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Verbum Dei in Utero, Part 3
Yes, I say still more on the same promise of Christ, that the parents, or others who are present, may and should take the little child in prayer even while it is still in the womb, and with thanksgiving for Christ’s command, offer or bring it [to Him] together with this or a similar prayer.
“Beloved heavenly Father, thank You that You have blessed us with the fruit of the womb. Beloved Lord Jesus Christ, let this little child be Yours, as You have said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, because such is the Kingdom of God.’ On this Your promise we bring this child with our prayer. When it is born and comes into our hands, we will also gladly bring it to You to carry it to you in Baptism, etc.”
Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, 1551
Dr. Marquart, I remember distinctly, said that babies do not have reason and so cannot understand the Word; thus in Baptism the word is applied to them through the water and the child receives faith and the Holy Spirit not through the ears and then the understanding, but through “the skin.” At the time I liked it. Then later I forgot about it. But now I’m wondering whether this might be the fruit of Marquart’s encyclopedic knowledge and decades long meditation on the Confessions and on the Lutheran theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries in the original languages.
I was doing research about this by looking through free books on Google, and I found a book by a Prof. M. J. Firey, who was a professor at a seminary of the General Council (I think). He writes in this book that Luther’s baptismal theology developed through three stages. In the earliest stage, he was still Augustinian, so he distinguished between the sign (baptism with water in the Triune Name) and the signified (regeneration through the Holy Spirit). In the second stage he (according to this guy) tended to stress that the promise (He who believes and is baptized will be saved) was necessary to be added to the sign (baptism) in order to bring comfort to the afflicted sinner. Then in the third stage, he was supposed to have emphasized God’s Word and ordinance in instituting the sacrament and how it transformed the earthly element (or transfigured it). The author points to the Small Catechism.
“What is Baptism? Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included [comprehended?] in God’s command and combined with God’s Word. Where is this written? Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Matthew: therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“How can water do such great things? Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with faith, which trusts this word of God in the water. For without God’s Word the water is plain water and no baptism. But with the Word of God it is a baptism; that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul writes in Titus, chapter 2: ‘He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, Whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
Hopefully I remembered the catechism correctly because I didn’t go back and check. But the point is that the water of Baptism is more than plain water—it is life-giving water that effects new birth. I wonder then if that is where Prof. Marquart was getting his idea that in Baptism the Holy Spirit is given “through the skin.”
(In quoting Dr. Marquart, I’m not trying to suggest what he definitely meant or didn’t mean, or that he’d agree with what I’m saying. I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear him wrong, but I never sat down with him and had an extended discussion either.)
Anyway, that last question is something I will have to study some more.
The conclusion is this: I’m not disagreeing that Christ gives infants faith through the external word. I think that that is probably the right way to think about it. The problem is that we are not told exactly how infants are given faith. We have examples of them receiving faith or responding in faith while still in the womb, in response to a spoken Word. We have Jesus imparting blessing and the kingdom of God to babies seemingly through His spoken word and perhaps his touch, even though the babies don’t understand the words.
My concern is the way that we get to this conclusion. It seems that the route is through a theological apothegm which is very important, but which seems to be being misinterpreted and which seems to be now norming the words of Scripture. No Spirit apart from the word is a basic rule of orthodox theology. But it should not be expanded to mean that the Holy Spirit, once received, never does any comforting, leading, or preaching except during Divine Service, Bible class, or devotions. Nor does it mean that the promises Christians have been given regarding the salvation of infants only apply if they can be shown to have been in a church service or heard the bible read. Nor should this passage from the Smalcald Articles be used in such a way that we permit ourselves to believe that our negligence in prayer is not responsible, at least in part, for the feebleness and sickness of confessional Lutheranism, even though we are “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20), or at least, zealous for pure doctrine.
All of those interpretations of the passage in the Smalcald Articles contradict what Luther repeatedly teaches elsewhere. It is true that we have had great trouble from evangelicals who have gotten us to think of the Spirit apart from the Word. But the situation isn’t helped by denying that the Holy Spirit comforts us inwardly after we have received Him through the external word, or that He leads our prayer, or that He offers unspoken sighs to God from our hearts which God hears, or that our prayers help us and the church, and our failure to pray harms us and the church. I suffered as an evangelical with lack of assurance of salvation. But the problem isn’t helped by denying the Spirit’s work in applying the word or teaching the Christian inwardly, or His work in teaching us to pray and intercede. “Whoever doesn’t pray will certainly lose his faith. Next to the preaching office, prayer is the greatest office in Christendom,” Luther writes (WA 34 [1], p. 395, 14f).
Finally, we risk undermining our own doctrine of the means of grace when we forget that the Word comes to us in human words. We should not insist or demand that God miraculously supersede the ordinary limits of human language (and human hearers). That’s why it isn’t right for me to walk into the pulpit with no preparation and start making stuff up. Of course the Holy Spirit can make such a sermon good, but it’s tempting God for me not to prepare. Likewise, when I preach too long for my hearers to be able to handle—refusing to recognize the limits of the people I’m preaching to—that is also tempting God. Of course, I’m not able to know how to preach exactly what people need, so after preparing every sermon I have to commend all of it—the writing, the delivery, and the fruit that it bears—into God’s gracious hands. But it’s still wrong if I slack off, because God uses human words to give His Spirit, and those words should be prepared with the same care you would in preparing any other address.
So if we say, “the kids hear the word, so God works faith through that—“ that may not be a bad conclusion. But it is bad if on the way there we reject his promise regarding children, denigrate the promises He has given to prayer, and read Scripture through the lens of our theological presuppositions.
But in saying all this, I don’t intend to direct any criticism at you, Dr. Heidenreich. I think these are dangers for confessional Lutherans in general. We rest on our laurels too much, and have a tendency to develop an idiosyncratic reading of Lutheran theology that does not necessarily fit with the Lutheran fathers (not to mention Scripture) and then look suspiciously at everyone who doesn’t talk the way we do. I guess I’ve been guilty of this. I spent a lot of years driven by hostility toward evangelicalism and as a result rejected things as “evangelical” that were really necessary and salutary for me.
And with that, I thank anyone and everyone who bothered to read all 4500 words of this. I usually think through things as I write and talk, which makes it difficult to keep things to a reasonable length.
