Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Theology Q and A podcast. I'm Pastor Wolfmuther, Pastor St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined with Pastor Andrew Packer, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you, and that is that your favorite thing is social media. You were thinking about resigning your call to become a social media influencer. You love social media so much.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: I would make $0. So I don't think that would go very well.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Just spend all day on Facebook and. And Instagram, and I think I don't.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Even have an Instagram account.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: So this is what rumor is. Yeah. Okay, so that's not confirmed. I'll just. I'll just make a note of that. Not confirmed. All right.
You got some questions? Oh, I was thinking about this. We. We are. We were recording last time about what it means to be a YouTube theologian. If you're watching this, that, you know, you get a couple. A free, you know, thing, but you get committed. You got to sign up, and that is indicated by you gotta. You. What do you have to like and subscribe. That's the. I'm a YouTube theologian.
That's the transactional thing that we're after. All right. We're answering your questions. You can submit them at Wolfmieler Co Contact.
That's there for you. What do you got?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Okay, so this one's interesting. I don't know if you want to do this one. Divide this one up into different parts. I guess we can decide after we get into it, but it's an interesting one. Uh, they want to become a Lutheran, but so.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Hey, Pastor Wolfing, I've struggled with conflicting ecclesiastical leanings for a while now. I was wondering if you might be able to offer some advice.
Let me tell you first what I don't struggle with in the Lutheran tradition. I don't struggle with the idea of infant baptism per se. I don't struggle with baptismal regeneration. I don't struggle with real physical presence in the supper. I think that I could find real comforts in the Lutheran tradition because of their distinctives on these doctrines. However, I don't know that I'd be able to join a Lutheran congregation.
So the first one is a negative one. I struggle with the idea of original sin in the sense that infants are born guilty of Adam's sin, which I perceive the Lutheran confessions teach. Maybe I'm mistaken on this. Do you want to take these one at a time, or how do you want to do these? Because they're Pretty cool.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Well, all right. One at a time is fine. Okay, so let's talk about first, original sin.
Here's the.
The biblical idea, which especially. I mean, our chief text on this is Psalm 51. In sin my mother conceived me. This is a confession of King David that says that we were sinners from the very moment of our existence. We see it as Seth is bearing the image of Adam.
And Paul talks about this especially in Romans 4:5, when he talks about how we bear the image of the man of dust, Romans 5:12. Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, thus death spread to all men because all sinned. And one of the problems I think of if we. So if we start to think of. Of sin only as moral culpability, then this is where it gets difficult when we're thinking about kids, because we're like, well, look, they don't seem like they're moral agents, that they've made decisions to do things that are wicked. They're just acting according to their nature. But this is the doctrine of original sin that says that is an expansive understanding and is probably best understood by corruption.
So there's a corruption that's there, and that's a corruption of body and mind and heart and soul that shows up in any way that it can show up now. It's not our nature. We are not sin. But sin has so corrupted and infused itself into our nature that it's. I suppose it's like rust on anything that's metal or like what cancer is to the body. It's a destroying, corrosive thing that is there from the beginning. So even the fact that children are sick, even the fact that children die, point out that they have brought with them or inherited immediately from their existence that original sin.
Now, if you want to say, well, look, the children are innocent of moral culpability, The problem is that the Lord does.
There is an imputed guilt that belongs to all humanity. And so that's a big part of what the Lutheran Church will say. But it's a biblical thing.
And what it does is.
Means that all people need the salvation that Jesus brings. In other words, when Paul says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that universal condemnation of humanity is the corollary to the universal love of Christ.
And there is no other name by which we must be saved. This is all part of it. So the universality of original sin, that. That will press all the way back into the moment of conception and all the way till our body and soul are separated by death is a necessary corollary to the need and the need for salvation in Christ. And the Bible's declaration that we must be saved and only can be saved through Christ.
So if you take away original sin from anybody, including babies, you take away the glory of Christ as the Savior.
So that's just a few thoughts on why this is such an important doctrine in our theological construct.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: I would just add to that. If we have problems with the imputation of Adam's guilt, how much more should we have a problem with the imputation of Christ's righteousness?
I mean, that's right. If you don't want.
If we're not. Can't be condemned because what Adam did, how much more should we not be saved because of what Jesus did in our place?
I don't know how you have one without the other.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Like the whole.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: As you said, Paul makes that argument pretty clear, I think.
All right, do you want to go on to part two of number two for Lutheran doctrines?
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: That make them perhaps not want to be a Lutheran.
The next one. I see the merits of the open theist dynamic omniscience view. Having read John Sanders work.
So open theism go.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: I don't. I don't know John Sanders. I know I got open theism through Green. Greg Boyd. Is that the guy's name?
And this is the idea that God knows all the possible futures, but he does not know there's not a single future because that would destroy free will.
And I think it's a.
In some ways it's like a fun philosophical experiment to try to solve the deterministic free will problem.
The open theist would say that the Lord can involve himself and therefore determine what will happen not by foreknowledge, but by actually acting in time. Again, I think that's the Boyd kind of argument of open theism.
The problem is that.
So the Lutherans have always rejected a deterministic idea of. Of world history.
We were just talking about it yesterday in the Worldwide Bible class. I'm trying to find this Luther quote where he talks about how you get into this idea that the future is determined and therefore everything's just going to happen.
And so we become passive agents in everything that we do. We just sort of let things unfold as if it doesn't matter.
And this is always rejected by the Lutherans. We're supposed to engage, we're supposed to act. We're supposed to hold on to the promises of God by faith. We're supposed to pray and expect God to Hear our prayers and answer our prayers and not so much concern ourselves with how things are going to unfold, knowing that the Lord has determined who's going to be saved and how the world is going to end and what's going to happen in the world. I'm all for any sort of theological construct that makes God not an abstract power, but rather a person better. Three persons who are interacting in gracious and right ways with his creation.
