Question I sent to Jonathan Fisk @ Worldview Everlasting

I occasionally catch the occasionally-helpful and usually-witty Worldview Everlasting show on Lutheran theology, etc, served up by one Pastor Jonathan Fisk, conservative Lutheran extraordinaire. He comes highly recommended by frequent reader Andrew.

I decided to send Pastor Fisk a question on his contact page, to see if he might address it on a future show. The upper limit was 500 characters, so I had to really slice and slice to get it under the limit, but I'm decently happy with what I was able to send:

To say "adult baptism is God’s work" is nothing less than special pleading. Why can’t I assign the label “not my work; God's work” to other things? By this principle, I could consistently be a tithing-circumcisional-abstentional-regenerationist and still profess that I hold to sola fide. Please tell me why I'm wrong. If your answer includes 1 Peter 3:21 or Romans 6, please prove that those are definitely not Holy Spirit baptism (Matt 3) but are definitely water baptism.

When a Lutheran challenges Sola Fide

I'm finding more and more I should lower my standards with respect to Lutherans, since I keep encountering sad surprises on the way they treat the Gospel at anything more than a superficial level. Poke the sacred baptism cow and all sorts of unpleasantries ooze out.

Eric said:

So we have an a priori assumption that any word, whether from God or from man, that grants any kind of salvific effectiveness to Baptism would bring us inescapably, and of necessity to a salvation by faith plus works. And it is this assumption that gives you license to do these strange things to the text. I will grant that you believe you are drawing this assumption from other parts of God's Word, and I would be willing to walk with you through these other verses one at a time to explore that question and see if they do indeed support your presupposition. Can you tell me something about where this article of faith comes from?

So, let me get this straight. You think it's an a priori assumption that we're saved by grace alone by faith alone. 

The massive "Um, what?!!??!" of that aside, it's hardly an assumption. It's sort of all over the Bible. It's a conclusion.

As for asking about the origin of this article of faith, are you being serious?

Fine, I am willing to debate you on this resolution:

Resolved: The sinner is made right with a holy God by God's grace alone through faith alone.

I'll take the affirmative and you can have the negative.

I'll begin with:

Ephesians 2:8-10 - 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9*******not as a result of works*******, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

So, we see here that salvation is NOT BY WORKS. 

Question: Are we saved by works?  

Answer: Not by works.

Romans 11:4-6 - 4But what is the divine response to him? “I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.” 5In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. 6But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

God's elective choice of a people for His own possession entails everything those people receive - regeneration, adoption, salvation, justification, glorification, sanctification.

Here God reminds us that it is NO LONGER ON THE BASIS OF WORKS. Otherwise, what? Grace is no longer grace.

I'll look fwd to seeing how you would like to argue that grace is no longer grace. Lutheranism sure is funny.

Gospel versus emotional Lutheranism

Over at Beggars All, I'm discussing a bit with one Brigitte, who is a conservative Lutheran. She is apparently of the persuasion that Baptism is Gospel. "God is favorably disposed towards you." 
I beg to differ, to be sure. I paste here our conversation so far.


Brigitte:
All my children and god-children learned to sing this short verse from little up: "I was baptized happy day. All my sins were washed away. God looked down on me and smiled. I became his own dear child." Which is a proclamation of good news to each every time. Romans 1:16. This is most certainly true.


Me:
Unless of course they aren't believers, in which case their sins are very much on them. And that song becomes a terrible curse.


Brigitte:
What a wonderful thing to tell little children in your care about Jesus.


Me: 
Tbh, I'd prefer just to tell them the Law and the Gospel. Not false hope.


Brigitte:
Baptism is Gospel. "God is favorably disposed towards you." Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. It is so simple. How shall they believe if they have not heard.


Me: 
Gospel is Gospel. Baptism is baptism. It honestly really scares me when people talk like you're talking.

Baptism does not communicate that God is favorably disposed toward anyone. Regeneration does. They are not the same, and one can be present without the other.


Brigitte:
Rhology, this is a very important question. Is what I say scary or what you say scary? And does God want you to trust him or not?

