On Mandated COVID-19 Vaccinations

The individual rights given to man by God, and enshrined in the US Constitution should not be violated merely because a large faction of the population have given into an unreasonable fear of sickness and death. Nevertheless, we are dangerously close to seeing municipal employees, whom we hailed as heroes a year ago for continuing to work during the pandemic, be forced to choose between their consciences and their jobs. People who have a moral objection to vaccines in general, but to the COVID-19 vaccines in particular should not be forced to take them. People who have recovered from COVID-19 infection and have been shown to have antibodies present in their blood should not be forced to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Bodily autonomy and integrity should be respected; no one should be forced to receive a medical treatment against their will. Governments are instituted among men in order to secure and protect individual rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Forcing people to choose either between becoming vaccinated, or becoming second-class citizens is destructive of these ends.

First, people who have a conscientious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine should not be forced to take it. The three vaccines approved for use in the United States all use abortion-derived cell lines in either their development and production, or during the lab testing phases. As an evangelical Lutheran Christian, I find it morally unacceptable to receive such vaccines. Scripture teaches that babies in the womb are alive, and are human persons from the time of their conception. To end that life without moral justification is murder, and a sin against God’s command. God calls us in the the 5th Commandment not to harm our neighbor in his body, but to help and support him in every physical need. To receive the benefits of such a vaccine developed from abortion-derived cell lines, however tangentially, makes me feel complicit in that murder.

Next, People who have recovered from COVID-19 infection and are producing antibodies should not be forced to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The National Institutes of Health has found that most people who have recovered from COVID-19 infection come away from their illness with long-term immune protection from the disease. A recent study from Tel Aviv University in Israel, the country with the highest vaccination rate in the world, has determined that natural immunity to COVID-19 is “far superior to vaccine-induced immunity.” Yet, in the United States, we are treating people with natural immunity as though they pose a danger to the health of the general public, if they do not receive a vaccination. We should recognize the benefits of natural immunity through infection recovery and at least consider it to be on the same level as vaccination-induced immunity. We should not require people with natural immunity to be vaccinated.

Finally, the rights of individuals to seek out or refuse medical treatment should be respected. No one should be pressured to get a vaccination if they do not believe it is in their best interest. All the currently available COVID-19 vaccines were developed quickly and authorized for use under emergency use approval by the FDA. We have no clear idea what the long-term effects of these medicines will be on the human body. People willing to accept that risk should certainly be allowed to take the vaccine. People who do not want to take that risk, no matter how ignorant others may consider that decision to be, should not be forced to do so. Moreover, though these medications are being called vaccines, that is not truly what they are. These treatments are, in reality, therapeutics similar to the flu shot. They may not prevent a vaccinated person from contracting the disease; they may lessen the severity of the disease and its duration. While our society strongly encourages everyone to get a flu shot each year, we do not mandate it, and influenza kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Every day we seem to get a little closer to a vaccine mandate here in Hodgkins. The federal government is on the cusp of mandating companies which employ 100 or more people to require their employees to be vaccinated. Private corporations, institutions of higher education, and municipalities all over the country are instituting vaccine mandates as a condition of employment. Hodgkins’ neighbor, Countryside, has instituted such a mandate for their city employees, punishable by measures up to and including termination of employment. Mandates are being challenged in the courts all across the country. Some are being upheld, and some have been struck down. The best course of action would be to allow workers to make their own choices about the vaccines, and let them live at the level of risk at which they are comfortable. It is clear that the most reasonable compromise would be to allow exemptions to those people who have a conscientious objection to the vaccines, as well as to those who can demonstrate natural immunity through antibody testing, and to require from this group continued social distancing along with regular COVID-19 testing in lieu of forced vaccination.

Such constant testing and social distancing is itself divisive and, I suspect, useless. It could be endured as a compromise with those who are still afraid and want to retain the illusion that these superstitious measures protect them.

The general public is becoming conditioned to to believe that their friends and neighbors who choose not to get vaccinated for COVID-19 are somehow endangering the lives of those who are vaccinated. This certainly isn’t true. We should resist this misconception and respect the rights and choices of all individuals. ###

Personhood - Part 2

Margaret Sanger

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy (Proverbs 31:8).

