Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Theology Q and A podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolfmuller of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, Texas. Here with me is Pastor Andrew Packer, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that your favorite instrument is the harmonica.
This is your Christmas present for you, Al.
This is the intro music. Welcome to the Q and A podcast.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: If you can play it like the guy from Blues Traveler did in the 90s, then sure you can't. That's right.
That's nice. That's good.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Before we get to questions, what are you. You're getting ready to preach for Christmas time, too. What are you thinking about?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: So Christmas eve, we have three services. Christmas Eve, three different services. We have lessons in carols at 4, a children's service at 5:30, and Christmas midnights starting at 11pm ending about midnight. So I'm preaching at two of those. In the first service I'm going to, I'm essentially using what child is this? As an outline since it's one of the carols we'll sing. And so I'm going to just be looking at it. Does a good job of summarizing the story. I especially like the line.
I don't know why. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do it this year. The silent word is pleading.
It's a great line. Just because Jesus is there as a baby who can't speak, he's the word of God who speaks to us is a great line. So we're gonna play around with that.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: There's this marvel where the Christmas hymns are trying to capture this amazing thing. That the Eternal One has a birthday, that the One who holds the world is held in the arms of Mary, that the. That God, who is everywhere is right here, that the glory is hidden in humility, that. I mean, it's all of these mysterious things of the incarnation, that here in the two natures of Christ, the attributes of each nature are united in this person, that personal union. And it's just. It's beyond our comprehension or imagination. And so these Christmas hymns are trying to, you know, in some ways capture that poetically.
It's. It's amazing.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it does a good job. I know it's not a. It's not a Gerhardt hymn, which he has two of my favorite Christmas hymns. But it's short, so I can do a quick outline from three stanzas versus either of the Gerhardt hymns that I love for Christmas.
I would need, like, probably like 45 minutes to preach on those, because there's so much there.
Uh, so I'm gonna do that for that. And then for the 11pm I'm. I'm preaching on the Titus 2 text. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. Uh, that we have the grace of God in the flesh. That the incarnation changes everything. Cause that seems to be what Paul's getting, that there In Titus, chapter 2, verses 11 through 1415, thereabouts. What are you. What are you doing for Christmas Eve and Christmas?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: So I'm working on this. Okay, so here' I have been for months unable to escape this, the wonder of this phrase from Philippians 2.
So he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond, servant and coming in the likeness of men.
And this idea that here, God in the beginning created us in his likeness.
So God says, okay, here. Here's my likeness. I'm giving it to you.
And we blew it. And we lost the likeness of God. We lost the image of God.
Now, you know, Seth is born after the image of Adam and so are all of us. But now Jesus says, okay, I'm not giving you my likeness. I'm actually taking your likeness.
This is so incredible. So I'm now going to go and become like you to, to grab ahold of your nature and unite myself to it so that I can bring you back to the joy and glory of God. And so I think I'm going to try to work through that amazing miracle about how God gave us his image. We lost it. So he comes and takes our image and this amazing work of the humiliation of our Lord Jesus. It's important when we talk about that, to make this distinction that the incarnation is not part of his state of humiliation. Right, because he's still incarnate, even in his state of glory. But immediately following his incarnation, he enters into this humility of our situation so that he can bring us to the glory of his. Of his eternal life. So I think I'm going to reflect on that. I'm going to try anyways to see if I can capture the glory of this work that Jesus does to come in our human likeness and to think about one of the dangers with Christmas and I suppose for the people watching us, we'll. We'll probably post this on Christmas Eve. So Merry Christmas to you. God be praised. For, for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus and the opportunity to celebrate it today. We get so caught up in so many different things. Nostalgia, families, busyness, gifts, etc. That we sometimes forget that the point that the reason we set these days especially aside is because this mystery of what the Lord has done and accomplished in taking upon our flesh and blood is. I mean, we'll spend eternity reflecting on it. It's the thing that the angels wonder about. But we take these days to marvel at this second great mystery of the Christian faith. That God and man are one, are united in the person of Jesus, and that all of those things are done for us.
I don't know. There's some. The Lord always seemingly reveals to us two things at once. So just like Edersheim, Alfred Edersheim makes this point in the life and times of Jesus the Messiah, that Jesus always pairs the revelation of his divinity with the revelation of his humanity. He'll sleep on the boat before he wakes up and calms the storm. There's always these sort of twin attributes. So you can't think, oh, he's just God, or oh, he's just man. He puts them all together.
So he's always revealing two things at once. And this is true. Whenever he was revealing himself as the Incarnate, as God in the flesh, he's also revealing himself as the Savior, as the one who's doing all of these things for us, like we say in the Nicene Creed, for us men and for our salvation. He came down from heaven so that this taking on our likeness is not just. It's not something Jesus is just doing for fun, just to have this kind of mind bending, universe expanding miracle of the incarnation.
He's doing it to save us. So I think I'll work on that idea.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Are you doing that for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Christmas Eve. I've got Christmas Eve. Pastor Davis has Christmas Day.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. We've. Pastor Gray has one of the Christmas Eve services and then he has Christmas Day. So that's why I mentioned that one. You're talking about the likeness. Do you think Paul's picking up on Genesis 5, where, you know, it says that Adam then bore Seth in his own likeness, Right.