He does want you to trust him and this is the most important thing in the world. He is our good Father in heaven. Baptism is one more way he tells us. A pledge and promise and seal to his word. It would be immeasurably wrong to doubt him.

What is the worst thing that could happen if someone believed that God is favorably disposed to them? They might believe.




Me: 
What you say is scary, because you're equating something one does (baptism) with the Gospel. Doesn't get a whole lot scarier than that.

Yes, God wants me to trust Him. The regenerate man can trust Him to bring him safely to glory. The unregenerate man needs the Law and the Gospel, not false talk about how baptism did something for him.

Baptism is one way He tells US, yes, but not the unregenerate. So the focus needs to be on the SOUL, not the BAPTISM.

No, the worst thing that could happen to someone falsely believing that God is favorably disposed toward them is that they may well go to Hell and be sorta surprised when they get there. Kind of like a huge horde of "good people" Americans. Preach the Gospel to your godchildren! Not baptism; baptism is for later.

Brigitte:
Rhology, can you tell me how you would word the Gospel, as not to mislead anyone into believing that God is favorably disposed toward them when he is really proposing to damn them? What would you actually say to them?

And what would you tell them about their baptism, past or future? What would you actually say? How is anyone supposed to believe that God is good? How would you inculcate this message? How would you teach a child that God is their dear Father in heaven of whom they should ask all things that they need?




Me: 
can you tell me how you would word the Gospel, as not to mislead anyone into believing that God is favorably disposed toward them when he is really proposing to damn them?

Sure.
Strictly speaking, the Gospel isn't exactly that which is the persuasive power pertaining to God being DISfavorably disposed to the unregenerate - that's the Law.
So I share the Law AND the Gospel, the Law being a measurement of the person up against the 2 greatest commandments and getting into specific outgrowths thereof, and the Gospel being 1 Cor 15:
3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

The "died for our sins" is very important and usually needs to be unpacked so that it's not misunderstood. That means that Jesus took the punishment you deserve b/c of your sin. It means He gives you His righteousness, by virtue of His sinless birth and sinless life and His divine nature. It means God sees you as He sees Jesus, that you're clothed in an alien righteousness. And by virtue of His rising from the dead, He grants eternal life.
All this is obtained by repentance and faith. Adding any work to it (circumcision, baptism, penance, Mass) empties it of its power and results in trust in something other than Christ alone for salvation from sin and death.


what would you tell them about their baptism, past or future?

I suspect I may differ with my Presbyterian brethren here, so with that understood, I'd tell them that any past baptism was performed on an enemy of God and that disciples of Jesus need to be baptised. It's not optional; true believers get baptised.
It's the same thing Jesus said in Matthew 28:19-20 - go into all the world and make disciples, baptising them. When I meet a disciple or someone gets saved (thus becoming a Christian and becoming a ready-to-be-discipled disciple), I tell them that pretty much the 1st step of obedience to Jesus is baptism. After all, Jesus didn't say "go into all the world and baptise people and then pray that they become disciples later on".



How is anyone supposed to believe that God is good?

I'm sorry, but I think there is some disconnect here, or perhaps you're really really emotionally involved in this baptism question.
You really think it's in question how a Reformed Baptist would be able to consistently tell someone how God is good? Creation, the giving of Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, eternal life offered as a free gift, the Holy Spirit' indwelling, none of that has any bearing on whether God is good if it's not true that we can tell children that God is favorably disposed to them b/c they were dipped in water as babies? Really?



How would you teach a child that God is their dear Father in heaven of whom they should ask all things that they need?

I know for certain that giving them false assurance that getting dipped in water as a baby somehow nullifies the fact that they were born into sin and the Fall and that they actively live as active enemies of God.
What I *would* teach them (and indeed, what I *do* teach my kids) is that Jesus died for sin, the just for the unjust, in order to bring us to God. That they are sinners. That Jesus will forgive and give eternal life and that they must trust Him alone for such.

