I appreciated this post by Pastor Larry Peters, and I think you will too.

I taught a seven hour class on Saturday, March 3, as I began an introduction to what Lutherans believe, confess, and teach (yes, I know, seven hours? well it is easier for people to give me big blocks of time than to give me an hour a week for x amount of weeks).  I enjoy teaching this but it is a marathon to dojust the talking for 7 hours!  One of the sections we spend some time on is church history.  I am always surprised by how little we know history, especially our own history!  Lutherans often confuse modern day differences with Rome as the battleground issues of the sixteenth century and are shocked to find out what the Reformation was really about (such as not about the Pope speaking infallibly from the throne of St. Peter but about the very essence of the Gospel and whether the Word is the authority in the Church).

Often those coming from other backgrounds are surprised to find out what their own church’s believe.  I have found strange looks from Presbyterians when we talk about God’s sovereignty or about predestination.  I have had Baptists say in shock “you mean we don’t believe in Christ’s presence in Communion?”  I have had Roman Catholics deny that Rome teaches transubstantiation.  I could go on and on.  Some of them are felicitous in consistences — when the folks believe the right way (as Scripture teaches) even though the church they belonged to does not.  Some of them are just plain strange (most folks could tell you that this church believes that).  I don’t blame the folks.  I blame the catechesis and the teacher.

History, in particular, is largely untaught and unknown in the instruction of most churches – Lutherans included.  Because we do not know history, we also do not know where things come from or the relationships between church bodies.  For example in a discussion about purgatory, most folks did not know that purgatory was only for those headed to heaven and not yet fully cleansed; they had confused it with a sort of prejudge station or triage for God to decide who is going to make and who is not. The division between Rome and Constantinople is often a complete unknown.

The point I am trying to make is not that the communication of trivialities and oddities is important but that we owe it to the folks to flesh out of the faith through the ages.  This is very important to understanding the faith and why things are the way they are among the various churches.  It is also essential to knowing what we believe, confess, and teach.  It is not enough simply to teach the Gospel and leave them wondering about how we got from 12 apostles to a few thousand different Christian groups.  Who Lutherans are is so much easier to understand given the backdrop of what the Church looked like in the centuries prior to the Reformation.  It is amazing to me how little most folks know of such things as the Thirty Years’ War — a critical event in Lutheran history and one that had great implications for the shape of Lutheran piety and hymnody.

So I urge those doing youth or adult catechetical instruction — don’t leave out the history.  BTW if you do not know the story, pick up that book from Concordia Publishing House The Church from Age to Age and learn it so that you can tell it…

El Greco, Adoration of the Name of Jesus, 1578-79, Oil on canvas, 190 x 140 cm; Chapter House, Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial

“The name ‘Jesus’ is food, light, medicine. You have this medicine for yourself, O my soul, and it lies concealed in the capsule of this word, which certainly is Jesus, the bringer of salvation.”

— St. Bernard, Sermon de coena Domini, quoted by Blessed Johann Gerhard in On Christ (CPH 2009) p. 12.

Already on the eighth day of Jeuss’ life, His destiny of atonement is revealed in His name and in is circumcision. At that moment, His blood is first shed and Jesus receives the name given to Him by the angel: “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). In the circumcision of Jesus, all people are circumcised once and for all, because He represents all humanity. In the Old Testament, for the believers who looked to Gods promoise to be fulfilled in the Messiah, the benefits of circumcision included the forgiveness of sins, justification, and incorporation into the peole of God. In the New Testmen, St. Paul speaks of its counterpart, Holy Batism, as a “circumcision made without hands” and as “the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11).

We pray:

Lord God, You made Your beloved Son, our Savior, subject to the Law and caused Him to shed His blood on our behalf. Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit that our hearts may be made pure from all sins; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Source: The Treasury of Daily Prayer, p. 1078.
HT: HCM

To make an altar of earth for the Lord is to place our hope in the incarnation of the Mediator. Our gift is accepted by God when, on this altar, our humility rests whatever it does upon faith in the Lord’s incarnation. We place the gift we offer on an altar made of earth if we base all our actions on faith in the Lord’s incarnation.

