The Lamb on the Altar

"Martin Luther's Easter Book" ed. Roland H. Bainton

2012-01-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Martin Luther's Easter Book ed. Roland H Bainton. Bainton compiles selections from Luther's sermons during Holy Week. Luther's material is divided up into five main sections: "The Journey to Jerusalem and Holy Week," :The Lord's Supper," "Arrest and Trial," "The Crucifixion," and "The Resurrection." Unlike the the Christmas book, the Easter book is subdivided by topic within those sections. The subdivisions don't flow together very well but they allow the reader to read shorter portions.is also an introduction and a list of source material. The listing of the source material was helpful and was a nice improvement over the Christmas Book which only gave hints at the source material. I didn't have time to verify my suspicions, but I suspect that the Easter book is closer to the original source material than the Christmas book is which is both good and bad. The book contains several reproductions of woodcuts and these are much clearer than the ones in Martin Luther's Christmas Book. Luther takes fewer liberties with the text in his Easter sermons than he does with his Christmas sermons but still manages to apply the narratives in a creative way to his contemporaries. Just like in Martin Luther's Christmas Book, Luther takes quite a few swipes at the papacy.

St. John of Damascus "An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith"

2012-01-13T14:12:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus. The book is available as a free download in several different formats. Unfortunately, the Kindle format has typographical errors due to the OCR processing. I used Text To Speech on my Kindle for part of the book and the most humorous error I heard was "And we proclaim the holy Virgin to be properly and truly Mother of God copyright." The hard copy had "Mary Mother of God (Θεοτόκος)." Θεοτόκος is often translated as "Mother of God." OCR had mistaken the first letter of the Greek word "Θ" for a ©.

This is work is important because John of Damascus provides us with a summary of the teachings of the church fathers. Lutheran Christology finds its roots in the writings of John of Damascus. St. John of Damascus spends a surprising amount of time talking about the solar system and the seasons but he provides us with a really interesting Christian worldview.

When it comes to St. John of Damascus's understanding of how we know what we know about God he can sound very Lutheran:

But what the substance of God is, or how it is in all things, or how the only-begotten Son, who was God, emptied Himself out and became man from a virgin's blood, being formed by another law that transcended nature, or how He walked dry-shod upon the waters, we neither understand nor can say. And so it is impossible either to say or fully to understand anything about God beyond what has been divinely proclaimed to us, whether told or revealed, by the sacred declarations of the Old and New Testaments.

He doesn't put any trust in the use of reason to get beyond divine revelation and says that we can really only learn who God is from the Scriptures. He also says things like:

And so, while we are awaiting Him, we worship toward the east. This is, moreover, the unwritten tradition of the Apostles, for they have handed many things down to us unwritten.

Later on he says:

And similarly, also, we are stirred up by the exploits of the holy men to manliness, zeal, imitation of their virtues, and the glory of God. For, as we have said, the honor shown the more sensible of one's fellow servants gives proof of one's love for the common Master, and the honor paid to the image redounds to the original. This is the written tradition, just as is worshiping toward the east, adoring the cross, and so many other similar things. Furthermore, there is a story told about how, when Abgar was lord of the city of Edessenes, he sent an artist to make a portrait of the Lord, and how, when the artist was unable to do this because of the radiance of His face, the Lord Himself pressed a bit of cloth to His own sacred and life-giving face and left His own image on the cloth and so sent this to Abgar who had so earnestly desired it. And Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, writes that the Apostles handed down a great many things unwritten: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle; and to the Corinthians: 'Now I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me and keep my ordinances as I have delivered them to you.'

John of Damascus regards the liturgical traditions and stories of the saints as being part of the authoritative Apostolic tradition. John of Damascus doesn't exactly fit into the Lutheran understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition but he doesn't really fit into Rome's understanding either. Based on what John of Damascus wrote, it would be hard to imagine him defending the infallibility of the Roman Pope or other later developments in Roman dogma. The traditions in John of Damascus are binding but seem to be fixed.

When John of Damascus speaks of the two natures of Christ he uses the analogy of iron and fire which would later be adopted by Lutheran theologians:

And just as if one should pour water upon a red-hot iron, that which is naturally disposed to be affected by the water the fire, I mean will be quenched, while the iron remains unharmed, because it is not of its nature to be destroyed by the water; how much less did the divinity, which is alone impassible, endure the suffering of the flesh and still remain inseparable from it.

Lutherans also speak of the Lord's Supper in similar ways to John of Damascus. Notice that John of Damascus refuses to provide any philosophical explanation such as transubstantiation.

If, then, the word of the Lord is living and effectual,' and if 'whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done'; if He said : 'Be light made, and it was made. Be a firmament made, and it was made'; if by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth'; if heaven and earth, water and fire, and air and the whole universe of these were made perfect by the word of the Lord, and this much famed living being, too, which is man; if by His will God the Word Himself became man and without seed caused the pure and undefiled blood of the blessed Ever-Virgin to form a body for Himself; if all this, then can He not make the bread His body and the wine and water His blood? In the beginning He said: 'Let the earth bring forth the green herb,' and even until now, when the rain falls, the earth brings forth its own shoots under the influence and power of the divine command. God said : 'This is my body,' and, 'This is my blood/ and, 'This do in commemoration of me,' and by His almighty command it is done, until He shall come, for what He said was 'until he come.' And through the invocation the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost becomes a rainfall for this new cultivation. For, just as all things whatsoever God made He made by the operation of the Holy Ghost, so also it is by the operation of the Spirit that these things are done which surpass nature and cannot be discerned except by faith alone. 'How shall this be done to me,' asked the blessed Virgin, because I know not man?' The archangel Gabriel answered, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.And now you ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine and water the blood of Christ, And I tell you that the Holy Ghost comes down and works these things which are beyond description and understanding. Now, bread and wine are used because God knows human weakness and how most things that are not constantly and habitually used cannot be put up with and are shunned. With His usual condescension, therefore, He does through the ordinary things of nature those which surpass the natural order. And just as in the case of baptism, because it is the custom of men to wash themselves with water and anoint themselves with oil He joined the grace of the Spirit to oil and water and made it a laver of regeneration, so, because it is men's custom to eat bread and drink water and wine He joined His divinity to these and made them His body and blood, so that by the ordinary natural things we might be raised to those which surpass the order of nature. This is the body which is truly united to the Godhead, the same which is from the blessed Virgin. This is not because that body which was taken up to heaven comes down from heaven, but because the very bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of God. However, should you inquire as to the manner in which this is done, let it suffice for you to hear that it is done through the Holy Ghost, just as it was through the Holy Ghost that the Lord made flesh subsist for Himself and in Himself from the blessed Mother of God. And more than this we do not know, except that the word of God is true and effective and omnipotent, but the manner in which it is so is impossible to find out. What is more, it is not amiss to say this, that just as bread by being eaten and wine and water by being drunk are naturally changed into the body of the person eating and drinking and yet do not become another body than that which the person had before, so in the same way are the bread of the offertory and the wine and water supernaturally changed into the body and blood of Christ by the invocation and coming down of the Holy Ghost, yet they are not two bodies, but one and the same. Hence, it is unto remission of sins and eternal life and unto a safeguard for body and soul and for such as partake worthily thereof and with faith. But for such as receive unworthily and without faith it is unto chastisement and punishment. It is just as the Lord's death has become life and immortality for those who believe, whereas for those who do not and for those who killed the Lord it is unto chastisement and eternal punishment. The bread and wine are not a figure of the body and blood of Christ God forbid! but the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord Himself said: 'This is my body'; not a figure of my body' but 'my body and not a figure of my blood' but *my blood.' Even before this He had said to the Jews: 'except you eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.' And again: 'He that eateth me, shall live.

Soteriologically there are some differences between Lutherans and John of Damascus. John of Damascus seems to teach that man's will is free to choose to follow God. But this issue is not at the forefront of his work. John of Damascus recognizes Christ-crucified as the central teaching of the Scriptures.

Every action of Christ and all His working of miracles were truly very great and divine and wonderful, but of all things the most wonderful is His honorable cross. For by nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low, the sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to despise the things of this world and even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God, and we made children and heirs of God. By the cross all things have been set aright. To all we who are baptized in Christ,' says the Apostle, 'are baptized in his death' and as many of us as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ'; moreover, 'Christ is the power and wisdom of God.' See how the death of Christ, the cross, that is to say, has clothed us with the subsistent wisdom and power of God! And the word of the Cross is the power of God, whether because by it God's might, His victory over death, that is, was manifested to us, or because, just as the four arms of the cross are made solid and bound together by their central part, so are the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, that is to say, all creation both visible and invisible, held together by the power of God. This we have been given as a sign on our forehead, just as Israel was given the circumcision, for by it we faithful are set apart from the infidels and recognized. It is a shield and armor and a trophy against the Devil. It is a seal that the Destroyer may not strike us, as Scripture says. It is a raising up for those who lie fallen, a support for those who stand, a staff for the infirm, a crook for the shepherded, a guide for the wandering, a perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, an averter of all evils, a cause of all good things, a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection, and a tree of eternal life...

The tree of life which was planted by God in paradise prefigured this honorable Cross, for, since death came by a tree, it was necessary for life and the resurrection to be bestowed by a tree. It was Jacob who first prefigured the cross, when he adored the top of the rod of Joseph. And when he blessed Joseph's sons with his hands crossed, he most clearly described the sign of the cross. [Then there were] the rod of Moses which smote the sea with the form of a cross and saved Israel while causing Pharoah to be swallowed up; his hands stretched out in the form of a cross and putting Amalec to flight; the bitter water being made sweet by a tree, and the rock being struck and gushing forth streams of water; the rod of Aaron miraculously confirming the dignity of the priesthood; a serpent raised in triumph upon a tree, as if dead, with the tree preserving those who with faith beheld the dead enemy, even as Christ was nailed up in flesh of sin but which had not known sin; great Moses calling out: You will see your life hanging before your eyes on a tree'; and Isaias: I have spread forth my hands all day to an unbelieving and contradictory people.' May we who adore this attain to the portion of Christ the crucified. Amen.

"Martin Luther's Christmas Book" edited by Roland H. Bainton

2012-01-04T12:49:00.000-05:00

Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Martin Luther's Christmas Book edited by Roland H. Bainton. Bainton takes 30 years worth of Luther's sermons and turns them into 8 Christmas devotional readings. The eight readings are titled "Annunciation," "Visitation," "Nativity," "Shepherds," "Herod," "Wise Men," and "Presentation." He also has a translation of Luther's hymn "From Heaven High" (aka "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come"). Bainton paraphrases and summarizes Luther but seems to be pretty faithful to Luther's style and intent. Luther's takes some swings at the papacy in some of his sermons. Luther takes some liberties in his interpretation of the Biblical passages but does an excellent job of applying the text to the modern context. He takes every opportunity to encourage people in their vocations (reminding us in one section that angels like to come to visit when you are working faithfully). More importantly he reminds us of how amazing and inconceivable the incarnation really is. The book also features several woodcuts from Luther's contemporaries. My only gripe is that the woodcuts are not very well reproduced. The one on the cover was blurry and it was very difficult to make out some of the detail on some of the woodcuts inside.

Matthew 2:1-12: A Translation

2012-01-03T14:16:00.000-05:00

Now after Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Look!, Magi from the East came into Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the King of the Jews who has been born? For we saw his star in its rising, and we have come to show reverence to him.” But when Herod the king had heard, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and we had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire from them, “Where is the Christ supposed to be born?” And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it stands written through the prophet: ’And you Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, for from you will come forth a Ruler who indeed will shepherd my people, Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly called the Magi and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearing, and he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “After travelling, inquire accurately about the child, and as soon as you find him, report to me in order that I also may come and show reverence to Him.” After they had heard the king they went and—Look!—the star, which they had seen in its rising, began to lead the way for them until it came and stood above where the child was. When they had seen the star they rejoiced with extremely strong joy. And when they went into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and prostrating themselves they showed reverence to him; and after opening their treasures, they brought gifts to him—gold and frankincense and myrrh. And because they had been divinely warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own land by another route.

Matthew 1:18-25

2011-12-22T14:16:00.000-05:00

^1:18-25Now Jesus Christ’s origin was of this sort. After his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they lived together, it was found that she had a pregnant belly (from the Holy Spirit). Now Joseph, her husband, because he was a righteous man and because he did not wish to disgrace her publicly, wanted to divorce here quietly. But after he had reflected on these things, Look!, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take into your home Mary, your wife, for the child that has been begotten in her is from the Holy Spirit. And she will give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” And this whole thing has happened in order that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying: “Look! The virgin will have a pregnant belly, and she will give birth to a son, and they will call his name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” And Joseph got up from sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and he took his wife into his home, but he continued not knowing her sexually during the time before she gave birth to her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.

In verse 18 the Greek literally says, "before they came together." Some have interpreted this as referring to sexual relations but given the customs surrounding betrothal and the use of the phrase in other parts of the Scriptures, it seems more likely that it means "before they lived together" as the ISV and NAB translate it.

The KJV/ESV/NIV/NASB and others say that Mary "was found to be with child." The NLT says "she became pregnant." The Greek literally says "she was found having in the belly." "Having in the belly" is a euphemism for being pregnant. In context, the ideas seems to be that those aroud her noticed that she was pregnant because her belly was growing. It sounds a little clunky but I've decided to translate it as "she was found to have a pregnant belly."

I put "from the Holy Spirit" in parenthesis because in context Joseph and others were not aware that the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. At this point, Mary does not seem to have revealed to others what the angel revealed to her. Matthew is telling us that the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph would find out later.

In verse 25, most translations say that Joseph did not know Mary "until she gave birth." In English, the word "until" carries connotations with it that the Greek does not. "Until" implies that after the birth Joseph did have sexual relations with Mary. But the Greek doesn't imply that. Matthew is making it very clear that Mary and Joseph did not have sexual relations before or during the pregnancy because he wants to make it very clear that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. However, he is silent on the issue of whether or not Mary and Joseph had sexual relations after the pregnancy. I'm not completely happy with "he continued not knowing her sexually during the time before she gave birth" but it's the best I could come up with for the time being.

I look forward to suggestions for improvement.

Matthew 1:1-17: A Translation

2011-12-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

BOOK OF THE ORIGIN OF JESUS CHRIST,

SON OF DAVID, SON OF ABRAHAM

Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah and his brothers, and Judah begat Perez and Zerah from Tamar, and Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Aram, and Aram begat Aminadab, and Aminadab, and Aminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz from Rahab, and Boaz begat Obed from Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king.

And David the king begat Solomon from the one belonging to Uriah, and Solomon begat Rehoboam, and Rehoboam begat Abijah, and Abijah begat Asa, and Asa begat Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat begat Joram, and Joram begat Uzziah, and Uzziah begat Jotham, and Jotham begat Ahaz, and Ahaz begat Hezekiah, and Hezekiah begat Manasseh, and Manasseh begat Amon, and Amon begat Josiah, and Josiah begat Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian deportation.

And after the Babylonian deportation Jeconiah begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel, and Zeruabbabel begat Abioud, and Abioud begat Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor, and Azor begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Akim, and Akim begat Elioud, and Elioud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Matthan, and Matthan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, the one who is called Christ.

Therefore, all the generations from Abraham until David are fourteen generations, and from David until the Babylonian deportation fourteen generations, and from the Babylonian deportation until the Christ fourteen generations.

Bible Translation

2011-12-15T14:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't found the time to read the New Testament in Greek as much as I would like to lately. So, I thought it would be a good idea to get back into translating. I plan to start with the Gospel of Matthew and post sections as I complete them for critique. Some of you may be familiar with translation work I have done in the past but I plan to completely start over.

The Greek text I will be using is the 1904/1912 Antoniades edition. I believe the Antoniades edition to be the best example of what could be called a "Received Text" or "Textus Receptus" or "Eccleasiastical Text." The text is the result of the Greek Orthodox Church's desire to create a standard Greek lectionary. It's very similar to the Greek text behind the KJV and NKJV but free from the poorly attested readings. I plan to also make note of those places where Robinson/Pierpont deviates from the Antoniades edition. The Robinson/Pierpont text is very similar to Antoniades but based on continuous text manuscripts rather than lectionaries. There are a couple of translations of the Antoniades text already including this one but I'm not completely satisfied with the translation.

My goal is to create a translation that brings out more of the nuances in the Greek text without overtranslating and without a creating a translation that sounds ridiculous. Most of the major translations do a good job of providing the reader with a good translation of the text but many of them tend to have an evangelical bias to them which can be seen especially in passages dealing with the sacraments and eschatology. Translations produced by more liberal scholars tend not to have the same problems with eschatology and the sacraments but have Christological problems instead. I'm sure I'll fail often in my quest and will make some of the same mistakes found in other translations but plan to revise and revise.

John MacArthur's Papist Faith

2011-12-13T00:01:00.001-05:00

In one of Rod Rosenbladt's lectures on Luther's Commentary on Galatians he pointed out that Lutheran and Roman Catholics have different definitions of faith. The Roman Catholic church believes that having faith means to cognitively arrive at the position that you believe what the Roman church teaches. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines faith by quoting Thomas Aquinas. It says faith is:

"the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God"

Lutherans define faith as trust in God which is worked in us by God through His Word and sacraments. In previous posts such as this one, I've noted that Baptists think it is absurd that a baby could ever have faith. In MacArthur's recent rant, he talked about how crazy it was that Luther could believe that infants could have faith without ever really explaining why it is crazy to think an infant could have faith. I think the reason he thinks infant faith is crazy is because he's working with a definition of faith that is very similar to the Roman Catholic definition of faith.

Biblically, faith has nothing to do with cognitive ability. John the Baptist lept in faith in his mother's womb. The Psalmist speaks of hoping in God while on his mother's breasts and this Psalm was taken upon the lips of every Israelite and upon the lips of the early Christians. John MacArthur's denial of infant baptism is based upon a definition of faith that is essentially Roman Catholic and completely unbiblical.

Homophobia, Heterophobia, Racism, and Gay Marriage

2011-12-12T12:43:00.000-05:00

Recently a church made the news for its opposition to interracial dating. Those who support homosexual marriage will often make comparisons between those who oppose interracial marriage and those who oppose homosexual marriage. But is the comparison valid?

Historically, marriage laws have been written to attach children to their biological parents. This is really the only reason the state is interested in marriage. Attaching children to their biological parents has absolutely nothing to do with homosexual marriage.

The motivation that stands behind homosexual behavior is actually the exact opposite of what stands behind interracial marriage. Interracial marriage involves a relationship between two people who are not just different from one another as far as their gender goes, but also different from one another in appearance. There are often cultural differences as well. There is a healthy attraction that God has given us to people who are different from ourselves. When we only love people who are exactly like us, our desires have become perverted. Incestuous relationships are the result of heterophobia.

Racism and homosexuality are both the result of perverted desires that cause a person to only love people who share certain characteristics. In both cases, the person has become heterophobic. They fear or at least have a disdain for that which is different from themselves. Because of our sinful nature, it is highly unlikely that we actually become homophobic. Talk radio is so popular not because people want to hear someone with opinions different from their own, but because people want to hear other people who have the same opinions that they hold. I've been to churches where people have no real interest in establishing any type of friendship with you unless they find out your are related to someone else in the congregation. Some churches want the younger people to leave during part of the service or only want to cater to a certain segment of the "market." These are all forms of heterophobia or at least a form of narcissism.

When people respond to homosexuals by taunting them or beating them up, even this is a strange form of heterophobia which is directed against another person suffering from heterophobia. The first person is inflicting pain on someone else because he has hatred towards those who have different desires from himself.

The same is true with religious persecution. You can hear heterophobia coming from the pulpit as pastors warn their congregation against visiting other churches and spout off all kinds of slander against other church bodies. There is a healthy curiosity give to us by God that allows us to engage in discussion with people who have beliefs different from our own. If we are primarily concerned for the truth instead of the preservation of institutions we can critically evaluate the reasons people give us for what they believe without fearing their beliefs.

Religious pluralism isn't the answer either. Pluralism is also a form of heterophobia. Rather than engage in discussion and debate over the real issues that divide the heterophobic pluralist tells himself that everyone is pretty much teaching the same thing--unless of course you teach that your beliefs are the only true beliefs. The pluralist has a fear of those who unlike himself believe in absolute truth.

Heterophobia in the church rears its ugly head when people make a common emotional experience the criteria for church membership. Some churches insist that everyone have a dramatic conversion experience and question the salvation of those haven't had one. Some churches are united around being "happy all the day." They fear suffering and so they tell themselves they are happy all the time and avoid anyone who actually appears to be suffering.

In the Scriptures, unity is found around a common confession that centers around Jesus Christ and His work. Those looking for a spouse should look for someone with a common confession as well. The insistence on this one point of "sameness" allows for the greatest overall diversity. There can be great diversity in age and cultural background. There can be a great deal of variety when it comes to personal taste.

Part of the common confession is a confession that we are sinners. We can treat those outside of the church with respect and dignity because we know that we are sinners just like they are and Christ shed His blood for them just as He shed His blood for us.

Every Day Will I Bless Thee: Meditations For the Daily Office by Burnell F. Eckardt Jr.

2011-12-06T12:56:00.000-05:00

I used the Treasury of Daily Prayer for a couple of years and really enjoyed it but was looking for something different. For the past few months I've been using Every Day Will I Bless Thee by Burnell F. Eckardt Jr. Use copies are selling for over $100 on Amazon but you can still purchase it new from the Concordia Catechetical Academy for $16 plus shipping and handling.The book is arranged according to the liturgical calendar. It follows the historic one year lectionary for Sundays and Feast Days and uses the suggested New Testament readings from The Lutheran Hymnal for the other days. There is also a Psalm for each week. The New Testament reading is printed in full on the page from the NKJV along with a short meditation. Unfortunately the Psalm of the week is not printed in the book.

The meditations are absolutely wonderful. Their short but profound. They interpret the passage in the same sort of way that the church fathers interpreted the Scriptures. These meditations provide an excellent example of how the Scriptures should be interpreted. They're all centered upon Christ and accurately apply Law and Gospel. Every Day Will I Bless Thee could easily be used with the Treasury of Daily Prayer if you desired more liturgy. With my growing family, I prefer the shorter devotional meditations in Every Day Will I Bless Thee to the ones found in Treasury of Daily Prayers. Treasury of Daily Prayer has some great selections for the meditations but they don't always explain the passage and are often too complicated for my children to understand. Every Day Will I Bless Thee reinforces what the children are already hearing at church. Every Day Will I Bless Thee reflects the spirit of the one year lectionary by really driving home a smaller number of shorter texts.

Precept Upon Precept, Line Upon Line?

2011-12-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

In some circles it has become popular to look to Isaiah 28:10 as the key to Biblical interpretation:

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little

Harold Camping, Kay Arthur, Pentecostals, and people with all kinds of different beliefs all point to this text as providing the basis for Biblical interpretation. They seem to understand it to be teaching that the Bible is like a giant jigsaw puzzle that needs to be interpreted by putting different verses together. During Harold Camping's recent apology he seemed to be saying that his methodology was not wrong but that he may have gotten a "precept" wrong and needed to redo the math.

The quotation above is from the KJV but you'll find that the ESV and some others provide a similar translation. As far as I can tell this translation finds its origins in the Geneva Bible. There is actually quite a bit of dispute as to how this passage should be translated. The dispute began before the English language existed. The Latin Vulgate reads differently and so does the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint says:

Expect thou affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope: yet a little, yet a little,

I think there are good reasons for accepting the Septuagint as the authoritative edition of the Old Testament but that's a different topic. Some have argued that the Hebrew in the passage can be harmonized with the Septuagint. Doing so would lead to a nice Law/Gospel interpretation. You can read a survey of the different ways this verse has been translated/interpreted here. The Hebrew transliterated says:

kiy tsav latsav tsav latsav kav lakav kav lakav ze'eyr sham ze'eyr sham.

Some have argued because of the disputed meaning of the words and the way the Hebrew sounds when read aloud that this is sort of the English equivalent of "Blah! Blah! Blah!" or perhaps the way Charlie Brown's school teacher sounds. Others have argued that these words mean "stench" and "vomit."

I do not have the skills required to determine the best translation of the text. But with all the uncertainty as to the meaning of these words, it doesn't seem to be a very good place to go to find an interpretive key to the rest of the Scriptures.

Because I lack the linguistic skills, for the rest of this blog post I will assume that the translation is basically correct. But even then, the verse when read in context does not teach what those who are using it as the key to Biblical interpretation think it is teaching. Here's verses 7-13 from the KJV:

But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

The end result of receiving "precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little" is that "they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." This is clearly not a positive thing. I found one Pentecost site that tried to find their doctrine of being slain in the Spirit in this text but any reasonable reading of the text makes it clear that falling backward, being broken, and taken is not a good thing.

Through Isaiah, God is judging Judah, particularly Judah's priests and prophets. God accuses the priests and prophets of trusting in the nations instead of Himself. He also says they are drunkards and proclaiming false prophecies because of their drunkenness. They are drunk both on alcohol and power.

"Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"

The prophets and priests are mocking Isaiah. The prophets and priests think that Isaiah is treating them like babies. The prophets and priests believe that they have moved beyond such childish things as the simple Law and Gospel that Isaiah is bringing to them. They believe that they have no need for Isaiah's simple message.

Because Judah would not listen to God's simple Gospel of rest from their labors and instead searched for secret teachings in the Word of God and believed that the whole point was to treat the Bible like a giant jigsaw puzzle, God said that he would send a people who spoke a foreign language to bring His Word to them. In the immediate context the people of a foreign tongue was the Assyrian invaders which would result in Judah falling into even greater confusion. God would send the Assyrian army to actually bring them what they accused God's Word of being--"precept upon precept; line upon line; here a little, and there a little."

The greater fulfillment of this prophecy is found in the New Testament. The Pharisees interpreted God's Law to basically be "precept upon precept, line upon line." They taught that the Law was doable and came up with a long list of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. When Jesus came along and showed them that they were not keeping the Law and that the Law was designed to drive them to Himself, they had Him crucified. They rejected the message of rest and peace brought by Jesus--a far greater prophet than Isaiah. After the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Jews continued to reject the rest and peace that only Jesus provides and instead clung to the precepts and lines. Because the Jews had rejected the Gospel of Christ-crucified, God put this message in the mouths of Gentiles--a foreign people with a foreign tongue. As Judaism has continued to develop since the destruction of the temple, it has become more and more fixated upon the precepts and lines. You can listen to lectures given by Jews on iTunes who have very little confidence that many of the events in the Old Testament actually happened but continue to observe the Old Testament dietary laws rather strictly. They have councils that meet and debate to determine which foods are kosher. It's as if God has punished their failure to believe that true rest can only be found in Christ by causing them to adopt a ridiculous list of rules that looks utterly insane to anyone who isn't in the middle of it.

The Christian church should know better, but since its inception the Christian church has had those who in one way or another want to treat the Bible as a long list of precepts that must be followed and assembled in a giant jigsaw puzzle. The Judaizers demanded that Christians still observe certain portions of the ceremonial law--at least the real important ones. We still find these types in the Messianic Jewish movements. But we find them in the pietist movements as well. We find Judaizers in the heirs of the Puritans. Are you excited about missions? If you're not you might not really be a Christian. If you have a tattoo or celebrate Christmas or receive a blood transfusion or drink alcohol or worship on Sunday or use the NIV or eat bacon you might not really be a Christian. Harold Camping said that if you didn't agree with him on the date of the return of Christ you weren't really a Christian. It would be impossible to list all the rules that people have inferred from the Scriptures by trying to read between the lines.

