means of grace

Scientific evidence and first-century reports of miracles surrounding Jesus

printable version (PDF)

David R. Bickel

University of Ottawa
Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology
Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology
Department of Mathematics and Statistics

 

July 31, 2020

How to judge first-century reports that Jesus worked miracles and rose from the dead1

“How to Help Children Understand Social Distancing.” “How to Make a Watermelon Keg.” “How to Forge a Knife.” Those are some of the methods trending at the time of writing this.2 Obviously, the method for making a watermelon keg will not result in a forged knife. It will not help children learn social distancing. That is not a criticism of the watermelon-keg method. Any method would fail when applied outside its domain. The scientific method of evaluating evidence has proven to be strikingly effective in the study of natural phenomena. Other, less structured methods of inductive reasoning are effective in making ordinary decisions. Are inductive methods also suitable for evaluating the New Testament’s accounts of miracles in the sense of supernatural actions of God?

Let’s review some of those accounts. Paul of Tarsus reported having seen Jesus alive years after his execution on a cross.3 In addition to that eyewitness testimony, he appealed to an early tradition that Peter and James saw Jesus alive a few days after his death and to the report that five hundred others did as well.4 Most of the Gospels describe the resurrection appearances in more detail; for example, the Third Gospel records his eating with his followers after his death.5 All four canonical Gospels also bear witness to many miracles that Jesus performed, mostly to heal people of various health problems but also to stop storms, to feed thousands, and even to raise the dead. For example, the Synoptic Gospels report that Jesus healed a paralyzed man by inviting him to get up and walk.6

The Gospels did not conceal the purpose of their accounts: that their audiences would believe that Jesus is the Messiah promised to save all people from bondage to their enemies,7 especially from God’s anger against violations of his will as recorded in the Ten Commandments.8 In the case of the paralyzed man, the healing is offered as proof that God forgave him precisely when Jesus assured him, “Your sins are forgiven.”9

The modern tradition: evaluating miracle reports as merely human testimony

We have reviewed the testimony of Paul and of the other Christians of the first century. But how believable can reports of supernatural events be? Charles Darwin doubted them in part because he found people of the time to be “ignorant and credulous.”10 Our scientific age’s skepticism toward supernatural events has much earlier roots in the Enlightenment’s arguments against miracles. As a pioneer of the Enlightenment, Baruch Spinoza proved the impossibility of miracles, defined as violations of scientific laws, from the premise that such laws hold with absolute necessity, not allowing any exception.11

Dropping that premise while retaining the definition of a miracle, David Hume offered a more convincing argument, not against miracles themselves but rather against believing testimony about them.12 In his thinking, testimony that a miracle occurred should only be believed if the probability that the testimony would occur given the absence of a miracle is lower than the probability that scientific law would be violated in the way claimed by the witness. He appealed to scientific induction to explain why he considered the former probability much higher than the latter, especially in the case of a reported resurrection. He reasoned that the “wise and prudent” who first heard the reports of miracles would have dismissed them, which is why we have no contemporary records refuting them.13

More recent arguments against accepting accounts of miracles rest on explaining them in terms of psychological phenomena such as false memory.14 Those arguments, like inductive arguments coming to opposite conclusions,15 attempt to apply scientific methods of weighing evidence apart from any revelation of a divine being. Such revelation would only be considered if the type of inductive reasoning used in science, perhaps based in part in testimonies of miracles, pointed in that direction. In short, words of a prophet or an ancient writing would only be considered of divine origin if that is the conclusion of an inductive argument that is not itself guided by anything supernatural.

A first-century alternative: receiving miracle reports as divine pledges

The Enlightenment worldview discussed above, though anticipated in its rejection of religious tradition by ancient Greek philosophy, was not shared by Paul and the other first-century Christian witnesses.16 They never wanted their testimony of the resurrection and other miracles to be weighed according to human wisdom, not even the most careful reasoning of the best philosophers.17

They instead believed that the words of Paul and other witnesses of the resurrection were those of the God who created the universe by commanding, “Let there be light!” From their perspective, people who are completely dead in their opposition to their Creator are resurrected to trust in his promise,18 “Your sins are forgiven because Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Creator, gave his life as a ransom for you! He proved it by raising him from the dead, and we are witnesses of the resurrection.”19 That pledge and testimony itself creates such trust,20 raising them from death in rebellion against God to eternal life in the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus is reported to have resurrected a man dead for four days by telling him to leave his tomb.21
That early Christian belief in the healing power of invitations from Jesus is also seen in the case of the forgiven paralytic:9

