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In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.

Jesus makes a rather subtle point in this passage. While we can sometimes slip into understanding Jesus’ intercession for us as if He “covers for us” – because we’re sinners who have no right to be in the presence of God, but through Christ – this is not what Jesus teaches. He specifically says, and I paraphrase, “I’m not saying I’ll pray to the Father for you, for the Father loves YOU, because you love me and believe in Me.”

Our love for Christ, for our Savior, and our belief in Him – we recall from last week’s Gospel that with Christ’s ascension, sin has been redefined as lack of faith in Him – is the reason the Father loves us and hears us as ourselves. Yes, we pray in Christ’s name. Yes, the foundation of our righteousness is not in us but in Christ’s sitting at God’s right hand – that too we learned from last week’s Gospel. But all this adds up to the truth that the Father sees us as His dear children in and of ourselves. It’s not as if He’s wrathful at us if ever He sees us without our “Jesus cloak” on. No, we have become new creations in Christ. We ourselves are newly formed people in Christ. And on those terms the Father sees us, in ourselves.

We ought to have confidence and boldness in this. As the St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, “in [Christ] we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.”

As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” And again, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

And finally as St. John put it, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.”

John also adds this little warning, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.”

So, it should be clear: we can have boldness and confidence to enter into the throne room of our Father and pray, well, “Our Father…” He is after all, our Father!

Now boldness and confidence doesn’t mean casualness and lack of respect or godly fear. If “Honor thy father and mother” remains true for earthly fathers, how much more for our heavenly Father.

On the other hand, boldness and confidence should eradicate all traces of the “we just” prayer. What is the “we just” prayer? Or as it’s sometimes referred to, the “Lord Wejus” or “Father God Wejus.” It’s the pattern you will hear in 90-100% of evangelical or non-denominational prayers. “Lord, we just lift your name on high, and Father God we just ask you to do X, Y, and Z, and we just pray this in the holy name of Jesus, Amen.”

No, we don’t just pray to the Father. “Just” implies we are assuming a posture of fear and inconvenience for the Father. “Hey, Father God, I just have one little request for you and then I’ll get our of your hair. Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to ask these teensy little favor.”

“Just” is a word we use when we take a posture like that. That is not the posture Jesus teaches, and the incredible overuse of the word in prayer – to such a point it’s become a verbal tic – is a huge argument for going back to written out, formal prayers. If Christians cannot pray well without falling back into verbal tics and cliched verbiage, there’s no shame in putting the thought into the prayer prior to the actual prayer so they can speak something that has some power, beauty, and meaning.

What’s wrong with writing out formal prayers prior to the time of prayer? Is it less “heartfelt” because someone spent a half hour meditating on the right words to say to the Lord rather than whipping something out in fifteen seconds under the pretense that, somehow it’s better to approach God with the same old “prayer boilerplate” we hear in every other prayer?

When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He didn’t say, “Just pray what you feel and talk to God like you’re talking to an old buddy.” No, He taught the Our Father. Confidence, yes. Boldness, yes. And also honor and respect. And it’s never boilerplate because Jesus taught it. Each praying of the Lord’s prayer is alike a re-immersion in our baptism.

The “We just” prayers have got to go. They entered into the Christian DNA at the same time many the other bad habits entered into Christianity, with the rise and dominance of evangelical Christianity in the 70s and 80s. This was when beauty began to drain out of the church, when reverence for God declined, when the Church lost any sense of sacramentality, when Christians lost interest in some of the most profound poetry known to man in its hymns, when Bach got replaced by a rock band for crying out loud. The 60s rebels asked the question, “Why does the devil get all the good music?”, never contemplating the devil chooses things based on what he is, which last we checked is pure, unbridled evil. What an incredibly stupid question.

As this obnoxious Christian movement began to dominate the Christian DNA, we got “corporate Christianity,” and with that, the sort of boilerplate that goes along with corporate America, that “way of talking” and acting, ever quick to talk about ones “testimony” rather than Christ, reducing Christianity to a few trite phrases that sound wise but mean nothing: “It’s all about a relationship and building relationships because relationships.” “Lord Father God, we just this and we just that.”

The “We just” prayers have got to go. And this for a simple reason from Jesus’ words for today’s meditation: we don’t “just” get to do anything with our Father, because He loves us and loves to hear our prayers and petitions. There’s no “just” in that.

Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

There’s a whole background of “ask” teaching in the Gospel of John leading up to this climactic teaching for “Rogate” (Ask!) Sunday. Before meditating on those teachings, let’s clear up something in this little passage. Jesus says that the disciples have not asked anything in His name. It almost sounds as if He’s scolding. “So far you guys haven’t asked anything in my name. Why not? Just ask!”

That’s not the tone. Put the emphasis on the “in My name” and it makes more sense. In other words, until that point, the disciples hadn’t asked the Father in Christ’s name. Instead, up until then they had always gone to Jesus to ask for things. A big point of Jesus’ teaching in this final discourse in John is that the day is coming when they won’t ask Jesus anymore, but the Father directly, in Jesus’ name. And they’ll be able to do this because Jesus has broken down the barrier separating us from the Father. The Father loves them, because they love Jesus.

Now let’s get to the “ask” language serving as a background to today’s passage. Here are four passages in the Gospel of John that all deal with “asking”:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so 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 that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

“And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you.”

These passages could be summarized according to (1) conditions, (2) actions, and (3) consequences. The general teaching is, ask in Christ’s name and the Father will do it.

What are the conditions of such asking? Who can ask? What goes hand in hand with such asking? These passages give five conditions: believing in Christ, asking in His name, abiding in Him and His word abiding in us, that asking is based in what we desire, and Christ’s choosing of us to bear a fruit that endures.