But I think that open theism goes too far in reducing the.
The power of God's foreknowledge. And so I do think it's rejected by Article 11 election in the formula of Concord.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: It seems like. I remember I haven't looked into honesty, open theism in a long time.
I think kind of like you there.
But there is this idea of. I remember when it first came about and became a big thing, like the idea that God's just as surprised as we are, kind of by what happens.
And I know there's some differences of opinion on that, but it does seem to rob God of all foreknowledge, right?
That he can't foreknow anything because he's just kind of going with the flow like the rest of us.
Which is where I think you start to run into all kinds of problems with that which is different. Like you said that Lutherans also aren't fatalists, right? Or determinists in the way that some. Some people end up being. So we do have to be careful there, falling off into the other side of things. The. The opposite, the overreaction to those, to what we call open theism.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: I found.
Let's see. I found the passage I was looking for in Luther. So this is in his Genesis commentary, and he's talking about Joseph. This is. So this is Genesis, chapter 40.
And Luther says this example is set before us for our consolation in order that we may know and that we can search remedies without sinning and use the means offered us by God, either naturally to support, free and preserve the body, or as citizens and householders, to keep peace and the safety of property, both publicly and privately. This is because some Jewish commentators criticized Joseph for talking to the butler and saying, hey, remember to mention me when you get out of here to the Pharaoh. And they say he wasn't trusting God to get him out. He was trying to make it happen himself. And Luther says, no, we do stuff. We seek remedy. We interact with the world.
And here's the line that got me thinking about this. We should not heed the impious voices of wicked men like the Turks and others who say that the things once definitely determined by God cannot be prevented.
There is fate, they say, therefore this or that will happen. If it is to be, it'll be.
But such things have not been revealed to you. So Luther doesn't say that that's wrong. He says, okay, fine, but you don't know that it hasn't been revealed to you what's going to happen. And so we are not supposed to act in this world according to that hidden knowledge of God about what's in the future. Maybe this is a.
We are practical, open theists, I suppose. I mean, we're not. But you don't know what's going to happen. So you are not authorized by God to act as if you don't make a difference in the world.
Such things have not been revealed to you. Otherwise there will be no place for faith, hope, patience and love, but rather contempt and hatred for God will result in the hearts of men. We will not believe, nor will we hope for help from him.
Therefore God ordains those contingencies for the sake of exercising faith and hope.
We have stated that Joseph unjustly censured by the Jews, as though he placed his confidence in a man. If anything is to be sought from a prince, one must not despair of his kindness or clemency, otherwise one will not have the courage to ask for anything. But I should have confidence that he'll listen to my petitions with clemency. If I'm mistaken, I'm mistaken without sin. And if I obtain what I'm seeking, I give thanks to God. So, and this is part of Luther dealing with this mystery of, like, how can we try to make a difference in the world and also be content with all of our struggles at the same time? Like, how do we do that? How do we try to change things and also rest secure in how things are? And this is the, this is the mystery that he's wrestling with.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: He talks about that a lot in his Genesis commentary, like with Jacob and Esau, how Jacob, like, took actions and steps and plans and yet was trusting in the Lord, like, right? And Luther says, you can't pit planning against faith. Like they, they go together. And this other big part on that is Psalm 127, or even has that, that line that upsets some people, right? Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds a house, those who labor build in vain. And Luther says, like, some people take this, and so they, they want to be lazy. And you know the example, what is that? That Joke that the guy's stranded on the roof in a flood or whatever, on an island, and God sends a. A boat and a helicopter and a plane, and the guy says, no, I'm waiting for God to save me. That kind of thing. Luther deals with that. And he says, you should work as if everything depended on you, as if there was no God. In other words, like, you do your best in your vocations with the gifts God has given you. And then Luther says, at the end of the day, you bring them to God and say, lord, bless this however you will.
And he says, that's how we keep from falling into these different ditches, right?
[00:13:41] Speaker A: We work.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: We work hard, but we trust that the Lord's one who's going to bless that effort. But we don't say, lord, bless this non effort. Right? He's like the guy who says, I'm looking for a job and hasn't applied for any jobs, but says, the Lord will provide me a job. Luther would say, you're being wicked and lazy. Like, go and apply for as many jobs as possible and trust that the Lord will provide a job through the means of you actually applying for jobs, not sitting around waiting on your couch watching TV for a job to magically appear. Right? I think that's where all that comes into play. I've always found that to be one of the most helpful things in Psalm 127 on the Christian life. Like, what does it look like to live by faith? It means to work hard and trust that God will bless it however he sees fit. Like, that's what you do. You live your life and trust God.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: And you're content with what the Lord gives, but you're asking the Lord to give more. This is part. And when Jesus teaches us to pray, remember, he says, the Lord knows what you need before you ask, therefore pray. And if the devil tries to capture that logic and reverse it, the Lord knows what you need, so don't pray. But Jesus says the exact, exact opposite. The Lord knows what you need. That's why you pray. Because the Lord knows the future and how things are going to unfold, and because he controls all these things. That's why we can pray knowing that he is working all things together for the good of those who love them.
So. And it shouldn't take away the. The way that the history of the world unfolds for us in profoundly dynamic ways. I mean, that's just a wonderful. So. So God's foreknowledge should not.
It shouldn't suck all the flavor out of. Out of life and history.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: All right, we are now on question three.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Okay. These are the want to become Lutheran hurdles. This is nice.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Yes. All right, so want to be a Lutheran, but I am fairly convinced that young earth creationism is wrong.
And I believe that Lutherans hold to young earth creationism and lcms. That would be correct.
So how do you respond to. Do I have to. Does he have to believe in young earth creationism to be a Lutheran?
