Private Property

November 4, 2019 - Monday after Trinity 20

The earth is the LORD’S, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters (Psalm 24:1-2).

The ownership of private property is an important concept to Americans. It might even be argued that they concept of private property ownership is fundamental to the development of Western Civilization. Property, and the money and currency we have developed to help us keep and dispose of our property, represents our time and effort, our work. A certain school of economists are fond of describing money as “frozen work”. We trade our time and effort doing a job and we receive money in compensation. We can then trade that money for other property we need or want, property some other person owned or created. God is the author of the idea of private property ownership; He commands us through Moses not to steal. In order to steal something from someone else, that other person must first have a legitimate claim on that property. He may have produced it, or he has the power to dispose of it as he wishes. To steal is to deprive the property owner, then, of a piece of their time; of something they gave up a portion of their time either making, or working to get money so that they could buy.

Socialism, what the dictionary calls the transition phase between capitalism and communism (though Karl Marx used the terms “socialism” and “communism” interchangeably),[1] subverts private property ownership. Indeed, it must. The goal of socialism is the collective, or governmental, control of the means of production. The means of production is just a fancy way of saying factories - the way “property” is produced. In this system, the State (the government, the “collective”) would decide what things were produced, how many of these things were produced, who has access to those things, and how those things could be used. As Marx wrote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

This isn’t intended to be a lecture on economics. It is, however, important to understand, at least broadly, these two ideas of capitalism and socialism, and their relationship to the concept of private property. In real capitalism, individuals, through their voluntary interactions and commerce with each other in the market, decide what property is produced, how, and to what degree; in a socialist system, the government does all that. The economy is centrally planned. 

Why the economics lesson? It is important to understand that God created the world. It is His property. He may dispose of it as He likes. As the psalmist writes, “The earth is the LORD’s and all it’s fullness.” The “fullness” would be us. We are also His creatures, whom He made out of the dust of the earth, into which He breathed the breath of life. We confess the creation in the words of the Venite:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.[2]

This means He can dispose of us and this world as He sees fit, since it is His property which He, through His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus Christ Created:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.[3]

If this is not true, then God does not own us. If God and the creation are the fairy stories that modern atheists say they are, no one owns us or the world, which means that we own ourselves. It means that the things we have learned called Christian morality, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, is not a divine creation given to us, an absolute moral system written on our hearts by God, but rather a creation of man. If morality is not absolute, not created by God, but relative to man, then there is no reason, except a personal desire to submit to it, or compulsion by a stronger human force. Right and wrong, rather than being concrete and unchangeable things, become abstract ideas, relative to the dominant culture. Every culture dictates their own “right”, the one that is appropriate for them. Different cultures, with different ideas of “right” might come into conflict, but the stronger will prevail, and whatever is synthesized out of the clash of those two opposing ideas is “right”. 

Modern atheists, living in the afterglow of Christendom, where Christian values are still widely known and kept, even by people who are not Christians, think they like this idea. They like the idea of owning themselves. It means that they don’t have to answer to anyone except themselves, which is quite convenient, since they are in charge of making up all the rules now. In an interview, comedian Stephen Fry was asked what he would say to God if he were called before God’s judgement seat in order to get into heaven. He answered that he would turn the judgement back on God. To Mr. Fry, God was the one who was sinful and immoral:

“I’ll say: bone cancer in children, what’s that about? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain? The god who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of god would do that? Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind...I wouldn’t want to [get into heaven]. I wouldn’t want to get in on his terms. They are wrong.”[4]

There is a lot to digest in Mr. Fry’s statement, and not at all entirely unreasonable questions to raise. 

Of course, the fact of the matter is that Mr. Fry does not believe that there can be a God, because of the existence of evil. We get into trouble when we assume that the misery isn’t our fault. In reality, God, sin, death, and the state of the universe do not have their existence based on whether or not we humans approve of them. God does not cease to exist because we selfish people, who worship ourselves, don’t understand Him, and subsequently reject Him, much as a petulant child doesn’t understand that the doctor who wants to vaccinate him is working for the child’s good. The doctor doesn’t disappear because the child hates him and, in the end, the child gets the shot.

Or, to put it another way, just because we don’t like what God says or does, how He disposes of His property, doesn’t change anything. It isn’t as though we get let out of the judgement because we don’t like the rules. When Job asked similar questions of God, God showed up in a whirlwind and answered Him:

Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.[5]

Job’s response, his speechlessness and subsequent repentance, is the reality of what will come of any man standing before the Almighty God.

I suspect it is for this reason atheism and evolutionary theory go together so well. It takes away ownership of the earth and it’s fullness from the Creator, and gives it to the creation. More importantly, it removes any obligation for man to abide by God’s morality - Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...You shall love your neighbor as yourself - and allows man to make up his own. But we all know this is nonsense. Creation itself bears witness to it’s creator; God’s law, written on our hearts bears witness to the fact that we are evil, fallen and sinful creatures. 

