Judgement Sunday, 2021

Sermon for the week

Sermon from Pastor Bergman, preached at St Paul’s, Stockholm

TEXT: John 5:22-29

THROUGH JESUS

Each high mass that we celebrate includes a short prayer before the readings of the texts, the Collect, in which the topic for that Sunday is summarised in prayer form. That prayer usually ends with the words “Through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.” We must keep these words in mind and not let them become an empty phrase for closing the prayer. They are great and meaningful words, taken from the New Testament, where they are found in many places. They summarise the sacred and precious truth that it is only through Jesus that we get to know God, and only through him do we become and remain Christians. “I am the way and the truth and the life”, says Jesus, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14: 6)

True Christianity teaches us that there is no way around the side or past Jesus, only a way through him. Without Jesus we do not understand the deepest message of Scripture to us. With him everything is connected, and without him Scripture loses its inner context. Jesus is the core and shining star of the Bible.

The words “through Jesus” do not appear in the text of today’s sermon. But that very thing is there, practically in every row. The subject of our on Judgement Sunday sermon today is “through Jesus”. We let these two words summarise today’s message.

1. Through Jesus the world will be judged

“For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father“ Although Jesus appears as a human being on the day of judgement, as the son of the Virgin Mary, it should still be unequivocally clear to everyone in the end that he is also the Son of God, like the Father in divine power and glory. Jesus says “All may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.”

None of the evangelists have taken such a strong stand on what Jesus says about his deity as the apostle John. The divinity of Christ is the major theme of his gospel. It also comes through here in our text when he talks about the judgement. Through Jesus the world will be judged: “He has given all judgement to the Son.” It is one of the Bible’s strongest testimonies that Jesus is fully God. He who is the Lord and creator of the world is also the one who will call us humans to the judgement seat to have our lives judged. Either we shall hear, as it is said in the great parable of Matt. 25: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father“ or, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire“ (vv. 34, 41)

Jesus the judge will judge with the highest degree of justice. He is God and makes no mistakes. Here on earth, judges can make wrong judgements. Here we usually have the opportunity to appeal, to go on to a higher court and finally to the Supreme Court to have a ruling changed. But when we stand before the judge Jesus, we stand before a court where nothing can be appealed. He is the highest authority; you cannot make an appeal. Nor would it be necessary either, because he is the perfect judge who already knows all the facts of the case. He is immeasurably fair and impartial. There is no risk of a miscarriage of justice based on incorrect grounds with Jesus.

It should now be safe and gratifying for us to have such a well-informed and legally secure judge, the best imaginable. But on the contrary, it can feel very worrying. For the very fact that the judge is so jurisprudential, objective and clear-sighted fills us with trepidation when we begin to consider more closely that we will one day be judged according to the highest justice. “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement,“ it says in Hebrews. 9:27. Such words arouse discomfort and anxiety in us humans. Both death and judgement have something definitive and irrevocable about them. We are filled with anxious questions: How has my life been? How will it turn out for me? What will be my lot?

A common reaction that we humans have to the thought of death and judgement is a gnawing concern that we have not lived as we should. The fact that we can worry about it shows that we are humans and not animals. We are moral beings with a sense of responsibility and conscience.

When we think about the judgement’s verdict and wonder how it will turn out for us, we usually bring out the balance scales. We put our good deeds in one scale and the bad in the other and hope that the good will outweigh the bad. But Jesus will not have any such scales when he judges the world. He only tells us that all shall come forward: “Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.” Nothing needs to be weighed and tested. The verdict is already made.

Many who read the texts about the final judgement in the NT think that they give an overly rough and simplistic picture of reality. Everything is in black and white, about evil and good with nothing in between. The goats have only evil deeds, the sheep only good. And one might think that disagreeable, along with most others. Please might think- I’ve caused hurt, it’s true, but I’ve also done some good. People are not merely black or white, but grey, a mixture of both good and evil. Why does the judge not take this into account in the final verdict?

