Saying Yes to Sex

For many in our culture, Christianity is little more than a “No!” religion. They view our faith as an endless list of “no this” and “no that.” This is especially true of the Sixth Commandment. Christians who take God at His Word are seen as sexual prudes by a culture that is sex crazed and sexually immoral. It is true that Holy Scripture prohibits many things related to sexuality. No adultery. No fornication. No homosexual acts. No sexual immorality. No lust. No coveting.

All of those things are true. But “No!” is only half the story. When it comes to sexuality, Holy Scripture beautifully sets forth a God-given “Yes!”

Sexuality is a gift from God. “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Why two and not just one? Because “it is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). There is only one God, and yet He is a plurality of persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So also humanity is a plurality—male and female. The woman is “a helper fit for” the man (Genesis 2:18).

Man and woman fit together beautifully within this divine design. In fact, God created them so that “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). In Holy Scripture “one flesh” means sexual relations. Thus, sex comes with a definite “Yes!” from God, within the sacred institution of marriage. One of the chief reasons God created sexuality is the procreation of children. “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). That’s God speaking. Again, He’s saying “Yes!” to sex, within the sacred institution of marriage.

Since the fall into sin, God also designates marriage as a partial remedy against temptation. “Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2).

All of this marriage and sex talk is ultimately wrapped up in the divine mystery of Christ and His bride—the Church:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. [Ephesians 5:25-32]

The reason why adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, sexual immorality, lust, and covetousness are sinful is because they take what is good and holy—sex within marriage—and adulterate it with self-seeking pursuits. Christ has one bride. He laid down His life for her. He is ever faithful to her. Every marriage is to be a reflection of that redemptive fact.

So don’t be afraid to confess God’s “No!” when it comes to sexual sins. And don’t forget to also add God’s “Yes!” when it comes to sex within marriage. There is virtue in God’s divine design. It’s called chastity—both before and within marriage. Just as Saint Paul told the Christians in Corinth, so I tell you: “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure [chaste!] virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2).

As Lutherans, we have this beautifully spelled out in the Small Catechism, where Luther’s explanation to the Sixth Commandment doesn’t focus at all on the “No!” (which certainly could be done!), but solely on the “Yes!” of sex. “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.”

Let us read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest these words, and by God’s grace practice them, to the glory of God and for the good of our neighbor.

12 Weeks Old

The picture and text says it all...

Pandora’s Box

Some laughed at the suggestions I made in a previous post regarding the open definition of marriage that is coming our way because of the redefinition of marriage that is taking place in our culture. As marriage is redefined to incorporate any persons who are in love, the inevitable conclusion is an open definition that includes any number of people.

Think that’s far-fetched? Just one week after New Zealand passed its “gay marriage” legislation, a new group has formed with the goal of having “group marriage” recognized and legalized. Click here for the story. How could a supporter of “gay marriage” not support this next move?

What did you expect from opening up the pandora’s box called “gay marriage”?

Gross Sinners

Luther was known for speaking his mind, especially when it came to those who despise Christ, His Word, and His Church. Read on...

“Our usurers, gluttons, drunkards, whoremongers, blasphemers, and scoffers shouldn’t be excommunicated by us. They excommunicate themselves. They despise the Word of God, enter no church, hear no sermon, receive no sacrament. If they don’t want to be Christians, let them be heathen, and forever! Who cares about this anyhow? If they take the goods of ministers and appropriate everything for themselves, the minister shouldn’t absolve them or administer the sacrament to them. They shouldn’t be allowed to attend any baptism, any honorable wedding, or any funeral. They should behave among us as heathen, which they’ll be glad to do! When they are dying, no minister or chaplain should visit them, and when they have died the hangman should drag them outside the town to the carrion pit, and no student or chaplain should escort them. If they want to be heathen we’ll treat them as heathen,” etc.

Martin Luther
Summer or Fall, 1542
“Gross Sinners Excommunicate Themselves”
Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk, No. 5438

HT: Steadfast Lutherans

Floods Are a Reminder

It’s been quite a week. We got about 6 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, and nearly 10 inches of rain total since it all started. The river 1/2 mile east of my home has flooded over its banks. Roads all throughout my community are closed because of standing water. Neighborhoods, homes, and basements all throughout Chicagoland are flooded. It’s really been one for the record books. In fact, I hope never to see one of these again in my lifetime!

