The Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost
Sin Is A Dead Issue Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. God promises His Christians in today’s Epistle that “*Christ… will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him*.” Dear Christian friends: The Holy Scriptures are full of passages that tell us to struggle against our sin and gain mastery over it. For example, · St. Paul says in Romans 6, “*Do not let sin reign in your mortal body*’ (v. 12); again in Colossians 3, “*put to death what is earthly in you*” (v. 3:5); yet again in Ephesians 4, “*Put off your old, corrupt self*” (v. 22). · St. Peter, in his first epistle, calls upon us to “*be holy in all our conduct*” (1:15) and “*love one another earnestly from a pure heart*” (1:22). · Finally, the Words of Jesus: “*Go and sin no more*” (John 8:11). In all of these Bible passages—and in many other passages like them—sin sounds like a serious and deadly issue that must remain in the forefront of our minds. We must pay daily attention to our sin, NOT so that we may fall in love with it, but so that we may struggle against it (Hebrews 12:4) and run away from it (1 Corinthians 6:18) and even become masters who rule over sin (Genesis 4:7), rather than allowing sin to rule us. After all these Bible passages do their important work in us, preparing us for the every-day battle against sin that is called repentance, today’s Epistle suddenly throws a curveball, so to speak. Whereas the other Bible passages present sin as a vitally important issue, today’s Epistle makes it sound as though sin is no longer a problem—or even a consideration—for the Lord our God. Today’s Epistle presents sin as a non-issue, a dead issue, a problem that is NO problem. This is what the Lord says: Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, NOT TO DEAL WITH SIN but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Why does this Epistle say that Christ shall return, but “*NOT TO DEAL WITH SIN*”? Because sin is a dead issue. Sin has been handled. Sin’s power has broken. Our Lord Jesus dealt with the problem of our sin once and for all when He died upon the cross and dragged all our sin into the grave. Praise be to God! We may say with confidence that, when Jesus deals with a problem, He deals so thoroughly with that problem that it never becomes a problem again. Christ was offered “*once to bear the sins of many*” and once is all it takes. There is no longer any need for our Lord to deal with our sin, because—as you heard in today’s Epistle—“*He has appeared once for all… to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself*.” Christ will appear for a second time, but He will have more important things on His mind than the dead issue of our sin. So why all these other Bible verses? Why all the passages that speak about struggling against the sin that lives in me (Romans 7:20), waging war within me (Romans 7:23)? Does today’s Epistle turn all of these other Bible passages into empty threats, or busywork while we wait for our Lord to “*appear a second time*”? Of course not! Today’s Epistle teaches us to think rightly about our daily struggle against sin, NOT so that we will abandon our struggle, but so that we will fully understand for whom we struggle. Simply stated, we do NOT struggle against sin so that we may gain any ground with God. We do NOT beat our flesh into submission (1 Corinthians 9:26) so that we may measure up to His expectations and we do NOT lead “*lives of holiness and godliness*” (2 Peter 3:11) in order to impress Him. Today’s Epistle might even be taken as a warning to us, that if we were to struggle against sin in order to impress God, we would end up denying Christ. Why? Because “*He has appeared once for all… to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself*.” If we should endeavor to do the work that our Christ has already done for us, that would be the same as denying Christ and saying that His work is not done! Therefore, we must gear ourselves to think that our sin is a dead issue when it comes to our relationship to God. We must think that our struggle against sin is carried out for any number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with gaining ground with God. We must think this way about our sin because God has declared in today’s Epistle that Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, NOT TO DEAL WITH SIN but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Why, then, shall I work so hard to put my sin and selfishness to dead on a daily basis? I will do it for that lady sitting right there. Why should I put off my old, corrupt self and devote all my energies to being holy in my conduct? Because such labors will help those two people sitting over there, and the two others right behind them. I shall devote myself to that entire pew of people back there and I shall do so earnestly, because their lives will be better for it. Such labors will not improve my position before God, but that totally does not matter! My labors do not matter because sin is now a dead issue; because there is no better position before God than the one I have now been given in Christ, “*who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself*.” So, too, there is no better position before God than the one YOU have already been given in Christ; in Baptism; in the proclamation of your forgiveness; in the Holy Communion. That good position, given to you by Christ, turns today’s Epistle into a beautiful promise of hope: Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, NOT TO DEAL WITH SIN but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. >From that good and secure position you have been given, what might you do while you wait for your Lord? Some these Bible passages might help you decide: · St. Paul says in Romans 6, “*Do not let sin reign in your mortal body*’ (v. 12); again in Colossians 3, “*put to death what is earthly in you*” (v. 3:5); yet again in Ephesians 4, “*Put off your old, corrupt self*” (v. 22). · St. Peter, in his first epistle, calls upon us to “*be holy in all our conduct*” (1:15) and “*love one another earnestly from a pure heart*” (1:22). · Finally, the Words of Jesus: “*Go and sin no more*” (John 8:11).
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