[00:15:46] Speaker A: He ought to. I mean, it's. Yeah, it's. This is probably one of the requirements to be a Christian because. Okay, I mean, I got to be careful about this.
I don't know the reason why young earth creationism is being rejected here. So I don't know exactly how to.
I don't know how exactly how to adjust and argue and do this sort of thing. But here. Okay, so here's my thoughts on young earth creationism. Number one, I got five questions to ask on this. I thought I got. I wonder. I better pull them up because I think it is very difficult to be an old earth creationist and to believe the Bible. There's just so much in the Bible that requires.
That requires a young earth that you have to stretch so many different things that it becomes very, very difficult. I have a list of five questions which I'm going to look for now, so I get them all.
I'm going to toss it to you while I try to.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I just was teaching on this last night for our new members class and I explained to people, look, I understand why some people struggle with this because of the history of things, especially in our own country over this issue. But also, if you remember St. Augustine, when he read Genesis, what was his reaction?
This is ridiculous. How could it take God so long?
And I always point that out because I think it's fascinating that moderns look at it and say, how could God possibly do it so fast?
And Augustine looked at it and said, how could he do it so slow? That's ridiculous. It had to have been instantaneous because he is God. So I think our problem is our view of God, right? Like we have a very small view of what God's capable of. Augustine's blown away and is like, no, God could do this in an instant if he wanted to. He's God. Moderns look at it and are like, ah, there's no way God could do that. I think it's part of it. Our view of God is wrong.
The second thing I would add to that is, do you know Dr. Paul Edmond? Have you Ever. If you talked with him much, he's on the board of directors for the St. Louis Seminary and he's out at Harvard. He is a liaison. He helps run this supercomputer. Really smart, brilliant astrophysicist guy. He's written a lot on creationism and things like that. The other thing that can be pointed out, especially when it comes to, like, age, if you were to study Adam and Eve in the garden the first day they were created, let's say they were 21. We don't know exactly how old they were, but let's say they're 21. If a scientist studied them, they would say them and Say what? They're 21 years old? And that would be true, but it'd also be true that they were one day old. Right. According to what just happened.
So Dr. Paul Edmond talks about how the Earth, and it's called the Omphalos hypothesis, how the Earth was created full and mature, and so it had age already when it was created. Right. It wasn't. So you could look at it and study it and trees would have age and Adam and Eve had a certain age, and the universe was built in with age already so that you could look at it and say, hey, it's like 6 to 10,000 years old. And maybe a scientist looks at it and says, oh no, it's much older than that.
And he says he can look at those scientists and say, well, it appears to be that old because God created a fully functioning, mature universe. And so with that, I always ask people too. I asked him last night, if you believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man, that he's born of the Virgin Mary, that he suffered and died for your sins and was raised from the dead.
That's a lot, right?
That's a lot to take in and to believe. If you can believe that. I think you can trust what God says about how he created the universe, even if it conflicts with science in the moment at least.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: I think this. So this, this question of created maturity is so. I think this addresses everything. Like every objection to young Earth creationism is addressed by that.
Perhaps this is the only question that I'm still wondering about, is that one of the dating tools that's used is decay, radioactive decay.
And it's a funny sort of tool to think about because you have all these different isotopes that decay at different rates, etc. Etc. But it's a very. It's a, like, fascinating thing to look at because it's a. It's a aggregate of.
Because these Isotopes will decay just completely randomly. If you just look at one isotope, it like it, one moment it'll just switch. But you take this kind of average of all of them and you kind of look at it. And my question is, is, does, is that decay introduced by the fall?
And I just, I don't, I actually don't know. The, that's the one sort of loose floating thing in my own mind. But everything, every other objection is answered by the, by the created maturity. And not only this, but to think that each thing, thing has its own lifespan.
So there's a lifespan of a, like a frog, which is very different than the lifespan of a beagle, which is different than the lifespan of a human.
So you have a one week old frog looks pretty mature, whereas a one week old beagle and a one week old baby, they're not very mature. There's also a different lifespan of trees, there's different lifespans of mountains and rivers, there's different lifespans of planets, there's different lifespans of galaxy, of stars and of galaxies.
So that everything is created mature, meaning that some things are going to look a lot older than others.
And that's actually exactly what the materialists tell us. They'll tell us the stars are this old and the galaxies are this old and the planets are this old and the biosphere is this old and humanity is this old. And by time you get to the age of humanity, you're pretty close to the biblical chronology. I mean everyone thinks the first man appeared what, 10, 12,000 years ago. We would say six to seven. On a very strict young Earth creation, you're not actually that far off.
So by the time you get to the appearance of humanity, we're pretty good on the scale. It's just these other things need to expand backwards for the mechanism of evolution. I mean that, that this long time span is necessary for an evolutionary mechanism. And so you, you, so you, you kind of extend it back. But just like you said, okay, if you, and here's the analogy of the created with age picture is if you were at the wedding at Cana and you're sitting there and someone gives you this glass of wine and you drink it and you think to yourself, wow, when did they put this grape juice in the flask so it could start turning into wine? I mean this is a great vintage, this is probably a 10 year old vintage here that I'm drinking. And the wine that you're drinking is approximately 45 seconds old, right? It has an apparent age, but. And then a real Age. But this is what happens when the Lord creates something. It has a.
His creative work brings with it an apparent age. So that the Lord could say to Adam and Eve, immediately be fruitful and multiply. And that the rivers that were flowing out of Eden were not like empty stream beds. There was water that was full and the light was already there from the stars reaching the earth.
So if you were to look at Adam and Eve, there was fruit on the trees. I don't know how long it takes for fruit to get on the trees, because every year I plant a pear tree in my backyard, and then every winter it dies and I do it again. And so I think one year we had like one pear, but it takes like five years for fruit to get on the tree. Okay, so you just show up on day seven of creation and you say to the Lord, I want to just ask how old these things are. And he says, hey, I'm resting. All right? But you look at Adam and Eve and you're like, well, they look like they're 25.