When dealing with the issue of personhood in light of abortion, we can’t ignore the question of babies in the womb with clear signs of mental or physical deformity detected before birth. Abortion in these cases is also disturbing, but may be necessary in the long run to insure the continued upward progression of our race. The more we discourage reproduction, by abortion or sterilization, by persons having genetic defects or undesirable genetic traits, the cleaner and more refined our gene pool will become. Over time, we won’t have to deal with the downsides associated with disability and low intelligence, particularly the cost associated with the care of disabled and moronic people. Besides, have you ever seen a retarded person? That is certainly no kind of life. How cruel we are to force those poor wretches to endure the hell that is their existence. 

Sorry, I must have buttoned my SS tunic up too tightly and cut off the circulation to my brain…there, that’s much better. 

Eugenics and genetic engineering is despicable, as it is in direct opposition to our Christian morality, as well as the founding principles of our society. As Americans, we have rightly spent considerable time, talent, and treasure to push this idea to its rightful place along the fringes of civilization. At the height of the eugenics movement at the turn of the 20th century, many notable figures thought the idea of engineering an ideal citizen was the way of the future. Among them were George Bernard Shaw[1], Woodrow Wilson[2], Teddy Roosevelt[3], and of course, Margaret Sanger. Ms. Sanger was a proponent of what is called “negative eugenics” - what I falsely advocated above – and her activism culminated in an organization called the American Birth Control League, which is today Planned Parenthood. 

The entire mission of Ms. Sanger, and the other birth control and abortion rights pioneers of the 1920’s, was based on the idea of negative eugenics, which is nothing more than discouraging reproduction by persons having “genetic defects” or “undesirable genetic traits”. Writing in the Birth Control Review, Ernst Rudin summarized well the goal of the abortion and birth control advocates of the day in his article, “Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need” – We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock (Rudin 1933)[4]. What was considered bad stock? For starters, the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, and the poverty-stricken. In an article written for the “Birth Control Review,” Ms. Sanger wrote[5]:

As an advocate of birth control I wish … to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.... On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective (Sanger, The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda 2003).

In a 1939 letter discussing the Negro Project, explaining how to make in-roads with the black community in order to provide positive information to blacks regarding birth control and sterilization she wrote:

“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members (Sanger, Letter from Margaret Sanger to Dr. C. J. Gamble 1939).”

To be clear, Ms. Sanger was not advocating forced sterilization of all blacks or, as some disingenuous pro-life advocates maintain, genocide, but rather a propaganda campaign using black doctors, ministers, and other community leaders to convince those of bad stock to voluntarily sterilize, abort, and use birth control. I shudder to think, however, how people would react if some conservative political icon from days past was discovered to have come up with anything called “The Negro Project”, let alone to have advocated targeting the black community in America with contraception, sterilization, and abortion to eliminate their bad stock. I am cynical to be sure, but here is where it pays off to be a progressive. 

It is one thing to advocate that people make responsible decisions and plan as best they can to have children so that they can afford them and provide for them. It is quite another to advocate the monstrosity of negative eugenics. Who decides what is detrimental and what is beneficial? We might not have a problem agreeing that hemophilia could be classified as detrimental to the person and/or society as a whole. A study of gay brothers, however, has led some scientists to believe that several genes might effect sexual orientation (Tanner 2014)[6]. What happens when someone decides that homosexuality is an undesirable genetic trait to be eradicated? Or brown eyes? Or insert trait you want to see eradicated here? We don’t have to guess, we need only to look at the Nazis. 

In 2001 doctors in Britain aborted a 28 week old fetus because testing indicated that the baby would have a cleft lip and palate (Abortion Review 2011)[7]. One could hardly argue that this child would have a low quality of life, especially in the UK, with their wonderful health care system. Nevertheless, because of its undesirable genetic characteristics, the pregnancy was terminated. Left unchecked civilization runs the risk of sliding back into “eugenics gone wild” – the classification of individuals and their families, people such as the poor, the mentally ill, the blind, homosexuals and even entire racial or ethnic groups as degenerate. This is a place I do not wish to go, and an ideology against which I will fight vigorously. 

The modern reproductive rights establishment has its roots, through Margaret Sanger and others, in the 20th century eugenics movement. This is evidenced, not only by history, and the writings of Sanger herself, but also in the issue of terminating pregnancy solely for the reason that the child suffers from mental or physical deformity.

