Encore Post: Many beloved passages in the Bible are as clear as mountain streams fed by melting snow. “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” (Genesis 1:1). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son (John 3:16). “God is Love.” (1 John 4:8) These and dozens like them are so clear, we teach them to small children. Yet others are not so clear. Some, like the detailed laws God gave to Israel we suspect that God no longer wants us to observe. Others don’t seem to make sense to us at all. How can we be sure what they mean for us?
The answer is actually a part of Rule #1: since the Bible is God’s word, we can use one passage to explain others. We can be sure of the interpretation we discover this way, because the words we are using are God’s own words.
Let’s look at a few passages to see how this works. We know that most of the national law God gave to the Kingdom of Israel does not bind us, because St. Paul tells us not to allow anyone to judge us on the basis of them. (Colossians 2:16-23) We know, however, that the Two Great Commandments do, because Jesus tells us to observe them. (Luke 10:26-28) In another place, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, we wonder what he was thinking. The author of the Book of Hebrews tells us. Hebrews 11:17-19)
So, when you wonder if there’s more to a passage, look elsewhere in the Bible. God will often give you more insight when you do this.
Encore Post: When you read the Bible as a story, the main plot, salvation history, is all about Jesus (See Rule #2). Yet the Bible is not only a story, it is God’s message to his children. In it, he explains in great detail how he made the world, how it works and what he wants us to do, what happens when we do not do it and how he intends to restore it to its original condition. It gets kind of complicated. That is why God sums it up in two main teachings. Luther and Lutheran theologians call these teachings The Law and The Gospel.
These teachings help us organize all that the God teaches us in his word. The Law is about God’s will for our lives and how he wants us to live it, what happens when we disobey his commandments, what the likelihood is of us doing his will on our own, what the punishment is for rebelling against him and everything associated with the governing authorities he has appointed to keep at least some order in this life. (The Three Uses of the Law)
The Gospel is the good news that God, in his mercy, sent his Son, Jesus, to be born in the womb of the Virgin Mary, suffer, die, rise from the grave on the third day and ascend into heaven for our sakes. It tells us how the death of Christ has destroyed death, earned for us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation and all of this is given to us by grace alone, received by faith alone for Christ’s sake alone. It contains all the precious things which God promises us because of what Jesus did for us. (See It’s His Story)
The rule teaches us to keep these two teachings straight. When we say the law saves us, we encourage sinners to try to save themselves; we deny them the comfort of the gospel. When we say that forgiveness comes with conditions, we place barriers between Jesus, his Means of Grace and the grace that is his free gift. So, we do what Luther described as the most difficult art — we allow the law to be the law — requiring perfect obedience, condemning us for our inevitable violation of it and pointing us to the gospel. We allow the gospel to be all the precious promises of God’s free grace and encourage his people to rely on it.
Encore Post: When you see a good friend reading a book, so taken by it that they shut the whole world out, you ask them, “what’s it all about?” Your friend will sum it up in a few sentences. Of course, there is a lot more detail to the tale, but all of the words, images it creates set the mood and move the plot along. Yet no really good story holds our interest if there is not a single, central story that we care about.
The Bible is the most important book in the world, because it is God telling the story. This story is more than an enjoyable yarn. It is the story about how God saved us and how he will make the creation new again. Theologians call that Salvation History. So, if someone asks, “What is the Bible all about?” The best answer is “It is all about Jesus.” Jesus himself tells us this. (John 5:39)
Knowing that the Bible is all about Jesus helps us to understand its message and the place of each verse in that message. On the surface, the Bible is a small library of sixty-six books with different messages. They can seem disconnected and at odds from time to time. By this rule, we come to see the Bible has one story with a beginning, middle, climax and end, all tied to what Jesus did and will do to save us. It helps us to see that we are actually a part of this story. Unlike good fiction, this story is real news, not fake news. It is actually has a two-part message for us — which we’ll take up in the next post.