This is the basis for the Christian teaching that prayer outside of Christ is no prayer. Non-Christian prayer is not heard. How could it? God does not hear the prayers of sinners or the unrighteous. Only those who “love Christ” does the Father hear directly. That is clear, albeit harsh to modern ears, from this week’s Gospel and the other passages noted above.

There’s also this theme that asking the Father through Christ is related to the bearing of fruit, an enduring fruit. This corresponds to St. James comment that, when people pray “amiss,” they don’t get what they want, because they’re just using God to enable their idolatry. Earthly things are fruits that don’t last.

So what are fruits that last?

Here, we can segue into the next idea introduced in those passages, that we pray for what we desire. Clearly there are wrong things to desire and pray for. So what are the right things to desire? What are the fruits that endure? Several passages using the word “desire” or “want” in John might give some direction. At one point, Jesus asks the invalid, “Do you want to be healed?” Or again, it’s commented in the feeding of the 5,000 that they had “as much as they wanted.” Then there’s the gentiles who came to Philip and said, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”  Given Jesus’ reaction to this “desire,” it’s a pretty important moment in the Gospel.

Perhaps the best guidance of “desire” is how Jesus Himself used the term when He prayed to the Father: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

That’s a pretty good summary of the proper things to desire. At a base human level we want to be healed and fed; but recognizing only one who can provide these things, we desire Jesus and to see His place in the Holy Trinity, and even as Jesus teaches the higher meaning of being healed and fed, what we desire is the resurrection of the dead and the flesh and blood of Jesus for eternal life.

Now let’s talk about actions. What exactly will happen as we go to the Father with our desires for eternal healing, the bread of life, the glory of Christ, and the Triune God? First off, simply, “we will receive.” This is the promise. No doubts. We will receive these things we desire.

Jesus describes these things as greater works than what He did. Well of course. He healed people who later died, and fed people who later went hungry. The “greater things” set in motion once He sat down next to the “greater than He” Father, are the things worked by the Church by the Holy Spirit, each of which fulfills the things we desire: eternal healing of baptism, the bread of life in communion, the glory of Christ confessed in canticles, and the Triune God confessed in creed. All arising from our “abiding in Christ’s word.”  These are the fruits that don’t rot, but endure.

Finally, we can talk about consequences. What consequences happen when the Lord gives us what we ask for?

To review quick. We pray for what we desire, which is resurrection, the bread of life, the glory of Christ, and a vision of the Triune God. The Lord will provide this. And here, again we’re reminded of the work of the Holy Spirit, which is to give to us by declaration what Christ possesses at God’s right hand. So now we possess these things by faith. With this as the background, what is the consequence?

Jesus mentions the fruit. The Lord will provide what we desire, and this will bear fruit. What fruit is that? Clearly given the background, that fruit of faith is confession, thanksgiving, and fellowship. The fruit is the Church.  Again, it’s the fruit that endures.

The Church is where the Father is glorified in the Son, the one place on earth where Jesus is confessed to be in the glory of the Triune God (at least in liturgical churches founded on Triune worship; at non-liturgical services, who knows what God you’ll be worshiping), where we are baptized into our resurrection, and where we feed on the bread of life.

The Church is where people give thanks to a good God for all His goodness, praising God for “all men” because the Lord wants all men to be saved, recognizing in an evil world a good God who is overcoming. Church is where this “thanksgiving” (eucharist) ever happens.

The Church is where the fellowship happens, and this brings up a passage from a non-Johanine text that has a lot of parallels to what we’re meditating on. From Matthew: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

“Anything they ask” will be done for them in heaven as it is done on earth. Sound familiar? Well, here we get some additional teaching that also reminds us of Jesus’ foundational teaching in His final discourse in John’s Gospel. The Church is a fellowship of two or more people. There is no washing of feet alone, even as Jesus washed His disciples’ feet to begin His final discourse in John.

So the Church is the fruit of what the Father provides in answer to our prayer. What do we ask for? What we desire. What do we desire? Healing, feeding, Jesus, the Trinity. Is this answered? Absolutely, that’s the whole point of this Gospel. What are the fruits of this? The Church, where believers and lovers of Christ, who abide in His word, gather to serve one another and pray together, invoking the Lord’s presence and gifts, His healing, His eternal food, the glory of Christ and the Triune God. And these things are all existentially present, because the Holy Spirit makes it so, now by faith, but one day by sight. But whether faith or sight, our joy is full, and there’s something incredible to contemplate in that, that the joy of heaven is available to us now.

Rogate Sunday is the last of the “-ate” Sundays. Again it lays down the notion that, so confident may we be of certain existential realities, that the Lord must command us to do them. “You have reason to be joyful, so rejoice! You have reason to sing, so sing! You have reason to ask, so ask!”

Yes, we have reason to ask. Jesus sits at God’s right hand. Our status with God has changed, from being barred by Paradise’s barred gates – those gates becoming the gates of Hades barring us in death – to Christ breaking those gates, and those gates “lifting up their heads” and opening up for the “King of glory” to come in. Now we have an intercessor with the Father, an advocate, a Son who shares His status with us.

And what does Jesus teach us about this status? “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

And here’s a crucial point about this status. Sometimes we speak as if we remain in our sins, and prayer is as if we are “sneaking into heaven” under Christ’s good name. So, God is still angry with us, but when He sees Jesus, His anger is appeased and He’s kind to us. And this is why we need to stick with Jesus and pray in His name, because this cloaks us in His righteousness.

This week’s Gospel informs us this is not exactly the case. As Jesus says, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.”