So Adam was in the likeness of God and then Seth is born in his likeness. And now do you think Paul's picking up on. On that kind of language? Because it sound like that's what, you know, tying that all together back to. To make your point. It's going all the way back to Genesis, right?
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Yep, yep. So at first God says to Adam and Eve, you're of me. And they said, forget about it. So then Jesus says, now I'm of you.
So to restore, it's this it's this flipping things around, I suppose. It's like, could you imagine? I don't know. I don't have a good picture. But imagine if you had. Here's your children and you give them a home as their inheritance. Like, here's a nice house. You can live in this house and like, forget about it. We're going to live in the streets. We're going to go live behind the dumpster.
And then you as the father, you want to be with us. So you move out of the nice house and you go and live in the dumpster with them. Like, they blew the gift, they squandered it. So now for you to join to them, you've got to go and join yourself to their weakness and poverty and all this other stuff so that you can be with him. And this is what Jesus does.
He is the image of the invisible God. He is the image of God in which Adam and Eve were created in.
And yet he leaves that aside.
In fact, it says right there in that passage in Philippians 2, he says he considered the likeness of God not something to be grasped. So that's that reversal. So Adam and Eve were tempted because you will be like God, you know, this sort of thing. Jesus didn't grasp that. He made himself like us.
He joins himself to our poverty, to our mortality, and eventually on the cross to our sin and to the wrath of God that we deserve so that he can. He can be our Savior. It's beautiful.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Now the next question we're going to do that was kind of a question, I guess the next one to continue the Christmas theme. There's a great line in Paul Gart's All My Heart Again Rejoices, which in the Lutheran service book is 360.
And here he, here he's taking a line from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, actually from one of his Christmas sermons. And it's a really great line that he works into this hymn. And so how can I just pause and know.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Yes. How amazing it is that you are.
That you found that Paul Gerhardt is quoting Bernard of Clairvaux. That's not just something like that. That, you know, that's not the thing an average person would. Would know about, including me, the average person. So that's pretty cool. I got. Thank you.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: I got. I got lucky a couple, couple years ago because I was reading his sermons for Advent and Christmas and then said, oh, I recognized that line. And then I realized that had to have been where Gerhardt got it because Luther was a huge proponent of Saint Bernard. Of Clairvaux preaching. And so I just connected the dots and assumed that had to have been where he got it from. So there's no, like, footnotes in here saying that's where he took it from. But I know I'm 99, 99% sure.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: How impressive this is. It's cool.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: 99% sure.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Back to the question.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: This question is a great question. I mean, it's kind of a rhetorical question, but I think it ties with what you were just saying. Uh, so I think it works really nicely with that.
Uh, should we fear our God's displeasure? Who, to say, freely gave his most precious treasure to redeem us? He has given his own son from the throne of his might in heaven? That question is one St. Bernard picks up on, like, does a lot with which is really beautiful question. Should we fear our God's displeasure?
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Who.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Who? He gave us his most precious treasure. So, of course its rhetorical answer is, you know, obviously the answer you're expecting is, no, we shouldn't. Shouldn't fear anything. But it's something you could pick up with the other stuff you were talking about. Run with this idea that because Christ has come in the flesh, we don't have to fear God's displeasure because we know that he's for us. Right? So run with that.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: This is the.
This is what's given to us every time we come to the divine service to the Lord's Supper, that it's. In some ways, it's a re giving of that gift of the Incarnation. Like, hey, if you wonder how I think about you, look, here's my Son in the flesh. And then now, if you wonder what I think about you, take and eat. This is my body. Jesus is giving himself over and over and over to us to not to forgive our sins, but to show us the love of God that holds nothing back.
So Paul asks it like this.
He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not also, together with him, give us all things so that the coming, the incarnation, the suffering, the death, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus are proving to us how God feels about us and thinks about us now. So there's these two strains of fear passages in the Bible which oftentimes confuse people because on the one hand, we're told over and over to fear the Lord. We just added in the Magnificat this last week. Those who fear the Lord in all the psalms, fear the Lord. The beginning, fear the Lord's, the beginning of the wisdom. We should fear Love and trust in God above all things.
Those who fear you almost becomes a name for the Christian, for the one who belongs to the Lord. And so we do fear his displeasure, like a father, like a child to the father, wants to make the father happy, not mad, by doing what the Father asks and so forth. So there's this fear of God. But then there's other times where Jesus says, don't be afraid, or perfect love casts out fear, or have no fear. So the question is, well, which is it? So here's how I'd like to approach the question is that the fear of God is a.
Okay, we are going to fear something, and we're going to be tempted to fear all sorts of things.
So when the text says fear God, it's not saying there's God and what you should do is fear him. It's saying you're fearing something.
What should that fear be in?
What should your fear be latched onto? This is, I think, what Luther's getting at with his exposition of the first commandment in the small catechism. Should fear love and trust in God above all things. He's not saying, here's you, here's God, and the thing that should happen between you is some fear and some loving and some trust.
What he's saying is that your heart, our heart, the human heart, is a fearing, loving, trusting thing, but it has to have something to grab onto.
And the thing, the object of our fear, the object of our love and the object of our trust is to be God above all things and exclusively. So the fear of the Lord casts out the fear of everything else.
