Author: Jack Kilcrease

Jack Kilcrease is a Lutheran lay theologian and member of Our Savior Lutheran Church (LCMS). He is currently a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations. Jack was born in Texas, but grew up in Oregon. He went on to receive a B.A. from Luther College and an M.A. from Luther Seminary. He earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology and Ethics from Marquette University in 2009. Jack’s theological work explores the gift of God’s self-donation in Jesus Christ. He is the author of several books including the most recent volume of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series on Holy Scripture and the forthcoming Justification by the Word (Lexham Press). Jack is currently Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Institute of Lutheran Theology’s Christ School of Theology. He is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor teaching philosophy at Aquinas College. Jack lives in beautiful West Michigan with his lovely wife, Bethany, and his two energetic daughters, Miriam and Ruth. When he’s not thinking about theology—and even when he is—Jack enjoys running, hiking, and hanging out with his family and cat. He’s passionate about BBQ, whiskey, jazz, movies, and theological discussion.
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The Pure and Clear Fountain of Israel: The Necessity of Inerrancy

Through providence and the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, men collected God’s auditory words into the written word of the Bible.  Contrary to common belief, pre-modern Christian orthodoxy consistently affirmed the inerrancy of the Bible as God’s Word.1   Sadly, modern Fundamentalist trajectories in theology have distorted this doctrine. Their attempts to wield inerrancy as a weapon against post-Cartesian forms of philosophical Foundationalism have only degenerated orthodox teaching.2 

A Sacramental Medium, not an Epistemic Foundation

Today, many conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist theologians seem to hold that the Bible must provide its own indubitable “clear and distinct ideas”3 to build a foundation for further knowledge. From this perspective, the biblical “foundation” could counteract modern claims of autonomous knowledge. The Bible, however, is not primarily a tool of philosophers, but a channel of God’s creative, redemptive, and sanctifying Word.  

It is, indeed, important to affirm the absolute truthfulness of God’s auditory/written words. However, there are better and worse ways to employ the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy.  As noted, many modern conservative Christian theologians have conceptualized the doctrine of inerrancy in ways that largely reflect modernist and Foundationalist presuppositions.4  Rather, Christians must see the Word of God as a sacramental medium that facilitates both the creational and redemptive exchange between God and his creatures.  God speaks and thereby activates the response of his creatures through his auditory words.  As theologian Kevin Vanhoozer writes:   

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How Can We Do Authentic Theology Today?

Christianity is a religion centered on salvific events in history.  It makes claims about an eternal God and his transcendent truth. Yet, at the same time, it paradoxically finds its sources of knowledge about the eternal God in the finitudes and contingencies of history.  The historical embeddedness of Christianity not only pertains to biblical revelation, but also to the subsequent task of Christian theology.  

Because Christian theology is embedded in the historical, it is also always contextual.1  New Testament scholarship of the previous two centuries made much of how our first documented Christian theologian, the Apostle Paul, expressed his theological vision in the form of occasional letters to his congregations.2 This pattern continues in the history of Christian thought.  Starting with Ignatius of Antioch and moving onto Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Newman, Barth, and Rahner all theologians address a specific context even in their non-occasional writings.3  In each generation, theologians must look to the Word of God, test the present proclamation of the Church against it, and apply it to the challenges of the contemporary Christian community.4  

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Now, Baptism Saves through Confession and Absolution

The simul of Christian existence necessitates the sacrament of confession and absolution.  Additionally, an intimate connection exists between baptism and confession and absolution.  In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther initially stated that there are three sacraments: baptism, confession and absolution, and the Lord’s Supper.  By the end of the treatise, he changed his mind and reduced the number of sacraments to only two, namely baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  This is not because Luther disregarded the sacramentality of the word of absolution, but rather because he saw absolution as derivative of the gospel-promise present in baptism.1

The Problem of Post-Baptismal Sin

In the ancient Church, there was a strong and appropriate sense of baptism as the definitive rupture between the old life and the new life, including the final eschatological purification.  Nevertheless, early Christians fell into a profound misunderstanding of this rupture due to both legalism and trust in an overly realized eschatology.  Many reasoned that since baptism brought a final purification from sins, then the Church could not forgive post-baptismal sin. The teaching that baptism could not be repeated further reinforced this conclusion. After all, how could a Christian who sinned after his baptism regain salvation when the Church could not baptized him anew?

Yet, practically speaking, the pervasive nature of sin made it difficult to sustain the doctrine that Christians lost their salvation by sinning after baptism.  One direct consequence of this teaching was that people delayed baptism and, therefore, also their full participation in the life of the Church.  Such a doctrine was simply unrealistic about the possibility of remaining sinless in an age in which sin and death persist even for believers. 

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Baptize Your Babies: The Bible Tells You So

When considering infant baptism, we must remember that baptism is an effective visible Word of God.  Indeed, St. Paul tells us that baptism objectively kills and resurrects us in Christ (Rom. 6:2-10).  Sin is fundamentally unbelief (Rom. 14:23), and faith is new life (Gal. 2:20).1  In other words, just as the preaching office does, baptism enacts the law and gospel on our old person.2  It is the visible form of the word of law and the gospel, which, as Paul reminds us elsewhere, objectively works death and life: “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). 

Hence, the argument that infants cannot repent and believe makes little sense since repentance and faith are not natural capacities in human after the Fall. Rather, they are the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit operating through baptism.3  Moreover, we have a very concrete biblical example of the Holy Spirit working faith even in fetuses. St. John the Baptizer recognized the Christ while still in the womb of Elizabeth (Lk 1:44).4  Jesus himself states that it is not by active and conscious decision that one becomes a Christian, but rather by receiving faith and the kingdom as a “little child” (Mk. 10:15).  

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Why Do They Fall Away? The Problem of Post-Baptismal Apostasy

Both Anabaptist/Baptist and Reformed Christians generally argue that baptismal regeneration and justification directly contradicts the principle of sola fide.  According to many Protestants, baptismal regeneration and justification makes no sense given that not everyone who is baptized is ultimately saved.  To Anabaptists and Baptists, this suggests that baptism is only a symbolic gesture designed to publicly affirm regeneration and justification through other means. For the Reformed, on the other hand, baptism is a meaningful sign for the elect. The Spirit then regenerates the elect by working alongside baptism, but not through baptism as an instrument.

Baptismal Regeneration and Sola Fide

But is it true that baptismal regeneration and justification contradicts the biblical and reformational principle of sola fide? In fact, Lutherans and other Protestants conceptualize the doctrine of sola fide in a fundamentally different way.  As noted in a previous chapter, Luther and the subsequent Lutheran tradition’s conceptualization of justification might be better characterized by the slogan “justification by the word” rather than “justification by faith.”  In other words, most Protestants discern salvation based on a reflective faith that affirms the certainty of salvation through the certainty of saving faith. Lutherans, however, turn the individual away from inner resources and focus him on the external Word of God. 

Seen in this light, baptism is a visible Word of God. The Holy Spirit works with the same power in, under, and through the Word in the water, the absolution, the preaching office, and the Supper.  God in Christ directs us away from our subjective disposition, which is, of course, always tainted by sin. Instead he orients us towards his justifying promise of salvation actually present in baptism.  If a person receives that baptismal promise, then he has justifying faith.  

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