Or when the Law does expose my failure to witness, I may become even more afraid to talk about Jesus because I’ll never witness as well as Paul or even as well as the pastor. I may need to hear the advice, but I need to hear even more the Gospel of what Jesus does for me. Only through Jesus does God give me the power to do real witnessing.
More blatantly, we pastors may sometimes think that because we’ve used the word Gospel or talked about Jesus dying and rising, we’ve thereby preached the Gospel. Sometimes we are so determined to emphasize “practical issues” of Christian living that there simply isn’t time enough left in the sermon to talk much about God’s action. Pastors have told me, for instance, “We Lutherans can preach justification and salvation just fine, but we don’t preach enough sanctification and Christian living.” Hmm. Without clear Gospel preaching, “sanctification” alone becomes just more Law—Law that makes God’s people so self-righteous that we don’t see our need for Jesus or so despairing that we don’t believe his forgiveness is for us. When the Gospel is assumed, the sermon will not connect people with its power.
How can we tell? Are there any warning signs that we’re in danger of “assuming the Gospel”? Here are some questions we can ask ourselves as preachers: Did I begin my preparation, formulate my theme, determine the content, and then realize that the Gospel was really only auxiliary to the thrust of my sermon? That’s the Gospel assumed. Or did I start with a “message” I wanted to bring to the people—maybe understanding the biblical ideals concerning marriage—but as I wrote I realized I needed to get some Gospel into the sermon somewhere? That’s the Gospel assumed too, because even if we are able to shoehorn Jesus’ cross into the sermon somewhere, the Gospel in that sermon is still auxiliary to our “message.” We have assumed, and therefore denied, the Gospel, I would suggest, if Christ and his cross and God’s saving action are only adjunct to what the preacher really wanted to say. We may have great and interesting material, but if we do not bring our people to the cross, our preaching has not connected them to the power of God for salvation—or for ideal marriage!
The Gospel is also assumed and, therefore, denied when we prepare a liturgy where the main focus is on us—how we feel, what we do, or what our response should be. Instead, the golden thread that needs to run through everything in the liturgy is God’s service to us in Jesus Christ, particularly God’s service to us in the proclamation of Absolution, the preaching of Christ’s saving work, and the gift of our Redeemer’s body and blood. The ultimate question, the answer that ought to shape every part of the service, is this: Does the language we use in the liturgy or sermon actually give God’s gifts or merely talk about them and hint at what they are? Is the central thought focused on God’s work in Christ, on God’s gifts in Jesus, or is it focused on our work?
When the Gospel is assumed, all that’s left is the Law. Of course, as long as the Law isn’t presented too strongly, too harshly, or too pointedly, our sinful flesh feels at home with the Law and counts it as an ally. That’s why it’s so natural to talk about our own actions even when we assume we are proclaiming the Gospel. Because our sinful flesh readily understands the Law, we are very comfortable talking about God’s work as though it were our work. For instance, we may say that we come to God, we believe, we preach, we worship, we baptize, we forgive sins, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we do works of service, we witness for Christ. Yes, from a human point of view, we can say we do all those things. But if that’s all we say, we are still under the Law. If we urge these activities apart from God’s work, we have assumed and, therefore, denied the Gospel. Remember, all these actions are really God’s work. God comes to us in Jesus Christ even though we, in our sin, could never come to him. The message of the cross has the power in itself to create faith. It is God’s doing and God’s gift. Our sermons have no power but the power of the Word of God. Jesus himself speaks through his Word proclaimed. Paul assured the Corinthians, “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:4–5 ESV).
Scripture: ESV®.
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