Related
Verbum Dei in Utero, part 1:
https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/verbum-dei-in-utero-part-1/
Verbum Dei in Utero, Part 2
https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/verbum-dei-in-utero-part-2/
Theology Like a Child:
http://infanttheology.wordpress.com/
- Luther: The Faith of Unbaptized Infants (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
Verbum Dei in Utero part 2
The second problem I have with the dogmatic assertion that God works faith in infants through their hearing the preached word is the way that it often goes along with making “no Spirit apart from the Word” into a hermeneutical axiom, or an inviolable law for theology. The problem is that I think that that section of the Smalcald Articles (Part III, Article VIII) is being misinterpreted.
“We must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one except through or with the preceding outward Word [Gal. 3:2, 5]. This protects us from the enthusiasts (i.e., souls who boast that they have the Spirit without and before the Word.) They judge Scripture or the spoken Word and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Muenzer did. Many still do this today, wanting to be sharp judges between the Spirit and the letter, and yet they do not know what they are saying [2 Cor. 3:6]….Therefore we must constantly maintain this point: God does not want to deal with us in any other way than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. Whatever is praised as from the Spirit—without the Word and Sacraments—is the devil himself. God wanted to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word [Exodus 3:2-15]. No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments . John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother’s womb without Mary’s voice [Luke 1:11-20, 41]. Peter says, ‘For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit’ [2 Peter 1:21]. Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy. Much less would the Holy Spirit have moved them to speak while they were still unholy. They were holy, says he, since the Holy Spirit spoke through them.” [SA III:8:3, 10-13]
This passage has been interpreted to mean that it is impossible for anyone to ever receive the Holy Spirit without the external word and sacraments. In addition, you would get the impression from confessional Lutherans that this also means that the Holy Spirit never speaks to us or comforts us except when we are actually engaged in hearing or reading the external word and receiving the sacraments.
Neither is supported by the text, if we read carefully. First of all Luther addresses two questions in the quotation—whether a person receives the Spirit apart from the “outward word”, and whether one may distinguish between “the Spirit and the letter” in the interpretation of Scripture. His concern in the first question is to point out not that the Holy Spirit never teaches or inspires things without there being an external word at the exact same time. His point is that the Holy Spirit does not come to people utterly without the Word. We should not look for the Holy Spirit to teach us via mystical experiences or introspection. But Luther affirms that a person may hear the Word and then ten years later believe it. Elijah and Elisha received the Spirit through the spoken Word, but the words they were given to say and the miracles they were given to do were not external words. The quotation from Peter shows the same thing. The prophets had the Holy Spirit, who then carried them along to write their prophecies.
But we say that children are conceived and born in sin and cannot be saved without Christ, to Whom we carry them in baptism. Here we have a gracious judgment, secure and certain: “Let the little children come to me…etc.” This we won’t allow to be taken away from us; it does not mean a secret counsel of God or a dark illusion, but instead God’s gracious promise that the kingdom of heaven belongs to our children. Thus they are brought to Christ, because without Christ there is no salvation. For that reason the children of Turks [Muslims] and Jews are not saved—because they are not brought to Christ.
Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, 1551
“I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and your offspring the land…and I will be their God.” (Gen. 17:7-8) Since we are the offspring of Abraham, the promise applies to us. God wants to be the God of our children. By what means He gives them the Holy Spirit we aren’t told, but we are told unequivocally that God wants to be our children’s God. That is why Peter says in Acts 2: “The promise is for you and your children…” Now if Baptism and the Holy Spirit is for me and my children, then if my child dies prior to baptism it would be unbelieving for me to think that God who promised me that it belonged to my child would now snatch it away because my child died prior to Baptism.
Even more important is the oft cited “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:16) Clearly there is a preceding word here. The promise is “to the children belong the kingdom of God.” The instruction is that we are not to get in the way of people bringing their infants to God.
The only question is whether a Christian bringing a child in prayer to Jesus constitutes “bringing them to Jesus.” Or whether when Jesus says, “to such belongs the kingdom of God,” He means only certain babies.
Little babies are utterly passive. Like the elderly at the end of their lives, they have no reason and really can’t be communicated with by us. That is what Jesus means when He says that “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Their reason and will can put up no resistance to Jesus.
But how does Jesus bless the little children? Through preaching? Through baptism? None of the above. He puts His hands on them and blesses them. What was the external word that the children heard? They didn’t hear any, except maybe the blessing. But their parents had an external word. They had heard about Jesus and believed that He would give blessing to their babies. But He says that the kingdom of God belongs to them. Similarly, the paralyzed man did not appear to have any faith in Jesus. He was simply brought. And Jesus gave him not just blessing or healing but the forgiveness of sins.
Now if Jesus says: let them come to me, the kingdom of God belongs to such as these—we are supposed to doubt that that promise applies to babies who died prior to baptism?
No, it can’t be, because when you bring someone to Christ in prayer, you truly bring them to Christ. That’s why Jesus says, “If two of you 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 am I in the midst of them (Matthew 18:19-20).” When the church prays, Christ is truly present, and we truly bring the person for whom we pray before Him.
If we doubt that the little babies of Christians are saved who die before baptism, we are actually doing what Luther accused Muenzer of doing—dividing between the Spirit and the letter, in a perverse hyper-Lutheran way. Scripture is unequivocal. The little children who are brought to Jesus in prayer, whose parents believe—the kingdom of God belongs to them, and they are not to be hindered.
This by the way is the only reason we can be certain that baptized babies are certainly in God’s grace. Everyone knows that not everyone who is baptized believes, and certainly not everyone who hears the Word believes. We would really have no certainty about little babies except for the promise “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these”—without that promise we would be left in doubt, because babies do not give evidence of faith. In fact, without this promise of Jesus we would have far less certainty about whether or not we should baptize babies at all. But the promise is that the kingdom of God belongs to them. So if that is so we can’t deny them baptism even though they can’t confess their faith or give any evidence of it.
continued…
Related
Verbum Dei in Utero part 1: https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/verbum-dei-in-utero-part-1/
Verbum Dei In Utero part 3:
Theology like a child: http://infanttheology.wordpress.com/
Verbum Dei in utero part 1
Dr. Heidenreich has done me the honor of debating me about the place of prayer in the salvation of unbaptized infants. This has been helpful to me in helping me not to go too far in what I’m saying and in helping me to think about the issue. Earlier this week I started another post in response to some of his comments on this blog, but didn’t finish it. Below is a comment of his from my facebook page, where Dr. Heidenreich is responding to me after I asked him, “Does it matter whether an infant in the womb hears God’s Word preached in English or Japanese [or Latin]?” I was trying to make a point that I spell out below.
