The Third Article of the Creed, Part 1

Sermon for the Festival of St. Luke

2 Timothy 4:5-15  +  Luke 10:1-9 + Small Catechism Review

Our celebration of the Festival of St. Luke coincides quite well with our focus this evening on the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed. We’ll see how in just a moment. To the First Article of the Creed, you recall, Luther added the title, “Creation.” To the Second Article he added the title, “Redemption.” And to the Third Article, he added the title, “Sanctification.” We’ll review this article over the course of two weeks (although we could easily take ten). I’ll read it, as printed on the back of your service folder:

I believe in the Holy Spirit; a holy Christian Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

What does this mean?

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and preserved me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and preserves it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all sins to me and all believers, and on the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.

Who is the Holy Spirit? He’s a “Person,” which isn’t the best term for any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, but it’s the best we can do. He’s a distinct personality within the Holy Trinity who “subsists of Himself,” as they say. In other words, He is not the Father. He is not the Son. He is His own “Person.” If that were ever in doubt, the words of Jesus as He commissioned His disciples should dispel all doubt: “…baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

As we confess in the Nicene Creed, the Holy Spirit proceeds or “goes out from” from the Father and the Son. Beyond that, we don’t try to comprehend or visualize the Spirit, just as we can’t really visualize the wind. We know the wind by its effects on us and on the world around us. So, too, we know the Spirit by His effects on us and on the world around us.

The Holy Spirit is the One who makes the Father known to us, who makes the Son known to us. And how does He do it? He does it through the Word of God. And how does the Word of God come to us? It comes to us through the Church, through those who have received the Word of God, from the Prophets, to the Apostles, to those who received the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, to all who have believed and been baptized ever since. There is the Spirit, working through the Word that is preached and that is attached to the Sacraments. There is the Spirit of God, performing His work called “sanctification.”

To sanctify means “to make holy,” to set someone (or something) apart for a sacred, special purpose. When you and I were born, we were not sanctified in any way. We were born dead in trespasses and sins, born as members of the devil’s kingdom, born as part of the mass of the unbelieving world, common, ordinary, profane. Even though Jesus had already come long before we were born and lived and died and rose again, we were still part of the profane, unbelieving world, as all people are by birth, flesh born of the flesh, and children of wrath.

And so we confess in the explanation of the Third Article, when we say that we “believe in the Holy Spirit,” what we mean is: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel. He has called me out of the mass of common, ordinary humanity, out of the world that is perishing and destined to perish. He has called me through the Gospel as it was preached by someone, or by many someones, whom He had previously called by the Gospel, and so on, and so on, back to the Day of Pentecost. And faith came by hearing, as it always does.

Faith is the very first gift that the Holy Spirit gives to a person, as we say, He has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and preserved me in the true faith. Before, I sat in darkness, not knowing God, not believing in God, under the devil’s power. But by working faith in our hearts, the Holy Spirit has sanctified us in the first sense of the word; He has set us apart from the perishing world and placed us as members of the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints. He has set us aside and marked us as “holy to God.”

Then, along with faith, the Holy Spirit continues to enlighten us with still more gifts. Some of those gifts, especially during the apostolic era, were obvious, visible gifts: healing, prophesying, speaking in tongues. But His most important gifts have never been the external ones. They’re the gifts mentioned in Isaiah 11: Wisdom, including sound judgment and discernment; Understanding: of God, of His Word, and of His creation; Counsel: including comfort, encouragement, guidance, and the ability to preach and teach God’s Word; Might, including courage to confess Christ before the world boldly and strength to stand against the devil and the world; Knowledge: knowing God and His works and His ways; and Fear of the Lord, including reverence for God, a firm faith in God, and zeal to lead a godly life. With all of these gifts, the Holy Spirit enlightens those whom He has first enlightened by saving faith in Christ Jesus.

Now, how does all this fit in with the Festival of St. Luke? Well, first, consider our Gospel this evening. Why did Jesus send out the seventy? He sent them to preach the Gospel, to call people by the Gospel. Because His plan for Israel, like His plan for the rest of the world, wasn’t to magically zap faith into people’s hearts from heaven, or to nurture their faith without means. The only way God brings people into His Church is through the ministry of the Church, which is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Why would those seventy go on this mission? Because the Holy Spirit had already brought them to faith in Christ through the Word, had already called them by the Gospel and enlightened them with the gift of faith. And how could they possibly go out as “lambs among wolves”? Where would they get the courage from to do that? Only being enlightened by the Spirit’s gift of Might. And with His gifts of Wisdom and Understanding and Counsel they would be equipped to preach and teach. And with the Spirit’s special, outward gift of healing, they would heal the sick there, as a sign that truly the kingdom of God had arrived in the Person of Jesus Christ.

What about St. Luke himself? From what we can tell about Luke from the Scriptures, he was a Gentile, a Greek from the city of Troas, a doctor, a physician, until Paul, Silas, and Timothy arrived in Troas, on their way to Greece for the first time. Luke doesn’t mention himself in the book of Acts, but before Paul arrived in Troas, it was “they did this” and “they went here and there.” After Troas, it’s “we departed” and “we went here and there,” indicating that Luke, the author of the book, suddenly became a participant in the story. And the Spirit worked mightily in Luke, granting him the gift of knowledge so that he could compose that precious third Gospel and the book of Acts. The Spirit also worked in him great zeal and love and loyalty to the Apostle, so that he alone was there with Paul when Paul faced the executioner’s block.

All of that was by the working and guiding of God’s Holy Spirit, who called Luke by the Gospel, just as He had called Paul by the Gospel, just as He has called you and me by the Gospel and made us members of His Holy Christian Church. We say we “believe” in a Holy Christian Church, because we can’t actually see it. In fact, when we look around us, it seems like there can’t possibly exist a Holy Christian Church throughout the world. But by faith, we know it’s there. We believe it exists, and that Christ is quietly building it, stone by stone, soul by soul, through the Spirit’s sanctifying work.

Tonight we’ve considered the Spirit’s call through the Church and the Spirit’s enlightening as the first part of sanctification. Next week, with God’s blessing, we’ll consider the other part of the Spirit’s sanctifying work. Now, may He who has called you by the Gospel preserve you by the same Gospel and preserve you with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. Amen.