How do we know that Jesus didn’t expand his testament at some later point in time? Here are some things to consider when speaking to Latter-Day Saints:
http://www.equip.org/articles/lost-books-and-latter-day-revelation/
How evangelicals are falling for the same trap that liberal, mainline churches did: forsaking the Gospel and evangelism for the sake of growth:
America is definitely changing in terms of religious identity, and there are statistics to prove it. Consider this:
Through the years there has been a steady decrease in the number of people in America who confess they are Christian. For example, 65 percent of Americans born before 1946 said they were Christian. Now, only 15 percent of Millennials give the same response – a staggering decease over 60-plus years.
Read more here:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/lifeway-ceo-teams-up-with-youngest-son-to-reach-millennials-55698/
When confronting the question of the difference between “faith” and “The Faith” a basic question arises. To what extent does acceptance of The Faith – the historical and dogmatic precepts of Christianity – constitute or form a part of “faith”? This is a significant issue when it comes to Christians who belong to churches that either in major or minor part do not “rightly divide the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). We do not commune with members of churches that do not teach the Gospel accurately (Augsburg Confession VII). We do not judge the Christian’s “faith,” but we are judging the accuracy of “The Faith” taught in the church of which they are a member. How and to what extent is it possible to have true faith if you do not hold to The Faith?
It occurred to me that underneath this question we are asking the one I posed above. To what extent is complete assent to The True Faith required for a person to have true, subjective faith in Christ? In my copy of Franz Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics I found a statement I had previously underlined:
Saving faith is essentially the reliance of the heart on the promises of grace set forth in the Gospel. It is “to believe in the Son” (John 3:16, 18), “to believe in Christ” (Gal. 2:16). The “historical data” and the “historical approval” do not constitute faith, neither in whole or in part… trusting in the grace of God in Christ constitutes faith. (II.426-427)
The Lutheran theologians emphasized faith as an act of will over, but not excluded from, faith as intellectual knowledge. One cannot be said to have Christian faith is one does not know of Christ and His work. But faith is not just trust in a set of doctrines, but in the person and work of Christ. Consider the words of Luther:
Tell me, is the Christian deprived of his reason when he is asleep? Certainly, then, his faith and God’s grace do not leave him. If faith remains with the sleeping Christian while his reason is not conscious of the faith, why should there not be faith in children before reason is aware of it? (II. 449)
Every confession of the Christian faith has their own “cross to bear,” and Lutheranism has been dogged since its inception by the challenge of antinomianism. ”Antinomianism” – literally, “against the Law,” – is the tendency to downplay guidelines for the Christian life in Scripture in order to allow the Gospel to predominate. On the one hand, all Lutherans should agree that the Gospel must predominate in our preaching and teaching. We are a people not working towards reconciliation with God, but working with God as people already reconciled in Christ. On the other hand, it is not difficult to allow this principle to make the Scriptures a caricature of themselves. Consider what some excerpts of the Gospels might look like under the influence of what I will call “bad Lutheran preaching.”
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. For I will die for you on the cross, and you will be forgiven. You will be baptized, and I will give you my body and blood for the remission of your sins…”
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Rather you will feast on my body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, for I will wash you clean in baptism through my death on the cross.”
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “I will die on the cross for you, and so when you repent of not loving your neighbor, I will wipe your sins away.”
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you believe that my death on the cross will forgive all your sins.”
Etcetera. Yet, of course, this is not what we read in the Scriptures. Does that mean the Gospel writers were not thinking in a Law / Gospel paradigm? No. But it does suggest that their understanding of Law and Gospel was more subtle – more robust – than what passes for “Lutheran” preaching these days.
