I love opening my Bible and showing the Baptist’s and the other’s the Lutheran view of the Sacraments. By God’s grace, I will give them so much Scripture for the Lutheran viewpoint, many will quit arguing against it!

No other theology has such an incredible, powerful view of the Holy Spirit as do the Lutheran’s. What is ironic, is that Lutheran’s are accused of having a weak view of the Holy Spirit. When in reality, we have the most Biblical teaching of the Holy Spirit.

The Pentacostal’s talk about the Holy Spirit. But it is more of a force, apart from the Word and the Sacrament’s, which by the way, is un-Biblical. Also, the H.S. of the Pentacostal’s doesn’t have the power to save, that is why they depend on human argument’s.

The H.S. of the Reformed, is relegated to mere signs and seals. The Reformed H.S. is along side of the sacrament’s, not within them–which is the Biblical Lutheran view. The Reformed infant Baptism is not much more than a baby dedication, where they are just brought into the Cov’t of Grace, but not saved in the Sacrament.

The Baptist view of Baptism, is just an act of obedience. They don’t Baptize babies until they are eight or nine years old, or according to them, “age of accountability”, which denies the doctrine of original sin.

Only the Lutheran view of the H.S. is Biblical, and so powerful that the H.S. actually is within the Word of God and the Sacraments in such a way as to save people.

To use a little hyperbole here; the Lutheran view of the H.S. as it is in the Word and the sacrament’s can literally knock you out!

I am in a real hurry here, so I am sorry for any typos!

your comments in response to Pastor Hausholder are as equally thought provoking as his essay. Please look again at Housholder’s 3rd point.

You are very right to say that we Lutherans shy away from arguing somebody into salvation through confrontation and that we believe God is the active party in baptism. You very clearly stated a great truth, “…we have such a strong view of the Holy Spirit doing the converting through His ordained means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments.”

The part that we often miss is the Spirit’s work in connection to the external Word. The Word isn’t in me just by birth. The Word that saves me is alien to me. Praise God some human beings to Word into me with their mouths and pens. Isaiah 5:7-8 isn’t just beautiful poetry. It’s the honest truth,
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion.

Lutheranism is best defined by common confession; but the church reguardless of historical theology has recieved Christ’s common commission. It’s no wonder why the first imperative in the Great Commision is, “Go…” Lutherans would do well to ponder why Isaiah asked Israel, “Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1 NRSV)

The same questions prompts me to look at my neighbors today. Isaiah invites me to imagine the Word making a difference. He challenges me, who has heard the Word, to reach out with the word into the world.

Some interesting Lutherans who made contributions to this discussion in the last 100 years or so are Gerhard Forde THEOLOGY IS FOR PROCLAMATION, Gustaf Wingren’s THE LIVING WORD, and Regin Prenter SPRITUS CREATOR.

thanks for the thoughtful response
John

Here we go off topic again. A pastor from CA sitting at our table made a good observation. He said that allowing “commissioned ministers” to vote in conventions as a “pastoral delegate” could be a way to implement female ordination in a “back-door” way. Also, the “everyone’s a minister” mentality of Reformed Christendom is another step closer for LCMS.

Thank you for your bold and fearless witness!

Johannes (curmudgeon-less, this time)

p.s. Were you at LCA in FW in January? How did we miss each other?

Calvinism is interesting, because the “once saved, always saved” and “double predestination” could be used in two-ways, I believe. The first extreme is that, “Since I’ve been predestined to salvation, I can do whatever I want and persist in unrepentant sin, because I can’t ‘lose’ my salvation.” The other extreme is, “How do I know I’m in the ‘elect’ camp? If I’m not, then maybe if I ‘try harder’ God will change His mind.”

The top reply I get when inviting others to church is, “You guys do stuff like the Catholics.” Another common one is, “Like the Catholics, you can just do whatever you want and then be forgiven by confessing. How phony.” The antinomian accusation is quite frustrating, because being “saved by Grace alone” brings about a life of repentance. But our default religion of, “I have to do something,” totally flies in the face of confessional Lutheranism.

Calvinism, Arminianism, and the other -isms make sense, in many ways. Human logic, emotion, and reason explain these theologies. The problem is that logic, emotion, and reason are tainted with our sin. The other problem is that these theologies contradict Scripture. Having been Lutheran for over ten years now, it now makes more sense than the other theologies, Praise be to God. Like said elswhere in this forum, we don’t “save anyone.” We are mere instruments of the Holy Spirit to present the Gospel to unbelievers. He does the saving.

“One Christ, Many Creeds,” by CPH, is a must-read for clergy and laity alike, as it is very useful for comparing denominations.

Pastor Peters concludes above, “We must know who we are before we know our voice in evangelism and outreach. It must be authentic and real, positive and genuine… Identity is what helps us welcome… confidence in that identity gives us confidence to invite and welcome… it really does work.”

Pastor Peters is right–how can we expect genuine evangelism if we have forgotten who we are, or have never really known who we are, for that matter? “Quotas”, “growth”, “effectiveness,” and such terms are barriers to meaningful evangelism, and reduce it to law-based duty. Before we beat up our “Lutheran-ness”, we’d better understand what real genuine “Lutheran-ness” is. Then the self-flagellation will cease.

Here’s another quote: “”Evangelism is directed toward the conversion of the sinner and his incorporation into the body of Christ in Holy Baptism and his reception of the body and blood of the Lord in the Holy Supper; not the recruitment of people to be members of a voluntary religious organization.” “Mysteria Dei, John Pless, “Liturgy and Evangelism in the Service of Mysteria Dei”, p. 226. Now that’s Lutheran!!

Pastor Rossow, I’ll see your curmudgeonliness and raise you one

Johannes

You mean we made our “quota” this morning?
Somehow I don’t believe anyone will think so.

As we all know, Lutherans love theology. And, some of my Lutheran brothers and sisters here on John the Steadfast certainly do too, when they are able to take time out from fighting the bureaucrat’s, and actually sit down and enjoy the theological side of our great tradition.

Anyway, our Reformed friends (I will affectionately refer to them as the “Systematicals”) also love theology. A big difference, of course, being that the “Systematicals” develop much of their theology from excluding large chunks of the Scriptures, and over playing other Scriptures in order to make their system work. They also develop much of their “system” from man’s logic and speculation, whereas Lutherans just stick with the Scriptures, and we are silent where the Scriptures are silent.

A while back, Pastor Wilken had a Lutheran pastor on his show, that ask’s his catechism classes before they are confirmed three true or false questions–which they must get right in order to be confirmed. The pastor chuckled and said that these three question’s really leave the Reformed theologians scratching their heads in bewilderment, because of the un-Biblical restriction’s that the “Systematicals” place on the human nature of our Lord.

Here are the three question’s:

1. Mary is the mother of God.
A) True B) False

2. God died one afternoon.
A) True B) False

3. A human being runs the universe.
A) True B) False

All three are true! This is on the simple side of our great Lutheran theology!