There have also always been gnostics of one sort or another who try to read between the lines to find the true spiritual meaning. In more liberal circles you find those who deny historical events such as the resurrection but try to find a "deeper" spiritual meaning hidden beneath what the text actually says. It's strange that the "deeper" meaning often seems much more shallow. Jesus living on in our hearts just doesn't seem very deep. Both conservative and liberal gnostics share a general belief that the ancients were basically idiots and poor interpreters of Scripture. Conservatives don't have have a problem with the fact that nobody really questioned the bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar or denied baptismal regeneration for about 1000 years. We're so much better interpreters of the Scriptures after all. God can't possibly work through matter or be in more than one place at once. They deny those places where God has promised to work faith and instead look for life principles and moral lessons.

If we are not to interpret the Scriptures "precept upon precept, line upon line" then how should we interpret the Scriptures? Jesus already gave us the answer. Jesus said all the Bible is about Him. The Apostles understood this. That's why Matthew takes Hosea 11:1 and interprets it as a prophecy about Jesus. The Apostles found Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament and so did the early church fathers. During the middle ages, many lost their way and began to find little more than life principles and laws. Luther sought to correct this drift into error. But today Protestantism is doing the same thing that Rome was doing. If you took a class on Biblical interpretation and interpreted the Scriptures in the same way the Apostles or the early church fathers did, you probably wouldn't pass the class.

The law is there to show us our own inability to keep all the precepts and to drive us to Christ. We can only find rest in Christ. If we deny the rest that is found in Christ, we will be driven mad and will precept upon precept, line upon line and be damned in our own self-righteousness.

Luther on Galatians

2011-11-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been listening to Rod Rosenbladt's lectures on Luther's commentary on Galatians. There's some great stuff in there. But I've decided to take a break and repent of my failure to read the actual book. You can download an audibook version for free from Librovox. Paul condemns all who attempt to come between us and forgiveness in Christ and so does Luther. Luther's warnings apply just as much in our day as he did when he wrote them. Luther's condemnation of the teachings of Rome, the anabaptists, and Mohammedans still apply. Calvinists who read or listen to this will also get a good understanding of the differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism. Unlike the rest of the groups mentioned, Luther does not mention the Calvinists by name but does warn against looking to God's attributes and being distracted from God revealed in Christ-crucified by becoming obsessed with the hidden God.

Early Christian Spirituality

2011-11-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Early Christian Spirituality. This book is part of the Sources of Early Christian Thought series. Typical of the series, the book is 120 pages long with about about half the book devoted to introductory material and the other half containing a collection of primary source material. The introductions were helpful in describing the historical setting of the documents and their general purpose. There was a little bit of neo-orthodox vocabulary in some of the descriptions but nothing too distracting. The book spans the time period from the second century through seventh century. The first writing is some very short selections from the Odes of Solomon.

The next selection is The Martyrs of Lyon. If you visit your local Christian bookstore and visit the "Christian Spirituality" section you are unlikely to find accounts of martyrdoms. If you look in the movie section of the Christian bookstore you are likely to find movies where the main character is having problems at work and marital problems but converts to Christ and lives happily ever after. Early Christian Spirituality was the exact opposite and many places in the world today it is still the exact opposite. If you convert to Christianity people may kill you instead of giving you a job promotion. The early Christians understood that imitating Christ meant much more than looking at a WWJD bracelet to decide what car to buy. The imitation of Christ often included being killed. Christians would retell these martyrdoms to strengthen one another in the faith instead of stories about how becoming a Christian will make you rich and successful.

The next selection is Clement of Alexandria's Exhortation to the Greeks. Then Athanasius of Alexandria On the Interpretation of the Psalms where Athanasius understands the Psalms Christologically and gives helpful advice on how to understand them.

Then we have a sermon by Gregory of Nazianzus. Next we find Concerning Virgins by Ambrose of Milan. Ambrose recognizes the importance of marriage and children but praises virginity just as Paul does in his epistles. The praise of virginity seems to be absent in Protestantism. Then there's a sermon by Augustine on the first Epistle of John.

The last two selections in the book were my favorite. "Through the Coming of Your Holy Spirit" is profound as are all Romanos the Melodist's hymns. The last selection is from Maximus the Confessor. I don't think I've ever read such theologically deep material and hope to read more by Maximus in the future.

TULIP in the Church Fathers?

2011-11-21T14:01:00.000-05:00

If you do some searching on the Internet you will come across more than a couple websites that have quotations from the church fathers that are said to support the doctrines of Calvinism. These quotations are taken from the Appendix of Putting Amazing Back Into Grace by Michael Horton. Horton is attempting to establish the catholicity of Calvinism. This is important. The Christian church did not start at the time of the Reformation. A Christian group must be able to show that their teachings from the time of the Apostles onward or they are really a new religion. Martin Chemintz ably demonstrated in his Examination of the Council of Trent that Lutheran teachings were not novelties but in fact the historic teachings of the church. He showed that the Roman church's teachings were not based on the historic teachings of the church but were based on relatively new teachings that developed in the middle ages. Unfortunately Horton does not provide references for checking the original context of the quotes, not even the title of the work that is being quoted. This makes tracking the original context of the quotes down difficult and calls the quote itself into question. There are numerous works that have been attributed to different church fathers that were later found to be fraudulent. In addition to the problem of verifying the quote, many of the quotes don't seem to actually support the Calvinist doctrine they are listed under. You have to read Calvinism into the quote and teaching Calvinism doesn't seem to be the original author's intention.

Some of the quotes given in the Total Depravity seem to legitimately support the doctrine of total depravity while others are not quite as clear. The Scriptures teach total depravity and some of the church fathers did. But some of the church fathers quoted did not believe in total depravity. They understood man's will to be weakened by sin but did not teach full blown total depravity.

Some of the quotes listed under Unconditional Election are legitimate, others are not. But you'll notice that none of the quotes teach an election unto damnation. There's nothing distinctively Calvinist about the quotes. They all seem to support the Lutheran position as well.

The LIP section of the TULIP is where the problems really start rolling in. The Bible speaks of the atonement in a number of different ways. Sometimes the Scriptures speak of the atonement applying to everyone. Sometimes the Bible speaks specifically of Christ giving His life for the church--for those who actually end up receiving all the benefits of the atonement. A number of quotes simply speak of the atonement in this second sense. What is needed to prove a Calvinist understanding of the atonement is a statement that Christ did not give his life for certain people and there's only a couple quotes that actually seem to teach that. Horton quotes Justin Martyr as saying:

He endured the sufferings for those men whose souls are [actually] purified from all iniquity...As Jacob served Laban for the cattle that were spotted, and of various forms, so Christ served even to the cross for men of every kind, of many and various shapes, procuring them by His blood and the mystery of the cross.

The first thing you'll notice is the brackets. Horton has inserted the word "actually" into the text. This is from Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho. In the original text the portions separated by the "..." are actually from two different chapters. The first part of the quote comes from chapter XLI where Justin Martyr is teaching that the offering of fine flour in the Old Testament was a figure of the Lord's Supper. He writes:

"And the offering of fine flour, sirs," I said, "which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed, in remembrance of the suffering which He endured on behalf of those who are purified in soul from all iniquity, in order that we may at the same time thank God for having created the world, with all things therein, for the sake of man, and for delivering us from the evil in which we were, and for utterly overthrowing principalities and powers by Him who suffered according to His will. Hence God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: 'I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands: for, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, My name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering: for My name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord: but ye profane it.' He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name, and that you profane . The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first.

So the point is that Jesus suffered for those who partake of the Eucharist. There's nothing to suggest that these people could not fall away and nothing that teaches that Jesus did not suffer for others. The second part of the quotation is from chapter CXXXIV. For those who need to brush up on their Roman numerals, Horton is taking a quotation from part of chapter 41 and combining it with a quotation from part of chapter 134. The end of Chapter CXXXIV says:

Attend therefore to what I say. The marriages of Jacob were types of that which Christ was about to accomplish. For it was not lawful for Jacob to marry two sisters at once. And he serves Laban for [one of] the daughters; and being deceived in [the obtaining of] the younger, he again served seven years. Now Leah is your people and synagogue; but Rachel is our Church. And for these, and for the servants in both, Christ even now serves. For while Noah gave to the two sons the seed of the third as servants, now on the other hand Christ has come to restore both the free sons and the servants amongst them, conferring the same honour on all of them who keep His commandments; even as the children of the free women and the children of the bond women born to Jacob were all sons, and equal in dignity. And it was foretold what each should be according to rank and according to fore-knowledge. Jacob served Laban for speckled and many-spotted sheep; and Christ served, even to the slavery of the cross, for the various and many-formed races of mankind, acquiring them by the blood and mystery of the cross. Leah was weak-eyed; for the eyes of your souls are excessively weak. Rachel stole the gods of Laban, and has hid them to this day; and we have lost our paternal and material gods. Jacob was hated for all time by his brother; and we now, and our Lord Himself, are hated by you and by all men, though we are brothers by nature. Jacob was called Israel; and Israel has been demonstrated to be the Christ, who is, and is called, Jesus.

In the actual passage, Justin is saying that Jesus served for both Jew and Gentile. Trypho was not a Christian but in this passage Justin describes him as one of the Jews for whom Christ "served." In reality the passage speaks against a limited atonement. Horton quotes Tertullian as saying:

"Christ died for the salvation of His people...for the church."

I was not able to locate this in any of Tertullian's actual writings. The quote appears to actually be a combination of what Tertullian wrote and Gill's commentary on what Tertullian wrote. Gill interprets "for the people" as meaning "for the church." In the passage, Tertullian is writing against Marcion.

But (you say) God was even then mean enough in His very fierceness, when, in His wrath against the people for their consecration of the calf, He makes this request of His servant Moses: "Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation." Accordingly, you maintain that Moses is better than his God, as the deprecator, nay the averter, of His anger. "For," said he, "Thou shalt not do this; or else destroy me along with them." Pitiable are ye also, as well as the people, since you know not Christ, prefigured in the person of Moses as the deprecator of the Father, and the offerer of His own life for the salvation of the people. It is enough, however, that the nation was at the instant really given to Moses. That which he, as a servant, was able to ask of the Lord, the Lord required of Himself. For this purpose did He say to His servant, "Let me alone, that I may consume them," in order that by his entreaty, and by offering himself, he might hinder (the threatened judgment), and that you might by such an instance learn how much privilege is vouchsafed with God to a faithful man and a prophet.

Turtullian's point is that just as Moses offered to sacrifice himself for the sin of the people, so Jesus actually sacrificed Himself for the sin of the people. Notice that Tertullian doesn't even say "His" people as Horton quotes him. Tertullian says "the people." Tertullian is not writing against a universal atonement but against someone who believes that the Old Testament god is different from the New Testament God.

Horton quotes Cyprian as saying:

"All the sheep which Christ hath sought up by His blood and sufferings are saved...Whosoever shall be found in the blood, and with the mark of Christ shall only escape...He redeemed the believers with the price of His own blood...Let him be afraid to die who is not reckoned to have any part in the cross and sufferings of Christ."

I have not been able to locate the source of this quote. From what I can tell, it seems like Horton took quotations from various letters written by Cyprian, strung them together, and then inserted additional words. The words "are saved" appear to be inserted by Horton. John Gill quotes a passage from Cyprian that says the same thing but he omits "are saved." If "are saved" were included in the original I'm sure he would have included it. In Cyprian's letter to Father Stephanus he writes:

For although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock, and ought to collect and cherish all the sheep which Christ by His blood and passion sought for; nor ought we to suffer our suppliant and mourning brethren to be cruelly despised and trodden down by the haughty presumption of some, since it is written, “But the man that is proud and boastful shall bring nothing at all to perfection, who has enlarged his soul as hell.”

When Cyprian writes a letter to Demetrianus he says:

What previously preceded by a figure in the slain lamb is fulfilled in Christ, the truth which followed afterwards. As, then, when Egypt was smitten, the Jewish people could not escape except by the blood and the sign of the lamb; so also, when the world shall begin to be desolated and smitten, whoever is found in the blood and the sign of Christ alone shall escape.

Cyprian appears to be referring to baptism here and warns that only the baptized will be saved. "He redeemed believers with the price of His own blood" is from another section of the same letter. The last part of the quote is take from Cyprian's work On the Mortality where he gives comfort to those who are suffering during a horrible plague:

This trial, that now the bowels, relaxed into a constant flux, discharge the bodily strength; that a fire originated in the marrow ferments into wounds of the fauces; that the intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting; that the eyes are on fire with the injected blood; that in some cases the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the contagion of diseased putrefaction; that from the weakness arising by the maiming and loss of the body, either the gait is enfeebled, or the hearing is obstructed, or the sight darkened;--is profitable as a proof of faith. What a grandeur of spirit it is to struggle with all the powers of an unshaken mind against so many onsets of devastation and death! what sublimity, to stand erect amid the desolation of the human race, and not to lie prostrate with those who have no hope in God; but rather to rejoice, and to embrace the benefit of the occasion; that in thus bravely showing forth our faith, and by suffering endured, going forward to Christ by the narrow way that Christ trod, we may receive the reward of His life and faith according to His own judgment! Assuredly he may fear to die, who, not being regenerated of water and the Spirit, is delivered over to the fires of Gehenna; he may fear to die who is not enrolled in the cross and passion of Christ; he may fear to die, who from this death shall pass over to a second death; he may fear to die, whom on his departure
from this world eternal flame shall torment with never-ending punishments; he may fear to die who has this advantage in a lengthened delay, that in the meanwhile his groanings and his anguish are being postponed.

So, in the original context the quote is not saying that Jesus did not die for some people. Instead the quote is saying that unbaptized will suffer greater torment when they die. Horton quotes Eusebius as saying:

To what 'us' does he refer, unless to them that believe in Him? For to them that do not believe in Him, He is the author of their fire and burning. The cause of Christ's coming is the redemption of those that were to be saved by Him."

The first two sentences are actually separated from one another by some other text Eusebius and even they read somewhat differently than the way Horton quotes them. What Eusebius actually says in Demonstratio Evangelica Book 7 is:

And the prophet expecting this birth of Christ in the aforesaid Psalm, and regarding its postponement and delay as if it were the cause of the fall of David's throne, cries in disgust, "But thou hast refused, and made of no account, and cast off thy Christ." And he prays as though doubting the Divine Being, that the promise may be somehow swiftly fulfilled: "Where is thine ancient pity, Lord, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth? "which same things his prophecy most clearly says will be fulfilled at the birth of the Angel of Great Counsel. "Wherefore they will wish," he says, "to have been burnt with fire, those before named for unto us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the Angel of Great Counsel." To us, that is, who in Galilee of the Gentiles have believed on Him, to whom He has brought light and joy, and the new and fresh drink of the mystery of the new Covenant: according to the prophecy which says:

"First drink this, drink quickly—land of Zabulon, and land of Nephthalim, and the rest who dwell by the coast, across Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: O people that sat in darkness, behold a great light, and to them that sat in darkness and the shadow of death a light is risen."

These are they who from the Gentiles believed in the Christ of God, and the disciples and apostles of our Saviour, whom He called from the land of Zabulon and Nephthalim, and chose for the preachers of His Gospel. To them therefore who believed, the Angel of Great Counsel is given as a son to bring them salvation, but to them who disbelieved fire and burning.

So according to Eusebius Christ brought salvation to the Gentiles and gave the the Eucharist. Christ brings salvation to those who believe but condemnation to those who do not. The third sentence in Horton's quote is actually found a chapter earlier in Eusebius' work:

THIS clearly gives the good news of the Descent of God the Word from heaven, Who is named, and of the result of His Coming. For it says, "He sent his Word and healed them." And we say distinctly that the Word of God was He that was sent as the Saviour of all men, Whom we are taught by the Holy Scriptures to reckon divine. And it darkly suggests that He came down even unto death for the sake of those who had died before Him, and in revealing the redemption of those to be saved by Him it shews the reason of His Coming. For He saved without aid from any one those that had gone before Him even to the gates of death, healed them and rescued them from their destruction. And this He did simply by breaking what are called the gates of death, and crushing the bars of iron.

In context and translated properly the sentence actually speaks of a universal atonement.

The first quote that Jerome provides that actually seems to support a limited atonement is from Jerome:

"Christ is sacrificed for the salvation of believers...Not all are redeemed, for not all shall be saved, but the remnant...All those who are redeemed and delivered by Thy blood return to Zion, which Thou hast prepared for Thyself by Thine own blood...Christ came to redeem Zion [a metaphor for the church] with His blood. But lest we should think that all are Zion or every one in Zion is truly redeemed of the Lord, who are redeemed by the blood of Christ form the Church...He did not give His life for every man, but for many, that is, for those who would believe."

But again, this is a mishmash of quotes that are combined into one. Gill provides references for most of these. Unfortunately the works that these come from have not all been translated, so its difficult to establish context. Gill does provide more context than Horton does. From the longer quotation that Gill provides, its apparent that when Jerome says that "Christ is sacrificed from the salvation of believers" Jerome is talking about the Eucharist. Horton appears to be compiling various quotations that Gill provides. Unfortunately I don't believe that the documents that Gill is quoting from are available in a full English translation. You can read the Latin of the middle section that Horton quotes here. My Latin is a little bit rusty but it does not appear that Jerome is saying that Jesus not die for everyone, instead he's saying that not all are redeemed. In fact this same language is used by the Council of Quierzy in 853 against Gottschalk. Gottschalk is perhaps the first Calvinist. He taught double predestination and a limited atonement. Against Gottschalk, the Council of Quierzy said:

Christ's blood was shed for all, although not all are redeemed by the mystery of the passion.

I was unable to locate the source of the last part of Horton's quote which says, "He did not give His life for every man, but for many, that is, for those who would believe." My suspicion is that this is actually Horton's summary of Gill's commentary on the Jerome quote and not something found in Jerome's actual writings.

Horton quotes Anselm as saying:

If you die in unbelief, Christ did not die for you.

I have not been able to find this in any of Anselm's writings. I found an Erwin Lutzer book that made the same claim but without quotation marks and without a reference.

Horton quotes Remigius as saying in 850:

Since only the elect are saved, it may be accepted that Christ did not come to save all and did not die on the cross for all.

I was able to find this same statement without quotation marks in Historical Theology by Geoffrey Bromiley. The statement appears to be Bromiley's summary of what Remigius taught rather than a quotation from Remigius. I have been unable to locate any primary source material and there is conflicting information as to what Remigius's position actually was. Remigius's writings on predestination and the limited atonement seem to be primarily written against the treatment of Gottschalk. Some claim that Remigius was not arguing for the theology of Gottschalk but only the treatment that Gottschalk received while others argue that Remigius was arguing in defense of the theological position of Gottschalk. Based on the various articles that I've read, it seems most likely that Remigius did in fact support Gottschalk on the limited atonement but had some differences with him on the issue of free will.

In 840 Gotteschalk was accused of teaching double predestination and a limited atonement. It's still not entirely clear if he actually taught these things. But if he did, he would be the first known theologian to teach a limited atonement and double predestination. Some have argued based on some of Gotteschalk's writings that Gotteschalk actually taught that predestination was the result of God foreknowing that some men would die in sin and that Christ's death would not be of any benefit to those who die in sin. While Gottschalk's actual position on the atonement and predestination remain in dispute, it seems clear that he held to a rather bizarre form of Tritheism where each person has his own separate deity.

In order to avoid making this post extraordinarily long, I will not go through all the quotes that Horton provides for Irresistable Grace and the Perseverance of the Saints. But none of them prove Calvinism in the church fathers. The quotes for Irresistable Grace really only prove that the church fathers believed that faith is a gift from God. But these church fathers believed that a person could fall away from the faith and resist God's grace. In order to prove Irresistable Grace and the Perseverance of the Saints, Horton would have to provide quotes that say that once a person is given true faith they will never all away.

Horton fails to prove the catholicity of the Calvinist tradition. He doesn't provide the kind of substantial quotations from the church fathers that Martin Chemnitz provides for Lutheranism or that can be found on the Lutheran Catholicity Blog.

John MacArthur on Infant Baptism

2011-11-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, a couple of lectures that John MacArthur gave on infant baptism have been making their way around the web. MacArthur begins by bringing up the issue of baptized non-Christians and unbaptized Christians. Then he talks about how his church broadcasts baptisms over the radio (boasting of baptisms over the radio is a little strange). Then he says:

But there’s a world of people who don’t get it, who don’t understand it. And there are people who don’t know that it is important and who don’t think the methodology is important, or even the time when a person is baptized. There are folks who are just plain confused about baptism, what is its method, and what is its meaning, and in particular, what about the baptizing of infants, which is how you get a world full of non-Christians who have been baptized as infants.

From this paragraph alone it's very clear that Johnny Mac believes that baptism is a law that we need to accomplish and that we need to do in a very specific way. He is also troubled by the great number of people who were baptized as infants and at least according to him are non-Christians. As a former Baptist I can tell you that there are plenty of people on the membership roll of Baptist churches who have been Baptized according to the standards set forth by Baptists who are not living as Christians and don't attend any church. It does follow from the fact that some people do not live as baptized Christians that there was something wrong with their baptism. MacArthur goes on to say:

Many churches are so designed to be pragmatic and baptism isn’t really a very pragmatic thing to introduce into people’s lives. And so it just gets left behind. Pragmatism has been the death of the sacraments, we might say. But what concerns me is that we need to understand baptism because it is in Scripture a command…a command. The Great Commission is very clear at the end of the gospel of Matthew in chapter 28, you know these words. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” All nations need to hear the gospel and those that believe need to be baptized.

Once again we find MacArthur emphasizing his belief that baptism is a command that must be fulfilled. It is all Law for him. Baptism is not Gospel for John MacArthur. You'll notice that MacArthur is reading his own tradition into the Matthew 28 text. Jesus did not say "All nations need to hear the gospel and those that believe need to be baptized." In the Greek the only flat-out command in the verse is to disciple the nations. "Baptizing" is a participle that tells us how disciples are made. Disciples are made by baptizing them. The text doesn't say anything about a person having to be able to express his faith in order for that person to be baptized.

Peter in the first sermon on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 says, “Repent and be baptized.” On that day there were thousands of people, three thousand baptized, thousands more day after day after day in the early days of the church as it began to grow. It is clear in Scripture that Baptism is a requirement, it is a command, both to the individual believer and to the church.

Notice that in the text itself, baptism is not something the person does but something that is done to the person. It's passive. Peter doesn't say, "Baptize yourself." Peter says, "Be baptized." If we read Acts 2 we find that Peter does not say, "Be baptized to fulfill God's Law." Peter says, "Be baptized for the forgiveness of sins." For Peter Baptism is Gospel. For John MacArthur baptism is Law. If you were starving and I handed you a sandwich and said, "Take, eat, and be full" you wouldn't think you were fulfilling some strange Law. You would take it as good news that someone gave you something to eat to keep you from starving.

But for the most part, historically, Christianity has been marked by infant baptism. In fact, from about the fourth century on, infant baptism has been the norm in the Christian church. The Reformation in the 1500’s didn’t change that. So in that sense, it was an incomplete Reformation.

MacArthur's claims simply aren't true based on the historical evidence. I deal with these claims in a series of blog posts I did on Baptist successionism. The historical evidence actually shows that infant baptism dates back to the time of the Apostles and nobody argued against it until the 1100s. MacArthur regards the Reformation as incomplete because it didn't do away with infant baptism. But the Reformation was all about doing away with those practices which had developed over the years that were contrary to Scripture. The Scriptures say to baptize the nations for the forgiveness of sins. The Scriptures do not say to leave certain classes or types of people out. MacArthur then tell us he is going to give us five reasons not to baptize infants.

Here’s the first one and this would be enough, infant baptism is not in the Scripture. Infant baptism is not in the Scripture. Scripture nowhere advocates or records any such thing as the baptism of an infant. It is therefore impossible to support infant baptism from the Bible. It is not in the Bible. There’s not an incident of it, there’s not a mandate, there’s not a call for it, there’s not a description of it. It doesn’t appear. In fact, if you go back in history, and I’m going to do that a little bit with you, you will find that historians have affirmed this fact. Theological leaders in generations past have affirmed this truth.

There's no specific Scriptural command to baptize John MacArthur therefore John MacArthur should never have been baptized. There is no explicit command against abortion, therefore abortion is okay. Infants should be baptized because they are part of the nations. When the Apostles went and carried out the Great Commission they baptized households. The only specific examples where individuals were baptized without the rest of the household are Jesus, Paul, and the Ethiopian eunuch and none of them had households to baptize.

For example, Friedrich Schleiermacher, the German theologian wrote, “All traces of infant baptism which are asserted to be found in the New Testament must first be inserted there.” And he would come from a Lutheran tradition, but affirm…you would have to put it into the Bible because it isn’t there. The host of German and front-rank theologians and scholars of the Church of England have united to affirm not only the absence of infant baptism from the New Testament, but the absence from apostolic and post-apostolic writers. This is the Anglican Church, the Church of England that does infant baptism. This is the Lutheran Church that affirms and does infant baptism saying it’s not in the Bible.

Schleiermacher was the exact opposite of a confessional Lutheran theologian. He grew up in a pietist home. Pietism was a movement that developed in reaction to Lutheran orthodoxy. Lutheran orthodoxy is known for its emphasis upon the objective work of Christ in the Word and in the sacraments. The pietists believed that subjective religious experience was much more important. You can actually find much of the language of pietism in John MacArthur. He tends to emphasize looking for assurance of salvation in a gradual growth in righteousness rather than in the crucified Christ objectively proclaimed. Pietism did not deny that the Bible recorded real history but tended to minimize the historical statements of the Scriptures. As one of the founders of modern liberal theology, Schleiermacher took this one step further. He denied that the Bible is a revelation from God and instead taught that it is a collection of religious experiences. He doubted the reliability of ancient history in general. Schleiermacher does not back up his assertion with evidence.

The theologians that MacArthur makes reference to are all in the liberal camp. They deny the authority of Scripture and are not confessionally Lutheran. So apparently, what makes a front-rank theologian in the eyes of John MacArthur is denying infant baptism regardless of the fact that they deny that Bible is God's revelation to man. It's hardly honest for MacArthur to act as if the Lutheran church as a whole teaches that infant baptism is not found in the Bible. I suppose instead you could draw the conclusion that the less you believe the words of the Scripture to be true, the more likely you are to believe that infant baptism is not found in the Bible. Joachim Jeremias has written a very well-researched, scholarly work showing infant baptism in the New Testament Scriptures. MacArthur goes on to say:

It arose, first of all, started appearing in the second and third century, became normalized in the fourth century. B. B. Warfield who was a noted Presbyterian, Presbyterians do infant baptism, affirmed that infant baptism does not appear in the Scripture. We might think that if this is true that the Calvinistic regulative principle might be applied, the regulative principle of the Reformation said if Scripture doesn’t command it, it is forbidden. If Scripture doesn’t command it, it is forbidden, that was called the regulative principle.

In regards to the claims about the origins of infant baptism, please refer to the blog posts I already mentioned about the Trail of Blood. As for Warfield, MacArthur is misrepresenting him. I don't think Warfield's methodology is the best way to go, but it's the typical way that Calvinists go. Warfield argues covenantally for infant baptism and he does find baptisms of infants taking place. MacArthur then tries to explain how it could be that such a supposedly unbiblical practice has been so widespread throughout church history. He says: saying:

It was considered a heresy worthy of death. Anybody who violated baptism as ordained in their country, whether a Catholic or a Protestant country, came under the punishment of this civil code. This was around for a long time. If you go back to the year 391 you read the following order from the emperors. “Whoever forsakes the holy faith and desecrates the holy baptism through heretical superstition shall be excluded from human society.”

