Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Pastor Brian Wolfmulley here, pastor of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas with Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you and that is that your favorite part of these podcasts is the rumors about you.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I delight every time to see what you're going to say.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: That was very meta.
We are answering your questions, which you can send to us. Wolfmuller co contact. That's the website, I think. Right. And you can send those questions there and they line up for Pastor Packer and I to answer up to. Let's see. Oh, the list grew a little bit. Or at 174. We'll get your question right away.
Can you. I feel like, you know, like the short order cook and the diner and all the, all the orders are piling up. That's all right.
We'll get to it. We got time. Send in your questions.
We take them in order. Ish. What do you got for us, Pastor Packer?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: First one's on the temptation of Eve.
The question is, when Adam is said to be with Eve at the temptation, does the Hebrew imply or require proximity?
Much is made of Adam being passive during the temptation and not fulfilling his headship role. Is this an inference or does the language require Adam's proximity? The English with the English would not require proximity.
The English word with I can be with someone in my house without being within earshot.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: I don't know. I mean, this is a technical question of the Hebrew. My answer is I don't think so. I do not think that the Hebrew is any more certain than the English there, but I'm confessing my ignorance of that. Do you know, Pastor Packer, I don't.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Think it necessarily requires it, but I think the text, he says, making an inference from the text. I think the text is pretty clear even in the way they're addressed. Like who. Who bears the blame for this is Adam?
It does. The picture painted does seem to be that Adam is there almost waiting to see what happens to Eve.
And then Eve eats and she doesn't die right away. And so then he eats and the Bible says she was deceived.
I always think that's interesting too, right. Because a lot of people, we look at their responses and we almost make it sound like Eve gives as bad responses Adam. But it's not true though, because Eve says, I was deceived and I ate. And Paul will later say the same thing, that Eve was deceived. So she very clearly was deceived. But Adam was not deceived. He did it full on knowing what he was doing in rebellion against God, which is why he takes the blame for it throughout the Bible.
So I think you have lots of evidence throughout the Bible that Adam is seen as the one responsible for all of this. And so being with her proximity wise makes a lot of sense.
He didn't step up and do what he should have done. Instead, he almost kind of used her as a guinea pig.
Wait, it reads to me like, hey, let's see what happens to her. Oh, she didn't die. I guess I can do this too. But he did it full well knowing what he was doing. Whereas evil Eve was, as she said, actually deceived by the serpent, by Satan.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: There's a lot of really important things to meditate on in this text, and one of them, you mentioned already that the scriptures all the way through, front to back, blame the fall on Adam. We don't say all mankind fell in Eve's fall. All mankind fell in Adam's fall. Death came through Adam. And we see it also, even in the temptation itself, that it's when Adam eats that their eyes are open, not when Eve eats.
And this has to do with Paul mentions it when he's talking about women not being pastors. And Eve was tempted first, she was deceived, but Adam was not. He knew what he was doing.
That difference there, the way that Adam and Eve were engaged with the arguments of the devil, that. That's a really important thing for us to think about as well, that, that Adam had headship over all of creation, including Eve.
So he had a duty there that was being neglected one way or another. I suppose if he was there, he was neglecting it by being passive. If he was in the next room, he was neglecting it by being passive. I mean, either way, you know, there's still some neglect that's happening via Adam. But Luther, when he's reflecting on this, it's really interesting, is that Adam and Eve, part of their temptability was their innocence, their supreme innocence. They couldn't. There's no way for them to imagine death. I mean, they, you know, what, what is it? But that's maybe the whole point of the tree is that they were supposed to go to that tree and believe what God said about it, that on the day that you eat of it, dying, you'll die.
They're to believe that promise of God and not die. They were supposed to have death by faith, not by sight.
So their worship was the worship of faith, trusting the word of the promise. And the devil undoes that.
The way the devil undoes it is also very interesting. Pastor Packer, I was thinking about.
I think I read the temptation wrong for years and years because there's this little phrase in there that I always skipped over, almost like it wasn't even there when the devil's talking.
And so it's Genesis 3, and the devil says, this is verse 4. The serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.
For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And the phrase that I missed for so many years was, for God knows that on the day you eat of it. And I think that's so important because we think the devil was mostly interested in what Adam and Eve thought about the fruit. Was it going to kill him or not? But actually the devil's most interested in what Adam and Eve think about God, or maybe even more what Adam and Eve think about what God thinks about them.
You see? So the root of this temptation is for Adam and Eve to think that God doesn't want what's right or best for them. Rather, his commands are motivated by his own self interest rather than love. For Adam and Eve, God knows that you won't die.
So the devil impugns the motives of God in giving that restriction. And that's where that real sort of poison of unbelief comes in there is that we also are tempted to doubt that God, with his commands, actually intends the best for us.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: And I think there's often confusion about the knowing good and evil, because throughout the Bible, that phrase is used for wisdom, right? Solomon is praised because he asked to know the difference between good and evil, meaning to be a wise king and ruler and judge, which is what God was telling them to wait on. They weren't ready yet to rule and reign fully the way God intended them to.
There's a testing period, maturity period. And they tried to grab hold of that and get it out of order. Because Satan's temptation, hey, you can be better than you are. And God knows that.
But God had said, hey, you gotta wait on this. This isn't time for you yet. And if you look at David, David was tempted with the same thing on multiple occasions, right? With Saul, are you gonna wait on the Lord's timing for you to become king and to be given what God promised you, or are you gonna take matters into your own hands?