Yet, despite the devastation, floods remind us of what really matters. And I’m not just talking about family, friends, and neighbors (which are truly gifts from God). I’m talking about faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in His atoning blood that washes us clean from sin. Jesus used a flood to illustrate the necessity of building one’s faith on Him, the solid rock of our salvation:

“Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” [Matthew 7:24-27]

Floods also remind us of our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. Saint Peter is the one who beautifully connects the ultimate flood to Holy Baptism:

“In the days of Noah, ... eight persons were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.” [1 Peter 3:20-21]

Luther builds on this—connecting Saint Peter’s words above with Saint Paul’s words about regularly putting off the old self and putting on the new self (Ephesians 4:20-24)—and teaches us that our baptismal identity in Christ is a daily drowning of the Old Adam:

What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. [Small Catechism]

Floods can be devastating, for water has the power to wash away homes, cars, roads. But let them also remind you that Jesus Christ is your firm foundation, that He has washes away your sin in the flood at the font, and that your new life in Him is lived by daily drowning your Old Adam.

Sin, disturb my soul no longer:

I am baptized into Christ!

I have comfort even stronger:

Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice.

Should a guilty conscience seize me

Since my Baptism did release me

In a dear forgiving flood,

Sprinkling me with Jesus’ blood?

[LSB 594, stanza 2]

An Inescapable Corollary

The built-in links between Holy Communion and all other fundamental articles of faith testify that communing at a particular altar is a matter of communal and not simply individual import. The corollary is that to receive the Blessed Sacrament from a given pastor involves saying a hearty Yes and Amen to the rule of faith of the church body of which he is a minister. The rightfulness of closed communion follows as an inescapable corollary from all the articles of faith which together make up the single doctrine of Christ.

John Stephenson
The Lord’s Supper

Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, Volume XII
The Luther Academy: 2003, p. 156

Three Views on Evil

Most people in our culture aren’t concerned with the reality of sin in our world. It is denied, downplayed, or only recognized in the lives of a handful of others. I hope and pray the evil, cowardly, sinful bombings in Boston will cause people to reevaluate their worldview.

How does one’s assumptions about good and evil, God or no God, sin or no sin, help them explain what happened in Boston? Below are three such explanations or worldviews. Two of them are warped, wicked, wrong. One of them is truthful.

1. The Evolutionary Worldview

The evolutionary worldview is built not only on the hypothesis that everything evolved from some lesser form, all the way back to some “big bang” where it all started, but also on what Charles Darwin called “natural selection,” what Herbert Spencer called “survival of the fittest,” and countless other theories, ideas, and guesses throughout the ensuing decades.

This worldview has no place for sin, evil, wickedness. It doesn’t even have a basis for establishing such a definition. In a worldview where everything happens by chance, there can be no objective standard for right and wrong.

Thus, the best honest explanation this worldview can come up for the bombings in Boston is that it happened by chance. It was a random act of a random creature. It was the strong preying on the weak.

2. The Secular Humanist Worldview

The secular humanist worldview is built on the “creed” that there is no god, that no individual or group can impose its beliefs on another, that each individual establishes his own standard of right and wrong. In this worldview, each individual is at the center of his own little world and no outside standard can be imposed on him by another.

Contrary to its own creed, this worldview does have a place for sin, evil, wickedness. While there is no objective truth, there is a collective truth imposed by proponents of this worldview onto everyone else. Evil is what the secular humanist wants it to be.

Thus, the best honest explanation this worldview can come up for the bombings in Boston is that it was wrong simply because we collectively think it is wrong (what ever happened to “who are you to impose your beliefs on anyone else”?).

3. The Christian Worldview

In opposition to both of the preceding worldviews, Christianity has the truth, believes the truth, and confesses the truth. It calls things what they really are. God is holy. God is just. God is merciful. His Word is truth. His Word is revealed. His Word delivers Christ. Sin is sin. Sin warrants hell. Sin’s wages have been paid in full by Jesus Christ on the cross.

The Christian does not deny, downplay, or explain away sin. He confesses it. He sees it in the world around him. He sees it in the bombings at the Boston marathon. But most importantly, he sees it at work in himself—in his very nature, as well as in his own thoughts, words, and deeds. So he confesses it. He looks to Jesus Christ, who paid sin’s penalty and redeemed the entire world by His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. And he believes Christ’s word of absolution.

For the Christian, the bombings in Boston were not only horrific, evil, deadly. They were also sinful. Regardless of the motivation, this was a sinful act carried out by sinners in a sinful world. And sinners always stand in need of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Downplaying or denying God, just like downplaying or denying sin, is never the answer. It satisfies no one. It leaves us with nothing more than a random act of a random creature (chance at work) or an act that we can only collectively label as wrong (a subjective definition that can change at any moment).

