Trinity 3
Dear friends in Christ. Today’s Scripture readings proclaim to us God’s saving grace. In today’s well-known Gospel account—Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son—we hear of the son who by his request for his inheritance basically tell his father that he wishes he were dead; that same son goes and squanders that inheritance and then when he is reduced to nothing but shame returns home hoping merely to be his father’s hired hand. Yet, what do we hear? But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. There was that love of the father and the compassion he had on his son and the joy when he returned! Of course, in the parable, the father is God and the prodigal son is the sinner. Remember, Jesus told this parable when all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to Jesus to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them”. Jesus told this parable against the Pharisees and scribes—the self-righteous, those who thought they had no need of God’s saving grace. They are represented in the parable by older brother. How this parable continues to sound in our ears: God found us when we were far from Him; we dare not be resentful when God shows His saving grace to others, no matter how unworthy they may appear to us!
So what exactly is God’s saving grace that our readings today proclaim? It is not just God’s general benevolence—His goodness and mercy toward all—but it is connected with it. God’s saving grace is His gracious favor for Christ’s sake; for Jesus’ sake God has in Himself this gracious disposition by which He in His heart does not charge us with our sin but forgives them. He wants to save all sinners, condemned by the Law, through grace, without deeds of the Law.
Because Jesus obeyed God’s holy Law for us perfectly, in every point; because Jesus took all of our sins upon Himself and suffered God’s wrath and punishment for each and every one; God does not charge us with sin but forgives us instead—for Jesus’ sake. Jesus and His work stand as a glorious work always before the eyes of God. Now, because of Jesus and His work, God is gracious to us and wants to save us through His grace.
1. Each time a person repents of his/her sin there God’s saving grace is at work. Our text today is the account of a real life prodigal son—King Manasseh of Judah. He was 12 years old when he started to rule and ruled for 55 years. Certainly there was great hope for him at the start of his reign since he was the son of a very godly king, Hezekiah. But Scripture reports that Manasseh rebuilt places of idol worship; that he worshipped the gods of the Assyrians—even building altars for these false gods in the temple courts, even placing an idol in the Lord’s house; he burned his sons in an offering; he used fortune tellers, witchcraft and mediums. The summary of his life is stated in the first verse of our text: So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.
What a listing of great and terrible sins! But as we look at Manasseh, we notice that he is really very “religious.” Those sins are all involving religion and the worship of false gods in one form or another. He actually probably seemed very pious/ godly to many; he probably seemed so “open-minded,” unlike his father who tore down places of idol worship and worshipped the Lord, the one true God alone. Here we are reminded of so many in our society around us who appear so sincere, pious, tolerant and “religious.” Like we heard a few weeks ago on Trinity Sunday: the vital thing in religion and faith is the object of faith—who/ what faith trusts in; who/ what is being worshipped. Unless the one true God, the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit— is being worshipped, the object of faith, then one is, like Manasseh, simply doing [v.2] evil in the sight of the Lord. Let us never be “impressed” by mere outer “religiousness;” the vital thing is who is worshipped.
This being “religious” but not Christian is the natural result of our sinful corruption in which we are all born. Left to ourselves and our own devices we would never come to know the true God, never put our faith in Him and never worship Him. Luther puts it this way in the catechism: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.
But, Luther continues, the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. That’s the saving grace of God. That’s what we begin to see now in our text. God, in saving grace, led Manasseh to recognize his sin; God, in saving grace leads us to recognize our sin. God’s saving grace is at work as the Holy Spirit in the Law of God shows us our sin—just like He did Manassah. The first way He did this was through His holy prophets: And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen. Through the preaching of the prophets, by their pointing to and condemning Manasseh’s and the people’s sin, the Lord was showing them grace—trying to lead them to recognize what their sin corrupted heart couldn’t do: what they were doing was sin and to turn them away from it. That’s what the Lord does with each one of us as through His word of Law that we hear/ read in Scripture, that our conscience accuses us of, He is calling us to recognize our sin and to turn away from it. But Manasseh and his people… would not listen. The sin that dominates the sinner makes people deaf to God’s warnings. Let us, today, be warned to hear God’s voice calling to us in His Law to recognize and sorrow over our sin. Let us recognize it as God’s saving grace calling to us.