Right? Several times his men encourage him, hey, here's your chance. Take him out now. And David says, I can't do that. He's Lord's anointed. I won't touch him. Like, God knows when I'm supposed to be king, what the timing is. And so you see David being the opposite of Adam there. He waits for God's timing till God raises him up and puts him where he's supposed to be, whereas Adam rushed headlong into it. And we know how that worked out for the rest of us.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Can you imagine if David was a Pentecostal, by the way?
I mean, how more clearly could you have gotten a sign from the Lord? I mean, here's Saul. You're hiding in a cave, and Saul comes to go to the bathroom right in front of you, and you're like. Or the Lord puts all the men to sleep so that you can sneak in and grab the jar, the jug that's by his head.
It's a sign from the Lord. And David just didn't believe in the signs. He believed the Word. It's amazing.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's a theme throughout. I mean, going back to the garden writes a theme throughout the Bible. Those who trust the word trust the word of promise and those who don't. Right? That's the way the battle lines are drawn up throughout the Bible. Do you trust what God actually said and gave to you? Or are you going to try to take matters into your own hands and do it your way?
[00:08:53] Speaker A: How about this? The Psalm of the humiliation of Jesus. Psalm from Philippians 2 as the anti garden of Eden temptation. So it says, who did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but made himself of low estate so that Jesus didn't reach out and grasp likeness of God. In fact, in that text even. Look, I say it and I get the goosebumps on my hand just looking at that Philippians 2 text. It says that he came in the likeness of man so that God first creates Adam and even his own likeness. And we blow it. We take the likeness of Adam, the likeness of death, but then Jesus comes in our. He makes himself into our likeness.
It's amazing. So that he can rescue us anyway. Good question. I don't think we answered it, but it was a good chance to talk about the fall, the temptation. There's a lot there.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: I think we are close enough. All right, the next question.
What does Scripture mean that God passed over sins?
In the Old Testament, that'd be Romans 3:25, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness.
Because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.
So how do you understand that God passed over sins that were previously committed?
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this falls under the general rubric of the Lord's patience.
So the Lord is not, and we see this all the way through the Scriptures, is that the Lord will make the verdict.
You're guilty, in fact, it seems, and on a people, on a person, on a city, on a. Whatever, you're guilty.
But then he'll wait and wait and wait and wait to execute his judgment.
So this is true for Egypt, it's true for Babylon, it's true for the flood of Noah, it's true for the Jerusalem, it's true for the Northern kingdom. So the Lord will. He'll. He'll make a verdict and then he'll announce the verdict through the prophets. Hey, judgment's on the way. But that judgment is often delayed. And this is what, this is what we're in that time of patience now also. I mean, Peter says it, God is not slow about keeping his promises. Some count slackness, slowness, but is longsuffering, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
So the Old Testament is a demonstration of God's mercy. Now it's, you know, to take this theologically, the text from Romans 3, you know, the danger would be like, well, God doesn't judge people for unbelief until the New Testament. I just don't think that that interpretation holds up because we see God's judgment being exercised on his people and on his not people, on the pagan people, all the way through the Old Testament as well.
So I think it's just an expression of the time of God's patience. And you see it also when Paul preaches in Acts too, right. The Lord overlooked the sins of old. In other words, his interest is not in judgment and justice, but in mercy. And so that interest in mercy is driving his management even of all of history, so that as many as possible come to the Lord's gift of salvation.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: I think that's a part people often miss of the Old Testament, right. They kind of paint the Old Testament as like God's just really angry and punishing people all the time. But if you look at how long it took Noah to build the ark, and while he's building it, the New Testament tells us he was preaching to the people.
Even the ark itself was a pretty large sermon illustration. Right?
Then you've got the Israelites are in captivity for 400 years to give the people of Canaan, time to repent, like, down.
The amount of time is just kind of staggering to us. Like, if you really lay it all out, like, how much time God gave these nations before punishing them?
Like a hundred years, 400 years. All these times, even for the Israelites themselves, God just kept giving them more time, more time. And all we look at is the destruction at the end, and we miss how patient he was with them. Or I'm teaching on numbers, as I mentioned in the last video, and just kind of Moses, the way he intercedes for the people.
Like, you know, God tells Moses, hey, I'm going to wipe them out. But from the context, it's pretty clear God tells Moses that, so that Moses will intercede for the people.
Like, he wants Moses to do what God's placed him there to do, which is to intercede for the people.
Or look at Jonah, right? With Nineveh, Jonah doesn't want to go because he says, I knew you'd be merciful. I knew you'd forgive them. And I didn't want them to be forgiven because they were bloodthirsty, awful people. I didn't want them to be saved. I knew you would do this. That's why I fled.
And so you have this theme throughout the Bible, that even in the Old Testament, God is gracious, he is merciful, he is loving and kind and desires sinners to repent.
Like, that's. That's the whole thing. And that's, like you said, that's all he's saying in that verse, is that until, even. Even before Christ came, that God was patient towards sinners.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Right? This is I. This is the Jeremiah 18, passage of the. When the Lord says to Jeremiah, go down to the potter's house. And he's. And he. So. So he's all right. So he's watching the potter, the potter's making something, you know, I don't know, like an ashtray. That's all I know. Did you make an ashtray out of clay when you were a kid? It's like, how is that. Like the kindergarten craft is to make an ashtray.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Here, I remember making an ashtray.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: But anyway, that's what I think the potter was. He was making. He was making an ashtray or whatever, and then he changes and he makes a cup or something, you know, I don't know, bowl or pot. And he. So he's making something and there's some sort of something in the clay that means he needs to sort of readjust and make something different. And Then the Lord says, okay, got it. You got the picture, Jeremiah. Now I'm going to tell you what it means.