But when you think like that, you have completely forgotten who the judge is. It is not a human being who judges according to his human values ​​or the legal opinion of the majority of the people, but the judge of the world, Jesus, who judges according to God’s law. And at that point you are either evil or good, white or black. There is nothing in between. For the law of God requires perfect righteousness, goodness and love.

What to us is so harsh about the law is that it makes us all black. It says: “You have not loved God above all things and your neighbour as yourself. You have loved yourself above all things and your neighbour only when it benefits you.” Even if we had only violated one of God’s Ten Commandments, we would have shown through this one sin that we are among those who do not love God. Every sin is a violation against the love of God. James reminds us of this in his epistle when he writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.“ (James 2:10). Such is the law of God. It requires all or nothing. Either we love God and keep His commandments completely, or we do not.

Paul says, “For the law brings wrath“ (Rom. 4:15). The Bible’s reaction to sin and evil is what the Bible calls wrath. The NT speaks of the judgement of “the wrath to come” (Matt. 3: 7, 1 Thess. 1:10). The law cannot save us from that judgement. It only makes things worse; it strikes us down and kills us. We sing in a hymn:

Whither shall I flee from God and His eternal law?
It governs me no matter where I go.
How shall I face the Lord
on the dreaded day of judgement? (Swedish Church Hymnal, 260)

It is helpful to stop and seriously consider the question that the hymn is asking.

Through Jesus the world will be judged, the sheep separated from the goats. Which group will I end up in? Is there even any point in thinking about it? You might think that because you cannot know how you will be judged on that day that you should instead just hope for the best.

But the great and surprising thing that Jesus tells us in today’s text is that already here and now we can be told how it will turn out for us on the day of judgement.

2. Through Jesus, we completely avoid the verdict of condemnation.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life.” These are great and wonderful words that we should not only memorise but also keep in our hearts as the most precious of all. Thus through Jesus we can be freed from judgement and belong to those to whom Jesus already here and now says: You will not come under any judgement!

It is plain to see that on the last day there will be no escape from the verdict of condemnation and eternal damnation. It’s too late for all that. Instead, deliverance takes place here and now. And how does it happen? It happens when we hear and believe the gospel. Jesus says “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” Then and only then do we avoid judgement. When Jesus speaks here of “my word”, he is referring to the saving word of the gospel.

The law tells you the truth about your life- that you are under wrath for your sins, and that you can not in the least bit save yourself. But the gospel tells you something completely different, namely that through Jesus Christ you can be free from all that troubles and burdens you, truly free – not partially but completely free- it is complete and thorough. Christ’s Atonement, His grace and forgiveness are comprehensive. It encompasses everything: the outer and the inner, body and soul, thoughts, words and deeds, the whole of life. Jesus’ words come with a total acquittal, a “justification”, using the biblical term. Jesus’ words are full of life and power. They give what they say. Jesus says he who hears and believes “does not come into judgement but has passed from death to life.”

But how can Jesus overturn the guilty verdict that God’s law requires? Because he has received the judgement due to us. He tasted the curse of the law in our place and has taken the law’s penalty, our death and our punishment, all so that we would pass from death to life.

Therefore to everyone who today fearfully wonders “Where shall I flee from God and his holy law?” we can say – You can flee to Jesus Christ! Listen to him! Through him, you avoid judgement altogether. He was sent to earth to bring about this deliverance and to give it to you. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).

So- even here and now- goats, through faith in Jesus, become sheep who are placed on the right side, black becomes white, evil becomes good. Therefore, on the Day of Judgement, there is nothing to judge in those who have passed from death to life through Jesus. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus“ says the apostle (Rom. 8: 1). There are no sins to point out, examine and judge, for they are all forgiven, cast into the depths of the sea, as the prophet Micah says (7:19) or as God himself says: “I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25).

With the zeal of love towards us, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.“ The dead are the spiritually dead. The apostle says to the church in Ephesus, “And He has made you alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins“ (Eph. 2: 1 MKJV). Belief in the gospel is likened to a resurrection from the dead.