Like a patient father, the Lord in saving grace not only called Manasseh to recognize his sin and turn from it, but He also disciplined him to lead him to repent. Therefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. In His saving grace, the Lord did not take “no” for an answer and through this act of the Assyrian king, binding and carrying Manasseh away like a wild beast, the Lord was still working, in grace, on him. Because of the hardness of our sin keeping us from listening to the Lord and repenting of our sin, sometimes the Lord has to, like a loving, firm father, discipline us and allow us to “learn our lesson the hard way.” These times of trials are mighty sermons of repentance. But again, this is God’s saving grace: He is favorable to us for Christ’s sake; He wants to give us the forgiveness of sin and eternal life; He wants us to look to/ and trust in Him and His saving work for us in Christ. But before we can do that, before He can work that faith in our hearts, we must utterly despair of ourselves and in thinking that we are “good enough” to earn heaven. This God, in saving grace, works through His Law—be it what we hear in the word, or experience.
2. Sorrow over sin is a good thing! There is the evidence of the saving grace of God at work; there is God acting in greatest love and mercy. It is that pure saving grace of God that we read next in our text: Now when Manasseh was in affliction, he implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Here Manasseh was in greatest despair but precisely here God’s saving grace was most mightily at work! Even before all this God showed Manasseh great grace: He had given him godly parents who had raised him in the true faith; He had Manasseh part of the OT Church where he heard the Scriptures read and saw the sacrifices pointing to the grace of God and forward to the work of the coming Savior, Jesus Christ, who would offer up that perfect, once for all sacrifice. Now, in saving grace, the Lord had let everything be taken away from Manasseh—except that promise of forgiveness and grace! Even in this most distressing condition, God’s saving grace was shining through most brilliantly.
By the work of His Holy Spirit in the word and promise of forgiveness, the Lord worked true saving faith in Manasseh—faith that knows the true God aright; faith that holds God to His promise to forgive sin and cleanse from all unrighteousness. Manasseh was reconverted. He returned to the God Whom He had come to know as a child but later rejected. In that faith he knew God rightly—as a holy and just God who must punish sin, but also as a merciful God who for the sake of the coming Savior, Christ Jesus, forgives sin. That’s why he could pray to Him: he implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him.
Dear Christian, that’s the same faith the Holy Spirit has worked in us. We know that we are sinners who because of our sin deserve nothing but God’s wrath now and forever. But we also know that in Jesus He forgives us our sin and is favorable and gracious to us. No matter how great our sin; no matter how greatly our conscience condemns us, our sins are forgiven us; the work of Christ stands; the grace of God stands. Each time we recognize our sin and confess that sin, we are living out our baptism by once again, as it were, going back to the font and reclaiming the blessings that God gave us there—forgiveness, life, adoption, etc.
It was not as if Manasseh “deserved” mercy. His previous works disprove that: Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel. It was not as if “he had done his time;” “paid his debt to society;” and so God “owed him.” Instead, the saving grace of God was mightily at work and His Holy Spirit by the work of promise, the Gospel, worked faith in Manasseh’s heart to believe this. And faith prompted the prayer for forgiveness.
It is the saving grace of God, dear Christian, that leads us to rely on Him. Here is grace upon grace. In his distress and misery, his life of sin, of service to false gods, Manasseh had nothing to offer God to make himself worthy. Instead, God in His saving grace made him worthy. By His Holy Spirit, God worked faith in Manasseh’s heart in Him and His word and work. Through that divinely worked faith, Manasseh received the forgiveness of sins and righteousness and every other heavenly blessing that the coming Savior, Christ Jesus, would bring about. Now, the Lord hears and answers Manasseh’s prayer. Now the Lord gives His approval to Manasseh and His prayer: and the Lord received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
How wonderfully we are encouraged with each sin to go to the Lord in sorrow over sin and trusting that for Jesus’ sake He is favorable to us and forgives us that sin! The Lord is pleased with this true repentance; we have His glorious promise [Jn. 6.37]: The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. There is no other way back to God than the way Manasseh went—sorrow over sin and faith in Jesus and His work; no other thing to cling to than God’s saving grace.
Manasseh knew that the LORD was God. After this he built a wall outside the City of David on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, as far as the entrance of the Fish Gate; and it enclosed Ophel, and he raised it to a very great height. Then he put military captains in all the fortified cities of Judah. He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city. He also repaired the altar of the LORD, sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.
By that same saving grace of God through which He brought us to faith, He will keep us in the faith. Like He did with Manasseh, He will strengthen us and empower us to have the fruits of repentance, i.e., to fight against our old sin all the more, to faithfully do the work of our calling. Where there’s repentance, there’s the grace of God. INJ Amen.