When I preach law and destruction and the people repent, then I change what I'm making and I don't bring destruction. I bring blessing.
When I preach blessing and the people don't repent, they just go on doing what they're doing. Then I change what I'm making and I bring about destruction.
So, okay, now you got that.
And this is maybe this point exactly for us. Everything depends on repentance.
And the reason why the Lord promises to destroy and to bring judgment is so that he won't have to do it, so that we would repent and escape that judgment. So, okay, Jeremiah, you got it. If I preach repentance, if I preach destruction, it's not so that there will be destruction, it's to actually avoid destruction.
So now go tell Jerusalem, I'm going to destroy you.
So change it. We repent and so that you can avoid the promised punishment. So the Lord makes this verdict, especially the verdict of judgment, for the purpose of people avoiding that judgment.
And this is his long suffering mercy all the way through the Scriptures, all the New Testament, both.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: All right, let's go to the next one.
For the souls that are condemned to hell, when they die, does eternal torment and punishment begin only at the last day?
What happens to souls in hell before the last day or during the interim?
Note? I was reading about this in the Lutheran Confessions and it sparked this question.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: You know, the Lutheran Confessions, I think, Pastor Packer, that whenever they mention hell, it's not actually talking about the eternal state of the condemned, but it's talking about the torment of the bad conscience in this life.
In other words, whenever they use it, it's talking about the experience of God's wrath, which the conscience realizes in its present situation, which is pretty amazing actually, to think about and to consider. But the Bible tells us, the Bible does tell us that two things. So first that there's the intermediate state, that is what happens when we die.
And that technically is the separation, the unnatural rending of the body and the soul. That's physical death.
The body goes to wherever, to the grave or, I don't know, people now burn it and make it into a diamond or whatever. So the body, whatever happens to the body happens to the body. The soul of the believer goes to be with the Lord Jesus and rejoice and wait.
The soul of the unbeliever goes to what we could call hell or torment, the place of the dead.
That is a place of affliction for the soul.
And that state of soul and body separation is only for a little while until the last day. And then on the last day, body and soul are brought back together.
And the clearest text for this is John, chapter five, which Jesus is. So here's the words of Jesus, and there's so many. This is one of these texts that we just gotta. We kind of gotta engrave on our hearts. Because Jesus talks about the twofold resurrection. It's not just the Christian that's raised, but the.
But the unbeliever that's also raised. So Jesus says, this is verse 24. Most surely I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. Already. Amazing. I mean, can you. So I remember the first funeral sermon I preached had this text, and Jackie was the man's name. And I said, jackie isn't dead. He's finally alive. He's passed from death to life. This is the biblical picture. Like, you and I are just dying. Like, real slow, but we're dying. And one day that'll speed up, but we will pass from death to life. It's beautiful. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming. And now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. That's talking about the first resurrection of faith.
So that now Jesus says, you're hearing my voice and you're going from dying to living because you believe in Jesus.
For the Father has life in himself, so he is granted the Son to have life in himself. That's amazing too. Co. Equal with the Father, even according to his two natures.
Sorry, let me be careful on this. But that Jesus, who is the eternal Son of God, has life in himself, but now that life in himself, which belongs to his divinity, also belongs to the person of Christ, to the God man, to the one who's taken up his humanity into the union of the person, so that now he's able to receive.
Jesus is able to receive this gift of having life in himself from the Father.
Oh, so good. He has given him authority to execute judgment. Also because he is the Son of man.
Don't marvel at this. Jesus says, I'll tell you something even more. For the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.
Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.
I can of myself do nothing as I hear. I judge and my judgment is righteous because I don't seek my own, but the will of the Father who sent me.
So there's a resurrection. Jesus says, how does he describe it here? There's a resurrection of life and there's a resurrection of condemnation.
The book of Revelation talks about hell being thrown into the lake of fire, the smoke going up forever.
So that's the torment which seems to be both spiritual and physical that we normally talk about as the eternal condemnation of hell.
It's a horrible thing to think about. And I want to take up the apologetic question of hell, actually. But let me pause, Pastor Packer, and see if you have thoughts on that.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: Pastor, I was going to throw out another question actually related to this.
I was thinking, as you were saying, that Jesus seems to indicate repeatedly that hell is worse for some than others, that there are varying degrees of punishment, which is, I think it's hard for me to wrap my mind around, like, how can, like what you just described be, be even worse for some? But Jesus seems to make that point on multiple occasions.
How.
Maybe there's not a. Maybe there's not a good answer. But how should we understand that, that Jesus seems to indicate that.
Because he says on multiple occasions the judgment will be worse for you because you had this, now you rejected it. Or they're into the.
There's worse punishment for them because of the sins they committed. So how is it worse for some.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Than woe to you, but say it in Corazon because it'll be worse for you than for Sodom and Gomorrah. Right? So the, the, let's maybe do a parallel because the one of, you know, people who want, like I think all of us want hell to not be the true thing that will happen. Like all of us wish that we could be at least an annihilationists, that the unbelievers are just destroyed and that's it. And so there's a limit to the agony that goes on there. But there's this parallel between eternal bliss and eternal condemnation. And every time Jesus talks about it, he puts them in parallel to one another so we cannot escape that the eternality of judgment is paired with the eternality of life everlasting.