Are the vast majority of pro-choice people fascists, or Fabian socialists? Certainly not. I do believe, however, if confronted with the similarity of Sanger’s “negative eugenics” and the thought process that gave birth to the Holocaust, they would, being reasonable, certainly reconsider their view of the subject. I am certain that many people have probably not even made this connection, as it is downplayed and denied by the activists, and those of us who point it out are generally demonized for the sin of using Margaret Sanger's own material to illustrate what she believed. 

The severely handicapped, the infirm, the helpless, and the aged are all persons in the sight of God with life given by Him and to be ended only by Him (Concordia Publishing House 1991)[8].

Works Cited

Abortion Review. "UK: 'Cleft palate' cleric back in the news." Abortin Review. March 23, 2011. http://www.reproductivereview.org/index.php/site/article/947/ (accessed April 21, 2015).

Baker, Stuart E. Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002.

Concordia Publishing House. Luther's Small Catechism. Translated by Concordia Publishing House. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1991.

Kaelber, Lutz. "New Jersey." Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States. 2009. http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/NJ/NJ.html (accessed April 21, 2015).

Roosevelt, Theodore. "T. Roosevelt letter to C. Davenport about "degenerates reproducing"." DNA Learning Center. January 3, 1913. http://www.dnalc.org/view/11219-T-Roosevelt-letter-to-C-Davenport-about-degenerates-reproducing-.html (accessed April 21, 2015).

Rudin, Ernst. "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need." Birth Control Review, 1933: 111.

Sanger, Margaret. "Letter from Margaret Sanger to Dr. C. J. Gamble." Genius. December 10, 1939. http://genius.com/Margaret-sanger-letter-from-margaret-sanger-to-dr-cj-gamble-annotated (accessed April 19, 2015).

"The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." The Public Writings and Speeches of Margaret Sanger. 2003. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=238946.xml (accessed April 21, 2015).

Tanner, Lindsey. "New Study Suggests Genetic Link for Male Homosexuality." The Huffington Post. November 11, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/17/genetic-link-male-homosexuality_n_6171244.html (accessed April 19, 2015).

End Notes

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[1] Shaw was a proponent of Socialism and Eugenics all his life. Shaw used satire to mock proponents of eugenics who went to inhumane extremes as has been done in this work, and quotes are often taken out of their satirical context to paint him as a monster. His stance on the idea that the impure and defective should be bread out of the human race, however, was the point he was illustrating by his satire. Shaw’s statements on eugenics were consistent throughout his life: he maintained, first, that better breeding was essential and, second, that only the Life Force could be trusted to select the pairs (Baker 2002).

[2] New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson signed a sterilization law in 1911. By 1913, however it was the first such statute in the nation to be declared unconstitutional. In Smith v. Board of Examiners the New Jersey Supreme Court found that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment (Kaelber 2009).

[3] “You say that these people are not themselves responsible, that it is ‘society’ that is responsible. I agree with you if you mean, as I suppose you do, that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. It is really extraordinary that our people refuse to apply to human beings such elementary knowledge as every successful farmer is obliged to apply to his own stock breeding. Any group of farmers who permitted their best stock not to breed, and let all the increase come from the worst stock, would be treated as fit inmates for an asylum” (Roosevelt 1913).

[4] “Eugenic Sterilization is an Urgent Need,” Birth Control Review, April 1933, page 102.

[5] “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda,” October 1921, page 5.

[6] “New Study Suggests Genetic Link for Male Homosexuality,” Huffington Post, November 17, 2014.

[7] The glamorous cleric [Joanna Jepson] first came to public attention when she spoke out against a late abortion that had been carried out in 2001 - the termination of a 28-week-old fetus with a cleft palate. Doctors are permitted to carry out abortions beyond the 24-week legal limit if they believe a baby’s disability is serious enough, but Joanna argued that a cleft palate was a minor physical flaw, not a severe abnormality (Abortion Review 2011).

[8] Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1991, p. 78.

Personhood

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you (Psalm 139: 13-18).

I recently had a conversation with a friend regarding a woman’s right to choose which, for those who may not know, is the euphemism for abortion in American politics. My friend made two points which have become standard in the argument of those on the left who advocate for unrestricted access to abortion. He told me that, regardless of the validity of my argument, I have no right to tell any woman how to manage her body; those decisions are between her and her doctor. He also said, after hearing my views on the subject, that it was simply my opinion and he respected it, but my opinion is no more certain or valid than the one of a person who supports “a woman’s right to choose.”