That fruit tree looks like it's 40 years old. That mountain looks like it's a few thousand years old. Everything has an apparent age because the maturity is also connected to the essence of the thing.
But they're all miraculously created.
Everything is three days old or whatever. It's an amazing thing.
So I think this is a wonderful thing to.
To. To consider as we. As we, like, look at the objections of why do we think that things are older? Now I'm going to show you my five questions to ask, and here's the.
They're somewhat unrelated, but I'm interested in what you think about this. I'm going to share the screen because I found it. So maybe first is to.
Here it is. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Is this what I'm looking at? Yeah, there it is.
There's these gaps that can't be jumped that I think are interesting to present to the evolutionists. But this guy said he's not an evolutionist. So this is evolution.
How do you go from nothing to everything? How do you go from non living to living? How do you go from one cell to two celled? It's actually a huge, big jump. How do you go from asexual to sexual reproduction? How does that happen?
And how do you go from unconscious to consciousness? Like, there's just no. There's no gradual connection between these things, which is the mythology of evolution that wants to make everything this gradual thing. But there's so many things that just. There's gaps that can't be jumped. But here. But here's maybe this point on the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2. I think these are the five questions that I would suggest the person ask who's asking this question. One, how does the text present itself as history or as something else? Mythology, liturgy, whatever. I'm convinced that Genesis wanted to presents itself to us as history.
And that's followed up with the second question, how does the rest of the. But you could answer that differently, I think. I think honest people have. But the second question, how does the rest of the Bible treat Genesis 1 and 2? And how does Jesus treat it as literal history or not?
The third question is the most important theological question. What's the relationship between death and sin?
And this is the setup for the whole story of salvation. That the Lord is saving us from sin and death, that death is the punishment of sin. On the day that you eat of it, you will die if you extend creation out.
It's very difficult to not have death before sin if you don't have a young earth.
It just kind of conceptually can't fit together. And I've never heard anyone argue it. I've never heard anyone argue for an extended age of the earth but not have death. The only way you could do it is say, well, there was no human death. There was a lot of animal death and all this other death.
But this goes back to this point that we were making, that sin is corruption and the two must be understood together.
The fourth is, am I willing to be thought of as a fool?
I think this is the check your heart question. But here's the most important question I think of all of it.
Why are seeds created on day three?
And this is a really weird thing in the text, you're just reading through creation and you have this cosmic things. On day one, you have light and dark. Day two, you have sky and sea. Day three, you have the division of the land from the sea.
Day four, you have fish and birds filling the sky and the sea. Day five, you have animals filling the ground. But there on day, it just is almost like dropped in or. Sorry. I'm sorry. Day four, you have sun and the moon and the stars. Day five, fish and birds. Day six, animals and so forth. People, Adam and Eve. But on day three, it just drops it in there that the Lord created seeds. Which means that's that what. That. What the Bible is asking us to believe is that the Lord created seeds before he created the sun, and that I would invite our questioner and everyone to just meditate on that.
That before the sun and the moon and the stars were created, there was, you know, peach pits and grass seed. There were seeds created.
And that. I don't know why the Lord decided to do that, but to me, that indicates that the Lord says, I'm not giving you a picture of a long.
There's no use of having seeds if you don't have the sun.
Unless the sun's coming tomorrow and then it makes sense.
So I would encourage people to meditate on those five questions that I think that's the critical thing for the young Earth. And I think if you don't have young Earth, then everything then starts to unravel at the base. And it might take a while, but I'm actually getting stronger on this. I know most pastors that I talk to, they seem to get looser and looser on the age of the earth, but the more I'm a pastor, the stronger and more important I think this conviction is on young Earth. I think you lose too much if you lose this confession.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: I think those five gaps are really important too, because nothing to even something, let alone everything or non life to life. The abiogenesis question, I think those are super important because if you press them on those questions, people that believe in this macro evolution, apart from God, if you push them on those things, they'll say, well, we don't have an answer to it, but. But science eventually will. To which I respond, wow, you have a lot of faith that science will figure this out because they like to act like ours is just purely faith and we have no reason for. For believing it. And yet the whole foundation of their system is built on a whole lot of faith that one day we'll actually have the answers.
You've been on on the Line before. They just did an interview with Dr. Gordon Wilson. It's about two hours long. So if anybody wanted like an in depth, he's a biologist or something like that, like an in depth look at some of these things, you could check that out as well. But yeah, I think those questions are great and those five gaps. So I think it's very helpful.
All right, are we ready for the next one? Are we on four?
Is this number four or is it six? One, two, three? No, we're on four. Okay.
I'm more convinced of. So this is. Again, this is reasons this person is struggling with joining a Lutheran church.
I am more convinced of conditional immortality, also commonly referred to as annihilationism versus eternal punishment.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: So it seems like there's like three steps into this argument, and I only know one step. And the people who are deep into the annihilationism debate have a couple of other steps, and I'm not caught up. So I'm going to give my objection to annihilationism, and then the annihilationists who are watching this are going to be like, yeah, we dealt with that 10 years ago.
And sorry, I'm just not caught up. So the idea is that there's eternal life for those who believe in Christ, in the resurrection, we live forever. But for those who are condemned and sent to hell, they're either destroyed or they suffer for a while and then are destroyed.
And, and the arguments for that are, boy, I mean, in some ways, I wish I was an annihilationist. Like, that's, it's nice.
I, I don't, Okay, I don't want to disparage the annihilationists because, just because. And say, oh, well, it's, you're. It's convenient. Because I do think that there are very sincere and orthodox Christians in other places who have this idea.