But how is there an eternal destruction, an eternal condemnation, an eternal death, which just we don't know. It's where people remember says this, that the Bible just tells us enough about hell so that we're really sure that we don't want to go there. And then it stops. That's all you need to know. So this questions of, like, well, how can there be darkness and fire? You know, how can there be worms? Like, what are the worms? How are they not destroyed? What's going on? How can there be weeping? And, you know, all this kind of.
It's just telling us that it's horrific and we want to avoid it.
But there's a. So we can have this parallel is that there's also. In heaven, there's different degrees of glory. So the language that the theologians use is that there's the same bliss, but different degrees of glory. So in heaven, in the eternal life, in the new heaven and new earth, there's different degrees of glory based on the accomplishments which the Lord has accomplished through someone, but that everyone shares in the same bliss.
I think that would be the kind of inverse in hell is that there's sort of the same horror.
You have a unified horror, but different degrees of torment. And the reason is because hell is an expression of justice.
There has to be a.
There has to be a making of things right for God to be just.
So if God wanted to be just, only just, there would only be hell. But God wants to be both just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus, which is why there's heaven. And that means that all of us, in one way or another, deserve exactly to go to hell. That's what, in some ways, is right.
Now, here. Here we get into the apologetic argument because we think of the judgment as like we're all kind of lined up and there's a pit behind us. And the Lord pushes some into the pit. You go to hell, you go to hell, you come with me.
But that's not the right. The right picture is that we all start in the pit, we all begin there, and the Lord goes himself into the pit and tosses people out.
So that salvation is never earned or deserved or even imaginable. It's only by grace.
Hell is what's earned and deserved. But we can't see it.
We can't see it in ourselves.
We cannot confess apart from the Holy Spirit. We cannot confess that we're guilty and that we deserve his temporal and eternal punishment.
That has to be cultivated in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And there's a reason for this. I think it's in fact. So Luther talks about this as a gift of God's grace, that if we could see how crooked and corrupt we are, we could never live with ourselves.
I was imagining it like this somewhere recently is like, if there was a mirror that would show you your true sinful nature.
Like you look somewhere in the woods and you go out into the woods and there's someone and they're guarding this mirror and it's covered and they're like, are you sure? Are you, you know, are you man enough to see it? And he says sure. And so it, he slowly pulls this screen off of the mirror and you look and you see that your mouth is full of vipers. That's how the Bible describes the tongue of the unbeliever. It's. Their tongue is a den of asps.
And you see your eyes and your, and all you can see is, is blood and lust radiating out of your own eyes.
And you look at your own heart and you just see this flood of filthiness constantly flowing out of your own heart. That's what the Bible says. Out of the heart comes all sorts of evil and wickedness. The heart of man is wicked. Who can know it but that the Lord has. So there's not a mirror like this, but that's what the law is. It shows us this.
But, but if we were to just look at ourselves in that mirror, we would run and jump over a cliff.
So that the Lord has as a gift hidden the depth of our own sin from us and reveals that only this is kind of mind blowing grace of God. He reveals the depth of our sin only when he reveals at the same time the depth of his love.
It's on the cross that he says, here's what you deserve because this is how bad you are.
But look, it's not going to you, it's going to my son Jesus.
So he reveals the depth of sin at the same time he reveals the height of his own love and he gives it to us in this profound way. It's so beautiful.
But the result is that we don't think that we deserve hell. And we can't think that we deserve hell in our own reason.
We can't think that apart from the Holy Spirit. So when the unbeliever says, hey, hell's not fair, not only do we expect the unbeliever to say that, but we know that the unbeliever can only think that.
And we can say to them in a way, God be praised, that you think that hell is not fair.
That's actually God protecting you from the depth of your own sin. The result is because we can't see it by our own reason or strength, then we're tempted to think that we can save ourselves.
So every religion which is Man's attempt to save himself is the result of the Lord protecting us from the depth of our own sinfulness.
So when we're having this apologetic conversation about hell, that's the kind of dynamic that's going on. The Lord has protected you from seeing this thing. And so that you think hell is unjust is actually a gift from God. Also, God thinks it's really terrible himself. That's why his son died on the cross, so that you wouldn't have to go there. But I know that you can't see it unless the Holy Spirit comes to convict you of sin.
That's what the work. That's the first work of the Holy Spirit.
That was a kind of long wandering thing.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: I think that was a great way to end that question.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: I'm still not sure if we actually answered the question.
This is great. We just here on the Theology Q.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: And A podcast and we say you answered it.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: We use your questions as an excuse to talk about various topics. Very nice.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: I mean, that's typically what pastors do, right?
So we get paid the big bucks for.
All right, this one's about praying with friends and families of different religions.
So this one says, I'm LCMS and have friends of Jewish faith, Mormon, etc. All the time. We talk about our faith and say we'll pray for others needs. However, I've led prayer out loud with them and have always wondered if in good faith, knowing they do not pray to our Savior, does it still make an impact on them?
So essentially asking if when they're praying, maybe you could break it up to a couple questions. She didn't really ask, but maybe flesh it out some more.
Maybe we could start with the first question, I'll add, which is not here.
Should we pray with people of different faiths, like, even friends, if we did, what would that look like?
