CrossTalk: The Word became flesh to restore the Truth

Last week’s release of the “Twitter Files” is only the latest exposure of the countless lies that darken out world. Similar revelations have shaken our confidence in media, government, education, and medicine. Each individual falsehood undermines our confidence in the next claim that we hear. It is confusing and troubling. Many have come to doubt that we can know the truth at all.

That is a tragedy on two fronts—the personal, and the divine. Any loss of confidence in the words we hear from other people makes meaningful relationships impossible. Lies isolate us and make us feel totally alone in a disorientating vortex of competing claims. 

Worse, when we give up hope in the existence of truth at all, we can have no relationship with Jesus who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Faith in God is more than a vague positive feeling. We trust in Jesus only to the extent that we have confidence in the Truth that He speaks.

God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not give false testimony,” boomed forth from Mt. Sinai to battle both evils. What should you do in a world permeated by lies? God says: Don’t tell any, yourself! Don’t tell them for financial gain. Don’t tell them to preserve your reputation. Don’t tell them to go along with the crowd. Absolutely refuse to contribute even one more lie to the cacophony.

Your personal resolve to speak only truth will have two effects on your own well-being. First, it will give you practical training in how to discern between truth and lies. As you train your mouth to speak truth, your mind will grow more and more discerning. Second, by being a personal purveyor of the truth, you daily prove to yourself that truth does, indeed, exist. This counters the crippling, nihilistic notion that there is no such thing as truth.

Both the certainty that truth exists, and your own ability to discern it, will strengthen your faith in others and in God. Remembering your own personal efforts to speak the truth, you can more easily believe that your spouse, child, friend, or acquaintance is desiring and capable of speaking truth to you. And your ability to discern falsehood will also chase away unfounded doubts.

As you apply these lessons to God, you will grow in the added conviction that He is perfect both in willing to tell you the truth, and in His ability to do so. Banish the thought that Truth does not exist! Also banish the thought that you would have no way of knowing it, even if it did!

Even though God is so utterly transcendent that we could never rise to know Him, He is also all-powerful and fully capable of coming down to us. That is what Christmas is all about. When the transcendent and unapproachable God was born in Bethlehem, He brought the Truth with Him. We have it in His Holy Word.

The same Moses whom God used to bring us the Ten Commandments also brought God’s promise: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you [Moses] from among their brothers. And I will put my words in His [Jesus’] mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command Him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18).

This promise was fulfilled when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). 

In Christ God has chased away every lie and restored our ability to know the truth. Merry Christmas!

A Statement from the Wyoming District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

For Her Pastors and Congregations

God created man as male and female and instituted marriage as the lifelong conjugal union of one man and one woman. By this design for mankind God continues to create the fruit of children, gives companionship in marriage and family, and provides help against lustful desires. God gave marriage to be the fountainhead of goods that He intends for all children and adults, for all communities, and for all churches.

These truths about marriage are not private religious opinions. The Biblical teachings on marriage are taught by nature itself. They have no particular traditional, national, ethnic, or cultural character to them. They are universal truths. They apply to all people of all places and all times. They are the foundation and source of all just civil laws for marriage and family. Every legitimate government is bound by God to promote and defend them.

H.R. 8404, “An Act to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act,” rejects this foundation for just and good laws. It proposes to repeal “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” to replace God with government and His laws with unnatural laws. It requires that lies about man’s nature and about marriage be  established with favored legal status.

All legislators who voted for H.R. 8404 have publicly repudiated the works and will of the one true God. By this legislative action they have established a favored, secular religion which is openly set against the Holy Triune God. They have rejected God as the only source of just laws, that is, of justice, goodness, beauty, and every civil good. Legislators who claim that Christian doctrine permits or even requires the passage of H.R. 8404 have compounded a sinful vote with a false confession.

The governmental establishment of an unnatural, unbiblical definition of marriage does not obligate Christians to give it any faith or credence. Christian love does not permit us to live a lie. All Christians are called to confess the truth of marriage even if this law brings down civil and financial penalties on them. “We must obey God rather than men.” By upholding the lifelong, conjugal union of one man and one woman we defend God’s plan for protecting people from the loneliness, pain, and other evils that follow from the destruction of the family.