Afflicted Invitation
Paralyzed Get up and walk!
Sinners Believe the pledge of forgiveness! 22

Two of the Gospels reporting that also list additional cases of afflictions remedied by divine words:23

Afflicted Remedy
Blind regain sight
Paralyzed walk
Lepers are cleaned
Deaf hear
Dead are raised
Poor are told the good news

The poor in the last row are those who admit that they deserve their Creator’s sentence, “Guilty as charged.”24 That poverty is overcome by the good news that he gives them a full pardon, even promising them his eternal kingdom.25 By contrast, those who are “rich,” pleading innocent, remain unforgiven.26 Those who did believe the words of Jesus were said to have been saved by that trust, whether he saved them from the affliction of sin or from a physical affliction.27

The healing, forgiving power of the words of Jesus was thought to continue after his death and resurrection. In the eyes of the first-century witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus, their testimony of resurrection appearances was inseparable from the Creator’s giving a divine pardon to whoever would receive it.28 Their report of the risen Creator not only was his assurance that he paid the penalty for all people’s sins in full but also his command that those who hear arise from their death in sin by trusting that promise.29

To highlight the contrast between scientifically evaluating the evidence on one hand to listening to the Creator’s voice in the evidence on the other hand, let’s also consider the case of the words of Jesus as reported in the Fourth Gospel. It claims that Jesus predicted his crucifixion and resurrection.30 According to the best human reasoning as found in historical methods informed by science, there are a number of ways the claim could possibly be unreliable due to flaws in human memory.14 In fact, the unreliability of eyewitness testimony was already a concern when the Gospel was written. That is why it says Jesus promised the eyewitnesses that the Holy Spirit would ensure that they remembered what he taught them.31 Clearly, the author did not intend his audience to rely on the accuracy of human memory but instead to rely on the Holy Spirit’s working through their testimony.

Hard to believe.32 More bluntly, it is impossible to believe the good news that the forgiving Creator’s reign is now here.33 But the Jesus of the canonical Gospels always commanded the impossible. Just as Jesus told those incapable of walking to walk34 and a man incapable of moving his hand to stretch out his hand,35 he tells those incapable of believing the divine pardon to believe the divine pardon.36 At his invitation, those incapable of walking walked. At his invitation, the man who could not move his hand stretched it out. At his invitation, those incapable of believing believed the good news of the Creator’s unconditional forgiveness.

Apart from that life-creating pardon from the almighty Creator, those who are dead in sin would remain dead. They would only be able to evaluate human testimony of the resurrection by scientific methods, philosophy, and other human reasoning. Such evaluations might lead them to conclude that some claims of Christians are probable. But it would never bring them to trust in the Creator’s pardon of all their transgressions, for the sake of his innocent Son’s death as their substitute for the eternal death they deserve according to the Ten Commandments. No, inductive, scientific-sounding reasoning like that of Hume simply cannot raise the spiritually dead. As convincing as it is on its own premises, it cannot create the new life of trust in the Creator’s pledge to forgive their violations of his law. By human powers, those who cannot believe the Creator’s pardon do not believe when invited to believe, just as those who cannot walk do not walk when invited to walk.37

Does God create belief in what otherwise seems impossible?

So should the early Christians’ reports of Jesus’ predictions, the resurrection appearances, and other miracles be evaluated according to inductive methods like those found successful in science? Or should they be received as originally intended, as the Creator’s pardon pronounced on his enemies, a pardon that supernaturally creates trust in itself? Science or a trust-creating pardon from God?

The more scientific approach certainly agrees better with our human thinking. That is to be expected since scientific methods of induction are arguably the most reliable forms of human reasoning about natural causes. But if the divine-pardon position is rejected, then there is no need for Hume’s inductive argument against receiving reports of miracles. For rejecting the original intention of the miracle reports means rejecting their announcement that though all people are born as dead to their Creator, he delivered his Son Jesus as the atonement, which can only be received by a trust they are incapable of without his life-creating pardon. Rejecting the divine pardon means rejecting what the miracle reports are supposed to confirm. That not only greatly diminishes the probability that the miracles occurred but also makes their occurrence irrelevant as far as the claims of primitive Christianity are concerned.