In other words, if you go against infant baptism, you’re excluded from human society, may give no judicial evidence, can as has been before prescribed, make no will…you couldn’t leave a will, take possession of no inheritance or be appointed heir by no one. So if you came along and said believers need to come to the place of faith in Christ and then be baptized, which is what the New Testament teaches, you were persona non-grata in your society. The document also, this translated into English, says, “We would also banish such person to far distant places if we did not deem it a more severe punishment to make him dwell among men without having the pleasure of fellowship with them. But he shall never regain his former legal capacity, nor can he at any time make amends for his crime by repentance, nor hide the same under invented evasions and excuses because those who profaned the faith which they placed in God and as traitors to divine mysteries associate with the unbelieving, cannot be justified by tissues of lies. For one comes indeed to the help of the fallen and erring but to the infamous who profane the holy baptism, no amelioration can procure mitigation as in the case of other offenses.” You’re done if you affirm any other than an infant baptism. You are finished in the society.

MacArthur is quoting from the Theodosian Code. You'll notice that in the section MacArthur quotes there isn't actually anything said about people who were rebaptizing because they denied the validity of infant baptism. Historically there is no evidence that there were any movements prior to the 1100's that denied infant baptism. Instead, as the quote suggests, this law referred to those who had apostatized from the Christian faith after being baptized and engaged in pagan worship. It may refer also to those who denied the validity of their baptism because of the person performing it. There were schismatic groups who believed the validity of baptism was tied to holiness of the person carrying out the baptism. Then very oddly, MacArthur says:

Further quoting from the writer Wormes, “Originally indeed these severe laws of the civil code were not issued for the defense of infant baptism, but were to secure the existence of the state church against rebaptism in any Christian circles. And the property of such persons was confiscated. They were branded violators of the civil law, punished by death and the loss of all property.” Consequently, infant baptism reigned supreme because people didn’t want to lose their lives.

I have not been able to determine who this Wormes guy is that MacArthur is quoting from. From what MacArthur says later it sounds like he is some sort of Roman Catholic historian. I emailed MacArthur's ministry and asked for the title of the book and first name of the author and received the following reply:

Thank you for contacting Grace to You. Unfortunately, we do not have the information you are requesting. Sorry about that!

But the quotation that MacArthur provides actually seems to contradict what he is trying to prove. Wormes is saying that these laws were not written against groups that denied the validity of infant baptism but against other sectarian groups. These groups would most likely include anti-Trinitarians. Anti-Trinitarians are not Christians. These laws may have later been used against those denied the validity of infant baptism but those who denied infant baptism did not yet exist when these laws were written. Infant baptism reigned supreme because it remained an unquestioned practice from the time of the Apostles to the 1100s. MacArthur says:

The Catholic Church hated the Anabaptists even through the Middle Ages, the Reformers, the Reformed Church who got their soteriology right, hated the Anabaptists, the rebaptizers, because they bought into the Roman Catholic view of infant baptism. And one of the sad realities of the Reformation is that Reformers who believed in sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus, all the solas, drowned people who baptized believers. You want to be baptized, we’ll put you down and won’t bring you up until you’re dead.

Many of the Anabaptists were revolutionaries. Some of them were very violent. It was for this reason that the group as a whole was treated in the way that they were. It wasn't just because they didn't want to baptize babies. MacArthur says:

There were always those who believed in baptism, as the New Testament teaches it, Bohemian Brethren, Waldencians, pre-Waldencians, the broad name of Anabaptists which was a nickname meaning rebaptizers.

MacArthur is correct when he says that there have always been those who believed in baptism as the New Testament teaches it, but there have not always been those who denied infant baptism. Denial of infant baptism sprung up in the 1100 and died off after a couple of hundred years only to spring up again around the time of the Reformation. MacArthur says:

You would have thought that if one of the great hallmarks of the Reformation was sola scriptura, that if they really believed that everything had to come from the Scripture, they would have set aside infant baptism since it wasn’t anywhere in the Bible. But in spite of its absence in Scripture, they defended it and practiced it as if it was biblical and the pressure was that the Catholics had these unified states that were unified both by political and military power, but also unified by religious power and everybody was a Catholic because you were baptized a Catholic. And so you were under the tyranny of the church and that way they controlled their populations which made them powerful forces. And the Protestant states that they didn’t do that would be weakened by disparity and diversion and they had to make sure that all their people were also part of everything and there was absolute solidarity so they could defend themselves against the Catholic nations. So they held on to something that I am convinced that even Martin Luther knew wasn’t in the Bible and wasn’t really right.

So it's all a vast conspiracy. Has MacArthur even read what Martin Luther says about baptism? You can read what Luther says in his Large Catechism about infant baptism here. It sure sounds to me like he thought infant baptism was Biblical and right. He does more than just pay lip service to it. John MacArthur must have psychic powers that allow him to get inside of Luther's head and know that Luther didn't believe all this stuff he taught. Maybe MacArthur is speaking in code. Maybe MacArthur really knows that infant baptism is found in the Bible. I've often found that those who accuse others of something without any proof are often guilty of what they are accusing others of. Maybe MacArthur is afraid he'll lose job if he comes out in support of infant baptism so he has decided to present the worst possible arguments against infant baptism to make those opposed to infant baptism look silly. MacArthur then says:

Well, they say, “What about Matthew 18 where it says, ‘Except you become a little child, you can’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’” I don’t read anything about baptism there. All that’s saying is childlike faith is necessary to come into the Kingdom.

Well what about Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16, “Let the little children come to Me for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” I don’t see any baptism there. Our Lord is simply saying that God has a special care for children, not the children of believing parents and not baptized children. Jesus never baptized any children, nobody in the Bible ever baptized any children. Nobody was ever told to baptize children. All children were precious. The children that He held in His hand and blessed were not necessarily the children of believing parents and there is no baptism in any way…in any case anyway.

MacArthur says that God just has a special care for children. Luke specifically says that there were infants present and Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. MacArthur is ignoring the plain teaching of the Scriptures and using his own tradition to interpret the Scriptures. If these children are part of the kingdom of God they should be baptized. Entrance into the kingdom of God is only possible through faith. So Jesus is saying they have faith. MacArthur just turns it into a story about how God just likes kids. Then MacArthur goes into the passages about household baptisms and insists that no children could have possibly been present.

And the next time you have a household is in the sixteenth chapter of Acts in the jailor’s house, all heard the gospel and all were baptized. The ones who were baptized were the ones who heard the gospel and believed.

What do the Scriptures say?

Acts 16:30-34 (ESV) Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

Notice that contrary to MacArthur, the text does not say that all in household expressed belief prior to baptism. It says the jailer believed and his household was baptized.

In the account of Lydia and Stephanas, the same thing would be true as in those very explicit texts. All hear the gospel, all believe the gospel, all receive the Holy Spirit, all are baptized. That’s what’s going on in the book of Acts.

What do the Scriptures say?

Acts 16:14-15 (ESV) One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. 15And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.

The text says Lydia believed and then here household was baptized. It doesn't say Lydia believed and her household believed and then all her household was baptized. We never read of someone in a household being excluded from baptism and we never read of someone who grew up in a Christian household and got baptized after making a confession of faith. MacArthur says:

Point two, infant baptism is not baptism…it’s not New Testament baptism. This may surprise you, it’s nothing, it’s totally meaningless. Well you might have got emotional when you took your little child in there ‘cause you love your little child and you hope the best for him, or her. But as far as the spiritual condition of that child, it had absolutely no effect whatsoever. Infant baptism is not in the Bible, it is not New Testament baptism. And this is an uncontestable fact because when you do go in to the Bible in the New Testament and you talk about baptism and you study baptism, it is absolutely crystal clear what baptism is. The only people who are ever baptized in the New Testament are people who have come to faith in Christ. And baptism is always immersing them in water, it is never sprinkling water on their heads from a tiny little fountain.

What MacArthur is doing is taking examples of certain people in the New Testament who received baptism, assigning certain attributes to them, and then determining that everyone who receives baptism must fall into that category. There simply is no statement in Scripture that says you must be able to articulate your faith in order to be baptized. Paul ties circumcision and baptism together in Colossians 2:11-12. In the Old Testament if a Gentile wanted to become a Jew, the father would be circumcised after confessing the faith and then all the male children in his household would be circumcised including any infants over the age of eight days old. Baptism is more inclusive than circumcision. Both males and females receive baptism. But we don't find any indication that it is more exclusive in any way. There is no indication that anyone in the early church thought that it should be withheld from infants. Instead, they are counted among the nations that Jesus said to baptize. You simply can't read a narrative about what happened and assign prerequisites based on the description of the person being baptized. If all we had recorded was the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, should we conclude that only castrated men should be baptized?

Contrary to the Scriptures, MacArthur does not believe that baptism has a spiritual effect on the person being baptized at all. So I'm not sure why MacArthur would specifically say that it has not effect on babies.

Then MacArthur goes into the traditional rant of all modern Baptists about how the Greek words for baptism always mean immerse. But what do the Scriptures say?

1 Corinthians 10:1-6 (ESV) For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, 4and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

This included all the Israelites. They were ALL baptized in the cloud and in the sea. This included all the Israelite children that were alive at the time. They were "baptized" in the sea when they crossed over the sea on dry land. They were not immersed. They were kept dry. The Egyptians were not baptized but they were immersed. They all really partook of Christ, regardless of their age. And Paul uses this same passage to warn the New Testament church. Paul is demonstrating continuity. He doesn't say, "This is the way it was in the Old Testament, but now we don't baptize babies because that would be out of character with the New Testament."

You can read Dr. James Dale's multi-volume work on the meaning of the Greek words on Google books. The Greek words do not tell us mode despite the claims of the modern Baptists. They are used in Greek literature for all sorts of things. From the time of the Apostles there is record of baptisms taking place through a variety of modes including pouring. In the Scriptures what makes a valid baptism is not the subject or the person performing the baptism but God's Word joined with the water applied to the person. God's Word does what it says. The baptismal formula found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew is spoken while water is applied to the person. MacArthur says:

This ordinance was so designed by God and conveyed by the correct, inspired words to fit the symbolism of the ordinance. Immersion is commanded of every believer as a picture, as an object lesson, as a symbol, as a visual analogy of a spiritual reality. It is the way that God designed to publicly declare the truth of personal salvation. What does it symbolize when a person is immersed, submerged? Clearly unmistakably throughout the New Testament, Christian baptism is a picture of the union of a believer in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That is clear from Romans 6, Galatians 2, Galatians 3, Colossians 2.

When you come to faith in Christ, you are placed into union with Christ. You are immersed into Him and therefore you are in Him in His death, His burial and His resurrection. Romans 6 makes that clear. “We were crucified with Him, buried with Him and we’ve risen with Him to walk in newness of life.” This is spiritually symbolized in water baptism. Immersion into water was and is the inseparable outward sign of a believer’s union with Jesus Christ. That’s why you go into all the world to preach the gospel to everybody, baptizing them…that’s the public confession of their union with Christ in a beautiful dramatic way. The only other ordinance ever given to the church is the Lord’s table. We can love the Lord, we can go to the cross, we can celebrate His death, we can rejoice in His death, we can seek forgiveness of sins, repent, confess without the Lord’s table but He’s told us to do that as a public declaration, a public proclamation, a visual remembrance of the cross. When we take that bread it’s His body, we drink that cup as a symbol of His blood, we understand that symbolism. That is true with baptism. You can make a confession of Christ, you can be a true believer and not be baptized. But you are being disobedient at that point, just as you are if you absent yourself from the Lord’s table because that is a way that the Lord has ordained for you to openly declare the union between yourself and Him in the great reality of His death, burial and resurrection.

MacArthur is reading his own rationalistic and doubting Baptist tradition into the Scriptures. The Scriptures don't speak of these things as bare symbol or picture or object lesson. The Scriptures speak of baptism as actually doing what it says. I always think its strange when people bring up Romans 6 as proof that immersion must take place. Jesus wasn't buried in a whole in the ground with dirt thrown on Him. Jesus was buried in a tomb. So I guess if the point was to provide a picture of that you should carry the person sideways into the whole in some kind of dome, seal the dome up and then pour water on top of the dome making sure that none of the water touches the person. Maybe we should embalm them and put them in burial cloths too.

Notice the sharp contrast between MacArthur and the Scriptures. In the Scriptures baptism is all Gospel, in MacArthur it's all Law. The Scriptures say that through baptism we receive the forgiveness of sins and baptism now saves us. MacArthur say you must be baptized so that you can obey the command of God. In MacArthur's baptism we receive nothing. This is the real problem with the extraordinarily shallow complaint among the Baptists that the Reformers didn't go far enough. The Baptists in this case are more Roman Catholic than the Roman Catholics. By failing to understand the theology behind Roman Catholic practice and what the Reformers were actually criticizing the Roman Catholics for, the Baptists end up falling far deeper into error than the Roman Catholics ever did on the sacraments. Luther's main critique with the Roman Catholic understanding of the sacraments was that they took the focus off of Christ giving Himself for us and put the focus on the priest offering up Christ to God. In the Baptist system all that happens is a person does something for God and receives nothing. In the Scriptures baptism and the Lord's Supper are given for our benefit, not God's. MacArthur says:

In every case of New Testament Baptism, true saving faith, personal salvation is presupposed. It can’t function in the case of infants. It is nothing more than a bizarre fabrication.

In this statement, MacArthur reveals that he doesn't understand what faith is Biblically. According to MacArthur infants are incapable of faith. According to the Scriptures, faith is a gift of God that God can work in anyone through His Word. The Psalmist speaks of hoping in God while on his mother's breasts and this was something taken upon the lips of every Israelite and also upon the lips of everyone in the early church. John the Baptizer leaped in faith while still in the womb. But MacArthur has taken the gift of faith and turned it into a work that we perform and has attached his own requirements to make it impossible for infants to have faith.

Thirdly, infant Baptism is not in the Scripture, it’s not New Testament Baptism, and it is not, please, a replacement sign for the Abrahamic mark of circumcision. One of the other things that Reformed people say is that infant Baptism takes the place of circumcision. I’ve heard that argument for years. So my response is, what verse says that? Where is it? Show me the verse. Where in the Bible does it say, by the way, Baptism is a replacement of circumcision? Where does it say that? It doesn’t say that anywhere.

MacArthur must have gotten a hold of the scissors again and cut Colossians 2:11-12 out of his Bible.

If you make infant Baptism the substitute sign for circumcision, does that mean then that we now have a church that is a false church, or a rebellious church, or an unbelieving church, or an apostate church but it’s still a church and somewhere in the middle there’s a remnant of true believers? You see, circumcision was only a sign that people belonged to an ethnic group, a group called Jews, a nation called Israel. It said nothing about their spiritual condition. Baptism is always tied to salvation. There’s no parallel. There’s no connection.

So contary to the Scriptures, circumcision is now just a sign of ethnic identity. It has nothing to do with Christ according to MacArthur and if you can't fill out a card you shouldn't receive it. Paul was wrong to tie baptism and circumcision together. Bad! Bad Paul!

Circumcision didn’t apply to girls. Circumcision was really a gift from God to protect Jewish women from forms of infection, to protect and preserve the nation. Say at all about their spiritual condition.

Wait a second...I thought it was all about ethnic identity. It was like wearing Jewish Power t-shirt. Now you're saying it's for hygiene. 9 out of 10 doctors recommend getting circumcised three times a day.

Well, there are people who believe that it saves them. It saves them.

Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus?

And so they serve their babies paedo-communion. They put the bread in a cup in a blender and feed it to their infant. It’s called presumptive regeneration. That’s the viewpoint that if your baby has been baptized, your baby must be presumed to be regenerate.

They put the bread in a cup in a blender? Doesn't that damage the cup? Are they going to eat the cup? Who does this? The Eastern Orthodox take a small piece of bread and dip it in the wine and give it to the child but as far as I know they don't get a blender out. I'm not going to take up the issue of paedocommunion here. I'll leave that for others to debate, but there are many in the Western church who believe that baptism saves that do not practice paedocommunion. If you take bread in a cup and put that cup in a blender you don't call that presumptive regeneration, you call that a broken cup. Presumptive regeneration was a theological idea attributed to Abraham Kuyper in the Reformed camp who believed that we should baptize infants because we presume that they are already regenerate. Abraham Kuyper did not teach paedo-communion or tell anyone to damage their drinking vessels by putting them in blenders. You cannot hold to presumptive regeneration and believe that baptism saves because if you believe in presumptive regeneration you believe that the baby is already saved prior to the baptism.

I've noticed in the past when I've had discussions with Baptists that for some reason they will often take the beliefs of all the various groups that practice infant baptism and jumble them all together into a big mess. According to John 3, baptism does regenerate. But that's not what most Presbyterians or Reformed people believe. Some believe that they child is ordinarily regenerated prior to baptism, some believe they are regenerated at a future date, and a small number believe that the "elect" are regenerated at the time of baptism.

I’m regenerate. My wife, Patricia, is regenerate and I will promise you with our four children, it was easy to presume that they were not regenerate, from the very beginning. It would have been a well-nigh impossible to make the presumption that our children were regenerate and shirk the responsibility to bring them to the true knowledge of Christ.

Well, yeah, you didn't bring them to baptism where God promises to regenerate them. But notice what MacArthur implies. MacArthur says that if you baptize the child that will result in you shirking the responsibility of bringing the childreno regenerate them. But notice what MacArthur implies. MacArthur says that if you baptize the child that will result in you shirking the responsibility of bringing the children to a true knowledge of Christ. But why? I catechize my children every day. Every day I try to teach them more about Christ. But MacArthur makes the same mistake as many evangelicals. He's acting like once you get the Jesus thing straightened out, then you get baptized, and then it's time to move on to life principles and good works and self-examination. For Lutherans, the whole thing is about Jesus. You don't move beyond Jesus. Jesus isn't something you graduate from after baptism. Faith must be nurtured daily with more Jesus. If you baptize a child and never bring him back to church to get more Jesus, then his faith will die.

I was locked up in a room for seven hours as one of the most well-known Reformed theologians on the face of the earth. At the end of seven hours, they said okay. What do you have to believe to be a Christian? You say, “If you’re in the church, you’re in the community of faith and you’re okay. What do you have to believe to be a true Christian, to which he replied, “That’s a good question,” and wouldn’t give me an answer. That comes right out of that kind of concept. There’s this idea that they’re sort of federally included. It gets to the point where salvation is a collected thing and you get into the collected saved group by infant Baptism.

How this could survive in a Reformed community where people hold on to the doctrine of justification by faith and all the solas is hard to understand. But eventually what it will do, it will eat away at the doctrine of justification and the people who are now coming out bold and strong for this kind of collective salvation, N.T. Wright and others, all the way down to many others in many forms. There’s sort of this collective community of believing people brought in by Baptism will eventually jettison the true doctrine of justification by faith and individual personal salvation.

According to MacArthur, baptizing infants will destroy justification by faith alone. The Lutheran confessions contain the most robust and detailed statements of any confession in defense of justification by faith alone. They also have much more to say about the baptism of infants than the Reformed confessions. Not only that, they hold to higher view of what baptism actually does. We believe baptism does exactly what the Scriptures say it does because it is not just plain water but it is water included in God's commanded and combined with God's Word. We have great Lutheran hymns that go on for twelve verses or so and tell you everything about justification you would eve need to know. I've heard MacArthur speak about justification and the language he uses is not as strong as that found in the Lutheran confessions. The Lutheran confessions refuse to speak of faith as the condition of our salvation but I've frequently heard MacArthur speak in this way. Lutherans do not view justification as some one time event in the past but something that happens to us daily. Daily we are declared righteous and we receive that declaration through the gift of faith. The core teaching of Lutheranism is that we are justified by God's grace through faith in the crucified Christ alone.

In fact, MacArthur's sermon would be completely unacceptable to a confessional Lutheran congregation. MacArthur's sermon is nothing but Law. It delivers absolutely no Jesus. It justifies nobody. It's all about how smart MacArthur thinks he is and how dumb everyone else is.

However, MacArthur does bring a legitimate critique here of the Reformed. The Reformed have a looser definition of justification in their confessions. The Westminster Confession of Faith especially was written to accommodate some differing views. The Reformed also deny that baptism is salvific in the way that Lutherans do. They do not teach that baptism does what God's Word says it does. Instead their core teaching on baptism revolves around drawing various covenantal inferences and different theologians go different ways with it. Much like their position on the Lord's Supper, it's a very difficult position to defend Biblically. The combination of the wiggle room in the realm of justification and the wiggle room in the realm of the covenant have caused problems with the Reformed being able to clearly teach justification by faith alone.

It does matter what you believe about this. It matters a lot because it confounds, and this is the fourth thing I want to say, it confounds the nature of the church. Infant Baptism is not in the Scripture, it is not New Testament baptism, it is not the New Testament equivalent to circumcision. And infant Baptism is not consistent with the nature of the church. Infant Baptism confuses hopelessly the church. You can’t distinguish between believer and non-believer. The local church becomes the true church. The baptized become the church. Paedo-Baptism, to say it another way, destroys the reality of a regenerate church.

God promises to work regeneration, so to deprive children of baptism will result in a gathering of few regenerate people. There are plenty of people have been baptized as adults and have fallen away from the faith. Just because someone was baptized as an adult doesn't mean that they currently believe. But God has promised to work through baptism. By MacArthur's logic we shouldn't bring children to church either because people will see them walking in the building and won't be able to tell if they are real Christians or not.

What are we to think of them? What are they? To be in the church, you must put your trust in Christ. At the beginning, when Luther sort of led the Reformation, he had a lofty idealism, some writers say. He was contending for Christianity that would embrace freedom and renounce force and live only by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God. To him, in the early days, as to us, the Scripture was the only standard for all issues of personal life, including the issue of Baptism. Let me quote Luther.

“I say that God wants no compulsory service. I say it a hundred-thousand times. God wants no compulsory service, no one can or ought to be compelled to believe for the soul of a man is an eternal thing, above all that is temporal. Therefore only by an eternal word must it be governed and grasped for it is simply insulting to govern in God’s presence with human law and custom, neither the Pope nor a Bishop nor any other man has the right to decree a single syllable concerning a Christian, apart from his consent. All that comes to pass otherwise comes to pass in the spirit of tyranny,” end quote.

You can’t force anything on any one, superimpose on them some required religious duty, not in Scripture. That’s how Luther started. However, by 1527 he turned back to the state church because he was afraid he needed to maintain oneness of doctrine in order to maintain solidarity and power, political military power. So as it had through the Dark Ages from the fourth century on, the church became buried in the state church and essentially the state church extinguished the true church.

I have been unable to locate the source and context of the Martin Luther quote. I haven't been able to find it in Martin Luther's collected works. I find variations of it on the Internet but without any reference as to where it is from. I was able to find a similar quote from the Anabaptist Claus Felbinger:

God wants no compulsory service. On the contrary, he loves a free, willing heart that serves him with a joyful soul and does what is right joyfully.

Regardless of whether or not Luther said what MacArthur attributes to him, Luther clearly believed that infant baptism is taught within the Scriptures. He did not regard it as a human law or custom. So MacArthur's quotation of Luther doesn't really help him defend his position. Luther would not regard infant baptism as something forced upon the infant anymore than bringing the infant under the preaching of the Gospel. You bring the child under the preaching of the Gospel and baptize the child because you care about their spiritual health and these are the places God has promised to work. If MacArthur is consistent he should tell parents not to bring their children to church.

As for the statements about Luther's supposed change in position about the relationship between the church and the state, I don't think its necessarily true. Luther never advocated for a complete separation of church and state. In fact the Anabaptists of Luther's day weren't teaching a complete separation of church in state. They simply thought the state should be controlled by Anabaptist theology. Luther's theology of the two kingdoms provided clear definitions as to what the roles of government and the church are in relationship to one another that was lacking among the Anabaptists. There are both positives and negatives associated with a state church. There is no direct command in the Scriptures telling us we must or we may not have a state church. There is Christian freedom. The fact that a church is a state church does not automatically make it a false church.

The only way you know what the true church is, is by personal faith in Christ. The testimony to that is given in Baptism.

If I'm reading MacArthur right, the "true church" is defined by believer's baptism. So in MacArthur's view, the true church does not exist where infant baptism is taking place.

Luther finally wound up having to defend the fact that infants have faith. He said, “The Anabaptists are right, the Baptism without faith profits nothing, and that thus in fact children ought not to be baptized if they have no faith.” We agree with that. Luther said, “The Lord says most decidedly, ‘He who believes not shall be damned. But the assertion of the Anabaptists is false, the children cannot believe. If children are to be baptized, they must be able to believe, they must have faith,” end quote.

How could a child have faith? With Luther, it was the vicarious faith of the parents or the godparents. That’s where godparents came from, surrogate parents whose faith would intercede on behalf of the child. With Luther, vicarious faith of the parents or the godparents wasn’t enough. He even went further and said, “The children themselves must believe. If one asks how is that possible? One receives the answer, the Holy Spirit helps them to believe. The Holy Spirit comes to the children in the holy Baptism by this bath of regeneration He has richly poured out on them.”

Martin Luther? Who discovered salvation by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone? Some even called it unconscious faith. So there were those who were holding to surrogate faith on the part of parents and godparents…that wasn’t enough for Luther.

Luther argues based on the Scriptures that God works faith in the infant in baptism. The Scriptures say that baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins" and that "baptism now saves you." The Scriptures speak of the infant faith of the Psalmist. The Psalmist says that He hoped in God while on his mother's breasts (Psalm 22:9). This was not some private confession but part of the Psalms that was taken upon the lips of every Israelite and was taken upon the lips of every Christian as part of their hymnbook. Jesus Himself says that infants belong to the kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul says that faith is not of ourselves but a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). You'll notice that MacArthur does not provide any Scriptural proof that infants are incapable of faith. He just scoffs at the idea. He scoffs at the clear teaching of God's Word. Faith is worked in us through the power of God's Word. God's Word does not become ineffective when it is used in baptism. Water doesn't destroy the power of God's Word.

MacArthur ends his sermon/lecture with a prayer where he thanks God that He is not like those sinners who baptize babies. In this lecture, MacArthur is serving as a mouthpiece for the devil. God's Word does not tell us not to baptize babies and tells us that baptism is salvific. MacArthur has created his own law and denies that baptism is salvific. The sermon was Christless. MacArthur doesn't seem to understand that it is the job of the pastor to preach Christ-crucified. MacArthur is not doing his job.

The following Sunday, MacArthur gave another lecture on baptism. I will skip over what he repeats in this lecture/sermon.

Frankly, it has been many, many years since anyone has written a book emphasizing Baptism. To the writing of books, there is absolutely no end…no end. To the writing of Christian books, there is no end. To the writing of Christian books on the Christian life there seems to be no end. And look, as I may, I can’t even find a chapter on Baptism and rarely a chapter on the Lord ’s Table.

Maybe MacArthur is just shopping at the wrong bookstores. I can think of several books on baptism and the Lord's Supper that have come out in just the last few years. Maybe I should send him a Concordia Publishing House catalogue.

I don’t feel like there’s a great movement in the church toward elevating Baptism to the priority that it deserves in the church.

I think that's largely a result of MacArthur's theology of baptism. If it's just something to say to the world "Hey, I'm a Christian" why get baptized? If it's just another law to fulfill, who really cares? A return to a Scriptural view of baptism that actually saves would result in a greater priority being given to baptism.

I want to give you a little insight into that. Turn to Matthew 3…Matthew 3, John the Baptist in his ministry, verse 6, “They were being baptized by him, not with the water from the Jordan River, but in the Jordan River. They were being baptized by him in the Jordan River.” And how much into the river did they go? Verse 16, “After being baptized, Jesus…who was baptized there by John…came up immediately out from the water, out of the water.” He came up out of the water. So we have there in just those two references a visual picture of what John the Baptist was doing, placing people into the water, including the Lord Jesus, and then bringing them up out of the water.

