Spiritual meaning of John 1:19-28

One of these days I'm going to take time to figure out how to add some pictures to these pages to break the monotony. Martin Luther suggests the spiritual meaning of this gospel shows us the preacher’s office from the New Testament. It is the voice of one calling, a living voice. Luther says the Old Testament is dead writings put into books. He offends a lot of people with that comparison. I’m going to guess he doesn’t mean it as bad as it sounds, since what he says later in this sermon teaches the preacher to preach the Law. He believed performing the work of following the Law does nothing to gain the mercy of God. This is why he infers the Law is useless, but only in this way. He doesn’t mean it isn’t beneficial to us. He says the voice of the preacher is to be heard freely in the wilderness, out in the open, not just under the tents of the religious. That voice is to be bold and fear no one, nor death, nor hell, etc. These are images he takes from John the Baptists appearance and manner. This includes a strict and chaste life. Because the world cannot bear the Gospel, the preacher must scorn the world and preach without fear. Why can the world not bear the Gospel? Who doesn’t want to hear good news? Or are contemporary John the Baptists not preaching the Gospel? The only Gospel I hear some complaints about is the one that says God's grace is bigger than some people think is 'fair' or 'just.' I wonder? Luther said Gospel sermons are not given to soft phrases or dealing with hypocrisy and flattery. A sermon of the cross is hard, rough, and sharp to the natural man. This doesn’t quite agree with another sermon he gave that said only the Gospel should be preached, referring to the good news, because once the natural person has been brought to despair by the Gospel, (s)he needs to be comforted by the Gospel. In many other sermons, we will see Luther saying people responded to what they had heard about Jesus that was good – His ability and willingness to help – that’s why they came to Jesus in the first place. If we expect 'unbelievers' to turn to Jesus, is it going to be because the Bible says you're supposed to do this, or because He can help them? That's about as effective as a Muslim saying we need to believe their religion because the Koran says we should. No book is going to convince anyone of anything who has given no authority to it. A living voice is needed. In this sermon, Luther says the Law should be preached first so that people can learn what great things God demands of us; and our inability to perform it. The baptism in the Jordan is cold water in the form of teaching of the Law, which does not kindle love but rather extinguishes it and causes us to become hostile to it. Somehow, this makes one recognize that John is right, and we need to turn around and become a better person. Then the preacher points to Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He alone must take on all sins because we cannot get rid of any of them by our works. We do not look to ourselves, but only to Christ alone. But do we have to do this every week? I agree we should preach Law and Gospel, but not with quite the same bent as many Lutheran theologians profess. I think we should preach Jesus’ version of the law along with the Gospel which I’ll talk about later. I can’t help but think Brother Martin was stretching the spiritual imagery in this sermon. But that’s okay, it spoke to him in his setting and it formed his thoughts. I do agree with him that the Gospel is a living voice – the voice of one who has encountered Christ and who tells how Jesus has changed his or her life. The Gospel is not just the words in the New Testament, to be read as if they happened 2000 years ago. If we consider ourselves John the Baptists, then once we encounter Christ, all we can do is point to Him and not call attention to ourselves or to works as playing any part in our salvation. Christ is present today. We need to point to where He is active in our lives today. This is the Gospel. The Law on the other hand needs to be preached, but not used as a bludgeoning tool every week. The Law was a gift to the children of Israel and it is a gift to all people. The Law guides us to bring peace and harmony in human interactions. And as Luther will say in another sermon, the Law was given to serve love. If a law doesn’t serve love, it doesn’t need to be followed. The Law teaches us what will bring us the quality of life only God can give us – eternal life. This is what Jesus told the rich young man when he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said in so many words, “Follow the commandments.” When we go against these precious instructions, there are negative consequences… pain, shame, and blame. The psalmists portrayed the Law as a gift, not a baseball bat to force external actions for changing behavior. Jesus condensed the law into the purpose for which it was given – love. Love is a commitment to act in the best interests of our neighbor. When we act in the best interests of others, life is good. This is the law Jesus taught. Blessings, PWM