“They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And He was numbered with transgressors.”] (Mark 15:27-28)
Our Savior has fulfilled all Scripture concerning Him. It was the way God told us it would be. The biggest struggle point for many is the seeming weakness God used to conquer sin. But this is how He knows it must be. For us, it is a matter of trust. He has done all that is needed. Our Savior came and He was always amongst sinners, for that is what we are. In the end, it will be those who look to Him for salvation versus those who continue wanting to be their own god.
God of heaven and earth, help me to see the utter simplicity of the truth that we all need what only You can provide. I will either turn to You or else continue in the hatred of this age because it is not what I want. I do not even know what I want. Help me to look to You, the source of my being and follow according to the way You have created me and all living things to live. Guide me in Your grace.
Lord Jesus, You have eternally reconciled me to You through Your shed blood. You have done all that is needed for me to leave behind the sin of this age of rebellion in order that I may humbly walk with You in all of Your ways. Guide me in the way of everlasting truth so that I may learn from You and humbly follow You always. Help me to understand more each day so that I may take those steps which lead me in the right direction. Amen.
What struck me most about today’s devotion was not simply its affirmation that Christ fulfilled all of Scripture, but its reminder that God’s Word stands in judgment over us; we do not stand in judgment over God’s Word.
The devotion reminds us that “the biggest struggle point for many is the seeming weakness God used to conquer sin.” That struggle did not end at Calvary. It continues whenever fallen humanity encounters the clear teaching of Holy Scripture and discovers that God’s Word does not affirm what our sinful hearts desire.
St. James describes God’s Word as a mirror. The mirror is not flawed; it faithfully reveals who we truly are. The Law exposes our sin, our rebellion, and our complete inability to save ourselves. The Gospel does not alter the reflection. Rather, it proclaims that Jesus Christ has borne the judgment the mirror reveals. We do not change the mirror; Christ changes us.
Our sinful nature cannot bear what God’s mirror reveals. Rather than repenting, we are tempted to alter the mirror itself so that it reflects what we wish to see. That temptation is as old as Eden itself. The serpent did not begin by openly denying God. He began with a question: “Did God really say?” Every age has found new ways of asking that same question.
For this reason, I believe the higher-critical method represents far more than an academic exercise. It embodies a theological posture that grants fallen humanity the authority to stand over God’s Word rather than under it. It assumes that human reason, historical reconstruction, cultural development, or contemporary moral sensibilities possess the authority to determine which portions of Scripture remain binding, which are culturally conditioned, and which may be reinterpreted to conform to modern understanding.
This is not a minor methodological difference. It is a fundamentally different doctrine of Holy Scripture.
The Lutheran confession begins with the conviction that Scripture is the inspired, authoritative, and self-authenticating Word of God. Scripture is the norma normans, the norm that norms every other authority. Human reason, experience, scholarship, emotions, and culture are valuable servants, but they are never judges of God’s revealed Word. Their proper role is to receive, study, and confess what God has spoken, not to determine whether He should have spoken differently.
The inevitable question therefore becomes one of authority: By what authority may the Church declare that what Scripture has consistently identified as sin is no longer sin? If the answer lies in changing cultural norms, contemporary moral reasoning, personal experience, or evolving human understanding, then something other than Holy Scripture has become the Church’s highest authority.
This same temptation frequently appears clothed in the language of empathy, compassion, inclusion, or love. Christians are indeed called to love as Christ loved. Yet because we remain sinners, even our reason, emotions, compassion, and empathy remain affected by the Fall. None of these human faculties stands above God’s Word. They too must be judged by Scripture. Genuine Christian compassion never requires us to redefine what God calls sin. Rather, it lovingly leads sinners, including ourselves, to the only Savior who forgives sin.
When compassion is separated from God’s revealed truth, it ceases to be biblical compassion and becomes sentimentality. It no longer seeks eternal salvation but immediate affirmation. Such compassion may ease discomfort for a moment, but it cannot reconcile sinners to God because it obscures the very condition from which Christ came to save us.
The cross itself forever settles this question. God did not demonstrate His love by redefining sin. He demonstrated His love by condemning sin in the flesh of His own Son. If sin must be redefined in order to be loving, then Christ’s atoning sacrifice becomes increasingly unnecessary. But if Scripture speaks truthfully about our condition, then the cross remains absolutely essential because Christ alone has borne the judgment that the Law rightly pronounces.
Today’s devotion beautifully reminds us that faith does not seek to improve, revise, or reinterpret God’s revelation so that it conforms to fallen human desires. Faith bows before God’s Word, trusting that the God who inspired every word of Holy Scripture understands both our condition and our salvation infinitely better than we do.
The mirror of God’s Word does not need to be polished, reshaped, or replaced. It needs to be believed. Having seen ourselves truthfully in that mirror, we do not flee from it. We flee to Christ, who alone fulfilled all Scripture and accomplished everything necessary for our redemption.
To confess the Lutheran faith is to confess the authority of Holy Scripture as rightly understood and faithfully summarized in the Augsburg Confession and the rest of the Book of Concord. A church does not remain Lutheran simply because it retains the name. It remains Lutheran only so long as it continues to confess that Scripture alone is the final authority over faith, doctrine, and life. Once the Church claims authority to revise what God has revealed, it has exchanged the authority of God’s Word for the authority of fallen humanity. That has never been the Lutheran confession, nor can it ever be.
In Christ
Paul