“How Sinners Become Saints” 

     The Reformation of the Church is a festival that we Lutherans celebrate every October 31, or as this year, on the Sunday before October 31.  It was the eve of All Saints’ Day – Halloween – of 1517, when a young friar by the name of Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.  He wanted to start a public conversation about the practice of selling indulgences (pieces of paper that allegedly got you out of Purgatory).  What was really behind all of this was what St. Paul writes In Romans 3:19-28: How does a sinner become a saint?

     Sinners go to hell.  Saints go to heaven.  How does a sinner become a saint?  If he doesn’t become a saint, he’ll go to hell forever because no sin can enter heaven.  If sinners could go to heaven, heaven wouldn’t be heaven anymore.  All the suffering of this life and all the suffering of hell is on account of sin.  Only saints (holy people) can go to heaven.

     How can you get rid of your sin?  Well, you can’t.  But people try.  They may deny that they have any sin to get rid of.  Or they may choose to ignore the whole matter.  Don’t talk about sin and maybe it will go away.  

     We sinners insist on trying to justify ourselves.  The very idea that a sinner can turn himself into a saint is of course absurd.  If you are a sinner by nature and you do what comes naturally you will sin.  But the yearning for self-justification is so strong that sinners will rely on themselves in search of a way for righteousness.

     What does God’s word say?  Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be accountable to God.  For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.  

     You see, the law of God condemns the whole world as guilty.  It silences every excuse.  It contradicts every denial.  In fact, it imposes precisely the knowledge that the sinner cannot tolerate.  “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”  God’s law teaches us what true love requires.  We have not loved as God demands.  We have hated, lusted, coveted, and harbored malicious judgments in our hearts.  We have worshipped idols of our own creation and have despised God’s word, preferring our own opinions.  God’s law reveals our sin to us.

     That’s why people insist on amending God’s law.  They don’t want this knowledge.  It condemns them in their own conscience.  Sinners cannot make themselves into saints.  Sinners cannot work their way to heaven.  They can only work their way to hell.

     Jesus worked our way to heaven for us.  This is what Luther discovered right here in the Epistle to the Romans.  The inspired apostle writes: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.  

     What is the righteousness of God apart from the law?  It is righteousness that we don’t do.  It is apart from the law, apart from our obedience to the law.  It is a righteousness that someone else does for us.  To justify means to pronounce righteous.  It is a declaration of God that says someone is righteous.  

     The righteousness of God apart from the law is a real righteousness.  It is the righteousness of God.  It is done by Jesus, true God, and true man.  And it is yours, not by your obedience, but through faith in Jesus Christ.  

     St. Paul continues: For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.

     Faith doesn’t undo the wrong we have done and turn sin into righteousness.  Faith receives what Jesus has done for us.  As the apostle says, “justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  If Jesus had not redeemed you, your faith would have nothing to grasp.  But faith grasps – it holds on to – what Jesus has done for you.  He has redeemed you.  He has shed His blood on the cross as an offering to God to set you free from sin.  Faith receives what Jesus accomplished by dying for us all.

     We need what Jesus did because we are all sinners.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  All means all.  No one is excluded.  No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, you receive this verdict of justification and are personally justified only through faith.

     Paul goes on with these inspired words: Then what becomes of boasting?  It is excluded.  By what kind of law?  By a law of works?  No, but by the law of faith.  For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

     Sinners can’t boast before God.  The righteousness that we have through faith is not a righteousness that we have accomplished.  It is a righteousness that Jesus Christ has accomplished.  We didn’t do it.  Jesus did it.  Therefore, we cannot boast of being righteous.  It is Christ’s righteousness.  We boast of Christ.  If we were justified by our works, we could boast of doing those works that made us righteous.  But it was Jesus, not we, who did these works.  It was His obedience, not ours.  It was His suffering, not ours.  He redeemed us.  We didn’t redeem ourselves.  He justified us.  We could not and did not justify ourselves.

     Luther didn’t discover the gospel within his own heart.  His heart was as deceitful as any other sinner’s heart.  Luther sought out the instruction of God’s Word, the Bible.  He read it.  He read it again.  He read it again and again and again.  He wouldn’t let go of it.  

     It is good to thank God for sending His servant Martin Luther to reform the Church.  He confessed the truth regardless of the consequences.  He was a messenger with the everlasting gospel to proclaim.

     It is everlasting because it will always be true.  It is everlasting because it gives you eternal life.  We rely on this gospel, not on anything we think, say, or do.  We trust this precious truth that we are justified through faith alone in Christ our Redeemer.  Being justified you are heirs of eternal life.  This is most certainly true!