Knowledge of God

[Fish and Bread]

I wanted to try to get a better understanding of the Lutheran perspective on how a Christian should discern the nature of God and his will for man. If one picks up a bible, many different interpretations of key passages are possible. For example, the Baptist perspective on baptism and the Lord's Supper/communion differs from the Lutheran perspective on those topics, even though both affirm sola scriptura and presumably approach the bible with good prayerful intentions, and both feel that they're guided by the Holy Spirit.

Working on the assumption that God wants us to know what he thinks on key topics such as baptism and so forth, how is the average Christian to determine what the "clear word of scripture" is? What is the bottom line that we are to look to? I presume we're not suppose to just all trust our own judgement, since I think Christians near universally agree that God has revealed himself to us, and doesn't just leave to spin a dice where the scriptures seem ambigious.

Can anyone assist me in bettering my understanding of Lutheran thought on this issue?

John

[pjw]

I wanted to try to get a better understanding of the Lutheran perspective on how a Christian should discern the nature of God and his will for man. If one picks up a bible, many different interpretations of key passages are possible. For example, the Baptist perspective on baptism and the Lord's Supper/communion differs from the Lutheran perspective on those topics, even though both affirm sola scriptura and presumably approach the bible with good prayerful intentions, and both feel that they're guided by the Holy Spirit.

Working on the assumption that God wants us to know what he thinks on key topics such as baptism and so forth, how is the average Christian to determine what the "clear word of scripture" is? What is the bottom line that we are to look to? I presume we're not suppose to just all trust our own judgement, since I think Christians near universally agree that God has revealed himself to us, and doesn't just leave to spin a dice where the scriptures seem ambigious.

Can anyone assist me in bettering my understanding of Lutheran thought on this issue?

John
perhaps Luther and the early Evangelical Catholic theologians weren't looking to create new doctrine? where they saw that a historic doctrine of the church agreed with Scripture, they didn't meddle with it.

[BigNorsk]

Well, I think where you see Lutheranism as being different from many others including Baptists is that there is reluctance to add to what scripture tells us. If you don't add, you pretty well end up in the same place, but when you see different groups add different things then they end up in different places.

Take Baptism, Baptists say infants can't believe, which is their understanding, it certainly doesn't come from scripture and actually contradicts scripture. Yet they hold to it. They also say there is no example of infant baptism but there certainly is, the baptism of Moses, that taken with that infants are in no way excluded in scripture and why not baptise infants?

Then of course you get the age of accountability added in, something which if you take it from scripture would be the age of 20 and some anabaptists pretty well follow that, but in order to not condemn the infants that they believe can't believe then they say all infants are automatically saved because they can't believe. I think it is something that while the Bible teaches that those who believe will be saved, Baptists very much teach those who don't believe will be saved.

Then you throw in once saved always saved, which is misnamed because with the infants being saved automatically it should be twice saved always saved, because those only saved once would only retain their salvation if they died before becoming accountable.

Makes one's head spin, and it's all because it starts with the unbiblical idea that infants can't believe.

Take Communion Jesus himself says the bread and wine are his body and blood, they are also referred to that way in other places that really demand that the reader agrees that they are his body and blood. Yet it is argued that it cannot be because it can't be understood. Another case of adding to scripture. Scripture doesn't teach that the bread isn't the body of Christ, Scripture doesn't teach that the wine isn't the blood, so where does it come from, from man's reasoning, that's the only source I can find.

That's my take on it.

Marv

[Fish and Bread]

Well, I think where you see Lutheranism as being different from many others including Baptists is that there is reluctance to add to what scripture tells us. If you don't add, you pretty well end up in the same place, but when you see different groups add different things then they end up in different places.

Take Baptism, Baptists say infants can't believe, which is their understanding, it certainly doesn't come from scripture and actually contradicts scripture. Yet they hold to it. They also say there is no example of infant baptism but there certainly is, the baptism of Moses, that taken with that infants are in no way excluded in scripture and why not baptise infants?

Then of course you get the age of accountability added in, something which if you take it from scripture would be the age of 20 and some anabaptists pretty well follow that, but in order to not condemn the infants that they believe can't believe then they say all infants are automatically saved because they can't believe. I think it is something that while the Bible teaches that those who believe will be saved, Baptists very much teach those who don't believe will be saved.