Paterius, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Exodus 30.5 (PL 79:735); From: Joseph T. Lienhard and Ronnie J. Rombs, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture OT 3., 110 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

“Confession of Christ does not make one immune from the snares of the devil. Nor does it defend one who is still placed in the world with a perpetual security against worldly temptations and dangers and onsets and attacks. Otherwise we should never have seen afterwards among the confessors the deceptions and debaucheries and adulteries that now with groaning and sorrow we see among some. Whoever that confessor is, he is not greater or better or dearer to God than Solomon. As long as he walked in the ways of the Lord, so long he retained the grace he had received from the Lord. After he had abandoned the way of the Lord, he lost also the grace of the Lord. And so it is written, “Hold what you have, lest another receive thy crown.” Surely the Lord would not threaten to deprive of the crown of righteousness unless when righteousness parts, it is necessary that also the crown depart”

— Cyprian, THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 20.28

William C. Weinrich, Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 12, 46 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

We Lutherans are subject to a special temptation. We have been so much assured that our standing with God is based entirely on God’s free and undeserved love and not on any action of ours that the devil is right there to suggest: “Well, if it not based on any action of yours, your actions don’t matter. You have a nice cushion to rest on there. You have complete forgiveness in Christ. So do as you please. You are always forgiven.” There is no more hideous mockery of Christ and Calvary than that. Christ died in our place so we may not be condemned and punished for our sins. He takes all that for us so we may be forgiven and may know the living God as a God who graciously involves Himself with us and we with Him. Are we, then, to make of this the basis for a life that contradicts that we are involved with Him? — Dr. Norman Nagel, Selected Sermons, p. 348. HT: Weedon.

Fulgentius of Ruspe on Rev. 3:19: Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

“The kindness of God leads us to penance. He afflicts us with trials, he corrects us with infirmities, teaches us with cares, so that we who have sinned in the health of the body may learn to abstain from sins in infirmity. We who scorned the mercy of God in frivolity, corrected by the lash of sadness should fear his justice. Thus it comes about that we who by abusing health have begotten infirmity for ourselves, through that infirmity may again procure the benefits of health. And we who through frivolity have fallen into trials, through these trials may regain happiness. Holy Scripture bears witness that God’s love for us is shown more by the lash and correction. For it says, “My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproofs, for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”vAnd the Savior himself says that he loves those he reproves, saying, “Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise.” The teaching of the apostles does not cease to proclaim that “it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” The Lord himself also says that the road which leads to life is constricted and the gate narrow.”

— Fulgentius of Ruspe, LETTER 7.16, TO VENANTIA.40

William C. Weinrich, Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 12, 53 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Fulgentius of Ruspe, commenting on Revelation 12:10-11: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

“This then is done in them through grace so that the change brought about by divine gift may begin in them here. The change begins first through justification, in which there is a spiritual resurrection, and afterwards, in the resurrection of the body, in which the change of the justified is brought to completion; the perfected glorification, remaining for eternity, is not changed. To this end, first the grace of justification,  then the grace of glorification changes them so that the glorification itself remains, unchangeable and eternal in them. For here they are changed through the first resurrection by which they are enlightened that they may be converted. That is, they change from death to life by this, from iniquity to justice, from infidelity to faith, and from evil acts to a holy way of life. Therefore, the second death has no power over them. Concerning such people, it is said in the Apocalypse: “Blessed is the one who shares in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them.” Again it is said in the same book: “The victor shall not be harmed by the second death.” Therefore, just as the first resurrection is found in conversion of the heart, so the second death is found in eternal punishment. Let every person who does not wish to be condemned by eternal punishment of the second death hasten here to become a participant of the first resurrection.

