Lutheran Classical Education II - Means of Grace

The podcast discusses the importance of a distinctly Lutheran classical education. It highlights the centrality of the Word of God and discusses three different senses in which the Bible uses the phrase "Word of God". The podcast then transitions to the doctrine of the means of grace, which are God's visible and external ways of delivering salvation to us. It focuses on two means of grace: baptism and the Lord's Supper. It explains the Lutheran understanding of baptism as something that God does, incorporating us into Christ and bringing us into the physical body of the church. The Lord's Supper is seen as a means of receiving Jesus' body and blood for forgiveness, life, and salvation. The podcast emphasizes the efficacy of these means of grace and challenges interpretations that reduce them to mere symbols. Hello and welcome back to the Lutheran Classical Education Podcast. I'm your host Patrick Steckbeck and I'm very thankful that you tuned in today. My goal in this podcast is to inform Christians and especially Lutheran Christian families as to the importance of a distinctly Lutheran classical education. I've noticed the problem that some Christians today and Lutherans in particular at times don't understand the rationale as to why you would have a distinctly Lutheran classical education. They tend to think that a classical education is enough or a Christian classical education is enough. And they don't see the reason for a distinctly Lutheran classical education. But insofar as our distinct dogmas are worthy as holding in the confessional way, the way where we hold them even through argument and even through possibly persecution, they're also important for how we educate our children. And so this is a long extended argument for a distinctly Lutheran classical educational model. In our previous episode, we talked about the centrality of the Word of God. The Word of God is at the core and the root and is the sum and substance, is the basis that that principle with which if we did not have it, it would cease to be what it otherwise would have been. Right? A lot of big stuff there. It is at the core of a Lutheran classical education and it's also the core of Lutheranism. We talked about three different senses that the Bible uses the phrase Word of God. In the first, we talked about Jesus as the Word of God, begotten before all worlds of the Father, made man for us, Jesus, who became incarnate and is the very revelation of the heart of God from the bosom of the Father, according to John 1. We also talked about the scriptures using the term Word of God to refer to the message of the gospel, the message of forgiveness, life, and salvation through Jesus Christ, who became man, lived for you under the law, the law you could not fulfill, died for you bearing the curse of the law that you could by no means bear, and rose again for you that you might have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. And finally, we talked about the Word of God in the normal way in which people use it today in Western churches or American churches, which is as the scriptures. And the scriptures, if you recall from earlier, find their teleology, their goal, their scope, the place where they're aiming in Christ. Jesus says to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have life, but you don't realize that it's they that testify to me. And so we talked about the importance of the Word of God, and we will connect the importance of the Word of God to the doctrine of the means of grace today. The means of grace are a key doctrine in Lutheran theology and the theology of the Bible. Simply put, the means of grace are God's visible and external ways that he delivers all that Jesus Christ has won for us on the cross to us particularly. Jesus, as you recall, died for you, and he rose for you, and he promised salvation to the whole world. Romans 5 talks about how sin was brought into the world unto all men through Adam's sin. And through Adam's sin, all men are born in sin and are guilty both of their own sin, having a sin nature, and then the actual sins that they commit from that sin nature. And yet the text goes on to contrast the once-for-all failure of Adam with the once-for-all salvation of Christ, saying that as Adam failed and brought condemnation on all men, so Christ brought salvation for all men in his justifying resurrection. And yet then the question becomes, this death that happened 2,000 years ago, how does it get practically delivered to me? How is it delivered to my doorstep? How is it brought to me? The answer to how it's brought to me is the doctrine of the means of grace. God uses external tangible realities in order to bring forth salvation to us. Let me give you one more analogy before we move on to the particular means of grace. A pastor friend of mine said that the means of grace are like the Amazon delivery truck. You know what happens when you purchase something from Amazon, you don't immediately get it. The other day I was trying to purchase some curriculum from school, and so many purchases were going on that I was trying to keep track of everything, and I