What matters when we are speaking of the faith of infants is not what language the Word is spoken in. What matters is what the speaker means by the words. Does a baby “understand” or “comprehend” the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”? Is it a valid baptism if the infant does not yet speak the language the words are being spoken in? Is it a valid baptism if it is done by a Roman Catholic priest in Latin? You know the answers to these questions. The Word, in and with the water, does great things. It does seemingly impossible things. God gives any necessary “understanding” to the hearer. However, even if the baptism uses English words for English speaking persons, yet the English words are spoken with the intended meaning a Mormon gives them, it is not a valid baptism and does not give the hearer faith and salvation. What matters is the fact that God works through the external Word and grants the hearer the supernatural gift of faith through such simple and virtually inexplicable means. The fact that a few words can instil faith in the hearer is, indeed, an extraordinary event. It defies all academic, linguistic, scientific, and neurological explanations. It is a supernatural event, and we simply place our faith in the power of the Word that is so clearly testified to by so many miraculous events in Scripture. The natural workings of the means of grace don’t have to make sense to our doubting minds. “If they have not heard the Word, by which faith comes, as adults hear it, they nevertheless hear it like little children. Adults take it up with their ears and reason, often without faith; but they hear it with their ears, without reason and with faith. And faith is nearer in proportion as reason is less, and he is stronger who brings them than the will of adults who come of themselves.” [Luther’s Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany; Matthew 8:1-13; from his Church Postil of 1525, as translated in The Sermons of Martin Luther, volume II, page 90,¶42, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI] As for things Luther taught repeatedly and publicly that might conflict with the way I have applied the Confessional statements I have quoted, it is only right and proper to interpret the Confessions in light of the orthodox doctrine confessed by the subscribers and later orthodox dogmaticians. Lutheranism does not agree with Luther on every point, including on things he repeatedly and publicly taught. The most public and well-known source material for your contention is Luther’s Baptismal Booklet. As I already pointed out on your blog, that booklet is definitely NOT part of the Book of Concord to which our pastors and churches subscribe. Despite pleas from Jakob Andreae, several princes (including Ludwig VI of the Palatinate) and their theologians specifically objected to its inclusion in the Book of Concord. [Kolb p 346-347]
Why is it different for a baby to hear the Word in the womb—so that they can hear it in any language—yet it is necessary for adults to hear it and understand it?
I certainly grant that God works faith through the spoken word in infants, who as far as we can tell, do not understand or have the capacity of using language. Luther says that very thing in the sermon from the Church postil you quoted, where he explains how prayer for the infant gains for them the gift of faith. He says, “The church prays, and God grants faith to the child through the Word in Baptism.” It may well be that it is by means of the external word which the baby hears that God gives the Holy Spirit to them while still in the womb. I’m not denying that. I don’t think that Luther was saying dogmatically that God has to give faith apart from means to unbaptized babies.
I have several problems with the theory that God gives faith to babies in the womb through the preached or read word. This is what I used to believe. I think my pastor taught it to me when I was a kid.
The first is that we don’t make the external word cease to be words, performing a sort of Lutheran transubstantiation on preaching. The divine Word comes in human words, just as the Son came in human flesh. When Christ appeared in human flesh, he did not swallow up his humanity in his divinity, nor did He display the splendor of His majesty; and when the Word of the Lord comes to us on Sunday morning, it comes in human language, and therefore we receive it like other human words, in that we hear it in our own language and we read it so that it can be heard. Then the pastor comes and preaches it, explaining it, applying it. But if the word and faith have nothing to do with understanding all of that is a waste of energy. The pastor could mumble the words inaudibly and as quickly as possible, skip the sermon, and everyone could be home in 45 minutes.
Understanding and faith are not to be divorced so radically. Otherwise we eliminate the means from the means of grace, which is where Rome developed the practice of adoring the sacrament more than eating and drinking it. Bread normally is to be eaten and words are normally to be heard and understood. This is the teaching of Scripture:
This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive…lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.’…Hear then the parable of the sower: when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart… Matthew 13:13-15, 18-19
…Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to
We have, then, two strong promises from Christ which we cannot deny, but in which we can firmly trust. One is that He has called us to pray and has graciously promised to hear us. And to this He has sworn: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, so it will be.” John 16. The other is the promise concerning the children: “Such is the kingdom of heaven. Let them come to Me.” Here we Christians should understand that whether we carry the little children to Christ in Baptism or with our prayers, we carry them to Christ in person, here and now, and He is also present and takes them up and accepts them here and now. Because Christ is in His Word and promises, in His Sacrament, and in our prayers which have been commanded us.* Yes, truly, in us ourselves—effectually, presently, and substantially.** Oh, what an unspeakable grace of God!
–Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, 1551
men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation…the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, so that the church may be built up. Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is being played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Therefore one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful…You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, then ten thousand words in a tongue. 1 Cor. 14:1-3, 5-14, 17-19
Paul is making this point: one can speak by the Holy Spirit in language that is unintelligible to others, but others are not edified by it. Why? Because they can’t understand it. He writes in Romans 8 that the Spirit groans to the Father with sighs that words cannot express. That is truly prayer, but it edifies no one else, because they can’t understand it.
Which teaches two things: normally the Holy Spirit is given through the Word together with understanding of the word. Secondly it teaches that the Holy Spirit can be present or operative where the understanding is not engaged. Apparently when people speak in tongues they themselves did not necessarily know what they were saying, which is why it was necessary for them to “pray for the power to interpret.” Paul does not condemn them for praying in tongues without understanding, but says that that does not build up the church.
The application of this to the present discussion is that the preached word normally works through the understanding. A second application is that the Holy Spirit is able to speak within and through a person without that person or anyone else understanding him, but we should not expect that the Holy Spirit will edify the Church through words that are not understood.
(continued)
Related Links:
Verbum Dei in utero part 2: https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/verbum-dei-in-utero-part-2/
Verbum Dei in utero part 3:https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/verbum-dei-in-utero-part-3/
Related articles
- Baptism: God stakes His honor, power, and might on it. Lenten Vespers Sermon Feb. 20 2013 (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- “The Secret Place of the Most High”. Lent Midweek Sermon. “What Benefits Does Baptism Give?” (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- Do Babies Believe the Gospel When They Are Baptized? Martin Luther (1524) (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- The Monster of Uncertainty Invocabit Sermon 2013. Matthew 4 (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- https://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/luther-opinion-concerning-the-baptism-done-by-women-in-the-pain-of-childbirth-1542/
- Babyâs First Bites Begin In Utero (plumorganics.com)
Hymn: When Parents Bring their babes to Christ
When parents bring their babes to Christ
To be reborn in Baptism
They bring them to be sacrificed
As Abram did his offspring.
