Sedalia Circuit Winkel Forensic Catholicization Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. You might have heard these Words before: Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Dear Christian friends, A few months ago, while praying the rite of confirmation, the vicar innocently wrote today’s sermon for me. (Thank you, vicar.) The opening words of the confirmation rite remind the student, “you have been baptized and catechized.” With understandable first-time jitters, the vicar tripped and I wrote it down: “You have been baptized and catholicized,” the vicar said. It is a rare and blessed moment when a slip-of-the-tongue draws us closer to the truth. Yes, we catechize people, that is, we baptize and teach them, as our Lord commanded us to do. In so baptizing and teaching, we catholicize them, that is, we make them part of what the Small Catechism calls “the one true faith” and “the whole Christian church on earth.” Catholicity is forensic. To clarify the point, let’s briefly review our first lessons in theology. • The older pastors learned from Francis Pieper: “Justification is a forensic act, nothing but the judicial verdict of innocence” (III, 9). “Justification is not a physical, but a forensic act” (II, 403); “Justification is always used in the New Testament in the declaratory, the forensic sense” (II, 525). • St. Paul speaks of forensic sanctification, too, that holiness is likewise imputed and declared to us on account of Christ. Paul used aorist passives: “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). • Shall we not think likewise of the resurrection? The resurrection of the body is your future hope and joyous certainty. “Your dead will live; their bodies shall rise” (Isaiah 26:19). But the resurrection also has a forensic aspect, declared power, in which we now live. “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. … Present your bodies to God as those who have been brought from death to life” (Romans 6:11, 13). • “You have been baptized and catholicized,” said the vicar. You have been baptized and the one true faith—in its entirety—has been forensically credited to your account. To borrow an image from Helmut Thielicke, at Baptism you were fitted with catholicity like a country boy, with breeches that are too big, into which he must still grow up … Meanwhile, they hang loosely around his body, and this ludicrous sight of course is not beautiful (A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, 10). Sugar will dissolve into a turd. Heat will penetrate the surface of cold steel. “Every Word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4) creates what it states. God’s forensic declarations produce miraculous results. • God’s forensic justification carries the powerful effect of gripping the one thus justified. We call that effect, that heart-quickening grasp, FAITH. • The miracle God produces through His forensic declaration of sanctification might be called LOVE—love for God, love for neighbor. • The miraculous result of forensic resurrection might be the ability to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that “neither 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” (Romans 8:39). • What word might describe the result of God’s forensic catholicization, that is, His baptismal declaration that you are part of “the whole Christian church on earth” and now hold “the one true faith”? Perhaps CATECHESIS will do. Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” God has declared you completely, 100% sanctified or holy, even though you are still warehousing great unholiness in your eyes and mind and heart. You are less loveless toward your neighbor than you were before, but you still have a long way to go. God’s forensic sanctification guards you and protects you along the way. God has declared you completely, 100% justified or righteous, even though you still are clearly out-of-plumb when it comes to your actions and your speaking and your thinking. But the power of God’s Word has made it possible for you to think better than you used to think, to trust Jesus more to trust, to despair more of your abilities and leave all things to God’s direction. But while we all still live in the potholes, God’s forensic justification remains whole and pure and undefiled, covering unjust you and despicable me from head to toe. God’s forensic catholicization will provide you with similar gifts, both for your person and for your office. Personally, neither you nor I will ever sound the depths of the one true faith. God forbid that we become masters, either of His Scriptures or His faith! “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord?” (Isaiah 40:13) “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:34). “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart off man imagined… these things God has revealed to us through His Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Just as it is abhorrent to travel roads that God has forbidden, so it is impossible to travel roads God has not opened. What shall we do? We shall “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3). What shall we do? We shall hold the Scriptures firmly in hand, each of us placing the finger of his preaching firmly upon God’s page, declaring with the mouth (Psalm 51:5) only those things that God has delivered to the eye (Psalm 119:18). What shall we do? Just as we trust God’s forensic justification, even while we repeatedly make people wonder whether we are indeed righteous; just as we trust God’s forensic sanctification, even as we repentantly hope to show better love for God and for neighbor; so we trust also God’s forensic catholicization, even while we devote ourselves to faithfulness and catholicity. The vicar said it so well: “You have been baptized and catholicized.” So also have the people whom God has placed into your care. We collectively face serious challenges in “teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded.” It is never hard to find a empty seat in the Bible study class. Confirmation instruction seems continually to test the limits—both the limits of what the students can neglect and the limits of what the pastor can forbear. Even those who faithfully devote themselves to your faithful teaching will occasionally stun you with the heterodox observations they make (mostly because their daughter married a Baptist). The Scriptures are indeed given, in part, for “rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:2), but if we are not careful with our responses, we might teach people that the risk is too great for them to ask questions or make observations. Take comfort in God’s forensic catholicity. Know that you do not need to fix every detail of every person’s thinking in your congregation. Allow the living Word of God to do its catholicizing work—just as it does its justifying and sanctifying work—simply by means of your faithful repetition. While my sister delivered her firstborn, my mother stood by to hold her hand. At the moment of the child’s birth, my sister asked, “Does he look like a Caleb or does he look like a Joshua?” Wisely, my mother refused to answer the question. You may continue to call today’s Gospel “the Great Commission,” if you wish. But do you really want someone else to name your child? A more legalistic name can hardly be given. Alternatively, you could give today’s Gospel a somewhat wordier, but much more consoling, moniker. Something like, “Jesus’ Promise to Continue Making Disciples through Your Baptizing and Teaching,” might fit better. Perhaps “Forensic Catholicization” will do. Just stick the boy into his breeches. God will cause the growth. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