This argument is not uncommon. Anyone who follows the news regularly has certainly seen Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul sparring with Democrat National Committee Chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz over this very issue. Reporters asked Senator Paul, who is pro-life, whether or not he supported making exceptions to his anti-abortion stance for cases where the mother 1) had been raped, 2) had been the victim of incest, or 3) was in danger of death if she carried the baby to term. Senator Paul did something that most pro-life Republicans are too spineless to do. He told the media to ask Debbie Wasserman-Schultz if she was ok with aborting a seven pound baby that was just about to be born. “Ask Debbie when she’s willing to protect life,” Senator Paul replied. “When you get an answer from Debbie, come back to me” (Bradner 2015).

In an emailed statement Debbie did respond:

Here's an answer. I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story. Now your turn, Senator Paul (Bradner 2015).

Of course, what Debbie is actually saying in her response, is that, yes, she is ok with aborting a seven pound baby that’s just ready to be born. So, if a woman and her doctor decide to abort the woman’s baby 10 seconds before it’s delivered, Debbie is fine with that because it’s a woman’s right to choose. Evidentially, the baby is not a person and has no rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Senator Paul, however, in his statement gets to the real point of the entire debate. When are you willing to protect life? Unlike the “right” to abortion discovered by the Supreme Court in the penumbra of the U.S. Constitution, the duty of the government to protect the life and property of its citizens is explicitly enumerated. It is actually the duty of the government to protect the civil rights of its citizens. When we stop setting up straw man arguments about rape babies and coat hanger abortions we begin to see what the real issue is in the debate regarding “reproductive rights.” When does life begin?

If that thing inside a woman is not a human being, from a legal standpoint, it doesn’t matter what you do with it. Abort it, carry it to term, what is the difference? The People, through their elected representatives should be free to make any law they like if this is the case. If, however, that thing is a human being, it has civil rights given to it by God and protected by the U.S. Constitution. There is no third option.

The post-modern mind does not deal in terms of absolutes, however. There is no black and white, Right vs. Wrong or, God forbid, Good vs. Evil. There is only opinion, experience, and emotion. No one person can say that any other person’s opinion, based on their personal experience and guided by their emotions, is wrong. To do so would be intolerant and unloving…unless, of course, you are dealing with a conservative Christian. Those people are just racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes.

My objections to abortion begin in my gut. Before any religious, moral, or ethical questions are taken into account, the practice is disturbing. It is disturbing to me because it is, like a lot of other disturbing things are - destructive. Forget about when the baby becomes a human being for just a moment. You cannot deny that abortion destroys something, and that “something” is alive, and is meant by God, or nature, or evolution to, at the very least, become like me and you. To destroy that "thing" is, right off the bat, distasteful to me.

It isn't like a tumor that is destructive to the body and is removed. Destroying the tumor, in that case would be a constructive act. Also, that tumor isn’t going to grow up and eventually want me to send it to college. Being what it is, the idea of abortion is also contrary to how I have prepared myself for my own life in this world. I have spent my young adulthood getting myself ready to do constructive things. Being a teacher builds up society by passing knowledge along to another generation. Music, among other things, enriches the cultural landscape. Even being a policeman is constructive, in that we enforce the laws that give defined borders to our society, and help keep it from breaking down. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m predisposed to revulsion of things destructive, and abortion is, to me, the ultimate destructiveness – destroying life before it even has a chance. War, killing, even capital punishment, are all distasteful, though can sometimes be justified. I have a difficult time with the destruction of what my conscience tells me is life, using what seems to me to be selfish or false justifications. Anyway, that is where my opposition to abortion begins.

Most importantly, however, God’s Word calls what is created in the womb life.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

Moses wrote in Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of a creature is in the blood..." Taken literally, that would mean that a fetus isn't "alive" until about 21 days after conception, when it develops a rudimentary cardiovascular system and, for all intents and purposes, its own blood supply (Delp n.d.). If this is the case, something like the morning after pill cannot be objected to from the standpoint that it is destroying life, though it is still distasteful to me. However, to paraphrase Martin Luther, it is never safe act against your conscience[1]. Right now, my own personal Jiminy Cricket is still screaming the words to Psalm 139 in my head:

"Your [God's] eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16).

So, for the time being, I will err on the side of safety - life begins at conception. 