In chapter 3 of John’s gospel, we get another insight into the baptizing ministry of John the Baptist. In verse 23, “He was baptizing in a place called Aenon near Salim.” Why was he baptizing there? “Because there was much water there.” You need enough water to get them under.

MacArthur is reading quite a bit into the texts. The text does not say that John the Baptist placed Jesus into the water and then brought them up out of the water. The text says that after Jesus was baptized He came out of the water. There are a number of very early baptismal paintings that picture a person standing in water while water is poured on his head. The depth of the Jordan river varies quite a bit depending on where you are standing in it. In some place you could drown, in other places it's only ankle deep. John was in the wilderness. It's not as if he could turn on a faucet and get some water. So it makes sense regardless of what mode John the Baptizer used that it would be convenient for him to baptize in the river. The text does not say that John baptized there so he could "get them under." It is possible that John immersed people. It is highly unlikely that all who were baptized on Pentecost were immersed. There were thousands of people, not enough water in the city of Jerusalem to baptize them all, and its unlikely that whoever was in charge of the water supply would let all those people contaminate the water by being dunked in it.

What was important for baptism for the early Christians was God's Word being joined with the water in baptism. From the earliest records we find that they preferred to baptized in cold, running water but that simply pouring water on the head while applying the baptismal formula was a valid form of baptism.

In the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, this is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. “They were going along the road. They came to some water and the Ethiopian said, ‘Look, water. What prevents me from being baptized?’ And Philip ordered the chariot to stop.” Verse 38, “They went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him, he submerged him, he immersed him. When they came up out of the water, a Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away.” Again, it is crystal clear what baptism is, it is immersion, it is immersion. And, of course, as we’re going to see, that’s the only thing…the only means by which you can actually symbolize what baptism is trying to articulate, trying to demonstrate.

The text does not say "he submerged him, he immersed him." Notice that as MacArthur says "they came up out of the water" meaning Philip and the eunuch. The coming up out of the water was not the baptism. Its what did after the baptism was over. Otherwise Philip would have been immersing himself while he performed the baptism. I doubt that MacArthur goes down under water with those he baptizes. I was surprised that MacArthur made this argument. I've heard this in KJV-onlyist Baptist churches before but I thought MacArthur had a little better understanding of the Bible.

In John 1:29 when he first saw Him, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He knew He wasn’t an ordinary man. He knew He was the final and everlasting sacrifice. He knew He was God’s anointed, the spotless sinless one. And since John understood baptism and he understood that baptism was the confession of sin and repentance, and the death of the old life and the beginning of a new life, and he knew Jesus was sinless and didn’t need to leave a sinful life and embark upon a new righteous life, the whole exercise seemed ridiculous to him, nonsense. Why would the sinless one want to be baptized? And so, John tried to prevent Jesus and said, “No, no, no, let’s turn it around. You baptize me.” John resisted baptizing Jesus for the opposite reason that he resisted baptizing the Pharisees and the scribes that came to him and the Sadducees. Back in verse 7, “Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.’” He wasn’t about to baptize them, he rejected them because though they were in need of repentance, they were unwilling to ask for it. He refused to baptize them because they were not willing to admit their sin. Opposite that, he refused to baptize Jesus because He had no sin. Hebrews 4:15 says, “He was without sin.”

But Jesus prevailed upon him. Why? Why did Jesus insist upon being baptized? Well He says it, doesn’t He, there? Verse 15, “Permit it at this time for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Some have suggested that Jesus wanted to be baptized in order to identify with the people who were making ready for Him. He just wanted to be a part of that group of people. Some suggest that He wanted to set an example for them, identify with them.

No, I don’t think that’s it. It was really a matter of fulfilling all righteousness. It was a command to be baptized and Jesus obeyed that command the way He obeyed every command that God ever gave. This is critical to His active righteousness which is imputed to us at salvation. His passive righteousness is in His dying. His active righteousness was in His living. Since it was a command of God, since it was a ceremony ordained by God, commanded by the prophet of God who was the voice of God, Jesus said, “Although I don’t fit the symbol of it, I do it because it is righteous to obey every command…every command.”

MacArthur gets the chronology messed up. John had already baptized Jesus when he said "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" According to the early church fathers, Jesus took our sins upon Himself in His baptism. He cleansed the waters of baptism for us and took our sins upon Himself. Jesus is the Messiah--the anointed one. He was anointed in baptism. All MacArthur can see is Jesus being obedient, so now you be obedient too. He completely misses the point. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness! We have nothing to add to Jesus' righteousness! Jesus stood there and received a sinner's baptism in the place of sinners. Our baptism is not done to fulfill all righteousness. None of the Apostles ever command people to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. In this lecture/sermon MacArthur often quotes passages that say "Be baptized" but he leaves the end of the sentence off. "Be baptized for the forgiveness of sins." That is what the Scriptures say. We receive baptism for the forgiveness of our sins. It's not an act of obedience that we perform.

"Do you not know,” Romans 6:3, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” When you come to Christ, you’re literally immersed into His death.

No MacArthur. Can't you read the verse you just quoted? It doesn't say "when you come to Christ." It says "all of us who have been baptized into Christ."

That’s the whole point. Salvation is placing a person in union with Jesus Christ and in some amazing, supernatural way, we participate in His death, in His resurrection, spiritually. Now again, there’s no water in Romans 6. There’s no water in Galatians 2. There’s no water in Colossians 2. This is what Peter calls the baptism that saves. This is what Paul calls the washing of regeneration, or in Acts 22:16, “The washing away of your sins.” It is immersion into Christ. And that is what is depicted ceremonially, symbolically in baptism.

The Scriptures do not speak of two baptisms, but one baptism (Ephesians 4:5). The Scriptures do not distinguish between water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. MacArthur reads this distinction into the text because a plain reading of the text does not fit his theology.

You say, “Well wait a minute, it says in Acts 2:38, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.” I take it that the construction indicates there when paralleled with Matthew 12:41, “Repent and be baptized because of the remission of sins.” Baptism was an immediate, inseparable, public testimony of a true conversion.

Matthew 12:41 says:

The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

So, because Jesus said that the people of Nineveh repented that means that when Peter told the people to be baptized for the remission of sins that really means Peter was telling them to be baptized because of the remission of sins? Really? MacArthur is simply allowing his tradition to overrule the plain teaching of the Biblical text. Peter says that baptism is for the remission of sins. We receive the remission of sins through baptism. MacArthur would never just go out and say what Peter says here because MacArthur doesn't believe what Peter says. I find that one of the surest ways to tell if somebody in interpreting a text correctly is to ask the question, "Would this person actually say what the Bible says without adding all kinds of qualifications?" If our theology is Biblical we are able to speak the language of the Bible. If our theology is unbiblical we cannot speak the language of the Scriptures. We'll spend all our time trying to explain to people that what a text means isn't what it sounds like it means.

In Ephesians 4 when it says there’s one Lord, one faith, one baptism, that’s talking about water baptism as the symbol of salvation. It was what they did. Now salvation is by grace through faith, not of works, right?

Right, salvation is not by works. And according to the Scriptures baptism is not a work that we perform. It is something done to us. This is why in many ways the baptism of an infant is an even better example of what baptism is all about than the baptism of an adult. The baby doesn't have any crazy ideas in his head that he's performing some work to fill God's glory tank.

Any doctrinal treatment of salvation makes it clear that salvation does not depend on water. You can use the thief on the cross as an illustration, if you need to. But the outward sign was water baptism.

We really don't know if the thief was baptized or not. He seemed to know who Jesus was and may have been baptized earlier. But even if he wasn't that doesn't prove that baptism is not salvific. The Scriptures say that baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the preaching of the Gospel are all for the forgiveness of sins. If you're dying on a cross next to Jesus and he tells you that you will be with him in paradise you don't need to find some way to get someone to baptize you. But that's not the situation that most people find themselves in. And we should go to those places where God has promised to work. God can work apart from baptism but He has not promised to.

Fifth question…ah, with all of this being so clear, why is there so much confusion regarding baptism? Well, of course, Satan wants to break the pattern of obedience at the beginning.

Well yes, Satan wants to distract us from the plain meaning of God's Word and listen to rationalists like John MacArthur.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that if a baby dies without being baptized, it goes to Limbo.

This actually isn't true. This was popular unofficial medieval teaching but a few years ago the Vatican came out against it.

The Lutheran church following the lead of Martin Luther, Luther never shook the grave clothes of infant baptism, as I told you last week, he even wrote a small book called, The Small Baptismal Book, 1526 he wrote that book. In it there’s a required prayer. This is Luther’s prayer at a baby baptism. “O Almighty, I invoke Thee concerning this child, Thy servant who asks for the gift of Thy baptism and desires Thy grace through the spiritual new birth. Receive him, O Lord, and thus extend now the good to him who knocks that he may obtain the eternal blessing of this heavenly bath and receive the promised kingdom of Thy gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Praying for the infant’s salvation on the spot through this heavenly bath. The infant is then asked, in Luther’s book, “Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works and nature?” And the parents say on behalf of the child, “Yes.” Then the question, “Dost thou believe in God the Father in Jesus Christ His Son, in the Holy Spirit, and the one Christian church?” The parents then say, “Yes.” And the child is baptized. Then the prayer, “The Almighty God hath begotten thee a new through water and the Holy Spirit and has forgiven thee all thy sins. Amen.”

Yup, Luther taught what the Bible teaches about baptism. I'm not sure why MacArthur speaks as if Luther was trying to shake it off and just couldn't do it.

Well, the picture’s clear, don’t you think? This is what baptism is and this is how God has designed it and ordained it.

The teaching of baptism is actually very clear if you confess what the Scriptures say it is. I really don't understand how MacArthur can have the strong reputation that he does.

There is very, very little about Christ in either of MacArthur's lectures and there is very little actual Scripture. MacArthur is not doing his job of delivering Christ to people. Instead he's just delivering skepticism of what the Bible teaches.

Ron Paul and Religion

2011-10-26T14:10:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine asked me to comment on some comments Ron Paul made in an interview with Christianity Today after he won the straw poll at the Values Voters Summit. Ron Paul tends to talk about his Christian faith less than some of the other candidates but as he explains in the interview he was asked to talk about his Christian faith and values. The full transcript of the Ron Paul speech can be found here. I'll start with the original speech.

Ron Paul makes reference to Biblical passages throughout his speech. The first passage Ron Paul deals with is in 1 Samuel 8 where the Israelites come to Samuel and tell him they want a king. Ron Paul interprets this passage as an instance where people suffer because they have turned away from a family based government to a king. Paul warns against relying on a king in Washington. There is some truth in what Paul says. We can certainly make an idol out of government. But the problem in the case of Israel was not that they would rather be ruled by a king than by a family based form of government. The problem was that they would rather be ruled by a human king rather than God. The passage doesn't really have much to say about the form or structure that governments should take or the size that they should be. It calls us all to repentance for putting our faith in human leaders. Some might try to use this passage to establish a theocracy but the New Testament church is never told to try to establish a theocracy and Ron Paul doesn't seem to be interested in trying to set one up anyhow.

Ron Paul says, "You know, morality of the people or the lack of morality of the people can be reflected in the law. But the law never can change the morality of the people. And that is very important." In some sense Ron Paul is correct. The law cannot make anyone truly moral. But the law is designed to stop immoral behavior. All laws are about enforcing a moral code on people. Ron Paul says a bit later:

...we also had the breakdown of our monetary system, the rejection of the biblical admonition that we have honest weights and measures and honest money. And not to have honest weights and measures meant we were counterfeiting the money and destroying the value of the money, which implies, even in biblical times, they weren’t looking for a central bank that was going to counterfeit our currency.

I think this might actually be a legitimate use of this Biblical text. You could make the same argument from natural law but the use of this Biblical text is probably appropriate for the audience that Ron Paul is talking too.

But, you know, biblically there’s a lot of admonitions about what the family should be in charge of. Certainly the 10th commandment tells us something about honoring our parents and caring for them. It didn’t say work out a system where the government will take care of us from cradle to grave. No, it was an admonition for us to honor our parents and be responsible for them, not put them into a nursing home and say the federal government can take care of them. Besides, sometimes that leads to bankruptcies and the government can’t do it anyway. So that responsibility really falls on us.

I'm guessing Ron Paul is actually referring to the 4th/5th Commandment (depending on how you number them). The commandment does deal with the child's responsibility to take care of his parents in his old age. However, the commandment is silent on how the government should deal with citizens in their old age. Ron Paul seems to be attempting to find a Biblical command about the size and scope of government but there really isn't a command there. Societies must create policies that are based on Christ's command to love our neighbor. But what that means isn't spelled out and Christians can arrive at different conclusions.

In the Bible, in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, Christ was recognized to be the prince of peace. He was never to be recognized as the promoter of war. And he even said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be the children of God.” He never said blessed are the war makers. It was the peacemakers that we must honor and protect. (Cheers, applause.)

Christ was very, very clear on how we should treat our enemies. And some days I think we quite frequently forget about that. Early in the history of Christianity, they struggled with the issue of war and peace, because Christ taught about peace. Did that mean Christ was advocating pacifism? The early church struggled with this and came to the conclusion, at least in those early years, that Christ was not a pacifist, but he was not a war promoter.

And this is when they came up with the just-war principles, saying, yes, war could be necessary, but only under dire circumstances, and it should be done with great caution. All other efforts should be exhausted before we go to war, and always under the proper authority. And today I think the proper authority is not the U.N. or the NATO forces to take us to war.

This part of the speech is actually pretty impressive. Ron Paul sets himself apart from the rest of the candidates in showing a proper historic Christian understanding of just war theory. He makes some good points later in the speech about this as well. I encourage you to read the rest of what he says about war in the original speech. Then Ron Paul says:

We are taught in the New Testament about caring for the poor and caring for our families and our neighbors and friends. But never did Christ say, you know, let’s go and lobby Rome to make sure we’re taken care of. It was a personal responsibility for us.

The problem with Ron Paul's statement is that Jesus wasn't addressing the civil government at all. So he is right to be critical of those who would take the statements from the Scriptures about caring for the poor and apply them directly to the government. But the Scriptures don't tell government not to do this either. Ron Paul says:

Christ was confronted at one time by a prostitute, but he didn’t call for the centurions. He didn’t call for more laws. But he was very direct and thought that stoning was not the solution to the problem of prostitution.

The problem is that Christ was not addressing civil leaders, he was addressing religious leaders. The point of what He said was to show everyone present that before God they were all deserving of a good stoning. He isn't saying one way or another whether capital punishment is appropriate for prostitution. Paul tells us that the government has been given the power of the sword by God. The sword is used to punish criminals by killing them. That doesn't mean that the government must kill all criminals but it has been given that power. Each society must determine when the use of the sword is appropriate and when it's not. The rest of the speech is basically a repitition of principles that Ron Paul has laid out in the previous sections so I'll move on to the interview Ron Paul did with Christianity Today.

In the interview Ron Paul was asked, "Can you talk about your faith background? For instance, did you have a conversion experience?" He responded,

Not as some others describe it. I think the most important religious experience I had was when I was raised in a Lutheran church where confirmation was very important. Church was obviously very important. We all went to church every week as a family affair. But confirmation was when we got to be teenagers and make a decision to go through the lessons and study and learn and make a commitment. At home, birthdays were something, but no parties. Of course it was during World War II and the Great Depression, so there weren't a lot of parties, but there was an acknowledgement. But confirmation was a very important event. Everybody in the family came and it was acknowledged. Yes, I remember that very clearly, because we were old enough to make a commitment and that was when the commitment was made.

I thought it was very strange that Ron Paul would bring up birthday parties. The point seems to be that for Ron Paul the most important thing about Christianity is personal committment and being individually recognized for this personal committment. Ron Paul did not remain Lutheran. He became an Episcopalian and then a Baptist because of the Episcopalian support of abortion and politically liberal organizations. When Ron Paul is asked about how he would identify himself he says:

I'm not a hyphenated Christian. I believe. I am a Christian and I believe in it, and I am influenced by my upbringing and my understanding and my biblical understanding. I don't think there are ever two people who are exactly the same, so I don't usually use hyphenation.

Next, Ron Paul is asked about his views on same-sex marriage. He says:

Biblically and historically, the government was very uninvolved in marriage. I like that. I don't know why we should register our marriage to the federal government. I think it's a sacrament. I think it should be biblical, and politically I don't like to fight with people who disagree with me, as long as they don't force their views on me. So for that reason, I think the real solution to some of this argument is to have less government, rather than government dictating and forcing understanding on different people. I don't think much can be achieved. As I mentioned in my talk, Christ doesn't come and beg and plead for more laws. He pleads for more morality, and I think that's very important.

Ron Paul doesn't really address the real arguments against same-sex marriage. Marriage laws have historically been written in most societies to protect children and attach children to their biological parents. That is why the government has an interest in marriage. All laws are written to encourage moral behavior, that is why we have laws. Ron Paul was also asked about how he thought America should encourage religious liberty in Iran and Afghanistan. He said,

By striving for perfection here and setting a good standard so that people would come and say America is a wonderful place. It's free and prosperous, just like de Tocqueville said in the 1850s. America is a great nation because it's a moral nation and people go to church. Others should look and see the results, but I don't believe in the use of force. If you're not a Christian, I don't force you to go to church. The use of force backfires, it has unintended consequences. So you can only do this through persuasion and changing people's hearts and minds, not the use of political force. Political force should be rejected in trying to mold the economy or mold people's spirituality.

This passage is really bizarre. I don't think anyone is talking about forcing the Iranians to go to church. It would make more sense if Ron Paul simply said that the best way to encourage religious freedom is to show by example that religious freedom encourages prosperity. Instead Ron Paul is saying that being moral and going to church results in a great nation but that we shouldn't force other people to be moral and go to church. Instead we should show other nations that they can be prosperous if they are moral and go to church. By certain standards some Muslim nations are actually more moral than America. Abortion and pornography are illegal in many Muslim countries. The two big motivating factors behind Muslim terrorist attacks on the U.S. are the U.S. occupation of Muslim countries and the pornography that U.S. exports into Muslim countries. Ron Paul would want to end the occupations but would have no desire to interfere with the American porn industry. There are other nations where church attendance is much higher than we find in America and the laws reflect a greater morality, but are far less prosperous than the United States.

Ron Paul is portraying America as a Christian nation where everyone is behaving morally and going to church. America is a secular nation that established laws based on Judeo-Christian standards of morality. In some ways I think Ron Paul might hold to beliefs similar to that of the founding fathers of America. They understood being a Christian as going to church and holding to a set of moral principles.

Prayer by O. Hallesby

2011-10-21T12:49:00.000-04:00

Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Prayer by Ole Hallesby. The book was recommended in a series of lectures on Christian Spirituality by John Kleinig. Ole Hallesby was a Norwegian Lutheran pietist. I am generally opposed to the pietist movement. I think it's very dangerous to direct our eyes away from the objective things that Christ has done for us and to our subjective feelings. But I also recognize a deficiency in my own prayer life. I have greatly benefited from the prayers of the church and the Psalms but have difficulty forming my own prayers. Over time I've gotten somewhat better but I could still use considerable help.

The first chapter of Hallesby's book begins by quoting Revelation 3:20. Hallesby believes that Revelation 3:20 throws greater light on prayer than any other passage of the Bible. This is very strange. Revelation 3:20 really doesn't seem to have much to do with prayer. Jesus is standing outside of the door of an apostate church and knocking. He promises that if anyone opens the door He will sup with him. It seems most natural to take this as a reference to the Lord's Supper. Evangelicals use this passage for evangelism. They say Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart and you have to let Him in but this doesn't fit the context either. The conclusions that Hallesby draws from Revelation 3:20 about prayer seem to be true. Hallesby says that prayer is not initiated by us but by the knocking of Jesus and it's these insights that make the chapter valuable. He arrives at the right doctrines from the wrong text. After Hallesby elaborates on Jesus as the initiator of prayer he tells us that true prayer is the fruit of our helplessness. This section was excellent and he returns to this idea from time to time throughout the book.

The book is worth purchasing for these two sections. But after these two sections the book seems to go downhill. There is very little in the book that explains what prayer is based upon passages that are actually talking about prayer. The book emphasizes prayer chiefly as a way to glorify God which doesn't really follow from prayer being an expression of our helplessness. The book teaches that God cannot work apart from our prayer and that by our prayer we can usher in the millenial kingdom.

My own prayer life is firmly rooted in the historic liturgy and tied to the sacraments. When I pray, even when alone, I join in the prayers of the church. But there was no mention of the liturgy or the sacraments in Hallesby. It seemed to be very individualistic with the exception of some talk of going to prayer meetings.

The Psalms are helpful aids in prayer and learning to pray. Hallesby does direct us there but he only seems to find praise and thanksgiving in the Psalms. Hallesby doesn't speak of the Psalms or lament.

I would recommend reading the first two chapters of the book but I didn't find much that was valuable beyond that.

Baptist Successionism Part 4: 1400-1600, 17th-19th Centuries, and Conclusion

2011-10-19T13:02:00.000-04:00

I recommend reading parts 1, 2, and 3 first. In the section dealing with the period from 1400-1600 Carroll gives a brief survey of the history of the Reformation. Some of what he says is true, some is not. But I'm mostly concerned with his claims about the anabaptists. From Carroll's writings you get the impression that anabaptists were persecuted simply because they would not baptize babies. But this is not true. Many anabaptists were violent revolutionaries who taught forms of socialism and taught that the wealthy should be stripped of their wealth. For further reading on some of the atrocities commited by the anabaptists and their promotion of immorality click here.

Carroll then gives a survey of the time period between the 17th-19th Centuries. For some reason in this section Carroll writes:

11. I quote a very significant statement from the Schaff- Herzogg Encyclopedia, under "History of Baptists in Europe," Vol. 1, page 210, "The Baptists appeared first in Switzerland about 1523, where they were persecuted by Zwingle and the Romanists. They are found in the following years, 1525-1530, with large churches fully organized, in Southern Germany, Tyrol and in middle Germany. In all these places persecutions made their lives bitter."

(Note--that all this is prior to the founding of the Protestant churches--Lutheran, Episcopal, or Presbyterian.)

We continue the quotation--

"Moravia promised a home of greater freedom, and thither many Baptists migrated, only to find their hopes deceived. After 1534 they were numerous in Northern Germany, Holland, Belgium, and the Walloon provinces. They increased even during Alva's rule, in the low countries, and developed a wonderful missionary zeal." (Note--"Missionary Zeal." And yet some folks say that the "Hardshells" are primitive Baptists.)

Where did these Baptists come from? They did not come out of the Catholics during the Reformation. They had large churches prior to the Reformation.

The quotation that Carroll gives says the Bapitsts first appeared in 1523. This seems to contradict his earlier statements that the Baptists have existed in continual succession since the time of the Apostles. I have not been able to locate the original quote in Schaff-Herzog but it could be from some earlier edition. Carroll claims that the 1523 date makes the Baptists older than the Reformation churches. But Luther nailed the 95 theses in 1517 and by 1521 there was already the beginnings of the Lutheran church. Zwingli began his ministry in 1519 and most regard the Swiss anabaptists as being disciples of Zwingli who went further than Zwingli did.

In Conclusion, at best Carroll is an extraordinarily poor historian, at worst he is an extraordinarily dishonest historian. I suspect there is a mixture of both. When trying to locate the origins of the various quotations provided by Carroll, I came across similar quotes in other Baptist publications. I noticed that over time these quotations would get longer and longer and more and more pro-Baptist. In another 100, if the trend continues, the Hosius quote will probably have a line in it about how much he wished he could become a Baptist.

When people are concerned about the truth they don't need to do these silly things. But when people become more concerned with maintaining a particular institution or tradition than the truth, they will always lie to protect the institution or traditon. The historical reality is that the anti-infant baptism movement arose in the 1100s, died off after a couple hundred years, and re-emerged around the time of the Reformation.

The truth is that the New Testament does not limit baptism to a particular age group. It doesn't specifically say "Baptize babies" but it doesn't specifically say "Baptize ninety year old women" either. The Apostles were told in Matthew 28 to disciple the nations by baptizing them. Babies are people too and are part of the nations and this was recognized by almost everyone throughout church history.

The anti-infant baptism is only a symptom of a larger problem. The anti-infant baptism position is based on a misunderstanding of what faith is and what the sacraments are. The vast majority of those who take an anti-infant baptism position believe that infants are incapable of faith. The Scriptures say that faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8). The Scriptures give several accounts of faith in the womb and faith in nursing infants. The only way to enter the kingdom of God is through faith. When infants are brought to Jesus the disciples want to turn the infants away but Jesus tells them that these infants belong to the kingdom of God. He even tells His disciples that anyone who wants to enter the kingdom of God must be like these children. He doesn't tell the children to grow up. He tells the adults to be like these children.

The anti-infant baptism is based on a false teaching of what baptism is. According to the Scriptures, baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins" and "baptism now saves you." According to the anti-infant Baptist, baptism is a testimony of your faith. It's a work that you perform. They have exalted their tradition above the Scriptures. The anti-infant Baptist will tell you that pouring water on a baby won't do anything for the baby. They don't understand that baptism isn't just water, it's God's Word with water and God's Word does what it says. When God said, "Let there be light" there was light. His Word was not just some outward testimony of what had already taken place.

The anti-infant Baptist puts anti-infant baptism at the center of their theology. Carroll provides a list of "Fundamental Doctrines":

1. A spiritual Church, Christ its founder, its only head and law giver.

2. Its ordinances, only two, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. They are typical and memorial, not saving.

3. Its officers, only two, bishops or pastors and deacons; they are servants of the church.

4. Its Government, a pure Democracy, and that executive only, never legislative.

5. Its laws and doctrines: The New Testament and that only.

6. Its members. Believers only, they saved by grace, not works, through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

7. Its requirements. Believers on entering the church to be baptized, that by immersion, then obedience and loyalty to all New Testament laws.

8. The various churches--separate and independent in their execution of laws and discipline and in their responsibilities to God--but cooperative in work.

9. Complete separation of Church and State.

10. Absolute Religious liberty for all.

You'll notice that Jesus is not at the center of this theology. He's mentioned in the first line but he is simply the founder, head, and law giver. There is nothing about the Deity of Christ or the atonement. Some of the groups that Carroll traces his lineage through deny the Trinity or the Deity of Christ. There are Baptist denominations that are full of people who don't seem to agree on anything except that babies should not be baptized.

But if we place our faith in Christ instead of anti-infant Baptism things look much different. We no longer need to construct these foolish genealogies. Instead we can trust Christ and His Word. If we actually believe God's Word we will see what sinners we really are and won't be amazed that God's Word can save babies.

Baptist Successionism Part 3: 600-1300

2011-10-17T14:05:00.000-04:00

I recommend reading parts 1 and 2 before reading this post. This post deals with J.M. Carroll's second lecture in The Trail of Blood which covers the period between 600 and 1300. Carroll turns his attention to the Ecumenical Councils. Carroll briefly mentions the first three Ecumenical Councils and then writes:

The fourth met at Calcedon, A.D. 451, and was called by Emperor Marian; 500 or 600 bishops or Metropolitans (Metropolitans were City pastors or First Church pastors) were present. During this Council the doctrine of what is now known as Mariolatry was promulgated. This means the worship of Mary, the mother of Christ. This new doctrine at first created quite a stir, many seriously objecting. But it finally won out as a permanent doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The Council was actually called by Emperor Marcian not Marian. The statement of Chalcedon did not promulgate Mariolatry but instead combatted against the Christological errors of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. In order to combat against these Christological errors, Chalcedon refers to Mary as the Theotokos or Mother of God or as Jaroslav Pelikan translates it "the one who gives birth to the one who is God." The Church believed it was important to confess that Jesus is one man, Divine and human. Some heretical groups have denied the title Theotokos because they believe that Jesus was basically composed of two "persons"--the human that was the son of Mary and the Divine which was not. The term Theotokos was used to confess that Christ is not two persons but one.