When you hear and believe the gospel, you do not have the judgement before you. You have it behind you. You are already condemned, crucified, dead and buried with Christ and raised with him to live a new life. All that remains is what Jesus talks about last in our text: the bodily resurrection.

3. Through Jesus we will be able to experience a joyful resurrection.

“Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.” This is not about the spiritually dead, but about bodies lying in the grave.

The body also receives the stamp of eternal life through the gospel when we hear and believe the gospel. It must arise and be united with the saved soul. And even if should we not lie in a grave when the Lord comes, yet our bodies will be transformed and “clothed in immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). This is how we become completely restored both in body and soul. The hidden life, which we have carried within us, then breaks forth in unimaginable splendour and glory.

The day of wrath, Dies irae, is called the day of judgement in an old Latin hymn. In view of all that we receive through Jesus Christ, Luther called the Day of Judgement “The Dear Last Day.” The gospel turns Dies irae into something great and cherished. God grant that we all have the grace to see it that way. Amen.

S Bergman
(Translated from Swedish by Rev Harris)

All Saints Day, 2021

Devotion for the week

The sacred and glorious name of Jesus.

There can be no doubt in the mind of any Christian about the wonderful Name of Jesus. We know from the scriptures that in Hebrew the name “Jesus” means “saviour” or more precisely “God saves”. The exact meaning is given by the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Joseph, Jesus’ earthly step father, when he said to Joseph-

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  Matt 1:20,21

Therefore He is named Jesus, by God Himself, because He is the Saviour of the world.

But what does He save us from? He saves us from our sins.

In fact, we are told in the scriptures that

“…there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

It is worthy of note that the Bible says that Jesus will save us from our sins, not just one sin, but all of them. Every condition of sin, every kind of sin, whether past or present. Even the sins we will commit in the future. But there is a condition- we must repent of them. That is, simply put, to turn our backs on our sins, to walk away from them and vow to never commit them again. We are told very clearly in the Bible that “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) which tells that the blood of Jesus has the power to cleanse us through and through- to our deepest core. Our entire heart and soul can be cleansed and the stain of sin washed away by the sanctifying power of the blood of He who holds the highest and most precious name above all names. St John further emphasises this when he states two verses later

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9)

When we confess our sins, honestly and from the deepest place in our hearts, there is no sin that is not cleansed and we are freed from their power and set right with God. Those who fiercely oppose God, who blaspheme against Him and who remain in their sins without repentance, who do not turn from their sins and in faith ask for mercy and forgiveness in the wonderful name of Jesus retain their sins, and ultimately, if they remain in that state, suffer for their sins in eternity. (see Matt. 10:28; 12:31,32; 25:46; Ez. 18:20; Rev. 21:8)

But our merciful and gracious God does not want anyone to perish for their sins (2 Peter 3:9). He wants all to come and receive the gift of salvation given through His Son, whose very name tells us that He will save us from our sins. All are loved by God (John 3:16) and Jesus has given His life for all (1 John 2:2) and therefore every human can confidently say that Jesus died for their sins. He will not turn away anyone who asks Him for forgiveness and His promise to free us from the burden and punishment of our sins is true, faithful and trustworthy.

Pondering these thoughts, we can pray with great theologian and pastor Johannes Gerhard (1582-1637) who said:

How sweet and delightful is the name of Jesus! For what is Jesus but Saviour? And what real harm can befall the saved? What beyond salvation can we either seek or expect? Receive me, O Lord Jesus, into the number of Thy children, so that with them I may praise Thy holy and saving name. If through my sin I have lost my original innocence, have I deprived Thee of Thy mercy? If I have miserably destroyed and condemned, yet canst Thou not compassionately save me?

And

I am sinful, reprobate, condemned; but in Thy holy name there is righteousness, election, salvation; but in Thy name was I baptized; in Thy name do I believe; in Thy name will I die; in Thy name will I rise again, and in Thy blessed name will I appear at the judgment. In Thy name every conceivable good is provided for my soul, and stored up in reserve as a sacred treasury.
(From Sacred Meditations, IV)

Amen!

