Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, podcast theologians. Pastor Wolfmuller here. I'm looking at the lineup. We got questions about Old Testament Double Predestination Dreams, Perseverance Assurance titles. That's the. I haven't looked at them yet. That's the subtitles, though, so this looks great.
[00:00:14] Let's do it. Caleb asked question about the Old Testament. How much of the Old Testament should the average Christian read? When reading the New Testament, I often see how applicable it is to my life or the church, but rarely see that in the Old Testament. Please let me know. Thank you. The answer is, Caleb, all of it. We should be familiar with, with all of the Bible, front to back. We should know the Scriptures. And this is a lifelong project that the Lord has given us. Now, every single word of the Scriptures is inspired by God. And the words of the prophets, as well as the words of the apostles are our treasure. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. God be praised. That's Psalm 119, 105. And also we have all these promises in the New Testament that relate back to the Old Testament Scripture. So, for example, when Paul writes 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. He's especially talking about. Well, this is interesting. He's especially talking about the Old Testament. Although I think that second Timothy, the last of Paul's writing, is also including his own writing and also the Gospels. By that time, it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
[00:01:31] 4 which is the Epistle lesson in the historic lectionary for the second Sunday in Advent, it might be the third, what the Anglicans call Scripture Sunday. It's on this verse that the collect for the Word is based. Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. That's the same thing Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:11. Those things happened as examples.
[00:02:00] They were written for our admonition. So we have to know the Old Testament. Now, maybe two or three things about this. Number one, not all passages of the Bible are of equal importance. Now, this is sometimes shocking to hear, but when you think about it, it's just. It kind of washes out that way.
[00:02:24] There's some passages that are highlighted, some passages that are underlined, and the text itself will do this for us.
[00:02:31] So when the Lord himself decides to write ten commandments and put it in stone, we're going to highlight those 10 Commandments and say, we better know these texts, we better know this. Or when the Old Testament, sorry, when the New Testament quotes an Old Testament passage, then we go back and say, ah, very important. So for example, the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew will quote seven Old Testament promises of the coming Messiah. We go back and we note those of extreme importance, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53, etc. Etc.
[00:03:03] Some of the passages would have been very important if you were, for example, a priest. And those passages from Leviticus and the end of Exodus are giving you instructions for the worship under the Old Covenant. For us, we read them a little bit differently, especially because we are under the New Testament. And so those Old Testament Old Covenant laws which pointed to Christ have been fulfilled and they're no longer in effect. They were completed or brought to their, to their fullness by Christ. But still we read them to understand even more clearly what the Lord was up to.
[00:03:41] It's also when we get to these kind of like chronology or the genealogy, that's the word I'm looking for. When we get to these genealogies and its name after name after name, we think, whoa, what is going on here? But we can reflect on those also for spiritual benefit. Every single one of those people listed there died or like Enoch was taken up into heaven, but all of them died. Okay, so it's a list, it's a funeral list, but it's also a list a lot of times of those that the Lord chose to bring about his promise of the coming Messiah. So it's not by accident that Matthew and Luke begin their gospels, or at least have there right at the beginning of their Gospels, these genealogies that remind us of the first part of Chronicles, for example.
[00:04:27] So it harkens back to this because the Lord is working in history.
[00:04:32] So that's another thing to note, maybe the last thing is to recognize that Christ is also present in the Old Testament. He's there by picture, promise and presence. He's promised by all the Old Testament prophecies. He is present like he's there talking to Abraham, talking to Joshua, and he's pictured in the Passover lamb in the day of atonement, in Isaac's, in the ram that's caught in the bushes that rescues Isaac. It's great.
[00:05:02] So when we read the Old Testament, we see Christ.
[00:05:05] There's three passages on that to look in John, chapter 5, when Jesus says to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures thinking that in them they have life, not recognizing that they testify of me.
[00:05:15] And in Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, when Jesus says to the disciples, he started from Moses and went through all the prophets, teaching them that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer before he entered into glory.
[00:05:26] And then in Acts, chapter 10, Peter's preaching, and he says, all the prophets proclaim the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.
[00:05:33] Those are from my memory, so I might have missed a word or two. But those John 5, Luke 24 and Acts 10 tell us that the Old Testament is about the forgiveness of sins through the preaching of the name, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:05:47] So that enlivens our reading. The Old Testament takes the veil off. It's great.