Why reject the claim that the miracle reports carry the trust-creating divine pardon? For a lack of evidence? No, that conception of evidence reflects the Enlightenment’s insistence on scientific or other inductive reasoning as if there were no trust-creating divine pardon. That is circular reasoning: the scientific approach to evidence must be used because that is required by the evidence interpreted by the scientific approach. In other words, the best human methods of evaluating evidence must be used because that is required by the best human methods of evaluating evidence. Any almighty word of the Creator is conveniently silenced by human assumptions.

The finding that people remain incapable of believing that word by human methods does not weigh against it. The opposite is true, for that finding corroborates the first-century Christian teaching that such belief is impossible apart from a miracle of divine creation.

What if the claim in the first Christian miracle reports is in fact true? What if the Creator does speak life-giving words of forgiveness through the testimony of the first Christians? More personally, what if he, in their testimony, is announcing to you the good news that he became a man to give his life for your own violations of his commands? Is that a divine promise bringing you to trust his full pardon for your unbelief and for everything else you have done, said, and thought against what he commanded?


  1. I thank Dorothy Johnson for informative discussions. ↩︎
  2. https://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page, accessed July 6, 2020 ↩︎
  3. 1 Corinthians 15:8-11 ↩︎
  4. 1 Corinthians 15:5-7 ↩︎
  5. Luke 24:42-43 ↩︎
  6. Matthew 9:6-7; Mark 2:10-12; Luke 5:24-25 ↩︎
  7. e.g., Mark 1:1-2; Luke 1:1-4; John 20:30-31 ↩︎
  8. For salvation from bondage to God’s wrath as the theological background of the Gospels, see Romans 5. The relevance of the Ten Commandments is explained in “Good news: Incarnation conquered law,” David R. Bickel, 2016. ↩︎
  9. Matthew 9:2-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:18-26 ↩︎
  10. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins, ed. Nora Barlow, 1958, p. 86. That dismissive attitude was not new; see Hume’s characterization of the ancient Jews as “barbarous” (An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Oxford University Press, edited by Peter Millican, 2007). ↩︎
  11. As cited on pp. 9-10 of Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles, John Earman, Oxford University Press, 2000. ↩︎
  12. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Oxford University Press, edited by Peter Millican, 2007. The originality of Hume on that is disputed by Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles, John Earman, Oxford University Press, 2000. ↩︎
  13. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Oxford University Press, edited by Peter Millican, 2007. Contrast the first-century Christian joy that the Father of Jesus hid the things he taught from the “wise and prudent” and revealed them to infants (Luke 10:21). For Christian explanations of why the Creator would hide truth, see “If God exists, why doesn’t he prove it?” David R. Bickel, 2008 at absoluteparadox.com. ↩︎
  14. See especially Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior, Bart D. Ehrman, HarperCollins, 2016. ↩︎
  15. e.g., The Resurrection of God Incarnate, Richard Swinburne, Oxford University Press, 2003 ↩︎
  16. See Commentary on Romans, Anders Nygren, Augsburg Fortress Publishing, 1949. ↩︎
  17. 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5, a text with loud echoes In Soren Kierkegaard (“If God exists, why doesn’t he prove it?” David R. Bickel, 2008 at absoluteparadox.com). While Acts 14:14-18 and 17:22-31 share some common ground with philosophy, they do not adopt its tidy exclusion of divine words from the reasoning process. Rather, they authoritatively announce the Creator (Acts 14:15; 17:23). ↩︎
  18. Ephesians 2:1 ↩︎
  19. Mark 2:5-11; 10:45; John 3:16; Romans 4:25; Acts 3:15; 10:39 ↩︎
  20. On the supernatural power of the Creator’s promise according to first-century Christians, see Matthew 8:5-13 and pp. 315-317 of Christian Dogmatics, volume I, Francis Pieper, Concordia Publishing House, 1968. ↩︎
  21. John 11:43 ↩︎
  22. Like any promise, the promise of the Creator’s forgiveness implies an invitation to believe what is promised (Apology of the Augsburg Confession on Romans 4:16). For an analysis of that promise as a speech act, see Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, Bayer Oswald, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008. ↩︎
  23. Matthew 11:4-6; Luke 7:18–23. ↩︎
  24. Just as only the sick need medical treatment, only sinners need Jesus’ call to repentance (Matthew 9:12-13; Luke 5:31-32). ↩︎
  25. That Beatitude (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20) seemed to fulfill ancient prophecy (Luke 4:17-21; 7:18–23). “Those who are poor are pronounced blessed. They may be destitute, forced to rely on God for everything, but theirs is the kingdom of God, and one day they will rejoice in its limitless riches and spender. The image in the Psalter of the oppressed and righteous poor man who belongs to God (e.g. Ps. 34:6; 72:2) finds fulfillment in them. That is, they are blessed not because they are poor and financially needy, but despite their property and because their poverty causes them to rely on God and put their hope in Jesus” (The Gospel of Luke: Good News for the Poor, Lawrence Farley, Ancient Faith Publishing, 2010, p. 137, emphasis original). ↩︎
  26. Luke 6:24; 18:9-14 ↩︎
  27. Luke 7:50; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42. All four passages have exactly the same five-word Greek phrase literally translated word-for-word as “The faith your saved you.” It means, “Your trust has saved you!” The word for “saved” may also be translated “healed,” whether the healing is spiritual (7:50) or physical (8:48; 17:19; 18:42). ↩︎
  28. Notice the blurring of testimony about observable events with testimony about messianic and apocalyptic implications of those events in these texts: ↩︎
    • Acts 10:39-42; 18:5; 28:23
    • John 1:33-34
    • 1 John 1:2-3; 4:12-14; 5:11.
  29. John 5:24-27 ↩︎
  30. John 10:18; 12:32-33 ↩︎
  31. John 14:26 ↩︎
  32. Matthew 19:23 ↩︎
  33. Matthew 19:24-26 ↩︎
  34. e.g., Mark 2:5-11 ↩︎
  35. Mark 3:1-5 ↩︎
  36. Mark 1:15. For an exposition of the good news of the presence of God’s apocalyptic reign according to the first-century Christians, see “What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God?
    Matthew 6:33 and Luke 12:31 in the Contexts of the Sermon on the Mount and the Lucan Parables,” David R. Bickel, 2007    . For more on the first-century claims of the supernatural power of God’s word to heal and forgive, see “Ways the Son of Man calls forth life: Seeking the kingdom of God in word and sacrament,” David R. Bickel, 2005. ↩︎
  37. John 3:3; 6:44; Romans 8:8 ↩︎