wanted those purchases there right now so that I could make sure that we had everything that we needed so that I could be a good employee and provide for my family and not get fired. And so I was concerned to make sure that we had all this curriculum and all the rest, but I couldn't get it immediately because it had to be brought to me by a delivery truck. And once it finally comes to my delivery truck, I can appropriate it and take it into my hands and check it and account for it. Now in the analogy, the purchase is, you know, when someone purchases the Amazon stuff, it's like Jesus dying for us on the cross. Forgiveness, life, and salvation were objectively won for us there, and yet they still must be delivered to us practically if they're to be of any benefit to us. And so the delivery truck is, in the analogy, like the means of grace, God's way of delivering all that Jesus had won for us. And so I want to talk about, after this, the particular means of grace, the things that God uses to ultimately bring salvation to us. Helpfully, Luther's small catechism is divided into six parts. The first three are the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Supper, and the Lord's Prayer. But the last three are the means of grace, which are these, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and confession and absolution. And so we'll talk about these biblically each in turn. Baptism is a true means of grace in Lutheran theology. In most theology and theological systems in the West today, in America today, baptism is looked upon primarily as something that I do to profess my faith. This is the Arminian conception of baptism. Arminianism is focused, it's a theological system, and to give you the shorthand, it has a focus on man's will in salvation. It has a focus on cooperating with God, God does his part, and then I do my part. And thus the primary actor in baptism in Arminian theology is the human subject who's responding to God's immediate grace being given to them. Contrary to this, baptism in Lutheran theology is something principally that God does. God baptizes us. No, he uses the hands of a minister to do so. He uses the word connected with the hands of that minister. He uses water. He uses all these things, but it is Christ who is ultimately doing it. You think of the example of the man born blind, and Jesus spits into mud and wipes his eyes with the mud. And you're like, well, why would Jesus do it that way? I don't know exactly why Jesus would do it that way, but he did do it that way. And we look at baptism and we think, oh, well, so a lot of Americans think, oh, well, of course God's not using that to actually save people. It's just water on people's face or just people being immersed in water. And yet the scriptures talk about it, not just as simple water only, but God's word connected with water that is given for forgiveness, life, and salvation. I'll quote you a couple passages from the scriptures just to think them through. St. Paul says this, So there we see baptism incorporates us into Christ, Christ himself. It also brings us into his physical body, the church on earth. In Acts 2, Peter says a very interesting phrase. He's speaking to those after Jesus had raised and after he was ascended. He's speaking to those at Pentecost who had just received the Holy Spirit. And he had preached to them the message of law and said that they had crucified the author of life. These brothers were cut to the heart. All these men from, you know, all these Jewish men who were brought together, they were cut to the heart by God's word of law. And Peter, being a wise preacher, flips from preaching the law to preaching the gospel. And he says, So you see right there, repent and be baptized, why? For the forgiveness of sins. Paul in Galatians 3.27 says, In order to read these scripture passages and not see baptism as efficacious salvation requires a method of interpretation that was developed around the 16th century, which seeks to remove the efficacy of baptism, that is its salvific, how it brings salvation to you, and reduce it down to a mere symbol alone, turning it into a bear sign, not a vehicle, not a vessel of salvation. But we confess, on the other hand, with the scriptures, that baptism saves. First Peter says, which corresponds to the flood at the time of Noah now saves you, as an appeal to God for a good conscience. Now, the second means of grace is the Lord's Supper. You recall, on the night in which our Lord Jesus was betrayed, he broke bread, and when he broke it, he blessed it, blessed it, he broke it, excuse me, and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you. In the same way, he took the cup and said, And said, This is my body, or this is my blood, excuse me, which is given for the full remission of all your sins. So you see there, in Jesus' institution of the Lord's Supper, why the supper was given. It was given to poor, miserable sinners like you and I, in order that we might receive Jesus' body and blood for forgiveness, life, and salvation. We have Jesus giving himself to us as the manna from heaven, who has come down from heaven, to strengthen us in this present wilderness, in