And here's how the fear of the Lord then works in our own hearts. I think it's so important that we want to fear whatever it is. Like, I don't know, maybe we want to fear death, because that's terrible.
Okay, I'm going to fear death. And Jesus looks at. He says, no, I have not authorized you to fear death. I've overcome death. Three days done. Don't fear death.
This is one of the chief gifts of faith, right? He sets us free from the fear of death. And that's our spiritual warfare.
They overcame. This is Revelation 12. They overcame the devil, by the way, word of the Testimony and the blood of the Lamb. And they didn't love their lives unto death, that he took on flesh and blood. This is Hebrews 2. This is a great Christmas text. Just as the children have flesh and blood, he partook of the same, so that through his death he might destroy him who has the power of death and set all those free who were held in bondage to the fear of death.
So we're not authorized to fear death. We're not authorized to fear sickness. We're not authorized to fear the devil. We're not authorized to fear poverty. We're not authorized to fear shame. We're not authorized to fear other people. We're not authorized to fear political systems. We're not authorized to fear whatever it is. We're not. The only thing we're authorized to fear in this life is God.
So all these things come and want the worship of our fear. Fear me or fear me. And we say, no, no, no, look, my fear belongs to God. And finally, here, God, you're the only one that I fear. And he says to us, don't be afraid. Don't be. Look, I've given my son for you. This is the point.
So that the fear of God is culling, cutting off, editing out all the other kind of fears.
And then when God has our fear, he says, don't be afraid. Look, I sent my son to die for you.
I'm not fearful for you at all. In fact, I'm your friend, your savior, the one who loves you. It's great. Now, the problem is, if we fear other things, we ought to fear God. But if we fear God, then we don't need to.
That's the beauty of the way faith works. It's great.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: All right, you ready to move on from Christmas themes into other questions?
[00:15:52] Speaker A: That's all we get for Christmas.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: That's all.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: That's all we're doing for Christmas.
In Revelation 7, and I think also Psalm 84 touches on this.
It says they've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. How exactly does a Christian wash his robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb?
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Well, so here's. That's a. What. Absolutely tremendous. Beautiful passage. And the picture is all these saints coming out of the great tribulation. And they're lined up. And the. It's almost. If we pair it up with the parable that Jesus tells about the wedding feast and the guy who was in there with the wrong garment, like we're. Here's. They're lined up to go into the wedding feast. But the problem is they're wearing these filthy robes. It's. You have to imagine that.
That you're. When you're born, you're given this white robe. And every sin is like eating salsa and guacamole. I mean, you're just staining. It's just getting filthy.
And. And now how are you going to go into the wedding party with these filthy robes? But there's a vat of lamb's blood, and the robes come off and dip in the blood and come out perfect and pure, which is great. I mean, I'm pretty sure that lamb's blood in real life would stain a garment. But this is the blood of the Lord Jesus, which washes us. It forgives our sins, cleanses us.
So to wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb means to apply that the Spirit is applying the death of Jesus to us.
So I would say, how does the Christian wash their robe? The answer is, I wouldn't say that we do anything. The Holy Spirit is the one who does it, who applies the death of Jesus to us. And he does that in multiple ways. He does it in the preaching of the Gospel.
When the Holy Spirit creates repentance and the knowledge of our sin and faith and trust in the Gospel. That's the white robe cleansed.
He does it in our baptism, which Luther says, you can imagine, the font is filled with blood. It just washes the. It's not the washing of the body, but the pledge of a good conscience. It's cleansing the sin off of your heart. He does it in the supper, when that blood of the Lamb is given for us to drink. That's washing our robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb. He does it in the absolution, when we hear this promise straight from the mouth of Jesus, I forgive you all your sins.
He does it as Christians comfort each other in the midst of all these struggles.
He does it when we study the Scriptures, when we reflect on His Word.
So it's repentance, it's knowledge of sin and trust in the promise of the Gospel. That's what it means to have our robes washed with the righteousness of Christ.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Made me think of. And I was trying to look up the exact passages, but I don't know if I'm gonna find him in time. But both in Exodus and it comes up again in Hebrews, as mentioned, right? Moses is standing there sprinkling the blood right on the people, which is essentially, you know, using the imagery you're using. That's what pastors are doing when they pronounce the absolution. That's what pastors are doing when they're preaching the gospel, is they're sprinkling the blood on the people. And that's what First Peter says, right? In one Peter, one He talks about the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus on us, which happens in all those ways you just mentioned. So we have that very vivid imagery in the Bible of Moses, like literally taking the blood and like sprinkling it on the people. And then the fulfillment of that, of course, is the gospel being applied to God's people and all those ways you mentioned.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Here's. I found Hebrews 10, starting with verse 19. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh, having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
That's so good. That's that same picture that it happened only once in, in the Old Testament that they, the whole assembly was sprinkled with that blood of the sacrifice.
But that's, that's what divine service is, is applying that forgiving, sacrificed, poured out blood of Jesus to our consciences.
Marvelous.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: All right, let's go to the next one.
As an ex Reformed Christian and now an LCMS Lutheran, I really appreciate your ministry. Tremendous help. Here's my question.