What is the difference between popular evangelicalism and confessional Lutheranism?

Christians of Reformed heritage, including Arminians as well as Calvinists, obviously differ from Lutherans on sacramentology. More foundationally, to the extent that they maintain their distinctive teachings, they disagree on exactly what gospel (good news) the apostles proclaimed:

absolve

More: The chief difference between Reformed theology and Lutheran theology

“Are there legal regulations in the New Testament?” (centennial; August Pieper)


And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Matthew 27:50-51a
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Galatians 5:2-5
. . . In the way in which it is stated in the Ten Commandments the love toward God and toward the neighbor is to express itself unconditionally on the part of absolutely all human beings and under all circumstances (except if he himself should make exceptions) and not a tittle differently (Mt 5:18ff).

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Justification by faith alone as the hallmark of Lutheranism

Ongoing controversy between even some of the most conservative followers of John Calvin surrounding what has become known as “the new perspective on Paul” dispels the illusion that professing evangelicals, though disagreeing on minor points of doctrine, at least agree on justification by faith alone. Among the more influential denominations involved, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church recently commended for study a report that explains many of the points of contention, some concerning seemingly harmless definitions of terms. Noting that words in the phrase “justification by faith alone” mean different things to different people, the report criticizes what it calls “the Federal Vision” for redefining faith to include faithfulness, obedience, or other good works. On the other hand, the same document condemns baptismal regeneration as contrary to the Scriptures and the Westminster Confession of Faith. That regeneration by baptism as God’s visible word as well as by his spoken word was integral to Martin Luther’s understanding of justification by faith suggests that those who formulated the confession’s underlying system of doctrine may have, ironically, redefined justification by faith centuries before the Federal Vision.

More: Calvinistic modification of justification by faith alone: Does God save all who believe the good news of Christ crucified?