[00:05:52] All right, thanks for the question. Next question comes from Nicholas, who says, dear Pastor Wolfmuller, I'm an unapologetically confessional Lutheran. Right on. I work in an environment in which I regularly host Bible studies that include almost exclusively other denominations. Interesting.
[00:06:10] I don't usually engage in directly confrontational conversations about heterodox doctrine. However, I find myself compelled, when confronted with double predestination to dismantle this most insidious heresy. Am I in error when I tell Calvinists that five point Calvinism is an unrelenting assault on the peace of God which he intends for all Christians? You are not wrong.
[00:06:32] That is their corpus doctrina.
[00:06:36] Oh, sorry. And then furthermore, that their corpus doctrinae is the literal work of the devil.
[00:06:42] Nicholas, that might be going a little far, although, I mean, it depends on. I was just reading Luther against the heavenly prophets, and so my rhetoric is kind of ratched up.
[00:06:53] But the goal, remember, of arguing with people about theology is not just to win the argument so that everyone sees you're right, but also to win the person. Now, it's not always possible. It's not always possible. But we're trying to.
[00:07:06] We are trying to articulate our theology and our doctrine so clearly from the Scriptures that it makes a compelling case. So it's sometimes difficult because especially when you're talking with Calvinists.
[00:07:22] It's one of the marks of the Calvinist. And it. And it's also one of the marks of kind of a new Lutheran is that you, you go to the Scriptures and we're trained by American evangelicalism to come to the Scripture and say, what does this tell me to do today? In other words, in kind of general American Christianity, we have a moralistic reading of the Bible, but then we start to study theology and our reading of the Scripture becomes a little bit different.
[00:07:50] And now we're asking the question what does this tell me about what's true about me, about God? We're reading the Bible theologically and that's great.
[00:07:58] But the danger of switching from that moral reading of the Bible to the theological reading of the Bible is that we see the telos. The end of it is kind of winning the argument. I can tell Nicholas from your email that that's not how you're normally doing it. But the Calvinists and their double predestination tempt you. I understand the temptation because we want to remember that the third question that we bring to the Scriptures, not just what should I do today and not also what is true about me and God, but third, how does this deliver comfort?
[00:08:32] That's that revelation. Sorry, that's that Romans 15:4 passage that we had before. Through the comfort of the Holy Scriptures we might have hope.
[00:08:41] How does the Scripture give us hope?
[00:08:43] And this is what the doctrine of double predestination, that the election to damnation that the Calvinists have, that God is chosen, some to be saved and others not in sort of a before time military muster.
[00:08:57] It destroys Christian confidence, it destroys the assurance of salvation. It really undercuts the preaching of the Gospel.
[00:09:05] This all comes back to a little line in John Calvin where Calvin said that there are two kinds of calling.
[00:09:15] I'm going to look that up and read it. I think this is an important passage. I'm in the institutes, chapter 24, section 8 or what book? Book?
[00:09:28] Oh boy, how do we do this? Chapter 24. What book? I don't know what book. Anyway, chapter 24, paragraph 8, it says this, the expression of our Savior. Many are called, but few are chosen. Matthew 22 is very improperly interpreted.
[00:09:45] There will be no ambiguity in it if we attend to what our formal remarks ought to have made clear visibly that there are two species of calling.
[00:09:57] For there is an universal call by which God, through the external preaching of the Word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death and the ground of a severer condemnation.
[00:10:12] Besides this, there is a special call which for the most part God bestows on believers only when by the internal illumination of the Spirit, he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts.
[00:10:24] Sometimes this is an aside, but kind of a frightful aside. Sometimes, however, he communicates it also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterwards, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness that idea of enlightening some for a time and then punishing them so that their punishment is worse is a really unique thing. And I think it goes against perseverance of the saints. But no matter here, this distinction that John Calvin makes is really the fountain of error of all Reformed theology, is this distinction between the two calls. So the one call is the universal call. That's the external preaching of the Word that goes to all people and is declaring the forgiveness of sins to all the world.
[00:11:09] But Calvin says that's not the effective call. The effective call is the special call which God bestows on believers by the internal illumination of the Spirit, so that that internal call is what saves, what confers faith. It's where the Spirit works, what that means. And this is the Lutheran response to this doctrine, which you can see in the formula of Concord Article 11.