If God doesn't want robots in quotation marks, as I've heard it put, why he gives us free will to turn away? How will there not be a second rebellion or fall in heaven when this world ends and we are all in heaven? I've heard this answered as we won't want to or wills will be changed to not want to sin.
Well, I don't want to sin now, but I do. And if I can't sin, great. But how is that not being a robot? Quotation marks again, Honestly, I prefer we are robots that believed we had free will but actually didn't over being fallen and having our fleshly sin to deal with and constantly failing.
Some say because that wouldn't be showing true love. But I've heard all the arguments and disagree with that assessment. Which brings me back to the original question.
All right, so how won't we be robots in heaven?
[00:21:17] Speaker A: I love it. So, okay, so let's maybe do two things. So let's first prove from the scriptures that a second fall is impossible.
And I think the easiest way to do that is to recognize that in the beginning that Adam and Eve could, they had a free will, a free choice to obey God or to disobey God. They could have not eaten the fruit or they could have eaten the fruit. So there was a choice that was given to them, and it was a true choice. It was part of their free will, but part of the consequences of it was if you eat of it, you will die. So that sin and death are always bound up together.
When the scriptures describe for us the new heaven and the new earth, it says that there is no more death.
So that with the possibility of death being destroyed, the possibility of sin is also destroyed. So there is no possibility of sinning, of rebelling, of rejecting the gifts of God. In the new heaven and the new earth, we are what the theologians call confirmed in bliss, in righteousness and bliss. So that we can't sin, and in fact, we can't even want to sin in the new heaven and the new earth, which itself would be a sin. So that's a. That's a marvelous comfort because I've heard people and kind of jokingly say, boy, I'm not sure I should go to heaven because I'll probably ruin it for everybody else. They're so confident that they're going to sin and destroy it. And. But I've heard that spoken seriously, like people are. Are thinking to themselves, and this is a sort of demonic logic, but they think, well, I better not go to heaven, even though if it'd be nice for me because I'm so wicked that I will surely destroy all the work that the Lord Jesus has done. And so I won't. I don't want to go there. We have to cast those thoughts out and close that door to the devil's tempting work on that side. So new heaven and new earth, no possibility of fall, no possibility of death, no possibility of sin, then the question is, well, how can we love if there's not a choice? And this, I think, exposes the error of the argument that free, that love requires choice and. Or that freedom requires choice.
So the way. There's two different ways to think about freedom here and the way that the Bible thinks about sin and freedom is that the ability and capacity to sin, in fact, is not freedom, but bondage.
That we're held in bondage to sin, in bondage to the flesh, in bondage to sinful desires, and that the new heaven and the new earth will set us free.
We'll be free from sin, free from death, free from sinful desires, free from concupiscence, free from the corruption of sin.
So that the Bible sees sin not as a necessity for freedom, but as the obstacle to freedom. So when I can no longer sin, I am finally free. That's the biblical picture.
So the argument just sort of falls flat that to love I must have a choice to also not love. Because otherwise I would be an autonomous.
Autonomous.
I'd be a robot.
You know, robot apparently doesn't have free will till, you know, until general AI wakes them all up and they start taking over things. But yeah, just a normal robot. A normal, not world destroying free will robot. In fact, that's the kind of scariest thing is a robot getting free will because then they, they'll end up destroying us. All right?
But it's not a matter of being a robot.
It's being truly human.
To love God and to rejoice in his gifts and to serve him is what it means to be a truly full free human being. And sin is a bondage that's there.
Look, I don't know how to just kind of think of a good example, but like, I'm not free to not love Carrie, my wife.
I don't have that free choice. Now maybe you could say, well, you could decide to not love her, but not according to God's word and not according to God's will. And that is what it means to love. Can you imagine saying, well, honey, I got a, you know, we got to not get married because I want to be able to choose to love you every day. So then you'll know that I'm loving. Well, that's kind of an insane way to think about choice and love.
And so in some ways the new heaven and the new earth is our the Lord bringing us into the fullness of the freedom which is a love that can do nothing else.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Two quotes came to mind. Uh, on the last thing you said, since you were quoting Chesterton last time we recorded I'll quote Chesterton this time.
Love is not blind. That is the last thing it is. Love is bound. And the more it is bound, the less it is blind. Right? Love by definition is bound to something not. Not free, which is what you're saying. And the other thing I was thinking about on this whole issue of freedom is St. Augustine's great quote, right? Love Jesus and do what you want.
In other words, right? If you're loving Jesus, then you're going to want to do the things Jesus wants you to do and love the things he loves. And the new heavens and new earth will finally have that fullness of freedom that we were always meant to have. We're not actually fully free. The whole definition of freedom is backwards.
We think to be free, that means doing what I want to do versus doing what's good for me, what I want is not always good for me and doesn't mean I'm free. It means I'm a. The Bible describes this as slavery, right? We're slaves to sin. We're slaves to these things. To be free is to. To love Jesus and do what he wants me to do. That's true freedom. So we'll be freer than we've ever been when we aren't able to sin anymore. Like, that's the definition of the Bible of true freedom is being with the Lord and not desiring the things that mess that up or put a division between you and him, or as talking about the other question about staining our robes. Like true freedom is being able to live freely without that being a concern or a fear. So it'll be glorious. True freedom like we've never ever experienced here in this life.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: That's. It's so good to think about. And, and this is. I mean, so then people say, well, is this kind of a deterministic sort of thing? It's. It's the exact opposite of the. I suppose the example is there's these movies where like, someone will be walking around and like the vines grow up and like grab their ankles and wrap and try to pull them down to the ground. And our whole lives are like that. The world, the flesh and the devil are trying to draw us into sin.