+ Rev Harris

We are presenting some sermons by the late Ps Staffan Bergman, recently translated by our Pastor. This one is from 1997, and is from the reading according to the traditional One Year Calendar.

Sermon from St Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Stockholm

The 23^rd Sunday After Trinity

Text: Matt. 22:15-22

A CHRISTIAN’S DUAL CITIZENSHIP

On All Saints’ Day, we turned our eyes and thoughts to heaven and the saints. We have a heavenly citizenship and a heavenly home that we are on our way to. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are heirs to the glory of eternal life.

Today we are going to say something about the earthly citizenship that we have. We are all citizens of a country, in our case in Sweden. As Christians, we have a dual citizenship: a heavenly and an earthly one. We shall not despise any of them. For behind both stands one and the same God.

The Pharisees tried to entangle Jesus with the question of whether or not to pay taxes to the emperor. They thought they had trapped him. Whatever way he answered, they could accuse him. If he answered no, they could say that he was a rebel, who opposed the emperor. If Jesus answered yes, he could be accused of being on the side of the Roman occupying power. They waited intensely to see how he would answer.

But Jesus did not fall into the trap. His answer was not either/or, but both/and. We must obey both the emperor and God: “Give then to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, and God what belongs to God.” A masterful answer. These words give us today the subject of our sermon: The dual citizenship of a Christian.

1. A Christian is a citizen of the Kingdom of God and serves God there

“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus said when he was later bound before Pilate (John 18:36). The kingdom of God is a spiritual and invisible kingdom in the sense that only God, who looks into the hearts of men, knows who are true citizens. We become members of the kingdom through baptism and faith. We can observe baptism, but not faith, neither in the little newly baptised children nor in adults. Only God sees it. “The Lord knows his people” (2 Tim. 2:19).

Many have wanted and still want to make the Church a visible earthly kingdom with peace and justice on earth as its main goal. The Pharisees were obsessed with the idea of ​​a visible earthly Jewish welfare state. But the kingdom of God is no such kingdom. It is not a state built on political power and strength. The Church is a people on a journey to God. She will one day be taken up to him, and then her glory, which has been hidden here under crosses and sufferings, will be revealed. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43), Jesus says.

Baptism is the passport of Christians that shows that they were once accepted by God themselves as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Many people do not care about their passport. They do not believe what it stands for. It is deeply tragic. Jesus says, “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

In your baptismal passport there is a picture of you and under it it states: Christian. We are called Christians after Christ, from whom we have obtained our heavenly citizenship. We have not earned this citizenship, but Christ has won it for us. He has bought us with His holy and precious blood and clothed us in His righteousness. Through baptism, we have become “coins” with his image imprinted in our lives. In him we are redeemed children of God. We belong to God. The one who is baptised is always called to “give God what God belongs to”, ie. to live for God, “live under him and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness” as Luther says in the catechism. We are baptised into life in the kingdom of God.

God does not rule and uphold this kingdom by force and coercion. He rules with a gentle and merciful hand, through the gospel and the Holy Spirit. The kingdom is a kingdom of grace, full of comfort and forgiveness for sinners. Those who live there live in a constant reception of God’s grace and love in Christ. We stumble and fall, but he raises us up. We are sinners, but have the power of the Spirit to kill sin and live according to God’s commandments. Day by day we are preserved in the faith of Jesus and are brought closer to the heavenly goal, our true homeland.

In the Church, as Luther used to say, God exercises “his spiritual regiment.” The goal is not worldly: “We have our citizenship in heaven, and from there we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior” (Phil. 3:20). The goal is perfection, eternal life, where there is no more sin and sorrow.

2. A Christian is also a citizen of an earthly kingdom and also serves God there

Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” In the current situation, it was the Roman emperor who occupied Israel. His image on the coin reminded the Jews of who they were under. They did not like it, but had to bow to the pagan emperor.