— ON THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 2.12.3–4.35

William C. Weinrich, Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 12, 27-28 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Martin Chemnitz, in his magisterial work, Loci Theologici, or “Chief Theological Topics,” has a comment about how we are to regard and deal with the errors of the early church fathers. We do not ignore them or overlook them, but neither do we dwell so much on them that we fail to recognize the benefit and blessing of reading them and gaining what wisdom is to be found in their writings and so Chemnitz says:

It is not our purpose to be like Ham, who uncovered his father’s shame. Thus we shall not deal with the lapses of those by whose labors we have been aided and whose gray hairs we ought to honor, but we will refer to them only as warnings so that we may be cautioned by their examples to be more careful and diligent in preserving the purity of this doctrine, so that we never give occasion to anyone to follow in these footsteps.

Martin Chemnitz and Jacob A. O. Preus, Loci Theologici, electronic ed., 470 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999).

“Who conquers, I will grant to eat from the tree of life,” that is, from the fruit of the cross, “which is in the paradise of my God.” The church is to be regarded as paradise, for “all things were done in figure,” and Adam was “the shadow of the one to come,” as the apostle teaches. Indeed, the tree of life is the wisdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who hung on the cross. In the church and in the spiritual paradise, he gives to the faithful food of life and the sacrament of the celestial bread, of which you read, “Wisdom is the tree of life to those who embrace her.”

Tyconius, COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 2.7.36. William C. Weinrich, Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 12, 23 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

“If the mingled cup and the bread that has been made receives the Word of God and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made — and these are the things from which the substance of our flesh is increased and supported — how can they  [the Gnostic heretics Irenaeus is writing against] say that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life, when the flesh itself is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord and is one of His membes? The blessed Paul declares the same thing in his epistle to the Ephesians: “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of of his bones.” (Eph 5:30). He does nto speak these words of some spiritual and invisible person, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones. Rather, he is referring to that dispensation by which the Lord became an actual man, consisting of flesh and nerves and bones—that flesh that is nourished by the cup that is his blood and receive increase from the bread, which is his body. And jsut as a cutting from a vine planted in the ground bears fruit in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of people, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and bloof od Christ—in this same way also ou bocies, being nourished by it and deposited in the earth and suffering decomposition there will rise at teir appointed time. The Word of God grnts them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality and to this corruptible incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness.”

— Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.2.3; ANF 1:528.

“It is not the water [of Baptism] that bestows (for in that case it were a thing more exalted than all of creation) but the command of God, and the visitation of the Holy Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free. But water serves to express the cleansing. For since we hope, when we wash with water, to make our bodies clean after we have become soiled by dirt or mud, so we apply water also in the sacramental action. There it displays the spiritual brightness that is subject to our senses…Despise not, therefore, the divine bath, nor think lightly of it, as a common thing simply because it makes use of water. For the power that operates is mighty, and the things that are accomplished by it are wonderful!”

— Gregory of Nyssa, On the Baptism of Christ, NPNF 2 5:175.

“Our one Father, God, lives and our mother, the church; and neither are we dead who live to God, nor do we bury our dead, inasmuch as they too are living in Christ.”

— Tertullian
On Monogamy, 7.

“Christ is the Rock by which and on which the church is founded. And thus it is overcome by no traces of maddened people. Therefore the heretics are not to be heard who assure themselves that there is to be an earthly reign of one thousand years; who think, that is to say, on the same wavelength with Cerinthus. For the kingdom of Christ is now eternal in the saints, although the glory of the saints shall be made known after the resurrection.”

— Victorinus of Petovium
Commentary on the Apocalypse, 16.

I’m going to start regularly offering quotes and snippets from the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Starting…now. And, if you want to understand how/why Lutherans cherish and value the wisdom and teaching of the Church Fathers, here is a helpful article by Carl Beckwith explaining how we read and use the writings of the Fathers based on Martin Chemnitz’ discussion of this topic in his Loci Theologici: beckwithchemnitzchurchfathersjustification-4

“The sacrament of baptism is most assuredly the sacrament of regeneration. But just as one who never lived cannot die, adn one who has not did cannot rise again, so too one who was never born cannot be reborn.”

— Augustine
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and on Infant Baptism 2.27.43