[00:11:37] If we take this two distinct kinds of callings, if we separate the external call from the working of the Holy Spirit, if we make that separation, or even if we make that distinction, if we make that separation, then we make the preaching of the Gospel into a lie.
[00:11:53] So that the only way that you know that the forgiveness of sins is accomplished is by the internal working of the Holy Spirit, not by the external call, which sounds like the work of the devil. But, but, but maybe we don't say that right out of the box.
[00:12:08] Nicholas, great question. Cyrus has a question about dreams. Let's pull this guy up here. He says, please consider discussing personal dreams in general in light of scriptural examples and doctrine. In other words, how are we to understand our own REM states or being rooted in the flash, fallen nature? Ought we just ignore these literal brain flushes according to neurological researches and simply disregard them as we would passing gas? I'm editing here to borrow a Lutheran analogy. So how do we think of our dreams? First of all, we recognize in this. Thank you, Cyrus, for the question. We recognize that the Lord can speak through dreams, but that not every dream ought to be thought of as from the Lord or as a message from God. And we see this even in the Scriptures. I mean, there are some dreams that are more important than others. Some dreams where the Lord is trying to communicate to his people and others where he's not. Now, here's an interesting thing.
[00:13:16] There's instructions from Luther on how to know if a dream is from God or not.
[00:13:22] And there's also some very interesting instructions or kind of revelations from Luther where he talks about how he made a vow with God never to receive a special dream or vision or word from the Lord.
[00:13:36] Now this is all in his Genesis Commentary. And we're going through all this stuff in the Worldwide Bible Class. So if this Q and A podcast is not enough for you, in fact, I would commend the Worldwide Bible Class to you as a better podcast than this one because it's got so much more Luther in it. And working through Luther's Genesis Commentary is pretty amazing. But he said, I made a vow with the Lord not to get a dream or a vision. Why? Two reasons. One is because he saw so many bad things happening from the various different dreams and visions that people were claiming to get. I mentioned before that I just read against the heavenly prophets. This is what Carlstadt argued, that he had a dream from God, that he had a spiritual insight into the meaning of the text, and therefore it couldn't be the body and the blood. Blood. The Lutherans found that the false doctrine of Purgatory went back to all these dreams and visions and ghost stories, even from the ancient church, even from St. Augustine, and that these dreams and visions can lead to all sorts of false and dangerous doctrine. The second reason that Luther doesn't want to have a dream or a vision is because he just wants to teach and trust the Scripture.
[00:14:47] And this is twofold. He wants to do it for others and for himself.
[00:14:52] In other words, he doesn't want to look to the dream or the vision. He doesn't want to lean on that. He realizes that it's a broken reed, that it doesn't hold up, that the Scripture and Scripture alone is what buoys and boisters our faith. And also as his teaching, that he doesn't want to bring anything to anybody that would, that would not have the confidence and the assurance that the Lord's Word has.
[00:15:20] So he made this vow, Lord, don't give me any dreams, don't give me any visions. Let me just teach the Word. And this has to do with how we think of the Word. If you go to the last episode of this podcast, this whatnot podcast, you'll hear some instructions from me on how to deal with it. If the Lord gives you a message, if he gives you a dream, if he gives you a word, if he gives you something, how to think about it. And mostly the main point there is we put it under the Scriptures so that if our dream or vision or whatever contradicts the Scripture, out it goes. If it confirms the Scripture, out it goes. We have the Bible, we don't need it. If it's kind of neutral in comparison to the Scripture, then we still let it sit under the Scripture as a matter of Christian wisdom.
[00:16:03] And that's part of the spiritual discipline and the spiritual wisdom that the Lord is going to give to us, that even when the dream comes, that he's holding us accountable to his word.
[00:16:14] Now, I'm going to look for this instruction from Luther on how to know if a dream is a dream. And then I probably should say something about neuroscience. So you got to give me.
[00:16:23] I always want, hey, give me a break so I can look for it. But I just pause the recording and find it and come back, and it's no break for you guys. It's instantaneous.
[00:16:32] I don't need to tell you to be patient with me because there's no patience at all. Okay, I found it. Thanks for your patience.
[00:16:37] Okay, so this is Luther's Works, Volume 6, page 333. And he's talking about there are two infallible signs of certain dreams. So how do we know if a dream is from God? And he goes on to say, when God, who implants the dream in the mind at the same time, adds an interpretation and an execution.