The shell anoints the child with Christ
And all His kingdom gives them:
It bathes them, swaddles them in spice
And seals the tomb and leaves them.
Related
http://matthaeusglyptes.blogspot.com/2012/10/walthers-hymnal-excerpt-1-come-hither.html
http://revivelutheranhymns.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-couldnt-finish-my-sermon-today-like-i.html
Hymn: Ich bin getauft in Christi Blut
I am baptized in Jesus’ blood
This is my pearl, my highest good
Which calms my soul in all distress
Against the devil, hell, and death.
–Christian Fabricius, 1646
Ich bin getauft in Christi Blut,
das ist mein Schatz und hoechstes Gut,
des troest ich mich in aller Not.
Trotz sei dem Teufel, Hoell, und Tod.
Related Links
http://matthaeusglyptes.blogspot.com/2010/04/jesus-sprach-zu-seinn-jungern.html
http://revivelutheranhymns.blogspot.com/2012/09/spirit-and-flesh-for-svdh.html
Advent Services and Evening Prayer
This may be useful for pastors planning Advent or Lent midweek services; I translated this, such as I could, from the hymnal of our sister church in Germany. I liked some of the differences in the SELK vespers service, as well as the rubrics, and thought the suggestions about Advent worship were helpful.
(SELK Gesangbuch p. 262-264)
Advent and Lent Worship
1. The midweek (Wochengottesdienste) services in Advent and Lent can be held according to the order of Vespers.
For the Psalmody in Advent Psalms 19, 24, 25, 80, and 85 are suggested (in conjunction with the antiphons 664-667). In Lent Psalms 22, 32, 38, 43, 51, and 130.
The Responsory can be done according to the usual form, but also in the form for festival seasons (p. 295). In place of this also a hymn stanza can be sung: in Advent, “Ach, mache du mich Armen” (Gesangbuch 9:4)(LSB 354 st. 4) and in Lent “Ehre sei dir, Christe” (Gesangbuch 57:7) .
Another prayer can be spoken in place of the preces.
The song of praise (Magnificat or Nunc Dimittis) is dropped when the litany (Ges. Nr. 138) is sung in place of the Kyrie Eleison. In this case, the Lord’s Prayer, silent prayer, and Prayer of the day follows the litany.
In the Vespers at the hour of the Lord’s death and on Holy Saturday, the Entrance is dropped.
2. The midweek services in Advent and Lent can also be held in a simple form of devotion/meditation, for instance in the following way: Hymn- Votum (?)- Entrance Prayer, Scripture Readings interspersed with hymns or hymn stanzas [In Lent: Hymn “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy”]-Sermon-[In Lent: Luther’s Explanation to the Second Article from the Small Catechism-Hymn-Closing Prayer, Lord’s Prayer, Blessing, Hymn Stanza.
3. As Scripture readings for the Advent Services, the Messianic prophecies are considered (for instance Zech. 9: 9-10, Zeph. 3:14-17, Mal. 3:19-24; Is. 35:3-10; 40:1-11; 45:1-8; 63, 15-64; 26:1-12), Sections from the Revelation of John (1:4-8; 19:6-16; 3:14-22, or 22:1-13, 20), as well as from the Gospels (Matt. 21:1-9, Luke 21:25-33 or Mark 13:5-13; Matt. 11:2-10 or Luke 1:5-25; John 1:19-28 or Luke 1:26-38).
In Lent, besides texts from the Old Testament (for instance, selections from Gen. 1:1-3; Exodus 12:1-14; Genesis 22:1-13; Jeremiah 15:15-21; selections from Isaiah 59; Selections from Isaiah 45 and Isaiah 53: 4-12), before all will sections of the Passion History of the Lord be read, (Matt. 26-27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23 or John 11:46-57, 12:1-11, 13:1-38; 18-19).
…
(274 f.)
Vespers (Evening Prayer)
[Hymn of the Congregation]
The congregation rises.
If no compline will be held, the confession of sins with the foregoing “Our help is in the name of the Lord” can be spoken here.
Entrance
Liturgist: Lord, hear my voice, when I call;
C: be gracious to me and hear me.
L: Make haste, O God, to deliver me,
C: Make haste to help me, O Lord.
L: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
C: As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah.
In place of the Hallelujah from Septuagesima Sunday till the evening of Holy Saturday:
Praise be to You, Lord, King of eternal glory.
The Congregation sits.
Praying the Psalms (Psalmody)
A psalm or (and) a psalm-hymn, or instead of this on feast days and during festival seasons also a hymn appropriate to the time or season.
Reading
More readings may follow.
After the (last) reading, the following responsory is sung
Responsory
Cantor: Your word is a lamp to my feet…
Especially on feast days and festival seasons, the responsory on p. 295 may be sung.
Where no responsory will be sung, the reading will close with the following sung or spoken versicle:
Cantor (L): But You, Lord, have mercy upon us.
C: Thanks be to God in eternity.
[Interpretation or Reading from the Church Fathers]
Hymn
The congregation sings [responsively with the choir] an evening hymn, or the Hymn of the Week, or a hymn for the season.
Song of Praise/Canticle
The Magnificat
If there will be no compline, the Nunc Dimittis can be sung instead of the Magnificat.
Where circumstances demand it, the singing of the canticle can be omitted completely. The canticle is also dropped when instead of the Kyrie Eleison the Litany will be sung. In this case the Litany is followed by the Lord’s Prayer, the silent prayer, and the prayer of the day.
The Congregation rises.
Prayer
The Kyrie, Our Father, Preces, and Prayer of the day can also be spoken.
Kyrie
L: Kyrie eleison. C. Christe Eleison. Kyrie Eleison.
Our Father
Sung…
Responsive Prayer (Preces) Or one of the responsive prayers (1-5) on pages (296-305)
L: Lord, be gracious to me,
C: Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.
L: Lord, show us your grace
C: And help us.
L: Let your kindness, Lord, be upon us
C:as we have hoped in you.
L: Let us pray for the Holy Church of God:
C: Remember, Lord, Your congregation, which you have purchased from of old.
