Memorial Moment: Divine wisdom

Memorial Moment

Divine wisdom

"How easily we can lose sight of Christ! This can happen when we start putting our confidence in our own reason or wisdom. It can also happen when we recognize the righteousness and holiness of the divine law. The law is righteous and holy because it is God's, it is not righteous and holy because we keep it. Therefore, over against the law and its power to condemn another power must be opposed.

God has placed the person of His only Son on the scales opposite the law. Only His holiness and righteousness can overweigh the holy and righteous law. The death of Christ and Him Crucified must be all we know about our status before God. This is the divine wisdom."

Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray

Memorial Lutheran Church

1 Cor. 2:1-5 (ESV)

"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,  and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

Martin Luther:

"The words are very powerful when Paul says: 'If righteousness were through the Law, then Christ died for no purpose' (Gal 2:21). He is silent about human power, reason, and wisdom, regardless of how great they may be; for the greater they are, the more easily and quickly they deceive a person. He simply says: 'If justification were through the Law, etc.' Therefore, human reason with the assistance of laws, even of divine ones, cannot achieve righteousness but snatches a man away from righteousness and rejects Christ. But if it could achieve righteousness, then Christ would have died to no purpose. Therefore, you oppose the death of Christ to every single Law; and, with Paul, you know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1Co 2:2), so that nothing except Him may shine. Then you will be learned, righteous, and holy; and you will receive the Holy Spirit, who will preserve you in the purity of the Word and of faith. But once Christ is lost sight of, everything is pointless."

Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 2.21

Prayer:

"Lord Christ, keep my faith fixed firmly on You, the Crucified Lord, that I might not fall into the pointless life of self-appointed holiness but live only by Yours. Amen."

Divine Wisdom

Philip Melanchthon, Confessor

16 February 2022