[00:16:56] And in the third place, the dreams strongly influence the dreamer. They make a very keen impression. So first, does the dream really impact you? Normally, when you have a dream and you wake up, oh, you forget it, or you, oh, there goes. But if it's a dream, deeply impactful, you're stirred, you're shaken, then you're going to consider that dreams. And then the question is, has God given an interpretation of the dream, and then does he execute the dream? And this is the way that we know it's from God. And the point is, you can't know it's from God until afterwards.
[00:17:29] So the dreams, even if it's a dream that's given from God, it's not directive because you can't know that it comes from God until it. Till the thing itself is fulfilled.
[00:17:43] Okay, now, what do we think about all this other. I mean, the fact that we dream about all these things we know, and this is ancient Christian tradition, that we're praying that the Lord would protect us in the night so that the devil doesn't affect our dreams, that he tosses stuff into our dreams and imaginations so that even we can sin in our dreams by greed or by lust or by violence or whatever that we do or it's done to us, so that the devil can even affect our conscience by troubling our dreams. That's why one of the best prayers to pray before bed is Psalm 4, I'll lay down and sleep in peace for you alone. O Lord, make me dwell in safety. The evening prayer. Let the evil foe have no power over me.
[00:18:30] So we pray this. We also know that the mind itself is processing through dreams. And I guess the neuroscientists are starting to figure out that the dreams are when we sort of clean off the desk. You know, you're working all day and everything gets to be a mess. And then at night when you're dreaming, it kind of sorts itself out. And that we even have some control over this. Now, this is not from the Bible. This is just from my own thinking about these things. But it was really helpful for me. I used to not sleep that much just because there's a lot to do.
[00:19:03] And then when I got Covid back five years ago, I had to sleep all the time. And it kind of drove me crazy because I thought, man, I got to sleep eight hours, seven hours. It's like wasting all this time. Then I realized that I was actually working also when I'm sleeping.
[00:19:17] And it's kind of nice now that I say, okay, time to. Because, I mean, I love to work, to do all this theology stuff, but I get to do it also when I'm sleeping. And it's really helpful to have a problem or a thought or an idea or especially a scripture when I'm thinking about teaching something or thinking about preaching something or how to put something together that I kind of meditate on that when I'm going to bed. And then your brain kind of cranks on it, so that oftentimes there's clarity what to do in the morning.
[00:19:49] So we thank the Lord for that, that he's given us that ability and that capacity. It's great, and I commend that to you.
[00:19:56] It's really good.
[00:19:58] Here's a question on perseverance or assurance. Dylan says, I'd like to know your interpretation of John 10:28, specifically, what it means that the believer will never perish.
[00:20:12] Can you have assurance, as a Lutheran that you will never perish, fall away from the faith? I can imagine you would say maybe I'm wrong, that as long as we remain in faith, keep coming to Jesus, we will never perish.
[00:20:24] But I don't know how that fits with Jesus words. Because the promise he makes gives us comfort in the present, not only about our standing now, but the future, Jesus says, will never perish.
[00:20:37] How can I have present assurance about my future salvation if in fact Christ might, to put it plainly, let me walk away in unbelief? Does the good shepherd not guard the sheep?
[00:20:50] John 10:27 28 from Apostasy. Appreciate your ministry. I've been blessed by your videos for several years now. Well, thank you. Here's the text. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
[00:21:10] I think this is a beautiful promise and we just take it exactly as Jesus says it. And it's confirmed by other passages. Romans 8 I'm persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[00:21:35] These are the promises that the Lord gives. Though all that you've given to me, I've lost none, Jesus says, except for the Son of perdition.
[00:21:43] We're kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1 he who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23 and maybe that last verse is the key. Because the Bible wants us, dear sheep of the Lord, to know that we are safe in his keeping, that we belong to him and there's nothing that can take us away from Him.
[00:22:18] That promise is believed by faith. And this is the point, that the people who believe the promise have the promise. The people who don't believe it don't.
[00:22:28] So the Bible also warns us about falling away, about despising the Lord, about, I suppose, leaping out of his hand. It's a horrible idea, and we can't even imagine that. But it is the Holy Spirit who constantly keeps us trusting in the Lord.
[00:22:49] Now how can this be? How can it be that we have this absolute assurance that the Lord has us now and he'll have us all the way to the end, that the one who began this good work will complete it.