And then second, I'll follow up with their actual question, which is, even though they don't pray to the same gods, even, you know, in the one example, Mormons, even to the same Jesus, does it still have an impact on them? So maybe we'll break it down into two questions. One, what do we do with those settings? And two, is it going to have an impact if we pray out loud with them?
[00:30:21] Speaker A: So I think that we can say one thing real quick, and that is that to pray for people of different faiths, that's an easy one. Yes, we pray for them and we can pray for them when they're there, when they're not there, whenever you're asked to Pray for something. That's great. You pray for them and that's wonderful. The question is, the more tricky is praying with them. So what does it mean to pray with somebody? Especially when someone has a different God and.
And maybe especially when the person that you're praying with doesn't know that they have a different God.
I remember I went to a pastor's, like, mayor's lunch and I was with two Baptist pastors and like a Pentecostal pastor on the other side. And the rabbi went up to do the benediction, which is this big prayer.
And they all bowed their head and they're kind of yes ing and amening along with this rabbi.
And then the prayer was over. And I said, do you guys think he's praying to our God? And they said, well, yeah, of course. And I said, well, what about what Jesus says? Whoever rejects me rejects the Father who sent me.
And they're like, oh, that's a good point.
Okay, yeah, well, I didn't invent this stuff. So, like, we have to recognize that our Christian confession is unique. So Muslims deny that Jesus is God. Jews, the synagogue, they deny that Jesus is God. Mormons deny that Jesus is God. Jehovah's Witness, they deny that Jesus is God and we worship Jesus and they do not. And that means that we worship and pray to a different God. So we got to get that kind of like, locked in solid not true with our Christian brothers and sisters. Although the tricky thing with praying with them is that like, in some ways you're like, who knows what's going to happen? Like if you're with your friends who are Roman Catholic and then their prayers turn into adorations of Mary prayers to the saints, like, hold on, I didn't sign up for this. Or you're praying with some sort of progressive whatever, and.
And they start praying to God the mother. Hold on a minute, I didn't sign up for this either. Or you're praying with your charismatic friends and they start praying that you'd start speaking in tongues. Like, hold on, let's back up there. So this praying with people has all these sorts of obstacles and we want to be aware of it because I do think that the Christian that we want to pray with people, but we recognize that how we believe and how we pray are bound up to one another. There's this old rule, the lex orindi lex credendi, which is the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. That means more than this, but it doesn't mean less.
That when we're praying with people who have a different confession, it's going to bring in some difficulties. Now if it's a simple prayer, like you're praying at a meal time or you're praying for safe travel or something, you're probably in a lot of kind of safer territory because a lot of the crazy stuff might not come in there, but you know, you never know. So it's good to talk this stuff through. Hopefully you have a conversation with the people that you want to pray with so that you can kind of wrestle through what, you know, what this all means and what it should look like.
Now there's a third part, but I don't know. You want to expand on that, Pastor Packer?
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Yeah. My concern would be we, we. I think Paul makes it pretty clear, and I think the Old Testament does as well, that behind these other so called gods are demons, right?
That's ultimately who's behind false gods is Satan and his demons.
And so praying to a false God is praying to a what?
Which, that, I think that that part of this has entered into discussion, even though we don't like to talk about that. And it's not very, you know, politically correct or whatever the term is today for saying hard things that no one wants to hear.
So that alone I think should make us step back and say what is my goal and what am I doing?
Which I think is very different though than like, like you said praying for someone or being with a diverse group of people and you leading the prayer and you praying very clearly to the one true God in Jesus name.
That's very different than us going around the room and all praying to each individual God.
I don't know what you hope to accomplish if that's what's going on. Like what do you think is taking place there?
That to me sounds an awful lot like what we used to call syncretism, right? Where you're just kind of praying to all the gods to make sure all the bases are covered and you're incorporating elements from, from non Christian worship into your worship, all those kind of things. But then it seems like you're also kind of saying, well yeah, my prayers and your prayers are all the same.
And that is really dangerous on multiple levels. One, you're giving them a false witness, a false confession, because you're implying to them that these are all kind of equally valid gods we're praying to. And I happen to pray this God. You haven't prayed that God, but it doesn't really matter.
Those are the kind of dangers I think you run into. That you really have to think through, what am I confessing and how I handle this and how I pray.
And if we just all kind of pray together that way, who are we praying to then?
And if we all think we're praying to the same God, that's not helping them either.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: That's right. It's Deuteronomy 32. And then the text from Corinthians is from 10:20, where Paul says, rather, the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? That means that especially when there's a public service or any kind of worship service, that we can go to these other services, but we go as observers, not as participants. And it's good to just have that distinction in mind. Like, if I go to a baptism of a friend in the Roman Catholic Church, I go as an observer.
I don't go as a participant. If I go to the Hindu temple with a friend, I go as an observer and not as a participant.
And whatever it is that the.
So every church has a different idea of what it means to participate in worship.
Our understanding is that that participation has to do with the supper.
So this is why we practice closed communion, because that's the biblical idea of participation. You participate in the meal, of the altar. That's what it means to partake.
But not every church has that understanding. Now, we still would not, for example, go to communion at a different church that confesses something different.
But we don't want to do anything that would give the kind of, I don't know, the. The idea that we're participating rather than observing. We want to be there. We want to be generous. You know, you can stand when people stand and sit when people sit. That's great.
But we want to make sure that we're there in a different role. And this caution is well taken here.