Paul McCain, an editor for Concordia Publishing House, has taken up the battle against “antinomianism” in within the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. ”Antinomianism” is difficult to describe, but is more-or-less the position that Christians no longer need pay attention to the Law but only the Gospel. He recently posted a quote from Martin Luther on this particular subject:
That is what my Antinomians, too, are doing today, who are preaching beautifully and (as I cannot but think) with real sincerity about Christ’s grace, about the forgiveness of sin and whatever else can be said about the doctrine of redemption. But they flee s if t were the very devil the consequence that they should tell the people about the third article, of sanctification, that is, of new life in Christ. They think one should not frighten or trouble the people, but rather always preach comfortingly about grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, and under no circumstance use these or similar words, “Listen! You want to be a Christian and at the same time remain an adulterer, a whoremonger, a drunken swine, arrogant, covetous, a usurer, envious, vindictive, malicious, etc.!” Instead they say, “Listen! Though you are an adultery, a wordmonger, a miser, or other kind of sinner, if you but believe, you are saved, and you need not fear the law. Christ has fulfilled it all! . . . They may be fine Easter preachers, but they are very poor Pentecost preachers, for they do not preach… “about the sanctification by the Holy Spirit,” but solely about the redemption of Jesus Christ, although Christ (whom they extol so highly, and rightly so) is Christ, that is, He has purchased redemption from sin and death so that the Holy Spirit might transform us out of the old Adam into new men . . . Christ did not earn only gratia, grace, for us, but also donum, “the gift of the Holy Spirit,” so that we might have not only forgiveness of, but also cessation of, sin. Now he who does not abstain from sin, but persists in his evil life, must have a different Christ, that of the Antinomians; the real Christ is not there, even if all the angels would cry, “Christ! Christ!” He must be damned with this, his new Christ. (On the Council and the Church, Luther’s Works, 41:113-114).
I’ve puzzled long and hard about this issue, as most good Christians should. What role should the Law play in Christian preaching? Is it truly missing in some Lutheran sermons? It occurred to me that the two key words in Luther’s critique above are “so that:” “[Christ] has purchased redemption from sin and death so that the Holy Spirit might transform us out of the old Adam into new men.” This, it seems to me, is what is missing from our preaching. It is not so much that we do not preach the Law, or only preach the Gospel. It is that we fail to answer the question “why should God forgive my sins?” If we answer that question at all, it tends to be with the self-serving answer “so I can go to heaven.” It is not “so we can go to heaven” that Christ has reconciled us to the Father, but so that a humanity fit for heaven might be recreated here and now. If we fail to describe that new humanity in contrast to the old (and isn’t that the function of the Law?) then we fail to give the Holy Spirit the very tool He needs to work the results of Christ’s salvation in us.
We remind our children that they are, in fact, our children, and have our love. Well and good. But we are not truly good parents unless we explain what it means to be part of our family. Let the Gospel predominate, and let us continue to proclaim the forgiveness of sins that is ours by declaration in Christ. But let us not forget the “so that,” the reason why Christ has saved and redeemed us.
Some Christians are so cute when they try and avoid controversy. Take, for example, this suggestion from a webpage for Christian devotional writers:
Doctrinal issues can cause divisions. We don’t have the resources, time or training to cover theological issues. Our ministry is to introduce the readers to Christ, teach them through personal experiences, and show them how to develop a devotional life. It’s okay for readers to see that life as a Christian can be both full of pain and joy. Humor is okay, provided it’s tasteful. We expect our devotions to be Biblically sound and not embedded with metaphysical or new age beliefs.
In the words of the Rev. Dr. Scaer, “Do you GET IT?”
In other words, we will make sure your doctrine is sound, even though we don’t have the resources, time or training to actually ensure your doctrine is sound. This is, of course, a great example of how “doctrine” is misunderstood within Protestantism. “Doctrine,” for them, is debating whether people should be baptized by immersion, pouring or sprinkling. This group has made the judgment that “it doesn’t matter,” and therefore advocating one position or the other is doctrinal hair-splitting. But that means they have made a theological judgment that all three positions are “Biblically sound.” In other words, all three are “doctrinally correct.” It’s a circular loop from which one can never extract one’s self.
A good friend of mine used to say “if it’s not essential to being Christian, then it’s not essential to being Lutheran.” The devotional writers may wish to think on this question: “How do we test if something is Biblically sound without being doctrinally divisive?”
