Fifth Sunday of Easter - Epistle (1881)

James 1:16-21 The vivid knowledge belongs to true Christianity above all that one does nothing of himself. Instead, Christ is everything. One becomes a Christian only in this way: one first vividly recognizes his forlorn condition from the Law, his utter inability to do anything good. Then, from the Gospel, one recognizes the already acquired, complete, and exclusive help in Christ. Only in this way shall one prove that one has become a Christian, that one utterly despairs of all his own natural powers, one seeks and finds the power for all good through faith in Christ. All anti-Christians are rooted in the opposite, that one has confidence in what one should trust God alone, and mean to find in themselves what is found in God alone. All idolaters consists in man denying the one God, i.e., the highest good, because one does not recognize that it is not to be found anywhere outside Him. All unbelievers reject the Law because this takes away from us all our glory before God, and the Gospel, because it gives all glory to God alone. The first parents fell in this way: they forsook God and wanted to be like God, without Him. All false doctrine is rooted and culminates in this: man is made for God, and God for man. This is the cause of all temptation and despair: man seeks in himself what is to be found in God alone, and does not trust what God has promised and has already given. As much as man ascribes to himself and robs God, as much he makes uncertain all salvation, comfort, and hope. The lack of all true sanctification as well as all falling away has its ground in one not recognizing his misery and helplessness without God and therefore he forsakes God, the living source. The apostle proves to us in today's Epistle that the source of all salvation is to be found only in God alone and not in man. He does so not only with clear words, but also in the rebirth of man. Let us learn about The fact that the new birth is solely a work of God's grace; this is evident from the fact that the Apostle teaches us: 1. what it is: a. a gift of God; . the apostle understands by "good gift" all earthly and spiritual gifts that are profitable and good to us; he understands by "perfect gift" goods of eternal life. God gives us every spiritual and eternal goods in the new birth. Therefore it is a good and perfect gift. And this, the apostle says, comes from God. But if it has its origin in God, then it cannot be found in mankind. If God gives it, then it follows that we do not have it. For God gives nothing unnecessary; . it is a gift that is given "from above", from heaven down to mankind; therefore it is not a gift that is brought about by men and offered to God. For what God has and does in heaven, the natural man cannot do and have. - Therefore let no one be deceived: so horrible and foolish it is to want to accuse God that He leads us to evil, so horrible and foolish it

is when man does not seek in God alone the first beginning of all true good. It is denied by both that He only and alone is the Giver of every good gift, i.e., God is the highest good; b. it is creation of spiritual life and divine light in our dead to sin hearts: . "He has begotten us"1, i.e., spiritual way, therefore reborn. Therefore no new man had previously been in us, no new spiritual life, but we were "dead in sins."2 We "perceived nothing of the Spirit of God"3 and did not even have "the will" to be new people.4 And when no new man was in us who could do something for rebirth, and man had nothing else than misery of spiritual death, then it was equally impossible that the spiritually dead man could participate something to his rebirth, just as it is impossible that a physically dead person could set about to make himself alive again. . it is therefore creation of a new life, a creation from nothing. Only God alone can do this. David: "Create in me, God, a pure heart" (Creation); . it is creating new light in blind hearts.5 Only God can create and generate light. Therefore it is His work alone; . it is creating new life and spiritual light in dead hearts, for that reason it is the most wonderful change in the whole human heart and mind. From the unbelieving, God-hating heart, only God alone can make a believing, God-loving heart. Yet a man can not even change his external form6, let alone his heart; c. it is a gracious work of God, this excludes all worthiness on our part: . "according to His will".7 His will toward the lost is a free, gracious will that excludes all merit of mankind. He is the Source, Who prompted Him alone to save our enemies. "'According to His will' first of all means so much, that the will of God is the first cause of our salvation. If God would not have such a good, gracious will toward sin, then no sinner would be straightened out, could not be reborn or converted."8 But if God's gracious will is the first cause of salvation, then it is His gracious work alone, then God has not given us rebirth because He saw that we wanted to let ourselves work rebirth, then our will has not driven Him to it; . "'according to His will' means to another that the will of God is the norm, the guiding principle, the rule according to which our rebirth is established."9 Therefore God has not regenerated us because He saw a rule in us, or our will was the same, according to which He would have directed it. If "according to His will" includes all the grace of God and excludes all the merit of mankind, then rebirth is God's gracious work alone.

1 2

James 1:18. Ephesians 2:1. 3 1 Corinthians 2:14. 4 Philippians 2:13. 5 2 Corinthians 4:6. 6 Jeremiah 13:23. 7 James 1:18. 8 J. Ph. Fresenius, Epistle Sermon. 9 ibid.

2. whereby it is worked. "By the Word of Truth." This is the Gospel, because we are thereby made children of God. This is said not by the Law but by the Gospel.10 That is also what makes baptism into a powerful means of rebirth. If God now works rebirth by the Gospel, then all power for a new life, all grace and righteousness must lie in it and a. God works through it.11 But it follows from this that man is not the instrument whereby God works rebirth; that God has not placed power in the dead man, in order that man could cause it; b. The Word of the Gospel is the means in which God has placed all power for rebirth, thus it follows that man has nothing to do for his rebirth, but that the Gospel works everything in him; because . the Gospel is not about that man must believe in order to be reborn, 12 but it works faith; . the Gospel is not about power or drive, that one should win rebirth through wrestling and struggling and bring it down from heaven, but Christ has achieved and won for us everything that belongs to it. He has put everything in the Gospel. That is why everything is given to us in it; . the Gospel is not about urging to request the grace of rebirth, but God first creates and makes a new man through it, to whom alone he can pray to God that can be heard. If God works rebirth through the Gospel, then it is His work of grace alone. 3. to what end it is worked. "that we would be firstfruits of His creatures", i.e., God's dear children who are holy and pleasing to Him in Christ the Firstborn, like the firstborn in the Old Testament; a. therefore they are reborn and God-pleasing, bestowed with all the privileges and honors of children of God, because . God the Lord has begotten it by the Word of Truth, and they are a glorious creative work of God according to the 2nd and 3rd article, which is His work alone and glorifies His glory alone13; . because they are paid for by Christ, separated from the world and consecrated to God and to the Lamb14, here in time and there in eternity, in order to praise God's work of grace.15 The purpose of rebirth is glorification of His work for the salvation of man. Therefore every glory of any of these contributions is taken from mankind. In order that Christians are reborn to glorify God's glory alone, they also prove it b. by growing in right sanctification; this is reflected in the fact . that they therefore diligently hear God's Word, because God has regenerated them by it and has made them the firstfruits of His creatures, - they conduct themselves rightly toward God;
10 11

Romans 1:16. Romans 10:17. 12 ibid. See Western District Proceedings of 1875, p. 32. 13 John 1:13. 14 Revelation 14:4. 15 Revelation 5:9-10.

. that they therefore conduct themselves rightly toward their neighbors in their words; . they fight the desires of fleshly wrath in the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, because God is insulted by that; . by taking away all wickedness and filthiness, because God has made them new people; . by the fact that in addition they seek power in the Word, by accepting it with meekness in obedience and patience and thereby fortify themselves in the faith, preserve themselves from all falling away and let themselves be saved. They thus prove that they cannot do without Jesus. Georg Mezger