Jesus is not a “holiness cloak” for us in whom we pray, but the foundation on which we stand in holiness. Jesus doesn’t pray to the Father for us, but we pray in Him. And because we stand on that foundation – believing and loving Christ – “the Father Himself loves [us].” He knows each of us perfectly well, and hears each of us pray, and sees exactly who we are; there’s no “sneaking in” under Jesus’ coattails. The Father sees us as holy, righteous, and beloved children.

Now, let’s get into some specifics about prayer. What should we pray for? Is Jesus saying whatever we ask in His name He will grant? So, if I ask for that new Cadillac, the Lord will give it to me? And, if I’ve been praying my whole life for a million dollars, in Jesus’ name, why hasn’t it happened? Is Jesus a liar?

Of course not. Jesus is not a genie in a bottle. And as St. James writes, “You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

Worldly prayers are not prayers, so why would the Father even hear them? Or, if Jesus gave out the Holy Spirit to pray in us and be the object of prayer (as we’ll probe in a bit), why would we try to use Him to enable our idolatry? That makes Him jealous, as St. James says.

No, as we see above in Jesus’ little parable about the son asking his father for bread, the thing we ask for is spelled out clearly: “Your heavenly Father [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”

Prayer is for the Holy Spirit! And this prayer will always, always be answered affirmatively.

Now, recall from last week what the Holy Spirit does. He crafts by declaration, by His Word, the existential realities put in place when Jesus sat at God’s right hand and restored our status with the Father. The Holy Spirit fills our faith with that “palpable vision” – rooted in real material things – that we are truly in heaven, with Christ, surrounded by angels and archangels and all our relatives who have passed away, without tears, in complete joy. As Jesus says concluding this week’s Gospel, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

“Be of good cheer,” because He sits at God’s right hand with all authority in heaven and on earth, and He’s using this authority to bring about absolute goodness for us. This is why we can pray and “be thankful for all men” (!), as this week’s epistle says, because our Lord loves all men and wants to save all men. So no evil has the power to reign over the Lord’s intent.

So, this “palpable vision” of our existence at God’s right hand in Christ is what the Holy Spirit delivers to us by declaration, and it’s something He gives us as we likewise ask for this in Christ’s name. Jesus commands us to pray in His name, and as He says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

If we love Jesus, we do what He commands, which is to pray in His name for the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will do exactly as Jesus promises, and deliver that “palpable right hand status” with all the concomitant joys.

Is this not what liturgy is? Is this not why we begin in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Is this not why we conclude prayers “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever”? Is this not why the entire posture of the liturgy is that through Christ we are in the heavenly realms, feasting with God?

Jesus’ promise this week is not that “in the name of Jesus” is some magical formula that will grant us whatever we wish – again, that merely asks the Holy Spirit to enable our idolatry – but it’s the promise that what we confess and declare through our worship is truly, in fact, an existential reality. In answer to our prayer, the Holy Spirit will make real for us, by His Word, our status at God’s right hand. And there, as the Psalm tells us, are pleasures forevermore, or as Jesus puts it this week, our joy will be complete.

What a wonderful way to live! What a wonderful promise, an absolute one, not one we have to play theological twister for, and explain why God doesn’t answer our prayers. He always answers this prayer for the Holy Spirit, as proved by the fact that liturgy always goes on and is always available for us. He doesn’t leave us as orphans, but is really present with us each Lord’s Day, where we are drawn to Him, our Bronze Serpent, which causes us to face God, so He can face us, and save us.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit, when He comes, will be to declare to the apostles “the coming things.” I use that phrase rather than “things that are to come” because not only does it accurately translate the two word Greek phrase, but to my ear it softens the futuristic feel of “things that are to come.” In others words, “things that are to come” sounds as if the Holy Spirit will inspire the apostles to prophecy about future events, and that this is a central work of the Holy Spirit, to help Christians predict future events, the “things that are to come.”

But “coming things” to my ear sounds more like, “things that will be happening.” True, this is futuristic as well, but in a more steady sense, perhaps. “Things that are to come” sounds mysterious and prophetic. “Coming things” sounds more regular. Maybe my ear is wrong, of course. In any event, what am I getting at and why is this important?

We have to remember the context of this Gospel and this passage. The Holy Spirit will only be sent out once Jesus has completed fully His mission, which is completed once He sits down at God’s right hand. Christ’s sitting at God’s right hand is our righteousness restored, or status with God restored, the end of the curse of our sin, and the judgment of Satan. And this is what the Holy Spirit will deliver to us by declaration. “He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

That is the “coming things”! What Jesus has attained on behalf of us is what is “coming,” that is, coming for us. It’s what we will have when we fall asleep in Christ. By the Holy Spirit declaring these things to us now, we possess them by faith, and they bolster our hope and love as well.

They also build that “cosmic architecture” of the liturgy which I’ve referred to. The liturgy is the “coming things.” It’s our passing through judgment and brought into the presence of God, surrounded by angels (introit, Gloria in Excelsis) and all the company of heaven, including our “fallen in the faith” loved ones (Sanctus). It’s our feasting in the presence of the Lord (Holy Communion). It’s our confidently approaching the throne of our Father, not groveling in fear, but standing in His love (Gospel, the Our Father). It’s the Lord’s face shining on us and being gracious unto us (benediction). It’s all of these things. These are the things which will be happening once Christ sits at God’s right hand.

That’s our future. To look at the Holy Spirit’s work as somehow disconnected from what Christ is doing right now – sitting at God’s hand “preparing a place for us” (at God’s right hand) – ignores the big focus of Jesus: “he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak. …He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ”

His words create by declaration the existential reality of the Christian, defining our true identity. This is all by faith now, but there is not a single element of our faith that doesn’t have existence through material things. This is why faith sees the right hand of God in bread, hears God speak through a pastor, and sees the new creation emerging from a font of water.

