What Does This Mean?

About Being Born Again

Often our Evangelical brothers and sisters will call themselves “Born Again Christians.” They will often ask, “Have you been born again?” Lutherans will respond, “Why, yes, I’ve been baptized.” This answer is not satisfactory to them. The problem is not that we disagree on what being born again is all about. The difficulty is we have radically different ideas on how we get there.

For Evangelicals, there are a series of things a person needs to do before God will give you new birth. You need to realize you are a sinner. Your need to repent of your sin. You need to invite Jesus into your heart. It is only then that God will give you new birth.

Of course, Lutherans believe there is absolutely nothing we do before God gives us new birth. In fact, many of us were baptized as infants where there was nothing we could do to prepare the ground. (Of course, Evangelicals violently disagree with infant baptism, but that is another post!) We insist that we cannot do anything at all before God gives us new birth — that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone for the sake of Christ’s death on the cross alone.

To see which is correct, it helps to look at the two passages which use words translated into English as born again.

The first passage is in among the most beloved chapters in the Bible — John 3. In verse 3-7, Jesus tells Nicodemus, one of the most respected Pharisees of his day, that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God … unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.” Here Jesus tells us that you cannot be saved if you are not born again. He then explains that one is born again by Holy Baptism. Why is this the case? Because if you are born sinful (“of the flesh”) you cannot be born again. Holy Baptism comes with the Holy Spirit which gives you new life.

The second passage is 1 Peter 1. Here St. Peter tells us that ” According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ” (Verses 3-5) Here we see that it is God who causes us to be born again and the power comes from the resurrection of Jesus. Later he tells us that we are born again from imperishable seed — God’s word.

From these passages, then, it is clear that we are born again by God’s work alone when he unites us to the death and resurrection of Jesus in baptism and when we hear his word proclaimed to us. It is after we are born again that we fully appreciate our sinful state, repent of our sin and dedicate our lives, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to serve him alone.

The Faith of Children

Encore Post: Evangelicals reject infant baptism is they think faith is all about understanding and agreeing to a series of teachings about God, Jesus in particular, and how we are saved. Since infants and young children have little ability to understand things intellectually. For Lutherans and the Holy Scriptures, faith is not an exercise of our reason, but a trust in God’s promises.

The problem with understanding faith this way is that even adults do not always have an ability to think, and, when they do, may still reject the Gospel. Lutheran theologians point out that we do not think when we sleep or in a coma. Sometimes disease can take from us our mind in old age or brain trauma. Yet such adults are not considered by anyone to have lost their faith.

On the contrary, Jesus and the Apostles tell us children do have faith. In fact, Jesus praises their ability to trust God. (Matthew 18:2-6, Mark 10:13-16) John the Baptist and Timothy believed in the womb (Luke 1:41-44, 2 Timothy 3:15) So, faith is all about trusting in God to save us and children are the most trusting of all people. Jesus does not urge children to become more like adults when it comes to faith. He urges adults to become more like children.

Children are Sinners, Too

Encore Posts: On the surface, we might think that the Evangelical challenge to infant baptism is about the practice itself. If the objection was that simple, perhaps there would be much less passion in the debate.

I believe the real issues are deeper than that. For Lutherans, the emotion behind our defense of the baptism of infants comes from the assurance that our children are saved by baptism. For Evangelicals, the objection comes from their belief that children are not accountable for their sins until they can ask Jesus to be their personal savior and because they believe baptism is a human act of obedience. In short, they do not believe in original sin.

Original sin is the name theologians give to the teaching of Holy Scripture that all people are born as sinners and that that state is inherited from Adam and Eve, resulting from their first sin in Eden. The big problem that we have is less that we commit sins, than that we are conceived sinful. (Psalm 51:5)

Everyone, including children, are accountable to God for who they are and the sins they commit from the very beginning of their lives. (Romans 3:10-19) Every thought we have inclines to evil (Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21). These thoughts are the cause of all the sins we commit. (Matthew 15:17-20) Only by being born of water and the Spirit can we see God’s kingdom. That is why we baptize infants and children.

