Christians today are concerned with one central issue: Where in the world is God?  How can I be reassured of his love in the face of the complexities and traumas of my life?…the historic answer of the heirs of the reformation has been: in the gospel.  Modern Evangelicals, however, do not see the gospel as the means of applying the love of God to the sinner as much as they see it as information about the love of God.  The gospel is understood to be an “offer of grace,” rather than the “application of grace.”  It has no power itself, the power is in your decision to accept it.

In contrast, the Lutheran church has always stressed that the gospel is both the offer of grace and the means of its application.  After dealing with the central doctrine of justification by grace through faith, that is, that God will consider our faith in Jesus as righteousness, the Augsburg Confession turns immediately to the application of salvation:

To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who hear the gospel. And the gospel teaches that we have a gracious God, not by our own merits but by the merit of Christ, when we believe this. (Augsburg Confession: Article V. “The Office of the Ministry”)

….Evangelical Christians today tend to see the gospel as mere historical data. Accordingly, if you want to take advantage of this information you do it by making a decision to commit yourself to Jesus. The Bible has a dramatically different view; here the shoe is on the other foot. God takes the initiative, just as he did in the incarnation of his Son.

The gospel is not just historical information, but the living power of the living God. Jesus said: “The words which I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). No wonder then that Paul saw the gospel not as a static message but as life-giving power: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

From Sanctification: Christ in Action by Harold L. Senkbeil, Milwaukee: Northwestern, 1989, pp. 166-7.

Look to Christ hanging on the altar of the Cross and pouring out His precious blood for your sins (1 John 1:7).  The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses you from all sin: He is the propitiation for your sins and for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).  For He did not come into the world to be ministered to but to minister and to give His life as a ransom and price for the sins of many (Matt. 20:28).  And lest any doubt arise or remain for you in this matter, from heaven, the throne of Truth, that most sweet and consoling name of Jesus, was brought by an angel, the spirit of Truth, proclaiming to us before He was conceived that He is our Mediator.

Indeed, is Jesus anything other than a Savior?  It is for this reason that He was given the name of Christ because He saves His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21).  This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).  This is Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15).  This is the High Priest of the New Testament, who has given Himself up for our sins as a sweet smelling offering and sacrifice to God (Eph 5:2).  It was Christ who shed His own blood for the remission of sins (Matt. 26:28), who bore our sins in His own body on the Cross (1 Pet 2:24), who was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isa 53:5).  The Lord laid on Him, as a stream made to rush headlong onto Him, the sins of us all.  God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us (2 Cor 5:21).  That is, He imputed to Him our sins.  He placed on Him the punishment of our sins.  He made Him a sacrifice for our sins.  Nor did Christ oppose this counsel and decree of the heavenly Father but carried out His will with the readiest mind imaginable.  He gave Himself for our sins (Gal 1:4).  He loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal 2:20).  There is a certain Baptism I wish to be baptized with, He said, and how great is My distress until it be accomplished (Luke 12:50).  This was the Baptism of His Cross and distress in which our most kind Savior was wholly immersed for no other reason than His immeasurable and ineffable love toward us.  It was this that so distressed Him.

No matter how great the outward pain in His suffering, nevertheless, you must know that His inward love for us was greater and more ardent.  Indeed, He was prepared to suffer more for our sins if the price He paid for our redemption did not seem sufficient.  But we should not doubt the sufficiency of that price, a redemption that is absolutely complete with Him.  As Bernard says, “for not a drop but a stream of blood flowed abundantly from the five wounds of His body.”  Indeed, Christ called out that all things were finished on the Cross and by the Cross.  Therefore He made through Himself a full and perfect purification for our sins (Heb 1:3) and by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified (Heb 10:14).  By His blood He cleanses us from our sins (1 John 1:7).  Therefore, believe such plain, clear, and carefully expressed words of the Holy Spirit and firmly know that the suffering and death of Christ made a complete and sufficient satisfaction for your sins.

From Johann Gerhard (first pub. 1611, translated by Carl Beckwith), Handbook of Consolations: For the Fears and Trials that Oppress Us in the Struggle with Death.  Eugene: WIPF and Stock, 2009, pp. 11-12.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the very midst of life
Snares of death surround us;
Who shall help us in the strife
Lest the foe confound us?
Thou only, Lord, Thou only!
We mourn that we have greatly erred,
That our sins Thy wrath have stirred.
Holy and righteous God!
Holy and mighty God!
Holy and all merciful Savior!
Eternal Lord God!
Save us lest we perish
In the bitter pangs of death.
Have mercy, O Lord!