And when all those are destroyed, then we'll be like, wow, I can just walk around.
I can. I can do what I want because what I want is the. Is to keep God's law. This is a marvelous thing. So before the fall, able to sin, not able to not sin. After the new heaven and new earth, not able to sin. That's the true freedom of the sons of God.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah. The truest and most beautiful freedom we'll ever have. Something we look forward to the next question. This isn't. We don't get a lot of questions like this. So this is kind of interesting fun.
You may not find it fun. I don't know. We'll find out in a second.
It's on. True crime as entertainment.
Recently I was thinking about the recent rise in popularity of true crime document documentaries and streaming platforms. Is it ethical to get entertainment out of others tragedy or am I overthinking it?
[00:29:09] Speaker A: No, there's something, There's. Okay, so there's two, at least two things that converge in, in like almost our anthropology, our definition of humanity that make true crime, like always. Whoa. Interesting one is the. The conscience and the recognition that there is a moral right and wrong.
There's. So there's a reason why, you know, I. Sometimes I'll. I'll joke around with the TV shows and I'll be like, ah, like that's a.
One of these kind of violent mystery shows, like a crime show. That's a fifth commandment show. Or then you have like the soap operas. That's like a six commandment show. Or then you have like the House Hunters, Belize. It's like a 9th Commandment show. You know, you shall not cover your neighbor's house. It's all like. You can kind of classify the dramas by the commandments that are at play. Because we. There's a moral.
There's a moral intuition that's there. There's also a deep curiosity to try to figure out things like who did it and why. Like, you hear we've had all these tragedies this last week of shootings and all these different places, and the first question is, who did it? And then the next question is, why did they do it? Like, we want to understand. We want to understand ourselves. We want to understand people around us. We ask questions about motive, which is not. It's not an obvious thing that. That would be our first concern.
Like, why is it that this Father son shot all of these Australians at Bondi beach at the Hanukkah celebration? And we. It's not the. It's not. It's not obvious that the very first thing that we would want to know is what motivated them to do it, but it is. That's what we're driven to. We're driven to that. We want to know what's there. And if we don't know, if we can't get into the motives, we just.
We almost can't stop.
And this is. I think this is pointing it towards this deep kind of tension that rests in humanity that I think is best expressed by. It was Blaise Pascal who said, what a. How do you say the word chimera, where you have two creatures joined to each other? Like the chimera.
Yeah, like Napoleon Dynamites Liger.
Let me just quote Napoleon Dynamite and Blaise Pascal just to make.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: I don't think they've ever been put in the same sentence anywhere before. Ever in the street, the world. So this is a first.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: So Pascal says what a chimera man is because we know that things are wrong.
And for us to be able to look out at the world and say this isn't right, and to look at ourselves and say this isn't Right. The conditions to make that observation sensible require a fall from perfection.
In other words, if things were just always this way and always wrong, we wouldn't be able to say that they're wrong. We wouldn't know any different.
And if things were good and perfect, then we wouldn't see that they're bad. So the fact that we look around and see things as bad indicates that we started good and then became bad ourselves. It's an indication of creation and fall that's necessary for us to see this so we know that we weren't meant to die, but we're all dying. Like, why doesn't death make sense to us?
Why doesn't tragedy make sense to us? Why doesn't crime make sense to us? If we were just always sinners, then we would be like, this is just the reality. But no, we're discontent with reality, which shows that we were not made for this reality. It's just a really profound insight that Pascal says. And our interest in crime and motivation and solving those problems points to that.
So people have observed this, since you love quoting Chesterton, that the crime novel and the detective novel came out of the Christian tradition, including these great little Father Brown mysteries that Chesterton writes. It's really great because it assumes that there's a.
That we are looking into the disorder of the world as observers of it as well as participants in it. And we want to figure these things out now.
So. So the popularity of crime novels or of these true crime stories, and I've heard about these true crime podcasts, Carrie and I listened to one of them on one of our road trips, and she's like, you get. Boy, oh, boy. You get those claws in your imagination, and you're like, I can't sleep till I know who did it. The problem is, the one we were listening to, they never found out. And I'm like, forget you. I am never listening to you again. You have so disturbed my soul. Now, you got to end that thing with a conviction, or else.
But okay, so anyway, so I think that explains it. Now, how do we address the kind of desire for these things in our life of sanctification, I think is a separate question. But maybe that's the thing that I'm more interested in, is why these things appeal to us so much.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: No, I do think there's a fundamental part of us that wants to know why these things happen. But also thinking about this while you were talking, it does reveal to us that we actually do believe, regardless of what we constantly say in the culture that Is that life actually is sacred. It matters that this person's life was tragically cut short and we'll call the thing done to them evil, right? Because.