Sunday School #31: Sin enters the World

When God made the world, it was perfect. He stood back and said, “It is very good!” Everything was beautiful and had its place. There was no sin, suffering, grief or death. God walked with Adam and Eve and shared his beautiful world, especially the garden he had planted for them. The only thing they were not allowed to do was to eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In short, evil did not exist. So, how did the world get to the place we know, where sin and death cast their shadow over everything?

Lucifer, whose name means “bearer of light” was an angel. He desired to be like God and sit on his throne. Though the might of Michael the Archangel and his armies of angels, Lucifer and his angelic forces were cast out of heaven to the earth. They became know as Satan and the demons. In the form of a snake, Satan challenged God’s word and told Eve she could be like God, knowing good and evil, if she would just eat the fruit. This is ironic, since Adam and Eve were already just like God.

Thinking only about themselves, Adam and Eve took the bait. Rather than be focused outward, to serve God and others, they became curved in upon themselves, focused only on what they thought would please them. They discovered this really did not satisfy. Instead, it ruined everything.

When Satan tempted Eve to eat the fruit of this tree, Adam was standing next to her. Since God gave the command to him and he did not speak to contradict Satan, God held him mainly responsible for the Fall. St. Paul explains that sin infected all people through one man, Adam. However, the good news is that by the sacrifice of one man, Jesus Christ, sin is paid for and God’s forgiveness comes to all people. Since by man, through a tree, came death to all, by Man, through the tree of the Cross, came the resurrection of the dead. In Adam, everyone died. In Christ, everyone is made alive.

We call this teaching original sin, because it is the origin of all sins. While we commit sins and these sins earn us a death sentence, the problem isn’t so much them, as the fact that everyone is born a sinner. It is not what we do. It is who we are that causes us to do these things. When we are baptized, this all changes. We are tied to Christ’s death on the cross, which breaks the power of sin and death. We are tied also to his resurrection, so on the last day, Jesus will call us out of our tombs into life forever. Then all will be very good once again.

Sunday School #30: God makes Adam and Eve

Moses tells the story of creation twice. In Genesis One, he tells us how God created most of the universe simply by speaking — and it came to be! The creation of Adam and Eve is much different. God gets down on His hands and knees and makes us with His own hands.

Children may notice that getting food to eat can be pretty routine. In America we are blessed with countless restaurants, food packaged ready to eat or very close to it. Yet when a birthday, a holiday or a visit from relatives is coming, they take the time to prepare a big meal. They may even do it all from scratch — by meat and vegetables raw, clean it, chop it, smoke or marinate it, cook it and put it out on a decorated table. Why do they do this? Or make gifts by hand when they could do it with much less effort? They do these things because they want to do something special for someone they love.

God fashioned Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib because these creatures would be much more than the rest. He made us to be his companions and creation for us. We were to share the universe with him forever. That was very good indeed!

When God said, Let us make man in our own image, He did not mean that we look like Him or that we are the only beings that make decisions like He does. God made Adam and Eve to be holy like He is. Sadly, by trying to be just like God, (Genesis 3:5) Adam and Eve became less like Him. God is a being focused outward, giving and serving. As sinners, we are curved in on ourselves, serving ourselves.

In order to pay the price of our salvation, God in Christ, poured himself out into the form of a man. As one of us, he lived a perfect life for us and laid it down for us, his friends. By the Cross, God once again makes us to be just like Him by making us to be just like Jesus. (Romans 8:28-29) Restored to his image, we live just like him — serving God and each other.

Jesus’s First Miracle: Water and Wine

Encore Post: “Our Lord blessed and honored marriage with his presence and first miracle at Cana in Galilee” begins the traditional wedding service in most Lutheran churches. Weddings are very joyful occasions. Everyone dresses their best. There is music, dancing and feasting. The bride and groom are excited because their life together will soon begin. Weddings today are very different today than they were during the earthly life of Jesus.

