WE CELEBRATE THE ETERNAL GOSPEL
It was the morning of February 22nd, 1546. And in a town called Wittenberg hundreds of people began to gather inside the castle church. This was the same church on whose doors Martin Luther had nailed the 95 Theses twenty nine years ago, the same church that had been filled with the echoes of his voice from the pulpit on numerous occasions. But there was to be no debate about indulgences or papal authority on this day. In fact, Martin Luther wasn’t even going to speak. Instead, a pastor named John Bugenhagen stepped up into the pulpit, not only because he was the ordained pastor there, but because he had been Luther’s pastor, and this was Luther’s funeral service. The reformer had died four days previously in the town of his birth, a little placed called Eisleben, and his body had now been brought back here to Wittenberg for the burial because this city had been his home and it had also been the center of the Reformation from the very beginning. But as Pastor Bugenhagen began this funeral sermon, he struggled to find the words. Because he had not only been Luther’s pastor, he had also been his close friend. “What shall I say and how shall I speak, since I probably will not be able to utter a word because of my tears?” he said to the crowds that had crammed inside. But this dear friend of Luther’s did eventually find the words to speak. And he boldly preached to the people about the great things the Lord had done through this man who had now passed away. “He was without doubt,” Bugenhagen proclaimed, “the angel concerning whom it is written in Revelation 14, who flew through the midst of heaven and had an eternal Gospel.”
Now, Luther was no angel. He was far too sinful to be one of the Lord’s celestial servants of heaven. But Bugenhagen wasn’t making a point about Luther’s character; he was making a point about what Luther carried. Martin Luther carried the “eternal gospel” to the nations just as the angel in the book of Revelation was seen doing. And the reason I bring this up is because this portion of Scripture from Revelation 14 is the basis for our sermon today. And so this morning we celebrate what John Bugenhagen and the believers at Luther’s funeral celebrated. Today we celebrate what the Lord has done through those who have gone before us so that we too have the true and unchanging Word of God in our lives. Today we celebrate the eternal gospel.
The text that Pastor Bugenhagen quoted and the words that the apostle John writes about the vision he was given Revelation 14:6 are these: “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth - to every nation, tribe, language and people.” On this Reformation Sunday we celebrate the same eternal gospel that was carried by an angel in this vision of John. We celebrate the same gospel that was brought back into focus by God’s work through the Christians living in the Holy Roman Empire of the 16th century. We celebrate the same gospel that was preserved by the Lord through faithful men and women throughout Europe and elsewhere for hundreds of years after the Reformation. We celebrate the same gospel that was brought over to this country in the mid 1800’s by those longing for religious peace. And we celebrate the same gospel that the Lord still protects and still proclaims today through his servants around the world. We celebrate this same eternal gospel because this same eternal gospel has never changed.
It has never changed. From the very first time it was announced by God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden all the way up to November 1st, 2009, the eternal gospel has never changed. What we believe today is what genuine Christians have always believed. The gospel has never been modified. It has never been adjusted to fit different cultures over time. It has never been morphed into anything different than what it was from the very beginning. The gospel is and always will be this: salvation through faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. No person, no idea, no devil can ever change that. It is the eternal gospel. It is the gospel that will last forever. It is the gospel worth dying for.
Throughout Scripture we find people putting their lives on the line for the sake of the gospel. The prophet Jeremiah was one of these men who considered this gospel more important than his life. And because of his stance he was arrested on more than one occasion, he was threatened by the authorities, and he was thrown into a well and left for dead by his own people. Generations later the prophet Zechariah was murdered by the king himself in the Lord’s own temple because of the gospel. Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded, James the brother of John was executed in a prison, and Stephen was stoned to death - all on account of their faith in the gospel. In fact, it is commonly held that all of Jesus’ 12 disciples except for John were martyred for what they believed. And John - although not murdered - was exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith. These men thought it necessary to preserve and defend the teaching of salvation through faith in Jesus over and above preserving and defending their own lives.
And that has been true throughout the centuries. For hundreds of years after the apostles lived and died, Christians across this earth have risked their lives for this eternal gospel. A man named John Hus who lived a full hundred years before the Reformation ever took shape in Wittenberg, refused to take back his confession about faith in Jesus for salvation. He was burned at the stake. And during the Reformation itself, every single believer who held to the true words of God found in Scripture was considered a heretic and even an outlaw by the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of their confession of faith their lives were in constant danger and any one of them could have been arrested at any time by the government authorities. And yet they remained true to the gospel. They proudly proclaimed what they knew to be the Truth. Regardless of the consequences they held fast to the eternal gospel because it was worth dying for.