Carroll goes on to speak of other Councils--sometimes providing accurate but often providing inaccurate information and then says:

During the period that we are now passing through the persecuted were called by many and varied names. Among them were Donatists, Paterines, Cathari, Paulicians, and Ana Baptists; and a little later, Petro-Brussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, Albigenses, and Waldenses. Sometimes one group of these was the most prominent and sometimes another. But some of them were almost always prominent because of the persistency and terribleness of their persecution.

I already dealt with Carroll's claims about the Donatists and Paterines here. I dealt with his claims about the Petrobrussians and Waldensians here.

The Cathari were dualists and gnostics who lived between the 11th and 13th Centuries. It is true that the denied baptismal regeneration but they also denied water baptism completely. They believed that since water was part of this material world it was evil. They had their own form of baptism where the candidate had to undergo some rather bizarre and intense fasting rituals that would eventually end in their death. The "baptism" was then performed by the laying on of hands on the baptismal candidate as he died by starving to death to avoid the recontamination of the soul. The Cathari did not believe that there was one God but two gods. They believed that there was a god of evil who created the physical world and a good god who was completely spirit and never became incarnate. It seems like Carroll is willing to put up with just about any false doctrine as long as the group in question doesn't teach baptismal regeneration or baptize infants.

The Paulicans flourished from 650 to 782. The Paulicans used the sword to spread their beliefs which according to Carroll is a mark of a false church. The Paulicans taught that Jesus became the Son of God when He was baptized at the age of thirty. They regarded the Holy Spirit as a mere creature. They did not accept the Old Testament and only accepted part of the New Testament. The Paulicans regarded true baptism as having nothing to do with water but many still allowed their children to baptized by Christian priests.

The term "Anabaptist" is a very general term, so it's not clear who exactly Carroll is referring to. They were a 16th Century movement. Some were peaceful, some were revolutionaries. Some held to heretical views about the Trinity or the doctrine of Christ. They all denied infant baptism but they were all over the place on other issues.

The Arnoldists were a 12th Century group that arose within the Christian church. They spoke against the wealth of the clergy. According to some sources Arnold held to the same position as the rest of the Christian church on the issue of baptism. According to other sources he denied the validity of the sacraments because they were being administered by sinful priests. According to others Arnold denied the sacraments completely. It could be that the Arnoldists transitioned between these different positions. I was not able to locate any evidence that they held to a Baptist understanding of baptism.

The Henricians were followers of Henry of Lausanne. Henry was a monk who left the monastary and began to preach against the clergy. He was a student of Peter de Bruys. Peter and Henry were the first known leaders to speak out against infant baptism. But this was in the 1100s and they were both members of the Christian church. They never spoke of any kind of succession. After a couple hundred years the anti-paedobaptist position died away again and was not revived until the time of the Reformation in the 16th Century.

The Albigenses were not Christian and did not practice water baptism. They believed that there was a good god who created human souls and a bad god who trapped them in bodies. They taught that Jesus was a mere creature--not exactly the group I would want to point to as my spiritual forefathers. Carroll goes on to say:

It is well to note also that in order to prevent the spread of any view of any sort, contrary to those of the Catholics very extreme plans and measures were adopted. First, all writings of any sort, other than those of the Catholics, were gathered and burned. Especially was this true of books. For several centuries these plans and measures were strictly and persistently followed. That is, according to history, the main reason why it is so difficult to secure accurate history.

This is the conspiracy theory that stands behind all of Carroll's work. I'm sure Carroll would argue that all these groups have been misrepresented and that if their genuine writings were revealed these groups would all turn out to be Baptist. But what evidence of there of this? Couldn't someone just as easily say they were all really Muslims? Or Hare Krishnas? Was Carroll given some magic spectacles by an angel that allows him to see all the Baptists down through history?

To Be Continued...

Baptist Successionism Part 2: 30-500

2011-10-12T10:34:00.000-04:00

In this post I will continue to examine the claims made in The Trail of Blood by J.M. Carroll. If you have not done so, I recommend reading my previous post before reading this one. The first lecture in The Trail of Blood covers the time period of 30-500AD and makes several errors both in its understanding of ecclesiology and the sacraments but I won't go into those here. Instead I will just focus on the historical claims that are made. Carroll says:

Another vital change which seems from history to have had its beginning before the close of the second century was on the great doctrine of Salvation itself. The Jews as well as the Pagans, had for many generations, been trained to lay great stress on Ceremonials. They had come to look upon types as anti-types, shadows as real substances, and ceremonials as real saving agencies. How easy to come thus to look upon baptism. They reasoned thus: The Bible has much to say concerning baptism. Much stress is laid upon the ordinance and one's duty concerning it. Surely it must have something to do with one's salvation. So that it was in this period that the idea of "Baptismal Regeneration" began to get a fixed hold in some of the churches. (Shackelford, page 57; Camp p. 47; Benedict, p. 286; Mosheim, vol. 1, p. 134; Christian, p. 28.)

The only non-Baptist historian here is Mosheim. Mosheim does speak of various rites and ceremonies being added during the second century but he doesn't say anything about a change of belief that resulted in the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. The fact is that the Scriptures speak of baptism in salvific terms by saying "baptism now saves us" and baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins." And when we look at what the earliest church fathers say about baptism there are none who describe it as just a symbolic act and plenty that describe it as regeneration. The Epistle of Barnabas which was written in 130 says:

"This means that we go down into the water full of sins and foulness, and we come up bearing fruit in our hearts, fear and hope in Jesus and in the Spirit.”

The Shepherd of Hermas written around 140 AD says:

"I have heard, sir," said I, "from some teachers, that there is no other repentance except that which took place when we went down into the water and obtained the remission of our former sins." He said to me, "You have heard rightly, for so it is." (The Shepherd 4:3:1-2)

They had need [the Shepherd said] to come up through the water, so that they might be made alive; for they could not otherwise enter into the kingdom of God, except by putting away the mortality of their former life. These also, then, who had fallen asleep, received the seal of the Son of God, and entered into the kingdom of God. For, [he said,] before a man bears the name of the Son of God, he is dead. But when he receives the seal, he puts mortality aside and again receives life. The seal, therefore, is the water. They go down into the water dead [in sin], and come out of it alive. (ibid 9:16:2-4)

Justin Martry writing between 148-155 said:

Whoever is convinced and believes that what they are taught and told by us is the truth, and professes to be able to live accordingly, is instructed to pray and to beseech God in fasting for the remission of their former sins, while we pray and fast with them. Then they are led by us to a place where there is water; and there they are reborn in the same kind of rebirth in which we ourselves were reborn: In the name of God, the Lord and Father of all, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they receive the washing with water. For Christ said, "Unless you be reborn, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." ...The reason for doing this, we have learned from the Apostles. (The First Apology 61)

I could provide more quotes but I think this is sufficient. Baptismal regeneration was a teaching held by the early church. The innovation comes in the later denial of baptismal regeneration by some. After the statement about the meaning of baptism, Carroll goes on to talk about the subjects and mode of baptism:

The next serious error to begin creeping in, and which seems from some historians (not all) to have begun in this same century and which may be said to have been an inevitable consequence of the "baptismal regeneration" idea, was a change in the subjects of baptism. Since baptism has been declared to be an agency or means to salvation by some erring churches, then the sooner baptism takes place the better. Hence arose "infant baptism." Prior to this "believers" and "believers" only, were regarded as proper subjects for baptism. "Sprinkling" and "pouring" are not now referred to. These came in much later. For several centuries, infants, like others, were immersed. The Greek Catholics (a very large branch of the Catholic church) up to this day, have never changed the original form of baptism. They practice infant baptism but have never done otherwise than immerse the children. (Note--Some of the church historians put the beginning of infant baptism within this century, but I shall quote a short paragraph from Robinson's Ecclesiastical Researches.)

"During the first three centuries, congregations all over the East subsisted in separate independent bodies, unsupported by government and consequently without any secular power over one another. All this time they were baptized churches, and though all the fathers of the first four ages, down to Jerome (A.D. 370), were of Greece, Syria and Africa, and though they give great numbers of histories of the baptism of adults, yet there is not one of the baptism of a child till the year 370." (Compendium of Baptist History, Shackelford, p. 43; Vedder, p. 50; Christian, p, 31; Orchard, p. 50, etc.)

So Carroll's claim is that there is no record of children being baptized prior to 370 and that departure from immersion as a mode of baptism came later. Between 189-190 Irenaeus, a disciple of John, wrote:

"He [Jesus] came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are reborn in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age . . . [so that] he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age" (Against Heresies 2:22:4).

"‘And [Naaman] dipped himself . . . seven times in the Jordan’ [2 Kgs. 5:14]. It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [this served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions, being spiritually regenerated as newborn babes, even as the Lord has declared: ‘Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]" (Fragment 34).

The first quote makes it clear that Irenaeus believed that Jesus regenerated infants. The second quote makes it clear that Irenaeus believed that regeneration took place through baptism. In 248 Origen wrote:

"Every soul that is born into flesh is soiled by the filth of wickedness and sin. . . . In the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins, and, according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants. If there were nothing in infants which required the remission of sins and nothing in them pertinent to forgiveness, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous" (Homilies on Leviticus 8:3).

"The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit" (Commentaries on Romans 5:9).

Cyprian of Carthage wrote in 253:

"As to what pertains to the case of infants: You [Fidus] said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, that the old law of circumcision must be taken into consideration, and that you did not think that one should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day after his birth. In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judge that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born" (Letters 64:2).

All these quotes are from before 370, so we know that Carroll's statement is false. The Cyprian quote also shows us what the first known controversy was in regards to infant baptism. Fidus was arguing that baptism should be delayed until the baby is eight days old. Cyprian says that baptism should not be withheld from someone simply because they have not reached the age of eight days old. There's no evidence in any of these quotes that anyone was arguing that babies should not be baptized at all.

According to Carroll the use of any mode other than immersion for baptism came much later than 370 AD but this isn't true either. The Didache dates back to the time of the Apostles. It was written sometime between the years 50 and 120. Some believe it was written in the year 150 but this is still much earlier than 370. Some ancient churches regarded it as part of the New Testament canon. It provides a helpful look into the practices of the early church. According to the Didache:

After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water, and if you are not able in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, let the one baptizing and the one to be baptized fast, as also any others who are able. Command the one who is to be baptized to fast beforehand for one or two days (7:1)

Depending upon the amount of water available, immersion was used but pouring was used when there wasn't enough water. For the early Christians the water the Word were what was necessary for a valid baptism. In 215 Hippolytus wrote:

Where there is no scarcity of water the stream shall flow through the baptismal font or pour into it from above; but if water is scarce, whether on a constant condition or on occasion, then use whatever water is available. Let them remove their clothing. Baptize first the children, and if they can speak for themselves let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them (The Apostolic Tradition 21:16).

In 254 Cyprian wrote:

In the saving sacraments, when necessity compels and when God bestows his pardon, divine benefits are bestowed fully upon believers, nor ought anyone be disturbed because the sick are poured upon or sprinkled when they receive the Lord's grace" (Letter to a Certain Magnus 69(76):12)

Carroll goes on to say:

These two errors (baptismal regeneration and infant baptism) have, according to the testimony of well-established history, caused the shedding of more Christian blood, as the centuries have gone by, than all other errors combined, or than possibly have all wars, not connected with persecution, if you will leave out the recent "World War." Over 50,000,000 Christians died martyr deaths, mainly because of their rejection of these two errors during the period of the "dark ages" alone--about twelve or thirteen centuries...To effectually bring about and consummate this unholy union, a council was called. In A. D. 313, a call was made for a coming together of the Christian churches or their representatives . Many but not all came. The alliance was consummated. A Hierarchy was formed. In the organization of the Hierarchy, Christ was dethroned as head of the churches and Emperor Constantine enthroned (only temporarily, however) as head of the church...Let it be definitely remembered that when Constantine made his call for the council, there were very many of the Christians (Baptists) and of the churches, which declined to respond. They wanted no marriage with the state, and no centralized religious government, and no higher ecclesiastical government of any kind, than the individual church. These Christians (Baptists) nor the churches ever at that time or later, entered the hierarchy of the Catholic denomination.

But there is no evidence of any of this. Carroll provides no citations to prove that 50,000,000 Christians were martyred because they rejected infant baptism and baptismal regeneration. The Council that Carroll refers to is the Council of Rome in 313. Constantine legalized Christianity and became a leader in the church but was not the head of the church. These "Baptists" that Carroll refers to are the Donatists.

There is no evidence that the Donatists denied baptismal regeneration or denied infant baptism and no evidence that they separated themselves from people who did. The Donatists were in full communion with the rest of the Church. There was no "Catholic" denomination at that time as Carroll refers to it. This is a much later development. At that time there was simply the Christian Church. You can read a good article on the Donatists here. During the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian there were some Christians who renounced the faith. When persecution ended many of them wanted to return to back to the church. The Donatists did not believe they should be allowed to return into full communion and denied the validity of the sacraments that were administered by priests who renounced the faith during the persecution. According to Carroll one of the marks of the true New Testament church is that they do not use carnal weapons to promote their beliefs. But this cannot be said of the Donatists. Donatists were killed by the Christian church but when Donatists gained political power, Donatists killed Christians. Carroll writes:

The course followed by the loyal churches soon, of course, incurred the hot displeasure of the state religionists, many, if not most of whom, were not genuine Christians. The name "Christian," however, was from now on denied those loyal churches who refused to accept these new errors. They were robbed of that, and called by many other names, sometimes by one and sometimes by another, "Montanist, "Tertullianists," "Novationists," "Paterines," etc., and some at least because of their practice of rebaptizing those who were baptized in infancy, were referred to an "Ana -Baptists."

The Montanists and Tertullianists did not reject the validity of infant baptism or baptismal regeneration. They believed that baptism should be delayed because they believed that all sins were washed away at the time of baptism that were committed until that time. The Montanists had a strong emphasis on the continuation of prophecy, ascetic lifestyle, and believed that the New Jerusalem was in west-central Phrygia. The Novatians did not reject infant baptism or baptismal regeneration. They believed that those who renounced their faith during the persecution of Emperor Decius should not be admitted back into the church. The Paterines (or Pataria) lived in the 11th Century and were opposed to both clerical marriage and concubinage. Some claim that they were opposed to all marriage, thought women should be allowed to teach in the church, and regarded matter as evil. But they were a group within the Christian church and there is no record of them denying infant baptism or baptismal regeneration. If they truly regarded matter as evil it's possible that they regarded baptism as completely unnecessary but that doesn't seem likely. The Trail of Blood Chart places the Paterines/Paterins/Pataria around the year 300 but I don't see any evidence of this.

To Be Continued...

Baptist Successionism Part 1: The Introduction to "The Trail of Blood"

2011-10-06T14:55:00.000-04:00

Baptist successionism teaches that there is an unbroken of chain of churches since the time of the Apostles that have remained separate from the Roman Catholic church and taught Baptist doctrine. The first known Baptist to argue for Baptist Successionism was John Spittlehouse in 1652. Since the 19th century most Baptists have abandoned these claims because of the lack of real historical evidence.

Unfortunately some do still hold to the claims of Baptist successionism and this belief ends up being a distraction from Jesus Christ The circular reasoning of Baptist successionism makes it almost impossible to convince the Baptist successionist that his church's is teaching contrary to the Scriptures. Most Baptist successionists are very anti-Roman Catholic but their line of argument really isn't much different. The Roman Catholic church believes it is the one true church based on a questionable succession of bishops going back to the Apostles. They teach that the Pope is the successor of St. Peter. Later Roman Catholic dogma gets read into the early church fathers and the New Testament. When a Roman Catholic is questioned about this later doctrinal development that appears contrary to the Scriptures he will make the claim that the person who wrote this book of the Bible was a member of the Roman Catholic church and so they would never contradict Roman Catholic dogma. They insist that all passages must be read in a way that conforms with Roman dogma.

The Baptist successionist finds his own legitimacy through a supposedly unbroken line of Baptist churches going back to the Apostles. Unlike the case of the Roman Catholics, this line of succession is not just questionable, there is no historic record of it at all. The Baptists Successionist starts with the presupposition that his church is teaching the truth, point to Christ's promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, and then claims that there MUST be a continuous line of churches teaching what his church teaches. The lack of historical evidence is explained by saying that the historical records were destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church.

The problem in both the Roman and Baptist cases is that the Scriptures are no longer the final authority--what the particular church teaches is the final authority. What the particular church teaches is read back into the Scriptures. Many of these Baptist churches also teach KJV-onlyism but they are always reading their own church's traditions into the KJV. They don't believe that "baptism doth also now save us" (1 Peter 3:21) or that it is "for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38). In fact if you taught either of these things they would accuse you of teaching the "heresy" of baptismal regeneration. They don't teach that the Lord's Supper is the body and blood of Christ. It doesn't matter to them that all the historical records indicate that everyone in the early church took the Scriptures literally and taught that the Lord's Supper is the body and blood of Christ and that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.

The rest of this post will tediously go through the claims made in J.M. Carroll's popular pamphlet The Trail of Blood. There are some more recent pamphlets like this one by Thomas Cassidy but they basically just parrot Carroll's work.

The introduction to the book is written by Clarence Walker.Walker begins by quoting sources that speak of persecution of the anabaptists. Many of these acts are real and inexcusable. But its not as if the anabaptists have no blood on their own hands. Many of the anabaptists were violent revolutionaries. The anabaptist John of Leyden got his own army together and took over Münster. He made himself king, kicked out dissenters, and set up a strange polygamous theocracy. Much of the Baptist literature would have you believe that Baptists were always persecuted and never persecutors but history says otherwise. Much of the literature will also tell you that Baptists have always promoted the separation of church and state but this just isn't true.

I haven't taken the time to research all the quotes that are merely in regards to the persecution of Baptists. I'm more interested in the quotes that make claims that there was a continuous line of persecution of Baptists back to the time of the Apostles. The most interesting quote is that of Cardinal Hosius. Hosius was a Roman Catholic, the quote is dated from 1524, and he is said to have been the President of the Council of Trent. According to Walker quoting Carroll, Hosius wrote:

"Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers." (Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pp. 112, 113.)

So according this "quote" the Baptists had existed for at least 1200 years. Ben Townsend provides a vey detailed analysis of this "quote." Townsend notes that there is no "Apud Opera" in Hosius's writings. "Baptist" was also not a term that was used at that time. They were referred to an anabaptists. Hosius was not the "President" of the Council of Trent. He was delegate. Also, the Council of Trent was not even taking place in 1524. It took place between 1561-1563. It appears that what is actually being provided is a paraphrase of a paraphrase found in Baptist magazine. Townsend was able to locate what he believes is the original quotation written in 1563 by Hosius in Liber Epistolarum 150, titled “Alberto Bavariae Duci.” Townsend sent the Latin to an expert for a translation. This is the result:

"For not so long ago I read the edict of the other prince who lamented the fate of the Anabaptists who, so we read, were pronounced heretics twelve hundred years ago and deserving of capital punishment. He wanted them to be heard and not taken as condemned without a hearing." (by Carolinne White, Ph.D, Oxford University, Head of Oxford Latin)

The actual quote does not provide evidence that there was continual persecution of the anabaptists for the 1200 years before this was written but that some of the same errors of the Baptists were declared heresy 1200 years before this was written. Hosius believed that the Anabaptists were committing some of the same errors as the Donatists did 1200 years prior to that. I'll compare the teachings of the Donatists and the Baptists later. The next quote of interest is by Sir Isaac Newton who reportedly said:

"The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome."

There is no reference to verify this quote and without context its difficult to determne what Sir Isaac Newton was trying to say. After doing some research I found some Baptist successionist sites that did provide a citation and said that this quote appears in the Memoirs of Whiston,page 201. Whiston was a student of Isaac Newton. Both were Arians. The book can be read online and there is nothing about Newton or the Baptists on page 201 and nothing that resembles the quote above. The only place I found in the book where Newton and the Baptists are mentioned together is on page 206. Whitson writes about how he became convinced that only those who have been catechized should be baptized, wrote a paper a paper about it and sent it to Isaac Newton (I updated the spelling in the quote:

"I sent this paper also, by an intimate friend, Mr. Haines, to Sir Isaac Newton, and desired to know his opinion : the answer returned was this, that they both had discovered the same before : nay, I afterward found that Sir Ifaac Newton was so hearty for the baptists, as well as for the Eusebians or Arians that he sometimes suspected these two were the two witnesses in the Revelation."

The next quote of interest from The Trail of Blood is from the Lutheran historian J.L. Mosheim. It says:

"Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of modern Dutch Baptists."

The quote does not say that there is an unbroken line of Baptist churches that date back to the time of the Apostles but that there were theologically similar groups that existed before the time of the Reformation. But once again we don't have a citation. I found some Baptist successionist sites that have an even longer "quote" but still without citation:

"Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe, persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of the modern Dutch Baptists...the origin of Baptists is lost in the remote depths of antiquity...the first century was a history of Baptists."

The only thing that I could find by Mosheim that even comes close to page 200ff. BOOK IV. CENT. XVI. SEC. III. PART II. CHAP. III. of The Institues of Ecclesiastical History:

The modern Mennonites affirm that their predecessors were the descendants of those Waldensians who were oppressed by the tyranny of the papists; and that they were a most pure offspring, and most averse from any inclinations towards sedition as well as from all fanatical views. On the contrary, their adversaries contend that they are descended from those turbulent and furious Anabaptists, who in the sixteenth century involved Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and especially Westphalia, in so many calamities and civil wars; but that being terrified by the dreadful fate of their associates, through the influence of Menno Simonis especially, they have gradually assumed a more sober character. After duly examining the whole subject with impartiality, I conceive that neither statement is altogether true. In the first place, I believe the Mennonites are not altogether in the wrong, when they boast of a descent from those Waldensians, Petrobrusians, and others, who are usually styled the Witnesses for the truth before Luther. Prior to the age of Luther, there lay concealed in almost every country of Europe, but especially in Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland, and Germany, very many persons, in whose minds was deeply rooted that principle which the Waldensians, tho Wycliffites, and the Hussites maintained, some more covertly and others more openly; namely, that the kingdom which Christ set up on the earth, or the visible church, is an assembly of holy persons, and ought therefore to be entirely free, not only from ungodly persons and sinners, but from all institutions of human device against ungodliness. This principle that such a church as they had formed an idea of, would never be established by human means, indulged the hope that God himself would in his own time erect for himself a new church, free from every blemish and impurity ; and that he would raise up certain persons, and fill them with heavenly light for the accomplishment of this great object. Others, more discreet, looked for neither miracles nor inspiration ; but judged that the church might bo purified from all the contaminations of evil men, and be brought into the state that Christ had intended, by human efforts and care, provided the practice and the regulations of the ancient Christians were restored to their pristine dignity and influence...Whether the origin of this discordant sect which caused such mischief land, or in Holland and Germany, in some other country, it is not important to know, and is impossible fully to determine. In my opinion, this only can be affirmed, that at one and the same time, that is, not long after the commencement of the reformation by Luther, there arose men of this sort, in several different countries. This may be inferred from the fact, that the first leaders of any note among the Anabaptists were, nearly all, founders of distinct sects. For though all these reformers of the church, or rather these projectors of new churches, are called Anabaptists, because they all denied that infants are proper subjects of baptism, and solemnly baptized over again those who had been baptized in infancy ; yet from the very beginning, just as at the present day, they were split into various parties which disagreed and disputed about points of no small importance. The worst part of this motley tribe, namely, that which supposed the founders of their ideal and perfect church would be endued with divine powers and would work miracles, began to raise great disturbances in Saxony and the neighbouring countries, in the year 1521, under the guidance of Thomas Munzer."

What Mosheim actually says is that just prior to the Reformation there were groups who taught "that the kingdom which Christ set up on the earth, or the visible church, is an assembly of holy persons, and ought therefore to be entirely free, not only from ungodly persons and sinners, but from all institutions of human device against ungodliness." Also note that according to Mosheim these groups descended from the Waldensians and Petrobrusians. The Waldensians were started by Peter Waldo who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for preaching without permission in the early 1180s. Waldo did not deny that infants should be baptized. He gave up his possessions to the poor and focused his attention on morality. Some of his spiritual descendants did deny infant baptism but others did not. Many of his descendants joined the Lutheran and Calvinist churches after the Reformation. The Petrobrusians were founded by Peter of Bruys in the 12th Century. Peter of Bruys rejected the Old Testament. He encouraged and practiced physical violence towards the clergy and taught that church buildings should be destroyed. He did teach that only those who have confessed their faith should be baptized but taught that it is a requirement salvation making him more a forerunner of the Campbellites than the Baptists.

The next "quote" of interest is attributed to the Edinburg Cyclopedia:

"It must have already occurred to our readers that the Baptists are the same sect of Christians that were formerly described as Ana-Baptists. Indeed this seems to have been their leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the present time."

Once again no citation is provided. This one took more work to find but find it I did.

If opposition to the mode in which baptism is commonly administered be the distinguishing characteristic of this sect, Tertullian, who lived about the end of the second century, may be accounted one of its earliest founders. A short time afterwards, Agrippinus, a Carthaginian bishop, and many of the neighbouring clergy, re jected the baptisms which were then administered, and rebaptized all those who joined this society. Cyprian and his followers adopted the same sentiments in the third century. From Carthage these opinions migrated to the East, and Firmilian, bishop of Casana, and many other bishops in Asia, re-baptized. The Novatians and Donatists likewise condemned baptism as then commonly administered, and embraced the sentiments of those who re-baptized. The ostensible reason which all these persons assigned for this conduct, was the wickedness of those who were universally admitted to baptism, and which, in their opinion, rendered the ordinance altogether invalid...But though there were many individuals, and even some small societies, who maintained the opinions, and deserved the appellation of baptists before the Refor mation, yet it was only about that period that the insulated members were collected into one body, were properly organized, and attracted the attention of Europe...It must have already occurred to our readers, that the baptists are the same sect of Christians which we formerly described under the appellation of ANA BAPTISTS. It is but justice to acknowledge, that they reject the latter appellation with disdain and main tain, that as none of the adopted by churches are consonant to scripture, the baptism of these churches is in reality no baptism. Hence, in their opinion, they do not rebaptize. Indeed, this seems to have been their great leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the present day. According to them, something essential to baptism, either in the subjects, or in the administrators, or in the mode, was omitted, which rendered the rite altogether nugatory ; and hence they asserted, that their baptism was the first that was administered to such as were proper subjects of it."

You can read what Tertullian wrote about baptism here. Tertullian taught baptismal regeneration and didn't reject infant baptism as being an illegitimate baptism. He did teach that he thought it would be better if baptism were delayed so that the baptismal sponsors would not fall into sin by failing to keep their promises and doesn't seem to believe in original sin so he doesn't believe the unbaptized child is in danger. He also advises against the unwed being baptized. What the Edinburg Cyclopedia is actually saying is that since the time of Tertullian there have been those who argued that a real baptism didn't take place if there was something wrong with the "subjects, or in the administrators, or in the mode" that made baptism invalid. The Encyclopedia is not saying that there is a continual line of churches who believe what the modern day Baptist does. It's saying that since the time of Tertullian there have been those who thought that the way baptism was commonly practiced in the church was not good enough and made the baptism "not real" and so a "real" baptism needed to take place even though they disagreed with one another as to what made it "real."