Then you throw in once saved always saved, which is misnamed because with the infants being saved automatically it should be twice saved always saved, because those only saved once would only retain their salvation if they died before becoming accountable.

Makes one's head spin, and it's all because it starts with the unbiblical idea that infants can't believe.

Take Communion Jesus himself says the bread and wine are his body and blood, they are also referred to that way in other places that really demand that the reader agrees that they are his body and blood. Yet it is argued that it cannot be because it can't be understood. Another case of adding to scripture. Scripture doesn't teach that the bread isn't the body of Christ, Scripture doesn't teach that the wine isn't the blood, so where does it come from, from man's reasoning, that's the only source I can find.

That's my take on it.

Marv

Thanks Marv. Still, ultimately, though, there are some things that really can be taken two different ways. For example, St. Paul says in the scripture that we are saved "by grace through faith, not works, lest any man should boast" and St. James says "Faith without works is dead.". The Lutheran perspective is that the two passages can be reconciled by saying we are saved by faith alone and that works are a necessary sign of a lively faith whereas the Roman Catholics would say that that they can be reconciled by saying works are actually part of faith. Either of those interpretations technically fits the text.

Likewise, we can get to the issue of double predestination (as the Calvinists teach) versus free will and there are good proof texts on each side and each side can fit the texts which seem to refute them into their worldview. How do I know which to believe? Does God leave it to me to figure out issues that famous theologians have disputed for ages and ages, with my own salvation potentially on the line in some instances?

I've been wrestling with this stuff lately, and it's starting to concern me, in the sense that it is all beginning to point towards Rome, and I very much an invested in a concept of God closer to Luther's, and in Dr. Luther's view of salvation. Intrinsically concepts like God standing there with demands of works to avoid hell instead of with a free offer of love to those with faith don't seem right to me. If I determined that God was as the Roman Catholics view him, I'm not sure if I'm last as a Christian, because that's a God that would be difficult for me to endorse. So, I'm hoping someone can demonstrate to me that the Roman view of authority is incorrect. Right now, though, I'm not seeing it anymore, which is a really scary thing for me. One of the things I struggled with through a decade of not being Christian was the RCC view of God that I grew up with -- I didn't think I could love that God. The God of Luther, that God seemed wonderful, though, and that's what brought me back (Granted, I'm Episcopalian and not Lutheran, but generally that's just because I'm a liturgical nut and I like some of the non-doctrinal tradtions and customs that are more likely to be found in Anglicanism. :)).

John

[BigNorsk]

I'm not saying there isn't any room for disagreement, but it really tends very much to be in peripheral items.

Take the works thing, the problem with the RC view is that people start to trust in their works, just as the Jews in Jesus' time on Earth were trusting in theirs. After all, weren't they the circumcised followers of God's law? Looking to ourselves as proof of our salvation leads to disappointment. Are we saved because we are faithful or because Jesus is faithful. I put my trust in Jesus for I am sure to fail.

I think it is really a fairly poor example to use works as a thing that is able to be interpreted both the Lutheran and the RC way from the Bible. The Bible is pretty clear that works do not produce salvation. It does say that you can see my faith through my works (God doesn't need our works to see our faith) and that faith that produces nothing is dead, but that's a huge leap to earning grace by doing works. In addition you always end up then with the question of what are enough works in order to be saved. The RC teach that you need to have done certain sacraments in order to be saved. It clearly doesn't fit what we see in the Bible. The thief on the cross was saved by faith, now if he had been given a chance, I have no doubt that he would have done works, but he wasn't given the chance. He wasn't condemned because he didn't get enough work done.

One reason people have a problem understanding predestination is that they take it as a stand alone thing. For instance, I think the dietary laws clearly show that there is no special group of elect people today.