There is also another way in which God has claim of ownership over the earth and all it’s fullness: through Jesus, God in human flesh, second person of the Holy Trinity, Redeemer of the world. Jesus bought back the property that He created, after it had been stolen from Him. Adam and Eve plunged mankind, and all of creation, into sin by their disobedience to God, and their selfish desire to become like Him. The entire creation was put under the curse, now utterly corrupted, and subject to sin, death, and Satan, who was responsible for introducing sin into the world. But God knew that, before it’s foundation, He would redeem the world through the blood of Jesus. God promised Adam and Eve that they would be redeemed, and that Satan’s head would be crushed by the woman’s offspring, even as He sent them out of the earthly paradise. He spent hundreds and hundreds of years preparing and gathering to Himself a people, whom He would set apart from all the other peoples of the earth, through whom this offspring - this Seed - would one day come. He gave them peculiar civil laws and religious worship, so that they would be reminded of the Seed to come, and keep them set apart from the rest of the world; He hammered into their collective heads just what kind of a God He was, as C. S. Lewis wrote:

Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process. Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time.[6]

Jesus, God in human flesh, took on human nature and lived the sinless life that it was impossible for man to live. Born of the Virgin Mary, born sinless, He was born under the Law. And He kept the Law perfectly, as mankind could not do. Then, He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, as the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. He was executed as a criminal and a blasphemer in our place, taking the punishment the world deserved, according to the scriptures. He rose again from the dead on the third day, again, as written in the scriptures. He is the propitiation for our sins, the ransom for many. And He will come again with glory, to judge the quick and the dead, and to take possession of His creation as King, once and for all; He will remake it, purging it of sin and death forever. 

It makes no difference if we like this or not. In fact, we don’t like it, none of us. He has to prepare us. He sends His servants, pastors, into the world to preach His Word; they call people to repentance for their sins, and announce to them the forgiveness Christ has won for them on the cross. He connects us to His death and His resurrection in Holy Baptism, where He saves us and washes away our sin. He feeds us with His very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, nourishing, sustaining, and increasing our faith, so that no matter what misery and injustice we must endure while we live in this fallen creation, it will be for our good. Even the ultimate evil, death, will ultimately be for our good, if we are in Christ. The worst thing that the devil can do to us is kill our bodies. But Jesus tells us not to fear the one who can kill the body, but rather the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell - God Almighty. So, even though we may not understand or like the things that happen to us in this life, we strive to live according to the new creation, His own possession, that He has made us in our Baptism; we love the Lord with all our hearts and we love our neighbors as ourselves, showing our faith by our works. And when we sin, we repent, knowing that we have been baptized into Christ, and that He died for the forgiveness of our sin, and rose for our justification. He also gives us gifts to possess. His death and His resurrection are ours. His life is our life. Because He lives, we shall live. In this world there is trouble and injustice. Christ has overcome the world. He is the ultimate justice.

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1. “Socialism: Definition of Socialism by Lexico.” Lexico Dictionaries | English. Lexico Dictionaries. Accessed November 12, 2019. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/socialism.

2. Lutheran Intersynodical Hymnal Committee, and Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America. 1941. The Lutheran hymnal: authorized by the synods constituting the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House.

3. Colossians 1:15-18

4. Independent Staff. “Stephen Fry 'Blasphemy': Comedian's Remarks about God That Prompted Police Investigation in Full.” The Independent, May 7, 2017. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/stephen-fry-blasphemy-god-ireland-police-investigation-quotes-in-full-a7722256.html.

5. Job 40:2

6. Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity (version alt.binaries.e-book 2002), 1953. https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/merechristianitylewis.pdf.

The Great Apostasy

Friday after Trinity 13

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:1-5).

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recently held their convention. The convention was broadcast on the internet and, for the orthodox Christian who is unfamiliar with the liberal (and very political) Christianity of main-line Protestantism, the proceedings were quite shocking. Pastors preaching sermons, disguised as virtue-signaling prayers, on how white people can atone for America’s original sin of racism, which is inextricably imbedded in the machinery of both church and state. Groups of people on stage confessing their racial sins to people of color, and not receiving an absolution, but rather a prescription for how to make things right; a kind of modern day, social justice penance. And, in the most shocking moments, a flat-out denial of Jesus Christ. When a layman stood up to speak to a resolution asserting the validity of all religions, pointing out that Christ Himself denies this when He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” (John 14:6), he was derided and ridiculed openly on the convention floor by the clergy. The pastors scrambled to apologize to their “inter-faith guests” for the ignorant layman’s shocking, rude, and culturally insensitive comments.

Paul writes to Timothy, explaining that in the latter days, some people will depart from the faith. Paul seems to be dealing with the legalism of keeping the Old Testament Law, and the man-made traditions of the elders, that he writes about in his other epistles. Departure from sound doctrine, however, is certainly not limited to just these types of things. If you ever needed any evidence that we are living in the latter days, certainly such shameful goings-on should suffice. People dressed as pastors, shepherds of congregations charged with feeding their flocks with God’s Word and administering to them His Sacraments, denying Christ before all the world. Even the Pharisees were better than this. At least they honored God with their lips, though their hearts were far from Him. 