All the relevant quotes in support of Baptist successionism are taken out of context and distorted. It's as if they are all bad paraphrases of someone else's bad paraphrase.

To Be Continued...

Being Passionate

2011-09-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

I was listening to the radio a couple of months ago and they were interviewing some people who had just been to some kind of event that Mitt Romney spoke at. A couple of the people said that they didn't think Mitt Romney was angry enough. I can think of lots of reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney but not being angry enough isn't one of them. Many of these people would have been happy if Mitt Romney had come out yelling, screaming, and throwing chairs even if the content of what he said was the same. They are angry with the political machinery and aren't as concerned with actually fixing problems as they are having someone to express their outrage in a public way. After a political debate content usually takes a back seat to how "presidential" a person acted or how passionate they were.

Unfortunately our expectation of passion for the sake of passion is not limited to our expectations of government leaders. Pastors are praised for "being passionate" or dynamic. I've found websites that say you should leave a church if it does not have a passion for the lost. I recently read an interview with a local worship leader who talked about how important it is to show that you are passionate so that you can create the right worship experience and everyone else will get passionate with you.

If you are critical of what these passionate pastors teach or of how they teach, people will sometimes say, "I don't agree with everything he says but he has such a passion for the lost." But that's not the point. The Bible doesn't call anyone to be passionate. Being passionate is not where the Bible directs us for assurance or one of the qualifications for being a pastor. Pastors are called to be self-controlled, not quarellsome, disciplined, not violent, not quick-tempered, sober-minded, able to teach, and gentle. These Scriptural qualifications mean that if somebody is completely driven by passion they should not be serving as a pastor. A person who is consumed with passion is being driven by his own emotions.

That doesn't mean that pastors are not to have any emotion but their emotions should not be driving them. Jesus did not go around trying to scare people into heaven through elaborate emotional appeals about the terrors of hell. He said what hell was and left it at that. Jesus did respond in anger to the money changers in the temple but that was for theological reasons. The money changers made it seem that you could buy your way into heaven. There are good Scriptural reasons for getting angry with passionate people who preach themselves and use all kinds of gimmicks instead of preaching Christ-crucified and delivering the forgiveness of sins in Word and Sacrament. There are Scriptural reasons for getting angry at those who tell us that what we believe really isn't as important as how we live. There are Scriptural reasons for getting angry with anyone who does not preach the real Jesus crucified for sinners regardless of how passionate they may be for the lost.

Expository Preaching, Revivalism, and Biblical Fidelity

2011-09-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

There are plenty of bad sermons out there where a pastor just picks a topic and goes hunting for verses to support his topic. When the verses are read in context, it becomes obvious that these passages are not trying to teach what the pastor is trying to teach.

So many opt for "expository" preaching. Often the pastor will go verse by verse through the Scriptures trying to tease out every little nuance of the Greek or Hebrew. In some cases a sermon may be on three words at the beginning of a sentence. The pastor may take one year or even several years going verse by verse through a particular book of the Bible.

But is this the point of preaching? Is the pastor primarily a teacher that is supposed to teach you about all the nuances of the Greek and Hebrew? Do the Scriptures provide any examples of preaching?

In Luke 4:16-20 we find the shortest recorded sermon:

He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus reads from the lectionary reading assigned for that day and then explains it in a single sentence. In Luke
Luke 24:45-47 we read:

Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures. He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Jesus opened the minds of his disciples and showed them that all the Scriptures are all about Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 2:2 Paul says:

For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 Paul says:

But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation. We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Paul believes that the central message of every sermon should be Christ-crucified--at least that is how Paul preached. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself and its Paul's job as an ambassador of Christ to make that reconciliation known. That's exactly what Paul does in his letters. Each one of Paul's letters was originally intended to be read in the churches as a sermon. These are infallible and inspired sermons and so we should use them as a point of reference to determine what a sermon should look like. The length of Paul's sermons vary from very short to very long. Paul's letters address a variety of problems in the church. But they are all centered on Christ-crucified--in every single sermon Paul is acting as a minister of reconciliation.

Historically in the church there has been a reading from the Epistles and a reading from the Gospels. Historically, the sermon has generally been on the Gospel and if someone wants to preach like Paul this seems to be the best practice. If you preach on few verses or part of a verse from one of the Epistles you are really preaching on a small portion of somebody else's sermon. Because this is just a small selection from a sermon, if you preach on it, it is very likely that your sermon will have entirely different focus from that of Paul.

This is what you find in John MacArthur's sermons. He doesn't understand the Scriptural distinctions between Law and Gospel so he even takes objective Gospel statements and turns them into Law even when he's preaching on one of the Gospels. He'll preach on John 15 where Jesus says that He it the vine and we are the branche where Jesus promises that if we abide in Him we will bear fruit and makes the sermon all about internal self-evaluation to determine if your life is on a general trajectory of fruit-bearing to determine if you are a "for-real" Christian. Expository pastors give you the impression that they are just preaching the Bible. But in reality they are reading their own pietist traditions into the Bible. They are always taking objective outward-looking Gospel statements about what Jesus has done and turning us inward to our own experience.

It's even easier to make this same mistake when you are just preaching on a short selection from the writings of Paul. Our natural man's inclination is always trying to look away from what Christ has objectively done for us and instead look for life principles or rules that we can do or a mystical experience that we can have. The lectionary is helpful because it keeps pastors off their hobby horses and focuses our attention on the life and work of Jesus rather than our own works.

Good preaching will explain the text well but with a certain goal in mind. The goal is not a geography lesson, a Greek or Hebrew lesson, or even a doctrinal treatise. The goal is the forgiveness of sins. The sermon must be about Christ-crucified. The sermon must declare that we have been reconciled to God in Christ. Different passages of Scripture will lead to sermons that focus on specific sins and different aspects of our reconciliation. But ultimately if the sermon is about something other than Christ-crucified for sinners it is not a Christian sermon. The central message of the Scriptures is not Christ in you but Christ for you.

This type of preaching will not turn a pastor into a superstar. Subjective preaching that focuses on inward transformation and "feeling" the pesence of God will always be more popular. The individual pastor's personality and his ability to be a dynamic speaker will take center stage. The more he can work people up into an emotional frenzy, the more people will talk about how they wish that their pastors were more like this revivalist.

But popularity does not equal Biblical fidelity. We don't find the Apostle Paul trying to scare people into heaven by providing emotional descriptions of God hanging people over the flames of hell. We don't find Paul calling on everyone to examine themselves to see if they are "real" Christians.

Instead, we find Paul faithfully preaching Law, Gospel, and Christ-crucified. Faithful pastors who do this are loved by real sinners but will not be opening up satellite churches. Because if Biblical fidelity is the goal, the pastor down the block can do that too. He doesn't need to be skilled in the art of manipulations. The pastor becomes interchangable in a good way. He faithfully carries out the taks given to him by Christ. He doesn't draw attention to himself or try to impress those who don't know any better with his amazing Greek skills. He delivers Jesus.

The real Biblical church is a multi-site church. But it's not a multi-site church where everyone stares at a screen and talks about how great the pastor is. The real multi-site church is one in which we all gather at our local church and receive the same Jesus in the preaching in the Gospel and are given the same Jesus to eat and to drink while we worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

Why Don't KJV-Onlyists Believe the KJV?

2011-09-22T10:32:00.000-04:00

The majority of KJV-onlyists are fundamentalist Baptists of one kind or another. Some would make the claim that the KJV is the most faithful translation while others would say that it is actually superior to the Greek and Hebrew that it was translated from. Aside from obvious questions about translation errors and the sheer randomness of designating the KJV as God's approved translation, I find something else even stranger. When the Jehovah Witnesses tell you that the New World Translation is the most accurate translation of the Bible, that's because the New World Translation has been translated in such a way to promote JW beliefs. But the KJV contradicts Baptist beliefs.

The Baptists claim that wine is sinful and therefore Jesus did not turn water into wine, but instead he turned water into grape juice. But the KJV says he turned water into wine.

The Baptists claim that "baptize" always means "immerse." But why didn't the KJV translate it as "immerse?"

The Baptists claim that baptism is an act where you testify of your own faith and has nothing to do with salvation. Why doesn't the KJV say that it is to testify of your own faith? Why does the KJV say things like "baptism doth also now save us" (1 Peter 3:21) and that baptism is "for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38)?

If the Lord's Supper is just a memorial meal, why doesn't the KJV say that? Why does the KJV have Jesus saying that it's for the "remission of sins"?

There's a textual variant in 1 Corinthians 11:24. The KJV reads, "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you." In other versions it says "given for you" instead of "broken for you" because of the textual variant. Personally, I think the reading in the KJV is the better choice but it does a very poor job of supporting Baptist doctrine. "Given for you" is preferable if you are trying to support Baptist teaching. The crucifixion accounts make it very clear that not a bone in Jesus's body was broken. The only time Jesus's body is broken is in the Lord's Supper itself when it is broken to be distributed.

From a Baptist perspective it would make a lot more sense to be a Living Bible-onlyist. The Living Bible by paraphrasing does a much better job of supporting Baptist doctrine both on the sacraments and on eschatology. But the KJV-onlyist will tell you that these modern versions water down and twist God's Word. I have to agree that paraphrases like the Living Bible certainly do water down God's Word but its because they twist the text to support Baptist doctrine. If a KJV-onlyist took the KJV seriously he would become a Lutheran.

Do Baptists Baptize or Do They Just Immerse?

2011-09-21T13:01:00.000-04:00

Have you ever heard the term "baby sprinkler" used? I'm not talking about lawn and garden equipment or what baby boys often do while being changed. Rather, it's about a particular term that is used by Baptists in reference to those who thinks babies should be baptized along with everyone else. My pastor pours the water and would baptized unbaptized adults as well so maybe the term doesn't even apply to me, but what I find interesting about this term is what it reveals about the person who uses it.

The person who uses the term is for lack of a cooler term a "speech-capable immersionist." I know, it's not as catchy as baby sprinkler. I would like to use the term "adult immersionist" but adulthood is generally not required by them (judging by the prayer at a NASCAR event being an adult isn't even a requirement to be one of their pastors). If you come up with a cooler sounding name please let me know.

The two pillars of Speech-Capable Immersionism are immersion and the ability of the one being baptized to verbally confess his faith or fill out a card. Churches and denominations are filled with people who disagree on all kinds of soteriological issues but find their unity in the belief that the baptismal candidate must be immersed and must be able to verbally confess his faith prior to doing so.

The Bapist Faith and Message used by the Southern Baptist Convention is typical of Baptist confessions of faith (whether they are Calvinist, Arminian, or somewhere in-between) in what it says about baptism:

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord's Supper.

According to this statement, baptism is an act of obedience (the Bible never says that) and that it symbolizes the believer's faith and is a testimony that the believer is making (the Bible doesn't say that either). It's also your ticket to the Lord's Supper. The Scriptures teach that baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins," "now saves us/you," and is the "washing of regeneration." The Scriptures teach that baptism is all about something that is done to us. The Baptist Faith and Message turns it all into something that we do as a testimony. The Scriptures say that through baptism we are actually united to Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection but the Baptist Faith and Message says that

It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead.

There is an important element within the statement of faith and in most statements of faith of this kind that I think often gets missed by Baptists:

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So it's not that the baptismal formula is completely absent from Baptist baptism. The statement seems to suggest at least that baptism is "immersion" with the Word. At least I hope so. I was conversing with and a pastor of an Independent Baptist church and asked him what he believed these words meant. He told me that he didn't even use the words during the baptism. During the baptism he reads from Romans 6. He didn't believe that Matthew 28:19 contained a baptismal formula at all. He believe that "in the name of" simply meant "by the authority of." I checked the writings of the famous Baptist scholar A.T. Robertson and he makes this argument as well. More liberal Baptist scholars like G. R. Beasley-Murray, despite the lack of any manuscript evidence, argue that the text originally said "into the name of Jesus" but was changed over time to conform to liturgical developments.

Some point out that in the book of Acts, it says that people are baptized "in the name of Jesus." It seems more likely from the context that in Acts, "in the name of" means "by authority of." In one instance the Greek construction is even different from that found in Matthew. The baptismal formula isn't given but the narrative in Acts is saying that the Apostles were baptized according to the commission given to them in Matthew 28.

I watched some Baptist baptismal services on Youtube and in every instance the pastor would speak the baptismal formula from Matthew 28 but he did so prior to the immersion in water. His actions seemed to indicate that he believed that the passage in Matthew 28 merely gave him authority to baptize rather than actually being part of the baptism. This is a departure from historic baptismal practice where the person being baptized is immersed or has the water poured on them while the baptismal formula is said. The Roman Catholic church demands that the water be poured while the words are said in order for it to be considered a valid baptism. The intention of the Baptist does not seem to be to baptize the person into the name of the Triune God but rather to immerse someone as commanded by the Triune God.

In my opinion, Baptist baptism, although it usually uses the right words, seems to deny those words in both action and teaching in the much the same way that they use the words of institution in the Lord's Supper but deny those words. I would appreciate some feedback on this. Maybe I've missed something and am completely wrong. It really isn't my place to determine the validity of baptism. At the very least, the practice introduces doubt into the baptism and baptism was given to us as something objective that we can look to with certainty.

But regardless of whether or not we regard Baptist baptism as valid, I think that having this conversation with Baptists about the necessity of the Word in baptism would allow us to have more fruitful discussions. The Baptists tradition is so focused on the particular mode of baptism and who should or should not be baptized that I don't believe that most Baptists have even considered whether or not God's Word plays a role in the actual baptism. For Lutherans, baptism is not just plain water "but the Word of God in and with the water" that gives us what is promised in baptism. For Lutherans, baptism is the "washing of water with the Word" (Eph. 5:26). For Lutherans the focal point is always God's Word that says what it does. For the Baptist the focal point is obedience to a command to baptize in a way that they believe Scripture commands. It is a work. Baptists know that our works cannot save us. So it's important for the pastor to emphasize that it is God's Word that saves and forgives sins in baptism. Contrary to the accusations, Lutherans do not believe that babies are saved simply by throwing water on them.

A serious conversation needs to be had with Baptists about whether or not God's Word is necessary for there to be a baptism and what that means.

The Unscandalous Cross that Divides Us

2011-09-12T10:42:00.000-04:00

There is a famous thought experiment in ethics known as the Trolley Problem.

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

Should you flip the switch to allow fewer deaths or should you avoid flipping the switch to avoid being an accomplice in an evil act? Would failing to act at all be an evil act? There are a variety of other experiments in ethics based on the trolley problem. This one is my own.

A trolley is running full speed down a track. In its path is your only son. The people in the trolley molested, beat, and ridiculed your son all his life even though he never did any harm to them. The people in the trolley hate you and want to kill you even though you've done nothing but good things for them. You've invited them to feasts--given them all the food and drink they could ever ask for. You've bought homes for them. The people in the trolley tied your son to the track and are trying to run him over. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley off the side of a cliff or you could let them run your son over. If you allow the people to live, they will continue to abuse and kill others. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

I know what I would do. I would pull the switch and I'm sure you would too. There are plenty of popular movies where a man's child gets kidnapped and he goes and kills hundreds of bad guys to get his kid back. If we were able to do this we would. If all we had to do was flip a switch, we wouldn't think twice about it. In addition to saving your son you get to do away with all these horrible people.

But God does not choose this option. God doesn't flip the switch. In self-sacrificial love for these people, the Father gives His Son to them to be beaten and abused and killed. In self-sacrificial love for these people, the Son offers Himself to be beaten and abused and killed. The Son is beaten and abused and killed for you--to suffer for your sins. You gleefully run Him over and in return you receive the forgiveness of sins. This is not reasonable. And this is only a dim shadow of the reality of it all. The crucifixion is much more gruesome and much more unreasonable. It is also an even greater yet more unthinkable act of love.

Because God-crucified is so incomprehensible we will not look at Him. We look around Him or behind Him or in some other direction.

We speak of the crucifixion as something God did to satisfy His own justice and bring glory to Himself. While there is some truth to these statements, too often they are used to avoid the real issue. God is hanging there bleeding and dying on a cross for your sins and you're rationalizing it.

Rather than being the central message as it was for the Apostles, Christ-crucified is understood as almost unnecessary. In Calvinist circles there are the infralapsarian/supralapsarian debates where each party believes that they can get inside of God's head and figure out the logical order of His decrees. Both positions distract us from the way that God has chosen to reveal Himself on the cross. They both turn us to the hidden God and His secret will. They are both theologies of glory. Both regard election as central rather than Christ. Neither position is based on the Scriptures but have more to do with the one doing the theological exercise. God is examined as if He were an impersonal series of events that could be studied in the laboratory.

The Biblical language is very rich and speaks of the atonement in a variety of ways. The Scriptures speak of reconciliation, expiation, propitiation, redemption, victory, etc. Rather than acknowledge the richness, some theologians choose to pick out one term and exclude the others to make the atonement more sensible. Liberals don't like the propitiation language. Calvinists don't like the universal reconciliation and justification language. The Scriptural atonement language describe an atonement that is not reasonable, but should we expect it to be? The Calvinist says that Christ did not die for those who will be damned because that wouldn't be sensible. But that's like watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and deciding that everything is believable except for the fact that the rat is named Splinter. He's the leader, shouldn't he have a better name? God dying for sinners doesn't make sense to begin with. We are told in the Scriptures that God's ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). What God has not revealed is not given to us to know (Deuteronomy 29:29).

But how could people be damned if Jesus died for them? The Scriptures do not give us all the details but always attribute damnation to unbelief. They never speak of damnation as being the result of Jesus not dying for the person. 2 Peter 2:1 speaks of those who deny the Master who bought them and Romans 5 says that all who died in Adam were justified on the cross. But why would God die for people if they would eventually be damned? The question seems to imply that there is something reasonable about God dying for anyone in the first place. God bleeding and dying for us can only be understood through what is actually revealed to us. God dying is beyond and contrary to reason. We are incapable of rationalizing it. We can only stand in awe with out mouths hanging open and a sick stomach staring at God's incomprehensible love displayed for us on the cross.

Because Jesus said He was going to do this unthinkable thing and actually did it when He can trust what He says. Jesus told His disciples rather frequently that He was going to be killed and rise again. They spiritualized this language. It wouldn't sensible for a good Messiah to die on us. If Jesus is truly God, God dying is even less sensible. He must be speaking figuratively. They were utterly astonished when Jesus died and even more astonished when He rose again.

Many do the same thing with the sacraments. They say Jesus could not possibly mean what He sounded like He was saying because that would just be crazy. Of course it's crazy, but so is the whole thing.

When Jesus says, "This is my body" and "This is my blood" it's really rather silly to say that He can't mean what He sounds like He's saying because it's just too crazy. The Gospel is crazy. To deny what sounds crazy would mean to deny the incarnation itself. The sacraments should be embraced for what Jesus says they are rather than explained via Aristotle or contradicted by our observations.

In Memory of Zephaniah:

2011-08-20T18:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my wife and I were blessed with a very healthy baby boy we named Zachariah. But what ended as a single-birth pregnancy, began as twins. We named our other child Zephaniah. He died sometime in the early months of pregnancy. Along with our great joy over Zachariah we have sorrow over Zephaniah. We look forward to bringing Zachariah to the waters of holy baptism but are unable to do that for Zephaniah. Martin Chemnitz wrote

Are the children of believers who died before birth or in birth damned?
By no means, but since our children, brought to the light by divine blessing, are, as it were, given into our hands and at the same time means are offered, or it is made possible for the seal of the covenant of grace to be applied to them, there, indeed, that very solemn divine statement applies: The man-child, the flesh of whose foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, his soul shall be blotted out from [his] people (Gen. 17:14). Hence the Lord met Moses on the way and wanted to kill him because he had neglected to circumcise [his] son (Ex. 4:24-26). But when those means are not given us--as when in the Old Testament a male died before the eighth day of circumcision--likewise when they, who, born in the desert in the interval of 40 years, could not be circumcised because of daily harassment by enemies and constant wanderings, died uncircumcised, (Jos. 5:5-6) and when today infants die before they are born--in such cases the grace of God is not bound to Baptism, but those infants are to be brought and commended to Christ in prayers. And one should not doubt that those prayers are heard, for they are made in the name of Christ. (John 16:23; Gen. 17:7, Matt. 19:14) Since then, we cannot bring infants as yet unborn to Christ through Baptism, therefore we should do it through pious prayers. Parents are to be put in mind of this, and if perhaps such a case occur, they are to be encouraged with this comfort." (An Enchiridion, by Martin Chemnitz, Page 119, CPH St. Louis 1981)

Amazing Grace Vs. By Grace I'm Saved in a No-Holds Barred Grudge Match

2011-08-17T10:31:00.000-04:00

Table Talk Radio regards all pre-1750 hymns as traditional and all post-1750 hymns as contemporary. "Amazing Grace" was published in 1779 placing it in the contemporary catagory. "By Grace I'm Saved" was published in 1742 placing it just barely in the traditional category. "Amazing Grace" is the more popular of the two. Both hymns are about God's grace.

Here are the lyrics to "Amazing Grace":

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

Here are the lyrics to "By Grace I'm Saved":

By grace I'm saved, grace free and boundless;
My soul, believe and doubt it not.
Why stagger at this word of promise?
Hath Scripture ever falsehood taught?
Nay; then this word must true remain;
By grace thou, too, shalt heav'n obtain.

By grace! None dare lay claim to merit;
Our works and conduct have no worth.
God in His love sent our Redeemer,
Christ Jesus, to this sinful earth;
His death did for our sins atone,
And we are saved by grace alone.

By grace! Oh, mark this word of promise
When thou art by thy sins opprest,
When Satan plagues thy troubled conscience,
And when thy heart is seeking rest.
What reason cannot comprehend
God by His grace to thee doth send.

By grace God's Son, our only Savior,
Came down to earth to bear our sin.
Was it because of thine own merit
That Jesus died thy soul to win?
Nay, it was grace, and grace alone,
That brought Him from His heavenly throne.

By grace! This ground of faith is certain;
So long as God is true, it stands.
What saints have penned by inspiration,
What in His Word our God commands,
What our whole faith must rest upon,
Is Grace alone, grace in His Son.

By grace to timid hearts that tremble,
In tribulation's furnace tried,--
By grace, despite all fear and trouble,
The Father's heart is open wide.
Where could I help and strength secure
If grace were not my anchor sure?

Both hyms are about grace but understand grace in very different ways. "Amazing Grace" was written by John Newton and was about his own conversion experience. He was the captain of a slave ship and on his way back home he encountered a dangerous storm. He called out to God for mercy, God spared him, and he looked back on this as his conversion. The hymn was a retelling of how God's grace kept him from death and converted him and now he can look forward to singing about God's grace in heaven. It's a very subjective hymn and based on an experience unique to John Newton--not an experience shared by every Christian.

"By Grace I'm Saved" by Christian L. Scheidt is much different. It speaks to the reality of every Christian. All are saved by God's free grace. The author of the hymn does not appeal to his experience but points us to the Scriptures. We can know that God is gracious because they Scriptures say that He is gracious and the Scriptures are trustworthy and God is trustworthy. The hymn says that we are not saved by our own works but by Christ's atoning death.

How to Read the Holy Scriptures: 25 Theses

2011-08-11T12:50:00.002-04:00

I've recently read a number of books on how to interpret the Scriptures, each of which is useful for various reasons, but each of which I was disappointed with for various reasons. None of what follows is original but is a compilation of what I consider to be helpful advice given in books and articles. If I have erred, I ask for correction. If I have left something out please let me know.

1. The Scriptures were written to the church. The Scriptures were not written as an evangelism tract but were written for believers. The unbeliever should not expect to be able to fully understand the Scriptures and believers should not expect unbelievers to understand or accept the teachings of the Scriptures.

2. The Divine Service is the natural habitat for the Holy Scriptures. The Divine Service is where those who have been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit gather to receive Christ's body and blood and have their sins forgiven. A lion may be dissected in a laboratory and something may be learned about it but what a lion is can only be fully known in its natural habitat. Removing the Scriptures from their natural habitat makes them appear to be tame. In their natural habitat the Scriptures are dangerous.

3. The historic liturgy provides the proper grid and emphasis for understanding the Holy Scriptures. The liturgy is Trinitarian but focused on Christ. The liturgy is all about Jesus and what He did and does. The Scriptures are all about Jesus and what He did and does.

4. The Nicene Creed which is found within the historic liturgy is a summary of the Apostolic Gospel and provides the proper lens through which to read and understand the Scriptures. The Nicene Creed is Trinitarian and focused upon the objective acts of Jesus and who He is.

5. Reading the Scriptures outside of the public gathering of the church is beneficial if it is informed by the previous theses and centered upon Christ.

6. Reading the Bible outside of the public gathering of the church is detrimental if it is not Christocentric and not informed by the liturgy and the historic faith. If Bible study is centered upon moralism or secret codes, personal Bible study will lead you away from Christ and His church. I do not know of many who have more of the Bible memorized than Harold Camping but he does not know how to interpret it and his Bible study has led him away from the Christian faith. The Scriptures were not given to be studied in a closet by individuals but to the church as a whole.

7. It is beneficial to read the Scriptures as part of Matins or Vespers. Even though you may be the only one in the room, you can join in the prayers of the church that are being offered throughout the world. The Treasury of Daily Prayer and Brotherhood Prayer Book both provide resources for the daily offices. The prayers will also help guide you in your interpretation of the Scriptures.

8. The Gospels provide the foundational texts for properly understanding the rest of the Scriptures. Reading straight through from Genesis to Revelation can often cause a person to get bogged down in details and miss Jesus. Many start enthusiastically and give up before they even make it out of Genesis. The Treasury of Daily Prayer has a helpful reading plan based on the liturgical year. Another option is to read one chapter from the Gospels each day which would take the reader through the Gospels four times each year.

9. The Scriptures should be interpreted according to their canonical order. The Gospel of Matthew provides the proper interpretive lens for reading the rest of the Gospels. The Gospels provide the proper interpretive lens for reading the rest of the New Testament. The New Testament provides the proper interpretive lens for reading the Old Testament.

10. No disputed book of the Bible should be used by itself to arrive at a doctrinal position. All disputed books should be interpreted through the lens of the undisputed books. The disputed books (or sections) of the Old Testament are: Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus [aka Sirach], Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Old Greek version of Esther, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Holy Children, and the Prayer of Manasseh. The disputed New Testament books are Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Apocalypse of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache.

11. The emphasis of Scriptural inperetation should be on what Christ does for you. The Bible as a whole is about what Christ does for us but our sinful nature ignores that and wants us to believe that the Bible is all about what we need to do for Jesus.

12. The Law is not the Gospel.

13. The Law contains promises of good things but those promises are contingent upon your obedience to the Law.

14. You don't obey the Law so you don't receive the good things.

15. You are not reading the Law correctly if you think you are keeping it. Trying hard doesn't cut it. Getting better is not acceptable. The Law demands absolute obedience. The Law doesn't say "Try your best." The Law says "Do this and you will live, don't do this and you are damned."

16. The Law does not make anyone better. The Law is good and should be used and tells us how God would have us live but the Law itself does not keep us from doing sinful things. The Law by itself will only result in our sinful nature becoming more rebellious and engage in more sin.

17. The Gospel is the declaration of what Jesus does for you. The Gospel says you are forgiven.

18. Generally commands are Law. However, phrases such as "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved," "be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins," and "Take, eat; this is my body...Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" are actually Gospel. If you were to walk up to a starving man, hand him a sandwich, and say "eat this" it could hardly be considered a law that you are giving the starving man. When we receive the forgiveness of sins in the preaching of the Gospel, baptism, and the Lord's Supper we are not working but receiving.

