What Belongs to Caesar? What Belongs to God?
What Belongs to Caesar? What Belongs to God?

This is what we owe God that cannot be given to men. Our fear, love, and trust. Our faith. Our undivided loyalty. Keep this straight in your minds and hearts, you love your governor’s person and the office into which your Lord has placed her. You do not love her word over the Lord’s. You’re obedient to those laws and orders that are consistent with God’s law. When the governing authorities tell you to sin, you must disobey. This isn’t rebellion. This is the hard fact of life in this world as a Christian, a life that stirs up the world’s strife and anger because we don’t go along just to get along.

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Immanuel Lutheran
Luther on Poverty of Spirit
Luther on Poverty of Spirit

David was an outstanding king, and he really had his wallet and treasury full of money, his barns full of grain, his land full of all kinds of goods and provisions. In spite of all this he had to be a poor beggar spiritually, as he sings of himself…

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Immanuel Lutheran
How to Use and Understand the Language of "At the Same Time Righteous and Sinner"
How to Use and Understand the Language of "At the Same Time Righteous and Sinner"

It’s good to use the “at the same time” language but be sure to understand if it is being used to describe either justification or sanctification. In justification the language is total. In sanctification, it is partial and incomplete. If we can do this, then the language is helpful and comforting. If not, then we confuse salvation, righteousness, and the place and purpose of good works in this life.

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Immanuel Lutheran
On Angels and Grace - By John of Damascus
On Angels and Grace - By John of Damascus

“[An angel] is immortal, not by nature but by grace. For all that has had beginning comes also to its natural end. But God alone is eternal, or rather, He is above the Eternal: for He, the Creator of times, is not under the dominion of time, but above time.”

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Immanuel Lutheran
Legal Axioms - What Every Antinomian Needs to Hear
Legal Axioms - What Every Antinomian Needs to Hear

John Gerhard’s On Interpreting Sacred Scripture is a master work of theological clarity and comfort that takes no shame in articulating every bit of Christian teaching from the Bible alone. One of the fruits of this endeavor are various theological axioms that Christians should keep in mind as they read and interpret the Bible. The devil wants us to go our own way in making up a novel interpretations in service to sinful desire. That’s why we need Gerhard’s axioms. These axioms are not invented or contrived. They are drawn from the clearest passages of Scriptures, the same passages that articulate the Creed, what Lutherans sometimes call, “the Rule of Faith.”

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Immanuel Lutheran
A Word of Comfort for Troubling Times
A Word of Comfort for Troubling Times

Jesus, your crucified and risen Lord, has saved you from sin and death. As he rose from the grave, so too will you rise to live in the joy of his presence forever. The nations and kings may plot. The devil and the demons may lie in wait to devour. But who are they to us? “He who did not spare his Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things” (Romans 8:32)?

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Immanuel Lutheran