What Christ speaks is given to us by the Holy Spirit and therefore claimed by us: “ For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

These things are “see” and “shown.” And they exist “in [God’s] presence” and “at [His] right hand.” There, there is joy and pleasures forevermore. These are the “coming things,” the things that will happen once the Holy Spirit begins His work.

I know it’s more sexy to see Jesus’ promise about the Holy Spirit telling us of “the things to come,” as a promise that He’ll give us secret prophecies about future events in this world, but these things are all passing. Such “things to come” become “things that passed” just as quickly, as they fade away in the rear view mirror.

The things Jesus promises the Holy Spirit will declare become “forever” things, for He abides with us “forever.” And His task isn’t to keep us a few steps ahead of the world’s news cycle, because He’s giving us tips on which Middle Eastern country will hate the nation of Israel next, so some evangelical can make a lot of money on his latest sensationalistic book.

Those aren’t the “coming things” Jesus is speaking about. The “coming things” He’s speaking about are thing which came into being that first Pentecost: baptism, hearing Law and Gospel, being exhorted by God’s Word, fellowship in the apostles’ teachings, recitation of the prayers, and joining together for Holy Communion. In other words, the Church. That, is the “coming thing,” and the “things” are all the verbal elements that craft the Church into being.

We’ve meditated on what the Holy Spirit will “convict” the world about, about sin, righteousness, and judgment, but there’s something that doesn’t quite fit our preconceived ideas, and that’s what it means that the Holy Spirit’s work is to “prove someone wrong about something.”

A Greek lexical aid defines the word translated as “convict” as: “to state that someone has done wrong, with the implication that there is adequate proof of such wrongdoing.” (Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 435). New York: United Bible Societies.)

The idea that the Holy Spirit “proves someone wrong about something” goes against the modern idea that spirituality is not about “who’s right or who’s wrong,” that such ideas linger from an older, bygone era. What sort of era?

Well, for example, a certain sort of mystical feminist will tell you that this bygone era was one defined by “patriarchalism,” in which the very modes of thinking were male biased. What were these modes? Slicing, dicing, categorizing, establishing right and wrong, linear thinking, logic, rationality. Meanwhile, what will our dawning new feministic era bring us? Intuition, feeling, thinking outside of the box, mysticism. The new “spirituality” will not be about proving someone wrong about something, but about finding the divine in every thought.

The Holy Spirit, however, has always been a divider, a separater, a slicer and dicer. We see this when He first imposed order on the chaos and void. How? By separating light from darkness, earth from sea, and up from down. By separating bird from fish, animal from animal, man from the earth, and male from female. The Holy Spirit…the Holy Spirit, is a far cry from the spirit of this world and the spirituality of this world.

And critical for understanding this week’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit also brought language into existence with His slicing and dicing. A “cat” or “dog” means nothing until there are actually two separate beings, separated by materialistic differences, which in fact are a “cat” and “dog.” In a sense, the Holy Spirit “proves” that one thing is a cat and the other a dog, simply by separating the two things in the first place.

It’s language by which the Holy Spirit “declares” what Christ has done by sitting at God’s right hand, for He will “take what is mine and declare it to you.” It is this declaring, this designating through the authority and power of the Word, that reveals what sin is, what righteousness is, and what judgment is.

So, the idea that “proving the world wrong about something” is spiritual should not beguile us. In a different era, debate, arguing, rationalism, and proving right or wrong about something were part of the world view established by earnest faith in transcendental, universal, and objective truths. Only in a world without such truths can debate and argumentation be seen as mundane or unspiritual.

But here’s the interesting question for this week’s Gospel. How does the Holy Spirit prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment? The world thinks sin is breaking some code, righteousness is keeping that code, and judgment is discerning between the two.

Especially today, where the Church is condemned for its “judgmentalism” and intolerance, how is the Holy Spirit proving His case that the Church is actually where sin, righteousness, and judgment are seen totally different than the way the world sees such things?

First off, the idea that the world is “non-judgmental” is a lie. Consider this, the world has been given an incredible power of omniscience and omnipresence through the internet. When the world finds a poor soul who has breached its standards, is it merciful? Of course not. Such people are shamed, sometimes to suicide, or their careers are destroyed.

Personally, I’d entrust my future to a congregation of Christians rather than to the internet. Christians are habituated in forgiveness because that is the Holy Spirit’s work, what He’s proving the world wrong about. Christians make societies nicer places; that’s simply a fact. So enough of this bunk about the world being “non-judgmental” and “tolerant.” They’ve been given the power of God regarding omniscience and omnipresence. We’ve seen what this has resulted in. I’ll take God and His congregation any day over this.

Second, the world’s understanding of sin is proven to be completely wrong. They may not call it sin, but goodness, call it whatever you want, it’s certainly oppressive. The world’s way is all about what you lack, what you need to improve, where you fall short. Again, they may not call it sin, but what do you call it? Over and over again, from Jordan Peterson to the women’s magazines, we’re constantly confronted with where we fall short. And yet, no programs of “self salvation” ever, ever work. Over and over gain, we’re promised programs to fix our “sins.”

The Holy Spirit has been proven correct. Sin is not believing in Jesus. Looked at the Christian movement from a birds eye view, who can deny that where Christianity has gone, things improve morally for the population? Slavery is condemned, women’s rights are advanced, human dignity is respected. Take away Christianity, and society will revert to caste thinking, slavery, abuse of women, and the loss of human dignity.

We are at a special moment in history to see this unfold. Our culture has decided to reject Christianity, thinking we can be moralistic and uphold all those Christian understandings of the human person without actual Christian dogma. They’re wrong, and this will bear out. There is a dark human nature that will surface once Christianity’s influence wains.

The Holy Spirit will be proved correct about sin. It’s not about missing some standard, but about not believing in Jesus.

