Taking Questions on Christianity

AV1611VET said:

I'm saying because of the Fall ... not because God "messed with it" ... we can't trust what academia tells us about the past today.

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Didn't God do the deed that corrupted Creation? Otherwise, how did that work? Who else has the power to change up Creation like that?

AV1611VET said:

Not by messing with it though; but by simply withdrawing some of His sustaining power, the universe, and everything in it, started decaying.

Look at it this way:

You have ice cream in a freezer; you pull the plug and the ice cream starts melting.

God "pulled the plug," and the universe is now "melting."

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Thanks.
Is this Biblical?

AV1611VET said:

You're quite welcome.Absolutely.First of all, if it lines up with the word of God. But if I can't tell, I'm willing to err on the side of God, than err on the side of humans.

For example, when I had cataract surgery, I prayed for God to handle the situation from start to finish; to guide the doctor's hands, etc.

The doctor and his staff prayed as well (he's a Christian).

The surgery went very well and was a piece of cake; and we thanked God for helping us.

Now ... when we get to Heaven, and God should happen to tell us He didn't do a thing during my surgery ... well ... no harm/no foul.Who's counting? Anytime!

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Thanks. Thinking about this further I do think one thing a lot of people might struggle with is their ability to 'hear' or discern what God is saying to them personally. I would hazard a guess that that's why many people walk away from faith.

What advice would you give to someone who's read some of the bible, perhaps has said a prayer for salvation but hasnt heard a 'voice' as such? How do they know that God will answer or ccommunicate response?

TheTrueWay said:

Thanks. Thinking about this further I do think one thing a lot of people might struggle with is their ability to 'hear' or discern what God is saying to them personally. I would hazard a guess that that's why many people walk away from faith.

What advice would you give to someone who's read some of the bible, perhaps has said a prayer for salvation but hasnt heard a 'voice' as such? How do they know that God will answer or ccommunicate response?

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I certainly get the appeal of the idea of a "relationship with God" in the "me and God hanging out, I talk to Him, and He talks to me" sort of way. It's appealing because it takes such a vast and profound idea such as God and makes that idea far more personable.

Where I find this notion problematic is over a number of reasons:

For one, this isn't really how Scripture describes the relationship between God and the individual believer. The locus of the Christian relationship with God is not in a kind of unmediated, "just me and God" way; but rather this relationship is rooted first and foremost in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the God-Man; and this mediated relationship between God and man in and through Christ is both individual and corporate, as individuals redeemed and brought into the mystical Body of Christ, His Church, through the Means of Grace by which God works and is active through the Church corporately for us individually. Which is why the the word is so vital, because the word brings and creates faith to us, cleanses us, it justifies and sanctifies us. This word, which God has made the precious possession of His Church means that when the word is preached God happens, when that word is connected to the tangible things of the Sacraments, God happens. Thus we encounter God in Christ, and Christ in His Word and Sacraments. The Spirit who dwells in us brings home to us, and appropriates these gifts, quickens us, giving us the life of Christ through these same and very Means.

It's not about signs, wonders, visions, voices, etc. It's about the ordinary, normal, very simple ways which God has come down to meet us. Not through fire and smoke and wonder, but through Word and Sacrament, through the communion of the Church together in Christ sustained by the Spirit, through the Scriptures, through all of these quite seemingly non-extraordinary things.

A faithless generation desires signs and wonders, but Jesus says, "Come and follow Me." Men desire miracles, but the miracle of redemption is all around us, not through the outwardly profound, but through the outwardly simple. God is present in the world through Word and Sacrament, through His Church, through the acts of charity of faithful servants, in acts of compassion and kindness done without reward. For we have been taught that the kingdom of God does not come with observation, but that the kingdom is in our midst--where Christ is, there the kingdom is, for Christ reigns as King.

-CryptoLutheran

AV1611VET said:

Not by messing with it though; but by simply withdrawing some of His sustaining power, the universe, and everything in it, started decaying.

Look at it this way:

You have ice cream in a freezer; you pull the plug and the ice cream starts melting.

God "pulled the plug," and the universe is now "melting."

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Doesn't that make your God sound kinda like a jerk? I mean obviously the ice cream is going to melt if you pull the plug. Why worship someone who would pull the plug on you and watch you melt?

ViaCrucis said:

.....but rather this relationship is rooted first and foremost in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the God-Man; and this mediated relationship between God and man in and through Christ is both individual and corporate, as individuals redeemed and brought into the mystical Body of Christ, His Church, through the Means of Grace by which God works and is active through the Church corporately. Which is why the the word is so vital, because the word brings and creates faith to us, cleanses us, it justifies and sanctifies us. This word, which God has made the precious possession of His Church means that when the word is preached God happens, when that word is connected to the tangible things of the Sacraments, God happens. Thus we encounter God in Christ, and Christ in His Word and Sacraments. The Spirit who dwells in us brings home to us, and appropriates these gifts, quickens us, giving us the life of Christ through these same and very Means.