In the midst of death’s dark vale
Pow’rs of hell o’ertake us.
Who will help when they assail,
Who secure will make us?
Thou only, Lord, Thou only!
Thy heart is moved with tenderness,
Pities us in our distress.
Holy and righteous God!
Holy and mighty God!
Holy and all merciful Savior!
Eternal Lord God!
Save us from the terror
Of the fiery pit of hell.
Have mercy, O Lord!

In the midst of utter woe
When our sins oppress us,
Where shall we for refuge go,
Where for grace to bless us?
To Thee, Lord Jesus, only!
Thy precious blood was shed to win
Full atonement for our sin.
Holy and righteous God!
Holy and mighty God!
Holy and all merciful Savior!
Eternal Lord God!
Lord, preserve and keep us
In the peace that faith can give.
Have mercy, O Lord!

Lutheran Service Book (LSB) 755
Text: Martin Luther, 1483-1546, tr. The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941, alt.

Should the Christian stand all day long at the grave of all joys which he enjoyed in past years?  Through Holy Baptism a great stream of joy has been conducted in his heart, which does not drain away, but streams forward with his life until its waves carry him into the sea of a blessed eternity.  Should the Christian be reminded all day long that the flowers of his youth fall more and more?  He stands planted by God in the water of his Baptism as a palm tree which becomes greener and greener and whose leaves never wither.  Yes, his Baptism makes death for him like a short winter’s nap, out of which an eternal spring – an eternal youth – follows.

For Baptism is a bath that washed me not only once when I received it – washed me pure with Christ’s blood – but it continuously washes me clean even daily for as long as I hold it in faith.  For just as that same water of the flood drowned the sinners, but Noah with his relatives were brought to salvation and carried to Mount Ararat, so also did the water of my Baptism drown my sins, but my soul was brought to the eternal mountain of divine grace.  And just as once those same waves of the Red Sea, which swallowed up Pharaoh and his army, were a protective wall for Israel, so also has my baptismal water swallowed up all of my damnation and is for me a sure wall before God’s wrath and punishment….

Now then, all of you who believe in God’s Word, let your watchword for entering the new year be this: “I am baptized!” Although the world may laugh at this comfort, the enthusiasts vex its confidence … nevertheless, abandon any other dearly held pledges and speak only throughout the entire year to come, in all terrors of conscience and necessity through sin and death: “I am baptized!  I am baptized!  Hallelujah!”  And you shall prevail!  In every time of need, you will find comfort in your Baptism; on account of it Satan will flee from your faith and confession; and in death you will see heaven opened and will finally come into the joy of your Lord to celebrate a great year of jubilee, a year of praise, with all the angels forever and ever.  Amen!

From the Treasury of Daily Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, 2008, pp. 1077-78.

Now Scripture sets forth two kinds of teaching – Law and Gospel.  The Law, in condemning sins and setting forth the gravest threats of God, is that hammer (Jer. 23:29) through which God breaks rocks, that is crushes the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humbles it, so that truly and earnestly acknowledging the multitude and magnitude of sins and of the wrath of God over sin, the mind begins to hate and detest sin, to fear the wrath and judgment of God so that it is unwilling to perish eternally under them but sighs and struggles with groaning that it may be freed from them.  There the Law indeed has and sets forth promises of life, but on condition of perfect fulfillment …. the Gospel, however, teaches that what was impossible for the Law on account of the flesh, God provided by sending His Son (Rom. 8:3).  Therefore it shows Christ, the Lamb of God, born under the Law for us, in order that He might make satisfaction to the judgment of God, revealed in the Law, by His obedience and suffering on our behalf.  This Mediator the Father sets before us in the Gospel as a propitiation by faith in His blood through the remission of sins (Rom. 3:25).  “For this is the will of the Father, that everyone who believes in the Son should not perish but have eternal life” (John 6:40).  Thus the Gospel proclaims, offers and sets before contrite and terrified consciences the grace of God, reconciliation and remission of sins freely on account of the merit of Christ; and it is His will that everyone should lay hold of and apply this benefit of the Mediator to himself.  The ministry of private absolution applies this general promise of the Gospel to the penitent individually, in order that faith may be able to state all the more firmly that the benefits of the passion of Christ are certainly given and applied to it.  Moreover, in the use of the Lord’s Supper, Christ offers, applies, and seals, to all who receive it in faith, the New Testament with the precious pledges of His body and blood, namely, that God wants to be gracious with respect to our sins and to remember our iniquities no more.