And third, about righteousness? Much of the same could be said. Righteousness for the Christian, by the Holy Spirit’s declaration, is sitting at God’s right hand, and our being gathered into that reality. Righteousness in the world is virtue signaling. Again, I’ll place money betting on a congregation’s good will and charity, rooted in a reality arising from their focus on a righteousness outside of themselves, sitting at God’s right hand. The world’s righteousness is all self-induced, and amounts to nothing more than virtue-signaling.

There’s a reason Christians and the Christian footprint on the globe happens to also be the place where charity giving is greater, human rights are more cherished, just war ideas prevail, women’s rights are even a thing, infanticide is condemned, the poor are not deemed lower, and even criminals are believed to be able to be redeemed. It’s because of Christianity. It’s because of our view of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit has been proven absolutely correct about these things.

Thursday of Cantate: What is Judgment?

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: … concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

The Holy Spirit’s ministry upends everything we would think to be correct about sin, righteousness, and judgment. We’d think sin is doing wrong, righteousness is doing right, and judgment is an evaluation of the two. Of course, this is the way of all religion, and the way of natural religion, and the way of God’s “left hand” kingdom.

What does it mean that the Holy Spirit “convicts” the world about this things, which is to say, proves it wrong about such things? Is the world wrong to say that sin is breaking God’s Law? Is it wrong to say righteousness is obedience to God’s Law? Is it wrong to say that judgment is based on an evaluation of the two?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but… kind of.

It’s not wrong in the general sense. After all, how many passages could we muster demonstrating that sin is breaking God’s Law or that righteousness is keeping it? Of course, this was a main mission of Jesus, to bear our sins and live our righteousness, so that He could make “the great exchange,” taking our sin and giving us our righteousness. And judgment clearly is about evaluating the two, insofar as Christ was judged for our sins, and judged quite harshly; meanwhile we are judged righteous in Christ.

So, in the general sense, revealed law, natural law, and the law of our hearts teach us rightly about sin, righteousness, and judgment. But the revealed law, natural law, and the law of our hearts do not reveal Christ. Christ can only be revealed by special “declaration” of the Holy Spirit, and as Jesus says, until He begins doing so, we remain in the dark.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in other words, change everything, so much so that what was previously “right” is now “proven” to be wrong. What mission did the Holy Spirit have that so reversed course?

Well, as we’ve been meditating on, a big mission was delivering by way of declaration all that Christ had done for us by restoring our fellowship at God’s right hand. This restoration and fellowship communicates to us the forgiveness of sins, which is the Holy Spirit’s mission. For Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.”

But let’s put a positive spin on the forgiveness of sins. Let’s call it the restoration of our fellowship with God, which is our righteousness, and which is the replacement of our sin with our faith.

Satan, our accuser, who accused us night and day, is cast out from the presence of God. Jesus is restored in fellowship. That’s the judgment! Where before judgment was “Sin alienates you from God and righteousness puts you in fellowship with Him,” now it’s “Christ’s blood drives away the one accusing you of sin, and Christ sitting at God’s right hand puts you in fellowship with Him.”

That is the judgment. Again, note how this is played out liturgically. After all, the “day of the Lord” is a day of judgment, is it not? The Lord’s Day, Sunday, must be a day of judgment, and it is. We come with our sins. We receive absolution, which lays the foundation for that new cosmic architecture we’ve been referring to, where we are brought into the presence of God through Christ, and by partake in the now hidden mysteries of our faith.

In other words, as Jesus says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

And also this, “as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also.”

Do we get an example of the Son’s judgment? We do, with the woman caught in adultery. Here, actually, is a good example of how our passage for today plays out.

The woman was caught, and guilty. The Law had judged her, and rightly so. God Himself had engraved the Law with His finger. It was divine. But God had also promised, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Whereas the old covenant (law) was written on stone, the new covenant is written on hearts and minds. This is the point of Jesus’ writing in the dirt after He challenged the woman’s accusers with His famous words: “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.”

This is the New Testament of Christ’s blood, which speaks better things than the vengeful cries of Abel’s blood. It speaks forgiveness.

In this passage, Jesus cast out the accusers. “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” This was a foretaste of what was to come, when He cast out “the Accuser,” Satan.

The Holy Spirit’s mission is to construct a sacred space where the rules of the world change. In the Church – in Christ’s Body, sitting as it is in perfect fellowship at God’s right hand – there is no Accuser anymore, not for any Christian. The Church is where the world is proved wrong about all its assumptions, about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment.

And if you’re thinking, “Yeah, but the Church is where all the judgmentalism is, and the world is actually where the tolerance is,” you haven’t been paying attention. But that’s for tomorrow’s meditation.

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: … concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer.

When the Holy Spirit comes, He will prove the world it’s wrong about righteousness. What will He prove? That righteousness is Jesus going to the Father. Righteousness is man restored in fellowship with the Father. If sin is Adam’s rebellion against God, righteousness is Jesus’ obedience to God. If Adam was barred from Paradise, separated from God, and this separation was represented liturgically in the tabernacle and temple worship by the large curtain, Jesus is granted entrance into Paradise, restoring full communion with the Father, and this manifests liturgically as well.

An angel barred the way into Paradise, and angels proclaimed the opening up of heaven when God became human flesh and was born of Mary. “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace goodwill toward men.” This is the hymn testifying to a new situation regarding our being barred from heaven.

Significant in this canticle is the phrase, “for you only are the holy one.” Only Christ is holy. Only Christ has fulfilled the perfect obedience and righteousness God’s Law demanded. It is on account of His holiness and righteousness that we can glorify God in His presence, surrounded by the angels, who don’t stand there with flaming swords, but who communicate this situation to us by declaration, through a new flaming sword, the sword of the Spirit. And what is this declaration: Jesus is our righteousness!