To maintain, as is suggested by some in the abortion rights movement, that a baby’s personhood is contingent upon whether or not the mother wishes to have a baby, is absurd and threatens the rights of all Americans. The fact that one’s personhood is not contingent upon how one is viewed by another should be self-explanatory.

A woman who walks into an abortion clinic to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is exercising her right to privacy in making decisions about her reproductive health with her doctor. However, if that same woman is attacked while on her way to the clinic, is robbed and beaten and miscarries as a result, the attacker can – and most likely will – be charged with homicide of an unborn child. Surely, even to the obtuse progressive mind, this must cause some cognitive dissonance.

In the two scenarios given above, there is no difference in either the baby’s status before death, or its ultimate end; only the means of arriving at that end – the termination of the pregnancy – is different. In one case the state allows for the “termination” without restriction, or sanction against the mother or doctor simply because she wishes for the pregnancy to end. In the other, the state prosecutes in order seek justice for the unlawful killing of one human being by another – the definition of homicide. If people can fall in and out of the category of “person,” then no one’s rights are guaranteed. That means that there is some arbitrary, man-made standard of what constitutes personhood. If that is the case, that also means that whatever group happens to be in authority at any given time can redefine what it means to be a person to fit their goals.

Peter Singer, attempting to take the words of the Athanasian Creed and twist them to aid his anti-Christian argument, cites the early Christian fathers by calling a person a being with a rational substance[2]. In an MSNBC interview Dr. Singer said the following:

It’s never been the meaning of a person that it was simply biologically a living member of the species Homo sapiens. If you look at the origin of the term it comes from a Latin persona, meaning a mask worn by actors in a play; and then it became a role, and it was used in early Christian theology, actually, in the doctrine of the Trinity. Three persons in one, right? So, God the Father, the Holy Ghost, and then Jesus, right? So obviously you don’t have to be human to be a person, in that sense. And the early Christian theologians thought that a person is a being with a rational substance. So the idea of rationality, in some way, comes into it [personhood]. And I would say, therefore, that the best sense of a person is a being with some awareness, some rational awareness of who they are existing beyond simply the physical organism (Singer 2011).

When the host pointed out to Dr. Singer that this definition would likely exclude four month-old-babies from being people, he agreed.

Well, possibly. I don’t think it’s problematic to say that a four-month-old baby is not actually a person; I think that’s simply true. Now, that doesn’t determine what the law ought to be. You might say that the law should say from birth on, everybody counts legally as if they were a person…that’s distinct from the question of which beings are persons (Singer 2011).

I just don’t understand where he gets that “ought” from. Sure you might say that. Others, however, might say that the law should say you only count legally as a person from age five years and up, or that you cease to be a person when you are no longer a productive member of society…or if you are a Jew…or a homosexual…or who knows? They might say this unless, of course, there is some objective standard. Either people have rights, or they don’t. Either personhood exists, or it doesn’t. Either an unborn baby is a person, or it isn’t; how we answer these questions will determine what kind of society we will have.

Abortion takes the life of another person. Being sinful human beings we do not like the mirror of God’s Law being held to our faces to show us our sin. We are self-centered and seek to justify our selfish actions any way we can that does not involve acknowledging our sin, and repenting of that sin. We will even try to talk ourselves out of what we know – that the living but unborn are persons in the sight of God from the time of conception. Thanks be to God Almighty, who by the death of His Son Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord and Savior, has overcome sin and death, and graciously offers us all forgiveness for all our sins through faith in Him.

Works Cited

Bradner, Eric. "Rand Paul: Grill Dems about abortion, too." CNN. April 9, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/08/politics/rand-paul-abortion-democrats/ (accessed April 17, 2015).

Delp, Valorie. "Empryonic Stage of Fetal Development." Love To Know. http://pregnancy.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Embryo_Fetal_Development. (accessed April 17, 2015).

"Luther at the Imperial Diet of Worms 1521." A Mighty Fortress is Our God: Martin Luther. March 3, 2003. http://www.luther.de/en/worms.html (accessed April 17, 2015).

Singer, Dr. Peter, interview by Chris Hayes. The Battle Over Women's Bodies (November 6, 2011).

"The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Lutheran Church." The Three Ecumenical or Universal Creeds. September 2008. http://bookofconcord.org/creeds.php (accessed April 17, 2015).

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[1] Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen (Luther's Conscience Quote 2003).

[2] Excerpt from the Athanasian Creed regarding Christ: Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood; Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ: One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God; One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ (BOC: Ecumenical Creeds 2008).