Weddings were seven days long, most of it eating, drinking, dancing, reciting wedding poetry and eating. On the first day, the bride and her wedding party would walk from her house to her groom’s house. They would say their vows in his house or under a tent that stood for the house. Then the party would begin.

Hospitality was very important at weddings. The groom would have to be sure there was plenty to eat and drink. At the wedding of Cana, Jesus saved the couple a lot of embarrassment. More than that, He showed His mother and His disciples that He was God and cared for people in their everyday lives. The church believes the fact that Jesus attended this wedding and blessed all marriages by making wine for the celebration.

Marriage is important, not only as the foundation of the family, but as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. A beloved hymn sums it up well: “from heaven he came and sought her, to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.” Marriage pictures for Christ’s self-sacrificing love for us and our response to his love. For this reason, what God has put together, let no one separate.

C. F. W. Walther Publishes Der Lutheraner

Lutheranism in America was in disarray one hundred seventy-five years ago. That surprised few people at the time. The Lutheran Confessions were nearly forgotten under the twin theologies of rationalism and pietism. Rationalism insisted that the supernatural is not real, only things which can be observed with the senses are real. It downplayed the role of God in the world and sought to promote morality. Pietism focused on a personal relationship with Jesus, a true conversion to Christian faith, a focus on heart religion and promoted strict religious standards. Both turned sacraments into symbols and downplayed doctrine. Eastern Lutheran Churches by and large sought to be “American” Lutherans, adopting the theology and practices of the revivalist religion of the frontier.

Beginning in the early 1840s, the stream of German immigrants turned into a flood. American Lutheran Churches had transitioned to English language and did not have more than a few pastors that could care for them. Very few pastors came with the immigrants. Several denominations, such as the Methodist, sought to fill the gap by evangelizing them.

Friedrich Wyneken had just returned from a successful trip to recruit pastors for the American frontier. They began almost immediately to make their way across the Atlantic. Having become committed to return to Confessional Lutheran theology and to bring his congregations along with him, he found himself in an extended conflict with people committed to pietist practice.

In Germany, Wilhelm Löhe and his friends began to raise money and recruit candidates for pastoral ministry in America. He tried to form a relationship with the existing Ohio Synod and its seminary in Columbus, Ohio, which was not going well. Full of energy, he also became convinced to form a Christian community that would establish a colony in Michigan to witness to the Chippewa Indians. The effort resulted in the Franconian colonies of the Saginaw Valley, the best known being Frankenmuth.

In Perry County Missouri and St. Louis, a confessional Saxon Lutheran Utopian community emerged from a harrowing sexual abuse scandal, which resulted in the expulsion of the charismatic bishop Martin Stephan. Under the leadership of C. F. W. Walther, they had begun to heal and wondered if they were alone as confessional Lutherans in America.

At the considerable financial sacrifice of Walther’s Trinity Congregation in St. Louis, Walther began to publish a newspaper, Der Lutheraner (The Lutheran) on September 7, 1844. The hope was to explain Lutheran theology to the German American immigrants in the United States. The paper succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Der Lutheraner would help scattered Lutherans organize a new fellowship — a synod — of confessional churches– now known as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

Sunday School #29: God made the World

“Tell me a story!” a young child asks. You get a pile of books and you read one or another classics to them. A good story draws you in and makes you a part of the action. When we think of stories, we often assume they are fiction. Yet some of the best stories are true. Great newspaper reporters call their articles, “stories” that are not only gripping but true.

In most cultures, the most told stories tell you how the world was made, what went wrong with it and what will happen to make it better. These are called “salvation histories.” The Bible is a salvation history and today’s lesson starts at the very beginning. How did God make the world?

There are two stories about creation in the beginning of Bible. The first one is an overview of how God made the world and everything in it. The second one tells the story of how God made Adam and Eve.