If you follow dietary restrictions through the Bible you see Adam and Eve given green plants to eat. We aren't given a lot of details for awhile but by the time Noah comes along there are clean and unclean animals. He takes more of the clean on the ark, and he uses some of them for sacrifices. Immediately after the ark, God gives them every moving thing (Gen 9:3) to eat, they are only not to eat the blood. What happened to the unclean? Well the unclean drown and it's just Noah and his family left. This goes on and we see later God chooses the nation of Israel as his people. What happens, clean and unclean foods that's what. There are God's people and there are the others. Then we get to the new testament and we see that again all food is permitted, for everything is sanctified in prayer. If there was an elect (God's people) and an unelect, I believe it would be shown to us through dietary restrictions, but no such restrictions apply. There are no unclean people only people who have not been sanctified through prayer.

As for authority, if you think God gives any person the authority to arbitrarily decide who is saved and who isn't and what you need to do to be saved, well I guess you have to go RC. A basic thing is that they insert themselves between you and God. Now if you understand Lutherans we accept the priesthood of all believers, there isn't someone between a priest and God. So you have only Jesus as the mediator, the only intercessor. Now the RC say that Jesus is the mediator but then they insert themselves. So they usurp Jesus, they take his role for themselves. They try to say the keys and apostolic succession gives them that power to mediate but scripture says there is one mediator.
1 Timothy 2:5 NET
(5) For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human,

When someone keeps claiming something, it is pretty powerful, even when it isn't true. One can start to doubt, to wonder, what if they are right, what if it is true. One gets tempted to turn from the truth for the false. That has happened countless times over the years.

RC has a hierarchy, you have the believers, then above them the priests, then above them the departed saints. Lutherans have different functions by different people but no such heirarchy. That is an important distinction for I believe the RC church is indeed an example of just what God tells us the Israelites did in the wilderness.

Acts 7:42 kjv
(42) Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?

That is to worship the host of heaven. Now the worship spoken here is latria and the RC will complain that they do not do that. But really look at their system. Patron saints, giving special powers and concerns to various individual saints. Asking for intercession from saints, saints that we don't even know if they can hear the prayers. We know God hears our prayers, but as for the saints, no such luck. Then of course there are the passages telling us to only bow down and serve God.

You really have to take things as a unit. For the RC understanding you need theosis, you need a hierarchy putting the saints as higher than believers on Earth, you need the saints to have been transformed into little gods with the abilities of God to hear simultanous prayers all over the world and to actually have the power to do something about those prayers. Certainly the saints in heaven pray to God, but we have no certainty at all that they hear us and pray what we tell them to pray.

The RC church has reformed somewhat, but I still believe that they are an example of something that can seem right to men yet still be false. If you buy in to their explanations of authority and tradition then you can accept their system, but it's those foundations that just don't stand up to scrutiny, and so the whole thing crumbles.

This is getting a bit long. I will quit. Have a good Thanksgiving everyone.

Marv

[Qoheleth]

...there isn't someone between a priest and God. So you have only Jesus as the mediator, the only intercessor...

but scripture says there is one mediator.

To clarify, there is only one Mediator, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. There are many intercessors though, just as our prayers for you, Fish and Bread, are intercessory.

I have posted this previously...

To be clear concerning the Lutheran Confessional stance, to invoke means to call upon or pray to. Invoking the saints is calling on them or praying to them. Commemorating, however, is simply remembering them or honoring them. The church has never prohibited honoring or commemorating the saints, teaching that such commemoration is, in the end, honoring the grace of God lived in and through the saints.

Concerning invocation, the church prohibits only one kind of invocation—calling upon or praying to the saints in place of Christ, or as if one needs to approach them first in order to pray to Jesus.

This form of invocation is idolatry since it places trust not in God but in our prayers or in the saints.

Other invocations, however, such as asking them to pray for us are permissible and never prohibited.

Q

[BigNorsk]

How do you know that the saints even hear your prayer?

Your intepretation is a bit weak I believe, and limited to using a small part of the confessions in order to bolster your position.

Smalcald Articles state the following.

The invocation of saints is also one fo the abuses of the Antichrist that is in conflict with the first, chief article and tht destroys the knowledge of Christ. It is niether commanded nor recommended, has no precedent in the Scripture, and -even if it were a precious possession, which it is not-we have everything a thousand times better in Christ.

