The April issue of The Lutheran Witness explores the Christian life on earth and eternal life in Christ.
- From the President: ‘Lazarus, Come Out!’ — Matthew C. Harrison
- Life in the Church Year: Baptismal Birthdays & Name Days — Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench
Print Features
- ‘In Him Was Life’: On communion with Christ, the only true life — Charles A. Gieschen
- Five Lies About Life: ‘Did God actually say?’ — Stephanie Neugebauer
- Even to Old Age and Gray Hairs: The meaning of life at every age — William Gleason
- The Tree of Life: God is leading us back to the Garden — Christopher Maronde
Departments
- Snippets: News from around the LCMS and the world
- Commonplaces: Selections from Scripture, the Confessions and Lutheran hymnody
- The Contemporary World: “Bringing Down the Transgender Industry” — Gene Edward Veith Jr.
- The Road to Convention: Floor Committees & Resolutions
- Searching Scripture: Following the Formula Article IV: Good Works
From the editor
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
In our culture of death, Christians talk a lot about life and its protection. We join in life marches and advocate for the sanctity of life at all ages. We volunteer at pregnancy resource centers to support mothers as they nurture young lives. We visit and sing at nursing homes to give fellowship and encouragement to those who are nearing the end of their lives.
As we do all this, it is important that we can answer the questions: What is life? Why does it matter? Certainly, we know from God’s Law that murder is a sin. But what is “life” itself? Is it simply a beating heart and brain activity?
During Eastertide, we sing joyfully and triumphantly of our Lord who rose again to life and swallowed up death forever. Easter reminds us, indeed, that true life is not just a beating heart. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). As Charles Gieschen points out in this issue, “a human is more than just flesh and blood; vital to human life, as the Scriptures reveal, is having the breath or Spirit of life. In short, life is being in communion or union with God, the source of life, through the Spirit” (p. 8).
This brings with it a hard truth: Even those babies spared from an untimely death by abortion, even those elderly men and women given physical comfort in old age, if they are never told the Good News of Jesus Christ, never brought to the font of Baptism, never united to Christ, remain in the death in which they were born.
This is a hard truth but also, for Lutherans, a beautiful one: Christ has died and risen again to bring this eternal life to all. We do not teach, as some Christian denominations do, that many of us are born predestined to eternal death, and that true life is open only to a few elect. Instead, we teach with Scripture that “[Christ] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
God created abundant life in the Garden of Eden. Man’s fall into sin brought death into the world — and yet, as Scripture attests, over the centuries God has again and again brought streams of living water to His parched people, planted the seeds of His Word, and promised to His people an eternal city and a restored Garden. Christopher Maronde unpacks this garden imagery throughout Scripture (p. 18).
We hope that this issue will bring you joy in this Easter season as you reflect upon our risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Light and Life of the world.
In Him,
Stacey Eising
Managing Editor, The Lutheran Witness