How to navigate these. When it has to do with our friends and family who have these different kind of wacky ideas.
I don't know. It's because different people are syncretist or because they're like, hey, it's all the same. God, it's all the same. Whatever.
It's not where it's. It has to do with this. We're not Nicene Christians, we're just nice Christians, which Is the idea that it's just whatever, you know, God's nice and friendly.
We all think that. So we must all be going to the same place.
So this is the kind of nice heresy.
And we.
It's hard to kind of stand your ground without being called out as a meanie.
But as gentle as we can be, the better, or, you know, say, look, I want to.
I'm not sure we're ready to pray together, but I'm certainly going to pray for you. So know that. That when I stand before the Lord, your name is on my lips for intercession.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: All right, let's move on to the next one.
Did God pour out the entirety of his wrath over sin upon Jesus during his crucifixion? My answer to my friend is yes, with the qualification that I've not even considered that question before.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: I think so, yeah.
I mean, I would. What would I go to? I mean, this is what Jesus is doing.
When John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, this is that preaching.
So all of God's wrath over all of our sin is poured out on Christ in place of us.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: I mean, that's what the word propitiation means, means, right? That he's satisfying God's wrath against our sins, God's anger against our sins, so that he's quite literally on the cross suffering hell in our place.
Like that's what he's doing. That's why.
Right. That's why creation goes dark, because of what's taking place is so serious and significant that the Son of God would suffer in our place, the very wrath of God, the anger of God against all of our sins, to the point that he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
So in a way we can't even begin to fully comprehend, the Son bears the anger of his Father that we deserve to bear as he hangs there on the cross for us in our place.
So, I mean, like Galatians 3:13, right? The curse of the law. Well, what's the curse? Curse of the law. Part of that is God's wrath against sin.
So Jesus takes on that curse and that wrath that belonged to us, and instead he bears it up in our place.
It's one of the, you know, most amazing pictures of the Gospel. One of my favorite pictures of this, actually.
I don't know how familiar you are with the full of eyes site and some of the artwork that he's done. I think he's a reformed Baptist Guy, Although oftentimes I think his drawings of the Lord's Supper and baptism look very Lutheran to me.
But one of my favorite ones by him is he has this image of Christ on the cross and behind him is this massive flame, right, just hitting Christ, and then the believers on the other side of Christ looking up to Christ, safe, safe and sound.
And I really love that picture just because it shows Jesus bearing that wrath, that anger, and what it does for us just so simply and clearly as you can, with just one picture, like you can look at it and you know exactly what's going on and what. What he's intending to depict. So it's just. It's really beautiful. A great summary of these things.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: This is.
Melanchthon says this in the apology all the time. That fear, faith sets Christ between us and the wrath of God.
So that here comes the wrath of God, but it doesn't strike us, it strikes Christ instead of us. So 2 Corinthians 5. Paul says, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in him.
That's his becoming sin. And I think that's exactly right. That word propitiation, which Paul uses and John uses, that's what that word means, that all the wrath of God for all the sin of humanity is all on Christ.
So that if we do experience wrath in hell, like we were talking about before, it wasn't meant for us, like we deserve it, but it wasn't meant for us. That was meant for Christ.
And this is why this judgment of God is his alien work, his strange work, because his essential work is to suffer in our place.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: I always tell you, I often use that picture in my adult instruction classes of Christ bearing the wrath of God. And I'd like to point out, look, if you trust in Christ, then that wrath doesn't touch you.
But the person who rejects Christ is essentially saying, I don't need you to take my place.
I'm gonna go bear that wrath on my own.
Right. You're rejecting the one who bore the wrath for you, the one who bore your sins, and saying, I don't need you to do that for me. I'm just gonna go take care of that myself.
And essentially, what you're doing, anytime someone rejects Christ, that's what they're saying. I don't need you to do this for me.
I can do this on my own. Even if they don't realize that's what they're saying.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Hmm.
Hmm.
Yep, that's right. It's a great point.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: You ready for the next one?
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: This one's on unworthy communion. This is an interesting one because he goes into a lot of just his history, personal detail here. So it's a little bit long of a question.
So the question is, what should I do if I took communion unworthily? For years I attended a classical Lutheran school in elementary. But during middle and high school I was at an evangelical non denomination 1 and went through a long crisis of faith.
I didn't feel or hear God the way others said they did. So I became convinced I didn't actually have faith.
I grew really depressed and bitter toward God for not giving me faith. And I believe he just wanted to damn me. In the middle of that, I was going to confirmation classes.
I didn't tell anyone about my doubts because my friends and family thought I was a strong Christian. I got confirmed and began taking communion knowing that I shouldn't, just to keep up appearances. During those years, I prayed for faith and to be able to trust God constantly. But I also often accused God of hating me. About eight months ago, God gave me the faith I had been asking for or maybe reminded me of the faith he had already given me in baptism. Now I do trust Christ's promise of forgiveness in the Lord's Supper. But for years, while I did believe that bread and wine were truly Christ's body and blood, I took communion without believing that forgiveness was for me. I'm scared of what Paul says in First Corinthians 11:27:30 about taking communion unworthily and judgment. I feel really guilty for those years of unworthy communion. Have I disqualified myself from receiving it now?
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Thank you for this question and thanks for asking. I I this is one of these that of course go talk to your pastor about as well.
It's interesting that I was reading through Luther, his Genesis commentary, and he was talking about how old sins always are yapping at us like the neighbor's dog.