Although the angels in heaven pray for us (as Christ himself also does), and in the same way also the saints on earth and perhaps those in heaven pray for us, it does not follow from this that we ought to invoke angels and saints; pray to them; keep fasts and hold festivals for them; celebrate Masses, make sacrifices, establish churches, altars, or worship services for them; serve them in still other ways; and consider them as helpers in time of need, assign all kinds of assistance to them, and attribute a specific function to particular saints, as the papists teach and do. This is idolatry. Such honor belongs to God alone. As a Christian and saint on earth, you can pray for me, not only in one kind of need but in all necessities. However, on account of that, I ought not pray to you, invoke you, hold a festival, keep a fast, make a sacrifice, perform a Mass in your honor and put my faith in you for salvation. There are other good ways I can honor, love and thank you in Christ. Now if such idolatrous honor is taken away from the angels and dead saints, then the honor that remains will do no harm and will indeed soon be forgotten. When physical and spiritual benefit and help are no longer expected, then the saints will be left in peace, both in the grave and in heaven. For no one will long remember, esteem, or honor them simply out of love with no hope of return.

Isn't it time Q for you to recognize the truth of the Confessions and leave the saints in peace?

Marv

[Fish and Bread]

Happy Thanksgiving, Marv. I agree that your explanations are the preferable and even more likely views to be derived from the scripture by itself, but the Roman Catholic theology also fits, even if it is less preferable or obvious to me. The problem I am running into with Protestantism increasingly is that we a posit a God who wants to be known and then say he wrote a complicated book that is open to a zillion different interpretations, with no person or entity there to interpret it. So, very reluctantly, I'm beginning to come to a conclusion I don't want to come to. I'm hoping to be talked off a cliff here (Figuratively speaking), but I've seen nothing that's been able to convince me yet....

John

[BigNorsk]

If I may, I would suggest reading the "Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. (http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/LCMS/treatise.pdf)"

I think it lays it out pretty clearly.

Marv

[Qoheleth]

How do you know that the saints even hear your prayer?

Your intepretation is a bit weak I believe, and limited to using a small part of the confessions in order to bolster your position.

Smalcald Articles state the following.

The Smalcald article addresses the abuses of invocation and precisely the abuses. If these abuses had not been an issue this article in particular would never have been written.

My statement accurately mirrors the sentiment of this specific article and that is...

"Concerning invocation, the church prohibits only one kind of invocation—calling upon or praying to the saints in place of Christ, or as if one needs to approach them first in order to pray to Jesus.

This form of invocation is idolatry since it places trust not in God but in our prayers or in the saints.

Other invocations, however, such as asking them to pray for us are permissible and never prohibited."


But as to their ability to hear our requests for their prayers, we ought not to limit the powers of spiritual perception of those who are now so intimately linked with God. If we on earth experience the help of the Holy Spirit praying in us and through us (Romans 8:26, 27), how much more must the Spirit's help be present in the saints in heaven? And we should remember that in heaven, in the spiritual realm, there are none of the limitations of time, space, or physical mortality which so restrict us as we live on earth.(David C. Ford, Ph.D.)

And we should not neglect to ask the angels for their prayers as well, since they are expressly sent to us as "minstering spirits" (Hebrews 1:14 also Psalm 91:11 and Isaiah 63:9)


We implore God to grant us blessings and deliver us from evil, we implore the saints to intercede for us to God who grants the petitions. Therefore we pray to God: Have mercy on us, and to the saints, Pray for us




Hebrews 12:1 “Since we therefore have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us…’

Rev. 6:9 5th angel: Under the altar are the souls of the martyrs crying out “How long O Lord before you avenge our blood on those on the earth?” God replies, rest until their fellow servants and brethren are killed also.

Rev. 5:8 …the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each on having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, WHICH ARE THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS. (Who are the “Elders”? Not angels. They are martyrs: golden crowns and white robes/purity)

Rev. 8:3ff “I saw another angel who came and stood before the altar holding a golden censer and much incense was given to him that he might add it to the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar that was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer and he filled it with the fire from the altar and threw it to the earth and there followed peals of thunder, and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

Rev. 7:13 “One of the elders said to me “who are these in the white robes and from
where do they come?” And I said, “Lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation….”

Hebrews 12:22-23 “You HAVE COME to Mount Zion, and to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the myriads of angels, to the general assembly, and the Church of the first born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and the spirits of righteous men made perfect.