It's not about signs, wonders, visions, voices, etc. It's about the ordinary, normal, very simple ways which God has come down to meet us. Not through fire and smoke and wonder, but through Word and Sacrament, through the communion of the Church together in Christ sustained by the Spirit, through the Scriptures, through all of these quite seemingly non-extraordinary things.

-CryptoLutheran

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Thanks for replying - I found your reply interesting but to be honest some of it a bit difficult to follow online as I'm reading on a mobile (I'd be grateful for more paragraphs).

Essentially are you saying that God shows up when theres preaching or reading of scriptures?
Also I'm guessing for communion and when theres a gathering of believers.

But what about when a person is on their own, as are a lot of people at the moment? Also isnt God supposed to be with a person forever after they've become born again? And if that's true then how does a person really know that?

Are you saying that people are wrong to be promised a 'relationship with God' on making a commitment to believing in Jesus?

AV1611VET said:

You bet -- a "soda jerk"! Yup. It's basic physics. Some think that God simply instituted the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) at this time; but I'm not so sure about that.

Sounds plausible, but I don't consider it a strong argument. Because He did much, much more than passively sit there and watch us melt.

Even going so far as to send His Son to warn us to choose our destination before we melt to the point of no return.

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A lot of assumptions going on here with no real evidence.

And no matter what nice stuff he allegedly did, causing us to melt and sitting back and watching the show still makes him a jerk, not some divine being worthy of worship who loves us unconditionally.

And the whole blood sacrifice thing to save our horrid sinful selves from his punishment, and no animal blood or human blood was good enough for said sacrifice, he had to have god blood sacrificed to him, which he used himself for...... sounds legit.

AV1611VET said:

I can't remember if I ever tried this here in C&WR, but I'll take any questions you have about Christianity and try my best to answer them as best I can.

I'll do my best to answer with the Bible, fundamental doctrine, and even speculate if I have to.

Let's see where this goes.

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deleted , by poster, me.

TheTrueWay said:

Thanks for replying - I found your reply interesting but to be honest some of it a bit difficult to follow online as I'm reading on a mobile (I'd be grateful for more paragraphs).

Essentially are you saying that God shows up when theres preaching or reading of scriptures?
Also I'm guessing for communion and when theres a gathering of believers.

Click to expand...

Well God is always present, everywhere, so it's not possible to be where God isn't. In the Psalms we read,

"Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there, if I make my bed in She'ol, You are there." - Psalm 139:7-8

So I'm not really speaking of merely God's presence, but rather speaking of the particular ways in which God acts in the world and in the lives of believers.

God's relationship to us is a mediated relationship. St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5 that we have the one mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ. God the Father is encountered, met, in the Person of His Son, who has become flesh for us, Jesus Christ. So Jesus says that if we have seen Him we have seen His Father, if we know Him we know His Father also. Because the Person of the Father wills to be known in and through the Person of the Son, and this happens in the Incarnation. God became flesh, and dwelt among us.

So first and foremost is the importance of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is central to everything. God became man.

It is Christ who then founds His Church, and institutes to His Church the Means of Grace. Commissioning His Church to preach the Gospel, and to baptize, and to come together to receive His Supper.

It is in these Means that Christ makes Himself present in and for the Church, and thus to the world, in a profoundly important, indeed, in a saving way.

In Romans 10 the Apostle St. Paul speaks of the importance of faith in Christ, saying, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." (verse 9), but then explores this further by pointing out, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (verse 14). This leads us to Paul's statement in verse 17, "So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ".

It is the word, the Gospel, that produces faith. That is why Christ instituted His Church to preach the Gospel, because the Gospel is alive, it produces faith in those who hear it. And it is through faith that we are justified (Romans 5:1).

So when the Gospel is preached, this is indeed, in a very real sense, Christ Himself speaking. This is the voice of the Good Shepherd who says, "My sheep know My voice", His voice is the voice of the Gospel, the life-giving, saving word of the Gospel which is for us, which creates faith in us, and saves us. By which we are justified, reconciled to God.

In the same way, Christ institutes Baptism, saying that by it we are born again (John 3:5), and instituting it for His Church saying, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). Concerning this Baptism St Paul says in Romans 6 that we have therefore died with Christ, been buried with Christ, and now have new life with Christ (Romans 6:3-4), and elsewhere in Galatians 3:27 says that we have "put on Christ" in Baptism, and still again in Colossians 2:12-13 saying that we have been buried with Christ and raised up together with Christ. How is this Baptism connected with the word? Well, in Ephesians 5:26 Paul writes that Christ has cleansed His Church "by the washing of water with the word". See then that here in Baptism is water, word, and the Spirit, not merely water.

