[On the day that reminds us every year, 31 October, it has been said many times in churches, at commemorations, what the Reformation left us as a legacy, what are the precious treasures our ancestors left us to preserve, to develop, to care for. This Word is not talking about something entrusted to us, but the other way round: it is talking about something entrusted to us. Reformation does not only mean that something is entrusted to us, but also that we are entrusted to someone.Here it is: 'And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his mercy, who is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all the saints.' (Acts 20:32) Let me try to explain, with the help of God's Holy Spirit, what this means!
The apostle Paul says this to the elders of the church at Ephesus when he bids them farewell. He has been with them for three years, they have had many precious hours together, they have experienced many great things of God together, they have been united in prayer together. Time has passed, they must go, it is time to say goodbye. As much as he would have liked to stay, and as much as the Ephesians would have liked to keep him, he cannot stay, he must go. New work, new tasks await him elsewhere. But even if Paul leaves, God remains! And that is the main thing! People come and go: but God always remains! That is why Paul can go on in peace. Even if he knows in advance that, humanly speaking, he is leaving the church behind in a critical situation. He tells them, "For I know that after my departure there will come among you wicked wolves who do not please the flock. And men will arise from among you, speaking foul things, to draw away the disciples after them." (Acts 20:29-30) But that is why he says, "Now I commend you to God," in other words, "Now I commit you to God. I have taken care of you until now, you have been entrusted to me, but now I am entrusting you completely to the Lord!
But for many people, believers, this has been a comfort on their deathbed, that those they loved, those they had to leave behind, they could entrust to God! Surely it cannot be easy for a father to part with his loved ones when he knows and feels that his family still needs him so much. What will happen to his little ones if he cannot take care of them? But he who can truly say in faith: 'And now, brothers, I commend you to God', that is, I entrust you to the Lord, can close his eyes and go on to another world, to new tasks.
This is what the Reformers did to the whole church: they entrusted it all over again to the Lord God! All the threads that over the millennia had tied the church to tradition, to human ordinances, to the persons of men, the Reformers carefully untied, tore, cut, so that nothing would prevent the people of Christ from being truly all Christ's! They did not want to recruit believers around their own person, they did not want to bind the church, but to liberate it. Indeed, the very essence of their whole endeavour is expressed in this verse: 'And now, brethren, I commend you to God'! It is for this reason that we think with so much grace on this day of the blessed persons of the Reformers - Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon, Knox, Matthias Bíró Dévai, Peter Melianus Juhász, and the others - for us, even in the commemoration, they are not the most important, but we should turn our celebration, our gratitude, our praise, to their Lord and to our Lord, to Whom we have entrusted Him.
Otherwise, they themselves would protest most against their celebration, for all of them, always looking beyond themselves to the One to Whom they were but humble, feeble servants! And how good that they did, for they came and went - but the Lord remained! Let us look not backwards, then, to the past, but upwards, to the Christ who is ours, who speaks to us not through past memories, but here and now in His Word! "And now, brethren, I commend you to God," says the Apostle Paul, adding, "and to the word of His grace." With this second part of the sentence he is not saying anything new, but rather just explaining the first part. To trust in God is to trust in Him, to place us under the Word of His grace. Yes, that was the very point of the Reformation, to put the church back there, to put it under the Word of God's grace. It was like realizing what a great grace it is that God speaks to us. He speaks to us, to people like us: unworthy people, sinners, rebels, last of all. Have you ever wondered why God speaks to you? It is far from being a natural thing to simply get over! I don't know what he will say, but the fact that he is worth speaking to is a message - to me! He notices me, he leans down: it is a great, great privilege! And the Church is the company of those privileged people to whom the Lord of all leans, to whom He has a word! But it is not only a grace that God speaks, it is a much greater grace that he speaks: For what is His Word about? His grace! Not of His wrath, not of His vengeance, but of His mercy and compassion; that in Jesus Christ He has finished the work of redemption for the whole lost world; that He has punished Jesus Christ in our place, so that we might have peace and salvation!