L: Let us pray for our shepherds and teachers:
C. Lord, take not from their mouths the Word of Truth.
L: Send the messengers/heralds of salvation to the ends of the earth
C. and convert the hearts of the unbelieving.
L. Spread your goodness over those who know You
C: and Your righteousness over the godly.
L: Let us pray for all who are ordered to us/commanded to us/ commended to us [for spouses, parents, children, and our whole household]:
C: Help, my God, Your servants, who depend on you
L: Lord God of Sabaoth, comfort us,
C: Let the light of Your countenance rest upon us.
L: Rouse Yourself, Christ, and help us
C: and redeem us for the sake of your goodness.
L: Lord, hear my prayer,
C: and let my cry come to you.
L: Let us pray.
Silent Prayer
In times of need or distress in the Church, or in other particular circumstances, a definite request can be named during the silence of prayer by the cantor, lector, or a member of the congregation.
Prayer of the Day
The prayer-leader prays one of the following prayers of the day or a general prayer or the collect of the previous Sunday or feast day. (On Saturday evening and on the day before a feast day he prays the collect for the following day.)
Monday Evening.
Lord God, dear Father in heaven: we pray You, purify us from all sins of this day, and let Your patience with us have no end, that we after the work of the day may find quiet for the weary body and peace for our souls, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
…
Here an evening hymn can be sung if one has not already been sung above.
Close
Benedicamus
Blessing
The almighty and merciful God, the +Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless and preserve us (you).
Amen.
Related articles
- Mary…re-imagining Advent (thewearypilgrim.typepad.com)
- a journey into Advent :: The Place (thewearypilgrim.typepad.com)
Sermon Fragment–19th Sunday after Trinity
I am reduced to fragments because I never get through the editing process before Sunday morning. I have to edit on the fly. Though I would like it to be different, I am afraid it will be the same this week, since I have two funerals and a houseguest. If I really want to get my sermons shorter, what I think I need to do is plan to preach on about half of one point that I want to make.
19th Sunday after Trinity
St. Peter Lutheran Church
St. Matthew 9:1-8
October 14, 2012
“I Will Build My Church”—Week 3: Divine Service, Scripture, Prayer
“Built by the Authority of the Son of Man”
You who have been consecrated to be God’s dwelling place by the authority of Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are God’s house of living stones
Built for His own habitation.
He by baptismal grace us owns,
Heirs of His wondrous salvation.
Were we but two His name to tell
God still with us would ever dwell
With all His grace and His favor.
When Jesus promised Peter that He would build His church, He was already signaling that He was a different kind of Messiah than Peter thought he would be. The glorious King of the Jews from David’s house was going to build a temple for the Lord in the last days, the Scriptures said. But Jesus said that He was going to build “His Church,” which means a gathering of people.
To us a king’s church calls to mind a cathedral with ceilings arching into the heavens and walls of cavernous, echoing stone. It’s difficult for us to get comfortable with the idea that when Jesus said, “I will build my church” He didn’t just mean the city of God with 12 pearly gates that comes down from heaven in glory on the last day. Is it possible that He envisioned the church on earth between Pentecost and judgment day appearing not only in churches with pews packed full of smiling people but also in congregations less than half full, congregations where funerals outnumber baptisms, churches that die slowly through persecution or through rejection of God’s Word? Or congregations wracked with conflict, where members sin grievously against one another, where pastors feed themselves and not the sheep, or where there is more joy over the 99 that need no repentance than over one sinner who repents? How could it be possible that the Messiah would come to build that kind of a temple?
Jesus’ Church is holy. On the last day the church’s holiness and radiance as the pure bride of the Lamb will be visible before all creation. Those who truly belong to Christ will be manifest. But now the church’s holiness is hidden. The sinful flesh of Christians makes the perfect holiness which Christ put on them in Baptism invisible. False Christians also are in the midst of the visible gathering of the church, along with false teachers. Together they cause divisions and harm the witness of the church, but it is not always possible to root them out without also destroying or harming weaker members of the true church.
So the church on earth suffers and is weak. You don’t necessarily find it in buildings that are beautiful, or full of nice people who are dedicated to serving God. This is very hard for us to accept. If Jesus is God, how could His temple be so weak and small and afflicted?
It was also hard for Peter to accept. Right after Jesus praised Peter for confessing, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, right after He promised to build His church, Jesus began to teach the disciples that when they went to Jerusalem, Jesus would not be seated on David’s throne and begin to rule the whole earth. Instead He would suffer at the hands of the chief priests, be killed, and then be raised on the third day.
Peter, who had just confessed the faith, that Jesus is the Messiah, begins to rebuke Jesus for saying this. And a few minutes after praising Peter, Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” He went from blessed to Satan in a few minutes. Why? Because he believed Jesus was the king of the Jews, but his reason couldn’t accept that this mighty king would then be rejected and put to death.
That is why it is so hard for us to accept that Christ’s church can really be found where there is great sin and weakness and suffering. How can weakness and suffering be the work of a God who loves you? How can God’s temple be being built if it is suffering and dying?
The same way that God was found in a man who was condemned to death as a blasphemer, then whipped, mocked with a crown of thorns, presented to a crowd in his humiliation who screamed for His crucifixion. If that happened to you, would you have a hard time believing God was with you? Yet we say that the true God can’t be known or found apart from the man who died in this shame and weakness. We preach that there is no other tree of life than the dead tree He dragged out to Golgotha, and His blood that stained it and the body that hung dead from its limbs is the fruit of the tree of life. We say that only in the curse pronounced by God upon Jesus—“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree”—does God bless us and make His face shine upon us. His face shines upon us in the face that poured bloody sweat onto the ground in the olive grove, the face in which we spit and tore out the beard (Is. 50? 52?), bleeding from thorns, the face that pleaded till death for His Father’s blessing and forgiveness for us.
If Jesus’ death on the cross saves us, if our Lord and Savior is the one who died on the cross, then it is a simple fact—the way of the cross is the way of salvation. Jesus’ church inherits the life everlasting. It is being saved. That means that instead of looking as though it is being built up, we can expect it to look like it is being torn down and destroyed. The one that Peter said was the King of the Jews and the Son of God later had a sign above His head that said “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”—and His head was bloody from a crown of thorns, and His hands were nailed to a tree. And what little He had in the way of earthly possessions and honor was torn down and thrown in the dust.