And this is the reason why you want your youth and your childhood to be as good as possible, because you sort of give the devil access to your conscience to come and accuse you. And the example that he uses is all the times that he celebrated Mass as a Catholic priest, the abomination of the Mass, he considered it, you know, he came to understand how bad that was, that it was claiming to take away sin and despising the gift of Jesus.
So it was his unworthy, faithless celebration of the Lord's Supper that troubled his conscience years and years and years later. Even though he knew it was forgiven.
He knew that the blood of Christ had forgiven him all that sin, and yet it still troubled him.
So I'll tell you my own story.
I remember one time.
I mean, this is me confessing my sin, which I've been absolved of, but this is yaps and yaps and yaps at me.
Is.
There was. I was an evangelical theologically. I was helping with a youth group in the ELCA Church, my family church in Albuquerque.
And one day, the youth were playing this Romans and Christians game. You know what this. I don't know. It's like a hide and go seek or whatever, kind of capture the flag sort of thing. But for whatever reason, at the end of the game, everyone was together in the basement of the church to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Which is goofy to begin with, but okay. What? I didn't know any different. The pastor was there celebrating the Supper.
And here I was, an evangelical who confessed and taught that the Supper was just a symbol and not the true body and blood. Okay, so after they have the service, we're standing around, there's the pastor, who's there, finished celebrating the Supper. And to prove that it wasn't really the blood of Jesus, I took the chalice in hand and swirled it around like a glass of wine and started sipping. Sipping it, not casually as a conf. As a. As a way of saying to everybody there, whatever you think this is, it's not the blood of Jesus.
And that still, how old was I? I was 19 years old, and now I'm 119.
It still troubles my conscience, that purpose, intentional despising of the Supper, that willful going against the word of God there.
Even though I know it's forgiven, it yaps at me. Now, this shows that there are.
I mean, all the breaking. All the commandments give access to the conscience, demonic access to the conscience. But I think especially the third commandment, remember the Sabbath day and keeping it holy, that worship. And the sixth commandment, you shall not commit adultery, chastity.
Those give special access to the devil into our conscience to accuse us.
And so if we've taught false doctrine or if we have sinned against the Supper in these different ways, there's so much shame and so much guilt that's there. Even though we know that Jesus died to forgive us for all of our sins, it's just like Luther says, it's just always chasing us around, yapping at us.
So we want to hear the absolution all the time and to know that Jesus is the Savior. Of sinners, even those who sin against Him.
We normally think, oh, well, Jesus forgives sins that I've committed against other people, but what about the sins that I've done towards him, the abuse that I've given to Him?
But this is why David prays in Psalm 51 against you and you only have I sinned. And why Jesus says on the cross, father, forgive them those who are crucifying Him. They don't know what they're doing.
So that if Jesus is merciful not just for the sins that we commit against other people or against ourselves or against the world, but the sins that we commit against him, this is certainly true when we have abused the Lord's Supper, taken it unworthily or whatever. His forgiveness is also for us.
And we have to live in that absolute confidence that his mercy is also for us, that he wants us not to wallow in our own guilt and our own shame, but rather to rejoice in his mercy, in his love and his kindness for us. That's why. That's why he's given the supper for sinners. And he says, take and drink. This is the cup of the New Testament which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. And Jesus knew.
Here's maybe a last thought on this.
Jesus knew when he instituted the Supper that He would be abused.
I mean, that his blood would be spilled, that his body would be dropped, and that people, people would take it wrongly. And still he instituted it because he so desperately wants us to know that our sins are truly forgiven.
So that's our confidence.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Maybe a few quick things to add. One would be, if you're someone struggling with doubts like this, go talk to someone like your pastor, fellow Christian, because it seems to me, as I read this, well, one, my heart really broke for them because it seemed like they just really needed help and encouragement during that time and were kind of afraid to get it. But the second thing, I noticed a lot of this language here. I prayed for faith, but I also often accused God of hating me. Like, I'm not sure they went to communion completely devoid of faith like they think they did.
It seems like they had doubts for sure.
But we say that the Lord's Supper is not right. It's like Jesus says, he didn't come for the righteous, but for sinners. The Lord's Supper is medicine for those who are sick and struggling with sin and struggling with doubt. It's not for the one who's perfect in their faith or sinless or anything like that.
So on the one Hand, I think anyone struggling with doubts or sin or whatever, who we say communes unworthily.
Yes, you're right. The one who doesn't believe it's for you, but it seems like he wanted to believe it was for him, but was struggling.
And the second thing with that is there's people that often, I think, avoid the Supper because they think maybe they've sinned too much. Or like you said, those dogs are yapping of their past sins so they don't feel worthy to take it. And yet we confess that it's for you to receive the forgiveness of sins.
No, you shouldn't come if you're unrepentant.
You shouldn't come if you don't care about your sins or unrepentant of them. But feeling the weight of your sin is a very good reason to come and receive the Supper. And if you're struggling with doubts, also a good reason to come and receive the Supper. Like all of those things are good reasons to come. Even if you're struggling, even if it's hard, even if it's difficult, and hearing that this body and blood are for you for the. The forgiveness of your sins, for the strengthening of your faith, for uniting you with Christ, like that's what it's there for. So don't avoid it. If you're struggling, get help, find good faithful people that will speak the Gospel to you, but receive the Lord's Supper to help you with those things.
