Theology Archives - Jack Kilcrease

December 25, 2025December 23, 2025

The Double Benefits of Baptism

Objective and Subjective Justification

Earlier in his Annotations on Romans, Johann Gerhard discusses the nature of salvation in Christ at some length. In particular, Gerhard affirms and grounds the forensic nature of justification in the work of Christ. Contrary to the claims made by some within the Lutheran tradition, the distinction between “objective” and “subjective” justification is not a late innovation. Rather, Gerhard employs the conceptual distinction to explain Christ’s work in both his death and resurrection. Gerhard writes:

He [God the Father] also condemned it, in that He punished our sins in Christ, which were imposed on Him and imputed to Him as to a bondsman. So also, by the very act of raising Him from the dead, He absolved Him from our sins that were imputed to Him, and consequently also absolves us in Him, so that, in this way, the resurrection of Christ may be both the cause and the pledge and the complement of our justification.¹

In a word, Christ paid for all the sins of humanity when they were imputed to him in the crucifixion. Raising Christ from the dead, God the Father “absolves” Christ of the sins of the whole world. This is possible because Jesus has already paid for all sins. Among the many striking images for redemption that Gerhard uses, this is one of the most vivid and compelling.

From this it follows that even before believers subjectively lay hold of Christ in the act of baptismal faith, God pronounces them absolved. Through faith they participate in the objective absolution of Christ in the resurrection. Hence, the pastor does not tell his congregation that “if” they believe, then they will be absolved. Rather, the pastor—serving as the voice of Christ—calls the congregation to trust that God in Christ has already pronounced them absolved.

December 22, 2025December 22, 2025

Cleansing Waters: Baptismal Typology in Gerhard

Johann Gerhard makes the promise of justification, along with its effective outworking in Christian life through sanctification, central to his treatment of baptism. Gerhard writes that God has been faithful to his promises of justification and redemption through the whole course of salvation history. Baptism is simply the covenantal promise of grace and justification as it has been manifested throughout the history of salvation. As his main n premise, Gerhard held that God is faithful to his promises of forgiveness and grace. Therefore, the promise of justification present in baptism runs through various types and rituals in the Old Testament. Ultimately, for Gerhard the sacrament of baptism manifests God’s faithfulness and willingness to forgive sinners for the sake of the blood of Jesus….

Gerhard mines the Old Testament for types of baptism. Those familiar with Gerhard will know that, like others in the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, he is extremely fond of typological readings of Scripture.¹ … [Christians today may find some of his typological interpretations unconvincing.] However, Gerhard finds more plausible prefigurations of the justifying and sanctifying properties of baptism in the texts of the Old Testament major prophets. God promised the prophet Isaiah that he would give water to the thirsty and pour out his life-giving Spirit (Isa. 44:3-4). He also promised that the resurrected Suffering Servant would “sprinkle many nations” (Isa. 52:15).²

December 19, 2025December 22, 2025

Baptized in the Substantial Blood of Jesus – Literally

Johann Gerhard asserts that the word and the water do not merely mediate the presence of the Triune God. The sacrament also conveys the presence of the risen man Jesus, who possesses a hypostatic unity with the second person of the Trinity. Jesus is not merely present according to his divinity, but also according to his deified and, therefore, omnipresent humanity. The substantial blood of the risen Jesus is literally present in the waters of baptism, which cleans us from our sins. Gerhard writes:

[T]he Son of God in the fullness of time took upon Himself a true human nature and united Himself with it in an indissoluble link. Thus it further follows that He is present at Baptism not only according to His divinity, but also according to His assumed human nature. And especially the blood of Christ is not to be excluded from holy Baptism: 1. Because the Son of God’s true human nature also assumed flesh and blood, in which, with which, and through which His human nature now performs all His works; 2. because the power of holy Baptism arises and springs forth from the merits of Christ and from the shedding of His blood as it occurred on the timber trunk of the cross; 3. Because in holy Baptism we were washed from sins through the blood of Christ; 4 because we were baptized into Christ’s death. Now, however Christ’s death also includes His shedding of blood.¹
Continue reading “Baptized in the Substantial Blood of Jesus – Literally”

June 30, 2025June 30, 2025

Theology by Scripture Alone Alongside the Church Alone

The supreme authority for Christian theology is the Triune God and the Holy Scriptures through which he speaks. The Lutheran Scholastic theologians, beginning with Johann Gerhard, spoke of theology’s “principle of being” (principium essendi) and principle of knowledge (principium cognoscendi). Theologians in the Protestant tradition often speak of Holy Scripture as the supreme authority in Christian theology. This is not incorrect. But it should be qualified by recognizing along with the Lutheran Scholastics that although Holy Scripture is the inspired Word of God, its authority ultimately rests on the authority of the Triune God who through it addresses humanity.

Affirming that Holy Scripture is the foundation and source of all true Christian theology does not rule out the reality that God speaks through other mediums. Indeed, Luther speaks of all creatures as God’s masks, channels, and created words through which God addresses humanity. The eighteenth-century Lutheran philosopher Johann Georg Hamann spoke of humanity as enveloped by God’s address through creation.

Nevertheless, we must make a distinction between God’s auditory and visible words. God acts on his creatures through the physical mediums of the whole of creation. However, God only tells humans how they are to know him in these physical mediums through his auditory Word. God’s auditory words were revealed to the prophets and the apostles and written down in the Bible. We know that the Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God because Jesus Christ affirmed their authority and proved his own by rising from the dead.

June 27, 2025June 27, 2025

Justification in Jesus Christ is the Center of Theology

Theology is centered on, yet not exhausted by, the message of justification in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ offers a unilateral and unconditional promise of salvation. Therefore, the distinction between law and gospel is also central to the enterprise of Christian theology.

The central problem of human life is the question of justification. Social psychologists have demonstrated that across culture and times, humans are driven on by status seeking behavior in their relationships with other humans. A given cultural group sets standards of behavior, and humans compete with one another to see who can best embody them. The ultimate goal of this competition is gaining a status of proper recognition before others (i.e., social justification). In religion, this principle also holds true. Whatever the ultimate goal of salvation is in a given religion, adherents will invariably achieve it by performing a set a works (be they moral, ritual or both). Another option might be to mystically dissolve the self to escape the relentless demand of the gods or God. Even modern atheism embodies this impulse, since by pretending that God and his law do not exist, one is free from the need to justify oneself before God, or at minimum, religious authorities. Rather, the self dissolves upon death.