So, by knowing that the Bible is all about Jesus, or said in more formal language, all theology is Christology, we can unlock the treasures of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is not all about how to live a happy life in this world, although it can help us with that. It is not about predicting the future, like some giant puzzle or math problem. It is not the key to success and riches, or even about what we should do to be good people. In fact, it is not so much about what we do, but what God has done: In Christ, he made the world, sorrowed over its sin, set out to save the world, was made man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life in our place, suffered, died, rose again, ascended into heaven and one day will return to raise us from the dead to live with God forever. As you read the Bible, then, ask yourself: what does this have to do with Jesus? You’ll be surprised how much it helps to hear what God is saying to you in his word.
Encore Post: For most Christians, the first rule for understanding the Bible seems obvious. The Bible is God’s Word. Yet believing that God speaks to us in his own words and is the author of the Bible affects the way we look at the Scriptures, how we approach it, what we expect from it and the assumptions that we make about what it says.
Because the Bible is God’s message to us, we believe that it is not fiction, a myth made up by people to explain the world, or something that it just very well written words to inspire us or make us feel good — like a great movie, a catchy song, or an absorbing novel written by our favorite author. After they make us feel good and escape the world for awhile, nothing changes and life goes on. The Word of God, however, comes with the power of God to change our lives, brought to us by God’s own Holy Spirit. (see Romans 1:16-17, 2 Peter 1:16-21) It creates faith in hearts which do not believe and strengthens faith where it exists.
So, the clear teachings of the Bible are the final authority on everything it speaks about. When it says that all people are evil, not good, at heart, we believe that, even though our mind and culture tells us everyone is basically good. When it tells us God made the world in six days, we believe that, too, even if the world’s myth tells us the universe has always existed and developed over millions of years into what we now see. When the Bible tells us both that God decided to save us before he made the world, but if we reject him, we can loose our faith, we believe that too, even though it doesn’t make sense to us.
So, this rule is that we assume that what the Bible teaches is true and use those things which are perfectly clear in it to understand things that are not so clear.
Encore Post: The legacy of Saint Athanasius is one of standing firm in the face of opposition to the word of God. Throughout his 45 years as Bishop including 17 years in exile, he stood unwaveringly against the errors surrounding him. The Arian heresy, denying the divinity of Jesus, and all of the derived and adjacent heresies are still with us. But, we have a firm confession from the Word of God to fall back on in defense of the faith. That is the continuing gift given to us by Athanasius and those of his theological tradition. “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:25-30)
Alexandria in Egypt, the bishopric of Athanasius, is no longer a center of Christendom. Augustine of Hippo who owes much to Athanasius, and is a father for us in the western church, presided over a region of North Africa that is no longer a center of Christianity. It’s wise for us to remember but the centers of Christianity Today may not be the centers of Christianity tomorrow.
The concluding remarks of the Athanasian Creed are one that can give us pause. While reinforcing the bodily resurrection, there seems to be an assertion of works righteousness in the creed.
“He will come to judge the living and the dead. At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.”
We should always hear these words of judgement within the context of Jesus work of Salvation for us. The accounting of our deeds is not done according to human reason. Just as Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. So, by faith we receive eternal salvation. Let’s consider the sheep and the goats.
The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapter 25: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats … Then the righteous [sheep] will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? … Then [the unrighteous goats] also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’”
Neither the sheep nor the goats can make any sense out of this accounting. Those who are righteous by faith are ever more aware of their sin and their need for salvation day-by-day. Those who condemn themselves by their sin and persistent unbelief are ever self-justifying and judging themselves to be “good” by their own standard apart from faith. And, Saint Paul gives us this useful nugget.
The epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 2: ”But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
The good works are credited to us, sheep. These works themselves are produced by faith, which is a from God, alien to our nature. And, those works are prepared for us beforehand. The works we set out to do may not even be among them. Dear Christians, live in the Word and in the Christian faith. The Spirit produces faith and good works from the Gospel of salvation in Christ Jesus.
Dear Baptized, let us celebrate the faith credited to us as righteousness!
Thanks be to God!
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
The errors faced by the early church in Alexandria were not just about the Trinity. There were also Christological confusions. Saint Athanasius was present and attentive for the decisions of the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD). Concerning the person and nature of Jesus Christ, the term, ὁμοούσιος (homoousios — of the same substance), was used to sort out the heresies. But, the wisdom of man thinks itself wiser than the wisdom of God.
The third section could almost be its own creed. It deals with Jesus’ incarnation. The two natures in the one person of Christ are on full display here.
