Sermon for October 26, 2025, Reformation Day--Observed

Revelation 14:6-7 (Reformation Day—Observed)

“An Eternal Gospel is Still Proclaimed”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

October 26, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

          Durning my formative ministry years of Pre-Seminary and Seminary, the lectionary (the series of readings for the Church Year) used an Old Testament Scripture for the Reformation observance. It was Jeremiah 31:31-34, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, . . . For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. . . . For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:31-34 ESV).

          With the arrival of our wonderful Lutheran Service Book in 2006, the Jeremiah text was replaced with our First Reading and sermon text for this Reformation Sunday, Revelation 14:6-7.

⁶And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth and to every nation and tribe and language and people, ⁷saying in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made the heavens and the earth and sea and springs of water.”

          I always wondered why this particular text about the proclamation of the gospel to the world was chosen when there are so many others. The reason seems to be the use of Revelation 14 by Pastor Johann Bugenhagen at the funeral of Martin Luther on February 22, 1546, held in the very Castle Church in Wittenberg upon whose door Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517.

          Pastor Bugenhagen said, “And I trust that the adversaries will not long rejoice over [Luther’s] death, for though his person has certainly departed in Christ, yet the mighty, blessed, and divine doctrine of this precious man lives on as powerfully as ever. For there is no doubt that he was the angel of whom it is written in Revelation 14 that he was flying through the midst of the heavens, having an eternal Gospel, etc. as the text says. . . . This angel who says, “Fear God and give Him glory,” was Dr. Martin Luther. And the words here written—“Fear God and give Him glory”—are the two parts of Dr. Martin Luther’s doctrine: the Law and the Gospel, through which all of Scripture is laid open and Christ is known as our Righteousness and eternal life. And to these two parts he also added this one: “the time of His judgment has come”; and he taught about proper prayer and the invocation of God the heavenly Father in spirit and in truth, as the angel of Revelation 14 also says, “Worship Him who made heaven and earth.”[1]

          Now, this is a preaching move made by Bugenhagen. The angel in John’s vision in Revelation 14 is indeed one of God’s angels used to convey Jesus’ message throughout the Book of Revelation. But we need to remember that the word “angel” means “messenger.” In his preaching at Luther’s funeral, Bugenhagen made a preaching application of the messenger in Revelation 14, “another angel,” and suggested that Martin Luther himself should be considered that “other angel,” a messenger of the eternal Gospel. And Martin was a Gospel messenger!

          In studying the text of Revelation, I’m very certain that John was NOT prophesying about Luther here in Revelation 14. Nevertheless, Bugenhagen’s preaching move gets at what is important in our two-verse text: John saw a messenger with “an eternal Gospel to proclaim.” And that is what Luther and the other Reformers did—they proclaimed the Gospel to a world that hadn’t heard it clearly for years. The medieval church had badly darkened the Gospel of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. This truth of Christ was hidden behind purgatory and relics and prayers to the saints and all kinds of works that people needed to do in order to be “good enough” to go to heaven. There was desperate need for reform. And God, in His mercy and grace, used Martin Luther to lead this reform as he proclaimed the eternal Gospel of Christ.

          But where is this Gospel message in Revelation 14? Yes, the angel had an eternal, never-ending, never-changing Good News message to proclaim to “all who live on the earth and to every nation and tribe and language and people.” And then the angel announced, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come.” Wait a minute, there’s a flag on the play! Isn’t the hour of God’s Judgment a message of God’s Law?

          The point of reference for our text is the Second Coming of Christ and the final judgment. Just seven verses after our text, St. John wrote by the power of the Spirit, “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.’ So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped” (Rev. 14:14-16 ESV). And then we read, “And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, ‘Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.’ So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle” (Rev. 14:18-20 ESV).

          This does not sound like Gospel at all! God’s judgment is pictured here as a harvest over which Jesus presides because He alone suffered the judgment of God pronounced on the sin of the entire human race. Having suffered judgment on behalf of all people, Jesus alone has the right to be the Judge, by the authority of the Father. And so we confess, “From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” We then see this judgment of the unbelievers pictured in terms of a grape harvest. The harvest of unbelievers is, like grapes, thrown “into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” This is Law talk. This is God giving judgment through His Son upon all who rejected the “eternal Gospel” and would not come to saving faith in Jesus. As Julia Ward Howe would write during the American Civil War, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His truth is marching on.”

