May 2024 - Jack Kilcrease

The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead works through the Word and Sacrament ministry of the Church to share the universal and objective “not guilty” verdict of the Father. This verdict comes through the message of the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Those who receive the proclamation of justification by faith secure the very presence of the risen Jesus in the power of the Spirit. As the great cosmic judge, the Son of Man, Jesus now mediates the same verdict and presence he proleptically shared with the eschatological Israel in his earthly ministry through the Church.

The Church is defined by the means of grace to which Jesus has attached his Name, that is, his presence. Therefore, to be in contact with the means of grace is to both be in contact with the risen Jesus, and his body/bride the Church. The Church and the Divine Service (Gottesdienst) is the replacement for the Temple (Eph. 2:19-22) and its service. This is because the Church and its Divine Service are now the body of Jesus, the true eschatological Temple in the flesh (Jn. 1:14). As the Son of Man, Jesus proleptically elected and worked justification in the midst of the outcastes of Israel. He told his hearers beforehand what verdict he would render on them in light of their belief or unbelief in his words of judgment and grace.¹

Christ’s regal and sacerdotal activity find their ultimate fulfillment in his prophetic office. Christ’s prophetic office does not merely encompass his teachings prior to his crucifixion, but is finally and most supremely fulfilled in his actualization of the testament of the gospel. The saving testament of the gospel is the message of his salvific cross and empty tomb. The cross and the empty tomb are the supreme act of revelation of the Triune God. St. Paul tells us that the omega-point of God’s revelatory activity, and the center of all proper Christian teaching, is the death and resurrection of Christ: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Martin Luther echoed this in his slogan: “The cross alone is our theology” (crux sola est nostra theologia).¹ In his Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle summarized the content of the revelation of the cross as: “[Christ] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

Although the message of the cross’s ultimate telos is salvation, in Scripture salvation never comes apart from a corresponding act of judgment. Hence, the cross is not only a revelation of grace, but it is the means by which “[God] will destroy the wisdom of the wise [and] the intelligence of the intelligent” (1 Cor. 1:19). Jesus is “The stone that the builders rejected [that] has become the cornerstone” (Matt. 21:42). Hence, the crucifixion and empty tomb not only reveal the hidden plan of redemption, but also expose the true depths of human sin. The New Testament emphasizes that the exposure of the true depths of human sin in the cross occurs on two horizons: coram Deo (i.e., the divine-human relationship) and coram mundo (i.e., the human-human relationship).

Month: May 2024

Reconciliation through the Spirit in the Means of Grace

The Death of Christ as a Revelation of Sin