And although persecutions and dangers still happen today all over the world on account of the gospel, we usually do not have to deal with any physical threats in this country because of our faith. It truly is a blessing that we are not considered enemies of the state on account of our faith in Christ. It truly is a blessing that swords are not held to our throats or nails pounded into our hands or stones thrown at our heads because of what we believe and confess. The Lord has allowed us to live in a wonderful place at a wonderful time. But I’m afraid that this religious freedom that we experience also leads us to take this eternal gospel for granted at times. We don’t have to fight to keep it and so we usually expend little strength to keep it close to our hearts. No one is trying to rip it away from us and so we don’t find it necessary to grasp it tightly to our chests. We don’t have a government threatening our lives because of this gospel and so it is easy for us to forget how important this gospel is to our lives. We know that it’s important, of course! As Christians we realize what this gospel contains! That’s why we’re here this morning! But sometimes we treat the gospel as if it’s nothing all that urgent: “We’ve always had it, it’ll always be here, and so what’s the rush? If I don’t get to reading my Bible today it’s no big deal; it’ll be there tomorrow. If I don’t quite understand a certain sentence or part of Scripture, that’s OK; I’m in no hurry to figure it out or put in the effort to study it further. If the gospel doesn’t occupy my weekday life all that much, it’s understandable; I’ve got other things that I need to do and other things that I want to do anyway. The gospel doesn’t have to be behind every part of my life, does it?”
I don’t know if the gospel is as precious to us as it was to those who had to put their lives on the line for it. I don’t know if we treat it as pricelessly as those who had to fight to get it back. I don’t know if we appreciate it as much as those who didn’t have it at one time. You know how they say that “You don’t really appreciate something until it’s gone”? I think that can apply to the gospel as well. But we’ve always had it! We’ve had access to it our entire lives with little to no opposition. And so the Bible sometimes becomes just another book on the shelf, a worship service sometimes becomes just another time slot on the schedule, sometimes even Christ and his cross become just another one of those things among the many things that we’ve been taught when we were kids. I wouldn’t say that any of us here actually despise the gospel, but I wonder if we really regard it as our most treasured possession to be guarded and soaked in and shared and adored every day of our lives. I wonder if we truly cherish this gospel as if it were more important than life itself - something we would die to defend.
I hope I never have to find out if I would die to defend it. I hope I’m never put into a situation where my life was on the line for the sake of the gospel. I hope I never have to suffer the kinds of persecution that so many Christians have suffered before me and so many Christians are suffering right now. But I hope that I will always value the gospel as much as they did. I hope I will always treasure the gospel as much as those who went before me did. But the only way that I will ever value the eternal gospel as much as those Christians did who were willing to die rather than give up their faith - is to read it, to study it, to hear it, to immerse myself in it every opportunity I get so that the power of God’s Word can work in my heart and convince me that there is nothing better, there is nothing more precious, there is nothing else. Only the gospel can move me to love the gospel. Only the gospel can move you to love the gospel. There is no other way.
And so the more you read about Jesus, the Son of God, being born of a pregnant virgin in a barn in a town called Bethlehem, the more you will begin to see God’s unwavering commitment to your salvation. The more you hear about the incredible miracles that Jesus performed and the inspiring words that he preached and the passionate prayers that he prayed, the more you will begin to notice his mercy and power for your good. The more you study the prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament - his coming, his suffering, and his coming again - the more you will begin to see that everything the Lord does has all been done for you. The more that you are exposed to the last few days of Jesus’ life when he was arrested and beaten and flogged and mocked and crucified, the more you will be moved by his love. The longer you stare at his wounds, the longer you stand at the base of his cross, the longer you gaze into a tomb that no longer contains a body, the more certain you will become of your forgiveness - because that is how he earned it for you. You will become so certain, in fact, that nothing will be able to shake you from the faith that the Lord has secured to your heart.
The more you are in the gospel, the more you will want to stay in it. The deeper you get into his Word, the deeper you will want to go. It is a sea of unreachable depths on the one hand, but on the other hand it is as simple as two beams of wood put together for our salvation. The gospel - the eternal gospel - will guide you and guard you and strengthen you and give you the peace that you need. And one day this gospel will take you home.
This is the gospel we celebrate today. We rejoice in the fact that Christ died and rose from the dead and then gave us the faith to believe it. We commemorate the fact that he has defended this gospel through centuries of persecutions and hardships and oppression. And we marvel at the fact that the Lord has preserved this gospel among us for so long. I pray that we always realize how precious this eternal gospel is that God promises will be proclaimed “to those who live on the earth - to every nation, tribe, language and people.” This is the gospel that God himself died for. This is the gospel that God himself rescued in the 16th century. This is the gospel that God himself has carefully passed down to you from those who have gone before us. This gospel is the most important thing you have. Never let it go. Never let it go.
Amen.
“May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he never leave or forsake us.” - 1 Kings 8:57
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