How is your formula superior to this, the pure and unmixed Gospel?

A Lutheran who just can't grasp the Hypostatic Union

I've been in conversation with Lutheran Edward Reiss recently about my monophysitism argumentation. Here is his latest offering.

Rhology,

The problem for you is this: Calvinism teaches that when the Logos became man a new person came to be--Jesus Christ the God-man. And because of this, the human nature of the God-man is not really God at all, but a mere human nature, as your claims here have amply brought out. This is why Calvinists do not give a simply "yes" answer to the question: Is shaking Jesus' hand shaking God's hand? It is always qualified, as Steve Hayes stated in his blog entry--shaking Jesus' hand is to shake a human hand. So, part of the person is not divine, period, while another is divine. Indeed, his human nature has no special qualities at all, again as is amply brought out by your comments, and to maintain it does have special qualities is to become "Monophysite".

So I would ask, if Jesus Christ is in only one place at any given time, how is "he", i.e. the person Jesus Christ, in any meaningful way God since omnipresence is a quality of God? If, as you say, the person is in two natures, (and I agree BTW), how can you maintain the divinity of the person if you assert that his divinity is present where his humanity is not and not therefore divide the person?

This is why I say you deny the divinity of the person of Jesus Christ. You may say that his divinity is God, but that is a useless tautology. Just repeating the words "Jesus is God" is not good enough, because even Arians claimed that, though with qualification.

It's a neat summary of the way he has only in small part actually engaged the question at hand and how little he either understands or can intelligently and correctly reproduce the viewpoint I've been advocating, which is really pretty simple. Jesus has always been God, always had a divine nature. Jesus is God and has a divine nature now. Jesus always will be God and always will have a divine nature.
At the time of His Incarnation, Jesus took on a human nature in addition to the divine nature He has always had. He has a human nature now, and thus He is a man now. He will always have a human nature and will always be a man. Thus, from the time of His Incarnation unto eternity, He has been, is, and will forevermore be the God-man.
Now, let's take that into account as we examine Edward's statements.

when the Logos became man a new person came to be--Jesus Christ the God-man

I doubt that "Calvinism" teaches that, but at any rate that is definitely NOT what I've been saying.
Totally wrong.


the human nature of the God-man is not really God at all, but a mere human nature

Correct. What part of "HUMAN nature" communicates "God" to you? This is indeed monophysite.
But you're switching terms AGAIN. We're talking about Jesus - the God-man. A person.


Is shaking Jesus' hand shaking God's hand? It is always qualified

Of course it is, b/c it's a terrible question. Shaking Jesus' hand is shaking Jesus' hand. Jesus is the God-man. It is just as correct to say "You're shaking a man's hand" as it is to say "you're shaking God's hand", but both are incomplete. You seem not to grasp the Incarnation or the Hypostatic Union very well at all.


if Jesus Christ is in only one place at any given time, how is "he", i.e. the person Jesus Christ, in any meaningful way God since omnipresence is a quality of God?

1) Why put "He" in quotations? Jesus is a He. I don't even know why you'd do that if you weren't very confused.
2) He is God in a meaningful way since --wait for it-- He's God. Jesus the person (hypostasis) has always had a divine nature, has always been God, a 'member' of the Trinity. Always has been, always will be. He also has a human nature, now, since the Incarnation.



If, as you say, the person is in two natures, (and I agree BTW), how can you maintain the divinity of the person if you assert that his divinity is present where his humanity is not and not therefore divide the person?

I DON'T say that His divinity is present where His humanity is not. YOU DO. You do because you say that His human nature is somehow divine b/c it's dang near omnipresent. I don't b/c I say that Christ the person is in ONE place at ONE time, ALL the time, from the time of His Incarnation unto eternity.


Just repeating the words "Jesus is God" is not good enough, because even Arians claimed that, though with qualification.

Well, good for them, but I say "Jesus is God" WITHOUT qualification.
It's just that "Jesus is God" is not the only correct and substantive thing to say about Jesus. There was this little thing called the Incarnation and Hypostatic Union...