This is the main message of our Lord. He proclaims grace without exception to all who believe Him! This is the Word, the word, the speech of His mercy! It is this word that the Reformation heard again, and it is under the inspiring power and scope of this divine revelation of grace that the Reformers once again brought the Church! "I commend you to God and to the word of his grace": this means that here in the Church the source, the life-giver, the nourisher of all our hope, all our joy, all our salvation, is the gospel, the divine message of God's grace, the divine word of Christ crucified and risen! That is why our Bible is so precious to us, the people of the Reformation, and why the first concern of the Reformation in every country was to translate the Holy Scriptures, to interpret the Word of God in the language of the nation! That is why we cannot live without the Word.
Imagine what we would be without the Word of God's grace? What a dark, narrow valley this earth would be, and what a closed, inaccessible place of happiness heaven would be! What would life be but death again and again, and death but a night without a new dawn! Yes: life and death would be unbearable without the Word of grace! But how good that we, the Church, are not forced to live without it, for we are entrusted to the Word of God's grace, - so that individually, individually, you and I can entrust ourselves to it. In fact: the more fully we entrust ourselves to the Word of God's grace! On His word of grace! This is entrusting ourselves to His Gospel: this is salvation! It is important that we entrust ourselves to His Word of grace, because it is with this Word that God builds up and gives you an inheritance, as our basic verse continues, "who is able to build up and give you an inheritance among all the sanctified".
So God, by His gracious Word, first builds up. What does this building up mean? Most people think of this word with a pious, religious feeling. But in the biblical sense, it is not an emotion, a mood, a feeling of being moved, but something else. Something like building a house. What happens when you build a house? Bricks are laid one on top of the other until slowly the walls rise up and the house is built. Spiritually, it's the same kind of thing. It's about God building each person into the building, into the community of His holy, spiritual temple. In building, there are usually two kinds of stones. One is that which is manufactured in the kiln and the other is quarried in the quarry. One is shaped from clay and fired, the other is carved with a hammer. The mason often cuts large chunks of it until the piece of stone fits into its place in the building. If the stones could cry, oh how loud the construction would be! Well, then: if we want to build into the temple of God, we must first shape or carve it ourselves. For as we are, we do not fit into the walls of the temple. With pride, self-righteousness, sensitivity, anxiety, selfishness, and many unnecessary nails, we cannot be used up in the building of God. He takes us into the hands of the heavenly stonecutter, because he has to carve away much of us. It cannot be otherwise! Those chipped, dead stones have many advantages over "living stones". They do not defend themselves, they do not cry out, they do not protest as we do. So let us let our Lord, the great master builder, work on us!
In the English translation of the book of Hosea, there is an interesting phrase: "Therefore I will bruise them by the prophets" (Hos 6:5) Yes, God is bruising His people by the word of His prophets, by His Word. There is a child of God who does not allow himself to be dishonoured in this way. Such a soul remains unstained. When you get close to such a soul, a splinter goes into your hand, it pricks you, it scratches you, like a rough, uneven, unpolished board. So let Him work! Fear not, God makes no mistakes! He will not chisel off more than He must, He will not plane off more than He must. "Who is able to build you up and give you an inheritance," says Paul.
That is what the Lord wants us to do, that is why He is planing, that is why He is carving, that is why He is building into His temple, so that He can finally give us the inheritance. He wants to prepare us to receive the inheritance bequeathed to us by the death of His Son. What is this inheritance? All the riches that are in heaven. Can we say in human words what we can expect? The apostle Peter speaks of it thus. (1 Peter 1:4-5) So God is preserving, God is keeping for us that inheritance in heaven, and at the same time He is keeping us for that inheritance. So He doubly assures us that He will finish what He has begun in us and with us!
The apostles, the reformers, our confessing ancestors, throughout the centuries, on the feast of the Reformation, tell us: 'And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all the saints' (Acts 20:32):
Jesus is the foundation of the Church,
The church is the Jesus, the Christ, the spiritual temple built on the holy Word.
He came down from heaven to call and betroth Him,
Redeemed in his precious blood the believer in redemption.
He called out from every nation a spiritual people here,
United by one Lord, one baptism and one faith.
He exalts but one name, he is drawn by but one purpose,
And a table laid for him gives him new strength.
(Canto 392 verses 1-2)
Amen
Date: 31 October 1951.