And whether this person received unworthy or not, they feel that way. And I think you answered that well, that that's indeed been forgiven and they can move on from that. They don't have to live in that guilt or sin, because every time they receive it now worthily, having faith in Christ and his gifts and that it's for them and their forgiveness, they can know that those past sins are dealt with and gone.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: I remember. So in the much controverted Large Catechism with annotations, I. I have an essay in there on worthy communion. What does it mean to be worthy communion? And after that came out, there was a couple of guys who made a meme of me and, and it called me an antinomian and it put the quote from that essay on there, which the quote from the essay was.
Oh, I got. I can't find it. Exactly. Here we go. Because we are unworthy.
And they said, look at Wolfmother, the Antiinomi. And I said, guys, that's a direct quote from the Large Catechism.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I remember pointing that out to some people.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I didn't make that up. I'm actually quoting the Book of Concord, which you subscribe to.
So, like, to be.
To be worthy of the Supper is to think that we're unworthy. I mean, if we think that we deserve such a thing, I mean, pew, that's pride out of here. But if we recognize that the Lord Jesus is giving it to us because we're weak, I mean, this is so I would also commend to all of our listeners to read this about the Lord's Supper. This is the. In part of the large catechism, which you can find online everywhere and everywhere. But it says, if you're heavy laden, if you feel your weakness, go joyfully to the Sacrament and receive refreshment, comfort and strength.
If you wait till you are rid of such burdens so that you might come to the Sacrament pure and worthy, you will stay away forever.
In that case, Christ promises the sentence and says, if you are pure and godly, you have no need of me, and I, in turn, no need of you.
Therefore, the only people who are called unworthy are those who neither feel their weaknesses or wish to be considered sinners.
So that it's precisely for sinners that Jesus has instituted the Supper. He says, why do you.
This is also. We must never think of the Sacrament as something harmful from which we had better flee, but as a pure, wholesome, comforting remedy that grants salvation and comfort. It will cure you and give you both life in soul and body. For where the soul is recovered, the body also is relieved. Why then do we act as if the Sacrament were a poison, the eating of which would bring death?
Luther says now, to be sure, those who despise the sacrament and live in an unchristian way receive it to their hurt.
But like a.
But this is not what we're talking about. We're talking about those who know their sin and come to the Lord for mercy. So we want to think of the Supper in this way as a wholesome, blessed remedy.
[00:56:20] Speaker B: I just taught my last adult instruction class for this group that just went through on Lord's Supper last night. And I always try to make the point when we look at eating unworthily or worthily, that it's Christ that makes you worthy, like it's your faith in him and his promise.
It's him, like he's what makes you worthy. You come unworthy, but it's your faith in Him. You're clinging to him, and that's what allows you to receive it worthily. So it's not you. It's your clinging to Christ which is the whole reason you're there to begin with. Right? You're at the table because you don't receive his body and blood, so he's the one who makes you worthy. You don't make yourself worthy.
You come and receive Christ because He. He is worthy and he wants to make you worthy through the reception of Him.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:57:11] Speaker B: All right, I think we are done with questions for today.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: I like how they all revolved around the same theme. So that's. I mean, they were all touching on some of the same aspects. So that's great. I also. So if you made it to the end, bless you. I have the greatest of all news for you, and that is that I'm working on publishing this Against Rome, a summary of Martin Chemnitz's examination of the Council of Trent, which is so glorious and wonderful and marvelous, etc. Anyway, if you go to Wolfmuller Co, It'll be just there in the post. But Rome Examined is there and I'm up to chapter six.
Pastor Packer, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to look and tell you all the chapters that are published.
This is chapter one on Scripture, which we published in eight different parts. I mean Rome, on the translation and transmission of Scripture, on the interpretation of Scripture, on the canon of Scripture and all these Church Fathers. Here's what the canon is so great. Chapter two on Tradition, the eight classes of Tradition. Chapter three on original sin. Chapter four on the remnants of original sin after baptism.
Chapter five, if the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin. That's a hot topic.
Chapter six, the works of the unbeliever or those who are not regenerate. This has to do with works leading up to salvation. Those are all there. And then more is coming. So I think we have 12 chapters in this first volume that we're working on. So it's so good.
So that's there and published and totally free and full of footnotes from the Church Fathers. So go grab it for yourself and anyone who's interested in having these conversations with.
With their Roman Catholic friends, etc. Etc.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: If you've never heard of Martin Chemnitz's work on the examination of the Council of China, it's one of the most brilliant things ever written by Lutherans that goes through point by point. The Council of Trenton shows where it's wrong, where they get things wrong, and it's just masterful. You can't. You're not gonna find anything better. So a summary of it. We'll I've read all four volumes, so getting a summary of it's a beautiful thing. For those who don't have the time or maybe the inclination to read four full volumes, you can instead read the shortened version and still be greatly blessed.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: When the book comes out. We'll publish that too. So I mean, we'll have four volumes of this book, but, you know, be 200 pages but for the layperson. And it's not going to cost $2,000 or whatever. I mean, the full thing doesn't cost that. I mean it doesn't cost maybe it costs 500 bucks or something. You can buy it from CPH. You should if you can. If you have. You should buy it if you can. But this is for everybody else.
It should be really, really helpful in these Lutheran Roman Catholic things. All right. Thanks, Pastor Packer, for all your insights and thanks everyone for the questions. Wolfman co to send in some more. Thanks for listening to the Theology Q and A podcast. God's peace be with you.