God's Long-suffering




The Fall - Lucas Cranach the Elder

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up (2 Peter 3:8-10).

St. Peter writes these words to encourage those who were being mocked and persecuted by those around them. St. Peter calls them scoffers. In the beginning of chapter three of this, his second epistle, he tells those Christians to whom he writes not to let the mocking of those who do not believe, those scoffers, get to them and shake their faith. Nothing is any different than it was before, claim the scoffers. "They say, Where is his [Jesus] coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4).

And, taken on its face, that argument could give the Christian pause. After all, it has been 2,000 years-and-some-change since Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Jesus did tell his disciples, also, that he would return quickly. One might begin to think that these scoffers have a point. 2,000 years is a long time to wait. Perhaps all of this waiting is a waste of time.

St. Peter, however, tells us God's reason for his perceived delay. He is being long-suffering toward us. God, being merciful, and not wanting anyone to be lost eternally, wants to give as much time as possible for people to repent of their sin.

It's kind of like when a young child does something that they are not supposed to do and their parent tells them to stop. They continue on after the admonition, and the parent tries again, this time with the threat of punishment. Many is the parent who has given "until the count of three" for their little darling to stop their disobedient behavior.

The thing is, that three-count is rarely a legitiment and even count. How many people have ever heard a parent say something like, "One...two...two and a half...two and three quarters...” with longer and longer pauses between each successive number? Why do those parents do such a thing? The answer is an obvious one - they want their child to repent so that they do not have to administer the threatened punishment. They are being long-suffering with their child who would, left to himself, continue in whatever bad or destructive behavior in which they were engaged.

This is how our father in heaven is dealing with us human beings right now, according to St. Peter. What those who have no faith call God's slackness, St. Peter tells us is actually God's mercy. He is taking his time counting to "three", extending the opportunity for mankind to repent of their sin and be saved through faith in Christ for as long as possible because, as St. Peter writes, "[The Lord] is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:18).

Since Adam and Eve's disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden, mankind has fallen from our perfect place in God's perfect creation. By their willful act of disobedience, sin was introduced into God's creation. Creation, along with the very nature of mankind, was utterly corrupted. Adam and Eve lost the ability to fear, love, and trust in God above all things and, because this corruption of sin permeated their very natures, the deficiency of faith and disease of sin would be passed on to all their descendants[1]. The will of mankind would henceforth be bound to sin. Man would be inclined to flee from God and to fear, love, and trust in himself, and his own works, above all things.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3).

This total corruption of man’s nature – called original sin – has left all people spiritually blind, dead, and enemies of God (Luther, 1991). St. Paul points this out to the Ephesians when he writes that they (and we as well) were dead in trespasses and sins. Because of this the Bible says that, from the time of our youth, man is inclined toward every evil. We do not accept the things that come from God because, St. Paul says, those things are spiritually discerned, and we are, by nature, spiritually dead[2]. Our sinful minds are hostile to God and, not only are we disinclined to submit to God, we are incapable of doing so. St. Paul writes to the Romans:

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:6-8).

From the time of our conception we human beings are “in the flesh” and, therefore, unable to submit to God. We are his enemies[3]. The intellect, heart, and will of the natural, unregenerate person in divine things are not only turned entirely away from God, but also are turned and perverted against God to every evil (McCain, Baker, Veith, & Engelbrecht, 2005)[4].

For this reason God, all the way back at the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, promised Adam and Eve that he would send a savior, one of Eve’s descendants, to crush the head of the serpent – to defeat Satan and reconcile mankind to himself[5]. Adam and Eve did nothing to merit God’s mercy here. Quite to the contrary, both Adam and Eve tried to shift the blame for disobeying God from themselves; Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame the serpent. The reality of the situation was, however, that our first parents chose to disobey God, seeking after some knowledge which they had been persuaded by the devil that God was hiding from them. Satan got Eve to doubt God’s word, implying to her that God was being selfish[6] (Engelbrecht, et al., 2009). This sin, to distrust God’s word, is really the beginning of all sins. Luther writes:

All this is the old devil and old serpent, who also turned Adam and Eve into enthusiasts. He led them away from God’s outward Word to spiritualizing and self-pride. And yet, he did this through other outward words[7] (McCain, Baker, Veith, & Engelbrecht, 2005).