[00:22:59] And at the same time the Bible comes and warns us that it is possible to despise the Lord's gifts, to forsake his promises, and to fall away from the faith.
[00:23:14] The clearest verse on this, by the way, is from the Parable of the Sower, where Jesus talks about that seed that falls on the rocks and it grows up quickly and, and then the sun comes out and it doesn't have roots, so it withers and dies. And Jesus explains it, says these are those who, having heard the Word, receive it with joy and grow quickly. But they have no roots. And when persecution arises, they fall away.
[00:23:38] So Jesus talks about the reality of this and the danger of it. The reason he tells us about the danger is so that it won't happen.
[00:23:48] But the fact that it could happen is given to us to strengthen our confidence that it won't. Because the Lord is working now that when you say now, hold on, Pastor, that makes no sense. In some ways, I'll concede it makes no sense because our reason cannot sort this particular question out. It's the question of election. It's the question of why some are saved and not others.
[00:24:19] It's the question of law and gospel.
[00:24:22] It's the question of confidence.
[00:24:25] It's the question of how the Lord wants us to have the assurance of faith but not the assurance of pride.
[00:24:31] So that the Lord gives us these warnings of falling away. So that I don't take this assurance as a way to.
[00:24:42] To test the Lord, to say, well, I belong to Jesus, so I'll do whatever I want and I can't fall away. It's impossible. No, it's the exact opposite.
[00:24:50] So that the Lord keeps us by keeping us repentant, by keeping us humble, knowing our own sin, and by keeping us faithful, trusting in his promise.
[00:25:05] And that is as close as I can get to answering the question.
[00:25:08] If I step any closer, then I'll step over the edge. So I hope you'll let me stop there.
[00:25:15] One more question. This comes from BK Public. Don't use my name, he says titles. Why is the Son of God called the Son of Man?
[00:25:27] Well, this is a great question. Jesus loves to call himself the Son of Man.
[00:25:33] The Scriptures always call Jesus the Son of God. Here he calls him the Son of Man. I think there's probably two things that we need to think about here. One is that Jesus, who is the eternal, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance of the Father for us men and for our salvation, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
[00:26:03] So the eternal Son of God makes himself the temporal Son of Man. Well, also eternal. It goes on forever and ever. But it happened on a particular day so that God now has blood and body and flesh and a mom and a birthday and a grave and all this kind of other amazing stuff.
[00:26:20] So that that title Son of Man, Jesus uses to claim our humanity by his incarnation.
[00:26:28] The second meaning of that title, the Son of Man, I think. And you see that in the Old Testament also under Ezekiel, when the Lord addresses Ezekiel, he calls him over and over, Son of Man, Son of Man. And that's the pointing to the hump. It's a humbling title.
[00:26:45] There's also a second thing that happens, and this is especially in Daniel, the Son of man is a technical term, especially if you look in Daniel chapter seven for the Son of God. So here's Daniel, chapter seven, verse 13 to 14. I was watching in the night vision and behold one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, the Father, and they brought him near before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.
[00:27:15] His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. His kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed.
[00:27:22] So Jesus is the Son of Man, promised, who will come to the Father and inherit the world. This is why when Jesus uses that title, Son of Man, before the Pharisees, you'll see the Son of Man come in glory. They tear their robes and say he's blasphemed. He doesn't need to say anything else because he refers to this title of this character from Daniel, chapter seven.
[00:27:45] So I think these are the two important things to say, but I think there's probably more to say.
[00:27:51] But these are the two important things that we want to say about the title that Jesus takes. Son of Man, Son of God and Son of Man. It comes up in our hymns. Beautiful Savior. There's a couple other hymns. Son of God and Son of Man. He's true God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, who is my Lord.
[00:28:13] God be praised for that. Great question, bk. All right, if you have questions, you can send them in. Wolfmiler Co contact. We're down to 158 here in the inbox. We cleared away a few today, so pretty cool.
[00:28:28] Some great questions coming up, but send them in, keep them coming.
[00:28:32] Feedback on the podcast is really great if you are a young adult 18 to 35. We got a conference coming up October 3 to 5 at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas. Hit the event button on my website, Wolfmuller co.
[00:28:43] You will see that there.
[00:28:46] Working on a couple of essays that should be bouncing around there. We finished up the race debate, so I'm gonna put up those final statements on that for the website as well. So keep an eye out for that thanks for being part of the fun. God's peace be with you.