And, and I think they, they'll. They will argue that it's not a wishful thinking, that it's a biblically grounded idea. So I don't want to disparage it, but the thing that convinces me is that whenever the Lord Jesus presents eternal life and eternal damnation, they're presented in parallel to each other.
So the eternality of the blessed is paralleled to the eternality of the cursed.
When Jesus talks about the resurrection in John chapter five, he talks about some will be raised to life and some will be raised to death. When Jesus talks about the division of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, he says some are welcomed into the kingdom of eternal life and some are sent to eternal torment.
So there's a parallel between the two. And I think that the problem with annihilationism is it wrecks that constant parallel structure that is almost always given to us in this conversation.
Now, okay, so that's. Again, that's my, like, here's my first objection. Now, I know the annihilationists all have, they have a response to that. I don't know what it is. I just know it's there. And at some point I'll have to go and dig into it. But that is convincing to me, even though I would love to be convinced otherwise, because it's just horrific to imagine eternal punishment.
And people have always wrestled with the doctrine of hell because it is harsh and it doesn't make sense to Us, because one of the reasons is that our own sinfulness, our own wretchedness is by God's grace hidden. So we do not even know how bad we are. This is why the Church fathers would always describe sin as leprosy.
One of the effects of leprosy is you lose your, your nerve sensations you can't feel. So you could cut your finger or you could, your ear could fall off and you wouldn't even know it because your, your, your sensitivity to it is deadened. So that one of the effects of sin is that we're deadened to our own sinfulness. Luther says it like this in small cult. Sin is so deep a corruption that it has to be revealed to us in the scripture. We can't, we don't know it by nature. We might know that we're not perfect, that we have regrets, but we don't know that we're offensive to God. So hell doesn't make sense to us. In some ways, hell is to our conscience what the apparent age of a thing is to scientific observation. Like there's kind of a parallel there that we can't, we don't have the equipment to see past what's hidden.
So the Scripture has to reveal to us that we in fact deserve hell.
Now, we don't like it, but here's the other wonderful thing is that, well, neither does God. And that's why he sent his Son into our flesh and blood to bear our sins and carry our sorrows and endure his wrath for us in his place so that we wouldn't go there.
And in some ways we have to say that our kind of our cringing at hell and the reality of hell is godly and good.
But the solution is not to annihilate it, but rather to trust in Christ and to preach the gospel.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: I take a pretty simple approach to this. Jesus repeatedly references hell, and like you said, when he does, he's talks about being eternal. I mean, I just taught on this to the 8th graders, not directly about hell, but Matthew 18, right? The parable of the, the, the, the servant who borrows all that money, like billions of dollars and then has it forgiven and then goes and finds his fellow servant that owes like a few thousand bucks and has him thrown in prison after he's just been forgiven. And what does Jesus end that with? That he's going to be handed over to the torturers until he pays the last cent, which the point of the parable is it's never going to be repaid. And then Jesus says so the same will happen to you if you don't forgive your brother from your heart.
Every time Jesus talks about this stuff, he makes it very clear that there's an eternal element to it. I just don't know how you get around the clear words of Jesus.
I know the main objection, which you just covered is it doesn't seem fair. Right? It seems unjust to punish someone for eternity for what seems like in our eyes, like, not that bad. Right. You know, a sinner who's not like an awful person, like a Hitler or somebody, like, they're not that bad. So the sin isn't that bad. But, I mean, you just dealt with that. I just don't see how you get around the clear words of Jesus.
Every time I read the New Testament, Jesus is very clear and like you said, he warns us about it. Why? So that we don't go there. I mean, he. He talks more about hell than anyone else in the Bible, like, way more than anyone else.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: There's something, and I don't know exactly how I.
A couple of years ago, I wrote just a note on a scrap of paper, and every now and again I come back to it to try to understand what's going on here.
There's a certain honor that the Lord gives to us in our ability to offend him.
In other words, the Lord doesn't have to be offended by our sin.
He could just throw us out like trash, but he lifts us up high enough so that we can strike him on the face.
He gives us enough dignity and strength so that we can be that offensive to him.
And I don't know how to speak of this in the right way, but there's. In some ways the fact that the Lord is willing to be so disgusted at us indicates his love. It's like the flip side of his love.
So that we can wound God, which is seen by the scars on the hands and feet of Jesus. That we can wound God is an indication that the Lord has exalted us in that way and that exaltation carries through to the eternal punishment. So, you know, the annihilation would say, well, just look, instead of just sending people to eternal prison to die forever, why don't you just end them?
And the Lord says, no, I didn't make you to be ended. Your every single person is of eternal consequence to me and hell. Then just like the death of Jesus becomes an indication of how highly the Lord thinks of us.
Now that's a.
I mean, I suppose it's the reason why, like, we euthanize pets, but not people.
Because we say it's better for that person to suffer than to just be thrown out. Now, if you're a pagan and you have no value of human life, then you say, no, it's better to just end it, kill the person or let them kill themselves rather than causing them to suffer. If we see an animal suffering, we kill it. If we see a human suffering, we try to alleviate the suffering. But we have to say their suffering is better than death.
And in some ways, the hell, this eternal suffering is the Lord saying that.
But that's a. I don't know how to exactly articulate this proposition that's on my own mind, but I don't know, that's maybe something to think about. If you guys, as you're listening to that, you YouTube theologians, and you have a better way to say it than. Or if, you know, like, it sounds like something one of the church fathers might have reflected on that I haven't read yet, let me know. I don't know. Pastor Packer, you got thoughts on that? You think I'm stretching?
[00:39:55] Speaker B: I don't know. I honestly have to think about that. I've never heard that angle taken, but it is.
It makes sense on the surface, but I would need to think about it a lot more deeply before I had any real thoughts on that. But I think there is. There is something to the fact that we were made.