No, these are false ministers of a false Christ; one who is concerned with calling members of the oppressor classes to repentance for their sins of racism, sexism, and class exploitation. These ministers are not concerned with the actual Gospel message of Christ crucified as the ransom for mankind’s sin, and raised to life again on the third day for man’s justification. They are interested only in fixing the injustices of this present world; they are interested only in assigning guilt to people for the crimes of their ancestors collectively, to achieve social justice. They deal only with people as groups, and not as individuals. They never see a man as someone who is a sinner, in need of Christ’s forgiveness. He is only a member of a class, a race, or a gender. If one happens to be a part of an oppressor group, the only forgiveness he can hope for is what he can earn through doing the penance that the oppressed prescribe, and then only if he is deemed worthy enough will he be absolved.

This is called Liberation Theology. It is politics masquerading as religion. It has infected all of the so-called main-line Protestant denominations, along with the higher critical method of Biblical interpretation. It is what happens when you reject the truth of the Bible. St. Paul explains:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).

Higher criticism is a man-centered approach to Biblical interpretation. This approach assumes that to understand the Bible, we must understand the mind of the authors, and their perceptions of God, at the time they wrote what they wrote. It is inherently materialistic; in the higher critical method of Biblical interpretation there is no room for miracles. Higher critics claim to believe the Bible, but they cannot accept anything supernatural. That means no six-day creation; no parting of the Red Sea; no Jonah receiving a prophetic word from the Lord and being swallowed, and vomited out alive again, by a giant fish. It means, in fact, no prophetic words from the Lord at all. If nothing supernatural happens then all of the prophecies recorded in the Bible aren’t really prophecies. All of the things that the prophets wrote are just clever pieces of literature, written hundreds of years after the events that they claim to foretell. It means no fall into sin, no promise of a savior, and no Christ, God in human flesh. Jesus was simply a man, if he even existed, a wise and good moral teacher who cared about equality and justice, and taught men to love their neighbors. That means no atonement for sins, and no resurrection from the dead. The result of all this is indeed empty preaching and an empty faith:

For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:17-19).

What happens to a congregation, or an entire denomination, in the case of the ELCA, that gives up the guts of the faith? Well, just like when a person is eviscerated, they die. But, those people have to put their hope in something. Since there is no supernatural, no hope in a world to come, no hope in a Jesus in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, who died as the atonement for sin, who has promised to return in judgment and bring ultimate justice to mankind, they must focus on themselves, and on the here-and-now. All of a sudden, the purpose of the church isn’t to preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, but to fight for justice in this world. Man’s problem is no longer being dead in trespasses and sins, but rather racism, political oppression, and crimes against the environment.

What’s wrong with justice? Nothing. God’s Word calls us to be just; we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. If, however, you reject what God says about the human condition, you will never understand why that is impossible, in this fallen creation, to achieve that goal. Moreover, achieving social justice, whether you believe the idea is right or wrong, does nothing to rescue us from sin and death.

We are fallen, sinful creatures living in a fallen, sinful world. We are, by nature, sinful and unclean. It is why Jesus tells us, in the Sermon on the Mount, to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. He’s showing us that we can’t do it. He is using the Law to show us our sin, to show us that we are lost, and that we need a savior from outside of ourselves. In the absence of the real Jesus, churches turn to Counterfeit Jesus. In America, that is oftentimes Comrade Jesus. Comrade Jesus teaches us that our real problems are systemic racism, sexism, and class oppression. Comrade Jesus teaches us to overcome these sins through socialism, communism, environmentalism, and whatever other political “ism” there is that gives man a work to do to atone for their sin. Not their real sin, mind you, but the things that those “isms” call sin; the things they use to control men, and keep them from fixing their eyes on the real Jesus, the author and perfecter of the real faith.

What is the remedy? In short, it is to repent, and believe the Gospel. That is the fix for those caught in the heresy of Higher Criticism and Liberation Theology. Christ’s blood is powerful enough to wash away the stain of our sin, no matter what it is. But we who are firmly ensconced in supposedly orthodox church bodies, like the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, are not immune from what has happened in the ELCA. If we go chasing after fads, and abandon Jesus so that we can try to make friends with the world to keep parishioners in our pews, the same thing will happen with the LCMS. If we bow to the pressure to be relevant to the culture, to be “woke”, to be what the world falsely calls tolerant and loving, if we abandon sound doctrine, we will end up on a stage competing with each other in displays of heresy, virtue-signaling how woke we are on whatever issue the culture is up-in-arms about that week. And we will be outside of God’s Kingdom along with the other social justice warriors who have replaced Christ with the idol of politics. God forbid! Lord, have mercy!

All For Christ - What is the World to Me?

Thursday after Trinity 11 

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:1-11). 

Rejoice in the Lord, not in the flesh. Paul gives the people who receive his letters this message again, and again. It is a message Jesus gave: For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?[1] We are to take up our cross and follow Jesus. He calls us to deny ourselves. And, He says that whoever desires to save his life, this life he lives here and now in the flesh, will lose it. He will lose real life. He will lose Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, as he tries to hold on to the things of this world, which is in decay and passing away.