From the Treasury of Daily Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, 2008, pp. 902-903.

In this episode Pastor Fisk gives the best and most concise explanation of the differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism that I’ve ever heard (or seen). It basically comes down to how the two groups view reason – and how they handle paradox.

The story of the young man in the video above is a very heartbreaking and extreme example of the damage that can be wreaked in people’s lives by Arminian decision theology.  I have no problem agreeing with him that the sinner’s prayer only hurts people.

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years not really sure whether or not I was saved because 1) I initially didn’t remember ever having prayed the sinner’s prayer and 2) the multiple times I do remember praying the sinner’s prayer I wasn’t sure whether I was sincere enough when I prayed it.  My experience with decision theology was not so extreme that I prayed the sinner’s prayer every night after crying for hours, as this young man did.  But I certainly have my share of “dates I was saved” written down in one place or another, and lived in constant fear that I would be left behind if Christ were to Rapture His people off the earth.

So my concern is not with the much-needed critique of decision theology.  My concern is that the answer that is presented – a very dramatic and emotional conversion experience – is just as subjective as the problem when it comes to finding assurance of salvation.

It’s obvious to me that this young man was a terrified sinner who was absolutely crushed by the Law.  You can almost feel the despair as he says again and again, “I’m not right with God, I’m not right with God.”  He is a perfect illustration of someone experiencing what the Augsburg Confession calls the first part of repentance:

Now strictly speaking, repentance consists of two parts.  One part is contrition, that is, terrors striking the conscience through the knowledge of sin.  The other part is faith, which is born of the Gospel [Romans 10:17] or the Absolution and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven (AC XII:3-5).

And the Apology of the Augsburg Confession goes into more detail:

We say that contrition is the true terror of conscience, which feels that God is angry with sin and grieves that it has sinned.  This contrition takes place when sins are condemned by God’s Word….In these terrors, conscience feels God’s wrath against sin.  This is unknown to secure people living according to the flesh.  The conscience sees the corruption of sin and seriously grieves that it has sinned.  Meanwhile, it also runs away from God’s dreadful anger (Ap XIIa (V):29, 32).

Decision theology turns faith into a work you must do – “you need to sincerely ask Jesus to save you and to come into your heart.”  So instead of giving the terrified sinner the comfort of the Gospel freely offered, the terrified sinner is thrown back onto the sincerity of his heart – which he knows is desperately wicked, even though he might not put it in those terms.  The sinner’s prayer is always qualified by “if you really meant it.” And there are plenty of things that will make you question whether or not you really meant it.

The answer for the terrified conscience is the objective promise of the forgiveness of sins in Christ.  The Apology continues:

As the second part of repentance we add faith in Christ.  The Gospel, in which the forgiveness of sins is freely promised concerning Christ, should be presented to consciences in these terrors.  They should believe that, for Christ’s sake, their sins are freely forgiven.  This faith cheers, sustains, and enlivens the contrite, according to Romans 5:1, ‘Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.’  This faith obtains the forgiveness of sins (Ap XIIa (V):35-36).

My concern with this video is that the answer to a person’s feelings of contrition is not presented as the objective promise of the Gospel, but instead is presented as a subjective emotional experience.  Salvation is presented almost as God reaching down out of the blue and giving someone an unshakeable feeling of being loved and forgiven and of having their sins washed away by Christ, and causing them to have affection and love for Him.

Can a Christian have such feelings?  Absolutely.  But faith is not having a subjective feeling. Faith is trust in a promise.  Feelings may follow faith, but they are not themselves faith.  Feelings come from objective reality, not the other way around.  The danger of looking to an emotional experience for assurance of salvation is this: What happens when I once again feel like a horrible sinner who doesn’t love God?  What happens when that subjective experience of God’s love and forgiveness wears off and I am left all alone with my sin and doubt?  If your assurance that God has saved you is based on an emotional experience, it’s easy to conclude that maybe God didn’t want you after all.

