Calvary Lutheran Church

Jacksonville, NC

Phone: 910-353-4016                                                            

E-mail: calvarylutheran@embarqmail.com

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May 2008: A MESSAGE FROM THE ELDER OF THE MONTH

Dear Brothers and Sisters in CHRIST: 

The warmer breezes are showing us that spring is here.  The grass is getting greener, the flowers are starting to show their full beauty, and the anticipation of enjoying our beautiful area at is utmost is quite exciting.  We can start planning for our vacations, making plans to visit our friends and relatives in other parts of this great nation.  Or, if we are so lucky, take a trip abroad.  We start getting excited just thinking about it while we make our plans. 

Yes, we are very blessed people.  Our LORD gives us so much to be thankful for, and the good fortune to be able to enjoy our lives to the fullest.  However, are including HIM in our plans when we venture off to our fun activities this summer?  Will HE continue to be a part of our daily lives even though we’ll be away from our comfortable surroundings?  Could we “wander” away from keeping HIM in our daily lives during this time? 

 This summer, Shirley and I are planning to go north to visit our children and their families, still living in the area where we last lived.  It’s so wonderful to see our “old” church families, pastors and friends, and catch up on their lives… reminiscing with people who will always be a part of our memories.

We also look forward to seek out churches that we’re not familiar with and have not attended before.  It gives us a chance to make new Christian friends… to share our love for HIM. 

We hope that you, too, will enjoy a “get-away” this year and continue to keep our LORD with you at all times as a “passenger.”

GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU…

In HIS Service,

Jim Meves

A MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD ELDER

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We sometimes hear people speaking of their ability to make the decision to come to Jesus Christ on their own.  It may sound that they are saying it was because of their freedom to chose or free will.  As Christians, specifically Lutherans, we confess that we did not come to God by our own reason or strength but it was by God’s grace that we have come to Him.  Below are a few articles (LCMS postings:  Free Will from the Cyclopedia and The Book of Concord) to read and keep us steadfast in the one true faith.

Free Will.       http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=F&word=FREEWILL

The Scriptural doctrine of the freedom of the human will is closely connected with the doctrine of original sin (see Sin, Original). The doctrine of the freedom of the human will after the fall* of man must be studied from the viewpoint of original sin. Scripture emphatically declares that man, also after the fall, continues to be a responsible moral agent, who in earthly matters, to some extent, may exercise freedom of will; but it asserts that “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, … neither can he know them” (1 Co 2:14); that man, by nature, is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1); that “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Ro 8:7); and that “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Co 12:3). Accordingly, Scripture denies to man after the fall and before conversion* freedom of will in spiritual matters, and asserts that conversion is accomplished entirely through the Holy Ghost by the Gospel. God “hath saved us, … not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace” (2 Ti 1:9); “Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned” (Jer. 31:18).

Augustine* of Hippo taught that by the sin of Adam the whole human race, of which Adam was the root, was corrupted and subjected to death and eternal punishment. By this sin human nature is both physically and morally corrupted. By it also the freedom to do right has been lost and fallen man is free only to sin (Enchiridion, XXV–XXX, in MPL, 40:244–247; De gratia et libero arbitrio, in MPL, 44:881–912). This view of Augustine is in accord with Scripture, which declares that “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13); it has been substantially adopted by the Luth. Ch., which, at the same time, rejects fatalism (FC Ep II 8, SD II 74).

Opposed to the Scriptural doctrine, Pelagianism has held that by his transgression Adam injured only himself, not his posterity; that in respect to his moral nature every man is born in precisely the same condition in which Adam was created; that there is, therefore, no original sin; that man's will is free, every man having the power to will and to do good as well as the opposite; hence it depends on himself whether he be good or evil. This extreme view of Pelagianists was modified by semi-Pelagianists and later by Arminians who denied total corruption and depravity of human nature by the fall and admitted only partial corruption.

The Belgic Confession, which states the strictly Reformed doctrine, says: “We believe that, through the disobedience of Adam, original sin is extended to all mankind; which is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary disease, wherewith infants themselves are infected even in their mother's womb, and which produceth in man all sorts of sin, being in him as a root thereof; and therefore is so vile and abominable in the sight of God that it is sufficient to condemn all mankind.”

RC theologians define original sin as a state and as a cause. Thus the term designates 1. a condition of guilt, weakness, or debility found in human beings prior to their own free option for good or evil (peccatum originale originatum); 2. the origin, cause, or source of that state (peccatum originale originans). Free will is defined as the freedom of the will either to act or not to act. Those who have attained the use of reason are saved only by cooperating freely with the saving grace of God. In the fall man did not lose dona naturalia (natural gifts, e.g., freedom of the will; immortality of the soul) but dona supernataralia (supernatural gifts, e.g., perfect control over concupiscence; immortality of the body), esp. sanctifying grace.

Opposed to Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism,* and synergism,* the Luth. Confessions emphasize the total depravity of human nature by the fall and man's utter lack of freedom in spiritual matters since the fall.

A.     Augustinus [Augustine of Hippo], The Problem of Free Choice, tr. and annotated by M. Pontifex (Westminster, Maryland, 1955); Martin Lather on the Bondage of the Will, tr. J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston (London, 1957); P. A. Bertocci, Free Will, Responsibility, and Grace (New York, 1957); A. M. Farrer, The Freedom of the Will (New York, 1960); Discourse on Free Will [by] Erasmus [and] Luther, ed. and tr. E. F. Winter (New York, 1961).

The Book of Concord

Article II: Of Original Sin.

1] Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with 2] concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost. 3] They condemn the Pelagians and others who deny that original depravity is sin, and who, to obscure the glory of Christ’s merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason. 

Article XVIII: Of Free Will.

1] Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work 2] things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man 3] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2, 14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received 4] through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good 5] or evil. “Good” I call those works which spring from the good in nature, such as, willing to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry a wife, to raise cattle, to learn divers useful arts, or whatsoever good 6] pertains to this life. For all of these things are not without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their being. “Evil” 7] I call such works as willing to worship an idol, to commit murder, etc.

8] They condemn the Pelagians and others, who teach that without the Holy Ghost, by the power of nature alone, we are able to love God above all things; also to do the commandments of God as touching “the substance of the act.” For, although nature is able in a manner to do the outward work, 9] (for it is able to keep the hands from theft and murder,) yet it cannot produce the inward motions, such as the fear of God, trust in God, chastity, patience, etc.

 Augsburg Confession

http://wolf-359/boceng/ACENG.HTM (8 of 27) [2/14/2001 10:22:37 AM]

I pray these statements of faith contained in the Book of Concord and the Cyclopedia will keep the truth in our hearts and pride evicted from it.

In His Service,

Bob Bruggeman

BOARD OF ELDERS (2008)