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. The people to whom Paul is referring here are sometimes called the circumcision party, or the Judaizers. They were the ones sowing dissension in the ranks; they were teaching false doctrine. They were teaching men to trust in their own works, literally in the cutting of their flesh in circumcision. They taught that you had to keep the Law and be circumcised to be a Christian, and that Paul was a false teacher. 

But Paul calls these men, these evil workers and the act they propagate, “the mutilation.” The circumcision they advocate is not the true circumcision. It is a kind of destruction. Not simply physically, by removing a bit of flesh from the body; It destroys Christians by removing faith in Christ: 

Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.[2]

It is a work of man designed to please God by keeping the Law. But the Law has been fulfilled by Christ. And the covenant sign of circumcision, which God gave to Abraham, is obsolete. It is a shadow of the true sign that marks you as one of God’s people: Baptism, the circumcision of Christ, which He performs on your heart. Paul says that we, those who have been baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of sins, are the true circumcision: 

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.[3]

We were dead in our trespasses. We were dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh. Jesus made us alive in Him. He has circumcised us with the true circumcision – the circumcision not made with hands, but with water and the Word, the circumcision of Christ – in our baptism. He has taken, as Paul writes to the Colossians, “…the hand-writing of requirements that was against us,” and nailed it to the cross. Jesus, who had no sin, became sin for us. Because we have been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ in our baptism, His death on the cross as the sacrifice for sin is also ours. We died in Jesus through our baptism. Through that same baptism, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead also belongs to us. We have risen from the dead already, in Him. And even though this body will die and be buried, we will not die. We are immortal. We are baptized into Christ. We have put on Christ. Our bodies will die and be buried, if Jesus should delay his coming, like a seed in the ground, but we will be with Christ. He is our body. And one day He will return to judge the living and the dead. And, in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised, sprouting forth from the earth, only now incorruptible and utterly changed, with immortal bodies like Jesus’ immortal body. In that way, this corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality; Death will finally be swallowed up in victory, once and for all. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Looking at our situation in that way, you can see how Paul is able to say that the things he formerly counted as gain – his fleshly circumcision, his blood connection to the nation of Israel, his zeal in working to please God and keep the Law – he now counts as loss, for the sake of Christ. These things are ultimately worthless. What Paul has gained by the grace of God through faith in Christ is priceless: the forgiveness of sins, life everlasting, membership in the true Israel of God, adoption as a son of Abraham by faith.

We have received the same gracious gifts. In comparison with such a treasure, what is a little suffering in this present age? In comparison to life with Christ in a remade world, one without sin and death, with a perfect, immortal body, living in perfect relationship to the Almighty Creator of the universe, what is it to endure a little scorn, a little ridicule, some persecution. These things are not pleasant, but they cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ.[4] Even death, our bitter enemy, need no longer be feared, though the devil and his angels do their best convince us otherwise. We have something more precious. We have eternal life in Christ. What is this world to me?

The world is sorely grieved

Whenever it is slighted

Or when its hollow fame

And honor have been blighted.

Christ, Thy reproach I bear

Long as it pleaseth Thee;

I'm honored by my Lord,-

What is the world to me![5]

The world with wanton pride 

Exalts it’s sinful pleasures 

And for them foolishly 

Gives up the heavenly treasures. 

Let others love the world 

With all its vanity; 

I love the Lord, my God – 

What is the world to me![6]

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[1] Mark 8:36 

[2] Galatians 5:2-4 

[3] Colossians 2:11-12 

[4] Romans 8:38-39 

[5] Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. The Lutheran Hymnal. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941. Hymn 430, “What is the World to Me?” stanza 5. 

[6] ibid. TLH 430, stanza 6.

No Creed but the Catechism

I went to mail a package the other day and wound up getting into a strange little theological conversation. It was brief. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised, and didn’t quite know how to respond to the statement that offended me. The fellow saw that I was mailing some religious books. He asked me what denomination I was. I told him I was a Missouri Synod Lutheran. He seemed to know what that was, but then told me this: “I had dinner with two Lutheran friends from out of town the other night. The one I’m not worried about. The other one… too catholic! He talked too much about the catechism.” I thought to myself that the man he was worried about and I would probably get along better than the other “Lutheran” and I would. I knew I only had a few moments to respond in some way. Rather than being confrontational, or saying something sarcastic (which is my modus operandi), I replied, “God works through His Word when and where He wills.” I got a smile of approval, finished my transaction, and left. 

This attitude among Evangelicals really does kind of bother me. It falls under the umbrella of No Creed but Christ, No Book but the Bible. This is supposed to express that the person who professes this mini man-made creed doesn’t profess man-made creeds, and that they get their doctrines from the Bible, and not man-made theology. It’s not so much because of their smug sense of superiority when expressing it, but rather that they are so certain about something that just is not so. Not only are they professing a creed that is not “Christ”, one that is far inferior to the ecumenical creeds, they often subscribe to many books other than the Bible for their theology; books that take the words of Scripture out of context and teach things foreign to it, like dispensationalism (I’m looking at you, Cyrus Scofield).