          God’s judgment is terrifying. God’s wrath is to be feared. The purpose of God’s Word of Law is to move us to fear God in view of His coming judgment. The Law of God says that you and I are imperfect, sinful, fallen creatures who deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment. The Law shows us our sins and complete inability to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Martin Luther knew this so very well. He feared God’s wrath. Luther was literally afraid of God because he couldn’t find a way to please God and to know for certain that he had done enough to escape purgatory and God’s punishment. The Great Reformer wrote, “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. . . . I was angry with God, and said, ‘As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!’ Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience.”^[2]

          How, then, can the announcement of the moment of God’s judgment at the Coming Again of the Lord Christ be called good news? “Here’s the eternal Gospel—Fear God and give Him glory because His judgment has come!” For the unbeliever, this is most terrifying Law. But for you and me who live by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, it is Good News!

          Think back to Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge. Jesus said, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily” (Luke 18:7-8 ESV). The time to give justice to God’s elect ultimately will take place at the Second Coming of Jesus. At that time the unbelieving world, the devil, and all his minions will receive God’s judgment and punishment. Even death itself will be destroyed. God’s people in Christ, risen from the dead and glorified, will be rescued from this fallen creation and enter into a new creation where only righteousness dwells.

          And this is the eternal Gospel because Jesus suffered God the Father’s judgment against OUR sins on the cross. Jesus endured the torment of the devil, the curse of sin, and the punishment of hell and death on Calvary’s cross. 1 Peter 2, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet. 2:24 ESV). Healed, saved, forgiven, restored to the favor of God the Father, given eternal life. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:4-9 ESV).

          Luther was spot on in coming to realize that no matter how hard we try, we cannot please God enough to make us right with Him. From our Epistle Reding, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20 ESV). We come to know our sin through the Law. We realize that we are unable to be the people of God He wants us to be. We can’t even believe in Jesus as our Lord on our own. But God our Father has sent out the message of His eternal Gospel. Luther rediscovered this Good New as he studied the Book of Romans. By the working of the Holy Spirit, Luther came to understand that people are made righteous before God because of the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sins are forgiven, not because we prayed the Lord’s Prayer 10 times, or gave money to this charity, or did a good deed. We are forgiven and saved from sin, death, and the devil only by the blood of Jesus, only through the grace of God in giving us His Holy Spirit who has brought us to saving faith in Christ by the power of the Gospel in Word and Baptismal waters. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, has set you free from the devil’s power, from the power of death, and from the curse of your sins. And if the Risen Son has set you free by the shedding of His blood, sacrificial death, and rising again, you are free, indeed! And that is sweetest Gospel!

          By God’s grace through the working of the Holy Spirit, you and I are able to fear, love, and trust in God. We are able to give Him all glory through our Lord, Jesus Christ. As the saints of God in Jesus, we join with the angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, lauding and magnifying His glorious Name, evermore praising Him who saved us by His grace through Jesus’ life, death, and rising again.

          Through the work of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Johann Bugenhagen, Martin Chemnitz, Johann Gerhard, and countless other pastors and teachers in Christ’s Church, the eternal Gospel has come to us in our day. We rejoice to hear the Good News of our salvation because God the Father loved us in this way—sending His One-of-a-Kind Son to live a perfect life for us, to receive the punishment of sin and death for us, and to rise again from the dead—so that everyone who believes in Jesus by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, not by works, should have eternal life in a new creation when the Lord Christ comes again at the Last Day. For this eternal Gospel that saves us in Christ, we give God all thanks and praise as we “worship Him who made the heavens and the earth and sea and springs of water.” To you, O Father, be all glory, honor, and worship, through Your Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

     [1] Johann Bugenhagen, Luther’s Works, Sixteenth Century Biographies of Martin Luther, trans. Matthew Carver (St. Louis: Concordia, 2018), 27-28.

     ^[2] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 336–337.