We were not made to be annihilated.
Right. We are made to be immortal. Right.
It's just a matter of where that. That immortality is going to be spent.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: There's just some C.S. lewis thing. He. And he talks about this. He says, you know, we go and visit the great monuments and the great city. These will all be gone, but every single person, you know, the. The taxi driver who, who drives you to the Louvre museum is going to outlive all the artwork in the Louvre.
And. And when we're dealing with people, we're dealing with immortal beings.
So that immortality, that. It's a contingent immortality, it's a contingent living for. It's a. It's a contingent being forever. But it is something that the Lord has given to us. And that.
And that's one of the reasons why, like, hell is for the. Is for people and angels, but not for whatever else. It's not for animals and everything else that the Lord has given this eternality to the angels and to people. And so hell is the way that that has to go. For those beings that are exalted in such a way.
It's important for us to think about. We are not trash and will never be trash. The Lord will never just end us.
He'll deal with us forever.
That's my thoughts.
And then this leads to the the last question of all four of these, which is can you be a member of a Lutheran church if you don't hold to those? Pastor Packer, I'm interested in your thoughts on that. So say you're struggling with original sin, struggling like open theism. Don't like young earth, lean towards annihilationism.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: I was going to rephrase the question too, but I'll answer that. But I also think we should maybe rephrase it because then we could add it as I guess the fifth part here, which is what does it what do you have to believe to join an LCMS church, a Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, to be Lutheran? What are the things that you as a layperson must believe before joining the church? I think maybe would be a good way to word that I would say with these things. I would say with most of them.
I think you'd probably, you're going to say I agree with a small catechism, right? In your confirmation, you say, I agree with what the small catechism that's teaching from the scripture and that I'm willing to die for these things.
And if you have that many reservations on these big issues and I'd say wrestle through them more, you know, on the unearth creation thing, I, I have told people from time to time, like, look, while you're wrestling with that, at the very least you need to believe that Adam and Eve existed like this happened, this event happened. Because I think that destroys too much, like Jesus is the second Adam, why Jesus said he came, all those things. I think bare minimum on creation, you need that, that God created everything and Adam and Eve are real, even if you struggle with maybe the timing of stuff.
But I think overall, if you have all of these issues and you should probably look into them more, pray about it more and realize this probably isn't a great fit for you right now, but could be as you study these things. But that gets to my second question, which is what? You know, what do people who are watching this or listening or checking out Lutheranism, what do they actually have to believe to join the Lutheran Church?
[00:43:32] Speaker A: I want to give three thoughts on that. So number one, our confessions say it's enough for the unity of the church, that we believe the gospel rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered.
And now that's talking about church fellowship. But I think it's just in general, this is what fellowship. I mean, so it's very simple, like, why are Lutherans and Baptists not together? Because we disagree on the gospel and the sacraments. Why is there a distinction between this church and that church? That's always the difference, Gospel and sacraments. And maybe when it comes to big picture, the question that we have to ask when considering all these different denominations is, what does Jesus want to give to me?
And so I think this is the way to sanctify this question as we're looking at all these different denominations and say, well, what does Jesus want to give?
What does he want to give me in the Supper? What does he want to give me in Baptism? What does he want to give me in the Word? And I'm convinced. You're convinced, Pastor Packer, that the Lutheran articulation of the doctrine of the Scriptures is giving people what Jesus wants to give them. That's why it's so important. It's great. Okay, so just this simple thing. And so what you said, it's like we confess the catechism as you're coming into confirmation. I confess the catechism.
The second thing, though, is that as we become more intentional theologians, that requirement gets deeper and more profound.
So the theological unity that we ask of a child being confirmed is different than what we ask of a person who's studying it and thinking about it and so forth and so on. So I do think that to whom much is given, much is required. And so the requirements of orthodoxy become more profound as people become better and better theologians. And this person who's talking is not a slouch theologian. I mean, these are some deep and profound theological questions. And so as you grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and your knowledge of Scripture, more is asked of you.
So it might be for someone who's kind of casually exploring the catechism and a New theologian and coming into these things and has these questions, these are okay, but the more that you study them and dig into them, as those different convictions diverge from the Book of Concord, they actually become more of a problem.
It's more of a problem when a trained theologian disagrees than when someone who's just starting to cut their teeth on the Scriptures. So I do think that's true, that. That the requirements actually get more difficult. But we're not in a hurry, so to say, hey, look, we're going to work on this together. And to be wrestling with these questions in the context of a church and with a pastor is better than just watching YouTube videos and digging into the, whatever kind of texts and books that you're reading, it's better to have these conversations in a lively, convert, ongoing theological conversation in a church. Now, third thing, here's an interesting story. I remember when I was in Colorado, there was a person who came to me and they wanted to transfer their membership from the Methodist Church to the Missouri Synod.
And it was so interesting. This person was very progressive politically and even theologically.
They, I don't, I won't even indicate if it's a man or a woman I want to, you know, but they, they, they, they were really lean towards creation or towards evolution and old Earth.
They thought that it wasn't right that women couldn't be pastors.
They thought close communion was too judgmental.
They, they had a hard time with the historicity of the scriptures. They had a more progressive view of the, the scriptures.
And I said, well, why do you want to join the Missouri Synod? And she, oh, oops. She said, well, just because I don't believe the Bible doesn't mean I don't think my church should.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: That's kind of amazing.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: And she said, just, she says what? Like, just because I have doubts, I want a church that actually believes what they're saying and has conviction.
And what kind of person would I be if I'm just looking for a church that agrees with all my half brained ideas about things.
I want the church to tell me what the Bible says.
And I said, well, I mean, this was kind of a wild thing.