Christ’s spoken and visible words give life

In 1531, the first Protestants clarified some fundamental similarities between the preached word of God and the sacraments, the rites instituted by Christ:

Through the Word and the rite God simultaneously moves the heart to believe and take hold of faith, as Paul says (Rom. 10:17), “Faith comes from what is heard.” As the Word enters through the ears to strike the heart, so the rite itself enters through the eyes to move the heart. The Word and the rite have the same effect, as Augustine said so well when he called the sacrament “the visible Word,” for the rite is received by the eyes and is a sort of picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word. Therefore both have the same effect. (Tappert, 2000a)

The Lord’s Supper was called the visible word, used in contrast to audible word by Augustine in an age of general illiteracy, when words were only written to be read out loud. However, in today’s culture of silent reading, visible word may convey no more than written word, whereas the concept of nonverbal communication, conveying thought by means other than words heard or read, is quite familiar.

More: Ways the Son of Man calls forth life: Seeking the kingdom of God in word and sacrament

Why do believers still need the Ten Commandments?

Just as Jesus used the Decalogue to restrain and condemn Satan, believers use it to restrain and condemn their flesh. Like Jesus, believers wield the written code against their enemies.

The one who cannot sin did not otherwise need the Decalogue. Similarly, believers, having God’s eternal will written in their hearts by the Spirit, would not need to hear Moses were it not for their ever-present sin.

While believers want to keep the commandments, they find themselves doing what they do not want to do because the flesh is weak, even to the point of clouding their judgment about what God requires. They always need to hear the law to inform them of what they already want to do as new creations. They are glad to learn which works please God and which are just human inventions.

In conclusion, believers delight in the Decalogue precisely because it is so effective in the battle against the flesh. They rejoice even more that their names are written in heaven, for only that good news can truly kill the flesh, burying it in baptism. That gospel promise alone can raise believers to new life.

Acknowledgment. I thank Robert C. Baker for helpful discussions on the third use of the law.

Resources on what the WELS and ELS teach about the ministry

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:17, ESV

According to rumors spread both online and by word-of-mouth, false doctrines on the ministry of God’s word are taught by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and especially the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), two members of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference. The misconceptions persist in part because it is more convenient to believe a soundbite than to take the time needed to study and understand what other Lutherans actually teach about the ministry. This post points to resources beyond the synods’ doctrinal statements on the ministry for those who wish to begin such a study.

In The Ministry of the Word, Prof. John Brug ably defends the position that WELS and ELS have preserved the lonely doctrine of Walther’s writings understood in context while the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) now represents a variety of views wide enough to include both some that are too “low” and some that are too “high” to be Scriptural.

Anyone seeking to develop a respectable case against the WELS doctrine of church and ministry must at a minimum interact with the points made in the 80 pages on the LCMS-WELS debates. To refute Prof. Brug would require a thorough exegetical or historical study.

For those preferring to start with a less thorough understanding of the WELS doctrine of the ministry because they cannot yet devote the time to read the book, here are some of Prof. Brug’s online papers that include many quotes from Luther and from some who have abandoned his doctrine for one closer to that of a self-perpetuating ministerium:

A wealth of additional information is readily available from www.wlsessays.net.

From the ELS perspective, Rev. David Jay Webber’s well organized and thorough webpage is well known. His church has several interesting essays on the ministry.

Finally, the president of the ELS wrote a paper with reasons that WELS does not have women communing other women and with valuable study material in the appendices: J. A. Moldstad (2011), “Public Ministry: ELS Perspective,” Lutheran Synod Quarterly 51, pp. 143ff .

Christ “commissions all believers to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments” (LCMS, 1932)

22. Since it is only through the external means ordained by Him that God has promised to communicate the grace and salvation purchased by Christ, the Christian Church must not remain at home with the means of grace entrusted to it, but go into the whole world with the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, Matt. 28:19, 20; Mark 16:15, 16 . . .
30. The Original and True Possessors of All Christian Rights and Privileges — Since the Christians are the Church, it is self-evident that they alone originally possess the spiritual gifts and rights which Christ has gained for, and given to, His Church. Thus St. Paul reminds all believers: “All things are yours,” 1 Cor. 3:21, 22, and Christ Himself commits to all believers the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Matt. 16:13-19, 18:17-20, John 20:22, 23, and commissions all believers to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments, Matt. 28:19, 20; 1 Cor. 11:23-25. Accordingly, we reject all doctrines by which this spiritual power or any part thereof is adjudged as originally vested in certain individuals or bodies, such as the Pope, or the bishops, or the order of the ministry, or the secular lords, or councils, or synods, etc. The officers of the Church publicly administer their offices only by virtue of delegated powers, and such administration remains under the supervision of the latter, Col. 4:17. Naturally all Christians have also the right and the duty to judge and decide matters of doctrine, not according to their own notions, of course, but according to the Word of God, 1 John 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:11.

The Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
(adopted 1932)

The Gospels say Christ commissioned all believers

The position of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1932, as carefully and precisely formulated in the above statement, was that parish pastors have a command to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments, and absolve sins—as those duties are delegated by the church, that is, by believers. As will be seen from the Gospels, Christ in fact commanded all believers to administer the sacraments even though it would not be orderly for anyone to do so in the congregation without a call from the others. Christ even told all believers that what they bind on earth is bound in heaven and that what they forgive on earth is forgiven in heaven.

That has been demonstrated both from the First Gospel (Matthew 16:16-19—in context, Peter represented each individual who confesses Jesus as the Christ rather than each pastor or each church; 18:17-20) and from the Fourth Gospel (John 20:21-23) in the post entitled, “Shining the lamp on church & ministry scatters the darkness of human interpretation.” Thus, Jesus says to all believers, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21, ESV).

St. Luke taught exactly the same doctrine of the gospel ministry. According to Luke 24:48-53, the witnesses to whom Jesus promised the Spirit were blessed by him just before the ascension and then waited for the fulfillment. The promise was spoken to the apostles (Acts 1:1-13) as representatives of all believers, not as representatives of all pastors (Acts 1:14-16; 2:3-4; 2:39), in agreement with the First and Fourth Gospels.

That leaves the longer ending of the Second Gospel (Mark 16:9-20) as the last account of the Great Commission for consideration. Assuming it is part of John Mark’s composition of Simon Peter’s sermons, it is best read in light of the latter’s clear description of the functions of the priesthood consisting of all believers. He wrote that all priests offer the sacrifice of praise to God by announcing his redemptive acts (“Believers have the keys and priesthood of God’s kingdom”  on 1 Peter 2:5-12). Stressing that teaching function of a priest (Malachi 2:7; B. A. Gerrish (1965), “Priesthood and Ministry in the Theology of Luther,” Church History 34, 404-422), Luther pointed out that, for the sake of order, those commanded to teach the gospel should delegate the duty of congregational teaching to a pastor (F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics III, 441-443). In Luther’s words, the pastor “should let himself be called and chosen to preach and to teach in the place of and by the command of the others” (C. A. MacKenzie, “The ‘Early’ Luther on Priesthood of All Believers, Office of the Ministry, and Ordination,” p. 11).

Nominally Lutheran interpretations

Since Christ sent all believers to proclaim the gospel, administer the sacraments, and declare sins forgiven in all accounts of the Great Commission, it follows that it does not directly say anything to believing pastors that it does not say to all believers. To force such an interpretation upon the texts when it cannot even be proven that believers other than the apostles were excluded from the original audience (J. F. Brug, “The Ministry of the Apostles and Our Ministry,” p. 2) is to deny the clarity of Scripture—that Christian doctrine is explicitly taught in clear passages of Scripture, not built on someone’s assumptions about them. Any doctrine of the ministry requiring the absence of non-apostles from the original audience comes from assumptions about Scripture, not from Scripture itself.

The clarity of Scripture is also denied when one concedes that the Great Commission is addressed to all believers while nonetheless maintaining that it says something else to pastors. For that violates the principle that each Scripture passage has only one literal sense—otherwise, God’s word could not speak for itself (see H. H. Goetzinger, “The Pastor & His Seminary Training: The Pastor as Exegete,” Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Symposium, 16-17 September 2013 on “Sensus literalis unus est”). The fact that a single prophecy may have multiple fulfillments (T. P. Nass (2011), “Messianic Prophecy and English Translations,” Forward in Christ) does not warrant reading a double meaning into the accounts of the Great Commission, one meaning for pastors and another for all believers.