What exactly is the Holy Spirit “proving wrong” to the world about righteousness? Again, if we go with the Moses background, He’s proving it wrong about what righteousness is typically seen to be. Under the “Law code,” righteousness is perfect obedience to the Law. Now, this remains true, of course. But where the world gets it wrong is believing this is within our capabilities. How can it be, if “Jesus alone is the holy one”?

Because Jesus alone keeps perfect obedience to the Law, Jesus alone fulfills it. Jesus is our righteous fulfillment of the Law. If anyone were to deny the importance and validity of the Law, we merely need to point to Jesus and say, “If the Law isn’t important, why is the fulfiller of the Law sitting right there at God’s right hand?”

In any event, the Holy Spirit delivers to us by declaration what Jesus possesses, which is the righteousness He attained by sitting down in fully restored fellowship with the Father. He proclaims to us our righteousness, or as St. Paul would put it, our justification. Again, it’s not necessarily that justification specifically has to be preached in every sermon, but that the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God (Scriptural words), builds a cosmic architecture assuming a “justification” posture. This is the liturgy. The entire premise of liturgy is that we, by declaration of the Holy Spirit’s Word, are caused to be standing righteous in the presence of God through Christ.

Now, here’s an interesting detail. Whereas Jesus has said, in this week’s Gospel, that sin is to not believe in Him, He does not say that righteousness is to believe in Him. We’d think that would be the case. “The Holy Spirit will prove to the world that sin is to not believe in Jesus; and righteousness is to believe in Jesus.” That’s not how it’s put. Rather, sin is to not believe in Jesus, and righteousness is Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

In other words, while our sin is that we do not believe, our righteousness is not that we believe. Jesus at God’s right hand, not our faith, is our righteousness. This challenges St. Paul’s formulation a bit, where he says, quoting Genesis, that God credits our faith as righteousness. But it need not.

First, Jesus doesn’t downplay faith at all. If to not believe in Jesus is sin, clearly, to believe in Him is the opposite of sin. Our believing may not necessarily be our righteousness per se, but it’s certainly our access to that righteousness. Second, St. John’s Gospel is emphasizing what in Lutheran theology is called “objective justification,” whereas St. Paul is emphasizing what is called “subjective justification.” Our righteousness is Jesus at God’s right hand. That is true whether I believe it or not. My faith is not the cause of me being righteous in Christ. But, my faith is the access to that righteousness.

What I love about what is revealed in John’s Gospel is this idea I refer to as “building the cosmic architecture of our faith.” That’s the Holy Spirit’s work, just as it was in the beginning, to create a new creation. He does it through the Word. And the foundation of this cosmic architecture is Jesus at God’s right hand, the basis of our righteousness.

The Church and its liturgy is the manifestation of this cosmic architecture crafted by the Word. Like the ark, it’s there floating above God’s judgment, and our engagement with its various structural elements is important, but not the cause of our salvation. So yes, babies can be on that ark. Babies exist in the cosmic architecture created by the reality that Christ at God’s right hand is our righteousness. And they grow into that.

Finally, we need to introduce a concept that marks several Old Testament passages relating to Jesus assuming His throne and His righteousness. There’s a phrase, “scepter of righteousness” or “scepter of uprightness” that’s related to the idea that the Lord will rule in righteousness. This passage from Jeremiah is typical: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Now we know what this means. It means, having restored into fellowship with the Father, our Lord will send out the Holy Spirit to declare the truth about righteousness. It centers in Jesus and what He has restored for us. This too is a bit part of the liturgy – “Oh Lord God, heavenly king” – as well as a foundational part of the Church’s proclamation: Jesus reigns, and those who turn to Him for salvation will receive it.

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

In this Gospel, there are three things the Holy Spirit will “convict” the world of, things concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. This has always confused me, not necessarily how each “conviction” is interpreted in its own right, but how these convictions relate to one another and to the whole Gospel.

Three details lead me to believe the background is Moses’ words to Israel: “Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”

The first detail is that, just as Moses was giving His final sermon to Israel (the book of Deuteronomy), so is Jesus giving His final expansive teaching to His disciples. And as St. John wrote, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

The second detail is that this idea of “seeing no form” weaves throughout Jesus’ final discourse. Jesus will return to the Father, and the disciples will see Him no more. For a time, Jesus manifested the face and presence of the Father on earth, so that those who saw Him saw the Father, but this was the work of God “while it was day.” Now is the time of sorrow again, save for those who by faith witness Christ in a mystical or sacramental way. And this is through the declaring work of the Holy Spirit, which leads to the third detail.

Just as Moses said, “You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice,” I believe this is exactly what Jesus is teaching about the Holy Spirit. When Jesus returns to the Father, He reclaims that “no form” mode of being He had prior to becoming flesh. Of course, He remains in flesh, but now His flesh is present mystically and sacramentally.

With this background in mind (much of this is by way of review from Sunday’s meditation), the three “convictions” of the Holy Spirit make sense. As Hebrews told us, there are two mountains, Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion, and these correspond to the two ministries. Today we focus on the first conviction, the Holy Spirit’s convicting the world of sin.

To “convict” is to “prove wrong” to someone about something. What is the Holy Spirit proving the world wrong about sin?

If Sinai assumed a certain “code” in its understanding of sin, so does Mt. Zion. It just so happens that not only Sinai, but the whole world, assumes a certain code about sin. Sin is breaking the Law, both the revealed and natural law.

The Holy Spirit proves to the world that things have changed, and thus the world is wrong about sin. If sin is that which separates us from God, what does it mean if, through out of us (Jesus), we are no longer separate from God? What would sin be in this situation? It would be whatever it is that keeps us from being in communion with Jesus. And that’s faith: “because they do not believe in me.”

