Book Update Archives - Page 5 of 14

July 6, 2024July 7, 2024

Our High Priest and Suffering Servant Delivers Your Not Guilty Verdict Now

Christ’s Priestly Office

The New Testament repeatedly makes clear that Jesus is not only the kingly Davidic Messiah, but also the supreme High Priest. In this regard, Jesus’s self-understanding and the witness of the New Testament authors stand in both continuity and tension with the expectations of Second Temple Jews. On the one hand, belief in a singular priestly Messiah, or a priestly Messiah who would complement the work of the kingly Messiah, was very widespread in the first century. Indeed, as Crispin Fletcher-Louis has noted, when a messianic claimant insisted he was the Davidic Messiah, he would often find supportive a priest to claim he was the priestly Messiah.¹

Jesus and the New Testament affirm a kingly and priestly role for the Messiah and unite both offices into a single person. Seen in this light, the Epistle to the Hebrews might be characterized as an important confessional document of the early Church. Crucially, Hebrews contrasts Christian messianic belief with the belief of some Jews in multiple Messiahs.

The New Testament authors witness to Jesus’s messianic self-understanding. In so doing, they develop Jesus’s king-priest office using the prophecies and motifs found in three key Old Testament figures: the Melchizedekian priest-king of Psalm 110, the Servant of so-called Deutro-Isaiah, and the Danielic Son of Man.

July 1, 2024July 2, 2024

Christ’s Substantial Presence in the Eucharist According to Scripture

The Augsburg Confession affirms the ancient and medieval consensus of the catholic Church that Christ’s flesh and blood are substantially present in the Eucharist: “Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to those who eat the Supper of the Lord; and they reject those that teach otherwise.”¹ This avowal of the substantial presence of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Lord’s Supper was integral to the Lutheran Reformation from the beginning. In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther criticized the practice of communion in one kind (i.e., the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic practice of withholding the cup from the laity), transubstantiation, and the idea of the Mass as a sacrifice for the living and the dead. Nevertheless, unlike most other reformers, Luther very clearly confessed the real presence based on canonical and evangelical principles. Since the real presence was overwhelmingly the catholic consensus of the Church from its inception, the catholic principle also applies to this theological question.

Martin Luther, *The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics*, 1526 (AE 36:329ff.) – image: St. John Lutheran Church, Wheaton, IL

Paul’s Affirmation of the Substantial Presence

First, with regard to the canonical principle, the New Testament straight forwardly affirms the substantial presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. As Luther tirelessly emphasized, the words of institution themselves (“this is my body . . . this is my blood”) do not admit a metaphorical interpretation. The words of institution are a promise regarding the sacramental elements set before the Christian. Moreover, they are also deed-words that accomplish the consecration so that the bread and wine become vehicles conveying the true body and blood of Jesus to all recipients.

June 27, 2024June 27, 2024

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:

June 16, 2024June 16, 2024

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).

June 13, 2024June 16, 2024

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.