GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:16-17
16 He will bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to prepare a people who are ready for the Lord.”
The final words spoken by the Old Testament prophets came from Malachi, in the 430s B.C. After proclaiming the end of evil in the final judgement (Malachi 4:1) and the healing coming from Christ at that time (4:2), the prophet called God’s people to return to the law of Moses (4:4) as the standard by which all, wicked and righteous alike, will be judged (4:3). And then Malachi turned his eyes from the second coming of Christ to a closer moment, the defining moment of God’s plan for mankind: the first coming of Christ. “‘Behold,’ (Malachi was quoting the Lord), ‘I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.’” (Malachi 4:5-6). He was not predicting the physical return of Elijah, but a man who would hold Elijah’s office as the preacher of repentance. He was prophesying the arrival of John the Baptist and of people being converted from unbelief to faith, which is what the angel confirms in our verse above.
To understand conversion, we must understand man’s free will. Free will is the rational essence of man. It is thought to be the human use of both mind and will according to the individual’s desires. However, once the will is at work moving toward a goal or a passion or an obsession, the mind is no longer free, even if the mind ultimately triumphs in a particular instance. It is always at war with the will, and never truly free. The mind or intellect can be used to prepare the will (in Greek this is the paraskeuastikos, παρασκευαστικῶς, the preparation of the will). The rational soul, which includes the will but also the intellect, memory, and faith of the individual, also prepares the will. But all of these things are subject to sin in fallen man. Since we are all fallen, God’s judgment is always correct over all of us: “Every inclination of man’s heart is evil” (Genesis 8:21). Therefore a person who is not converted to faith cannot convert themselves by an act of the will. “There is no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:11), and in fact there is another power at work in us which wages war “against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (Romans 7:23). Since natural, unconverted man has not got even the least ability to conceive of a spiritually good thought (“we are incompetent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves” 2 Corinthians 3:5), the natural, unconverted man has no ability even for the least beginning movement toward conversion. This is the Bible’s teaching: we were dead in our sins (Colossians 2:13). Just as Lazarus could not call himself out of the grave, so also we could not call ourselves out of unbelief. But Christ called Lazarus forth, against all the workings of sin and its consequences (“by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been in there four days” his sister said, John 11:39). And so he has called us out of unbelief to faith. The fallen will of man only has the power to sin, and therefore can resist the call to faith. But this is not God’s will, and so the very resistance of man to God’s call to faith is a sin—the sin against the Holy Spirit. It is the only sin that damns (Mark 3:29). Every other sin is covered over by Christ because he gives us faith, and we are covered by the righteousness of Christ before God.
This was the essence of John’s message to Israel. His task was to prepare the way for the Lord, and to bring back many to faith in the Lord. Our role in this conversion was described by the Lutheran theologian Abraham Calov in simple words worthy of memorization:
Man brings nothing to his conversion, nor can he bring anything. He is merely passive.
Praise God that his work in you was strong, overcoming your sinful will, surmounting the arrogance of your intellect, and captivating your rebellious spirit. Like a wild horse tamed by a cowboy, you have been brought into your Master’s stable. You have been set to work in his kingdom, and you are prized by him above all the wild ones who flee from him. You know his voice, and you are amazed when he sets you to your task, asking more of you than you ever thought possible. Praise him for the labor to which he spurs you, all for the sake of his kingdom.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota