Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, good morning, podcast theologians. Pastor wolfmuller here of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, answering your questions.
[00:00:08] But first we'll see how many we can get through. The pile is up to 180 Wolffmuller Co contact, which is also where you can find links to Wednesday Whatnot, which you have to do.
[00:00:18] Yesterday's treasury of Daily Prayer had this little excerpt from Luther's on the freedom of the Christian.
[00:00:26] It's so good. It talks about how, how the union that we have with Christ is understood as husband and wife. We as Christians are part of the bride of Christ so that everything is ours belongs to him and everything that's his belongs to us. And he takes it into the great exchange. How our sin belongs to Jesus and his holiness belongs to us. Our death belongs to Jesus and his eternal life belongs to us. Our curse belongs to Jesus and his blessing belongs to us. It's absolutely glorious.
[00:00:58] We put that in the Wednesday whatnot for you to meditate on. So find that there. Subscribe to Wednesday whatnot. It's free. Don't pay for it. I mean, if you wanna, you can, but there's nothing special that comes from paying for it. So subscribe to that Wednesday whatnot over there. Here Douglas has a question about. Let's see, we've got questions about the crucifix, pastoral communion, judging fellow Christians, penal substitutionary atonement, Judgment day and Genesis and creation.
[00:01:28] Those are lined up for today. We'll see how far we get. Let's go. Douglas says, I know that these things are not idols, crucifixes and statues and altar processions of the dead Christ in and out of the sanctuary. I know these things are not idols, but congregations follow the dead Christ in and out with their body and their eyes. Doesn't at least border on worship.
[00:01:48] And the statues on the altar of Christ, I love them, but they're disturbing to my God fearing, lovely daughters of God, Pentecostal, Brazilian wife. How do we defend these things as not being in violation of no graven images, no eyes, idols. We have several paintings of our Lord in our home, mostly my office, which he has accepted.
[00:02:05] Let's nail this. You can do it.
[00:02:08] Thank you for the question. I think, you know, first of all, the prohibition of idols of making graven images has to be understood first of all in the context of the Old Testament where they were making lots of images, even where the Lord was commanding them to make images of created things and even angels.
[00:02:29] So there was in the temple itself carved angels, statue, angels on the Ark and embroidered angels on the tapestry so that there was images always involved in worship. The prohibition is making an image of God and of worshiping that image. Both of those things are prohibited in the Incarnation. And this is the argument of the Church. I think it's. It's pretty helpful. In the Incarnation, God himself makes an image.
[00:03:03] We were reading this passage from Philippians the other day, which is this.
[00:03:07] So you read it and you get goosebumps because of the marvel of it. It's almost unbelievable where Paul's quoting this hymn, let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reput, taking the form of a slave and coming in the likeness of men.
[00:03:38] So that man who's created in the beginning in the image and likeness of God loses that image and likeness. And now, for example, seth, Genesis, chapter 4, verse 1.
[00:03:48] Seth is conceived and born in the likeness of Adam.
[00:03:53] We're in the image of probably the devil, the image of death. We're by nature children of wrath. But the Lord is restoring in us the image of God by taking upon himself the likeness of man, so that now we don't have a likeness of God, we have a likeness of man, which is God in the flesh.
[00:04:17] So the Church has argued that when the Lord himself takes upon our likeness so that we can behold the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's almost required. I wouldn't say that you must do it, but that there will be pictures of Jesus.
[00:04:37] Once he has a face and a fingerprint, then we will know his face and we will have pictures of him that will teach us. Now, the prohibition of worship is still there. And I think it could be a temptation that if there's a statue or an image and that it's used in the devotion of the Church, that it could cross over into worship. And so we have to just protect our hearts. The Catholics all the time are talking about the difference between adoration and worship. And I think that distinction, while it might be helpful, probably doesn't hold up in practice, and we should do the same so that if there's a processional, I mean, I will do this very, very hesitantly with the processional of the cross in and out. And when we have a processional, we actually don't use a crucifix for the processional. We have a bear cross for the processional. And maybe that's helpful, even though we have a crucifix. Up front, that we are not giving our worship or affection to the image, to the statue, to the picture or painting.
[00:05:48] Our affection and our hearts belong only to God.
[00:05:52] Now, for this, we want to turn to Luther's against the Heavenly Prophets. I'm working on a paper for that that I'll present up at the ELS conference in Mankato on Reformation Day. That'll be a lot of fun on Luther's against the Heavenly Prophets. Beautiful essay. And he says, look, you can tear the statues out of the churches, but the problem is the idol is in the heart.
[00:06:15] So our hearts are to be directed to the Lord God and Him alone.
[00:06:22] And that can happen in the midst of all sorts of statues, and that cannot happen in an empty, bare room.
[00:06:31] So our goal is to make sure that.
[00:06:36] That the. That the. The worship of our heart, the affection of our heart, the direction of our heart is to the Lord and to nothing else. Hope that helps. Here's a question from DK Public. Don't use my name about pastoral communion.
[00:06:54] Our pastor takes communion last after the congregation is done. Is this adiaphora, or a break from sound Levitical practice, where the priest had his sins forgiven first before he would pass God's forgiveness onto the congregation? Maybe the better question is, is the benefit of communion received by the congregation if the pastor doesn't take communion first?
[00:07:11] Okay, so first of all, the order of the pastor taking communion is adiaphora. And while there might be wisdom from the Levitical priesthood from the Day of Atonement, it's also different on the daily sacrifices.
[00:07:27] And we want to make sure that this last question, the benefit of communion received by the congregation is bound up to nothing but the word, the words of the Lord Jesus, who says, this is my body, take and eat, this is my blood, take and drink for the forgiveness of all of your sins.
[00:07:47] So the benefit belongs only to those words and to nothing else, and not even just to the bare words themselves, but to the promise that the Lord Jesus puts in those words.
[00:08:00] So what the pastor does in his distributing is only to support the preaching of those words. I'll tell you that we do it. The old Reformation tradition is that the pastor would commune during the Agnes Day, and he would commune himself first, right after the words, and then he would distribute the Lord's body and blood to the Lord's people. But I do it different depending on what church I am so at. @ St. Paul in the morning, the hearing church, right after the words are spoken, I will commune myself and then give communion to the other pastor who's helping with the distribution. And then the ushers who are helping take communion, and then the congregation is brought forward for communion. But then on that same day, later in the afternoon at the deaf church, after the words of institution are signed, then the congregation is welcomed forward.
[00:08:53] I'll distribute with the other assistant or just myself to everyone there. And then when that's done, I'll commune myself. Or if there's an assistant, I'll commune him and he'll commune me.
[00:09:05] We do it last, I think, different practices for different circumstances to confess different things. So the pastor is a steward of the mysteries of God. And we could just as well apply the passage where Jesus talks about the the master and the servant who are working all day in the field, and then they come home and the servant serves the master first, and then he takes it last so that the pastors are the servants and stewards of the mysteries of God, so they serve first and then they receive it last. That also works as well. So I would say this is one of those 100% Adiaphora questions. It's a good one, though, and I appreciate it. Dk, thank you for that question. All right, we're going on. This is Liz judging. The topic is judging fellow Christians. Let's see how this goes. Judging a fellow Christian versus a known nonbeliever. In Matthew 7:1, aren't we told not to judge others? But in John 7:24, we're told to judge with a right judgment. In my Christian circle, whenever the question comes up, I get answers that vary. Is there a definitive answer that's biblically sound? How do we approach this delicate matter of judging? That doesn't come off as pharisaical. Thanks in your van advance. Your dedication to the Lord's work is a blessing to us all. Well, thank you. Thank you, Liz, for the question. Okay, two passages. Matthew 7.
[00:10:27] Jesus says, this is Sermon on the Mount. Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but don't consider the plank in your own?
[00:10:42] How can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look at the plank in your own eye, you hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye. Then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Now, even that passage probably gives us enough.
[00:10:59] That is what when Jesus says in John 7, don't judge according to appearance, outward appearance, judge with right judgment or righteous judgment, clear judgment with judgment that is enlightened by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:13] That's also what he's telling us in Matthew 7.
