September 2024 - Jack Kilcrease

September 27, 2024September 27, 2024

Our Great Hope: Christ’s Return as Judge

The little apocalypses of the Synoptics, St. Paul’s letters, and Revelation affirm that at the Second Coming of Christ the dead will rise and final universal judgment will commence. Believers should experience “bold confidence” (Eph. 3:12) regarding Christ’s Second Coming because he has already proleptically judged us righteous through the promise of the gospel present in Word and Sacrament. As the Son of Man, Jesus shared his verdict with his hearers ahead of time. Believers today, in the interim between the first and second coming, do not need to wonder what Christ’s final judgement on them will be. The presence of the risen Jesus in Word and Sacrament (Matt. 18:20) proleptically delivers his “forgiven and justified” verdict to the contemporary Church.

*Quotation from exegetical professor emeritus Rev. Dr. Paul Raabe*

Are We Judged According to Works?

The clearest passages of Scripture interpret other passages. Therefore, sections of Scripture that speak of judgment according to works must be read in harmony with the clear passages affirming the unconditionality of justification. Thus, the good works upon which Christ judges believers provide evidence of genuine faith (Matt 25). As we have seen, true faith necessarily gives rise to the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-26). Paul very clearly teaches both that saving faith inevitably results in good works and the unconditional nature of the promise of the gospel (Rom. 3:28).

Although Luther sadly misinterpreted it, the Epistle of James makes precisely the same point. When St. James speaks of believers being “justified by works” in addition to faith (Jam. 2:24), he refers to the way works manifest saving faith. In a similar vein, in Romans 2, Paul speaks of the final judgment according to works (Rom. 2:6-11). However, he is speaking of a hypothetical situation apart from the intervening grace of Christ. In the next chapter, he is quick to affirm that no one can stand before God because of humans’ total lack of righteousness (Rom. 3:9-20).

Thus, Christ will not render his positive judgment at the Second Coming on the basis of one’s works. However, a tree is known by its fruit. Only those with saving faith can actually perform good works in God’s sight. These fruits will reveal otherwise hidden faith at the Last Judgement.

September 19, 2024September 20, 2024

The Royal Priesthood and the Authority of the Church

The justification of believers within the Church through the means of grace effects a happy exchange between Christ and believers. Christ possesses all things and shares them with believers through the union brought about by forensic justification and faith. This means that believers share in Christ’s offices of king, priest, and prophet (Dn. 7:27, Rom. 8:17, 8:32, Eph. 2:6, 1 Pt. 2:9, Rev. 1:6, 5:10). Being conformed to Christ’s image begins the restoration of the image of God in humans. This restored image enables believers to assume the protological roles of king, priest, and prophet that find their ultimate fulfillment in the eschaton.

As we have previously seen, Luther develops this point strongly in Freedom of a Christian (1520). As kings, believers are no longer subject to the law coram Deo because the law has been fulfilled in them through reception of justification and sanctification in Christ. Coram mundo, believers become priests because possessing all things in Christ. As priests, they sacrifice themselves for one another through their individual vocations.¹ Scripture also teaches that believers are now Spirit-anointed prophets empowered to proclaim the Word of God to all nations (Acts 2:16-21). As prophet, believers also test all teachers by the standard of harmony with the biblical witness centered in Christ (1 Thess. 5:21, 1 Cor. 2:15, 1 Jn. 4:1-6).

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024

The Word and Revelation of the Triune God

In the primal state and through the history of salvation, God’s Word created different channels and masks as mediums of law and grace. God reveals to his creatures the actions he will take through a given created medium. In so doing, he bids humans to flee by faith from his masks of wrath to his masks of grace. In Eden, God established the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil through his word of command and promise. Here, the new humans found his judgment, hiddenness, and wrath (Gen. 2:17). By contrast, God attached his promise of grace to the Tree of Life and all the other trees in the garden (Gen. 2:16).

Later in the history of salvation, God designated Mt. Sinai as the location of judgment. From Sinai, God spoke forth his law and barred his people from ascending the mountain lest they be destroyed by his wrath (Exod. 19-20). Nevertheless, God established first the Tabernacle and then the Temple as the places where Israel could receive the grace of atonement and participate in divine holiness (Lev. 16-17).