This is the “unforgivable sin” of course, not any particular sin we do, for which we always have an advocate who intercedes for us, but rather a rejection of the very Spirit who delivers this “right hand” work of Jesus to us. That’s the mortal sin that cannot be forgiven.

John’s Gospel is quite powerful in its “faith alone” teaching. Of course, we all know John 3: 16, “that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Here are some other Johanine passages:

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

“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.”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

There’s also a bunch of passages where Jesus says we must believe He came from the Father and is one with the Father. Believing in Christ in the Trinitarian context is what faith is, the substance of the baptismal creed, the Apostles’ Creed.

Sin is not believing this.

Does the New Testament speak of sin in the traditional, Old Testament sense? Of course it does. Indeed in the vast majority of cases it speaks of sin this way. But the distinction between the two sorts of sin is one St. John maintains in his epistles, as when he wrote, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.”

The sin that does not lead to death is forgiven by our advocate. But the sinning that does lead to death, is rejecting that very advocate.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. …He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

This week’s Gospel is some of the most succinct teachings on the Holy Spirit in Scripture. The most clear teaching, which many people forget, is that the Holy Spirit directs us to Christ. He does not speak on His own authority, “He will glorify [Christ],” and He only takes what belongs to Christ and declares it to us.

In other words, the Holy Spirit does not supplant the ministry and mission of Christ. He fulfills it. The Holy Spirit’s work is frustrated when He’s severed from the Trinity and seen as a “force” in His own right. This is the explicit teaching of many charismatic traditions, as well as the implicit teaching of many Christians who are content to go an entire service and hear nothing of Christ, but are more motivated to hear about “how to do” sermons rooted on Old Testament themes or New Agey therapy based on some wispy “let the Spirit fall afresh on you” idea.

Let’s delve into that charismatic tradition a bit. Based on Jesus’ words that He’d send “another Helper” (the Paraclete), the charismatic tradition sees whatever age it happens to be in as the fulfillment of this promise. Mani, for instance, one of the late and highly successful Gnostic leaders, claimed to be a mouthpiece of the Paraclete. So did the Montanists before them. Pick an age, and you will find some “prophet” claiming to be the final revelation to complete the Spirit’s mission of “speaking by the Scripture.” Mohammed perfectly fits with this tradition.

We’ve mentioned Joachim of Fiore, who put these ideas in systematic teaching, claiming there were three ages of world history, the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Holy Spirit. Of course, he himself was the herald of a “new age” of the Holy Spirit. He believed the age of the Spirit would be an age in which the elect had direct contact with God outside of any mediation. Whereas Jesus did His thing, the Holy Spirit would be doing His own things.

His movement spawned a host of cults each believing it embodied the Holy Spirit’s mission to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. They tended to be communalistic. They rejected the sacraments, the ministry, and dogma. Why need such things if we, along with “the leader,” are being worked directly by the Holy Spirit – after all, our word is God’s Word! (At least the leader’s word is God’s Word.)

Such an understanding of the Holy Spirit couldn’t be more contrary to what Jesus teaches. First, Jesus teaches, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.” If He has been with the Church forever, what is this constant whining about the “apostate Church” or this constant attitude that the Church needs a new Pentecost, or a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Did Jesus lie? Is the Holy Spirit not with us? Or maybe, did the Father not answer Jesus’ prayer? Maybe that’s it. Or maybe, Jesus spoke truth when He said a father will not give his son a scorpion who asks for bread, and “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Second, the Holy Spirit doesn’t glorify Himself, but Christ. He doesn’t speak His own words, but “whatever He hears He will speak.” Just as Jesus isn’t any “less” than the Father just because He says the Father is greater than He, so also does Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit make Him any “less” than Jesus. He simply has His work, which is to “deliver the goods” from Jesus and the Father.

Sometimes to explain the Holy Spirit, I use this analogy. Imagine someone you don’t know is behind a curtain. You have no idea he’s there. Let’s also stipulate the person will not move, and nor will you, and the curtain will not open. How will this person become known to you?

He will speak. As he speaks words, he reveals himself to you. The words he speaks become quanta of conceptual stuff conveying more and more what and who this person is.

The person hidden by the curtain before revealing himself is God the Father. No one has seen the Father, and no one can bear His face. So He sends His Word, His Son, to bear His face, His Word, and His glory to us. Jesus becomes the “quanta of stuff” – in His flesh and blood – through Whom we have communion with the Father.

Where does the Holy Spirit fit in this? Trying to figure this out is actually His glory! The Holy Spirit on one hand is the most hidden of the Persons of the Trinity – precisely because He’s always directing us to Christ – but also the most imminent, because He is our contact with the Trinity. Where does He fit in the analogy? He’s the air which carries the word to us. Sound requires a medium to travel, which is why those scenes in the movies where a spaceship blows up and you hear a big kaboom are wrong. There’s no sound in space!

When we hear the words of someone else, our contact with this process is the air outside our ear in which the sound wave travels. Without the air there is no sound.

All analogies about God and the Gospel can be picked apart, but in general terms, this nicely explains the Holy Spirit. He delivers the Word. The “pick apart” weakness of the analogy is the passiveness of air, as opposed to the “active activity” of the Holy Spirit, to plant the Word in our hearts and cause it to grow.

The charismatics are like someone in a conversation saying, “Hey, I hear you, but do you feel this stuff outside my ear? This air? I feel it blowing my hair! How beautiful! I think I’m going to define you not by what you’re telling me, but by what I feel from this lovely wind. In fact, the time of you talking has come to an end, and the new age of me defining you by what I feel has begun!”