So she did not want a church that was bending the scriptures to fit the mood. And I said, well, this is your church. Then in other words, your personal convictions don't match what the Bible is saying, but you recognize that the church ought to say what the Bible is saying. And you want to be a part of a church that actually says that? Well, you better be part of this.
That was a wild thing to think about.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: All right, well, we're done with those five.
But now our sixth question I think is related to, that's from someone else. So this is a new person. But I do think it's related to this because it has to do with your favorite catchphrase, right? Like what is Lutheran identity? Is that what you really liked yesterday.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: Whenever we were talking identity?
[00:49:03] Speaker B: What does that even mean? They don't use that word. I just, I threw that in there just to mess with you. Okay, so here's what they actually ask.
I've encountered a question response from two different people about the Lutheran Church that's hard for me to answer.
It's a simple question. But the follow up is what I struggle with. They ask me what church I go to, I guess we can use it. I tell them train Lutheran in Boulder Junction, which is lcms. That gets a response of oh, that is a strict church.
This really bugs me because this doesn't describe what church is all about.
I struggle and stammer with my answer with some half hearted answer about believing in the Bible. What would you suggest for a God pleasing response?
So how do we help him? And how would you help him? Someone says, oh, your church is strict. Or you know, what are some other variations of that?
Your church is really old fashioned or super traditional or usually by that they mean like especially what you believe about moral issues often. Right, that's what they mean by strict probably more than anything.
How would you answer that?
[00:50:04] Speaker A: I was at some pastor's meeting and, and I said, they asked, we were going around churches and I said I'm part of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod Lutheran. They said, what's the lcms? I said, we're the mean ones. Oh yeah, okay.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: I know you know you are.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: We know just who you are.
Oh boy. So I, here's my analogy. Can you imagine that you're on a middle school football team and you're out there blocking and tackling and you, here comes the guy with the ball and you smash him and you line up again and you're playing, everyone's playing football.
But then one by one, all of the other players on the, on the field stop playing football and start doing other things. Like one guy start, like, I don't know, he takes his shoes off and starts knitting with the shoelaces and some other guys like looking at the daisies and some other guys get, you know, talking the cheerleaders to come and play with, with them, you know, and, and you can play too. And, and everybody, basically everybody stops playing football. And there's just, you know, one guy's painting a landscape and you know, some other guys lecturing people about how football is colonial settler colonialism or whatever. And you're out there and, and, and you're tackling people and there's the ball and you run up and you tackle the guy and they're like, what are you doing, man? Hey, take it easy. You're so violent and you're like, hey, you're off sides and hey, you're not. And everybody quit playing football but you. And then they think you're nuts because you're running around with the Ball and running plays and tackling people. And they're like, what is that? Guy is so weird. It's like you. Actually I'm the only one who's just still doing what the church does, which is fight about doctrine. I mean, it's what we're supposed to do. That's what Jesus says, We beware of false teachers. Every time the New Testament says beware, it's about false teaching, a false doctrine. And so the Lutheran Church is one of the few churches that's still being wary of false teaching. Everyone else thinks that that's kind of old fashioned. So when we go and tackle some false teacher, they're like, oh man, Little violent, huh? You know, got anger issues. Like, no, I'm just, what are you doing on the field if you're not playing football?
So this is the kind of place where we find ourselves especially like close communion. That's what close communion is. Closed communion is football. Closed communion says, hey, you gotta agree on the doctrine before you come to the Lord's Supper. And everybody used to think that. I mean, you go back 200 years ago and this was. I don't think there was. I mean, maybe some Unitarian somewhere didn't care. I mean, people who didn't care what the Lord's Supper was, but everyone had this sense that even the Baptists and the Reformed and hey, you ought to agree with each other before you confess. And then everyone just sat playing football, started picking daisies, and we look like the kind of meanies that are on the field.
So, okay, so if that's an analogy for the situation, then how do we go about this business of being wary of false doctrine according to the Lord's Word for the sake of the Gospel, which means for the sake of salvation. This is why we're doing it. Every heresy strikes at Christ and we want Christ to be extolled and held forth before the world. The law preached in its full severity and the Gospel preached in its full sweetness. That's what we're after so that people can rejoice in the gifts that Jesus has given on the cross. This is the. Any severity and vigor which we are going about the theological work is because of that.
But then we just look like we're insane because we care about it. Okay, so how do you address it? I think this is the setup.
Now, the answer is that passion for truth is always understood as pride by people who have made every assertion a matter of human opinion.
So understand that the way that most people have given up playing the game is really by Despairing of the idea that you can even know what's true.
And if you've despaired of actually being able to know what's true, then anyone who claims to know what's true seems to you incurably prideful and arrogant.
Whereas we understand that we have the truth, but not because we're smarter than anybody else or harder working than anybody else, but by grace, the Lord has revealed it to us in the Scriptures. And so our confidence is not in ourselves, but it's understood that way.
Okay, So I think the way that we have to engage in those conversations is to, as much as we can, speak with gentleness, kindness, and compassion from the clarity of the Scripture and let people who have reduced all theology to competing opinions and made everything therefore a political conversation, which is just, blech, distasteful to let the clarity of the Scripture shine forth.
And it probably means that we need to get the conversation as quickly as we can to some specifics.
So if someone says, oh, that's a strict church, so what do you mean about that?
Strict about what?
And then you, oh, well, strict about how men have to be men and women have to be women and say, well, yeah, that's what God says when he created us male and female and he hasn't authorized us to change it yet.
Or strict about, hey, what does sexual immorality look like? Well, yeah, that's what God says, the sixth commandment. And he hasn't revoked it yet or whatever.
So that we have to go as quickly as we can in the specific places to the Scripture and show ourselves as.
Which is what we should be. It's not showing ourselves and be the humble servants of the Lord's Word for the sake of law and gospel.
