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.

The post can be found here.

-Pastor Jonathan Fisk, Worldview Everlasting 9/3/10

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 following is a hymn that wonderfully captures the truths expressed in the passage above. I want this sung at my funeral!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God’s own child, I gladly say it: I am baptized into Christ!
He, because I could not pay it, gave my full redemption price.
Do I need earth’s treasures many?
I have one worth more than any
That brought me salvation free,
Lasting to eternity!

Sin, disturb my soul no longer: I am baptized into Christ!
I have comfort even stronger: Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice.
Should a guilty conscience seize me
Since my baptism did release me
In a dear forgiving flood,
Sprinkling me with Jesus’ blood?

Satan, hear this proclamation: I am baptized into Christ!
Drop your ugly accusation; I am not so soon enticed.
Now that to the font I’ve traveled,
All your might has come unraveled,
And, against your tyranny,
God, my Lord, unites with me!

Death, you cannot end my gladness: I am baptized into Christ!
When I die, I leave all sadness to inherit paradise!
Though I lie in dust and ashes
Faith’s assurance brightly flashes:
Baptism has the strength divine
To make life immortal mine.

There is nothing worth comparing to this lifelong comfort sure!
Open-eyed my grave is staring: Even there I’ll sleep secure.
Though my flesh awaits its raising,
Still my soul continues praising:
I am baptized into Christ;
I’m a child of paradise!

Text: Erdmann Neumester (1671-1756), Tr. Robert E. Voelker (b. 1957)
Tune: BACHOFEN – Johann Caspar Bachofen (1695-1755, alt.)
Christian Worship Supplement 737:2-5/Lutheran Service Book 594:2-5
(HT The Shepherd’s Study for the lyrics, HT Lutheran-Hymnal Online for the audio)

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.

While Zwingli's view of the Scriptures rests mainly on the doctrine of Augustine, a certain influence of Origen and his allegoric interpretation of the Bible is noticeable.  The clarity of the Bible, however, does not mean that everyone can understand it; the Scriptures are clear and intelligible to the faithful only.  Now, faith comes from the Word of God, but only if and when the Holy Spirit moves the human soul.  Such faith is the true master of a correct understanding of the Divine Word.  Thus, Zwingli, in spite of his Augustinian biblicism, recognizes something as higher than the letter of the Bible.

Here a strong contrast between Luther's and Zwingli's understanding of the Word becomes evident.  For Luther the content of the Word is bound up with the letter.  The Holy Spirit comes to us in the external word.  In Zwingli's opinion, the external word (the letter) in itself has no power over the human soul.

Not the content of the Word as such overpowers the soul by virtue of the Spirit that dwells in the Word, but the Spirit contacts the soul directly and thus enables the soul to understand the real meaning of the Word –

So Reinhold Seeberg puts it, and underlines the parallel existing between the understanding of the Word and the Sacrament.  According to Luther, the meaning of the sacramental words can be found in those words only, since they are the words of Christ and, therefore, words in which the Holy Spirit dwells.  For Zwingli they cannot be understood from the letter, but by the Spirit, who makes the believer understand the words when he compares Scripture with Scripture and asks for the analogy of faith (pp. 116, Revised Edition, emphasis mine).

So for Luther, God's words themselves convey the Holy Spirit, but for Zwingli, the Word may or may not be accompanied by the Spirit.  Not only does this work itself out in their radically different views on the Lord's Supper, but it seems also to have very serious implications for their respective theological descendants. This is an issue of certainty – how do I know the Holy Spirit is working in my life?

For Luther it was a no-brainer – the Holy Spirit is always accompanied by the Word, and the Word is never unaccompanied by the Holy Spirit.  The two are inseparable.  For Luther Baptism was efficacious because of the Word of God in and with the water, and where the Word of God is, there is the Holy Spirit.  We receive the true body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper because of the Words of Christ.  The Word of God creates what it says.  It is living and active because it is always accompanied by the Spirit.  The person him/herself may reject that Word, but the Spirit is always present in it.

For Zwingli and Calvin et al, however, this is not necessarily the case. One might hear the Word of God, but the Holy Spirit may or may not accompany it.  The Spirit is not necessarily in the Word, but works directly upon a person's heart.  So we cannot really know with certainty that the Holy Spirit is working when one hears the Word, is baptized, or receives the Lord's Supper. 

This is basically where non-Lutheran Protestantism finds itself.  The problem with this is the resulting subjectivity.  I can hear the Word being preached.  I can see a person being baptized.  I can taste the bread and the wine in the Lord's Supper.  I cannot see the Holy Spirit working directly on a person's heart.  

As a Lutheran, I know the Holy Spirit is working because the Word is being preached and the Sacraments are being administered according to Christ's command.  If the Holy Spirit is separated from the Word of God, how can one know with certainty the Holy Spirit is working?  Only through subjective, inward-looking means.  This is true whether one is Calvinist or Arminian.  It is true whether one is Pentecostal, evangelical or fundamentalist.  The precise nature of the navel-gazing may differ from group to group but it is still navel-gazing.

1. Theological Shallowness.  Modern "praise songs" are, by and large, very theologically shallow compared to hymns.  They tend toward the vague and many of them speak generically of God rather than Christ – and even when they do speak of Christ they can be remarkably vague about what He did.  "There's Just Something About That Name" and "Bless That Wonderful Name of Jesus" come quickly to mind.  This sort of thing encourages, in my mind, the assumption of the Gospel that is all too prevalent in evangelicalism.

