The cleansing of justification and sanctification

Sermon for Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16-24  +  Luke 17:11-19

The works of the flesh are obvious, St. Paul said in today’s epistle to the Galatians. Then he listed a number of those obvious works: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, murders, drunkenness, debauchery, and things like these. These are what truly make a person unclean before God. Then the apostle adds a stern warning: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

We see those works being practiced all around us, of course. Reading that list is like reading the daily news, and you can be sure that most of the people around will not inherit the kingdom of God. But if these things are all “works of the flesh,” then we all have a problem. Because you have flesh, too. Human flesh, that is, a sinful, fallen human nature that you inherited from your parents, all the way back to fallen Adam and Eve. And your flesh is always with you. You can’t get rid of it. It’s with you until the day you die. So those filthy, fleshly works will constantly be bubbling up from your flesh, too. If they don’t erupt on the surface, they’re still infecting you within, and that means you can never be clean on your own, and that means you can’t inherit the kingdom of God on your own, either, because it’s only for clean people—clean like God alone is clean.

That sobering reality is what God was impressing on the people of Israel with the disease of the flesh called leprosy, the disease that did erupt on the surface so that it was visible to all. God gave Israel strict commandments about lepers, barring them from Jewish society. And He ordained complex rituals for lepers and priests to perform so that the lepers could reenter society, if and when they were healed. God’s teaching was embedded in their flesh, as it were: No one with unclean flesh may enter into God’s presence. You must be clean. You must be holy. Or you will perish outside of the kingdom of God.

But then along comes Jesus and finally, after some 1,500 years since the Law of Moses was written, the lesson behind leprosy is made clear, and it’s wonderful. Although the works of your flesh are filthy and ugly as can be, Jesus offers the cleansing—the forgiveness!—you need, and He offers it for free, not based on how well you’ve fixed up your life first. So seek your cleansing—seek forgiveness from Him! But also understand, the struggle against the flesh doesn’t end with that cleansing. It begins with it. There is the cleansing of justification. But then follows the cleansing of sanctification. Both are essential.

Let’s walk through the text. Jesus’ decision to travel to Jerusalem through Samaria had a purpose. The Samaritans, you recall, were technically “foreigners” to the Jews, living in that middle territory between Galilee in northern Israel and Judea in southern Israel. They had some Jewish blood but had more in common with the Gentiles than with the Jews, including their religion. But the Gospel of free-of-charge salvation through faith in Christ was just as powerful among Gentiles as among Jews. And often times, as in today’s Gospel, the Gentiles proved quicker to believe in Jesus than the Jews were.

Ten men with leprosy approached Jesus. At least one of them was a Samaritan. They all approached Jesus together. They all begged Him together, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! See what the word about Jesus had already produced in them! It may have been faith the size of a mustard seed, but it was enough for them to have faith in the mercy of Jesus, faith that He could and would help them in their uncleanness. And that faith in the heart is what led them to call upon Him with their lips for help.

And He did help them! Go and show yourselves to the priests! That’s what God’s Law required for lepers whose leprosy had been cleansed. Two long chapters in the book of Leviticus are dedicated to leprosy and the rituals for pronouncing a leper ceremonially clean, if and when his leprosy ever went away. But at the word of Jesus, all ten of these men were cleansed of their leprosy, free of charge, by the pure grace and kindness of the Lord Jesus.

Ten were cleansed, and for nine of them, that was that. Their relationship with Jesus their “Master” was over. They went on to live their lives. After their cleansing, they were done with Jesus. But the one, the Samaritan, the one the Jews would least expect to have true faith or to display genuine godliness, returned to where Jesus was to worship God in the Person of Jesus and to give thanks to Him.

Were not all ten cleansed?, Jesus asked. But where are the nine? Were there none found to return and give glory to God except for this foreigner? The cleansing was free of charge, with no strings attached. But clearly the Lord Jesus was expecting His kindness to have an effect on the men. His Spirit had worked faith in their hearts, and the cleansing of their skin was symbolic of the cleansing that takes place through faith, the cleansing of forgiveness or justification. But the Spirit never stops there. He continues to tug and pull and urge and encourage the believer to walk with Him, to “walk in the Spirit,” to produce the fruit of the Spirit, which begins with thanksgiving to God for His undeserved mercy and love. That’s the natural response of faith. A thankful heart and good works are borne from faith as grapes are borne from a vine. But the faith of the nine stalled. And where faith stalls, faith dies, just as a young fruit tree that stops growing and fails to produce fruit is obviously unhealthy and will eventually die.

So it is with the whole Christian life. Our flesh is corrupt. It’s hostile to God. It’s an ally of the devil. Sometimes the works of the flesh erupt on the surface, and everyone can see how ugly we are by nature. But even when they don’t erupt on the outside, God sees the corruption on the inside, and He pronounces the sentence: No unclean thing can enter His presence. But then the Son of God took on human flesh, and His flesh was clean. Even so, He paid for the uncleanness of our flesh on the cross. And then He came to us in our filthiness, through the preaching of the Gospel, and told us the good news: “Yes, you are ugly by nature, you are sinful, you are unclean. But I will cleanse you! I will forgive you! Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins!” And the Holy Spirit brought us to believe that promise and brought us to be baptized and to be washed clean before God. That’s justification, and with it comes new birth, the birth of the New Man.

Justification is the first step of the process of sanctification, the daily putting to death of the flesh, of the Old Man, and the daily rising of the New Man to live in purity and righteousness and holiness, being renewed by the Holy Spirit day by day. Where genuine faith exists, thanksgiving will follow, along with a new life of living to please God and living to serve our neighbor, because God commands us to.

But understand, a person can be brought to genuine faith, and begin the life of sanctification, and then fail to use the means God has given us of preserving and strengthening faith—hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments. A person can stop praying for God’s help and strength against sin and against temptation. (As Jesus said, Watch and pray that you may not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.) And then, what happens? The flesh that was always there, the flesh that was struggling against the Spirit as soon as the New Man was born, begins to take over, and the works of the flesh begin to erupt on the surface. That’s why St. Paul warned the Galatians so urgently to walk in the Spirit, lest they turn back to walking according to the flesh.

As Jesus said to His disciples, By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; in this way you will be My disciples. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. And what is that fruit that the Spirit enables you to produce as Christians? St. Paul gives us several examples in the Epistle: But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Turn your thoughts to those things. Turn your prayers to asking for the Holy Spirit’s help, that you may excel in those things.

And do it, as Paul says to the Colossians, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. Give thanks like the one out of ten lepers in today’s Gospel, and don’t worry that the nine remain thankless. Give thanks, not just in your heart and in your home, but here, where Jesus has promised to be present, where two or three are gathered together in His name. Give thanks in your singing and praying and confessing. Give thanks in this great Supper that we call the Eucharist, the Meal of Thanksgiving where Christ is present in a special way to receive our thanks even as He gives us again the thing for which we give thanks, the gift of His body and blood, and of the forgiveness we continually need in this life, as we continually drag around our sinful flesh. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. In other words, as long as the Spirit preserves your faith in Christ, you are justified and cleansed of the filthiness of your flesh. Your faith has saved you, Jesus said to the one. Wherever there is genuine faith, there is forgiveness, life and salvation. And there the Spirit will also be, working to sanctify you through and through, to crucify the flesh and to make your whole life a thanksgiving to God. Amen.