Christianity not only addresses the real issue at hand (the problem of evil), it also offers the only solution. Evil is a result of sin, which originated in Adam’s disobedience in the garden. The solution is Jesus Christ. Every sinner needs repentance, forgiveness, Christ crucified for the sin of the world. And that is exactly what Christianity delivers. No excuses. No mere chance. No subjective definitions. Just objective truth. Sin and grace. Confession and absolution. Jesus Christ as Savior of sinners.

I pray the world around us will, by God’s grace, come to know and believe this. “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace,” says Jesus. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Why Are the “Open-Minded” So Limited, Narrow, and Restricting?

It seems almost everybody who is anybody (or wants to be somebody) is pushing “gay marriage” nowadays. One of the latest promotions came from MSNBC host Krystal Ball, who used her young daughter in a segment titled “Political Playground” on April 4 to try to win her viewers over.

She begins by asking her daughter if she would marry a boy someday if they were in love. She then asks her daughter if she would marry a girl someday if they were in love. After that little charade, Ms. Ball goes on to explain to her daughter how “strange” it is that some states don’t allow gay marriage. Her reasoning: “You want people to be able to marry who they are in love with, right?”

This rhetorical question is the driving force, the trump card, behind the push for gay marriage. It is the heart and soul of the red graphic with the “equal” sign pictured above, as well as the slogan “Support Marriage Equality.”

I wonder if those who “want people to be able to marry who they are in love with” realize exactly what they are promoting?

With such a definition, there are endless possibilities when it comes to marriage.

For starters, there is the traditional definition of marriage—one man and one woman.

The proponents of gay marriage are also pushing for the marriage of two men, as well as the marriage of two women.

But why stop there? If you truly “want people to be able to marry who they are in love with,” then you must add the following pairs who are in love:

• a sister and brother
• sisters
• brothers
• a father and daughter
• a father and son
• a mother and son
• a mother and daughter
• cousins (male and female, two males, or two females)
• an adult (male or female) and a teen (male or female)
• an adult (male or female) and a pre-teen (male or female)
• teens (male and female, two males, or two females)
• pre-teens (male and female, two males, or two females)
• and so on and so forth...

We’re not done yet. Not by a long shot. If you truly “want people to be able to marry who they are in love with,” then you must add the following groups who are in love:

• a man and multiple women
• a man and multiple men
• a woman and multiple men
• a woman and multiple women
• multiple men and multiple women
• a man and multiple children (male and/or female)
• a woman and multiple children (male and/or female)
• multiple adults (male and/or female) and multiple teens (male and/or female)
• multiple adults (male and/or female) and multiple pre-teens (male and/or female)
• and so on and so forth...

Supporters of gay marriage, who are you to restrict marriage to two people? To adults? To non-relatives? You call supporters of traditional marriage “intolerant” and “close-minded” and “bigoted” for opposing gay marriage. Look in the mirror of your own definition. If you oppose any of the combinations of people listed above (as well a thousand other combinations one can come up with), you are the one who is “intolerant” and “close-minded” and “bigoted.”

You claim you want marriage equality. But your own definition is very limited, very narrow, very restricting.

You’ve made the intolerant, close-minded, bigoted bed. Enjoy sleeping in it!

John of Damascus: Koinonia

“We say koinonia, and so it is, for through it we have koinonia with Christ and partake of His flesh and deity, but through it we also have koinonia [among ourselves] are united with one another. Since we receive of one bread, we all become one body of Christ and one blood, and members one of another. We are united in one body with Christ.”

John of Damascus
De fide orth., IV, 13: PG, 94, 1153a

quoted from Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries, Werner Elert, p. 33

One-Third of a Billion

The Bubonic Plague in Europe was the deadliest known plague in human history, claiming roughly 100 million lives.

But did you know that more than 3 times that many lives were slaughtered in the last 40 years alone ... in one country? On March 14, the Chinese Health Ministry reported the following statistics for its family planning practices since 1971:

• 336,000,000 abortions performed
• 196,000,000 sterilizations conducted
• 403,000,000 intrauterine devices inserted

You read that first statistic correctly. One-third of a billion unborn children have been slaughtered in China in the last four decades—the largest single slaughter of human beings in the history of the world. That’s more than all the people killed in the ten deadliest wars in human history.

You can read the full story here.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). God have mercy on us. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!