Revivalism in general – no matter what the theology behind it – points you back to yourself for assurance of salvation.  With Arminian revivalism – in which the sinner’s prayer plays an integral part – the burden is on you to know whether or not you have repented adequately or whether or not your prayer was sincere enough.  With Calvinistic revivalism – promoted by the likes of Paul Washer (who was mentioned in the video) and John Piper – the burden is on you to know whether or not God has sovereignly saved you.  So either way, you are driven to look to your experiences and inner life for assurance.

I am not questioning the experience of the man in the video – in fact, I can relate to him in many ways.  Nor am I knocking conversion as such.  The experience of someone moving from darkness to light might indeed be dramatic.  But any experience in my heart that arises from hearing and believing the Word of God – the Word of forgiveness spoken into my ears that says “Your sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ” – is secondary to the objective reality of what that Word says.  A person baptized as an infant who is not conscious of a day in their life when they did not trust in Christ is no less saved than a person who experiences a dramatic conversion after hearing the Word.  It is the Word of Christ that is central.  Feelings and experiences may come and go, but it is the Word of Christ that is truly unshakeable.

Here’s an excerpt:

The logic of Luther’s doctrine of justification supports a faith that is unreflective, not in the sense that believers cannot have any idea at all of whether they believe (for of course they do) but in the sense that they do not have to.  Knowing you believe is possible for Luther but not obligatory, because nothing important depends on it.  This is the import of Luther’s saying that “I cannot build on the fact that I believe.”  Christians must not rely on their faith but on God’s word and sacraments, and therefore are free not to worry about whether their faith is real or sincere enough.  Pastorally speaking, it does not matter whether I am strong or weak in faith, because in either case the word of promise refers to me and is true.  So strong or weak, confident or doubtful – even sincere or insincere – what is required of me is the same: I am to hear the Gospel promises, believe them and take them to my comfort.  Things are quite different in most varieties of Protestantism, for which the promise of the Gospel does not take the form of an external, sacramental word.  For this creates the problem of knowing whether the promise really refers to me.  When the Gospel takes the form, “whoever believes in Christ is saved,” then I cannot tell whether the promise of God is about me until I am confident that I really believe in Christ.  Reflective faith therefore becomes essential in Protestantism.

But it turns out there are reasons why those who believe they are justified by faith alone might want to have a reflective faith, reasons that are operative even in Luther.  To discern them we can return to our imaginary American revivalist asking Luther whether he is a born again Christian.  “Of course – I have been baptized,” comes the answer.  We can imagine the revivalist responding, in puzzlement or indignation: “What do you mean?  You think you’re saved just because you’re baptized?  But surely, Dr. Luther, you can see that there are plenty of people who get baptized when they’re babies but don’t get saved in the end!” Here Luther is usually inclined to give the standard Augustinian answer that Catholics would also give: “Well of course none of us are saved yet; for while we are in this mortal life we are not saved in reality (in re) but only in hope (in spe).” This answer divides Catholics from Protestants.  We can imagine the revivalist at first trying to interpret it in Protestant terms: “You mean to say you can lose your salvation?”  This is a distinctively Protestant question, which no Augustinian Catholic would think to ask.  We can imagine Luther clarifying.  “No, I said I am not saved yet.  I cannot lose what I do not yet have.  You see, to be born again is not yet to be saved.  Through mortal sin – by which I mean unbelief – we lose the new life that is given us in Christ.  That is why it is called mortal.  So baptism is only the beginning of the Christian life, and salvation belongs only to those who persevere in faith to the end of their lives.”  This clarification raises the issue that divides Luther not just from most Protestants but specifically from Calvin.  At this point indeed Calvin’s doctrine marks a radical innovation in the Augustinian tradition which is fundamental to the origin of the Protestant tradition as we now know it.

You can read the rest here.

However, the post – and even more so the subsequent comments – illustrates the sometimes unhealthy tendency in American evangelicalism to focus on “what’s happening inside my heart” rather than on “what happened outside of me” – as well as the rather unhealthy (in my opinion) Reformed and evangelical tendency to see repentance and faith as a one-time event, “crossing the starting line” if you will.

I tried to post a comment over at the blog but for some reason it was swallowed up into the void twice (even though I was well under 2000 characters!) so I’ll reproduce my comment here:

As a Lutheran who used to be an evangelical, I think looking inside oneself in any way for assurance of salvation will always place that assurance out of reach.

It’s interesting how “once-saved-always-saved,” “eternal security”, or “perseverance of the saints,” whatever one wants to call it, is used to try to bring comfort to people by saying they can never fall away.  Yet the qualifier is “IF their faith is real.”  For it to be any comfort, one has to know whether or not they have true saving faith.