19. What the Scriptures speak of as gifts should not be interpreted as works.

20. When the Scriptures make declarations we should not automatically interpret them as imperatives. Describing is no the same as commanding. Sometimes the Scriptures describe sinful activities. Sometimes they describe a unique situation. There is no command to kill Christians, be blinded by Jesus, and then have our vision restored. Sometimes what they present is something to believed as an article of faith. God says I am holy therefore I am holy regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if I feel holy, God says I am. We should not concern ourselves with being able to "experience" what God says we are but instead cling to His promises by faith.

21. Revelation is often contrary to reason. Holy Scripture is to believed because it has received the imprimatur of Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead. God dying for your sins is not reasonable and so you should not expect the Holy Scriptures to measure up to your own notions of reasonableness or decency. If something that the Scriptures say seems unreasonable, it is unreasonable to explain it away or deny the plain teaching since Christianity is grounded upon the unreasonable belief that God would die for you.

22. Is means is. Jesus really is the door. All other doors only mimic what he really does. When Jesus said, "This is my body" He really meant it. When He said, "This is my blood" He really meant it. When the Scriptures speak of baptism being "for the forgiveness of sins" they really mean that too. Throughout most of church history most Christians believed that Jesus literally meant these things and even today most Christians do. But unfortunately, many Protestants deny these things because they are gnostics. Matter matters to God.

23. Jesus and the Apostles are able to communicate what they want to communicate. We should not twist or make excuses for the statements made in the Scriptures. If our theology does not allow us to say what the Scriptures plainly say then there is something wrong with our theology. If we can be brought up on heresy charges for repeating what the Scriptures say then our church body is guilty of heresy.

24. The church fathers are better guides than modern critical commentators. The church fathers are not infallible but they did believe that the Scriptures are all about Jesus and lived in closer proximity to the time of the Apostles. Many of them spoke the same language as the Apostles did on a regular basis. Some critics treat the church fathers as if they were immature and superstitious but only because the critics are unbelieving rationalists. The church fathers believed what the plain words of Scripture say about baptism and the Lord's Supper because their interpretive skills were not impaired by the enlightenment.

25. Allegorical interpretation is legitimate if it finds Christ in the passage. Throughout the Gospels and New Testament Epistles we find instances where passages from the Old Testament are understood as prophecies about Christ. Matthew takes Hosea 11:1 and reads it as a prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus. When Hosea 11:1 is read literally, it seems to be speaking of God leading the Israelites out of Egypt in the past. But Matthew is showing us that Jesus is the new Israel--He is Israel reduced to one. Matthew is also showing us that all of the Scriptures are about Jesus--even those that don't appear to be. The early church fathers interpreted the Scriptures in the same way. Occasionally one of the church fathers will provide a questionable interpretation of an Old Testament passage that seems to drift too far into allegory and there is a danger if we arbitrarily allegorize. But we are on the right path when we find Christ in the passage since Jesus said that all of the Scriptures are about Him. We end up with the wrong interpretation if we insist on a Christless literalistic interpretation.

Abdon and Sennen of Rome, Martyrs; Robert Barnes, Confessor, Martyr

2011-07-30T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Abdon, Sennen, and Robert Barnes. Very little is known about Abdon and Sennen. They were Persians who were martyred under Decius. around the year 250.

Robert Barnes was an English Reformer and martyr. Most of what follows is from Wikipedia. Barnes was educated at Cambridge and a member of the Austin Friars. He received his Doctor of Divinity in 1523, and was made Prior of the Cambridge convent. He was among those who gathered at the White Horse Tavern for theological discussion in the early 1530s. At the Chrsimstas Midnight Mass at St. Edward's Church in 1525, Edwards gave the first sermon of the English Reformation in which he proclaimed the Gospel and accused the church of heresies. In 1526 he was condemned as a heretic for preaching this sermon and was told to either go into exile or be burnt. Barnes decided to go into exile. Barnes chose exileand was committed to the Fleet prison and afterwards to the Austin Friars in London. Barnes escaped to Antwerp in 1528, and also visited Wittenberg, where he made Martin Luther's acquaintance. He also came across Stephen Vaughan, an agent of Thomas Cromwell and an advanced reformer, who recommended him to Cromwell: "Look well," he wrote, "upon Dr Barnes' book. It is such a piece of work as I have not yet seen any like it. I think he shall seal it with his blood" (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII). In 1531 Barnes returned to England, and became one of the chief intermediaries between the English government and Lutheran Germany. In 1535 he was sent to Germany, in the hope of inducing Lutheran divines to approve of Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and four years later he was employed in negotiations connected with Anne of Cleves's marriage. The policy was Cromwell's, but Henry VIII had already in 1538 refused to adopt Lutheran theology, and the statute of Six Articles (1539), followed by the king's disgust with Anne of Cleves (1540), brought the agents of that policy to ruin. An attack upon Bishop Gardiner by Barnes in a sermon at St Paul's Cross was the signal for a bitter struggle between the Protestant and reactionary parties in Henry's council, which raged during the spring of 1540. Barnes was forced to apologise and recant; and Gardiner delivered a series of sermons at St Paul's Cross to counteract Barnes' invective. But a month or so later Cromwell was made earl of Essex, Gardiner's friend, Bishop Sampson, was sent to the Tower, and Barnes reverted to Lutheranism. It was a delusive victory. In July, Cromwell was attainted, Anne of Cleves was divorced and Barnes was burnt (30 July 1540). Barnes was one of six executed on the same day: two, William Jerome and Thomas Gerrard, were, like himself, burnt for heresy under the Six Articles; three, Thomas Abel, Richard Fetherstone and Edward Powell, were hanged for treason in denying the royal supremacy. Both Lutherans and Catholics on the continent were shocked. Luther published Barnes' confession with a preface of his own as Bekenntnis des Glaubens (1540). Some historians have concluded that Barnes was crucial in having the English Protestants and Catholics alike understand the Reformation around them.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany, Saints

2011-07-29T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. According to the LCMS website:

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany were disciples with whom Jesus had a special bond of love and friendship. John's Gospel records that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:15). On one occasion Martha welcomed Jesus into their home for a meal. While she did all the work, Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening to his Word and was commended by Jesus for choosing the “good portion which will not be taken away from her” (Lk 10:38–42). When their brother Lazarus died, Jesus spoke to Martha this beautiful Gospel promise: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he life? (John 11:25–27). Ironically, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the death, the Jews became more determined than ever to kill Jesus (John 11:39–54). made Jesus' enemies more determined than ever to kill him (John 11:39–54). Six days before Jesus was crucified, Mary anointed his feet with a very expensive fragrant oil and wiped them with her hair, not knowing at the time that she was doing it in preparation for Jesus' burial (John 12:1–8; Mt 26:6-13).

Pantaleon, Physician, Martyr; Johann Sebastian Bach, Kantor

2011-07-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Pantaleon and Bach. Pantaleon was the son of a wealthy pagan. His Christian mother instructed him in Christianity but after her death he fell away from the faith and studied medicine. He became physician to the emperor. Pantaleon was won back to Christianity after Saint Hermolaus convinced him that Christ was the better physician. While discussing medicine Hermolaus said, "But, my friend, of what use are all thy acquirements in this art, since thou art ignorant of the science of salvation?" Pantaleon healed a blind man by invoking the name of Jesus over him and converted his pagan father. When Pantaleon's father died he inherited much wealth but gave it to the poor and freed his father's slaves. Envious colleagues Pantaleon to the emperor during the Diocletian persecution. The emperor wanted to save Pantaleon tried to convince him to abandon the Christian faith. But Pantaleon openly confessed his faith and healed a paralytic to prove that Christ is the true God. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to death by the emperor. Pantaleon's flesh was first burned with torches. Christ appeared in the form of Hermolaus to strengthen and heal Pantaleon. The torches were extinguished. Then a bath of molten lead was prepared; when the apparition of Christ stepped into the cauldron with him, the fire went out and the lead became cold. Pantaleon was then thrown into the sea, loaded with a great stone, which floated. He was thrown to wild beasts, but these fawned upon him and would not be forced away until he had blessed them. He was bound on the wheel, but the ropes snapped, and the wheel broke. An attempt was made to behead him, but the sword bent, and the executioners were converted to Christianity. Pantaleon implored heaven to forgive them, for which reason he also received the name of Panteleimon ("mercy for everyone" or "all-compassionate"). It was not until he himself desired it that it was possible to behead him, upon which there issued forth blood and a white liquid like milk.

Aardvark Alley has a nice article about Johann Sebastian Bach.

The Seven Sleepers, Martyrs; Martha, Sister of Lazarus, Saint

2011-07-27T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate the Seven Sleepers and Martha. The Seven Sleepers were a group of Christian youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around 250 AD, to escape a persecution of Christians during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius. They fell asleep and awoke 150-200 years later during the reign of Theodosius II, following which they were reportedly seen by the people of the now-Christian city before dying.

Martha was the sister of Lazarus. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha. Martha works while Mary sits and receives the teaching of Jesus. When Martha beomes angry with Mary, Jesus tells Martha that Mary had chosen the better part. In John 11, Martha confesses her belief in the resurrection. Jesus replies that He is the resurrection.

Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary

2011-07-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Anne. Anne was the wife of Joachim, and was chosen by God to be the mother of Mary, the mother of God. Anne and Joachim both descended from the house of David and their lives were known for their constant prayer and good works but they were childless until God gave them Mary in their old age. Anne had vowed to dedicate Mary to God and brought Mary to live in the temple when she was three years old.

Christina, Virgin, Martyr

2011-07-24T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Christina. Most of the following is taken from Butler. Christina was the daughter of a rich and powerful heathen magistrate who owned a large collection of idols. Christina destroyed the idols and gave the pieces to the poor.He father had her whipped with rods and then thrown into a dungeon. Christina remained steadfast in the faith. Her father then had her body torn by iron hooks, and fastened her to a rack beneath which a fire was kindled. But God watched over her and turned the flames upon the lookers-on. Christina was next seized, a heavy stone tied about her neck, and she was thrown into the lake of Bolsena, but she was saved by an angel, and outlived her father, who died of spite. Later she suffered the most inhuman torments under the judge who succeeded her father, and finally was thrown into a burning furnace, where she remained, unhurt, for five days. By the power of Christ she overcame the serpents among which she was thrown; then her tongue was cut out, and afterwards, being pierced with arrows, she gained the martyr's crown at Tyro, a city which formerly stood on an island in the lake of Bolsena in Italy, but was long since swallowed up by the waters. Her relics are now at Palermo in Sicily.

Apollinaris of Ravenna, Bishop, Martyr

2011-07-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Apollinaris. Apollinaris was the first bishop of Ravenna. He was faithful shepherd and faced nearly constant persecution. He and his flock were exiled from Ravenna during the persecutions of Emperor Vespasian. On his way out of the city he was identified, arrested as being the leader, tortured and martyred by being run through with a sword.

Praxedis, Virgin; Ezekiel, Prophet

2011-07-21T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Praxedis and Ezekiel. Praxedis was known for her virtuous life. She used all her great riches to relieve the poor and for the support of the churche. her great riches she employed in relieving the poor and the necessities of the church. She lived a life of constant prayer and fasting.

Aardvark Alley has a nice little article on Ezekiel.

Elijah, Prophet

2011-07-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate the prophet Elijah. Aardvark Alley has a nice article on him.

Macrina, Virgin

2011-07-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Macrina. Macrina was the first of ten children born to St. Basil the elder, and St. Emmelia. After the death of her father, she vowed to remain a virgin and assisted her mother in the education of her brothers and sisters. St. Basil the Great, St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and the rest, learned godliness and the Word of God from Macrina. She convinced her mother to find two monastaries and Macrina drew up the rules for one of them. Macrina developed a very painful form of cancer. According to tradition at Macrina's request her mother made the sign of the cross over Macrina's sore. She was healed and only a black spot remained where the sore had been. After the death of St. Emmelia, Macrina sold all that was left of their estate to support the poor, and lived herself, like the rest of the nuns, on what she earned by the labour of her hands. Her brother Basil died in the beginning of the year 379, and she herself fell ill eleven months after. St. Gregory of Nyssa making her a visit, after eight years’ absence, found her sick of a raging fever, lying on two boards, one of which served for her bed, and the other for her pillow. He was exceedingly comforted by her pious discourses, and animated by the fervour and ardent sighs of divine love and penance, by which she prepared herself for her last hour. She calmly expired, after having armed herself with the sign of the cross. Such was the poverty of the house that nothing was found to cover her corpse when it was carried to the grave, but her old hood and coarse veil; but St. Gregory threw over it his episcopal cloak. She had worn about her neck a fillet, on which hung an iron cross and a ring. St. Gregory gave the cross to a nun named Vestiana, but kept himself the ring, in which the metal was hollow, and contained in it a particle of the true cross. Araxus, bishop of the place, and St. Gregory led up the funeral procession, which consisted of the clergy, the monks, and nuns, in two separate choirs. The whole company walked singing psalms, with torches in their hands. The holy remains were conveyed to the church of the Forty Martyrs, a mile distant from the monastery, and were deposited in the same vault with the saint’s mother.

Radegundis

2011-07-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Radegundis. She was teh daughter of a pagan king. Her father was murdered by his brother, Hermenefrid, who in 531 was defeated by king Theodoric of Austrasia and king Clotaire I of Neustria, and Clotaire took twelve year old Radegundis captive. Six years later he married her. She devoted herself to the poor, the sick, and captives, founded a leper hospital, and bore the cruelties of her husband uncomplainingly until he murdered her brother, Unstrut. She then left the court, received the deaconess habit from Bishop Medard at Noyon, and became a nun at Saix. About 557, she built the double monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, to which she retired and which she developed into a great center of learning. She was active in peacemaking roles, lived in great austerity, and secured a relic of the True Cross for the Church of her monastery. She lived the last years of her life in seclusion and died at the monastery on August 13.

Marcellina, Virgin

2011-07-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Marcellina. She was eldest sister and educator of her brothers Ambrose and Satyrus. She was known for her godliness throughout her life. She inspired them, by words and example.

Ruth, Saint

2011-07-16T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Ruth. Ruth was a Gentile but is found in the linage of Jesus. Elimelech is a type of Christ in the Book of Ruth. He agreed to be Ruth's "redeemer" (3:7-13; 4:9-12). He took her as his wife, and Ruth gave birth to Obed, the grandfather of David (4:13-17), preserving the Messianic seed.

Stilla of Abenberg, Virgin; the Division of the Holy Apostles; Gumbert of Ansbach,Abbot

2011-07-15T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Stilla, the division of the Holy Apostles, and Gumbert. Stilla was born at Abenberg in Bavaria. She built the church of St Peter near her home and then took a vow of virginity in the prescence of Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, living a life of prayer and meditation in her father’s home. When Stilla died, her brothers wanted to bury her at Heilsbronn, but the two horses drawing her funeral cortege refused to pull in that direction, turning always towards the church of St Peter, where they finally allowed her to be buried.

The Division of the Holy Apostles ocurred when the Apostles before leaving Jerusalem to bring the Gospel to all nations determined by lot the portions of the world that each would evangelize.

Gumbert was a wealthy lord who renounced the world and gave all his wealth the church.

Bonaventure, Bishop, Confessor

2011-07-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Bonaventure. According to Butler:

SANCTITY and learning raised Bonaventure to the Church's highest honors, and from a child he was the companion of Saints. Yet at heart he was ever the poor Franciscan friar, and practised and taught humility and mortification. St. Francis gave him his name; for, having miraculously cured him of a mortal sickness, he prophetically exclaimed of the child, "O bona ventura!"—good luck. He is known also as the "Seraphic Doctor," from the fervor of divine love which breathes in his writings. He was the friend of St. Thomas Aquinas, who asked him one day whence he drew his great learning. He replied by pointing to his crucifix. At another time St. Thomas found him in ecstasy while writing the life of St. Francis, and exclaimed, "Let us leave a Saint to write of a Saint." They received the Doctor's cap together. He was the guest and adviser of St. Louis, and the director of St. Isabella, the king's sister. At the age of thirty-five he was made general of his Order; and only escaped another dignity, the Archbishopric of York, by dint of tears and entreaties. Gregory X. appointed him Cardinal Bishop of Albano. When the Saint heard of the Pope's resolve to create him a Cardinal, he quietly made his escape from Italy. But Gregory sent him a summons to return to Rome. On his way, he stopped to rest himself at a convent of his Order near Florence; and there two Papal messengers, sent to meet him with the Cardinal's hat, found him washing the dishes. The Saint desired them to hang the hat on a bush that was near, and take a walk in the garden until he had finished what he was about. Then taking up the hat with unfeigned sorrow, he joined the messengers, and paid them the respect due to their character. He sat at the Pontiff's right hand, and spoke first at the Council of Lyons. His piety and eloquence won over the Greeks to Catholic union, and then his strength failed. He died while the Council was sitting, and was buried by the assembled bishops, A. D. 1274.

Silas, Fellow Worker of St. Paul; Margaret of Antioch, Virgin, Martyr

2011-07-13T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Silas and Margaret. Silas accompanied Paul as an evangelist to Turkey, Greece, and Macedonia.

Margaret was born in Antioch and was a daughter of a pagan priest. She was scorned by her father for her Christian faith and lived in Turkey with her foster-mother keeping sheep. The governor of the Roman Diocese of the East offered her marriage if she would renounce Christianity. When she refused, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. She was put to death in A.D. 304.

Henry II, Emperor, Confessor

2011-07-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Henry II (972-1024). He went from being Duke of Bavaria to King of Germany to Emperor of the Romans. He was a servant of the Eternal King. He encouraged godliness and restored the Churches which had been ruined by the unbelievers.

Pius of Rome, Bishop, Martyr

2011-07-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Pius of Rome. He became bishop of Rome in 142 and defended Christian orthodoxy against Valentinus and Marcion.

The Seven Sons of St. Felicitas, Martyrs

2011-07-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate the Seven Sons of St. Felicitas. Portions of the following are taken from Butler. St. Felicitas was a widow living in Rome who was well-known for her constant prayers, fasting, and charity. Many pagans were converted to Christ after witnessing the godly life of Felicitas and her family. This made the pagan priests angry. They told the emperor that this lady and here children must be sacrificed to appease the gods. Publius, the prefect of Rome, caused the mother and her sons to be apprehended and brought before him, and, addressing her, said, "Take pity on your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of youth, and may aspire to the greatest honors and preferments." The holy mother answered, "Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers." Then turning herself towards her children, she said to them, "My sons, look up to heaven, where Jesus Christ with His Saints expects you. Be faithful in His love, and fight courageously for your souls." Publius, being exasperated at this behavior, commanded her to be cruelly buffeted; he then called the children to him one after another, and used many artful speeches, mingling promises with threats to induce them to adore the gods. His arguments and threats were equally in vain, and the brothers were condemned to be scourged. After being whipped, they were remanded to prison, and the prefect, despairing to overcome their resolution, laid the whole process before the emperor. Antoninus gave an order that they should be sent to different judges, and be condemned to different deaths. Januarius was scourged to death with whips loaded with plummets of lead. The two next, Felix and Philip, were beaten with clubs till they expired. Sylvanus, the fourth, was thrown headlong down a steep precipice. The three youngest, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were beheaded, and the same sentence was executed upon the mother four months after.

Ephrem the Syrian, Deacon, Confessor

2011-07-09T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Ephrem. He is known as "the light and glory of the Syriac Church." In his writings he defended the Christian faith against heresies. His preaching and hymns won the hearts of the people. He trembled and made his hearers tremble at God's judgments; but found peace in Christ. Speaking of his own death he said, "I am setting out on a journey hard and dangerous. Thee, O Son of God, I have taken for my Viaticum. When I am hungry, I will feed on Thee. The infernal fire will not venture near me, for it cannot bear the fragrance of Thy Body and Thy Blood."

Aquila and Priscilla, Saints; Killian of Würzburg

2011-07-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Aquila, Priscilla, and Killian. Aquila and Priscilla were tentmakers who accompanied the Apostle Paul and instructed Apollos.

Killian was an Irish monk who preached the Gospel and baptized Germans in Franconia from 686 until he was martyred in 688.

Willibald of Eichstätt, Bishop

2011-07-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Willibald. Willibald was born in 704.When he was three years old he became very sick. His parents prayed to God and promised that if Willibald recovered they would consecrate him to divine service. Willibald recovered and was sent to a monastary at the age of five where he stayed until the age of 17. He was known for his piety and eventually became a bishop who was known for his compassion towards the suffering.

Isaiah, Prophet

2011-07-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate the prophet Isaiah. Cyberbrethren has a nice article on Isaiah.

Haggai, Prophet

2011-07-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Haggai. Haggai is one of the twelve minor prophets. It was written after Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Judea and begin rebuilding the temple. Haggai rebukes the Jews for their indifference toward the rebuilding of the temple and warns them against an Ex Opere Operato understanding of the sacrifiices and temple worship. Haggai also contains much Messianic prophecy. Haggai said the Messiah would be a descendent of Zerubbabel. One of the antiphones for Advent is from Haggai 2:1-9, 20-23 and says, "O King of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone uniting all people: Come and save us all, whom You formed out of clay."

Ulrich of Augsburg, Bishop

2011-07-04T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Ulrich of Augsburg. According to Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewski:

St. Ulrich was born in 890 in Augsburg, Germany. He was the son of the Renaissance noble Hupald, Count of Dillingen/Count Huebald of Swabia. His parents were German nobility. As a young man Ulrich was sent to the Benedictine monastery of St. Gall from age 7 years. They say that he was an excellent student. Unsure whether he should be a priest or a monk, Ulrich pursued more training from his Uncle Adalbero. In 908/909, he was consecrated, to the priesthood, by his uncle Adalbero, Bishop of Augsburg. Adalbero made Ulrich a Chamberlain, and later on he took the bishophood after his uncle. Ulrich's bishophood was consecrated by Bishop Heringer of Mainz. Ulrich was said to be strict, but gentle, in his role as bishop. Ulrich spent his time trying to improve the moral standards of his clergy. Ulrich wanted religion to be more available to the people, so he built many churches and visited his diocese regularly. He counseled Emperor Otto I regarding a riff between Otto and his son. However, Otto's son escalated their argument into violence. When the Magyars (Hungarians) raided Germany, Ulrich advised his citizens to resist. They built a wall around the city which kept the Magyars at bay until the kings troops were able to drive them away. Ulrich helped to rebuild the city and restore its cathedral. He gave generously to those who had been devastated by the war. In 923, King Henry "the Fowler" made Ulrich the Bishop of Augsburg. Ulrich was showered with gifts by King Henry I. In 953/954 Ulrich supported King Henry at the rebellion of Henry's son Liutolf. King Otto I defeated the Maygars at the Battle of Lechfeld, near Augsburg, on August 10, 955. In 955, Ulrich led the team under the leadership of his own brother, Dietpald, to Lechfeld. Ulrich supported Benediktbeuern monastery and founded the Canonical Convent of St. Stephen in 968. Ulrich became ill in his elder years. He then decided to return to Gall as a monk. In 972, he resigned as bishop. He then died lying on a cross of ashes he had placed on the floor. He died July 4, 973. Ulrich was buried in the Church of Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg.

Cornelius, Captain

2011-07-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Cornelius. Cornelius is spoken of in Acts 10. He was a Gentile who adopted some of the Jewish practices but did not undergo circumcision. He was known for his constant prayer, good works, and alms. Cornelius receives a vision in which an angel of God tells him that his prayers have been heard. The angel then instructs Cornelius to send the men of his household to Joppa, where they will find Simon Peter, who is residing with a tanner by the name of Simon. The conversion of Cornelius comes after another vision given to Simon Peter. In the vision, Simon Peter sees all manner of four-footed beasts and birds of the air being lowered from Heaven in a sheet. A voice commands Simon Peter to eat. When he objects to eating those animals that are unclean to Mosaic Law, the voice tells him not to call unclean that which God has cleansed. When Cornelius meets Simon Peter, he falls at his feet in adoration. Picking Cornelius up, Simon Peter welcomes him. After the two men share their visions, and Simon Peter tells of Jesus' ministry and the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit falls on everyone at the gathering. Those present are amazed that Cornelius and other uncircumcised should begin speaking in tongues, praising God. Simon Peter orders that Cornelius and his followers be baptized.

Otto of Bamberg, Bishop

2011-07-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Otto of Bamberg. According to Butler:

HE was a native of Swabia, in Germany, and being a clergyman eminent for piety and learning, was chosen by the emperor Henry IV. to attend his sister Judith in quality of chaplain when she was married to Boleslas III. duke of Poland, that state remaining deprived of the royal dignity 1 from the year 1079 till it was restored in 1295, in favour of Premislas II. After the death of that princess, Otho returned, and was made by Henry IV. his chancellor. That prince caused the seals and crosses of every deceased bishop and great abbot to be delivered to him, and he sold them to whom he pleased. This notorious simony and oppression of the Church was zealously condemned by the pope, in opposition to whom the emperor set up the antipope Guibert. Otho laboured to bring his prince to sentiments of repentance and submission, and refused to approve his schism or other crimes. Notwithstanding which, so great was the esteem which the emperor had for his virtue, that resolving to make choice at least of one good bishop, he nominated him bishop of Bamberg in 1103. The saint, notwithstanding the schism, went to Rome and received his confirmation together with the pall from Pope Paschal II. He laboured to extinguish the schism, and to obviate the mischiefs which it produced; and for this purpose he displayed his eloquence and abilities in the diet at Ratisbon in 1104. Henry V. succeeding his father in 1106, continued to foment the schism; yet inherited the esteem of his predecessor for our saint, though he always adhered to the holy see, and was in the highest credit with all the popes of his time; so strongly does virtue command respect even in its adversaries, and such is the power of meekness in disarming the fiercest tyrants. St. Otho joined always with the functions of his charge the exercises of an interior life, in which he was an admirable proficient. He made many pious foundations, calling them inns which we erect on our road to eternity. Boleslas IV. duke of Poland, son of that Boleslas who had married the sister of Henry IV. having succeeded his elder brother Ladislas II. and conquered part of Pomerania, entreated St. Otho to undertake a mission among the idolaters of that country. The good bishop having settled his own diocess in good order, and obtained of Pope Honorius II. a commission for that purpose, took with him a considerable number of zealous priests and catechists, and passed through Poland into Prussia, and thence into eastern Pomerania. He was met by Uratislas II. duke of Upper Pomerania, who received the sacrament of baptism with the greater part of his people in 1124. St. Otho returned to Bamberg for Easter the following year, having appointed priests every where to attend the new converts, and finish the work he had so happily begun. The towns of Stetin and Julin having again relapsed into idolatry, St. Otho, with a second blessing of Pope Honorius II. returned into Pomerania in 1128, brought those cities back to the faith, and through innumerable hardships and dangers carried the light of the gospel into Noim, and other remote barbarous provinces. He returned again to the care of his own flock, amidst which he died the death of the saints on the 30th of June, 1139. He was buried on the 2d of July, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology.

