IX. The Opposition to Confession
animated from moment to moment by the faith of the church and thus proceeds from generation to generation. It is even in the present day, still our confession, not because it was compiled by our fathers and by them delivered upon us, but because it is for us to-day, even as it was for them in former centuries, the purest expression of our faith, the clearest explanation of the truth of God, the most beautiful exhibition of the treasures of salvation, which are granted unto us by God in Christ.
Trained from our youth in the confession of the church, we now confess therein our own faith.
CHAPTER IX
The Opposition to Confession But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. - Galatians 1:11.
Confessing is contrary to flesh and blood, contrary to world and satan.
By nature, every man is in enmity with the proclamation that Jesus is the Christ. To the superficial thinker or observer it may seem strange that the Gospel has at all times met with so great an opposition. It is, is it not a good tiding of great joy unto all creatures? It speaks of nothing but grace and peace and salvation; it demands nothing and gives everything. And nevertheless it finds resistance and opposition everywhere; for the Jews it is an offense and to the Greeks
foolishness. It may be for man, but it is not after man. It is not, as it would be, if man had planned and reasoned it out; it is of divine origin and therefore is not in conformity with the thoughts and desires, with the lusts and the passions of man. Mind and heart, desire and will, soul and body resist the Gospel of Christ. And in that resistance man is externally strengthened by the whole world, by the whole kingdom of darkness.
Certainly there is a difference in the circumstances. In days of peace and rest the opposition to the Gospel is not so intense as in times when the church is oppressed and persecuted by the world. Much more courage is necessary to stand up for Christ in a godless community of sinners and scoffers than in a circle of relatives and friends who altogether confess the truth. A stronger faith is necessary not to be ashamed of the Cross of Christ in a company of nobles and learned men than in the midst of a common and simple people in some isolated town or village.
But in principle the opposition is everywhere the same. For flesh and world and satan are always and everywhere the same, and the greatest and strongest enemy, who resists the Gospel of Christ dwells in our own heart. The form in which the enmity reveals itself may be different but always and everywhere the confessing of the Lord's name is accompanied with a denying of ourselves, and a bearing of the cross. Scorn and derision become the part and portion of everyone, in whatever circle, who breaks with the world and follows
Jesus.
Even when faith has been worked in the heart and has driven to confession, how much is there, even then, that continually and constantly keeps the lips closed and holds us back from a free and happy acknowledgment of Jesus name.
Behold it in a Peter, who, in the hour of danger denies His Master and even afterwards in Antioch, out of fear for the brothers of circumcision makes himself guilty of hypocrisy. And nevertheless
Peter as the most prominent of the Apostles, who for his glorious and free confession of Jesus' Messiahship, received the name of Rock and who felt himself bound with such a strong love to His Savior that he would enter death with Him, and cast far from him the possibility of denying the Lord. If he could fall and did fall, who then can remain standing? And for whom is the warning superfluous that he, who thinketh to stand, take heed lest he fall?
The history of the Christian Church reveals unto us many beautiful examples of steadfast, unshakable martyrdoms, but it also contains the sad stories of thousands upon thousands of those who in the hour of temptation denied the faith or in crooked ways drew back from the confession. When persecution or tribulation ariseth because of the Word, then is immediately offended he, who at first heard the Word and received it with joy, but had no root in himself and dureth only for a while.
There are so many dangers to which a believer stands exposed; so many cliffs upon which he is threatened to strand. Lust of the eyes, lusts of the flesh and pride of life; fear for loss of name and honor, of possessions and life, exert themselves alternately, singly or unitedly to draw the disciple of Jesus from the steadfastness of his faith. And under all these trials and temptations, the so-called false shame probably exerts the greatest power. For even when the tribulations and persecutions are passed, this works on and makes thousands and ten thousands to stumble and fall. In low and high society, amongst the rich and the poor, in the midst of plebeians and patricians this false shame throws her great hindrances in the way of the confession of the Lord's Name.
There is something deeply humiliating in the fact that in the depth of our heart we are ashamed of Jesus. For He was a man, who went through the country doing good and blessing; who was gentle and tender of heart; and who, it is true, died on a cross, but His enemies were His judges and therefore condemned Him to this shameful death, although He was entirely and perfectly innocent. There must
be something wrong with us, we must be morally sick, if we are ashamed of such a man and dare not take His name upon our lips.