Pious Christians have sometimes found it difficult to see that secular kingdoms and rulers have anything to do with God. But they have.

The word “authority” is usually used to describe the governing and controlling power in a country. We read about the government and our relationship to it in Rom. 13: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. … For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Rom. 13: 1, 4).

God himself is thus behind the authority, and to obey it is to obey God. This applies no matter how it is organised, and no matter how it has come about. The government is a servant of God for the earthly good of men, set to limit external evil, maintain law and order and protect the citizens.

This is the “worldly regiment of God.” The goal of it is external justice and decency. It is not about faith and salvation, but a good earthly life for the people. The state is not a church governed by biblical words, but by laws enacted by men and based on reason and common sense (the natural law which is inscribed in the hearts of men, Rom. 2:15).

We Christians should not despise the government and the laws of the land, but obey. We must obey the ordinances as they stand, declare and pay taxes, not smuggle and lie at customs checks, not cheat or drive through a red light. We may find that a number of regulations, rules and laws are not very good. It does not give us the right to break them. But we can criticise them, and we can legally lobby for them to be changed, improved or abolished. We can bring forth opinion, exercise our voting right, etc. In the earthly realm we must work for the good of society and cooperate, regardless of faith and religion, with all sensible and good powers.

Obedience to the authorities, however, has its limits. Christians are not ones who constantly bow down to and obey those in power no matter what they say. When the authorities or its magistrates go beyond their powers and want to force us into things that are clearly contrary to the Word of God, then we should not obey. “One must obey God rather than men” the apostles told the Sanhedrin, who wanted to forbid them from testifying and teaching about Jesus (Acts 5:29). When the emperor in Rome later wanted to make himself God and force the Christians to sacrifice to him, many of them refused to do so. Not even a symbolic grain of wheat did they want to sacrifice on the emperor’s altar. For that, they had to pay with their life. They became Christian martyrs.

Good authority is important to the Church. Therefore, in the NT, we are called to pray for those who govern, “for kings and all who rule, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life” (1 Tim. 2: 2).

3. A Christian does not confuse the two kingdoms

Although both citizenships are of God, they must not be confused. They have different purposes and tasks. The Augsburg Confession states: “the civil rulers defend not souls, but bodies…against manifest harm,… the Gospel protects souls against heresies, the devil and eternal death” (Art. XXVIII, Latin text)

The Church should not engage in politics and exercise worldly power. She will keep to her task and do what the Lord has commanded, namely, proclaim the gospel for repentance, for salvation and eternal life for all who want to listen to the Word of God, freely and without compulsion.

In the earthly realm, we live among many people who do not believe at all in Jesus Christ and the gospel. These are people whom the Bible calls “the world.” The Christian’s values ​​and way of life differ in several respects from the common man. Christians live in the world, but not of the world (John 17:16).

As Christians, we live in an earthly kingdom, the best of which we seek through community involvement of various kinds. At the same time, we know that this kingdom is not our ultimate goal. We have that goal in heaven. This means that we will never really be at home here. We are “guests and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13). A letter written in the 200s to a certain Diognetus, who wanted to know more about Christianity, describes how Christians live in the two kingdoms. It says:

“…they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life. They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners… They marry, like everyone else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring. They share a common table, but not a common bed. They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh.”

This is a fine and biblical description of a Christian’s life in the two kingdoms.

Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). “Everything else” is the earthly kingdom and our life there. It is important, but not eternal. It has an ending- but the kingdom of God will endure when all earthly kingdoms fall. That is why it is so important to be first and foremost in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of salvation and grace, in which we were received through baptism and remain in through faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Let us thank God for both our earthly and heavenly citizenship and ask for grace to properly serve Him in both.

Oh lead me with simple and safe words

Every day into your kingdom

And teach me to remember, that this earth, is yours

And not only heaven.

Amen.
S. Bergman (1997)