[00:11:16] The first prohibition in Matthew 7 is, don't condemn people.
[00:11:21] Our job is not to condemn. Now, even the closest we could get it would be excluding someone from the fellowship of the Lord's Supper, excommunication, handing them over to the devil. But even that is not making a judgment day proclamation that you are damned and condemned.
[00:11:38] It's saying that by all appearances, you are in danger of that by your unrepentance. But it is not our job to stand on the judgment day. That is the Lord's job. Judgment is given from the Father to the Son to the Lord Jesus.
[00:11:53] And if he makes us have a part of that, like Corinthians says, it will judge the angels wild we wait to receive that from Him. Our job is not to condemn people, and especially to come at people harshly with our own business, undealt with.
[00:12:14] So Jesus is talking about this hypocrisy that we have our own sins, our own failures, our own mistakes, our own sinful flesh, our own troubles, and yet we're going to go along and tell everybody else what they've done wrong. That's the Pharisaical use of the law, which is the foam finger use of the law. You know, those big foam. Foam fingers that, you know, we're number one. This is the business, you know, this is. The Pharisees have these big foam fingers, and now they're pointing out everybody else's sins and everybody else's faults, ignorant of their own.
[00:12:54] No, we have to know our own sin. And we have to see that our own sin is always bigger than other sins.
[00:13:07] Here's the way that this goes in the Christian conscience is that unfortunately our conscience can be very sensitized and delicate to other people's sins and very hardened to our own sins.
[00:13:25] So that I'm able, and I'm able to be aware of what other people are doing wrong, and I can't see it in myself.
[00:13:33] So Jesus is calling us to the very opposite of that, that we have a deep and profound sensitivity of our own sin and a readiness to repent and to call upon the Lord and to receive his mercy and his kindness and his love.
[00:13:50] This is what we need.
[00:13:52] And then from that posture of humility, from knowing that we ourselves are nothing except for the Lord's mercy and kindness to us, then we're able to go and help our neighbor in the midst of their own sin.
[00:14:09] Now, I think this passage, judge not lest you be judged, is probably the most famous Bible passage that most people know nowadays, especially outside the church, because it's used as a defensiveness for a troubled conscience. Because the world, the unbelieving world, sees the Christian church as just a kind of school marm, you know, kind of going around slapping people on the wrist for misbehaving.
[00:14:33] And we don't like it. We don't want our conscience to be activated over our sins, so we fight back against it and say, hey, who are you to judge? You're not the boss of me. Judge not, lest you be judged yourself.
[00:14:45] You're not supposed to condemn me, etc. Well, that's just wrong. The Christian is given the wisdom of the Word of God and the Ten Commandments so that we can make right judgments. But we don't use those to condemn people, to despise people, to cast people off, but to serve them.
[00:15:02] So our call is to love. Now, sometimes that love and that blessing looks like telling them that they're doing wrong before God and before their neighbor. Sometimes that love and blessing looks like. Looks like a preaching of the law. But. But it's not motivated by this. I caught you. I gotcha.
[00:15:19] It's motivated by deep love and concern for the person that we are making that judgment of.
[00:15:28] So I think that's helpful. There's the inside, outside thing as well. That comes up in First Corinthians 5. Here's an interesting thing. Paul had written to them or talked to the Corinthians about not associating with people who are sexually immoral.
[00:15:44] And so there was a sort of purity that was starting to happen in the church.
[00:15:49] And he says, now hold on. When I was talking about that, I was talking about those who claim to be Christian. If you were to avoid everybody who's sexually immoral in the world, you'd have to leave the world.
[00:15:58] But there's a stricter judgment that we use for people who are inside the church versus people who are outside the church. This is what it says. What do I have to do with judging those who are outside?
[00:16:07] But do you not judge those who are inside those who are outside? God judges, therefore, put away from yourself the evil person so that we're not in place to judge and condemn the world, but we are to hold our fellow Christians to a higher standard and say, hey, here's what the Lord asks of you in your life of despising your own sinfulness. You got to fight against that and put those sinful things away by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:34] Okay, I hope that is helpful. It's a great question.
[00:16:38] Great question, Liz.
[00:16:41] Thanks for sending it. Hope that's helpful. Okay, here's another one. Penal substitutionary atonement from Aaron, who asks, hello, do Lutherans hold a penal substitutionary atonement view of Christ's death on the cross?
[00:16:56] If not, what do Lutherans hold of Christ's death on the cross? Thank you for the time. The answer is yes, absolutely.
[00:17:01] Penal substitutionary atonement. This is the great dogmatician who I learned from, Francis Pieper. I mean he died a long time ago, but he wrote Christian Dogmatics, this beautiful three volume dogmatic set. If you can get your hands on that, I would commend it to every single one of you Piepers Dogmatics. And in there he holds that this is the doctrine that holds the Gospel together. And every error he says is an error leading away from the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ.
[00:17:31] The idea is that Jesus was in our place. That's the substitute that we had this legal requirement to suffer the wrath of God. That's the penal part. That because of our sin and our transgression, the Lord was rightly pouring out his anger and wrath on us. But Jesus is our substitute. He takes our place under the wrath of God.
[00:17:55] And the result is that the wrath of God is poured out on him and not us. And that's the doctrine of the atonement, that there's peace with God, that we are no longer under the curse or the condemnation of the law and the holiness of God because of the suffering of Jesus. And this is the heart of the Gospel.
[00:18:15] It's maybe most clearly articulated surprisingly in the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 53, where for verse 5, but the whole section talks about this. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes were healed.
[00:18:40] Romans 5, 8. God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, which came up maybe last week. This is so good. Oh no, this came up in the union with Christ stuff that Luther was talking about that I mentioned earlier in the freedom of the Christian.
[00:18:59] This is the very end of 2 Corinthians 5. It's an absolutely beautiful passage. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is the doctrine of the great exchange. He, the Father made him Jesus Christ, who knew no sin to be sin.
[00:19:18] Can you imagine? Christ becomes sin. He never committed a sin in anything that he thought or did or wanted or didn't do. He was perfectly obedient to the law of God and to the will of the Father in every way. He was a lamb without blemish, without spot. And yet he becomes sin. And the result is that we become his righteousness.
[00:19:47] First. Peter 2:24 who himself bore our sins.
[00:19:51] Our sins he bore in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by his stripes. You're healed. That's the Isaiah 53 passage quoted there by Peter.
[00:20:03] Amazing. Behold the Lamb. This is how John says, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
[00:20:12] This is what Jesus is doing for us.
[00:20:15] So good I bet you the first place to see this in the Book of Concord.
[00:20:22] Where did you go? Book of Concord is in small called two one. Whoops.
[00:20:30] Grabbed the wrong book.
[00:20:32] So Luther writes in small called articles. And the very first article in small called is on the Trinity. No problem. But then the second part he says the chief article. How about this?
[00:20:48] The first chief article is this.
[00:20:51] Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins, and was raised for our justification. Romans 4 He alone is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. First John or sorry. John 1:29 God has laid upon him the iniquities of us all. Isaiah 53:6.
[00:21:08] All have sinned and are justified freely without their own works or merits, by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in his blood.
[00:21:18] This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. It's clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us. As St. Paul says, we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
[00:21:35] Romans 3:28, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 3:26 Beautiful. Nothing in this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls. There's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Acts 4 By his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 upon this article, everything that we teach and practice depends in opposition to the Pope, the devil, and the whole world.
[00:22:00] Therefore we must be certain and not doubt this doctrine. Otherwise all is lost in the Pope, the devil and all adversaries win the victory and the right over us.
[00:22:10] Beautiful. Now, oh, there's maybe one more thing to say about this, because in the theological context, there is a old.
[00:22:18] There's an old theory of atonement question that comes up.
[00:22:23] So some of you who have been hanging around theology for a little while have heard this debate that there's three. Some guy, I can't remember some guy wrote a book or essay about the three theories of the atonement. You have the anselmic substitutionary atonement theory, and then you have the Christus victor theory that Christ beats down the devil and death and destroys him as a conquering hero. And then you have the exemplar theory that Christ is our example, he suffers with patience.
[00:22:52] And these three theories are sort of.
[00:22:56] You have to decide which of these theories you have to agree to. We say, well, first of all, Christ is our example, but that's not an atonement theory. That's just what he is.
[00:23:06] But is Christ the sacrifice or is Christ the victor? The answer is yes.
[00:23:11] And it's not just like he's both. Like, sometimes he's the sacrifice and sometimes the victor. He is the victor in his sacrifice. He triumphs over the devil in the suffering of the cross.
[00:23:23] They are the same thing.
[00:23:27] The substitutionary atonement and the Christus victor.
[00:23:30] It's not even just like Jesus is able to do both. It's the same phenomenon. When he forgives sins, he overthrows the devil. When he overthrows the devil, he opens the way to eternal life. When he opens the way to eternal life, he forgives sins. Just like these three things stand together.
[00:23:47] Sin, death, and the devil. They fall together.
[00:23:50] Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.
[00:23:53] And it's all there in the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross.
[00:23:59] I don't know, Aaron, if that's in the background too. But that's also something for us to think about. All right, good question. Kay says, let's see.
[00:24:07] KJ don't use my name as a confessing Lutheran. My sins are forgiven during weekly services. They are remembered no more. But then we're told that every thought, word and deed will be judged. What am I not understanding, as these ideas cannot both apply? Well, we remember that there's two doctrines in the Scripture. There is the law and there is the promises. And the law is there so that we can know ourselves and especially so that we can see the depth of our own sinful nature, so that we have the flesh clinging to us. And that flesh is always rebelling against God, rebelling against his word. Rebelling against everything that's good, that flesh is always fighting against the kindness of God, the promises of God, the goodness of God, et cetera, et cetera, so that the law is always showing us those things. But the gospel comes along not only with the forgiveness of all of our sins, that promise, but all of the results that come from that forgiveness. Which means, for example, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. That's Romans 1 or Hebrews 10. How about this? Their sins and their lawless deeds. I remember no more John 1:1, 1st John 1:1111, 1st John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness we have passed. I think my favorite passage on this is John chapter five.
[00:25:38] So that. Let me turn to it here. This is where Jesus is talking about the resurrection. He talks about the twofold resurrection, the resurrection of the righteous, the resurrection to death.
[00:25:50] The dead will hear the voice of the Son and live.
[00:25:54] Here's verse 24 John 5:24 Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and will not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life.
[00:26:15] Now I think that that is the passage that has to govern our thinking on the other passages like the one that you mentioned, probably from 2 Corinthians 5. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That each one will receive the things done in the body according to what he's done, whether good or bad. But we recognize that the judgment, which is always a judgment of works and why is an interesting thing. My, my idea is that this is what the flesh requires of God. Hey, you can't judge my faith, you have to judge my works. I'm a good person and the Lord says okay, but the result is exactly the same.
[00:26:50] But for us, all the sin that we commit is forgiven.
[00:26:58] All of our failures are forgotten by the Lord.
[00:27:01] So that the judgment day for us is not the day of condemnation, but the day of the day of redemption, day of joy and peace, hope. That's helpful. If you have follow up, let me know.
[00:27:15] Genesis and Creation Tristan says.
[00:27:18] I'm an LCMS Lutheran, but due to several reasons such as my interest in my education, I have a hard time accepting a literal six day creation over theistic evolution. So I have a couple questions. If death did not enter the world in any capacity until the fall, what was the point of the Tree of life.
[00:27:34] My understanding is that eating from it provided eternal life, but that would only be necessary if death was at least possible. Additionally, as a wildlife biologist, I know that many animals are designed to only be carnivorous. Teeth, digestive system, even family structure are all centered around being carnivorous. Because of this, if death and carnivory was part of the fall, did God fundamentally alter a large portion of creation or essentially recreate them to fit with the new world?
[00:28:04] Okay, I have. Where is it? I gotta pause recording. I have a list here. I'm gonna try to see if I can find.
[00:28:11] All right. I can't find my list of questions. There was a.
[00:28:15] I had a list like four or five questions that we wanted to bring to this question of Genesis chapter one to almost set the stage, I think.
[00:28:24] Let me see if I can recreate these questions. Question number one. And so these are prefatory questions. Tristan, before we get to to your specific questions, the first question, how does Genesis 1 ask to be treated?
[00:28:40] In other words, does the text present itself to us as a history or as poem or something more abstract than a true history?
[00:28:53] The second, and I think there, the text presents itself to us as a history. I think that, I mean, I think you could argue that no, it's liturgical and poetic, but I just don't.
[00:29:04] That argument has not convinced me. The second question, the follow up question is how does the rest of the Bible, including the prophets, the apostles, and most importantly Jesus, how do they read Genesis 1 and 2? Do they read it as history or do they read it as something else, as a sort of theological sketch of the beginning of things?
[00:29:30] The third question, and here's a very interesting one, am I willing to be thought a fool for believing what the Bible says?
[00:29:42] And this is important for everyone who's studying natural science, especially in biology with Genesis 1. But this is important for every single one of us in one place or another, because the Lord will arrange things such that there are people who you respect who think you are a fool for believing part of the Bible.
[00:30:08] I mean, maybe that doesn't exist in your life. Maybe for some reason that doesn't describe you. But I'll bet you for 95% of you, me and you and everyone that there is somebody in your life who thinks that you are foolish for believing. If they knew something that you believed from the Bible, if they knew it, they would say, oh, that's just foolish. That's your.
[00:30:31] So the question is, are you willing to be thought of as a fool?
[00:30:35] And I think that's actually maybe the most important part. Now, if someone comes to me and they say, no, no, Pastor, I'm willing to be thought of as a fool. That's not the problem. I actually am wrestling with the various pieces of evidence that are presented to me in the natural world and the text that's presented in Scripture, I think that's a different thing.
[00:30:57] But even there, we have to be very, very honest with ourselves, because there's a way that the devil can get to our conscience by his. Remember the snicker strategy, where he just sort of laughs at us.
[00:31:12] It's like you say something and the devil doesn't even respond with an argument. He just sort of snorts, laughs and mocks you, turns your glory into your shame and makes you ashamed of these things.
[00:31:24] And it's a strong argument. I mean, you gotta maybe think back to being in high school and the people that you wanted to earn their respect, if they were laughing at you for something, you showed up with the wrong T shirt or the wrong kind of shorts with a goofy haircut, and they all laughed at you. And that. That coercive power of that laughter, that's a profound thing. And I think that's how the devil really loves to treat us. With Genesis 1, we say, yeah, I think it's a young earth. I think it was six days. And you just sort of get a. And you don't want to be thought of as a fool. So I think those are the questions. Now, you make this point theologically, really well, that the Scriptures teach that death is the punishment of sin.
[00:32:12] The wages of sin is death. On the day that you eat of it, surely you will die. But you're pointing at two pieces of evidence to maybe soften that reality. The Tree of Life and the whole construct of carnivores. Regarding the Tree of Life, I think this is a great riddle because Adam and Eve.
[00:32:35] So we have to ask this question. Before the fall, was it possible for Adam and Eve to die?
[00:32:42] And we see it not only with the Tree of Life, but even just with the other fruit that Adam and Eve had to eat and had to drink in order to sustain their life.
[00:32:55] So we say, would it have been possible for Adam and Eve to starve? Well, yes, physically possible, but no, because God planted a garden and gave it to them so that everything that they needed for this body and life was provided for them. But could Adam and Eve have decided to go on a hunger strike and not eat from the fruit? Well, yes, but no, because they were not fallen so that the reason why death was not possible was not because Adam and Eve were like some sort of perpetual motion machine or like they were like nuclear submarines that would just sort of fuel themselves forever and ever. They still had to receive life from the outside.
[00:33:40] They still had to receive life as a gift from God who is providing for it in the fruit of the garden as well as in the tree of life.
[00:33:49] Wow.
[00:33:51] So this is an important understanding of our nature as created beings. That just because we live forever doesn't mean that we live forever apart from God, that we live forever by our own resources, or that our life is somehow inside of us rather than comes from the outside of us. The tree was necessary for Adam and Eve to live forever, but they were going to live forever because the Lord was providing for them the tree and the tree of life.
[00:34:17] So it's never apart from the gifts of God. This is why, even before the fall into sin, they were saved by pure grace and not by their own works, by the Lord's provision.
[00:34:29] Now to your question about the biological changes that come after the fall.
[00:34:36] I don't know. I just think that just like there were no thorns in the trees until after the fall, so the fall affects the sharpness of the plants.
[00:34:47] I think there might have been a parallel thing that happened also like with insects now all of a sudden mosquitoes have whatever the nose is that lets them suck the blood and that animals now have sharp teeth.
[00:35:01] That there's a, that there's a, there's a sharpness that's added into the biological realm that is probably there with the thorn of the rose and the, and the snout of the mosquito. What is that thing called the point? The, the, the, the, the, the, the stinger of the bee and the, and the, and the sharpness of the teeth of the carnivore, the tearing sharpness of the teeth.
[00:35:30] That does come after the fall.
[00:35:33] And it's an adjustment that, that happens there. It's probably even more extreme after the flood because remember that Adam and Eve and their children couldn't all the way up to Noah, that people were all vegetarians until after the flood. And then the Lord authorizes the eating of meat and flesh. It probably also has to do with the length of the ages of people, that before the flood there was this long extended lives, but afterwards there weren't. So I think there's a lot of things that were happening around there. I thought of my one last question. I think the question was, does text present itself as history? How does the rest of the Bible Including Jesus teach it, am I willing to be thought of as a fool? And I think the fourth question is a very specific one. What do I do with.
[00:36:16] With the seeds that God creates on day three?
[00:36:20] I don't wonder if the Lord puts seed, because it makes no sense to have a seed before you have the sun.
[00:36:26] Especially if we're trying to think of this in sort of cosmic terms and seeing the days as pictures of great ages.
[00:36:34] But you have this biological seed, which is granted not alive yet, but it's the seed that contains the life that's there. How could that be around before the sun and the moon and the stars are created? It just doesn't make sense. It's completely out of order. And I don't wonder if the Lord did that just on purpose. Like, hey, you know, today I'm going to create seeds just so you don't get the wrong idea about that. These are not real days. It's my thought also on the age of the earth thing, we have to remember that when Adam and Eve showed up that the rivers that were there were full of the water, or that they could see the stars, or that the trees had fruit hanging on them. I don't know how long. Like, I planted a pear tree in the backyard and it said that it's going to take. Not peach tree. Is it pears? Pear tree? I don't know. It hasn't had any fruit yet because the fruit is going to take like four years to happen. But the fruit was there. So if you just showed up on day eight and you were trying to guess how old Adam and Eve are, I don't know what you'd guess, but probably 24.
[00:37:34] And I don't know how old you'd think the trees are, but probably 50, 70 years old. And I don't know how old you'd think the rivers were, but probably hundreds or thousands of years old. And the mountains the same thousands or tens of thousands of years old, the rocks even older than that, the stars, the light even older than that. Everything would have had an apparent age according to its own dignity and its own lifespan.
[00:37:57] But it would only been like three days old. It's the same sort of picture. Like, if you were to show up at the wedding at Cana and you're drinking this wine, you're like, what vintage is this?
[00:38:06] Well, it was the vintage of like, 20 seconds ago.
[00:38:10] But you can't see it, because when the Lord is creating in this way, it carries along with it this apparent age according to its nature. So the only way you can know it is if you were there, which we weren't. That's why this question that the Lord has to job is so important. Were you there when I did these things?
[00:38:27] All right. I hope, Tristan, that's a helpful reflection on these questions. It's really great.
[00:38:34] All right. We did it. Judgment day.
[00:38:36] Creation, penal substitutionary atonement, pastoral communion, worshiping the crucifix, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Great questions, Team. God be praised. Hey, I'm going to be on the road for the next couple of weeks, so it might be a few weeks before the next one comes out. Although we'll see what we can do while we're traveling along, maybe give you an update.
[00:38:57] Wolfmuller co is where you can find all this stuff.
[00:39:01] Thanks for sending your questions.
[00:39:03] We'll see you and talk to you soon. God's peace be with you.