order that by his grace we might strive, like the author of Hebrews says, unto new Jerusalem and attain it, unlike those who fell in the wilderness. And so those who receive Jesus' body and blood, know that they have forgiveness of sins, and know that they have the strength necessary in order to carry them into life everlasting. One more analogy, I promise. I'm getting a little excited, so I'm going to keep on going while the scripture passages are coming to my mind. In Isaiah chapter 6, God is seen in a vision by Isaiah in the heights, and the angels are flying around him saying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. And what you have is a picture of Isaiah saying, Woe is me from a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. And from the altar, the angel takes a tongue and takes it over to the lips of Isaiah, and says that your guilt has taken away, your sin has been atoned for. In the Holy Eucharist, we do not have just a vision, but we actually have the very body and blood of Christ touching our lips and going through our bodies and purifying us from the inside out. We talk about dwelling in Christ. There is no way to dwell in Christ more than in the Holy Lord's Supper. Now, finally, the neglected means of grace, the one that even Lutherans, I think, sometimes tend to forget about because we're just not so sure about it sometimes, but we should be, is holy confession and absolution. And I think that one of the things that makes holy confession and absolution is to follow the stories of the scriptures where we see confession and absolution. I want to remind you of King David when he took back Sheba, the woman who he should not have taken, and when he killed Uriah, and when he got the commander to even join in his sin, committed great and gross, heinous sin against God Almighty and what he had done had displeased the Lord. And you recall when Nathan the prophet comes to him, and Nathan gives him this analogy of someone who steals a little baby lamb from a man who had nursed it from the time it was young and it became like a daughter to him. And David says, you know, condense the man with justice and with anger. And Nathan says, behold, you are the man. And David, hearing this declaration of his sin, says, you know, repents and confesses his sin. And Nathan does not pronounce even more condemnation upon him at that point. At the point of his confession he says and proclaims to him the forgiveness of sins. You recall also our Lord who, in the Gospels, we have the instance of a man who is paralyzed and he is brought low into this, you know, the friends, they cut open the ceiling of the house that he's in. And he's descended down into the bottom where the people are. And Jesus says to him in the presence of the Pharisees who thought that forgiveness could only be given in the temple of the Lord. It cannot go outside of the temple. Jesus says, take heart, sin, your sins are forgiven you. He exalts the man. We see holy absolution right there. And then my favorite passage of holy absolution in the whole Scriptures is this one. When the thief on the cross who formerly had reviled our Lord comes to his senses, he declares himself to be a sinner. He recognizes that the judgment that he has received at the hands of the Romans is indeed just. And he says to the Lord Jesus, remember me in your kingdom. And this man has nothing to give. He's on the cross for goodness sake, right? I mean, he is at the end. He has nothing. And Jesus says back to him, surely today you'll be with me in paradise. Our Lord Jesus pronounces forgiveness upon that man. And also our Lord Jesus in that very same narrative pronounces forgiveness upon the whole world when he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Our Lord Jesus, merciful Christ, pronounces forgiveness upon. We see the keys of the kingdom, Jesus himself opening and pronouncing men and women's sins forgiven, opening the kingdom of heaven to them. We see these very keys given to St. Peter in Matthew 16. Peter is said to, has said, people are leaving Jesus in Matthew 16. Or Jesus is asking the disciples in Matthew 16, who do the people say that the Son of Man is? And they respond with some of the answers that everybody is giving. And then he says to them, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replies, you are Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says back to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. These keys, the keys of absolution, the keys of the forgiveness of sins and of eternal life, are given there to St. Peter. But if we move just two chapters over, you have the disciples who came to Jesus in 18 verse 1. And then you see Jesus teaching them about sin and forgiveness in verse 15. If your brother sins against you and you go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone and he listens to you, you've gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell him to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. So the very keys to the kingdom of heaven that were given to Peter in Matthew 16 are given to the disciples, the church. In Matthew 18, the key is to do what? To discipline, to cast out those who do not repent. And the key is to absolve, that is to pronounce the word of forgiveness upon those who do repent. We see the same thing in John 20. Our Lord Jesus, resurrected from the dead, comes to the disciples who are hiding in the upper room. Jesus says this in verse 19 of chapter 20. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. When he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad, and they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. And when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold the sins of any, they are withheld. In the book of 1 John, we have Holy Absolution talked about like this. It says, Confess your sins to the brethren in order that you might be healed. In the Lutheran Church, we deputize a minister from our common priesthood. We're all priests. We've all been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven to bind and to loose. And yet, as a public organ, a public vessel, a public deputization, we ordain a minister. We bring a minister up from the common priesthood to pronounce to us forgiveness, life, and salvation. That's his job, even as it's stated in the scriptures. We do not despise order and start to use God's gifts in a disorderly way. We ordain a qualified man in order to exercise these gifts publicly for us. And so, we maintain in the Holy Lutheran Church private confession and absolution as a right. And we do a public confession and absolution every week in the divine service. We will confess our sins testifying to how we are poor and miserable sinners. And that our pastor, our deputized minister of Christ, standing in the place of Christ, declares, as a minister of Christ, I forgive you of all your sins. And according to these passages, we see this theme in scripture coming up over and over again. And according to the keys of the kingdom being given to the church, we receive, once again, that promised declaration of the forgiveness of sins that is given to us in Christ. Now, these myths of grace, again, I will testify, are so important because they declare to us exactly God's heart to us. The scriptures speak of us as being unable to discern our own hearts. The heart is deceitful above all members who can understand it. And thus, we are not competent judges even of ourselves in the ultimate sense. More than that, it is impossible for us to ultimately discern God and his control over the universe and in his providence. We see things happening and we wonder how exactly is God relating to the world in this or in that instance. These things are hidden to us because of both our finitude, our smallness as creatures, and also our fall into sin. Romans 11 talks about the inscrutable ways of God, the unintelligible. They are beyond us. Job, you remember, in the book of Job, is brought to repentance and he declares he is not able to understand the hiddenness of God. But in the means of grace, we have Christ given for us. Christ, under the means of grace, comes to us and says and reveals the Father's true face to us. He reveals himself to us in the means of grace, not in a word of condemnation, but a word of justification, a forgiveness of life and salvation and of love, the very love of the Father, the very heart of the Father, the one who is in the bosom of the Father being given to us in these means. We do not have to worry or manufacture a God of our own creation in our own hearts. We do not have to worry whether or not God is forever far off after the fall. For we know in the means of grace and we trust in the means of grace that according to God's word of promise, he is surely here. He has baptized us into Christ, is feeding us and absolves us. Now, you wonder, what is the importance of this for classical Lutheran education? It's of the utmost importance for our educational model is not primarily rooted and grounded and centered in getting people ready for a job or making even, even making simply virtuous human beings, though that is an important aspect of our call. Nor is it just pursuing excellence or looking good, having uniforms and all the rest and all the flair and the glitter and reading classical texts and feeling really smart and all the rest. No, it's not about that. It is about making disciples of Jesus Christ. It is about seeing disciples of Jesus Christ being brought into mature manhood in him. And apart from the means of grace, this is impossible. Jesus, if you recall, says in John chapter 15, that he is the vine and we are the branches. And he bids us to abide in him. And what we've done in Western American churches is we think that abiding in him simply is just some feeling in our chest as we go about the day. When really I think the focus of the Bible of abiding in him is staying in the means of grace and living them out in our daily lives as we seek to be obedient to God. The means of grace centering our lives in the warp and woof of the divine service and in baptism as a daily reality. The Lord's Supper as a continual reality. Holy absolution as a weekly reality. Centering our lives around that and around these things and centering our students' lives around that and these things. That's a true education indeed.