Finally, in the era of the New Testament, Jesus designated the Temple and its old law as a place of divine judgment that would soon be destroyed (Mk. 13, Mt. 24, Lk 21). Now, his own cross is the new site of grace and atonement. On Easter Sunday, the women fled from the empty tomb, which seemed merely a place of death. Yet the atonement given via the cross and justification given via the tomb became the font of grace. The angels instructed the women to tell the disciples what they had experienced. This is significant, because the apostles’ Word and Sacrament ministry became the medium of the presence of the risen Jesus (Mt. 18:20, 28:20).

September 9, 2024September 9, 2024

“I Am With You Always”: Christ’s Absolute Presence with Us

Confessional Lutheran Christology Part II

Martin Luther [steadfastly defended the substantial presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper against other reformers like Ulrich Zwingli.] Luther responded to Zwingli in part by teaching the absolute omnipresence of Christ’s human nature. This doctrine is sometimes incorrectly called “Ubiquity.”¹ As Luther notes, the Bible teaches that Christ is at the “right hand of God.” But this is not a physical location (i.e., a semi-local heaven, as Zwingli had taught). Rather, God’s right hand refers to rather his power and glory, which are everywhere.¹

Hence, Jesus’s body is, in some mysterious sense, everywhere. However, Luther emphasized that Christ’s body does not exist everywhere in the form of infinite multiplication or spatial extension (hence, the inaccuracy of the term “Ubiquity,” which implies spatial extension).³ Rather, Luther drew on Gabriel Biel’s distinction among the various presences bodies can have (local/circumscribed, definitive, and repletive)⁴ Following Biel, Luther affirmed Jesus can exercise multiple modes of presence, including a repletive presence, or divine omnipresence.

Logically, since Jesus is at the right hand of God, he is in some incomprehensible and supernatural sense present at all places as true man.⁵ Beyond the fact that Christ sits at the right hand of God, Luther also argued that if Christ was not omnipresent according to his humanity, his two natures would be divided. The consequent Christology would contradict the Chalcedonian definition:

Wherever this person is, it is a single indivisible person, and if you can say, ‘Here is God,’ then you must also say, ‘Christ the man is present too.’ And if you could show me one place where God is and not the man, the person is already divided and I could at once say truthfully, ‘Here is God who is not man and has never become man.’ But no God like that for me!⁶

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024

Stuck in the Middle: Between “Nestorian” and “Eutychian” Reformers

Confessional Lutheran Christology Part I

When it comes to Luther’s Christology and that of the subsequent Lutheran tradition, we must tread a fine line between the Scylla of claiming the Reformer was an absolute innovator and the Charybdis of claiming there was no meaningful difference between Luther and his medieval predecessors. There are, in fact, some interesting differences between confessional Lutheran teaching and the previous medieval tradition. However, the Lutheran Reformers were faithful students of Scripture and the ancient Church. Discontinuities existed between Lutherans and their medieval predecessors because the Reformers drew out the logic of biblical and patristic Christology. The seeming innovations of Lutheran theologians regarding the metaphysics of the Incarnation were, in fact, valid extensions of enhypostasis-anhypostasis Christology, sometimes termed “Neo-Chalcedonianism.”¹

Throughout his career, Luther fought on the same two fronts that the ancient Church had. Like the early orthodox Church Fathers, Luther found himself combating both Nestorian and Eutychian Christological tendencies. As we will see below, in Luther’s mind, the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli played the role of Nestorius. Kaspar Schwenckfeld played the role of Eutychus. Most popular accounts of Luther focus on the Reformer’s conflict with Ulrich Zwingli and his belief that Zwingli was essentially Nestorian. Sadly, this tends to distort the truly balanced nature of the Reformer’s Christology (i.e., rejecting both Nestorian and Eutychian tendencies), and therefore undercuts his continuity with the earlier tradition.

Luther’s Conflict with Zwingli and “Nestorianism”

The major source of strife between Luther and Zwingli was the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.² We will return to this conflict again in a future chapter, but it is worth touching on here because there was a Christological issue at the heart of the Reformers’ debate over the Eucharist. Zwingli, following an undercurrent in medieval theology, argued that there could be no substantial presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper because, as true man, he could not be present in multiple locations simultaneously.