Cyrus I. Scofield, creator of the Scofield Reference Bible

Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism (hereinafter referred to as The Catechism) falls into the second half of the mini-creed; it is a book other than the Bible. It must, therefore, contain the doctrines of men. After all, if it were Jesus’ catechism, it would have His name on it. There are, however, several problems: No Creed but Christ, No Book but the Bible ignores the reality of how men are converted, and how doctrine is preserved and transmitted from one generation to the next; also, my fundagelical friends have a misconception about what a catechism is. 

They don’t know what a catechism is, so they don’t know what they are missing by rejecting such a resource out-of-hand because it was “written by men”. The desire to obey God rather than men is good. We Christians should follow the example of our fathers in the faith who came before us and preached, taught, baptized, and worshiped in the face of persecution. But that is just the point: Christianity isn’t just me and my Bible, and you and yours, having personal experiences with God. Christianity is the death of Jesus as ransom for the sin of the world, and His resurrection for our justification.[1] And when a man is made a Christian by the working of the Holy Spirit through the means of the Word, he becomes a part of something bigger than himself – the body of Christ, the Church, the Communion of Saints, spread out through time and space, preserved by Him until the Last Day when Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and establish the new creation. I don’t mean to wax metaphysical, but Christianity, rather than being a religion of “do these things in this prescribed way according to this rulebook,” is instead a religion of being. You once were dead in trespass and sin, and now you are made alive by Christ.[2] You once were dirty with the filth of your sin, and now you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God;[3] You have been saved in the waters of Holy Baptism,[4] where you were connected to Christ, His death and resurrection, clothed with His righteousness,[5] washed clean of your sin.[6] You used to be a fallen, sinful creature; now Christ has made you a new creation, by the grace of God through faith in Him.[7] Now, be forgiven. This is a concept that the unregenerate human mind, hostile to God, cannot understand.[8] We Christians can only begin to grasp it, and struggle with sin while we live here in the flesh because of sin living in us.[9]

What does that have to do with The Catechism? Good question. I doubt that most people even understand what the word catechism means, let alone what the book actually is. Catechism means to instruct by question and answer.[10] Consequently, a book containing a summary of religious doctrine in question and answer format is called a catechism. So, is The Catechism not a summary of Luther’s teachings? If it is, then my friend is right, I follow Luther rather than Christ, and I am a filthy pagan. But is he correct? Not hardly. Dr. Luther’s catechism is an instruction in the teachings of the Christian faith, as it had been believed, taught, and confessed since ancient times, using Holy Scripture as it’s foundation. In the preface to his catechism, Luther wrote: 

The deplorable, miserable conditions which I have recently observed when visiting the parishes have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief, plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw: the common man, especially in the villages, knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the pastors are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and pigpen. What these people have mastered, however, is the fine art of tearing all Christian liberty to shreds.[11] 

The Catechism, according to Luther, is a teaching tool, designed to help instruct people in the doctrines of the Christian faith, all of which are exposed in Holy Scripture. 

If someone claims that they only need the Bible, they probably mean to express that they are faithful Christians who hold Holy Scripture in high regard, and believe what it says. But how did they hear the Gospel? Did a Bible fall from heaven, open, in front of them? Was it a Scofield Reference Bible?[12] If so, are the notes inspired Scripture as well? Did they begin reading it without human interaction, with only the odd quiver of the liver to direct them? No. They were brought to hear preaching and teaching at church, Sunday school, Bible study, and by other Christians as they encountered them in their various vocations, etc. Did these other Christians simply read to them the Gospel of John? Did they answer each question directed to them with a bare quotation of Scripture? No. They summarized and taught, and pointed to the Word as recorded in Holy Scripture, preserved and handed down through the church by the working of the Holy Spirit, to show that what they were teaching was true. 

Some do this faithfully; others do not. But we know that the Holy Spirit preserves the Church in unity, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.[13] This Church, made up of all the faithful of all time, we cannot see, and call the “invisible” church. We seek to remain a part of this “invisible” church, and be faithful to that “visible” church (that gathering of people around the means of grace which is made up of believers and hypocrites[14]) which teaches all of the Bible’s doctrines purely, and administers the Sacraments according to their institution.[15] Moreover, we are called to avoid false teachers, churches, cults, and all organizations that teach contrary to God’s Word.[16]

What about all those people, probably the vast majority in human history, who were too poor to own a printed book of any kind? They had no Bible. How about those people who could not read? How did God make them Christians? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.[17] Anyone who became a Christian was baptized and taught, and their teacher didn’t just read Bible quotes at them. If he was a faithful teacher and preacher, all that he preached and taught had God’s Word, understood in it’s proper context, as a foundation, just as The Catechism does. I wonder how my fundagelical friend talks to people about Jesus. Does he share his testimony? Does he explain how to walk down the Roman Road? Does he follow the method of Dr. D. James Kennedy? These things are attempting to do what The Catechism does: summarize Christian doctrine and deliver the Word of Christ (Though, I would argue, these other methods are far inferior to The Catechism, and distort God’s Word by teaching it out of it’s proper context).