That is the rock on which Jesus builds His church, against which the gates of hell can never prevail. The rock is Himself, the King of the Jews, who dies on the cross and rises from the dead and takes away the sins of the world. Because this is who He is and what He does, He has the authority from God the Father to loose people from their sins. That means that He forgives sins, but also that He sets people free from the power of the devil, and all that goes with the devil’s kingdom—death, sickness, misery, slavery to sin.
In the New Testament, “authority” usually means not only power but also the right to use it. Lawful rulers have authority from God to punish lawbreakers with death—that means God has given them the right to do it. Parents have authority from God to punish their children. In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows that He has been given the right by God the Father to loose people from their sins. He not only has the power to do it, but He has been authorized by God.
In contrast, the devil and demons are sometimes described as having “authority”, but their authority is really only power that they have stolen from God. The devil does not have the right to twist God’s Word, or to tempt us to give glory to ourselves or our idols instead of to God (which is the same thing as giving glory to the devil.) When the devil lies and tempts, and then dominates sinners, the devil is stealing from God. He has power, but he has done this against God’s will.
In the same way, sinners are able to steal from God. Those who are under the power of sin take God’s gifts and do not thank Him. They love and serve and trust God’s gifts instead of Him. They have the power to do this, but not the right. Adam and Eve were authorized to have dominion over all the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, and to eat all of the fruit in the garden except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had the power to take from that tree, but not the authority. And once the devil had gotten them to step out from under God’s authority, he now was able to control every person who was not brought to repentance by God. Since that time, people are born taking what God has not given them authority to have. We judge and condemn and take revenge on those who sin against us—even if that is only in our hearts—but we have no authority to do this. We put our own honor above God’s honor; we put our will above God’s will. We give the love, praise, and worship of our hearts to other things besides God, to whom it belongs. When God does not give us what we want or think we need we go and take it for ourselves.
That’s why it was such a shocking thing for Jesus to tell the paralyzed man, “Take courage, child. Your sins are forgiven” or better, “Your sins are loosed from you.” Even when you sin against another person, your offense is most of all against God. If you lose your temper and insult and curse your neighbor, you have sinned against them, but you have also sinned against God, because He has not authorized you to condemn and curse and injure those who sin against you—not even to punish them in your heart. By taking revenge, you dishonor the true God and worship another, because you are saying, “God is unjust and will not take care of me, so I have to get justice myself.” The same thing is true with every sin against our neighbor—they are all dishonoring God—not trusting Him above everything else, not loving Him above everything else.
Even though we are Christians we have a difficult time believing in original sin, because our society has eliminated sin from its way of thinking. We believe that there are bad people, but those are usually people who do evil against other people on purpose. The fact that from the time of birth we dishonor God—not trusting Him to give us what is good, not loving Him more than we love His gifts—we don’t think of as sin, but rather as weakness that God would be unfair to be angry about. The fact that it is natural for us not to pray or want to hear God’s word, to disobey and dishonor parents and authorities, to hold grudges, to lust and engage in sexual sin, to attack people’s reputation and covet their things—we think that since we can’t help it, it can’t be a punishable offense. God in a sense owes us forgiveness.
But when someone is born with some flaw that they have little control over that causes them to harm us repeatedly, we behave differently. They say that sociopaths are born without the ability to empathize with other people’s pain, but that doesn’t prevent us from getting angry when they run us over. People are born with mental illness, and we may give them some breaks, but if they are dangerous to society we don’t say, “Well, they can’t help it, so we won’t lock them up.” They say Hitler was abused when he was a child, and the reality is that those who are abused quite often become abusers when they become older, but no one says that Hitler should be excused. And in the same way, we were born in sin, and as a result we dishonor God every day and refuse to acknowledge Him as God. If we say, “I can’t help it, so I shouldn’t be punished,” what we are really saying is that God is at fault for our sin.
Which is indeed what we said when we crucified Jesus.
That is why it was a shock when Jesus said, “Your sins are loosed.” Human beings can’t forgive sins. God must forgive sins. They are committed against Him.
Is that why Jesus forgave—because He is God? Yes and no. Notice what Jesus calls Himself—the Son of Man. Jesus is not on earth simply to show that He is God. He has put aside His divine power and put on our likeness—the likeness of sinners who are subject to death and God’s curse. He only uses His divine power when it is necessary for fulfilling His mission. He never uses it to make things easy for Himself, because He is on earth to be what we are. He has come to do what we cannot do—live under God’s authority without sin. We disobey God and live as we wish. Even when we repent, we find our flesh rebelling against the will of God. Jesus came to do what we could not.
So it is not simply as God, but as one of us that Jesus has authority to take sins away, to take them off of people, to set them free from their power.
To show that He had this authority and power from God, He did a shocking miracle. With a word He told a paralyzed man to get up and walk home.
Yet Jesus acts as if it were a better thing, a greater thing, to simply say, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Your sins are loosed from you.”
That is because it is. Because if your sins are taken away, God erases them from His book. They are gone. His wrath then is gone, death is gone. God becomes yours, and everything that is His. Not in the sense that you get to do what you want with it, but in the sense that it all serves you; He makes it all work for you. It’s all yours, but not in such a way that you can destroy yourself by misusing it.
That authority—to forgive sins—is how Jesus builds His church—how He creates a holy assembly who belong to God and are free from sin, and able to live forever in His presence. Who begin to love their neighbor.
When Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven…” He was talking about this authority—to forgive sins.
Jesus has given this authority to the Church, and He has authorized ministers to exercise this authority so that people may be loosed from their sins, set free from Satan’s kingdom, and delivered into the Kingdom of Jesus, the church, in which we have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, unity with God.
How is this authority exercised? Through Jesus’ word and sacraments. That is why the church is not found where there is earthly glory. We know where the church is by where Jesus’ gifts are—where His authority to forgive sins is being used. There, even though human beings are exercising the keys, Jesus is present, working through His church.
Baptism
All authority…
It’s not that we simply need information. We need to be free to be Jesus disciples.
Jesus’ power, connected to His sacrifice on the cross.
Divine Service
Gospel
Sacrament of the Altar.
Healing
Growth in love
Confession and absolution.
It looses us, just like the paralytic, but spiritually.
It is better to be a paralytic and have sins loosed.
The tremendous gift—we are free, and we are not alone.
Scripture/meditation.
The whole Scripture points to Jesus and gives us the Spirit.
Prayer:
Claiming our authority as sons of God when the gates of hell close in on us.
Bringing our paralyzed neighbor to the Father.