But all of that's operating within a Christian framework, right? If it's just evolutionary framework like hey, might makes right? Survival of the fittest, you didn't survive, tough luck. Or to paraphrase, you know, well, crap just happens and so that's just the way it is and you move on. But the fact that people are brokenhearted over this and weeping and wanting answers because they realize that life actually is indeed sacred and that's what they're.
So I think that part of it at least is good. Like this is, is a tragedy and we want answers to why this tragedy happened. Now I think with like, with anything, people can become over obsessed with these things, right? And their lives can just revolve around those things.
There's jokes out there about that, you know, about apparently about how's wife? My, my wife doesn't like watch a ton of those things or listen to a ton of those things. So.
But you know this joke that the, the housewives among the husband leaves the house, like that's what she's watching or listening to. It's just true crime stuff 24 7.
That's probably overkill, right? This is the only thing you're listening to. But I do think behind the interest in this is this Christian view of life, that this does matter and it is a tragedy and we do need, we want answers because we want to know what happened to that person, why it happened. There can be an over obsession with that which is unhealthy. But I also think there's room for that.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: There's two things I also think of just on the sanctification level. And the one is the more we're exposed to tragedies, the less we let the kids play in the front yard.
And there's something there, there's something about this exposure to bad news makes us prioritize over and over security, right?
So in other words, it can stoke up fear. So we just have to be careful about that. I mean we should be, we should be careful, but we have to balance also fear with other things. If we, if our, if our only goal in life was to be safe, then we wouldn't do anything. You know, if our only goal would be safe, then you and I wouldn't make these videos because we get bad comments, you know, people complaining online.
The second thing is there is an apologetic.
But in the fact of crime, I don't know exactly how to articulate it.
I have a little kind of note somewhere in my files that says the apologetic of crime because.
And maybe one of the things that it does is the fact of crime.
It is evidence against an optimistic anthropology.
So one of the ways that the world argues against Christianity is it argues against our doctrine of sin and says that you have a negative view of humanity and that that is depressing or sad or offensive or whatever that you. That you're sitting here telling us that we're all poor miserable sinners. And that is. That offends my sensibilities. But, but crimes. I mean the fact that the Lord has to say, you shall not murder and that that's a real thing that must be said. I mean that should be an obvious thing, but it has to be taught to humanity.
The fact that humanity needs those kind of laws is an indication of our sinful nature. There's something more there too. But in other words, I think just.
And our listeners, if you have comments or thoughts on this. But crime serves as a touchstone to the reality of the Christian view of the world.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: All right, this next one really touches at the priesthood of all believers. So she writes, I'm in a Bible study right now reading Malachi 3. Whenever I say but God is speaking to the church leaders, Old Testament priests, etc, the pastor says, but we're all priests. The priesthood of believers. Please tell me, what does God mean when God calls us priests? Is everything God says in the Bible directed at every person? We've kind of touched on this with a different question about context and whatnot. But I say no, in the very least. Sometimes God speaks to his children, sometimes to unbelievers.
And so really, I guess our question is if I can reword this a little bit. Malachi3 is talking to Old Testament priests.
So would you jump and apply that to just the priest of all believers or would you limit that application to pastors or both. Right. In their various vocations. So I guess we'll start there.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: I as a half step back, I was reading this famous sermon is a New Year's Eve sermon from Martin Luther. I can't remember the years 1536 or something.
He's talking about Galatians 1 and the law was given to the children until faith came. And he was talking about that pedagogy of the law. And so he writes this sermon on the proper distinction between law and gospel. It's a beautiful sermon. And when CFW Walther is using is writing, doing his lectures on the proper Distinction between law and gospel. Like this sermon is like his number one source that he's pulling all this stuff from. So I was reading it and I was thinking about it, and I realized something. That beneath Luther's distinction between law and gospel is his is his understanding of vocation.
And even the vocation of the Scripture, the vocation of the law and the vocation of the gospel.
So that the Lord gives his words different jobs and that we have to have this vocational understanding. It's almost like a vocational hermeneutic. I have to understand when the law is talking, when the Word is talking to me, and when it's not.
It's an amazing thing because all of us have different vocations. And so the Lord actually addresses us in different ways. Like, I have different commandments as a child on your father and mother than I do as a parent. Don't exasperate your children.
So that. So that according to my different offices, I have different words that are speaking to me. And that. That is.
That distinction that vocational hermeneutic is beneath. The distinction between law and gospel is even more fundamental. So this question of who is the Lord speaking to, according to what context and what calling is really the foundational question of rightly understanding the Scriptures.
And so then he says, if the Lord's speaking to kings, is he speaking to me? No, I'm not a king. I'm the subject of the king. So I want to see what the Lord says about that guy, but not me. Even this, you know, like when it gets into the sacraments, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.
That means for all the Lord's Christians, they are to be baptized. But it means for the Lord's church and for the pastors in the office, they are to be doing the baptizing.
So this great gift of baptism comes to me in two ways. It comes to me as a Christian, as I'm the recipient of the Lord's gift of baptism. It comes to me as a pastor, as I'm teaching and baptizing. It's what my work is. It's what I'm doing. It's not gospel in that way. It's law. It's instruction.