Because this is the state of human nature, all human beings are sinful from birth, incapable of truly fearing, loving, or trusting in God, and inclined to flee from him. And, because our sinful nature has been thus corrupted, we commit all kinds of actual sins (Luther, 1991). We need no one to describe with constitutes an “actual” sin; we know that well enough from living in the fallen world and working diligently to actually commit them. St. Paul, however, puts pen to paper once more:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21).

In his law, God condemns and punishes sin, and he commands mankind to do good works of thought, word, and deed. When God created Adam and Eve, he wrote his law on their hearts; God’s law written on our hearts – our conscience – is a built-in feature of humanity[8]. The main function of God’s Law is to show us our sinfulness. The Law, in Luther’s words, “…shows us how very low our nature has fallen, how we have become utterly corrupted” (McCain, Baker, Veith, & Engelbrecht, 2005)[9]. Jesus summarized the Law like this:

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:34-40).

Adam and Eve were comforted by God’s promise, but they did not know who this savior would be. In fact, some theologians believe that, when Eve gave birth to Cain, because of the way he was named, she thought he was the fulfillment of God’s promise (Engelbrecht, et al., 2009).

We, in contrast to Adam and Eve, are not looking forward to the coming of the promised savior. We look back, instead, at the fulfillment of God’s promise. Holy Scripture tells us that Jesus of Nazareth was that savior of mankind. The Bible teaches that Jesus is man’s only savior from sin, death, and the devil and, that through faith in him, we receive eternal life (Luther, 1991).

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent…Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 17:3; 3:36).

While we were still at enmity with God Jesus, true God begotten from all eternity, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, becoming also truly a man. He took on human nature and lived a sinless life, keeping the Law that we were unable to keep. And, in the fullness of God’s time, Jesus went to the cross to die. Sinless Jesus, the God-man, went to the cross and bore the guilt and punishment that, according to God’s justice, belonged to man, so that man might be reconciled to God. He died on the cross and was placed in the tomb. Three days later he rose from the dead, defeating the power of sin, death, and Satan. He graciously gives us this gift of salvation through faith in him. Luther writes, regarding the Gospel, in the Smalcald Articles, Section III, Article IV:

God is superabundantly generous in His grace: First, through the spoken Word, by which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world. This is the particular office of the Gospel. Second, through Baptism. Third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar. Fourth, through the Power of the Keys. Also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren. “Where two or three are gathered” (Matthew 18:20). And other such verses (especially Romans 1:12) (McCain, Baker, Veith, & Engelbrecht, 2005).

By faith we receive the righteousness of Christ as a free gift. When a person is made aware of their sinfulness by God’s law and is sorry for their sins and they, in turn, believe in the Lord Jesus as their savior, God credits that person with the righteousness of Christ. God uses his means – the spoken Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper – to come to us and create faith in us. And, after one is converted, good works – the fruits of repentance – will follow in the life of the believer[10].

This Lenten season we should take the time to look at ourselves through the lens of God’s Law and repent of our sin. As we repent we should also thank God that he has provided for us a savior who bore the punishment we deserved and credits us with his righteousness. And, as we fast, repent, and pray in preparation for the remembrance of Our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, we should also thank God that he is long-suffering. Recognizing the reason for his delayed return, we should, by God’s power, continue to serve him faithfully in our vocations, proclaiming Law and Gospel to those around us while he tarries.



Works Cited

Engelbrecht, E. A., Deterding, P. E., Ehlke, R. C., Joersz, J. C., Love, M. W., Mueller, S. P., et al. (Eds.). (2009). The Lutheran Study Bible. Saint Louis, Missouri, USA: Concordia Publishing House.

Luther, M. (1991). Kleine Katechismus, English. (C. P. House, Trans.) Saint Louis, Missouri, USA: Concordia Publishing House.

McCain, P. T., Baker, R. C., Veith, G. E., & Engelbrecht, E. A. (Eds.). (2005). Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions. (W. H. Dau, & G. F. Bente, Trans.) St. Louis, MO, USA: Concordia Publishing House.

 

 

End Notes

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[1] Psalm 51:5; John 3:6; Romans 5:12; Ephesians 4:22

[2] 1 Corinthians 2:14

[3] Romans 5:10

[4] FC SD II 17

[5] Genesis 3:15

[6] Genesis 3:1

[7] SA III VIII 5

[8] Romans 2:14-15

[9] SA III II 4

[10] AC XII 6