“The ordinance of God is to be held in all honor”
Author: Rev. Harrison Goodman
Pr. Goodman serves as associate pastor at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in San Antonio, Texas.
“there is here no work done by us, but a treasure which He gives us, and which faith apprehends; just as the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross is not a work, but a treasure comprehended in the Word, and offered to us and received by faith.”
Wherever God speaks, whichever direction or by whatever means He speaks, there faith must look, and to that it must hold.
The power, work, profit, fruit, and end of Baptism is this, namely, to save. For no one is baptized in order that he may become a prince, but, as the words declare, that he be saved. But to be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, and to enter into the kingdom of Christ, and to live with Him forever. But to be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, and to enter into the kingdom of Christ, and to live with Him forever.
“Therefore we always teach that the Sacraments and all external things which God ordains and institutes should not be regarded according to the coarse, external mask, as we regard the shell of a nut, but as the Word of God is included therein. For thus we also speak of the parental estate and of civil government. If we propose to regard them in as far as they have noses, eyes, skin, and hair, flesh and bones, they look like Turks and heathen, and some one might start up and say: Why should I esteem them more than others? But because the commandment is added: Honor thy father and thy mother, I behold a different man, adorned and clothed with the majesty and glory of God. The commandment (I say) is the chain of gold about his neck, yea, the crown upon his head, which shows to me how and why one must honor this flesh and blood.”
“When the Word is joined to the element or natural substance, it becomes a Sacrament, that is, a holy and divine matter and sign.”
God Himself stakes His honor, His power and might on it. Therefore it is not only natural water, but a divine, heavenly, holy, and blessed water, and in whatever other terms we can praise it, all on account of the Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word
Jesus has to die for sinners, but when we don’t see that as the greatest expression of love, the religion seems pointless. The Holy Spirit reveals to us who the Son of David is and opens our mouth to beg for mercy, then to eat and drink it.
Text: Luke 18:31-43 & 1 Corinthians 13 (One Year)
Preacher: Pastor Harrison Goodman, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Carroll, Nebraska
“what Baptism is, namely thus, that it is not mere ordinary water, but water comprehended in God’s Word and command, and sanctified thereby, so that it is nothing else than a divine water; not that the water in itself is nobler than other water, but that God’s Word and command are added”
“But the Scriptures teach thus: Even though we collect in one mass the works of all the monks, however splendidly they may shine, they would not be as noble and good as if God should pick up a straw. Why? Because the person is nobler and better. Here, then, we must not estimate the person according to the works, but the works according to the person, from whom they must derive their nobility.”
