Daily Luther: Deny the Resurrection and Lose Christ
It is truly a sin and a shame, indeed a miserable plague, that the time should come in Christendom, not only in these days of the world’s last dregs but even already in the time of the apostles, yes, even among those whom they had shortly before visited and taught, even where they had shortly before planted and founded Christianity, that such a calamity should befall so soon, that some of them dared to arise, such as the apostles’ disciples, and publicly proclaim that there was no resurrection and no future life, and that those who professed to be Christians should deny and ridicule this article, although they were baptized on it and had become Christians by reason of this, the article on which also all their hope and consolation should be based. Thus they had forfeited everything with this and had believed, acted, and suffered in vain. For where this article is surrendered, all the others are gone too; and the chief article and the entire Christ are lost or preached entirely in vain.
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 28: 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, 1 Co 7:40 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999).
Throughout the Church catholic, this observation and concern of Luther should be echoed over and over again. In the Church today, there is something even more insidious than the affirmative actual denial of the Second Article of the Creed. And that is the subtle and more than just seeming indifference of many toward it, as if its affirmations are theological adiaphora.
So much of the message heard coming from many churches today is all about “good living”, the “does and donts” of upright Christian living, as if Pelagius got it right as to what the Christian Gospel is.
I’m not in favor of abortion or of gay marriage. But, churches spending so much of their time on either side of those kinds of issues and becoming just one of many communities doing so detract significantly from the message which belongs uniquely to the Church, but which gets placed “on the back burner” if not buried, all in deference to societal issues which the contemporary winds blowing suggest are of greater consequence.
Beware of those within the Church who, out of indiffernce toward the Gospel, would suggest that the New Testament message is primarily a “Guide to Good Living”.