Shame in general is an unpleasant feeling, which comes upon us at a certain action or state of ourselves which lowers us in the estimation of others. Sometimes it is good. For instance, when Adam is ashamed of himself after transgressing God's commandment, he shows by it, that he feels his action to have been evil and that he realizes his fall.
Shame is not always and absolutely a fruit of faith, but it is also found with the natural man and thus proves that man through sin has not become an animal or devil but that he has still remained man, and that he has still retained a feeling of his honor and worthiness.
Nevertheless, alongside of this true and good there also exists a wrong, a false shame. It is found with us when we feel timid or embarrassed about something which in itself is good, but which nevertheless makes us descend in the estimation of others. Thus we are often ashamed of the good impressions which the proclamation of the Gospel has had upon us; of the accusations of our conscience; of the sorrow which comes up in us after committing an evil and wicked act; of the tenderheartedness and affectiveness with which we are affected under certain circumstances. We are afraid, that others, noticing this will scorn and deride us on account of it; that they will consider us weak, simple, childish; that we will lose by it our name as strong, brave, courageous persons.
Now this false shame also falls upon us with respect to the Gospel of the cross. We are ashamed of the church which consists not of many wise and mighty and noble. We are ashamed of the Bible, which is so strange and wonderful, and which is rejected and disputed by the men of civilization and science. We are ashamed of Christ, who claimed to be the only begotten Son of God, the anointed of the Father. We are ashamed of His cross, which was an offense to the Jews and foolishness unto the Greeks. We are ashamed of the whole
special revelation of God, which reveals us unto ourselves and displays us in our spiritual poverty.
And we make ourselves fearful that we, choosing the side of Christ will lose entirely our name and our honor as man, with ourselves and others and will become an object of scorn and derision, of abuse and persecution. We fear, that by the confessing of Christ, our dignity, personality, humanity will be injured and suffer loss. Even the false shame has therefore for its basis a dark consciousness that we were once created in the image of God and have still a certain rank and honor to preserve. The respect and admiration of himself and of others is in short a matter of indifference to no one, because in his deepest fall he remains man and continues to bear the name of man, that is, of God's image and likeness.
But this consciousness, under the influence of sin, works now in the reverse direction. For it is true, by giving ourselves entirely unto
Christ for salvation, we descend in our own estimation and in that of others, and with man we lose our name, and our honor. But this estimation rests upon a fancy and that fancy and that honor is built upon an imagination. For by nature we consider ourselves rich and enriched and in need of nothing. But when we embrace the Gospel, then we learn to realize that we are poor and blind and naked and in need of everything.
And thus also our honor with man is mostly the fruit of ignorance and appearance. The art of winning the hearts and praise of man consists therein that we conceal our real, true nature and allow them to form an opinion of our person according to our external learned appearance. God is true and honest, but every man is a liar; he does not always speak the untruth but he is untruth; he is false, deceitful in his existence itself. Reality and appearance, essence and revelation, inward and outward man are in contradiction with each other. Sometimes while the mouth overflows with love, and the countenance reveals nothing but friendship, then out of the heart of man comes forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies. The saint, knowing man in his inward existence and looking into the innermost depth of his heart, would flee from him in horror. And therefore, incomparably great has been the love of Christ, who knew what was in man, and yet came, sought him, and gave himself into death for him.
Thus we really live for ourselves and for others in a fancy and imagination. When we look at it in the right light, we lose nothing essential when we believe in Christ for we have nothing essential. We only lose the imagination, that we live, that we are rich, and enriched and in need of nothing. The most fearful misery of sin consists not therein, that we are blind, but it consists in this: that we, being blind, nevertheless imagine that we see. Sin is guilt and pollution and shame, but above that, also foolishness and ignorance.
And that imagination of ours is brought into confusion by the Word of the Lord. We must deny that imagination if we desire to be saved by Christ. For, to become a Christian—that means, to count our own opinion and that of others as of no worth and worthiness; to accept the judgment of God concerning us and hope only for His grace and mercy. The confessing of Christ includes, that we lose ourselves and everything, our name and our honor, our possessions and our blood, our soul and our life. And it is exactly against this that the false shame strives and struggles. The sigh for self-preservation, in appearance, forces and drives man, with the exertion of all his strength and power, to oppose the Gospel.
The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. And neither does he understand that losing ourselves is the only way to true self-preservation.