If there is one thing that scares many confessional, conservative Lutherans, it is the fear of feeling and emotion. Lutheran theology prizes highly the objectiveness of Christianity. The promises of God, especially the promise of the forgiveness of sins in Christ, is not dependent on the strength of my faith but only on God’s trustworthiness. How I “feel” about Jesus is irrelevant in light of how God “feels” about me in Christ.
But what, then, of the joy of being Christian? Can we become so concerned about preserving the objectiveness of salvation that we squelch whatever work God might be accomplishing subjectively in us? If we enjoy a hymn, appreciate a sermon, feel moved by a text of Scripture, does that somehow take away from the extra nos character of God’s salvific work?
A parishioner of mine passed on to me a paper by Dr. Phillip Cary published in the Fall 2005 issue of Pro Ecclesia. The paper, entitled “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant,” proposes that Luther operated off a different basic syllogism than modern Protestants. For Luther salvation can be boiled down to this major premise, minor premise, and conclusion:
How can we be certain that we are Christians? Because Christ has said so, and Christ never lies. But for Protestants the syllogism is quite different:
How can we be certain that we are Christians? Because we believe. In other words, Protestants must turn inward and test their own thoughts, experiences, and feelings, to determine if they in fact have the faith required for salvation. Followers of Luther, on the other hand, turn outward to Christ and his promises as confirmation of their status before God. How a Protestant “feels” about salvation actually plays into their salvation. We may even say it is a priori to salvation, in the sense that unless we first feel saved, we have no certainty that we are saved! How a Lutheran feels about Christ’s salvation is a posteriori to the promise itself. We believe the promise, and may – or may not! – feel joy about it.
I propose that Lutherans should therefore be more free to revel in the full range of emotions that can flow from salvation than Protestants, knowing with certainty that our salvation does not depend on our feelings – even our joy! – but that our joy comes from having certainty about our salvation. It should be Protestants, not Lutherans, who obsess about the “proper place of emotion.”
I had the chance to spend almost a whole day at the Rice University library yesterday. While there I was able to finish most of Professor Richard Bell’s “Deliver Us From Evil,” and start in on his “No One Seeks for God.” I also flipped through a recent edition of “First Things” and enjoyed Michael Root’s homage to Wolfhart Pannenberg. All that reading brought to mind a few questions worth diving into in the future:
I was impressed with the late theologian Helmut Thielicke’s diagnosis of how the focus of “doubt” in Western religious thinking has shifted over the last few centuries since the Reformation. Here are the four stages of doubt as Thielicke saw them:
1) Doubt of God’s Mercy
Luther was paradigmatic in this regard, driven to find the answer to the question “is God for me, as opposed to against or indifferent to me?” He suggests that this was the final “medieval” doubt before entering the era of the so-called Enlightenment.
2) Doubt of God’s Justice
This is the first modern doubt, “a main theme and initiator of theological destruction” (35) in Thielicke’s words. It leads ultimately to doubt in God’s existence because it calls into doubt God’s very rule and place as creator and sustainer of all things. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 is seen as raising this form of doubt to new levels, seemingly flatly contradicting Liebniz’s attempt to justify this as the “best of all possible worlds.”
3) Epistemological Doubt
This was the typical problem of the 18th and 19th centuries, raising the question of whether any sort of religious “knowledge” is possible, whether special revelation can anymore have a place in our world. Thielicke sees this sort of doubt in questions such as “What valid grounds are there for the self evident truths of our time?” Can historical events such as the resurrection of Jesus, an event without historical analogy, provide certainty of knowledge about God? If not, is binding certainty is impossible, “can we be Christians without forfeiting our intellectual integrity”? (39)
4) Pragmatic Doubt
The last form of doubt, rising in the 19th century, is the doubt that final truths of any kind can be posited that can form a basis for rational knowledge. All truth is conditional, the theological and philosophical merely ideological, representing only one acceptable possibility among many. Ideas are tested not according to their truth, but only according to their adequacy for a certain situation or case.
Thielicke, Helmut. Modern Faith and Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990.
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