In the Athanasian Creed we reject Eutychianism, that Jesus’ human and divine natures merged into a new, different nature. We also reject Nestorianism, that the two natures of Christ are not unified in His person. And, we reject the Gnostic notion that we will be free from matter and our bodies, specifically in the next life. These heresies or errors generally arise from an attempt to fill in the blanks of the mysteries of God with our human reason. That is not a good practice in which we should engage. Some things are known to us. And some are not yet revealed.
The Eutychians held that Jesus’ human and divine natures merged into a new, different nature. In their intent to firmly state the unity of God and man in Christ, they created a different thing. The Eutychian Jesus must be separate from the Trinity because he is of a different substance. His human and divine natures make him a new unique thing that is neither God nor man. Since it is not either, it cannot be truly God.
“But pastor, why does that matter?” That’s a perfectly fair question. Only God can atone for all the sin of all of mankind. We know that Jesus died for our sins, each and every one, and all together. So, our understanding of the nature of Christ has to allow for that truth to remain constant. Instead we confess, “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man.”
The Nestorians found the other ditch. Like the brilliant Vizzini from the movie: The Princess bride, “clearly I cannot choose the cup in front of you.” If the complete unity of the two natures into a new nature is wrong, then the two natures of Christ must not be unified in His person. This creates a host of new potential misunderstandings. Does Jesus retain his humanity? Did Jesus remain human throughout His ministry, life, death, and resurrection? Did God depart from the man, Jesus, at any point? The answers to those questions in many cases are their own unique error, which we may discuss at another time.
The rubber meets the road here. On the cross God turned his back on Jesus, who is also God. On the cross God, the Son, died for our sins. And, God the Son was raised to life again. All of the hows, whys, and wherefores are not for us to know. We’re given exactly what we need to understand and trust completely that our sin was atoned for on Calvary.
“He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”
The Gnostics had a notion that we will be free from matter and our bodies one day. Specifically, we will be only spiritual in the next life. The taking up of Enoch and Elijah bodily into heaven speaks against this. Job’s confession that he will see God face-to-face with his own eyes does too. Mary Magdalene confesses the resurrection to Jesus just before he restores Lazarus to life. In the resurrection, Jesus eats and drinks with His disciples and invites them to touch Him. He is with them bodily, not spiritually.
In the Christian faith, we live in the certainty of knowing that the resurrection is a promise for us that will be whole and complete. This is a challenge especially at the time of death of our own loved ones. We want to know that everything is complete for them. We want to know that they are “in a better place.” Yet, the Bible teaches us that it isn’t quite done yet. The promise of Salvation isn’t full and complete until we are resurrected in our bodies to eternal life. We confess the resurrection of our bodies! “At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies.”
Instead of intellectualizing the complex into a way that makes sense, we are better served by acknowledging the witness given by scripture. Some things are clear and known to us. Other mysteries are not revealed to us in this life. But, we can know with certainty that all of the things pertinent to our Salvation are clear and known.
Dear Baptized, let us praise the one Christ, truly God and truly man for our salvation!
Encore Post: The exact date and author of the Athanasian Creed are unknown. It derives its name from the theological tradition of Saint Athanasius. It is typically dated to the late 4th or early 5th century AD. Augustine’s On the Trinity (415 AD) has very similar language to the creed. Athanasius’ lifelong battle against the heresies prevalent in the early Christian church of North Africa built a theological tradition, which heavily influenced the Western church.
“Just as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so also are we prohibited by the catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords.”
In the second section of the creed, we confess personhood of the Trinity, each distinct from the other. This rejects Modalism, that God changes masks, appearance, or function, but is the same in person in each case. Rather, we confess that the individual persons of the Triune God possess unique attributes to the exclusion of the others.
This distinctness of person also describes the divine economy. That is economy in the sense of interrelationship, not of money. Within the Trinity there is an economy of relationship between the persons. The Father is eternally neither made nor begotten. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, neither created nor begotten.
These expressions of the Christian understanding of the Trinity push against modalism by establishing a concurrence of personhood. It is impossible for the Father to put on a Son mask. He is eternally the Father, and His personhood is unique from the Son. The Son cannot put on a Holy Spirit mask because His attributes in His person are distinct from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot wear the attributes of the Father because they are unique from His own attributes. All of these attributes are eternally the attributes of the persons of God.