Theobald of Vicenza, Hermit

2011-07-01T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Theobald. He was born at Provins to French nobility. According to Wikipedia:

As a youth, he admired the lives of hermits such as St. John the Baptist, of St. Paul the hermit, St. Anthony the Great, and St. Arsenius and he would also visit a local hermit named Burchard, who lived on an island in the Seine. He refused to get married or begin a career in the army or at court. When war broke out between Theobald’s cousin Odo II, Count of Blois and Conrad the Salic over the Burgundian crown, Theobald refused to lead troops to help his cousin and convinced his father to let him become a hermit. Theobald left home with a friend named Walter to become a hermit at Sussy in the Ardennes. They then traveled to Pettingen, where they worked as day laborers. They became pilgrims on the Way of St. James and afterwards returned to the diocese of Trier. They made a pilgrimage to Rome and planned to go to the Holy Land by way of Venice. However, Walter fell ill near Salanigo near Vicenza. They decided to settle there. After Walter died, Theobald became the leader of a group of hermits who had gathered there.The bishop of Vicenza ordained him as priest. Theobald's background, however, was soon discovered and his parents came to visit him. His mother, Gisela, eventually became a hermitess near this place of retreat. Theobald died from an illness in which his skin of every limb was covered over in blotches and ulcers. Shortly before his death he became a Camaldolese monk.

Commemoration of St. Paul

2011-06-30T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate St. Paul. According to Butler:

ST. PAUL was born at Tarsus, of Jewish parents, and studied at Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel. While still a young man, he held the clothes of those who stoned the proto-martyr Stephen; and in his restless zeal he pressed on to Damascus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Christ." But near Damascus a light from heaven struck him to the earth. He heard a voice which said, "Why persecutest thou Me? " He saw the form of Him Who had been crucified for his sins, and then for three days he saw nothing more. He awoke from his trance another man—a new creature in Jesus Christ. He left Damascus for a long retreat in Arabia, and then, at the call of God, he carried the Gospel to the uttermost limits of the world, and for years he lived and labored with no thought but the thought of Christ crucified, no desire but to spend and be spent for Him. He became the apostle of the Gentiles, whom he had been taught to hate, and wished himself anathema for his own countrymen, who sought his life. Perils by land and sea could not damp his courage, nor toil and suffering and age dull the tenderness of his heart. At last he gave blood for blood. In his youth he had imbibed the false zeal of the Pharisees at Jerusalem, the holy city of the former dispensation. With St. Peter he consecrated Rome, our holy city, by his martyrdom, and poured into its Church all his doctrine with all his blood. He left fourteen Epistles, which have been a fountain-head of the Church's doctrine, the consolation and delight of her greatest Saints. His interior life, so far as words can tell it, lies open before us in these divine writings, the life of one who has died forever to himself and risen again in Jesus Christ. "In what," says St. Chrysostom, "in what did this blessed one gain an advantage over the other apostles? How comes it that he lives in all men's mouths throughout the world? Is it not through the virtue of his Epistles?" Nor will his work cease while the race of man continues. Even now, like a most chivalrous knight, he stands in our midst, and takes captive every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Leo the Great; Ireneaus, Bishop, Martyr

2011-06-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Leo and Irenaeus. According to Butler:

He (Leo) was by birth a Silician, eminent for his piety, and perfectly skilled in the Latin and Greek tongues, in the church music, and both in sacred and polite literature. Pope Agatho dying on the 1st of December, 681, he was chosen to fill the pontifical chair. He confirmed, by the authority of St. Peter, as he says, (writing to the zealous emperor Constantine Pogonatus, the sixth general council held at Constantinople, in which his predecessor St. Agatho had presided by his legates. In the censure of this council we find the name of Honorius, joined with the Monothelite heretics, Theodorus bishop of Pharan, and Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople. Pope Leo II. in his first letter to the bishops of Spain, gives the reason, because Honorius “did not extinguish the flame of the heretical doctrine in its rise, as it became the apostolical authority, but fomented it by negligence.” And in his letter to king Ervigius he makes the same distinction between Honorius and the others. It is evident from the very letters of Honorius himself, which are still extant, from the irrefragable testimony of his secretary who wrote those letters, and from others that he never gave into the Monothelite error; though had he fallen into heresy, this would have only hurt himself; nor is the question of any other importance than as an historical fact. Favourers are sometimes ranked with principals. Honorius had by unwariness, and an indiscreet silence, temporized with a powerful heresy, before his eyes were opened to see the flame which he ought to have laboured strenuously to extinguish when the first sparks appeared. St. Leo reformed the Gregorian chant, composed several sacred hymns for the divine office, and did many things for the advancement of religion, though he was only pope one year and seven months. He pointed out the path to Christian perfection no less by the example of his life, than by his assiduous instructions, and zealous exhortations; and was in a particular manner the father of the poor, whom he diligently relieved, comforted, and instructed with a most edifying tenderness, charity, and patience. He passed to a better life on the 23rd of May, 683, and was buried in the Vatican church on the 28th of June...

According to Butler:

THIS Saint (Irenaeus) was born about the year 120. He was a Grecian, probably a native of Lesser Asia. His parents, who were Christians, placed him under the care of the great St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. It was in so holy a school that he learned that sacred science which rendered him afterward a great ornament of the Church and the terror of her enemies. St. Polycarp cultivated his rising genius, and formed his mind to piety by precepts and example; and the zealous scholar was careful to reap all the advantages which were offered him by the happiness of such a master. Such was his veneration for his tutor's sanctity that he observed every action and whatever be saw in that holy man, the better to copy his example and learn his spirit. He listened to his instructions with an insatiable ardor, and so deeply did he engrave them on his heart that the impressions remained most lively even to his old age. In order to confute the heresies of his age, this father made himself acquainted with the most absurd conceits of their philosophers, by which means he was qualified to trace up every error to its sources and set it in its full light. St. Polycarp sent St. Irenæus into Gaul, in company with some priest; he was himself ordained priest of the Church of Lyons by St. Pothinus. St. Pothinus having glorified God by his happy death, in the year 177, our Saint was chosen the second Bishop of Lyons. By his preaching, he in a short time converted almost that whole country to the Faith. He wrote several works against heresy, and at last, with many others, suffered martyrdom about the year 202, under the Emperor Severus, at Lyons.

Crescens, Martyr; Cyril of Alexander, Bishop, Confessor

2011-06-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Crescens and Cyril. Crescens was a disciple of the Apostle Paul. He converted many in Gaul through the preaching of the Gospel and served as a bishop in Galatia. He was martyred under Trajan.

Cyril was the Patriarch of Alexander from 412 to 444.He defended orthodox Christology against Nestorius. Gnesiolutheran has some quotes from Cyril on the doctrine of justification.

I'm My Own Grandpa Vs. The Obedient Rebels

2011-06-26T17:50:00.000-04:00

Benjamin Kurtz was one of the leading promoters of a movement known as "American Lutheranism." "American Lutheranism" cast aside the historic teachings of Lutheranism and adopted the new measures of revivalism. "American Lutheranism" thought that what Luther did was good but that the "revolution" must continue. Benjamin Kurtz wrote:

"The Fathers--who are the 'Fathers'? They are the children; they lived in the infancy of the Church, in the early dawn of the Gospel day. John the Baptist was the greatest among the prophets and yet he that was least in the Kingdom of God, in the Christian Church was greater than he. He probably knew less, and that little less distinctly than a Sunday-school child, ten years of age, in the present day. Even the apostle Peter, after all the personal instructions of Christ, could not expand his views sufficiently to learn that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, and that the Church of Christ was to compass the whole world. A special miracle was wrought to remove his prejudices and convince him of his folly. Every well-instructed Sunday-school child understands this thing without a miracle, better than Peter did. Who then are the 'Fathers'? They have become the Children; they were the Fathers when compared with those who lived in the infancy of the Jewish dispensation; but, compared with the present and advanced age, they are the Children, and the learned and pious of the nineteenth century are the Fathers. We are three hundred years older than Luther and his noble coadjutors, and eighteen hundred years older than the primitives; theirs was the age of infancy and adolescence, and ours that of full-grown manhood. They were the children; we are the fathers; the tables are turned." --Benjamin Kurtz, "The Fathers", Lutheran Observer November 29, 1849 (original emphasis)

Throughout the New Testament the Old Testament saints are regarded as our "fathers" in the faith. But according to Kurtz they are the children. If you search the internet you'll find lots of people with Kurtz's attitude. They tend to regard church fathers like Augustine either as infants in the faith or perhaps even as unbelievers. They provide a list of short snippets from their works to prove how heretical and infantile these church fathers are that often reveals just how spiritually shallow the person making the list is and how much the person making the list is acting like a rebellious teenager who thinks he knows so much more than his stupid parents. The quotes are often taken out of context and do not teach what the person making the list thinks they teach. Often what the church father says is true but because the person making the list holds to false teaching they regard the truth as false. On a small number of occasions they actually find a false teaching in one of the church fathers. But finding out that your father makes mistakes hardly makes you his father.

A friend of mine asked a professor at a Calvinist seminary why the seminary did not study the church fathers very much. The professor said that Calvin had preserved all the good teachings of the church fathers in his own writings so we don't need to read the church fathers anymore. But this creates a rather strange situation where for all practical purposes Calvin becomes the more-mature one who is able to sift through the writings of the immature church fathers. Calvin becomes father to the church fathers. Then the favorite, more recent theologian of the particular group becomes father to Calvin. I heard a professor from another Calvinist seminary make the claim that if theology does not continue to grow and mature in a church body that church body will die. But this results in every generation essentially becoming "father" of the previous. This process of becoming fathers of the fathers is evident in every branch of the church.

In liberal circles, this "maturity" is used as a reason for the ordination of women and homosexuals. In pietist circles this "maturity" is used as a reason for why we don't think baptism and the Lord's Supper are what the church fathers thought they were. Rome is constantly maturing. Papal infallibility was rejected by previous popes but the church has matured and now knows better.

But when we start reading the early church fathers, they don't seem to exhibit the immaturity that we would expect if all this "I'm My Own Grandpa" language were true. Instead we find a depth of faith that is lacking in modern writings. The best of the theologians in our day do not compare to someone like Athanasius. Athanasius made mistakes but lived the Apostolic faith in a way that Christian writers today do not. The church fathers were willing to die for what they believed. What passes for worship in the average evangelical church hardly looks more mature than the historic liturgy but that doesn't keep people from thinking that modern worship is better--whether it's revival hymns or praise and worship songs.

Some in Lutheranism seem to understand Luther as a revolutionary. They envision a Luther who became more "mature" than the church around Him. But Luther was no revolutionary. He was not a father to the church fathers. He was a child of the church fathers. He came to realize that the Apostolic faith had been perverted by those who thought that they were more mature. Even when he gave his "Here I Stand" speech, he was quoting Pope Innocent III. He was calling the church back to the Apostolic faith. He was calling the church to repentance for thinking that they were the fathers and the church fathers were the children.

Although it appears on the surface that Martin Luther was not honoring father and mother, he most certainly was. "Fathers" in the faith are not limited to those who are still living. Luther was being obedient to the true Apostolic fathers and rejecting the innovations that developed in the generations just prior to Luther.

Even while the Apostle were still living, there were people in Corinth and elsewhere who thought that they had matured beyond the Apostolic faith that was handed down to them. They regarded those who did not accept their innovations as immature children. Soon the innovation becomes its own tradition. Such is the case with Rome and such is the case in evangelicalism. The altar call, belief the rapture, handing out tracts, street-corner preaching, and many other things not only are considered as acceptable but as being requirements for a "real" church regardless of the newness of these things. It's as if history begins when I am born and if something is happening in my church today that must be what happened in the church at the time of the Apostles.

The church is healthiest when it regards itself as being a spiritual child of the church fathers who faithfully handed down the Apostolic doctrine. The Apostolic doctrine is all about Jesus. The historic liturgy is all about Jesus. In the sacraments we receive Jesus. If we think that we are too mature for this stuff, what we are really saying is that we are too mature for Jesus. We have found something better than Jesus. It doesn't matter if it's papal infallibility, revival hymns, praise and worship songs, or the rapture. These are all innovations that leads us away from Jesus.

Jeremiah, Prophet

2011-06-26T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Jeremiah. Jeremiah was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament. He lived through the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem. He communicated God's anger toward His people and suffered persecution and rejection. Although Jeremiah's writings in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentation are filled with proclamations of harsh judgment, Jermiah also reminds us of God's faithfulness. Jeremiah prophecied of the "New Covenant" in Christ when the need for punishments will cease and all will be made right. Jeremiah 31:31-34 says, "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, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But 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. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Some traditions say that Jeremiah was stoned to death.

Sosipater, Saint; Prosper of Aquitaine, Confessor; Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

2011-06-25T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Sosipater, Prosper and the Presentation of the Augsburg Confessions. Sosipater was from the city of Berea, he accompanied Paul along with Aristarchus and Secundus the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Trichicus and Tromphimus of Asia, out of Macedonia after a group of Jews began to plot against him. They sailed from Philippi to Alexandria Troas where they met Paul who had gone by land.

Prosper of Aquitane was a bishop who well-known both for his learning and his piety. He fought against the Pelagians in defense of the Christian faith.

The Augsburg Confession is the principal doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church. It confesses the justification of sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone. It was signed by the leaders of several German cities and provinces and presented to Emperor Charles V on June 25, 1530.

Basil the Great, Bishop, Confessor

2011-06-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Basil the Great. Cyberbrethren has a nice article about Basil.

Paulinus of Nola, Bishop, Confessor

2011-06-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Paulinus. According to Butler:

PAULINUS was of a family which boasted of a long line of senators, prefects, and consuls. He was educated with great care, and his genius and eloquence, in prose and verse, were the admiration of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. He had more than doubled his wealth by marriage, and was one of the foremost men of his time. Though he was the chosen friend of Saints, and had a great devotion to St. Felix of Nola, he was still only a catechumen, trying to serve two masters. But God drew him to Himself along the way of sorrows and trials. He received baptism, withdrew into Spain to be alone, and then, in consort with his holy wife, sold all their vast estates in various parts of the empire, distributing their proceeds so prudently that St. Jerome says East and West were filled with his alms. He was then ordained priest, and retired to Nola in Campania. There he rebuilt the Church of St. Felix with great magnificence, and served it night and day, living a life of extreme abstinence and toil. In 409 he was chosen bishop, and for more than thirty years so ruled as to be conspicuous in an age blessed with many great and wise bishops. St. Gregory the Great tells us that when the Vandals of Africa had made a descent on Campania, Paulinus spent all he had in relieving the distress of his people and redeeming them from slavery. At last there came a poor widow; her only son had been carried off by the son-in-law of the Vandal king. "Such as I have I give thee," said the Saint to her; "we will go to Africa, and I will give myself for your son." Having overborne her resistance, they went, and Paulinus was accepted in place of the widow's son, and employed as gardener. After a time the king found out, by divine interposition, that his son-in-law's slave was the great Bishop of Nola. He at once set him free, granting him also the freedom of all the townsmen of Nola who were in slavery. One who knew him well says he was meek as Moses, priestlike as Aaron, innocent as Samuel, tender as David, wise as Solomon, apostolic as Peter, loving as John, cautious as Thomas, keen-sighted as Stephen, fervent as Apollos. He died in 431.

Albanus of Britain, Martyr

2011-06-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Albanus of Britain. Albanus was a citizen of Verulam, which is now in England and was converted by a persecuted priest whom he had sheltered in his house. He was executed on Holmhurst Hill in 303.

Pudens, Senator, Saint

2011-06-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Pudens. He is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:21. According to tradition, he provided lodging for Saint Peter and was baptised by him, and was martyred under Nero (reigned 54-68).

Gervase and Protase, Martyrs

2011-06-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Gervase and Protase. According to Butler:

ST. AMBROSE calls these saints the protomartyrs of Milan. They seem to have suffered in the first persecution under Nero, or at latest under Domitian, and are said to have been the sons of SS. Vitalis and Valeria, 1 both martyrs, the first at Ravenna, the second at Milan. This latter city was the place which SS. Gervasius and Protasius rendered illustrious by their glorious martyrdom and miracles. St. Ambrose assures us, that the divine grace prepared them a long time for their crown by the good example which they gave, and by the constancy with which they withstood the corruption of the world. He adds they were beheaded for the faith. 2 They are said to have been twin brothers.

Mark and Marcellianus of Rome, Martyrs

2011-06-18T00:01:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Mark and Marcellianus. According to Butler:

MARCUS and MARCELLIANUS were twin brothers of an illustrious family in Rome, had been converted to the faith in their youth, and were honourably married. Dioclesian ascended the imperial throne in 284; soon after which the heathens raised tumultuary persecutions, though this emperor had not yet published any new edicts against the church. These martyrs were thrown into prison, and condemned by Chromatius, lieutenant of the prefect of Rome, to be beheaded. Their friends obtained a respite of the execution for thirty days, that they might prevail with them to comply with the judge, and they were removed into the house of Nicostratus the public register. Tranquillinus and Martia, their afflicted heathen parents, in company with their sons’ own wives and their little babes at their breasts, endeavoured to move them by the most tender entreaties and tears. St. Sebastian, an officer of the emperor’s household, coming to Rome soon after their commitment, daily visited and encouraged him. The issue of the conferences was the happy conversion of the father, mother, and wives, also of Nicostratus, and soon after of Chromatius, who set the saints at liberty, and abdicating the magistracy retired into the country. Marcus and Marcellianus were hid by Castulus, a Christian officer of the household, in his apartments in the palace; but they were betrayed by an apostate named Torquatus, and retaken. Fabrian who had succeeded Chromatius, condemned them to be bound to two pillars with their feet nailed to the same. In this posture they remained a day and a night, and on the following day were stabbed with lances, and buried in the Arenarium, since called their cemetery, two miles out of Rome, between the Appian and Ardeatine roads.

Mamuold of Regensburg, Abbot

2011-06-17T00:02:00.001-04:00

Today we commemorate Mamuold also know as Rambold or Ramnold. He was a monk at St Maximinus in Trier in Germany. He died in 1001 at the age of one hundred

Julitta and Quirinus, Martyrs

2011-06-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Julitta and Quirinus. According to Butler:

DOMITIAN, the governor of Lycaonia, executing with great cruelty the edicts of Dioclesian against the Christians, Julitta, a lady of Iconium in that country, withdrew to Seleucia with her little son Cyr or Quiricus, only three years old, and two maids. Alexander, the governor of Seleucia, was not less a persecutor than the prefect of Iconium. Wherefore Julitta went on to Tarsus in Cilicia. Alexander happened to enter that city about the same time with her, and she was immediately apprehended holding her infant in her arms, and conducted to the tribunal of this governor. She was of royal blood, the granddaughter of illustrious kings, and she possessed great estates and riches; out of all which she carried nothing with her but present necessaries. Her two maids, seeing her in the hands of the persecutors, fled and hid themselves. Alexander demanded her name, quality, and country; to all which questions she answered only—“I am a Christian.” The judge, enraged, ordered her child to be taken from her, and that she should be extended and cruelly whipt with thongs; which was accordingly executed. Nothing could be more amiable than the little Cyr, a certain air of dignity spoke his illustrious birth; and this, joined to the sweetness and innocence of his tender age and looks, moved all present exceedingly. It was a difficult thing to tear him from the arms of his mother; and he continued still continually to stretch his little hands towards her. The governor held the infant on his knees, and endeavoured to kiss him to pacify him. But the innocent babe having his eyes still fixed upon his mother, and striving to get back to her, scratched the face of the inhuman judge. And when the mother, under her torments, cried out that she was a Christian, he repeated as loud as he was able—“I am a Christian.” The governor being enraged, took him by the foot, and throwing him to the ground from off his tribunal, dashed out his brains against the edge of the steps, and all the place round about was sprinkled with blood. Julitta seeing him thus expire, rejoiced at his happy martyrdom, and gave thanks to God. Her joy increased the rage of the governor, who commanded her sides to be torn with hooks, and scalding pitch to be poured on her feet, while proclamation was made by a crier—“Julitta, take pity on thyself and sacrifice to the gods, lest thou come to the like unfortunate end with thy son.” She always answered “I do not sacrifice to devils or to dumb and deaf statues; but I worship Christ, the only begotten Son of God. by whom the Father hath made all things.” Whereupon the governor commanded her head to be struck off, and the body of the child to be carried out of the city, and thrown where the carcasses of malefactors were usually cast. Remorse and confusion at his own cruelty, and disappointed malice, in the murder of the innocent babe, made him appear more raging than the most furious wild beast. Julitta being led to the place of execution, prayed aloud, thanking God for having given her son a place in his kingdom, and begging the same mercy for herself. She concluded by adding Amen: at which word her head was severed from her body. She suffered in the year 304 or 305. The two maids came privately and buried the remains of both the martyrs in a field near the city.

Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia of Lucania, Martyrs

2011-06-15T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia. According to Butler:

THESE saints are mentioned with distinction in the ancient Martyrologies. According to their acts they were natives of Sicily. Vitus or Guy was a child nobly born, who had the happiness to be instructed in the faith, and inspired with the most perfect sentiments of his religion by his Christian nurse, named Crescentia, and her faithful husband Modestus. His father Hylas was extremely incensed when he discovered the child’s invincible aversion to idolatry; and finding him not to be overcome by stripes and such like chastisements, he delivered him up to Valerian, the governor, who in vain tried all his arts to work him into compliance with his father’s will and the emperor’s edicts. He escaped out of their hands, and, together with Crescentia and Modestus, fled into Italy. They there met with the crown of martyrdom in Lucania, in the persecution of Dioclesian. The heroic spirit of martyrdom which we admire in St. Vitus, was owing to the early impressions of piety which he received from the lessons and example of a virtuous nurse: of such infinite importance is the choice of virtuous preceptors, nurses, and servants about children.

Elisha, Prophet

2011-06-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate the prophet Elisha. According to the OCA website:

The Holy Prophet Elisha lived in the ninth century before the Birth of Christ, and was a native of the village of Abelmaum, near Jordan. By the command of the Lord he was called to prophetic service by the holy Prophet Elias (July 20). When it became time for the Prophet Elias to be taken up to Heaven, he said to Elisha, "Ask what shall I do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha boldly asked for a double portion of the grace of God: "Let there be a double portion of your spirit upon me." The Prophet Elias said, "You have asked a hard thing; if you see me when I am taken from you, then so shall it be for you; but if you don't see me, it wilt not be" (4 [2] Kings 2: 12). As they went along the way talking, there appeared a fiery chariot and horses and separated them both. Elisha cried out, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horse!" (4 Kings 2: 12). Picking up the mantle of his teacher which fell from the sky, Elisha received the power and prophetic gift of Elias. He spent more than 65 years in prophetic service, under six Israelite kings (from Ahab to Joash). While Elisha lived, he did not tremble before any prince, and no word could overcome him (Sirach 48: 13 ["Sirach" is alled "Ecclesiasticus" in Catholic Bibles ]). The holy prophet worked numerous miracles. He divided the waters of the Jordan, having struck it with the mantle of the Prophet Elias; he made the waters of a Jericho spring fit for drinking; he saved the armies of the kings of Israel and Judah that stood in an arid wilderness by bringing forth abundant water by his prayer; he delivered a poor widow from death by starvation through a miraculous increase of oil in a vessel. The Shunamite woman showing hospitality to the prophet was gladdened by the birth of a son through his prayer, and when the child died, he was raised back to life by the prophet. The Syrian military-commander Namaan was healed from leprosy but the prophet's servant Gehazi was afflicted since he disobeyed the prophet and took money from Namaan on the sly. Elisha predicted to the Israelite king Joash the victory over his enemies, and by the power of his prayer he worked many other miracles (4 Kings 3-13). The holy Prophet Elisha died in old age at Samaria. "In his life he worked miracles, and at death his works were marvellous" (Sir. 48: 15). A year after his death, a corpse was thrown into the prophet's grave. As soon as the dead man touched Elisha's bones, he came to life and stood up (4 Kings 13: 20-21). The Prophet Elisha and his teacher, the Prophet Elias, left no books behind them, since their prophetic preaching was oral. Jesus, son of Sirach, praised both great prophets (Sir. 48:1-15).

Tobias, Prophet

2011-06-13T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Tobias. We learn about Tobias in the Old Testament Apocryphal book of Tobit. In the book of Tobit, Tobias is sent by his father (Tobit) to collect some money that his father had deposited in the land of Media. The archangel Raphael disguises himself as a human and protects and aids Tobias on his journey. While Tobias is on his journey, he is attacked by a large fish. Raphael instructs Tobias to catch the fish and save its organs so that he can use them as medicine. Tobias ate some of the fish and kept some for the journey. When they get to Ecbatana, a woman named Sarah who had several husbands that were all killed by demons when they tried to consummate the marriage was living there. Raphael reminds Tobias that he is Sarah's closest living male relative and that it was his duty to marry her. Tobias explains that he does not want to end up dead like all the other men. But Raphael instructs Tobias on how to use the fish to perform an exorcism on Sarah. Tobias follows the instructions and performs an exorcism on Sarah and Raphael bound the demon. Instead of consummating the marriage, Tobias asks Sarah to pray with him. After a 14 day marriage feast, Tobias returns home and uses parts of the fish to cure his father's blindness.

The church fathers saw a picture of Christ both in the fish and in the marriage. Christ exorcises His church and marries her.

Onuphrius of Thebais, Hermit; Basilides and His Companions, Martyrs; Ecumenical Council of Nicea, AD 325

2011-06-12T12:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Onuphrius, Basilides, and the Council of Nicea.

In reference to Onuphrius, Butler says:

HE lived some time in an austere monastery of one hundred monks, near Thebes in Egypt. A desire of imitating the solitude of St. John Baptist moved him to seek a retreat in the most solitary wilderness of that country. He for some years struggled with grievous temptations; but by perseverance overcame them, and by the exercises of holy solitude prepared his soul for the closest communications with God, in which he found the repose of his heart, the comfort of his earthly pilgrimage, and a kind of anticipation of the eternal enjoyment of heaven. He spent in this retirement sixty years, unknown to the world; but by his prayers never ceased to implore the divine mercy in its behalf, and for the protection of the church under the persecutions of the two Arian emperors, Constantius and Valens. A date-tree and a palm-tree which grew near his cell furnished him with food. He died on the 12th of June.

Basilides and his companions were soldiers in the army of Maxentius. They were tortured for the faith and beheaded by the command of Aurelius.

The Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical council and settled disputes over the divinity of Christ. After much debate, the Council eventually adopted the teaching handed down by the Apostles that Jesus is true God, begotten not made and of the same substance of the Father. Here is the Creed that came out of this Council:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father, through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten; and that He was made out of nothing; or who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance, or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, the catholic church anathematizes.

Landerich of Paris, Bishop

2011-06-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today we commemorate Landerich of Paris. According to Butler:

HE succeeded Audobert in that see, in the reign of Clovis II. about the year 650. In a great famine he distributed among the poor all his own little furniture, and melted down for their use the sacred vessels of the church.

Primus and Felicianus, Martyrs

2011-06-09T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today we commemorate Primus and Felicianus.According to Butler:

THESE two martyrs were brothers, and lived in Rome many years, mutually encouraging each other in the practice of all good works. They seemed to possess nothing but for the poor, and often spent both nights and days with the confessors in their dungeons, or at the places of their torments and execution. Some they encouraged to perseverance, others who had fallen they raised again, and they made themselves the servants of all in Christ that all might attain to salvation through him. Though their zeal was most remarkable, they had escaped the dangers of many bloody persecutions, and were grown old in the heroic exercises of virtue when it pleased God to crown their labours with a glorious martyrdom. The Pagans raised so great an outcry against them, that by a joint order of Dioclesian and Maximian Herculius they were both apprehended and put in chains. This must have happened in 286, soon after Maximian was associated in the empire, for the two emperors never seem to have met together in Rome after that year. These princes commanded them to be inhumanly scourged, and then sent them to Promotus at Nomentum, a town twelve miles from Rome, to be further chastised, as avowed enemies to the gods. This judge caused them to be cruelly tortured, first both together, afterwards separate from each other; and sought by various arts to cheat them into compliance, as by telling Primus that Felician had offered sacrifice. But the grace of God strengthened them, and they were at length both beheaded on the 9th of June.