All right, that's my rambling thoughts on that.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: That's a great answer. And I'm pressed for times. We're gonna go the last question.
I've got a meeting in, like, five minutes. Okay, let's see. This actually ties in with what you were just talking about. So I've really set you up well here.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:56:46] Speaker B: Not intentionally, but, you know, it worked out that way. What is the difference between false teaching error being wrong and heresy? At what point is one considered to be a false teacher? Does it depend on how important the doctrine is in reality or in their teaching? Does it make a difference if they are a pastor or not? Or how long they hold or teach something wrong?
So basically, is there a haunt. Is there a commonly held definition of who and what false teachers are that the lcms Has.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: I don't think so.
Do you know of something and this might have to do with the difference, like, between heresy and heterodoxy.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's usually what I distinguish between, is heterodoxy. Like, you're still within the fence of Christianity, right? You're still within the bounds of the creeds, whereas heresy is. You're outside of the Christian church with that teaching. It's. It's outside of the fence, right? So Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, those are heretical church bodies. Whereas, like, a Baptist church is a heterodox church body. So I think when I was a younger pastor, a newer pastor, I sometimes, like, maybe overstated when talking about maybe other denominations, teachers or whatever. I think sometimes I almost put them in the heretical camp with the rhetoric I used, you know, So I try to be more careful about that now to distinguish. Okay, they're still Christians, but these, these differences still matter and they're still important. But this, this teaching doesn't put them outside of the faith versus, okay, they reject Jesus and who he is. That puts them outside of the faith. Right? Like, I've tried to be much more careful about distinguishing between those things, but I, I don't know if I have a. Or I've heard like a set definition on exactly what makes a false teacher. So I'll let you answer that.
[00:58:30] Speaker A: The boundary of Christendom has to do with the two great mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. So if you get those two things wrong, the Trinity wrong and the Incarnation wrong, you're not a Christian, you're a cult or a sect or a different religion. That's. So if you. But if you confess the Trinity and the Incarnation, you're a Christian. But then it comes to the question, well, what about the other doctrines, and especially about soteriology, the doctrine of salvation? What if you're teaching. What if you believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation, but you're teaching false doctrine about salvation, which was like the question of the Reformation, is the Pope a Christian or not? Is the doctrine Christian? And it's kind of like if you're teaching a false doctrine of salvation, you're inside of Christendom, but you're busy trying to catapult people out of it.
Like, your doctrine is not helping people rejoice in the saving work of Christ, but rather muddling it, confusing it, twisting it, stealing away assurance, stealing away the clean conscience that the Lord Jesus wants us to have, and so forth and so on. So that's the kind of big question there.
And so we want to fight against false teaching, but I've always thought this. So there are two other distinctions. One, we distinguish between the falsely taught and the false teacher. And this mostly has to do with office. And if someone's been confronted or not, when you confront someone with the error from the Scripture, do they repent and change their doctrine or do they continue in it? And Luther talked about the consoling the child and kicking the dog. So the picture of false doctrine is like a dog who bites a child and you console the child, you kick the dog.
The dog is the false teacher and the child is the falsely taught. And you have two different, totally different attitudes when you're dealing with someone. And I think it's probably safe for us to just assume, even if someone's a pastor and they're teaching something wrong, that they were falsely taught. And let that be the assumption that we have until they prove themselves otherwise.
The other distinction has to do with false doctrine and salvation.
And Francis Pieper is really helpful.
He has this phrase called felicitous inconsistency.
And that lets us understand that while every false doctrine is eating away at our saving faith in Christ, it does not immediately destroy it.
So it's like cancer in that way. Like, if you get cancer, it doesn't mean, like, ooh, yesterday I got cancer and then I died. Like, it's not. Cancer is different than being, like, shot or falling off a cliff. It kills you gradually, so you still have life even though it's sickness.
So it would be wrong for someone to say, oh, cancer doesn't matter, because you can have cancer and live. No, it's bad and it's killing you. But it would also be wrong to say, oh, you have cancer, you're dead.
So when someone has a false doctrine, it doesn't mean that they don't have saving faith.
We can't just say, every false teacher, every false doctrine damns you. That would be false. You can have cancer and still be alive. But it would also be wrong to say, well, if. If it doesn't damn you, then it doesn't matter.
If. If you can have a false doctrine and still be a Christian, it doesn't matter. That's also bad, too. There should be a deep sympathy for those who are holding to different kind of false doctrines.
So I think those two. I think that distinction is really helpful when it comes to how do we as a church deal with false doctrine? And. And we're not dealing with false doctrine just because we like to be right.
That is a. That's the wrong motivation. We the the Lord Jesus calls His church to to be careful about the teaching.
Well, like Paul says to Timothy, give heed to the to the reading and to the doctrine. In doing so, you will save both yourselves and those who hear you, so that the Lord connects salvation to to teaching the truth. And this is why this is our chief concern.
[01:02:32] Speaker B: I usually phrase it when I'm teaching. Usually when I get to the third article of the Creed, I usually say something to the effect of doctrine matters because we care about what Jesus teaches. We care what Jesus says. Period. If Jesus thought was important enough to put it in His Word for us to know, then we should care enough to know about that thing and try to teach it the way Jesus taught us it.
So even if we can say, well these people are Christians, even though they get this thing wrong, it doesn't mean it's unimportant. It just means that it hasn't destroyed, as you said, it hasn't destroyed their faith, hasn't destroyed their clinging to Christ. Doesn't mean we say, oh, it's no big deal. But if we love Jesus and His Word, we want to get those things right.
And that's all I've got because I've got to go.
[01:03:13] Speaker A: Thanks for watching you YouTube theologians. Post up your questions and comments. Wolfmieler co contact thanks Pastor Packer. Great day. Great show. God's peace be with you.