The human heart is, as I once heard a faithful preacher say, an idol factory. We can make anything into an idol – including Luther – as Rome did with the Pope, as cults do with their leaders, and as some do even with the Bible (KJV Only movement, anyone?).

But creeds and confessional statements, like The Catechism and the Book of Concord of which it is a part, are wonderful things. They distill the teachings of Holy Scripture into concentrated bits that the Church can learn and confess together. They serve as a check for the layman on the preaching of the pastor. If he deviates from the doctrine of Scripture as they have learned it, it is the duty of the people to call their pastor to account. Confessional statements and creeds serve as clear examples of what men are teaching as the Word of God from Holy Scripture. Those documents are the best starting point for Christians to begin talking to each other in a serious and meaningful way about what they believe, teach, and confess, and working toward true Christian unity, so that we teach all things that Christ has commanded.[18]

God works through preachers, and teachers, and the liturgy, and the catechism, and books written by Christians intended to teach, and people talking to one another, and all kinds of ways, provided that God’s Word, the Word of Christ, is being delivered. God does not want to deal with us in any other way than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. Whatever is praised as from the Spirit – without the Word and Sacraments – is the devil himself.[19]

Bibliography

Concordia Publishing House. Luther's Small Catechism. Translated by Concordia Publishing House. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1991.

Got Questions. "What is the Scofield Reference Bible?" Got Questions: Your Questions, Biblical Answers. July 26, 2019. https://www.gotquestions.org/Scofield-Reference-Bible.html (accessed August 20, 2019).

McCain, Paul T, Robert C Baker, Gene E Veith, and Edward A Engelbrecht. Concordia, The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader's Edition of the Book of Concord. 1st. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005.

Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1924.

Wikipedia. Dispensationalism. "Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism (accessed August 20, 2019).

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[1] Mark 10:45; John 3:3-5, 10-17; Romans 3:21-26; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; Romans 4:23-25

[2] Ephesians 2:1-10; Romans 6:11

[3] 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

[4] 1 Peter 3:18-22

[5] Romans 6:1-14; Galatians 3:27

[6] Acts 22:16

[7] 2 Corinthians 5:16-19

[8] Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 2:14

[9] Romans 7:13-25

[10] Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 1924

[11] Concordia Publishing House, 1991

[12]  The Scofield Reference Bible promoted Dispensationalism, the belief that between creation and the final judgment there would be seven distinct eras of God's dealing with man and that these eras are a framework for synthesizing the message of the Bible (Got Questions 2019). It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that Dispensationalism grew in influence among fundamentalist Christians in the United States. (Wikipedia n.d.)

[13] Matthew 16:18

[14] Matthew 13:47-48; 22:11-12; Acts 5:1-11

[15] John 8:31-32; Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 1:10

[16] Matthew 7:15-16; Romans 16:17-18; Galatians 1:8; 2 Timothy 4:3; 1 John 4:1

[17] Romans 10:17

[18] Matthew 28:16-20

[19] Concordia Publishing House, 1991. SA III VII 10

Crowded or Empty? Thoughts on a YouTube Video About Hell

This video from Word of Fire is interesting. Bishop Barron talks a lot about hell, but he never gets around to answering the question that is the title of his video: Is hell crowded or empty? To cut to the chase, he equivocates; he says that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t believe hell is a literal place (I suppose that would make it empty?), but rather a spiritual place where we, creatures having free will in spiritual matters, isolate ourselves from God by rejecting Him through our own free choice. He refers to hell as a metaphor for the deep loneliness and isolation one experiences after rejecting God. He does conclude that, “We may reasonably hope that all people are saved.”

There are some good things in the video, but how much arsenic do you want in your bottle of drinking water? The government sets limits for contaminants in drinking water based on the toxicity levels of various substances. The Environmental Protection Agency has set an arsenic maximum contaminant level for public water supplies at 0.010 mg/L (milligrams/Liter).[1] Sadly, we are unable to do the same with false teaching. Jesus wants us to teach all that He has commanded;[2] and just as a little leaven will work it’s way through the whole lump of dough,[3] a little heresy will work it’s way through the whole church, if we aren’t careful. I think Bishop Barron’s video about hell is a milligram too much arsenic in my doctrinal water bottle to swallow.

Bishop Barron summarizes several theologians, Roman and Evangelical, and their views on salvation. He summarizes Karl Barth as a Universalist using Barth’s quote, “All are saved in the cross of Christ.” I don’t know all there is to know about Karl Barth, or even agree with a lot of what I do know, but the statement, “All are saved in the cross of Christ," is true, even if it isn’t in the way Barth meant it. Jesus died for, and indeed saved, the whole world.[4] Some men resist and reject receiving that gift. It’s the old story of the million dollar check: Bill Gates can write you a $1 million check. The money is yours. You have $1 million. If, however, you refuse to cash the check when he offers it to you - or probably more accurately, you throw the envelope away when it comes in the mail - you don’t benefit from the gift that was freely given to you. Those who are saved are saved by God’s working alone; those who are not receive all the credit for their damnation themselves.

