Fifth Sunday of Easter (1885)John 16:5-15

Our time can rightly be called a time of unbelief. It has now permeated all layers of society and prevails throughout the so called Christian world. Not just individual doctrines, but the entire Christian faith, including its foundation, the Holy Scriptures, is now publicly ridiculed in speech and writing as contemptible superstition and childish fable. Yes, among countless people faith in one God and an immortality, even natural religion, is in general rejected with a dirty look. The nonsensical assertion that man is descended from animals, and is only a more perfect animal is welcomed with loud acclamations as delightful truth by countless people, educated and uneducated, scholars and simple-minded. This especially includes the Turners, whose task, according to its own program, is eradication of the Church and religion. The Christian faith is combated by it, unbelief is promoted as the highest wisdom in public lectures, attended by thousands, as by newspapers and books. Yes, unbelief itself has broken into the Church like an all-devastating flood. Even among those who still want to be Christians, the majority follows their reason and falsifies or twists or denies the clearest doctrines of God's Word. One might say: now the believers themselves have become unbelievers! And what is the consequence of this unbelief? On the one hand unspeakable ruin of sin, on the other hand the most horrible destruction of the Church. This should not surprise us. For it is only the fulfillment of the prophecy of the condition of the world and the Church before the Last Day.1 Faithful preachers of the Word recognize unbelief as the main enemy, against whom they have to witness most earnestly.

In today's Gospel Christ promises His disciples His Holy Spirit. He describes as the Spirit's first office that He will punish the world concerning sin because they do not believe. Wonderful words! Is unbelief the only sin in the world? Without a doubt, because Christ says it here. This subject is of such high importance that we want to stay with this one Word of Christ today, as we have often considered the content of the whole Gospel.

How the Holy Spirit chastises unbelief as the true chief sin;

in that He reveals it to us1 Matthew 24:25; 1 Timothy 4; 2 Peter 3.

1. as the natural source of all other sins.a. Evidence from God's Word. Even the fall of the first parents had its

source in unbelief. For as soon as the devil with the words "You will be like God" took their faith in God, their dear heavenly Father, and led them to believe God as an envious character Who does not grant them the highest perfection, they fell into the sin of disobedience. The loss of their faith or their unbelief is therefore the source of their other sins. Satan repeated the exact same thing when he tempted Christ. Genesis 6:3 witnesses that the sin of perdition before the flood had its source in unbelief. Unbelief is the Spirit of God not abiding in man. The Israelites so often came into manifest sinful life that the Holy Spirit witnessed through the prophets that their falling away from God's Word - unbelief - was the source and cause of it. Because Sodom laughed in disbelief at God's judgment, the most horrible fornication arose in it. Because Peter despaired of Christ's power and goodness, he denied; because the Jews did not believe, they rejected and crucified Jesus; because Paul did not believe, he persecuted Christians in the most bloodiest manner: unbelief is the source of sin everywhere;

b. Evidence from Church history. When the Holy Spirit began His office of chastisement through the apostles, the world was sunk in heathen unbelief. What was now their moral state? So horrible that it defies all description. Despite all wisdom, art and culture, the most horrible vice of fornication, murder, fraud, and theft prevailed openly and with impunity; one considers the bloody spectacles of Rome, where slaves and prisoners of war had to kill themselves or was torn by wild beasts for the amusement of the people; of the mass slaughter or mutilation of Christians; of the terrible warfare of the Gentiles, the government of tyrants like Nero; public charity was unknown; all of paganism did not have one hospital, asylum, or orphanage. Further, how was Christianity before Luther, as the unbelief of the papacy covered the Church like a cloud? Even Bellarmine confesses that the moral destruction was beyond description. Finally, in what had the horrific atrocities of the French Revolution at the end of the last [18th] century, in what have the spawns of hell, nihilism, communism, socialism in our time their source? What did the German nation bring into the swamp of immorality, desecration of Sunday, hedonism, and debauchery that it is now the most religious-less nation of Christianity, that protects those who deny Christ and persecutes confessors of Christ with imprisonment? Is not unbelief the poisonous source of this everywhere?

c. Evidence from the effects of faith against unbelief. What a noble ruler was King Saul, as long as he believed! What a murderous monster he became through unbelief!2 What was Paul while he was in disbelief? And what was he through faith? What form did the heathen world take when the Holy Spirit took away its unbelief and gave it faith? What happened to Christendom again when Luther was allowed to give it faith again, what blessings did the world itself receive as a result? Did not art, science, culture, etc. bloom now more powerful than ever? What are the Gentiles in 2 1 Samuel 10:24, 27; 11:13; 18:8; 22.

their unbelief, before the mission brings them faith? What turns cannibals into blessed Christians? When a person is converted from unbelief, is he not pious? Let not the drunk return to drinking, the thief his stealing, the fornicator his lust, the miser his avarice, etc? Finally, does not the unbelieving world itself confirm that unbelief and ungodliness and faith and godliness are connected? For what a cry it raises when a Christian at one point falls into a gross sin, while she quietly considers the same sin to the children of the world and does not chastise it! Does not it incontrovertibly reveal how good it appreciates that whoever believes in a holy and relevant God and an eternal recompense is necessarily godly, but whoever does not believe, his sinful passions will boldly appear? So who should not be horrified before unbelievers, because it is the source of all other sins? Even this truth cannot be important enough for Christians.

2. as the main cause of condemnation of mankind.It is intolerable for unbelievers to hear that their unbelief alone

condemns. Why not works, life? The reason is simple:a. faith is the adoption of redemption through Christ's redemption

and the return of the prodigal child to heavenly Father. For through Christ's suffering and death sin, guilt and chastisement was atoned for, through Christ's resurrection redemption was sealed and made certain, through Word and Sacrament grace for sinner presented and offered by the Holy Spirit.3 Faith accepts it, rejoices over the reconciliation and grace of God, takes comfort in the Savior, and man is again a child of God;

b. but unbelief rejects Christ and His salvation, spitefully and stubbornly resists against the Holy Spirit with His Word of grace, what is the consequence? Unbelief manifests itself not only as the most formidable, but also the only damnable sin. After his redemption man is not actually condemned by his sin, but by his unbelief.4 When the patient pushes back the healing medicine, he does not actually die as a result of his illness, but as a result of his contempt for the drug. Who should not violently curse but devoutly thank God if he can believe through His grace?

Otto Hanser

3 John 16:13-14.4 Mark 16:16.