I often like to do this little experiment to make a point about the Holy Spirit. Fill in the blank: “The Holy Spirit is like the wind. You can’t see Him but you _____ Him.” Almost unanimously, unless someone has heard me do this before, people will say, “feel.” No. Listen to what Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The proper answer is “hear.” The Holy Spirit is like the wind because you hear Him.

Now, this comports exactly with what Jesus teaches in the Cantate Gospel. The Holy Spirit will take what belongs to Jesus and “declare” it to us. Again, what belongs to Jesus? Whatever such things were, they didn’t fully belong to Him until He sat down at the Father’s right hand. What were such things? Restoration with the Father.

This is why in St. John’s letter, He uses the term “Paraclete” (Helper, Advocate) to describe Jesus’ work at God’s right hand. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one, after all, so in this sense you might say there’s a Paraclete office on earth in the Church, and a Paraclete office in heaven where Christ intercedes for us.

In any event, what is that work at God’s right hand? “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The Holy Spirit’s work is to craft on earth, by faith, in the sacramental and mystical sense, what is going on in heaven at God’s right hand, to craft the cosmic architecture of our faith. After all, this is what the “new song” is all about. It’s about the great things going on at God’s right hand.

“Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.” Yes, cantate!

Key to understanding this week’s Gospel is this verse from Moses in the book of Deuteronomy: “Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess.”

Lending more insight into the background is the book of Hebrews: “For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. …But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, …to Jesus the Mediator of the new testament, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”

This passage from Hebrews proposes two ministries corresponding to the two testaments. The first ministry is of darkness and tempest, fear, and Abel’s blood crying out for vengeance. There is a certain “code” assumed under the Law and the way of Abel’s blood. Sin is breaking the commandments; righteousness is keeping the commandments; judgment is based on the keeping of these commandments; when a commandment is not kept, it rightly deserves God’s vengeance and judgment.

The second ministry is not of fear, but comfort, not darkness, but light, not the terror of God’s Word, but the advantageous and lovely hearing of God’s Word, and a new blood speaking new things, like, “Given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.” That’s advanced beyond Abel’s blood crying for vengeance. A new code is assumed as well. What code is this? What does this code say about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment?

Jesus tells us exactly what this code says about these things. But lets back up a bit and prove we can use that Deuteronomy text as a background.

Jesus tells His disciples, “But now I am going to him who sent me,” and later says of this, “I go to My Father and you see Me no more.” (Given all we said last week, this “seeing” would be in the non-mystical, earthly-form-of-Jesus, sense.) The point Jesus is making, if indeed the words of Moses at the end of his ministry are the background (there’s a parallel with Jesus’ last words to His disciples here), is that, though like God, Jesus the Lord has no form that you might see Him, yet you hear His Voice.

That “Voice” is the Holy Spirit. Now, in the Old Testament, it was the hearing of this Voice that terrified the people. This was the Voice of the ministry of the Old Testament, a ministry of fear, Law, and judgment. But, as Jesus says, the “Voice” will be declaring something new about sin, righteousness, and judgment, something different than what the Old Testament “Voice” declared.

What changed?

What changed is Jesus went to the Father and sat down at God’s right hand. He restored what Adam had lost, fellowship with God. Without that fellowship sitting at God’s right hand, Adam remains estranged from God, separated from Paradise, locked outside the gates. But once Jesus sat down, fellowship was restored, by a man, the second man, on behalf of all mankind.

The foundation is laid down for a new creation, through a new “Voice” declaring new things. What things? Whatever Jesus has gained by sitting at God’s right hand. Whatever Jesus possesses – gained by His attaining this position – He grants to us by the Holy Spirit’s declaring, that is, by His comforting voice.

As the Old Testament for this week says, “Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.” Yup! Turned away because, how can God be angry at Himself? His Son? Adam and His children were easy to be angry at because of their rebellion, but the man Jesus? And all those begotten of His Word? No, His Word delivers nothing but good, for as the Epistle says, every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, in whom is no variation or shadow, but only goodness, and if we shut up and listen humbly (as St. James says), that Word will produce in us nothing but goodness, saving our souls.

So, where in the Old Testament, that “Voice” from the formless One spoke fearful things about sin, righteousness, and judgment, that “Voice” will prove correct (convict) to the world new things about these things.

About sin, He will declare that, where in the past, sin was breaking God’s Law, now, sin is not believing in Jesus, the One righteous one who fulfills the Law and ends the curse.

About righteousness, He will declare that, where in the past, righteousness was about keeping God’s Law, now, righteousness is Jesus going to the Father. Jesus is our righteousness at God’s right hand, our restored fellowship with the Father. That scepter given Jesus when He sat at God’s right hand and gained His kingdom is a scepter of what? “A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.” Those who believe in Jesus have no sin, but Jesus is their righteousness before the Father, and their accuser? Well…

About judgment, He will declare that, where in the past, judgment was about those who kept or broke Gods’ Law, and Satan had plenty with which to accuse everyone, now, judgment is about Satan himself, for, “for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them!”

Yes, rejoice! Jubilate! Or this week, make it a song, for the Lord is our song. Cantate!

From the introit: “Praise the LORD, call upon His name; Declare His deeds among the peoples, Make mention that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, For He has done excellent things; This is known in all the earth.”

Or put another way: liturgy. Call upon His name (invocation; confession/absolution; Kyrie). Declare His deeds among the peoples (readings; sermon; creed). Make mention that His name is exalted (Gloria in Excelsis; Gloria Patria; Sanctus). Sing to the Lord, For He has done excellent things (canticles; hymns). This is known in all the earth (the public proclamation that communion is).

The Lord is our song; the Lord is enthroned in the praises of Israel. The hymns of God’s people is to the ear what incense is to the nose. Cantate!