Luther: The Faith of Unbaptized Infants
Portrait of Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Thus the spoken Word is indeed the word of a human being, but it has been instituted by divine authority for salvation. For God wants to govern the world through angels and through human beings, His creatures, as through His servants, just as He gives light through the sun, the moon, and even through fire and candles. Here, too, you could say: “No external thing profits. The sun is an external thing. Hence it profits nothing; that is, it does not give light, it does not warm, etc.” Who would put up with one who argues in such a silly way?
Therefore the rule of which I have also spoken above stands. It states that God no longer wants to act in accordance with His extraordinary or, as the scholastics express it, absolute power but wants to act through His creatures, whom He does not want to be idle. Thus He gives food, not as He did to the Jews in the desert, when He gave manna from heaven, but through labor, when we diligently perform the work of our calling. Furthermore, He no longer wants to form human beings from a clod, as He formed Adam, but He makes use of a union of a male and a female, on whom He bestows His blessing. This they call God’s “ordered” power, namely, when He makes use of the service either of angels or of human beings. Thus in the prophet Amos (3:7) there is the noteworthy statement that God does nothing that He does not first reveal to His prophets.
But if at times some things happen without the service either of angels or of human beings, you would be right in saying: “What is beyond us does not concern us.” We must keep the ordered power in mind and form our opinion on the basis of it. God is able to save without Baptism, just as we believe that infants who, as sometimes happens through the neglect of their parents or through some other mishap, do not receive Baptism are not damned on this account. But in the church we must judge and teach, in accordance with God’s ordered power, that without the outward Baptism no one is saved. Thus it is due to God’s ordered power that water makes wet, that fire burns, etc. But in Babylon Daniel’s companions continued to live unharmed in the midst of the fire (Dan. 3:25). This took place through God’s absolute power, in accordance with which He acted at that time; but He does not command us to act in accordance with this absolute power, for He wants us to act in accordance with the ordered power.
Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, AE 3:273-274
Because daily I see and hear with what carelessness and lack of solemnity—to say nothing of out-and-out levity—people treat the high, holy, and comforting sacrament of baptism for infants, in part caused, I believe, by the fact that those present understand nothing of what is being said and done, I have decided that it is not only helpful but necessary to conduct the service in the German language For this reason I have translated those portions that used to be said in Latin in order to begin baptizing in German, so that the sponsors and others present may be all the more aroused to faith and earnest devotion and so that the priests who baptize have to show more diligence for the sake of the listeners.
Out of a sense of Christian commitment, I appeal to all those who baptize, sponsor infants, or witness a baptism to take to heart the tremendous work and great solemnity present here For here in the words of these prayers you hear how plaintively and earnestly the Christian church brings the infant to God, confesses before him with such unchanging, undoubting words that the infant is possessed by the devil and a child of sin and wrath, and so diligently asks for help and grace through baptism, that the infant may become a child of God.
Therefore, you have to realize that it is no joke at all to take action against the devil and not only to drive him away from the little child but also to hang around the child’s neck such a mighty, lifelong enemy. Thus it is extremely necessary to stand by the poor child with all your heart and with a strong faith and to plead with great devotion that God, in accordance with these prayers, would not only free the child from the devil’s power but also strengthen the child, so that the child might resist him valiantly in life and in death. I fear that people turn out so badly after baptism because we have dealt with them in such a cold and casual way and have prayed for them at their baptism without any zeal at all.
…see to it that you are present there in true faith, that you listen to God’s Word, and that you pray along earnestly. For wherever the priest says, “Let us pray,” he is exhorting you to pray with him. Moreover, all sponsors and the others present ought to speak along with him the words of his prayer in their hearts to God For this reason, the priest should speak these prayers very clearly and slowly, so that the sponsors can hear and understand them and can also pray with the priest with one mind in their hearts, carrying before God the need of this little child with all earnestness, on the child’s behalf setting themselves against the devil with all their strength, and demonstrating that they take seriously what is no joke to the devil.
For this reason it is right and proper not to allow drunken and boorish priests to baptize nor to select good-for-nothings as godparents. Instead fine, moral, serious, upright priests and godparents ought to be chose, who can be expected to treat the matter with seriousness and true faith, lest this high sacrament be abandoned to the devil’s mockery and dishonor God, who in this sacrament showers upon us the vast and boundless riches of His grace…
Martin Luther, “Baptismal Booklet”, in The Book of Concord, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, pp. 371-373.
Thus we do…with infant baptism. We bring the child with the intent and hope that it may believe, and we pray God to grant it faith But we do not baptize on this basis, but solely on the command of God…
Martin Luther, Large Catechism IV: 57. In The Book of Concord, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 464.
I keep finding more stuff that Luther had to say about the faith of unbaptized infants and about the role of the intercessory prayer of the Church or of Christians for unbelievers. The more I read, the more convinced I am that confessional Lutherans don’t have a good grasp of the place of prayer in Luther’s theology. It would probably be better to say–many confessional Lutheran pastors don’t have a good grasp of it. At any rate, I clearly did not.
As you see from the first quote from the Genesis lectures (I think this portion of the lectures was given between 1538 and 1542), Luther emphasizes: God no longer wants to act in His naked majesty. He did that when He gave the Israelites bread from heaven and when He preserved Shadrach and company in the furnace. But now God wants to act not in His “absolute power”: “Therefore the rule stands…God no longer wants to act in accordance with His…absolute power, but wants to act through His creatures, whom He does not want to be idle.”
That statement is fascinating in itself, and I want to return to it in a minute. But Luther goes on to say: Of course, God is able to save without using means. We don’t say that unbaptized infants are damned–and Luther specifically names infants who are unbaptized because their parents neglected baptism! But he says, yes, unbaptized infants are not damned, but it is still necessary for us to say that baptism is necessary for salvation. In other words, even though God can grant the Holy Spirit apart from means, it is necessary for us to point people to the appointed means and to adhere to the means of grace. God is not limited to the means of grace, but we are.
That is clearly what Luther is saying. The Augsburg Confession’s statement that “baptism is necessary for salvation,” along with Luther’s statement in the Smalcald Articles to the effect that “every spirit that is separated from the Word” is the devil–must be read in this light. It’s not that God is forced to damn all stillborn babies, all miscarriages, and all children of Lutheran parents who fail to baptize their babies the second they exit the womb, and whose babies are unlucky enough to die before baptism. It’s that we are not permitted to despise the appointed means.
