(tTnurnr~iu
m~tnlngitul 6tut1Jly
Continuing
LEHRE UNO ~EHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. vm April, 1937 No.4
CONTENTS
Page
The Pastor and the Pastoral Cure of Souls. H. F. Wind ______________ Z41
Kleine Hesekielstudien. L. Fuerbrlnger _____ ______ ________________________________________ 252
Romanism, Calvinism, and Lutheranism on the Authority of
Scripture. F. E. Mayer __________________ _________________ ______________________________________ 280
Sermon Study on 1 John 4,9-11. Theo. Laetsch __________________________________ 272
Outlines on the Eisenach Epistle Selections __________________________________ 281
Miscellanea ___________________________________________________ __ _ ___________________________ 291
Theological Observer. - Kircblich-Zeitgeschicbtlicbes ___________________ 300
Book Review. - Literatur _________________________________________ __ _ ________________________ 311
Ein Prediger muss nlcht alleln wei-
den, also dass er die Schafe unter-
weise, wie sie rechte Christen sollen
seln, sondern auch daneben den Woel-
ten tDeh,.en, dass sie die Schafe nlcht
angreiten und mit falscher Lehre ver-
tuehren und Irrtum einfuehren.
Luthe1"
Es 1st keln Ding, das die Leute
mehr bel der Kirche behaelt denn
die gute Predigt. - Apologie, Arl. 24
If the trumpet glve an uncertain
sound who shall prepare himself to
the battle? -1 C01'. 14, 8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBUSBING BOUSE, St. Louis, Mo.
272 Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11
God will not give His Spirit except through the Word, i. e., through
the Gospel and the Sacraments, or the "visible" Word. (Cf. Trigl.,
494,4; 606,91; 732,7.8; 1084,71; etc.) Word and Sacraments are the
means whereby both the soul and the body are saved; for when-
ever the soul is saved, there the body, too, which can and does ap-
prehend the elements, will live forever. (Trigl., 742, 44 fi.; 768, 68.
Luther's Works, St. L., XX, 831.)
Rome and Calvin approach the Scriptures with a material prin-
ciple which is not found in the Scriptures, but which is super-
imposed on them. Because the Lutheran's formal principle is sola
Scriptura, his material principle must be the doctrine of justifica-
tion, sola gratia. This article permeates Scripture and therefore
directs and controls all true theological thinking. Every teaching
which is not brought into proper relation with the article of justi-
fication is eo ipso false. The true theological perspective can be
maintained only if theology centers in justification.ll) According
to the Lutheran Confessions the Gospel is God's gracious reve-
lation to man, offering, containing, conveying to, and working
in, him the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. (Trigl., 995,
62; 792, 6; etc.) Luther had been taught to read the Bible in
such a manner as to find in the word righteousness nothing but
his own righteousness, which must be procured through strict
observance of his monastic order's regulations. At last the
Holy Spirit removed these "Roman" glasses through the Gos-
pel, and Luther learned that only aliena iustitia avails in the
sight of God. "And now," says Luther (in the preface to the 1545
edition of his works), "I knew that I was born anew and that I had
found a wide and open door to paradise itself. Now the dear Holy
Scriptures appeared entirely differently to me." (St. L., XIV, 446 f.)
Springfield, Ill. F. E. MAYER
•••
Sermon Study on 1 John 4,9--11
Two facts must strike every careful reader of the First Epistle
of John. The one is that, in appealing to his readers to practise
Christian love, he is not satisfied with a bare demand, a simple
exhortation. Each of the three admonitions (chap. 3, 9-11; 3,10-
18; 4,7-5, 2), as they grow in length, is in increasing measure
saturated with indoctrination in the fundamentals of the Christian
faith, the doctrines of the Trinity, of the deity of Christ, of the
vicarious atonement. Moreover, each one is preceded by, and the
11) Luther: "In meinem Herzen herrscht allein dieser Artikel,
naemlich der Glaube an Christum, aus welchem, durch welchen und zu
welch em bei Tag und bei Nacht alle meine theologischen Gedanken
fliessen und zurueckfliessen." (St. L., IX, 8; Vorrede zum Galaterbrief.)
Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11 273
entire epistle closes with, rather lengthy discussions of these basic
truths of the Christian religion. The other fact is that the apostle
of love does not hesitate to make use of polemics, and unsparing
polemics, against all denials and deniers of Christian doctrines.
Read chap. 1, 6. 8.10; 2,18.19.22.23.26; 3,7; 4,1-6; 5,10-12.21.
The three urgent exhortations to love are surrounded, enfolded,
as it were, buttressed from within and without, by dogmatics and
polemics. It is necessary to keep these two facts in mind especially
in our day, when so many self-styled exponents of love and
charity, who claim to follow in the footsteps of the apostle of
love, positively and determinedly refuse to follow him in his
insistence on clarity and purity of doctrine and in his use
of polemics against every error and every errorist. Theirs is
a charity, a love, which overlooks doctrinal differences as minor
matters, which clamors for external union without internal unity
of faith and doctrine, which is ready to shout with Schiller, Seid
umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen Weltf" at the
same time being altogether unwilling to grant the kiss of brother-
hood to such as have the audacity to stand up for purity of doctrine.
Right there their charity, their love, comes to a sudden and abrupt
end. Such love is toto caelo different from that of the apostle, as
we shall see with increasing clarity in studying our text.
Our lesson is part of the third and longest exhortation to love,
extending from chap. 4, 7 to chap. 5, 3. In order to understand fully
the import of this lesson, it will be well that the pastor, before
preaching on this text, read the entire letter, paying special atten-
tion to those passages where phrases and expressions very similar
to those used in this text occur. See, e. g., chap. 2, 1-6.
In the opening words of chap. 4, 1-6 the apostle had warned
against error and errorists and had pointed to the vast difference
between the children of the world and the children of God, the
followers of error and the disciples of truth. Beginning with v. 7,
he exhorts his readers to practise true love. They are of God, v. 6,
and for that reason they must be followers of God, not only in
opposing error and false doctrine, but just as truly in loving their
fellow-followers of the truth, their brethren in faith. In order to
make this admonition the more urgent, he adds a threefold reason,
v.7: 1) Love is of God; 2) every one that loveth is born of God;
3) every one that loveth knoweth God. These three reasons are
elaborated in chap. 4, 8-5, 3. The third reason is the first one taken
up by the apostle. He proves, v. 8, that every one loving knows
God, "for God is Love." If God is Love, then, naturally, every
one that does not love shows by this very lack of love that he knows
not God, who is Love. Conversely, every one that loves shows by
that very love that he knows God, who is Love, and from that
18
274 Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11
knowledge of God and His love he has learned, and learns ever
better, to love his brethren. Before taking up his first and second
reason, the apostle goes on to prove his last statement, that God
indeed is Love, by pointing to that marvelous manifestation of
God's love in the sending of His own Son, v.8. Thus he paves
the way for the substantiation of the first two reasons, viz., that
love is of God,an outflow from that well-spring of divine love,
vv. 10, 11, and that everyone that loves is born of God, v. 12 to 5, 3.
Throughout this entire passage John constantly reverts to, and
unfolds, the thought that love and the lover owe their origin to
the wondrous, unique, all-surpassing love of God, like an eagle
soaring round and round about this central point and soaring ever
higher and higher, without ever being able to scale the heights of
this love which reaches to the very throne, the inmost heart, of
Him whose being and whose love is beyond understanding.
After this brief survey let us study in detail the lesson for
Jubilate Sunday. May our hearts and souls be filled with grateful
jubilation and may our joy become manifest in our love toward
God and the brethren!
V.9: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that
we might live through Him."
The apostle briefly, but convincingly proves his statement that
God is Love. The greatness of God's love is seen already in the
very fact that He manifested it. God's love is not merely an emo-
tional mood, an inactive sentiment, quiescent, hidden in His heart.
It is a love toward us.
The apostle does not use the preposition Et~, His love did not
merely reach out in a general direction toward us, only to flee
horrified and disgusted upon seeing nothing but unloveliness,
wickedness, foulness, in mankind. No, thank God, His love is more
than that. It is a love tv, on us, a love that in spite of our utter
unworthiness not merely approached and dealt with us as from
a distance, but, like a heavenly dove, lighted upon us and found
on us its resting-place.
In various ways God showed that His love rested upon man.