The first story has a rhythm to it. It begins when there was nothing at all but God. When God speaks, it happens. The world was made because when he spoke, something was made. Every day of creation, we hear that “God said let… and it was so” and “God saw that it was good.” Every day ends: “evening and morning was the ___ day.” God made everything in a very orderly fashion. First He made the land, sea and sky. Then He filled it with living creatures. On the sixth day, He made men and women in His own image. When God had finished creation, He called it very good.

The world is far from very good today. The sin of Adam and Eve brought sin, suffering, grief and death into the world. Yet the beauty and wonder of creation is still there. One day Jesus will return and take away this curse once and for all. Then we all will see the work God has done and say with Him, it is very good.

God’s Gift of Science

Our modern world is filled with many wonders. Machines make the chores of everyday life easy to manage. The speed us from one place to another. The make our homes and work places cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The feed us with a wide variety of foods, conquer diseases the killed whole populations in the past. All of these blessings God has given us in large part through a powerful technique known as science. One of the reasons we very much want to have harmony between science, opinions based on it and our faith is that we enjoy these wonders.

Human thought, reasoning, logic and its fruits are gifts from God. When we use them to serve God and each other, they are in harmony with our faith. Theologians call this use the ministerial use of reason. Yet often, as did our first parents, Adam and Eve, (Genesis 3) we decide that we know better than God what is best, right and true. We buy Satan’s lies and act on what we think we should do, directly disobeying God. Like the ancient people of Babylon, we use technology to make a name for ourselves. (Genesis 11) Theologians call this the magisterial use of reason. As you might imagine, this puts us in direct conflict with God and with our faith.

When it comes to using science as our servant and not our master, it helps to understand that it, like all our knowledge, has its limits. To begin with, it helps to know what science is. Science is, at its basic nature, is a method of observation. While not directly saying that supernatural things are not real, science, for the most part, sets them aside. It concentrates on what we can see, touch, taste, hear and smell, and using instruments that extend our senses, what we can measure and record. It seeks to create conditions that can be controlled and investigated in these ways and that can be repeated over and over again. When it sees the same results happen over and over again, it explains why it thinks this is so. As long as these experiments continue to produce effect that fit the theory, it accepts them as true.

So, strictly speaking, science really can’t learn about creation. By definition, you can’t repeat the beginning of all things. No one today can be at the time when humans first walked on earth. No one can observe it, measure it and record it. So, then, theories of our origins have no data support them. We need someone who was there. That someone, of course, is God.

God Saw That it was Good — Very Good!

For six days, God spoke and the universe came to be. At the end of each day, he looked at what he made and saw it was good. On the sixth day, the persons of the Holy Trinity decided to do something completely different. They made humanity — male and female — in the image of God — perfectly holy. Then he finished his work, saw all that he had made. It was good — very good.

Christians believe God made the world this way for a very simple reason. We believe that the Bible is God’s Word and he was the only one present at creation. For us, this is a first person observation, not just a story. The way God inspired Moses to write the first words of Genesis is very simple, yet majestic Hebrew. Nearly every word and the way they are assembled are learned in the first week or two of studying the language. While not poetry, it is as close to it as Hebrew prose gets.

Hebrew writers weave their prose and poetry using repetition, an “echo” effect, saying the same thing multiple times with differing words, telling stories multiple times while changing up details with each telling and similar techniques. Genesis One sounds almost like a litany in effect.

In the telling of each day’s work, Moses says, “and God said, let there be… and there was… he saw that it was good… there was evening and there was morning, day…” The result is much like a litany used in formal worship. Hear the great mystery of God’s creative work is said simply, so simply that a young child can understand it. And yet, because God is our creator, we never will fully understand it. We wonder, believe him and praise God for his wondrous world.

Other views of creation, some based upon scientific study disagree with this account. Sadly, they cannot be put together. In another post, we will examine why and why that is OK.