Now, why is it that Luther says that God “no longer” wants to act in His absolute, unmediated power? Because “now in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,” I think is what Luther is getting at. Since God has become man, we are not to look apart from His flesh for God, since “all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Colossians 2).” Now that He has ascended and is not visible, He directs us to find Him in the means He has appointed to come to us and give us His Spirit–in His Word, in the sacrament of His body and blood, in Holy Absolution.
I’m not exactly sure of the details of this, but I know some Lutheran theologians believed or taught that Jesus’ body, since it is joined to the divine nature, is able to fill all places in creation. Luther writes about this in the confessions–the Large Catechism?–but simply presents it in explanation to the question, “How can Christ give His flesh and blood in numerous places at the same time?” He doesn’t say, “This is how it happens,” but simply provides it as a possible solution. That’s because saying that Christ fills all creation as both God and man could easily be turned into a theory that overthrows the Gospel. For instance, you could argue that since Christ now is exalted and fills all things, we could also eat His flesh and drink His blood not merely in the Lord’s Supper but in everything.
The same thing could happen with the idea that since we can pray for little children of Christians, that they will be saved, and have certainty about the answer to our prayers. We could say “We’ve prayed for all the children in the world, so they’re all saved, with or without Baptism.” That would have the consequence of undermining baptism. Instead we are bound to the means God has instituted.
On the other hand, what does Luther say? The reason so many baptized kids turn out so badly is: the sponsors don’t pray for the child from the heart–both that God would grant the child deliverance from Satan’s kingdom, and that the child would remain in the faith. Luther says the same thing in the Large CAtechism on baptism; we pray that the Lord would grant the child faith.
I think we tend to underestimate the power of the prayer of the church. When I first read Pieper or Walther saying that the gift of the Holy Spirit necessary for the ministry is not given through the laying on of hands but through the prayer of the church, I kind of thought that that was crazy. Why would it happen through the prayer of the church?
It turns out Pieper and Walther were just reproducing Luther’s theology here. Luther thinks that intercessory prayer is a mighty thing. He thinks that it can be relied on for the salvation of unbaptized infants. He says in the Large Catechism that the reason that the Lutheran Church and Germany hadn’t been destroyed was because of a handful of pious, belieivng Christians who prayed, “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done.”
In its own way, this idea of Luther’s actually fits quite well with the earlier point that “God does not want to act in absolute power anymore” now that He has become incarnate. God, of course, doesn’t need our prayer to make a baptism effective. But God wants to work not according to His naked power, but through instruments (because He is incarnate), and so God teaches us to pray. By means of our prayer and in answer to them, God tells moutnains to be thrown into the sea; He causes the church to pray for peace int he world and then answers their prayer. Or he causes farmers to pray for rain and then grants it. God works by His ordinary power, which means that He wants to use angels and human beings to do work for Him. And that is the great privilege. God could have done all the work Himself. He didn’t need the angels, nor us. But He lets the angels and us participate in the work that He could just as easily do without us. He makes us learn to pray and intercede from the heart to Him; then He answers our prayer. God could give daily bread without the prayer of the Church, but instead He teaches the Chruch to pray for it and then He gives it. He makes us participants in His work.
This is why Jesus said, “whatever you ask in faith, you will receive.”
I’m trying to make some good points here but I keep falling asleep. So I’ll have to elaborate later. Hopefully if you’re reading this you understand what I’m trying to say.
Also, these quotes aren’t really supposed to prove anything. This is kind of like supporting information. But when you read this in after conjunction with Luther’s “Comfort to women who have had a misscarriage,” as well as the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany church postil, I think it is indisputable that Luther taught that unbaptized infants were given faith prior to baptism in response to the prayers of parents, christian sponsors, adn the congregation. Anyway, I’m done now.
Relahttp://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/macgyver-the-dog-the-bone-the-reflection-and-the-christian-life/ted articles
- The Necessity of Baptism (archkckblog.wordpress.com)
- Dare We Hope for the Salvation of the Unborn? (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
- How Babies In the Womb Are Saved According to Wittenberg Theology (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- Rite of Baptism (aework.wordpress.com)
- Prayer in Great Affliction and Danger. Luther (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- The Reformation (str.typepad.com)
Prayers for the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Sundays after Trinity
114. Prayer on the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity. Johann Eichorn (1511-1564) from Ev. Luth. Gebets-Schatz, September 14, 2012
Lord God, heavenly Father! You allowed Your Son to become man so that first He might atone for our sins with His death, and afterwards bring us out of eternal death. We pray You, therefore, preserve us in this hope, so that we may by no means doubt that just as our dear Lord Christ woke up the widow of Nain’s son through His Word, that He will wake us up in the same way on the last day, and give us eternal blessedness. Amen.
115. Prayer on the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.
Lord God, heavenly Father! We pray that You would so govern and lead us through Your Holy Spirit, that we would keep ourselves in Your fear, and not become haughty, but rightly keep the Sabbath day holy by hearing and receiving Your Word with our whole heart, so that we too might be made holy. Sanctify us therefore, so that first of all we place all our trust and hope in Your Son, Jesus Christ, that He is alone is our righteousness and redemption; and afterward that we also improve our life according to Your Word. Protect us from all causes of offense, until, by Your grace, we come to everlasting blessedness. Amen.
116. Prayer on the 18th Sunday after Trinity.
O Lord God, heavenly Father! We are truly poor, miserable sinners. We know Your will, but we are much too weak and cannot fulfill it; Flesh and blood is too strong. In addition, our enemy the devil constantly stirs the pot and never allows us to be content. Therefore we pray that You would pour out Your Holy Spirit in our hearts, that we may abide in firm faith in your son, Jesus Christ, comfort ourselves with His death and dying, believe in the full forgiveness of all sins through Him, and so live holy lives here on earth according to Your will and in obedience to You, and in Your grace through Jesus Christ die a blessed death. Amen.
117. Prayer on the 19th Sunday after Trinity.
Almighty, eternal God, You graciously let the paralyzed man be delivered in body and soul by Your Son, Jesus Christ. I pray You of Your bottomless mercy: be gracious to me also. Strengthen my faith through Your Word and Holy Spirit, and lead me, so that I do not cause sickness and other misfortune to come upon me and my neighbors through sin, but that I would instead keep myself in Your fear, and thus be free of temporal and eternal punishment. Amen. Johannes Eichorn (1511-1564)
Related articles
- Prayer on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
- Gebets-Schatz: Prayer on the Festival of the Reformation (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
Rev. Karl Hess
De Profundis Clamavi ad Te, Domine 