The Bishop agrees with Hans Urs von Balthasar, the final theologian he presents. Balthasar says that we can believe all people are saved, but we can’t know it for sure; the reason we can’t be certain, he explains, is because men have free will and can reject God. I wouldn’t say, as the Bishop explains, that human freedom can resist God’s act of love; rather, the Bible tells us that we have no freedom, as we are dead in trespasses and sins; we are, by nature, objects of wrath.[5] That’s why we resist, and we are able to reject. It is our natural inclination to pursue the desires of our flesh, sin, and to reject God. It is clear, however, that there is no free will in spiritual matters, in the common understanding of the term. We are either slaves to sin and enemies of God, or we are slaves to Christ and set free from sin.[6]

His position on hell seems to be that he believes it to be real, but not exactly a physical place, like Pocatello, Idaho, and God, being Love, doesn’t send people there. Billy Graham said things that sound similar. This shouldn’t be surprising, since Rome and American Evangelicalism often have a similar view of free will. Rev. Graham sometimes talked about hell being complete separation from God, rather than an actual physical place where fire burns you forever.

More important, the mature Graham steered away from hell in general, and when he did talk about it, all that he would affirm with certainty was that it meant separation from God... “The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don’t preach it because I’m not sure about it.”[7]

Other evangelical teachers have said similar things. These evangelical teachers, however, were not necessarily denying the existence of a literal place called hell, wherein the actual physical people who were damned would be. It may be partly a case of trying to use words to describe the indescribable. I don’t know why Billy Graham would equivocate on hell, or why anyone who believes Scripture would say that it isn’t a literal place. Christ says,

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched—where ‘Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’”[8]

Jesus goes on to teach that it isn’t our hand that causes us to sin, but our corrupt heart, so don’t go chopping off your hand. But we will indeed enter into a literal eternal life with a resurrected body; what in the text would cause us to read the second part of Jesus’ quote as figurative? Of course, American Evangelicalism also denies Jesus’ words their literal meaning when He says, “Take, eat; this is My body, given for you,”[9] but I digress...

The Bible teaches that hell, like heaven, is a place. On the Last Day the dead will be raised. We will all be gathered before Him. [10] The righteous will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world; to the wicked He will say,

“Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”[11]

And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.[12] This is not a parable. This is not figurative language. Jesus tells us how the Judgment will be, and it includes a hell with fire, and Him sending people to it. Jesus, with His new, perfect resurrected body, is in heaven (also a place) right now, ruling over the universe; He is seated at the right hand of God the Father.[13]

When He is speaking to His Apostles, Jesus teaches them about the true fear of God. He says:

“Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[14]

Who is it who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell? God. When Christ returns to judge the world on the Last Day we will see from which side the door of hell is locked.

Just because something is “dark” doesn’t mean it is false. I get the impression that Bishop Barron doesn’t like the idea of hell as a physical place where people actually go as a result of God’s judgment because it seems dark, scary, and mean. There are, however, a lot of dark things which are true.

Bishop Barron condemns Origen for being a Universalist at the beginning of the video, but the big reveal of his own position is... universalism! It’s an equivocating kind, but it is universalism nonetheless. He says we can have reasonable hope that all will be saved, but we can’t know it. That’s just plain rubbish. Scripture tells us that not everyone will be saved. The number of the saved will be a great multitude which no one can count,[15] but that doesn’t mean it will be everyone. Jesus uses the illustration of men in a field and women grinding at a mill to depict the Judgment. He says two men will be in the field, one will be taken, the other will be left, etc. He then connects this illustration to the clearest type of the Day of the Lord, Judgment Day, in the Bible - the Flood, wherein eight people are saved in the ark from the flood waters, out of all of mankind.[16] Ultimately, I want everyone to be saved, but that is God’s work, which He does through the means of His Word. And we simply don’t know, this side of heaven, what the individual results are. We only know what God reveals to us in His Word, and He has revealed to us that

narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.[17]

The bottom line is this: You may hope whatever you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that not all people will be saved. Bishop Barron isn’t simply saying here, “Gee, I hope everybody gets saved.” He’s trying to validate the heresy of universalism through the use of philosophy and reason. It’s the same old human story, different day. When he says we can hope all people are saved he is giving permission to believe this. What he doesn’t give is any proof from Holy Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, teaches that the eternal death of hell is the consequence for mortal sin.[18] They also teach, rightly, that hell is the location of the damned.[19] The Roman Catholic Church and the Lutherans, regarding hell, agree as we confess in the Athanasian Creed together, “And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.”