Why, then, do multiple writers for Logia (T. P. Nass, “The Revised This We Believe of the WELS on the Ministry,”” Logia 10 (3) 31-41) and even some vocal pastors within the LCMS (see J. F. Brug, “The Pastor as the Representative of Christ”) now claim that the Great Commission has direct commands specifically for the clergy, a claim that cannot be supported from any passage in the Gospels? One reason appears to be the impression that certain articles of the Lutheran Confessions make such a claim. The impression vanishes once it is seen that the cited articles do not answer the question of whether the Great Commission was directly addressed to pastors in a way it was not addressed to all believers (cf. J. F. Brug (2009), The Ministry of the Word, NPH, p. 426).

Rather, they answer other questions, such as whether the Holy Spirit saves apart from the means of grace and whether pastors as representatives of the church may wield secular power. The Augsburg Confession answers both negatively. Article V answers the former question in order to refute the attempt to discredit the Lutheran Reformation by associating it with the Radical Reformation. Article XXVIII answers the latter question by reference to the Great Commission, which believers have delegated to their pastors, a delegation of spiritual powers, not temporal powers. Pastors are indeed commanded by Christ to teach the gospel, not because a double meaning should be imposed upon the Great Commission but simply because they do so “in the place of and by the command of the others,” as Luther was quoted above. The Lutheran Church followed his understanding that ministers of the gospel represent the priests who called them, as is evident from the doctrine of church and ministry presented in the Tractate/Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. The Tractate’s adoption of Luther’s simple teaching that pastors are the public representatives of the priests is fully warranted by 1 Peter 2:9 in its context and by other passages of Scripture.

The fact that writings correctly expositing the Scriptures are misused to depart from the words of the Gospels illustrates the danger in regarding any non-canonical writing as a prerequisite for understanding Scripture. That exegetical error is explicitly adopted among those of the Reformed who see it as their only weapon against sectarianism (“Scripture alone but interpreted by tradition?”). That is not how confessional Lutherans approach the Scriptures. To understand God’s “righteousness,” Luther went first to Paul and then later saw Paul confirmed to some extent in Augustine. Had he confined himself to Scripture as interpreted by church councils, there would have been no Lutheran Reformation.

The church’s mission according to other Scriptures

Is it possible that some of those denying the applicability of the Great Commission to every believer err in exegesis but not in doctrine? It does seem possible, provided that other Scriptures that teach the same doctrine are firmly and consistently held.

Such passages include Matthew 16:16-19 and 1 Peter 2:9. In the former, Simon is named Peter (rock) after the rock of his confession that Jesus is the Christ, which came only by divine revelation. Since all believers confess the same gospel, Luther was correct to observe in Matthew 16:16-19 that every believer is a “Peter” with the promise of the keys of the kingdom (F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics III, pp. 413-415, note 18). The keys of the kingdom signify nothing other than the gospel (p. 453). That is why sins pronounced forgiven by any believer are forgiven in heaven. Every single believer is called as a priest to proclaim the gospel of God’s saving deeds (1 Peter 2:9), which is the promise of forgiveness of sins, and that such a promise spoken by any believer is a promise from Christ himself.

The church may do so in part by appointing pastors to the public ministry of word and sacrament since believers are only restricted by the clear Scriptures in how they proclaim the gospel and since each sacrament is a “visible word” of the gospel. Pastors preach the gospel and administer the sacraments solely by the command of Christ they have received through the communion of believers, just as the LCMS once confessed.

Pastors have no other commission from Christ. Those who misread the Great Commission as recorded in the Gospels and yet affirm that pastors teach the gospel and administer the sacraments as mandated by Christ through the church have not necessarily passed from an exegetical mistake into doctrinal error. Had Christ wanted to commission pastors apart from his body, he surely would have done so with explicit orders, not with hidden double meanings or uncertain implications from apostolic practice. The Good Shepherd did not leave his flock to guess at what he really commanded. Continue reading →

Seek the breath of life

In Colossians 3:1-2, Paul encourages us to seek the good things to be specified later in the chapter. One reason to seek those things is that “you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3).  The other reason is that you have been raised with him (3:1). That is sanctification, in fact, the entire Christian life.

This chapter reads like a conflation of Romans 6 and Romans 12 with some elements of Ephesians 5-6, where Paul tells describes the Spirit-filled life. How is the Christian to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5)? In the first person of Luther’s Small Catechism, I am filled with the Spirit by continuing to “believe in Jesus Christ” since it is the Lord and Giver of life who “sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth.” Indeed, I am not in any way sanctified “by my own reason or strength.”