It’s apples and oranges…
- Order of Service: Word and Sacrament (CW, p26)
- Lessons: Isaiah 55:10-11, Romans 8:18-25, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
- Hymns: 280, 544, 322, 538
In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
The pope finally did it. After many petitions and requests, in 1537, Pope Paul III called a church council. This differs dramatically from our council meetings. A church council gathers bishops, theologians, and often political leaders to discuss weighty matters confronting the church, usually false doctrines or heresy.
For years, Martin Luther and those convinced by Scripture of the Reformation principles asked for such a council – a free, fair, Christian council that could discuss the theological issues fermenting throughout Europe since the day Luther nailed his famous theses to the door of his church in Wittenberg. And now the pope had done it. And he’d even invited the Lutherans to come.
Hearing about this council, some German politicians and theologians asked Luther to prepare a confession of their faith to bring to the council. At first, Luther begged off. He held out no hope that this would be free, fair, or Christian. History convinced him that the pope would reassert his power and condemn the Biblical doctrines of the Lutheran church. But, despite that, Luther finally agreed to do so. The princes and their theologians met in the city of Smalcald, and so Luther’s confession became known as the Smalcald Articles.
Luther was right. When the council finally began, in 1545, in the northern Italian city of Trent, it only reaffirmed papal teachings and condemned all the “heresies” of reformers like Luther. The theology of Trent celebrated the powers of the papacy and set in stone the doctrine of salvation by works. Trent also marked the beginning of the Counter-Reformation, during which the papacy re-won control over many Lutheran territories in an attempt to marginalize, if not exterminate Lutheranism.
And, during the time this council met, Lutherans died. Catholic emperors and princes literally waged sword and fire war on Lutherans and because of their vast superiority won many battles. They deposed Lutheran pastors and theologians from pulpits and classrooms for the next century throughout Europe. They instituted laws requiring people to go against their consciences and return to Roman practices, like worshiping the consecrated communion host in the Corpus Christi parade. They set the stage for one of the most destructive wars in history, the Thirty Years War, which killed 20% of Germany.
You’d think that the story of the Reformation would have a happier ending, wouldn’t you? Finally, through His human instruments, God restored the truth of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone to the world. Finally, through men like Luther, Melanchthon, Flacius, and Chemnitz, God toppled the papacy off his throne and restored Christ and His Scriptures to their rightful place. But it sure didn’t look it.
And Luther got that. In the opening words of his Smalcald Articles he wrote: O Lord Jesus Christ, may You Yourself hold a council! Deliver Your servants by Your glorious return! The pope and his followers are done for. They will have none of You. Help us who are poor and needy, who sigh to You, and who pray to You earnestly, according to the grace You have given us through Your Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns with You and the Father, blessed forever. Amen (Smalcald Articles, Preface, 15). In those words, Luther channeled Paul in Romans 8: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).
To put it in terms our world uses, Luther, and Paul, understood that for the Christian, most of life consists of comparing apples and oranges. You’ve heard that saying before, haven’t you? When you compare two like things, you can say, “We’re comparing apples to apples.” That is, it’s a fair comparison. Comparing my family’s situation with that of, say, the Gaertners or the Weikels, is most likely an apples to apples comparison. We’re young families with two young children, living in the Dallas area. But sometimes we talk about comparing apples and oranges. To compare my family and our situation with, say, Bill and Melinda Gates, really isn’t apples to apples, is it? They have billions and billions of dollars. To say the least, we don’t.
Luther got that. He knew before any council opened how it would turn out. The pope would turn the screws to maintain his own power and attempt to continue his anti-Christian reign over the church. Lutherans would be persecuted and their doctrines rejected. So too Paul. He knew about suffering. He lived suffering. He knew of the world’s suffering. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:22).
But Luther knew that that didn’t mean the end of things. He still knew, with the Psalmist, I will not die, but live (Psalm 118:17). He had this crazy confidence that things were apples and oranges – between what he lived and what God told him. And he knew it because that’s what God told him, through word’s like Paul’s today. Words for you to cling to. Understand that comparing the now to the then is not an apples to apples comparison. It’s apples and oranges.
Paul talks about our present sufferings and the present sufferings of the whole world, the Creation. We go through misfortunes. The world surrounds us with misfortunes. You have extreme droughts in Texas. Crazy nuts go on shooting rampages in Norway. The world’s economy drags us deeper and deeper into turmoil. We’re frustrated. We hurt. The world hurts. It groans. It’s bound in chains, bound to decay and corruption. It dies. It falls apart. We die. We fall apart. Are you kidding me, God?!??!?
The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth (Romans 8:22). It’s in labor, like an expectant mother. Jesus uses the same word in Matthew 24. He talks about the signs of the end: wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines. And then says, All these are the beginning of birth pains (Matthew 24:8). But you know what labor means – it means a baby! And there’s an apples and oranges difference between the pain of labor and the joy of holding the newborn child!
Paul says things are hidden now. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19). It’s hidden, because as Jesus teaches, most seed sown gets snatched, scorched, or choked. Most of our work seems in vain. The Word seems to fail. It’s hard to see sons of God. But it will not be hard when Christ reveals them transformed into His image and likeness. Apples and oranges.
Paul says the creation is bound to decay. It’s frustrated. It can only corrupt. Despite what evolution teaches, we know better, for we heard God tell Adam, From dust you are, to dust you will return (Genesis 3:19). Death comes no matter what. We’re bound. Everything under the sun seems so meaningless because it is so meaningless. We live. We die. We work hard, only to have it taken in a tornado, a fire, a lawsuit, a depression. Until we’re liberated, like the creation itself, into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21). Until meaning is restored. Until what we see now is replaced by what God promises: new heavens, new earth, no more sadness, no more suffering, no more pain. Apples and oranges.
We groan, even though we already have the Spirit, Paul says. By God’s grace, He’s already gifted us with faith, He has distributed to us the treasures won by Christ at the cross. In faith we have the forgiveness we need. We have the promise of eternal life. But the sun is hot. The ground is rocky. The devil swoops down to snatch it all away. Until what God began in us is completed: our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). Now we groan, because we still have sin. Then, it’s done. Sin removed. Devil silenced. Heaven made fully and completely our dwelling place. Apples and oranges.
Because in the end God liberates us, He marches us into freedom. We wait for the great remodeling. This causes us to say, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Because what we await is not apples to apples with what we have. We can only see it darkly, as in a cloudy mirror. Then we will see fully. We’re citizens of earth with heavenly passports, then we’ll be citizens of heaven who happened to have lived on earth. Now our bodies are tents that can be destroyed, then they will be eternal homes.
In the end, we, like Luther, like Paul, live by faith, not by sight. We live not in what we see – suffering, groaning, bondage, meaningless, death, decay – but in what God promises! Even in trials and hardships, especially. We do not groan like others. We do not lose patience. We do not look at appearances. We stand still and know that God is God and Christ is Christ! And His Word works. It does what He desires. It produces the fruit He calls forth. This is what it means to no longer be slaves to fear, to know that you are God’s children, and to be a co-heir with Christ, who must share in His sufferings. So that we can share in His glory. The ultimate in apples and oranges. Because in this hope we were saved (Romans 8:24).
And we wait for it patiently (Romans 8:25). God gave us every reason to do so. Paul will share them with you in the next couple of weeks: Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:29-39).
Apples now. Oranges then. In Christ. Amen.
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