God the Father sent His Son to be born of a woman within a marriage, to be born under His eternal law. By His crucifixion and resurrection He obtained eternal redemption and life for all. The Church rejoices with every Christian that Jesus offers this redemption and this healing as an answer to all evil,  loneliness, and pain. We bring the good news to every sinner that Jesus invites you into the true family of God through faith in Him.

We acknowledge that the passage of H.R. 8404 will give the enemies of Christ the legal means to afflict faithful Christians and churches with many evils. Yet by God’s grace in Christ we will continue to  proclaim God’s truth, live according to God’s Word, love all our neighbors as God teaches, and bear the malice of others with fortitude. For we have a never-ending source of comfort and hope in God our Savior. God teaches us to strengthen one another’s hearts to have hope “through the endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures” (Romans 15:5). Jesus Himself bids us “rejoice and be exceeding glad” when we are persecuted for the truth of Christ (Matthew 5:12). And He says, “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). God grant us peaceful hearts, cheerful minds, and bold courage to speak and live according to His Word.

In Christ’s name,

Pastors of the Wyoming District of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Rev. John E. Hill, President, Wyoming District LCMS
Rev. Paul Cain, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, WY, 1st Vice-President
Rev. Jonathan Lange, Our Saviour and St. Paul’s Lutheran Churches, Evanston and Kemmerer, WY, 2nd Vice-President
Rev. Allen Strawn, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, NE, 3rd Vice President
Rev. John Preus, Trinity Lutheran Church, Cheyenne, WY
Rev. Travis Berg, Trinity Lutheran Church, Cheyenne, WY
Rev. Kevin Rose, Peace and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Marbleton and Pinedale, WY
Rev. Travis Sherman, Grace Lutheran Church, Gordon, NE
Rev. Mark Maas, King of Glory Lutheran Church, Cheyenne, WY
Rev. Rene Castillero, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, WY
Rev. Norman Wacker, Bethlehem and Mount Calvary Lutheran Churches, Moorcroft and Sundance, WY
Rev. Paul Beyer, Emeritus, Casper, WY
Rev. Jais Tinglund, Zion and Grace Lutheran Churches, Emblem and Greybull, WY
Rev. Zachary Viggers, Trinity Lutheran Church, Gillette, WY
Rev. Jared Korb, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Worland, WY
Rev. Mark Preus, St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church and Campus Center, Laramie, WY
Rev. Darrell Debowey, Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
Rev. Ted Bourret, Salem and St. Paul’s and St. Paul’s Lutheran Churches, Gurley, Potter, and Sidney, NE
Rev. Kenneth Humphrey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Morrill, NE
Rev. Jon Olson, Trinity Lutheran Church, Casper, WY
Rev. Christian Preus, Mount Hope Lutheran Church, Casper, WY
Rev. Daniel Mulholland, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Fort Bridger, WY
Rev. Kenneth Mars, Christ the King Lutheran Church, Cody, WY
Rev. Ron Garwood, Christ the King Lutheran Church and District President Emeritus, Cody, WY
Rev. Samuel Needham, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Thermopolis, WY
Rev. Scott Firminhac, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Torrington, WY
Rev. Richard Boche, District President Emeritus, Cheyenne, WY
Rev. Jacob Benson, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Lovell, WY
Rev. Darren Pflughoeft, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Lusk, WY
Rev. Mark Mumme, Trinity Lutheran Church, Riverton, WY
Rev. Richard Mueller, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Alliance, NE
Rev. Patrick Baldwin, Christ Lutheran Church, Rawlins, WY
Rev. John Christensen, Emeritus, Thermopolis, WY
Rev. James Rockhill, Bethlehem and Redeemer Lutheran Churches, Crawford and Harrison, NE
Rev. Ralph Morris, Emeritus, Gering, NE
Rev. Daniel Holthus, Emeritus, Casper, WY
Rev. David Bott, Redeemer and Christ Our Savior, Jackson and Star Valley, WY