God certainly is love; God certainly has the power to save everyone. He has indeed saved the whole world in the cross of Christ. Jesus, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, my Lord, has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature. He has purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. He has purchased me, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. He has done this for all men. Many stiff-necked people, however, always resist the working of God’s Holy Spirit in the words of the gospel.[20] We can hope that all men are saved by God, in the sense that we would like for it to happen; we have no indication from Holy Scripture, however, that this is the case. Quite to the contrary: God demonstrates that He wishes to deal with us through the means of His Word, and not other special ways we don’t know about, even though He is quite capable of doing so.[21] God’s Word tells us that many will reject Jesus as the multitudes did in John chapter 6.[22] Families will be divided over faith in Christ.[23] The love of many will grow cold all through the time of the end, but he who endures to the end will be saved.[24] This implies that some men will not endure, and therefore not be saved. Those men will find themselves in a very real, physical place called hell. Since not all men will be saved, that means that hell is not/will not be empty.

This discussion reminds me of a conversation Jesus had with His disciples about tragedy, and people who suffer it.[25]

There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”[26]

We spill all this ink, and spend all this time, talking about hell. Why? We are afraid of it. We’re looking for an out. We can rest a little easier if we can see that either those who end up in hell deserved it more than we do, or no one will ultimately go there at all. This is what the disciples thought about the Galileans in the passage above. They must’ve been worse sinners, for something so terrible to happen to them. Jesus says no. We all deserve punishment for our sin. Jesus says we shouldn’t focus on trying to figure out how some tragedy is the punishment for the sin of those who experienced it. We should repent. Tragic events we see and experience should cause us to reflect on our sinful state, repent, and be forgiven by Jesus. It is the same with hell. Rather than using philosophy and reason to think all the damned out of hell, or reason why we ourselves don’t deserve it in the first place, the descriptions Jesus gives us of hell should terrify us. It should cause us to think about our sinfulness and repent of our sin. Hearing this Word, we should reflect on the wondrous love of Christ, who would suffer physical pain and death, and the pains of hell itself, to pay the ransom for those who are His enemies.  We should hear God’s Word and believe what it says. We should trust in Our Lord Jesus, who promised that He went away to prepare a place for us with Him.[27] If we are worried about the eternal state of those around us, we should do as we are called to do, and scatter the seed of God’s Word as the sower in Jesus’ parable.[28]

 

The Last Judgment polyptych by Rogier van der Weyden.

Bibliography

Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Cathechism of the Catholic Church. New Hope, KY: Urbi et Orbi Communications, 1994.

Luther, Martin. "The Smalcald Articles." The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Lutheran Church. Edited by F. Bente. bookofconcord.org.

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. "Arsenic in Well Water." Michigan.gov. https://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-wd-gws-wcu-arsenicwellwater_270592_7.pdf (accessed July 16, 2019).

Wacker, Grant. America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2014.

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[1] “Arsenic in Well Water,” Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Google, accessed July 16, 2019, https://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-wd-gws-wcu-arsenicwellwater_270592_7.pdf.

[2] Matthew 28:17-20

[3] Galatians 5:7-15

[4] John 1:29-34; 3:16

[5] Ephesians 2:1-10

[6] Romans 8:1-2

[7]  Grant Wacker, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2014), 50, https://books.google.com/books?id=LzwiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=The+only+thing+I+could+say+for+sure+is+that+hell+means+separation+from+God.&source=bl&ots=OZ_o6nKLB4&sig=ACfU3U1K-0UGiGICJWBGztPBxdzH2Ab0mw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5g5uF2rnjAhVLOs0KHX4kAdwQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=The%20only%20thing%20I%20could%20say%20for%20sure%20is%20that%20hell%20means%20separation%20from%20God.&f=false.

[8] Mark 9:43-44

[9] Matthew 26:26

[10] Matthew 25:31-46

[11] Matthew 25:41

[12] Matthew 25:46

[13] Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9-11; Psalm 110:1; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20-23

[14] Matthew 10:27-28

[15] Revelation 7:9

[16] Matthew 24:36-44

[17] Matthew 7:13, emphasis added

[18] Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New Hope: Urbi Et Orbi Communications, 1994), 456.

[19] Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New Hope: Urbi Et Orbi Communications, 1994), 164-165.

[20] Acts 7:51

[21] Martin Luther, “Smalcald Articles,” accessed July 16, 2019, http://bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php#confession. “In a word, enthusiasm inheres in Adam and his children from the beginning [from the first fall] to the end of the world, [its poison] having been implanted and infused into them by the old dragon, and is the origin, power [life], and strength of all heresy, especially of that of the Papacy and Mahomet. Therefore we ought and must constantly maintain this point, that God does not wish to deal with us otherwise than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. It is the devil himself whatsoever is extolled as Spirit without the Word and Sacraments. For God wished to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word; and no prophet neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments [or spoken Word]. Neither was John the Baptist conceived without the preceding word of Gabriel, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without the voice of Mary. And Peter says, 2 Pet. 1:21: The prophecy came not by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy, much less would the Holy Ghost have moved them to speak when they still were unholy [or profane]; for they were holy, says he, since the Holy Ghost spake through them (SA III, 9-13).

[22] John 6:60-71

[23] Matthew 10:34-36

[24] Matthew 24:12-14

[25] Luke 13:1-5

[26] ibid.

[27] John 14:3

[28] Matthew 13:1-9