2. Definition of Contemporary – How does one define "contemporary"?  The truth is, most folks who want to introduce "contemporary" music into their churches will never be up on what is contemporary enough to really be cutting-edge and relevant to today's youth.  I hear Lutherans discussing the merits of praise songs from the eighties!  How is this relevant, exactly? It might be relevant to those who are in their forties and fifties, but certainly not to teens!  In twenty years we might be debating the merits of a song that came out in 2009.

The problem with selecting songs on the basis of "relevance" and how "contemporary" they are is that today's "relevant" and "contemporary" songs are tomorrow's moldy oldies.  It is much better to select songs on the basis of Christian content than on the basis of something as fickle as "relevance."

3. Inward focus vs outward focus.  In my experience and observation, praise songs tend to be very focused on what is happening inside the person singing rather than focused on what is outside of us – the objective reality of what God has done, and continues to do, through Christ.  For example, here's a song we used to sing at my old evangelical church:

Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place;
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angel's wings,
I see glory on each face;
Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place.

In this song, how do you know the Lord is present?  Because you feel it, you have an experience, etc.  As Lutherans, our feelings are not the gauge of whether God is present among us. God is present among us in His Word and Sacraments.  This is an objective reality whether I feel it or not.  Christ died for my sins and rose from the dead for my justification, regardless of whether or not I feel it to be true.

4. False assumption that new is good, old is bad.  This is an artifact of our constantly changing society.  The assumption is that people will think the liturgy and historic Christian worship is old, crusty and boring, so we should change it to accommodate what modern people like.  However, the false assumption here is that people want the same thing they get day in and day out in their everyday lives.  Lots of people are looking for something deep, meaningful and stable.  In my view giving up the liturgy for contemporary worship is like trading a priceless treasure for a cheap trinket someone bought last week at the dollar store.  The world's thinking is already only two inches deep.  Why should we want the church to be that way too? 

5. Focus on human activity rather than on God's activity.  The fact is many praise songs seem to have a sort of "me" focus – on me and my acts of worship and service rather than on what God has actually done.  "Everything within me worships you" is a line I particularly remember having trouble with as an evangelical when what I was really feeling was "everything within me is tainted with sin."  Many praise songs boil down to: I will do this, I will do that.  I will serve You in any number of ways.  I am worshiping, praising and adoring.  Often missing or simply assumed is why we should be doing these things, and when it is present it is often vague.  The emphasis is on what we are doing for God rather than on what God has done for us.

I recall a praise song that was popular years ago called "The Heart of Worship" whose chorus included the line, "It's all about You, Jesus."  But ironically, the rest of the song was basically about us, what was going on in our hearts, and what we were doing to worship God.  It was supposed to be all about Jesus but there was nothing in the song that said anything about what Jesus had done for us. 

6. False assumption that people are coming to church to be entertained.  If I want to be entertained, I will go to a concert, not a church.  If entertainment is what I am looking for, I will watch my favorite TV program.  Church is not the place I think of when I think "entertainment." And this is not a bad thing, because church is not about entertainment.

This point is somewhat related to point 4.  Are people really looking for "church as entertainment" these days?  When I can get megabytes and megabytes of shallow entertainment on my iPhone, why would I go to church to get more?  And even if there are those out there who do expect the church to entertain them, here's the thing – people are not saved because we entertain them to make the message more palatable to their fallen human will.  No, they are saved because the Holy Spirit, working through the Word, convicts people of their sin and creates faith in their hearts.

7.  What you confess determines how you worship (and vice versa).  I am convinced that behind "contemporary worship" is a different confession from that which Lutherans confess. This sums up all of the other points.

When I first started attending a Lutheran church I was struck by how participating in the liturgy was like being saturated in God's Word.  Everything that is done gives the worshiper more of the Word – the hymns, the prayers, the chanting, the readings, the sermon, the Eucharist – it's like swimming in a sea of wonderful, life-giving Scripture.  Why is this the case?  Because Lutherans believe that the Word of God is what creates faith, that it's living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, that the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.  In Lutheranism, the Holy Spirit comes through the Word of God (and the Sacraments – the Word attached to visible elements).

There is a reason why evangelicals worship the way they do – because
1) they largely believe that the Holy Spirit comes apart from the Word of
God and 2) they largely believe that faith is an act of the will rather than God's gift through the Word.  Thus the songs that are more about God "touching your heart" and "drawing us close" during worship – the Holy Spirit coming in a mystical way through our emotions – than about what God has objectively done and is still doing in Christ.  Thus all the frantic efforts to be culturally relevant in order to appeal to human will. 

What does it say when Lutherans worship like evangelicals?  It says, "we believe no different than what evangelicals believe."  When Lutherans worship like evangelicals, they are confessing that they don't really believe that the Word of God is THAT powerful.  They are confessing that what happens inside of us is more important than what was done outside of us.  They are confessing that what we do for God is more important than what God did (and still does) for us.

What would I have done if, on that fateful morning when I first decided that I needed to see Lutheranism in practice, I had walked into a church full of Lutherans who were worshiping like Baptists or Pentecostals? 

I would have walked away and never come back.  At least not to that particular church.

Why? 

Because there's no hope for me when all I am pointed to is myself – to my feelings, to my obedience, to my devotion, to my worship.  Hope only comes from outside of me – through the external Word and Sacraments delivering Christ crucified for my sins. 

"Contemporary worship" seems to be less about God's Word and more about entertaining us, making us feel good and pointing us to ourselves while at the same time claiming to be Christ-centered.  But in my experience there is nothing more Christ-centered and cross-focused than the liturgy done by Lutherans who are not ashamed to be Lutherans.