I spent years and years on the rat-wheel of morbid introspection, trying to figure out whether my repentance was really sincere enough, whether I had surrendered my life to God enough, or whether I had enough good works to prove I was a true Christian and my faith was real.

It was only when I discovered that the Gospel was entirely outside of me – through Christ’s perfect life lived in my place, and in His death on the cross for every one of my sins, even ones I committed just today or that I commit repeatedly – that I found any sort of peace.  I discovered that the Christian life is one of daily repentance and faith in Christ alone, not a “crossing the starting line into true saving faith that you can never lose.”  Instead of worrying about whether I am “truly converted”, every day is a day of repentance and faith in Christ, nourished by the hearing of God’s word and the receiving of His Sacraments.  He is the one that creates and sustains our faith to the end through His means of grace.  The date that I “got saved” matters very little to me.  All I know is that I am baptized into Christ, that He put His name on me and that I belong to Him.

I think it is wrong to tell people to focus on their faith rather than on the Object of their faith – Jesus Christ and Him crucified for their sins.

The many comments on the post from folks struggling with the assurance of their salvation, and the well-meaning attempts of others to point them to their works and experiences in order to get that assurance brought back a lot of unhappy memories for me.  The comments along the lines of “I-thought-I-was-saved-for-twenty-years-but-found-out-I-wasn’t-and-then-God-REALLY-saved-me-by-giving-me-an-experience-of-REAL-repentance/surrender” brought back even more bad memories, of the sense I had towards the end of my days in evangelicalism that I was unwanted by God and there was nothing I could do about it.  He apparently wanted others, because He gave THEM an experience of true repentance/surrender that led to minimal struggle with sin and complete assurance of salvation…but He must not have wanted me, because He gave me no such gift.

The objective promise of Baptism – that through it God forgives my sins and applies to me the benefits of His death and resurrection – led me to the conclusion that God DID want me.  It is rooted in Scripture that God wanted me.  The words of Christ and of His apostles all said: “This is for you.”  Period.  Not, “this is for you IF your faith is real.” Just “this is for you.”  Such an objective promise leads to faith.

As an illustration: sometimes I really struggle with the sin of apathy.  There are days when I find myself completely indifferent to the things of God.  The Reformed-leaning evangelical answer to this problem might be: “Maybe your faith is not real.  You should perhaps question whether or not you are really a Christian and really have true saving faith.”

The Lutheran answer to this problem is different: “Your apathy is a sin against God.  But Christ died even for that sin.  Repent and believe that His forgiveness is for you.”  Instead of hearing that my sin disqualifies me from being a real Christian, I see God smiling down at me saying, “I forgive you even for that sin.  Return to Me.”

Every week I rack up enough sins to earn me eternal punishment thousands of times over (and I’m probably understating that).  Yet every week in the Divine Service I hear God’s word to me – “I forgive you even for those sins.  Repent and return to Me.  Look to the cross, where I suffered and died for you.  I put My name on you in Baptism.  I give you My true body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins.  You are My beloved child.”

Because of the objective promises of God in Word and Sacrament I no longer have any doubt that God wanted me.  And still wants me.

How could I not love such a God?

The Sacrament is a sign, but at the same time it is more.  It conveys to us God’s grace.  That is what Luther had learned in his fight against the ‘sacramentarians’: only in the Real Presence of the true body and blood of Christ do we have that assurance which the Lord’s Supper gives us.  Luther himself never doubted this Presence.  It was the silent presupposition of everything which he had said in his early writings on the Sacrament as a sign and seal attached to Christ’s promise.  He had seen then where the figurative understanding of the sacramental words was bound to lead.  If ‘This is my body’, ‘This is my blood’ were understood figuratively, then there would be no assurance that ‘given for you’, ‘shed for you’ were to be taken literally.  Then the proprium of this Sacrament would be lost, the eating and drinking of what Christ had sacrificed for us, and with it the Real Presence of the whole Christ, according to his divinity and humanity, in his Church on earth, here and now, as an anticipation of our eternal union with him.  No one who knows Luther can assume that he would have been satisfied with Calvin’s doctrine, which, in spite of all realistic language, did not admit of more than that spiritual manducation which all Reformed churches teach.

From This Is My Body by Hermann Sasse, Augsburg Publishing House, 1959, p. 267.