The creation of the world, its preservation and government, God's
appearing to the patriarchs and prophets of old, His speaking to
Israel at sundry times and in' divers manners, all were manifesta-
tions of His love. For John there is one manifestation of God's
love overshadowing all others: "He sent His only-begotten Son."
His Son He sent, not a creature, not a man, not an angel, but Him
of whom He had said: Ps. 2, 7; who was very God of very God,
Col. 1, 15-17; 2, 3. 9; Heb. 1, 2. 3. "Only-begotten." Note the
repetition of the article in the original, whereby "both substantive
Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11 275
and adjective receive emphasis and the adjective is added as a sort
of climax in apposition with a separate article." (Robertson,
A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p.776.) There is no
other Son of God, but this one and only-begotten, the Son whom
He loved with all the fulness of His divine love, John 3,35; 5,20.
This Son God hath sent, WtEGwhEV, the perfect "implying the
present, permanent, continuing effect of the mission of the Son
of God." (The Bible Commentary.) This Son He sent off not to
some heavenly region, there to confer with angels and archangels;
no, into the world. Mark the emphatic position of the words in
the original, which is to call to our attention once more who the
Sender is, the true and only God, and to effect a sharp contrast
between the Sender and the place whither He sent His Son.
Picture to yourself the holy and righteous God, of "purer eyes than
to behold evil," and then think of this world of sin, and vice, and
crime, and hatred, and blasphemy. Is that a place into which
the loving Father would gladly send His own Son? This world,
the habitation of sorrow and lamentations and tears and heart-
aches and sickness and death, is that an appropriate destination
for Him whose home had been in the bosom of His Father, where
joy and happiness alone are found and sorrow and sadness are
not known? Yet the Father was willing to send His own beloved
Son from the sinless purity and griefiess joy of His presence into
the world of wickedness and woe. Why? His only motive was
love, love that was concerned about mankind, that turned in com-
plete unselfishness toward those creatures that had turned from
their loving Creator, had in basest ingratitude found their delight
in a life of sin and shame, had of their own volition chosen death
rather than life. To this mankind He, the God of love and life, in
love ineffable sent His only-begotten Son, Life of Life, in order
that they "might live through Him." Cpo John 10,10. The life
which Christ was to procure for us was indeed a life worthy of
the name; it was not a life of bondage to sin and servitude to
Satan and fear of death and finally everlasting damnation. The
Son procured for us a life which is of God, which is lived by the
faith of the Son of God (Gal. 2,20), which grows more and more
into the likeness of Him who loved us unto death; a life that
finds its delight in grateful and willing service of God and the
fellow-men (Luke 1,74.75; Matt. 20, 25-28); the happy, content-ed
life of the child of God, who knows Rom. 8, 28---39; a life which
does not end with temporal death, which even in the face of death
exclaims: Luke 2, 29 f.; 2 Tim. 4, 7. 8. This life we have through
Him, lhu denoting mediate agency which comes "between" (IILU)
and causes the act or state. If we would live, we must obtain life
through the agency of Him who alone caused, procured, life for
276 Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11
sinners doomed to death. Reject Him, and there is no life; accept
Him, and life is yours.
God's love indeed transcends all understanding. What a sacri-
fice for a human parent to send his only son, reared in all the
comforts of a loving home, into some distant country there to
spend his lifetime among filth and dirt, fever and sickness, super-
stition and misunderstanding, hatred and persecution! Yet that
father is a human being sending a human being to other human
beings. Here is God sending His own Son to creatures far beneath
Him, into conditions far more revolting to His holiness and purity
than to human nature contaminated with sin. A father may over-
come his natural reluctance to send his son into such conditions
by selfish motives - the hope of gain, of wealth, of honor, for
himself and for his son. In God's sending of His Son there was
not the slightest trace of selfishness. The welfare, the spiritual
and eternal life, of His enemies was the sole motive of His love.
A human father may send his son because he is under obligation
to some one, to his government, to his God; God is under obliga-
tion to no one. He owed it neither to man, who had deserved to
die, nor to Himself, who would have remamed the ever Holy
One, the unchanging Love, the blessed and blissful God, even if
He had permitted all men to die without the hope of salvation.