So I think all of this to point out that the questioner is a hundred percent, 100% right in the questions that she's asking of the text to read the Bible correctly. Now then, to the question of when the Old Testament is speaking to the priests, how do we apply that? Also in the New Testament, do we say, oh, we're all priests in that way. I think that's phenomenal. And again, it's 100% the right question in the Old Testament, the priests. There's a couple of things to think about for the priesthood though. Number one, the priesthood was a family reality. It was of Levi and then of Aaron. So the of Levites were in the serving in the tabernacle and the of Aaron were serving in the priesthood.
So of course every Aaronite is a Levite, but not every Levite is an Aaronite. So you had some that were more kind of logistics and some who were doing the works. The second thing is that the priesthood of the Old Testament was set up to be a picture of the ministry of Jesus, especially in all of the bloody work.
So they were daily offering sacrifices. They were every year offering on the day of atonement, the atoning sacrifices, they were sacrificing the Passover lambs, et cetera, et cetera. All of that was to picture the ministry of Christ, our high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
And so all of that work of the Old Testament priesthood was a preaching, proclaiming, confession, confessing work that is now stopped. So there is no more sacrifice. There's no more blood sacrifice. Christ has accomplished that blood sacrifice once for all.
So they had a sacramental ministry in the Old Testament that was preaching that in the New Testament every Christian is called a priest. We're a nation of priests.
From Peter's Epistle, Chapter one, that all Christians are priests, but we no longer have that sacramental or bloody work to do.
Rather we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and we bear the Lord's name before all the world. And the sacramental work is handed over to the office of the ministry.
So we don't permit a man to preach or teach or administer the sacraments unless he'd been rightly called Romans 10, etc.
So when the Bible, when the Old Testament is talking to the priests, we have to say, is he talking to them in their sacramental teaching role in that way it would apply to the ministers of the New Testament. Or is he speaking to them in their general sort of offering the praises and thanks to God role? And in that way that applies to all Christians. I think that's where our distinction is going to, where that line is going to cut in that question.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: I think it's extremely helpful. I can't help but think I had one of the craziest experiences I've ever had with someone bringing to me those chapters two and three.
But I'm gonna have to remain, as one YouTube video says, I'll have to remain mysterious for the audience. It's not a story I can share in here, but if you ever meet me in person, you can ask me about that story.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: It's.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: It's insane.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Malachi, these priests were doing all this stuff, and really the condemnation of Jesus applies to them. You bring in tithes of mint and cumin, but you reject the weightier things of the law. So they had this sort of liturgical righteousness, but they weren't, they weren't doing good. They were letting the people get away with all sorts of sin.
And the preaching of these post exilic prophets like Malachi and Habakkuk, it's, it gets a little more subtle because their idolatry is not so much, hey, here's baal. Let's sacrifice our goats to baal.
Although maybe that was a little more subtle than we think. But it's this, it becomes this, this kind of sin hidden under pompous, right, outward righteousness. It's the Pharisee problem. And so Malachi is getting after that Pharisee problem. And that's for all of us in all of our vocations. I mean, we're all, we all have a little Pharisee living inside of us, so we can all hear that preaching of the law.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: I, I think there's, with that, there's always, whenever the law is being preached, there is probably a way. Even when it's like, you know, if I'm not a king, I can say, well, that's not for me, or whatever. But at the same time, there's often, there's often things like, okay, but how does that apply to my vocation? Sometimes the answer may be just a flat out, well, it doesn't. But other times it may be like, oh, I can.
The king's being called to be faithful in this thing. I need to be faithful in this other thing. That's related but not exactly identical, but still adjacent to the text, I guess you could say.
All right, our last question for the day on following up on something you said. So these are always fun.
In a recent whatnot podcast, you mentioned that we are right now living in the little season of Satan. And right now we are ruling and reigning with Christ.
It's very encouraging, but I'm concerned about how this can fuel word faith theology.
How should Christians read scripture verses like Matthew 17:20, 21 and Mark 11:23 that say, if you just believe, you can move mountains, or Ephesians 2, which talks about us being raised up and sitting in heavenly places. Word of faith will tell you that we should be exercising this authority, name it, proclaim it, and be fighting the devil today. They also like to use the caveat that if you don't see results, it's because you don't have enough faith or believe enough.
I have a friend who's getting into this thinking and I'm not sure how to discuss it with her.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Thanks, I think. So the chief text I'd like to go to for this question is the words of Jesus.
Right there at the end of.
It's the last verse of John 16, right? Where Jesus says, in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And so we live in this current reality is that we're in the world.
1620, 33.
In fact, the very first part of the verse is good too. I've spoken these things that in me you may have peace.
So the Christian is living, I don't know, sort of split.
We're in the world.
And the things that we get from the world are tribulation.
And the world has an ally in our sinful flesh and also in the demonic hordes in the devil.
So the world, the flesh and the devil are bringing to us trouble.
And this is the reason why our life is filled with crosses and affliction and suffering.
Tribulation, that's what Jesus calls it.
But at the same time, we have a cheerful heart because Jesus has overcome the world and our flesh and the devil too.
And so he's given us peace with God. We don't have to worry about the judgment day because our sins are forgiven. It's just such. It's almost unbelievable, these great gifts. So we're living at this in. In the same time with both of these things as true. The. One of the ways the word faith.