James 5:16: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.”


Here are the Bible facts and truths:

Christ overcame death.
The "dead in Christ" are not dead.
Moses and Elijah were speaking with Christ.
We have a "Great cloud of witnesses" watching us.
The souls of the martyrs are under the altar of God praying for those being persecuted.
We, when we come into the Church, come to the heavenly Jerusalem to the spirits of “righteous men made perfect”.
The prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
The elders around the throne are offering up the prayers of the saints to God, the angels offer up the prayers too. (Where did they get those prayers to offer up to God?)
We are commanded as Christians to pray for one another and to ask each other for prayers as an expression of love. Does love for the brethren cease in heaven?
People who are Christians in this life are PROBABLY Christians in the next one.
The Church is the Body of Christ, made up of the “living” and the “asleep” in Christ.
A "prayer" is merely a request. Prayer to the saints is ASKING the saints to INTERCEDE for us, NOT mediate the new covenant.

“Eternal life” begins in THIS life in Christ, it continues in the “next life” in Christ also.

SUMMARY: The BIG question is: Does the Bible REALLY need to explicitly say "It is OK to ask the departed saints to intercede for us?" 2 and 2 is 4 isn't it? What is missing in the equation? ALL the parts are there IN THE BIBLE. The only thing missing in the "sola scriptura" arena is an explicit command. We should also note here that there is no explicit command to NOT pray to the saints in the Bible, either. The preponderance of Scriptural and historical evidence points to the fact that the Church has ALWAYS believed and practiced prayer to the departed saints and thus it did not NEED an explicit command. There are a lot of doctrines that are believed and taught that are “logical conclusions” of biblical principles.

It seems the challenge to the "average" Protestant to look at his own method of Biblical interpretation and his use of "logic" and precision of thinking and defining terms and drawing rational conclusions based on cross referencing and connecting different passages together… wouldn't he be virtually constrained to “pray to the saints” based on all the Biblical teachings above? The saints and angels in heaven are praying, they hold our prayers up to God, place them on His altar, and our fellow Christians who have prayed for us on earth are now perfected in heaven, are witnessing our struggles on earth, and we are all alive in Christ in the Church as one body, members of one another… How can we NOT believe the saints can and do intercede for us before the throne of God? We cannot permit doctrine to be determined by “rome-o-phobia”, it MUST be based in Scripture. (Our Life In Christ)


Q

[CSMR]

Working on the assumption that God wants us to know what he thinks on key topics such as baptism and so forth, how is the average Christian to determine what the "clear word of scripture" is? What is the bottom line that we are to look to? I presume we're not suppose to just all trust our own judgement, since I think Christians near universally agree that God has revealed himself to us, and doesn't just leave to spin a dice where the scriptures seem ambigious.

Can anyone assist me in bettering my understanding of Lutheran thought on this issue?

John
I've just discovered the FAQ on the LCMS website that I had seen before but coudn't find when you posted this.

http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2524

The document it links to, to judge by, er, the chapter headings :blush: should be a useful analysis of the role of the gospel in understanding scripture and vice versa.

[Jim47]

I particularly like the following part of the LCMS statement. Isn't it strange to think that sinful man can actually believe that we can accept God's Word as written without analizing it to see if it fits into our human level of understand? At least some of us can. :thumbsup:


quote from LCMS: It follows from this that for Lutherans, acceptance of Scripture's authority is a matter of faith, not of "proof" at the level of sheer intellect. Accordingly, Lutherans (unlike many fundamentalist groups) do not attempt to "demonstrate" the inerrancy of Scripture on the basis of historical or rational evidence or arguments. Instead, Lutherans focus on proclaiming the Gospel and trust that faith in the Bible will follow from faith in Christ.

[SPALATIN]

I particularly like the following part of the LCMS statement. Isn't it strange to think that sinful man can actually believe that we can accept God's Word as written without analizing it to see if it fits into our human level of understand? At least some of us can. :thumbsup:


I agree Jim. Trying to prove inerrancy by historical or reasonable proof is hard to do and often those that try fail miserably and then they have a crisis of faith to go with it. It is far easier to take what is written in faith and just leave the mystery to God until we get to heaven and can ask him ourselves.