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
Even before Pentecost, Jesus himself passed on this word of judgment and grace to his disciples and the remnant of Israel he had gathered around himself (Mt. 10, Lk 10). In both Matthew and Luke’s accounts, Jesus gives his word of judgment and grace to the apostles and commissions them to preach the coming Kingdom of God. In his commission, Jesus promises to be supernaturally present through their word: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me” (Matt 10:40). And again: “one who hears you hears me” (Lk 10:16). On the one hand, acceptance of Jesus’ word of grace through faith means a redemptive reception of Christ himself. But on the other hand, those who reject the word stand under the divine judgment of the law: “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town” (Matt 10:14-5). Jesus’s promise to be present in the words of judgment and grace spoken by the apostles presupposes the doctrine of the genus majestaticum and the doctrine of the absolute omnipresence of Christ’s human nature.2
Today, the ministry of the word of grace continues in the life of the post-Easter Church. This occurs as a result of Jesus’ vindication in the resurrection and his sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.3 Toward the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry, he promised that the presence of his Name in the midst of those gathered together is identical with his living presence: “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mt. 18:20). In this, Jesus’ Name takes on the role of YHWH’s Name in the Old Testament. The gift of the divine Name is inexorably tied to the gift of the promise of grace. Upon the gift of his Name, God established solidarity with Israel, and later the Church, through the pledged promise. Those who receive the divine Name can call upon it in faith for salvation, which forms the basis of the Lord’s Prayer. Similarly, the giving of the promise is the giving of the very divine self. As a result, it makes sense that the primary channel of grace in the Old Testament, the Temple, was called “a house for my name” (2 Sam 7:13). In the era of the New Testament, Jesus attached his Name to the Word and Sacraments (“baptizing them in the name” Matt. 28:19). Therefore each liturgical gathering even today becomes a realization of the eschatological Temple. Thus, the designation of the Church as the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-14, v. 27; Eph 4:12; 5:23; Col 1:18, v. 24, 2:19) and the new Temple (1 Cor. 3:16, Eph. 2:19-22, Heb. 3:6) throughout the New Testament makes perfect sense because Christ is himself the new Temple/Tabernacle (John 1:14, 2:21).
In the baptismal command at the end of Matthew, Jesus clarifies how his divine Name will be proclaimed among the nations and the proper meaning of the reference to where “two or three” are gathered. The Holy Spirit, who is tethered to the person of the risen Christ, will give the ability to forgive sins (i.e., subjective justification) in the Name of Jesus (“repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” [Lk 24:47, emphasis added, also see Jn. 20:23]). Additionally, the Spirit will work forgiveness through Jesus’s Name in the sacraments of the new testament. In Matthew 28:19, the apostles are commissioned to baptize in the Triune name (which includes that of Jesus). This apostolic proclamation and administration of baptism itself mediates the presence of Jesus in the same manner that the Temple mediated the presence of YHWH to Israel: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20).
In the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus confirmed his New Testament of forgiveness by offering his own Body and Blood (to which his Name is attached) for sacramental consumption by the Church (Mt. 26:26-9). Particularly in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’s presence at common meals with sinners directly communicated to them that they were forgiven, and that Jesus was in solidarity with them.4 Indeed, such meals were also eschatological because they proleptically anticipated the feast of the Kingdom wherein “many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11). The establishment of the Lord’s Supper fulfilled and transcends Jesus’s common meals with sinners during his earthly ministry. Through the gift of his true Body and Blood, which rescued us from sin, death, the Devil, and the law, Jesus ratifies and verifies his promise to sinners that they are forgiven (subjective justification) and that he has chosen (election) them to be in his kingdom forever.
- See my argument in: Jack Kilcrease, Justification by the Word, 50-64. ↩︎
- Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ, 241-402. ↩︎
- See similar argument, in a modified form in: Jack Kilcrease, The Self-Donation of God, 192-194. ↩︎
- See: Craig Bloomberg, Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005). ↩︎
From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).
Images Lucas Cranach the Elder, Wittenberg Altarpiece, from “Sola Gratia,” June 13, 2016, accessed May 28, 2014, https://lutheranreformation.org/theology/sola-gratia/; and Edward Riojas, artwork from “O Love, How Deep: A Concert Celebrating the Sacraments & Means of Grace,” Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Carlisle, IA, September 13, 2022, accessed May 28, 2024, https://holycrosscarlisle.org/media/w8sckh7/o-love-how-deep-a-concert-celebrating-the-sacraments-means-of-grace.