But, these immutable characteristics do not a hierarchy make. All persons of the Trinity are equally God. And, none is before or after another.
The Father is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Son. The Son is not the Father. The Holy Spirit is God. The Son is God. The Father is God, coeternal and coequal.
Dear Baptized, the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped!
Thanks be to God!
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
In the enlightened prose of a certain modern public figure, “seriously, not a joke, that’s no lie.” Call your pastor. “Call” doesn’t even have to be literal; call (and leave a message), send a letter, email, Facebook messenger, any sort of direct contact is good. Your pastor doesn’t know about the joys and sorrows in your life outside of the things you share with him.
But for goodness’ sake, don’t spread a rumor, expecting it to make it to your pastor’s ears. There are countless things he’s heard through the rumor mill. Your pastor is bound by the eighth commandment in the same way you are. He does hear about someone drinking too much, stepping out on their spouse, building their fence on the wrong side of the property line, being sad, being angry, or being ill. When he hears these things, he is also bound by God’s Law to put out of his mind the thing that he shouldn’t have heard about someone from someone else.
Please, call your pastor.
“Pastor’s are too busy to be bothered with [this event or thing].” Yes, pastors are frequently busy. But, pastors also constantly make adjustments to meet, talk to, and visit folks on a regular basis. We do this, I do this, because your concerns concern us.
Do you desire the prayers of the congregation? Call your pastor.
“Why wasn’t I included in the prayers?” Prayer requests are one link where the gossip chain breaks. Prayer requests from immediate family go right onto the list; requests from someone who heard from someone else that a third someone may have a need, do not so readily make the list. Since the Lord knows our needs, we also do not include details with requests. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, the Lord doesn’t require your knowledge to hear and answer the prayer.
AND, He does promise to hear and answer our prayers. (1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 18; 1 Thessalonians 5; Romans 5:26-27) The scriptures in no place require a detailed analysis of the situations of our prayers. Prayer is what the Lord requires.
Do you want a visit? Call your pastor.
He doesn’t know if you don’t contact him. He will spare no effort to meet your request. While we’re talking about it, contact him before it’s an emergency. I make visits most every week. The shut-in list gets the initial scheduling spots. Nota bene: the shut-in list includes folks who aren’t listed in the prayers by their own request. Additional notes: a visit from your pastor does not mean you are, or require you to be, near death. A visit is just a visit.
Seriously, call your pastor. – Pastor
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Encore Post: Saint Athanasius was bishop and patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt (under Roman control) from 328 to 373 AD. He attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD as secretary to his predecessor, Alexander. Athanasius was ordained as bishop and patriarch after Alexander’s death. In his 48 years presiding over the region, he was exiled five times, by four different Roman emperors, for 17 years, over theological controversies in North Africa.
Each of the three sections of the creed begins with a similar language. The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds start with “I believe…” But the Athanasian Creed takes a different approach. Rather than solely confessing together with one voice. Here, we also exhort one another, “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith.” Then, in each section, we confess the catholic faith.
We Lutherans need not fear the word “catholic.” The term catholic does not refer to the modern Roman Catholic Church, but to the universal, invisible, orthodox, faithful church of Christ on earth. We retain the use of the term “catholic” in the Athanasian Creed in opposition to the papal church of Rome. “Catholic” simply means “universal,” and as such, we boldly confess it from our Lutheran identity.
The first section addresses the unity of our Triune God. He is uncreated, infinite, and eternal, “not three gods, but one God.” This language rejects Subordinationism, that the Son and the Spirit are less God than that Father is God. Rather, God is of one substance. Subordinationism was, in part, an overcorrection for the error of modalism. Subordinationists were seeking to clarify the distinctness of the person within the Trinity. Their over correction created a theological position that hedged upon tritheism. To protect our understanding from merging God into just one thing of only one sort, they created an understanding where God can easily be three things of three sorts. And these three loosely connected God characters have a hierarchy within their pantheon. This is an error.