And still, of His own volition, according to the good pleasure of
His will, He loved us and sent His Son, His Only-begotten, into
the world. Who can fathom, who can sufficiently praise, the mani-
festation of this love? It is a manifestation truly divine, which
God alone can bring to pass, a manifestation which proves beyond
the shadow of a doubt that God indeed is Love, v. 8.
By His eulogy on the love of God the apostle has proved his
statement that God is Love, v. 8 b. He now proceeds to show that
love is indeed "of God," ihr. 'toil {twil, v.7.
V.IO: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The
apostle does not say, "This is love," but, "In this is love," empha-
sizing "is," EG'tLV. In this, love exists, has its being, its essence.
For this use of d~t[ compare the phrase 0 &v xal 0 fiv, Rev. 1, 4. 8;
4, 8; 11, 7; 16, 5, the EG~EV of Acts 17, 28; etc. The love of which
the apostle speaks has its being, exists, "not in this, that we
loved God." Such love is not of human origin. If the existence
of this love depended on our love to God, there would be no
such love and no possibility of such love. Christian love, - and
that includes not only love toward God, but according to the entire
context our love toward the brethren, - this love would be a non
ens, a nonentity, if our love toward God were to be the cause or
condition of it. The carnal mind is enmity against God, Rom. 8, 7;
Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11 277
7,18f. How can love toward God dwell in such a mind? No;
such love is altogether, from its very first beginning, throughout its
entire course, until its final glorious consummation yonder, "of
God," EX "tou itEou, v.7, flowing out of God as its only well-spring;
in Him our love lives, moves, and has its being, v. 9.
Moreover, the origin, continuance, and consummation of this
love is due to that selfsame love of God whose glorious manifesta-
tion the apostle has described in v.9: for he continues, God "loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Note that
the apostle here changes from the perfect (v.9) to the aorist,
"because the Incarnation is regarded as a distinct event, a historic
landmark." (Expositor's Greek Testament.) As in the preceding
verse, the apostle again is not satisfied with the bare statement
that God loved us. Again he refers to the manifestation of this
love in the sending of His Son and adds another detail in connection
with the commissioning, which not merely brings out in a fuller
measure what God's sending of the Son for our life involved, but
at the same time proves that and why this commission was the only,
but sure means of engendering love in our hearts. We read: "God
loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
God sent His Son not to be merely the perfect example of love
toward God and man nor only to be a teacher of ethics, to warn
against the wickedness of sin, to point out its baneful consequences.
That would not have helped the situation. Man, the slave of sin,
Rom. 3, 23, knows all that by nature. His conscience rebukes him
time and again; and if he succeeds in silencing its accusing voice,
his own experience and the fate of his fellow-men ceaselessly and
continuously din into his unwilling ears that sin is indeed a re-
proach to any people, that bodily sickness and mental diseases and
sorrow and self-contempt and despair and death are the dread
consequences of sin. And in spite of all the slave of sin "goeth
after his sin straightway, as an ox goeth to his slaughter." Cpo
Provo 7, 22 ff. God knew that a mere teacher of morals, a mere
example of ethical perfection, would not remedy man's ailment.
What man needed was propitiation for his sins, and for the purpose
of accomplishing a propitiation did God send His Son into the world.
Just what is meant by the word "propitiation"? 'IAacr[,to;; means
an appeasing of another person, a reconciling of a person to oneself.
In this sense the term and related words are found quite frequently
in profane Greek. In the New Testament it occurs only here and
in chap. 2, 2.* It is found a number of times in the Septuagint
in such contexts, or in translation of such terms, as cast an illumi-
nating light upon the meaning of the Greek word as used in the
* 'IAaa"tl)(lLOV is found Rom. 3, 25; Heb. 9,5; iAo.aXOi-LCU, Luke 18,13;
Heb. 2, 17; tAEoo;;, Matt. 16, 22; Heb. 8, 12.
278 Sermon Study on 1 John 4, 9-11
religious terminology of the Jews. Ezek. 44, 27 ti..aO'!16~ is the trans-
lation of nN~n, sin-offering. The ritual of the sin-offering, accord-
ing to Le~.T4; consisted in laying the hand upon the sacrificial
animal, thus transferring one's sins to the victim, which then was
slain in place of the guilty sinner, who had deserved death. The
purpose of the sin-offering was "to make an atonement" for him
(Hebrew kipper, LXX E~LAacrXE