I mean the word. There's lots of problems with the word faith and prosperity gospel. One of the things that they say is that they want God to have made all of these promises for, like me, to have a successful life or an easy life or a life of abundance. There's no poverty, there's no sickness, there's no tribulation. In other words, they want to say that because Jesus has overcome the world, you won't experience tribulation.
And they see any tribulation in this life as an indication that you don't have enough faith. Whereas we understand tribulation as Jesus keeping his promise when he said, in the world you will have tribulation that doesn't mean we don't exercise our faith in God and in very specific ways, not just in the forgiveness of sins, but also that he'll never leave us or forsake us, that he doesn't abandon us, that he's with us, that he gives us the endurance to rejoice in the midst of all these troubles.
But the picture of this successful life where, you know, you always get the best parking spot and never hit any red lights and you, you know, you never.
Your, your body is this, like, picture of perfect health. This is just not. It's not the picture that the Lord has painted. It's not the promise that the Lord has given for. For what it means to live a Christian life. And that's. That's the great. Well, that's one of the greatest dangers of the word faith movement, is that it sets the Christian up for disappointment that God didn't keep promises that he never made.
So you keep telling your faith to declare this and declare that, but faith is only as strong as its object.
So when Jesus says ask, seek, knock, he says, well, ask for stuff. And then if I don't answer, seek in the Scriptures to make sure you're asking for something that I promised.
Because you're going to be really disappointed if here we're sitting and asking God to keep a promise that he never made, and then we think it's God's fault or my fault for not having enough faith. It's probably the person who lied to you about what God promised.
That's where the fault is. That's the word of faith problem.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: I've seen far too many Christians over the years who basically abandon the faith, at least for a while, when they find out that God actually hasn't made those promises. Because then they think either they don't have enough faith and what's the point, or God doesn't really love me and they walk away. I've seen it time and time again where people get caught up in this stuff and then of course, life hits and in this world you'll have tribulation. And they have no framework for that in their Christian life. And I've seen too many people give up on the faith, give up on Christ, because they've been following these things that Jesus never promised. So definitely a danger you want to warn your friend about for sure, because it's led more people than I can count astray over the years that I've seen. It's just very sad and tragic that people fall into it.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: I'm Thinking about. I'm thinking about Hebrews 11 and, and how it. It's kind of ramping up. I mean, whoops. This is this question of all those who have faith.
And, and it lists all these things that they do.
Gideon, Barak, Samson, JephThah, etc. And it says they subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness, were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women received dead, raised to life again. And the faith preachers stop there. They're like, that's what, that's what God has promised. That's what your life is going to be. But look at what Paul says, or the he sermon here in Hebrews.
Others tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others had a trial of mocking, scourging, of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two. They were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted and tormented. Can you imagine if, if someone who was destitute, afflicted and tormented went to the faith preacher and they said, well, your faith isn't strong enough. You're not being an overcomer. But look at what Paul says, of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains and dens and caves of the earth. These, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not retain the promise God having something better for us, that they should not be made promise, perfect apart from us in the New Testament.
So that sometimes this life is one of being raised from the dead and sending armies away, and other times it's a life of torture and affliction.
And this is just according to the Lord's will, who loves us and will give us just what we need.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: One of the best things I've seen that kind of puts all this in perspective, but while making fun of it is I'm sure you remember our brother in the ministry, Pastor Hans Feene's Lutheran satire video where he has the martyrs read Joel Osteen quotes and just how ridiculous they sound. Like, you look at the paintings and they read these quotes and they just sound so ridiculous, which is the whole point, right? Like you want to go to right now. We just prayed for in church history, you know, Christians in Rwanda and Nigeria who are suffering greatly. Like, if you put some of these quotes in their mouth and have these Christians who are suffering for the faith, like really suffering for the faith over there and being imprisoned and tortured and all these things, and you had them read these things.
It would be ridiculous. It'd be the height of absurdity. And yet we want to pretend like that Hebrews 11 just doesn't exist. That part isn't not there. Because apparently those guys didn't have enough faith. Right? Or even Jesus himself. You would have to, if you were consistent, you would have to say from their perspective, Jesus didn't have enough faith, otherwise he wouldn't have suffered on the cross.
Right. Which is blasphemous. On like every which way about it. It's blasphemous. And yet you would have to say that if you're going to hold to their teaching about the Christian life and about these things.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Amen. Do you know I'm actually in that video. I was the voice of St. Peter.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:55:41] Speaker A: And, and then Hans. Oh, he, he actually put me as an entry in the. What's that database of actors, like the.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: Oh yeah, IMDb, IMDb.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: He made an entry for me in the IMDb as a voice actor in his video.
So now I'm in that database. Now.
[00:55:59] Speaker B: I'm going to have to look that up as soon as we stop recording, which is in like the next two minutes because we just finished all of our questions.
[00:56:05] Speaker A: Thank you, Pastor Packer. Thanks everyone for your questions. Merry Christmas. Send in your questions and comments to Wolfmiler co contact. You can send your questions to that place and that'll line them up for us to do here on the Q and A podcast. As always, appreciate your questions, your engagement, it's really wonderful. Thanks, Pastor Packer. Hope you and your family have a marvelous celebration of Christmas and the Lord's incarnation. God's peace be with you.
