A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Our lord said to his disciples, now that I go back to him who sent me, not one of you asks me, where are you going? Because I've had all of this to say to you, you now are overcome with grief. Yet I tell you, in sober truth, it is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the paraclete will never come to you.
On the other hand, if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, about justice, about condemnation, about sin in that they refused to believe in me. Notice the first sin, lack of faith, intentional. Notice, it doesn't say because they did not believe. Says in that they refused to believe, an act of the will.
Then about justice, from the fact that I go to the father and you can see me no more. And then finally about condemnation, for the prince of this world has been condemned, and this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
If you have taken the time, and I certainly wish you would, to read this passage of Saint John, this discourse of our lord to his disciples. It's very long. We've been reading it morning after morning. And it to me, much of it is very mysterious. I don't pretend to be able to understand it.
For example, this passage this morning, I can't you know, you can make some guesses, but what does it all mean about condemnation, about sin? Now that's perfectly clear. Now there's a one little sentence out of the first reading this morning that is perfectly clear. When Paul and Cyrus have been wonderfully, remember the word miracle simply means something that's amazing. When they are wondrously released from prison and go back and save their custodian's life, he falls at their feet and says, What do I have to do to be saved?
And they answer, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. That's Christ's answer to the question, how am I going to be saved? Now as you know, the great theme of the sixteenth century reformation, whether it was Calvin or Luther, they were the two main thrusts, Presbyterianism and Lutheranism, as it came to be called. They were the main thrusts of the Protestant Reformation. There were many other movements.
Everybody made his own movement, literally. There was no unanimity among them at all. But one thing they agreed on, they rejected the idea of papacy. Then, of course, they rejected the idea of councils. So what were you left with?
A book. And how are you saved? Through faith alone. And, of course, they quoted Saint Paul. You can get plenty of texts out of Saint Paul.
But you don't have to go to Saint Paul. You all you have to do is quote our lord Silas and Paul, where they get to the very specific question, what must I do to be saved? They say, believe in the lord Jesus Christ. Nothing there about good works at all. Nothing there about keeping the commandments.
Nothing there about obligations of physical external worship. Not a word there about church. Not a word there about obligations of belonging to a church. Nothing. All you have to do is to believe in the lord Jesus Christ.
Our lord said I mean, Silas and Paul said it themselves. It's the the pronoun is they. And you can back this up with text from Saint Paul, and you can back it up with text of our blessed Lord himself. Once again, we're faced with this very simple problem. If you take one or two sentences out of context, and the context sometimes can be vast, Not just a paragraph and not just even a book.
But when you take things out of context, or when you don't when you take things incompletely, you can come up with some absurdities. Now, of course, but you see this is what happened in the sixteenth century. And I can understand why with many sincere people it happened. And the answer is very simple, because in many instances, not in not not officially, not formally, not universally, but remember when you have all of this commotion up around Germany and in Switzerland, around Geneva, at the same time you have have saints in Spain who don't know what's going on up there at all. Completely living their good holy saintly lives.
Same way down in Italy. So you have to keep that perspective. But it's a fact that in Northern Europe and to in Italy, where you had the consequences of the Renaissance, there you had an overwhelming emphasis emphasis in many instances, not everywhere, not with everybody, but with many instances, an overwhelming emphasis on externals, on externals. If you do this, you will automatically be saved. If you do that, you'll be automatically saved.
That was the general idea. And of course, were other coincidental things. And you see, you can give text to prove this if you just give a tiny little text. But here's what I do want to say this morning. It's true.
Good works won't save you. That's philanthropy. That's altruism. And you don't have to be a believer in God to do be them. You can be a first honest to God atheist, and be a magnificent philanthropist, and a magnificent altruist.
You cannot be saved without faith in Jesus Christ. And the irony of the situation is that we too in our lives can be so immersed in externals, in doing things rather than in being something, in being something. And the important thing before God isn't what you do, it's what you are. Not that doing isn't important. Just think of some of the texts we've had in the last few days about keeping my commandments.
You are my disciples if you keep my commandments. How will you know that you love me? Keep my commandments. 10 of them. Some of them are harder to keep than others.
So our blessed lord didn't didn't minimize one bit the necessity of action, the necessity of keeping the commandments, the necessity of of trying to live a good moral life. He never for a minute minimized the necessity of external worship of God, of external prayer. When the disciple said, how do we pray? Teach us how to pray. He didn't say go up into some kind of a mountain and take off your clothes and fold your arms in a Buddha posture and meditate, he said, say words.
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. See, you've gotta take all of this together, but none of it's worth anything without faith in Jesus Christ because you can do all the rest of it without faith. There have been magnificent men and magnificent women who had no belief in God or in Christ or in religion. Matter of fact, they looked upon it as a very sad state of affairs for superstitious people, and yet live gorgeous and beautiful lives. We must realize our first calling is to have faith in Jesus Christ.
There is salvation in no other name. In the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit. Amen.