The modalist error is also addressed by the second section of the Creed. This serves to remind us that the opposite of an error isn’t always a truth. Sometimes the opposite of an error can simply be an error in the opposite direction.
“But the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.” The God-ness of the Trinity is whole and one. The attributes of God in His unity are shared and are one: uncreated, infinite, eternal, and almighty. But these are not a dozen attributes, four of each, unique to each person. There are four attributes that each person possesses as one. There are not three gods, but one God. There are not three lords, but one Lord. There are not three eternals, but one Eternal. We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.
Don’t let yourself be dismayed or discouraged by these complicated understandings. They were intense struggles for the early church and remain intellectual difficulties for us today. The big takeaway from the Athanasian Creed is that we can never fully understand the Trinity. We can, with the help of the fathers of the faith before us, identify those things that are outside the proper understanding.
Dear Baptized, let us celebrate the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity!
Encore Post: On Trinity Sunday most Christian churches confess together the Athanasian Creed. The creed was composed in keeping with his theology about the Trinity, though not by St. Athanasius himself. The creed flagrantly uses the term “catholic” in a way that can startle us sensitive snowflakes of the Lutheran tradition.
St. Athanasius? Catholic? Are we Romanists, now?
No, we are not now, nor do we desire to be a part of the Roman Catholic church. “But, Pastor, we just said the ‘catholic faith,’ like three times in the Athanasian Creed last Sunday.” Yes, yes we did. And, I have good news! At Mt. Calvary, we’ll confess it again every 4th Sunday throughout the Trinity Season this year.
Our Sunday bulletin at Mt. Calvary included this little note concerning our catholicity. “catholic faith* – The term catholic does not refer to the modern Roman Catholic Church, but rather to the universal, invisible, orthodox, faithful church of Christ on earth. We retain the use of the term “catholic” in the Athanasian Creed in opposition to the papal church of Rome. “Catholic” simply means” universal,” and as such, we boldly confess it from our Lutheran identity.”
There are Christians that eschew the use of creeds in the church. They’ll say things like, “No creed but Christ” and, “no book but the bible.” But, those statements are creeds of their own. We derive the English word creed from the Latin credo, which means, “I believe.” So, our friends in the “no creeds” crowd are creedingly creeding a creed against the use of creeds.
The Three ecumenical creeds are: The Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed. Creeds, as a whole, exist to speak contrary to positions held outside the faith. Each of these creeds exist solely to communicate the faith we all hold in opposition to a novel heresy against the faith. Ecumenical refers to that which pertains to the whole Christian church. The ecumenical creeds are embraced and confessed by all of Christendom.
The Athanasian creed speaks primarily against the Arian sect of the early Christian church. Arius, for whom the sect is named, struggled with the stuff of which God is. He taught against the idea that God the Father and God the Son are of the same substance.
Now, the Nicene Creed says, “…of the same substance with the Father…” After the first ecumenical council in Nicea (325 AD), the notion that there are differences in substance should have been put to bed with all the subordination it entails. But, Arianism remained a problem for the church.
The creed can be treated as two or three parts. Three parts will work adequately for this discussion. The first part deals with the unity of our Triune God. He is uncreated, infinite, and eternal, “not three Gods, but one God.” This language rejects Subordinationism, that the Son and the Spirit are less God than that Father is God. Rather, God is of one substance, not “three Gods or Lords.”
In the second section, we confess personhood, each distinct from the other. This rejects Modalism, that God changes masks, appearance, or function, but is the same in person in each case. Rather, we confess that the individual persons of the Triune God possess unique attributes to the exclusion of the others. The Father: unbegotten, The Son: begotten, and the Holy Spirit: proceeding, are all unique in function for us Christians. There are not three of any, but one of each person within the Trinity in Unity.
The third section deals with Jesus’ incarnation. The two natures of Christ are on full display here. The Son is “equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We reject Eutychianism, that Jesus’ human and divine natures merged into a new, different nature. “He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age: perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We also reject Nestorianism, that the two natures of Christ are not unified in His person. “He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”
The third section also rejects the Gnostic notion that we will be free from matter and our bodies, specifically in the next life. On the contrary, we confess the resurrection of our bodies! “At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies.”
Dear Baptized, let us celebrate the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity! Thanks be to God!
