It’s good to hear from you. I’ve enjoyed Glen Morangie, but my taste is more suited toward Lagavulin. Glen Morangie is sweater, and I particularly enjoy the smokier, peatier whiskies.

On to your question: I fully realize that we live as Christians in the gospel because we live in Jesus Christ as his body. My question, though, is what does that mean? It definitely means that we live in freedom from the works of the law unto salvation and even the threats and punishment of the law (FC VI).

But here’s the difficulty: The gospel is that Jesus fulfilled the law for us for our salvation. Not only that but he let the threats and punishments of the law do to him what it should have done to us. Since we live as Christians, as saints, in Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of the law, we are in reality doers of the law, not out of fear or to work for our salvation but because that is who we are in Jesus Christ. So in a sense, we are still defined by the law, but only as having fulfilled it because of our life in Jesus Christ.

The goal of my post was to draw attention to the fact that we are truly saints in this life in our bodies even as we are truly sinners in this life in our bodies. Neither of them are abstract concepts but earthly realities that are lived in time, bodily.

I hope that clarifies things for you, and sorry for the delay in my post.

Jason

Gordon Naumanns last blog post..Sermon for 6 July 2008 (Pentecost at http://Christlutheranchurch.org.uk.

It’s been a while. Actually I came across this dialogue quite by chance and by another concern from a pastor friend of mine.

Now, you know I know you both very well; you know I know you know how to distinguish rightly between law and gospel. I was wondering, if you didn’t mind, clarifying just a little more even, the nature of how we live as saints and more precisely whether it is in the Gospel in which we live really as saints? Therefore whether or not it is by the law that we can at all live as saints or whether trying to live by the law can only draw us to the conclusion and remembrence that we are sinners?

Thank you.
Gordon

Gordon Naumanns last blog post..Sermon for 6 July 2008 (Pentecost at Christlutheranchurch.org.uk.

Gail, you’re welcome. I didn’t think about it until I was having a conversation with a friend. I was struck by the language that she used to describe our life in Christ. It wasn’t wrong, but it seemed completely abstracted from our earthly, skin, cartilage, and bone bodies. I just noticed that another LCMS pastor has posted about the same topic a little while ago. Here is that post: http://esgetology.com/2008/07/10/enabled-by-god-to-live/

On a more theological note, can you mix Scotch and biscuits? Or does that lead to another civil war?

See you soon,
Geoff

I’m not sure that one could simply replace the words, but in some places the word “law” certainly entails what we mean by the word “gospel.” I suppose the test would be to copy and paste it into Word, run a Find/Replace to see if it holds.

The difficulty is that a forensic/legal understanding of the cross entails the understanding that God’s law, or Torah I suppose, is a standard. Before the Fall, we had within us that standard as a part of us. We were a perfect reflection of who God is and what he does in our very bodies. We were the image of God. This was marred and lost with the Fall, and the cross of our Lord redeems and restores this image. But we remain simultaneously the image and not the image as the Baptized.

The flow of the post was to point us to the fact that we often consider ourselves as those who have lost the image, that we are sinners and we embody this. Lutherans get this, though perhaps we are coming into a time when even this notion is beginning to be disembodied, but this is a post for another time.

Likewise, we oftentimes say that we are also saints, but when we speak of it, it seems to be detached from our bodies, from who we are in this life. So our understanding of the Gospel, i.e., what Christ has done for us on the cross, comes across as the legal fiction that Rome accuses us of. But, in point of fact, we embody this righteousness because the original intention of the law, God’s Torah, has been redeemed along with us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We reflect the image of God, which is the righteousness of the law, that was lost in the Fall as those baptized into Christ. So the law isn’t the enemy, nor is it bad or to be avoided. It is who we are in Jesus because of what he has accomplished for us on the cross, the gospel.

I hope this clarifies what I was trying to convey. And I relish your questions and challenges because it helps to flesh out our thinking on these things. What’s more, I eagerly anticipate your return to Fort Wayne so we might enjoy this conversation in person and over some Scotch and cigars, or white tea and biscuits.

Jason