In another same way Christ has instituted His Supper, the Holy Eucharist, which He says His own flesh and blood (Luke 22:19-20), and St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 argues the same, writing that in these meager elements of bread and wine is Christ's flesh and blood which is what we partake of. That the one who partakes of the gifts of the altar are partakers of the sacrifice (1 Corinthians 10:18). So that here in Christ's Supper is His flesh and blood, pierced and poured out for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. By His own word He declares this to be true, and to be received, for indeed He has said, "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." (John 6:54-56)

So I speak here of the ways God has chosen to be present in a particular way, in a saving way. The way God is active and present in our lives, by our communion with Christ, through the word. Means of Grace by which God comes and dwells in our midst as His people.

But what about when a person is on their own, as are a lot of people at the moment? Also isnt God supposed to be with a person forever after they've become born again? And if that's true then how does a person really know that?

Click to expand...

The truth of these things does not mean that, when we are not presently hearing the Gospel or receiving the Supper, or etc that then God is somehow less present in our lives; only that these are the loci of His presence and work in our lives. It is these things which build us up, strengthen us, encourage us, create faith in us, by which we can be confident in God's promises and the assurance that we are His. We are then invited to go out into the world as faithful servants, loving our neighbor, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. To welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked.

We are built up in Christ by these gifts and means which He has given us, and then sends us out to live out lives as disciples, carrying our cross of discipleship, in the various vocations of life in which we live. As mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, friends, workers, colleagues, students. It is in the vocation of life that we live as Christians, having the foundation of our faith firmly in Christ and Christ's gifts.

Of course God is with us, always, the Spirit lives in us and is the One who appropriates the good things of God for us, and who keeps us, and causes us to endure, to continue in faith amid struggle.

Our relationship to God isn't about God whispering in my ear, but rather God inviting me to come and sit at His Table, and hearing His Word, and sharing in His life, by our union to Christ, our communion together as His Church, His own mystical Body, and being a people who are then faithful in the world to this word and fellowship which we have received as grace.

Are you saying that people are wrong to be promised a 'relationship with God' on making a commitment to believing in Jesus?

Click to expand...

I think that the language of "make a decision to accept Jesus" is bad language, built upon bad theology known as Decisionism. It places the emphasis of salvation on the individual's will and power, rather than on the objective, saving work of Jesus Christ.

Also, it places the emphasis of relationship on us, that is, "God wants a relationship with you, but you have to take the initiative and come to God"; and that's backward. It isn't us who come to God to have a relationship with Him. It is God who comes to us to have a relationship with us.

God doesn't need convincing, we do. God isn't the One who is distant from us, we are the ones who are distant from Him. That is why God comes down to us, God comes down to meet us, God comes down to save us.

We don't go up. God always comes down. That's what I mean here when I speak of the importance of the Incarnation, of the preaching of the Gospel, and the Sacraments. God comes down. God always comes down.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

Well God is always present, everywhere, so it's not possible to be where God isn't. In the Psalms we read,

"Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there, if I make my bed in She'ol, You are there." - Psalm 139:7-8

So I'm not really speaking of merely God's presence, but rather speaking of the particular ways in which God acts in the world and in the lives of believers.

God's relationship to us is a mediated relationship. St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5 that we have the one mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ. God the Father is encountered, met, in the Person of His Son, who has become flesh for us, Jesus Christ. So Jesus says that if we have seen Him we have seen His Father, if we know Him we know His Father also. Because the Person of the Father wills to be known in and through the Person of the Son, and this happens in the Incarnation. God became flesh, and dwelt among us.

So first and foremost is the importance of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is central to everything. God became man.

It is Christ who then founds His Church, and institutes to His Church the Means of Grace. Commissioning His Church to preach the Gospel, and to baptize, and to come together to receive His Supper.

It is in these Means that Christ makes Himself present in and for the Church, and thus to the world, in a profoundly important, indeed, in a saving way.

In Romans 10 the Apostle St. Paul speaks of the importance of faith in Christ, saying, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." (verse 9), but then explores this further by pointing out, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (verse 14). This leads us to Paul's statement in verse 17, "So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ".

It is the word, the Gospel, that produces faith. That is why Christ instituted His Church to preach the Gospel, because the Gospel is alive, it produces faith in those who hear it. And it is through faith that we are justified (Romans 5:1).

So when the Gospel is preached, this is indeed, in a very real sense, Christ Himself speaking. This is the voice of the Good Shepherd who says, "My sheep know My voice", His voice is the voice of the Gospel, the life-giving, saving word of the Gospel which is for us, which creates faith in us, and saves us. By which we are justified, reconciled to God.

In the same way, Christ institutes Baptism, saying that by it we are born again (John 3:5), and instituting it for His Church saying, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). Concerning this Baptism St Paul says in Romans 6 that we have therefore died with Christ, been buried with Christ, and now have new life with Christ (Romans 6:3-4), and elsewhere in Galatians 3:27 says that we have "put on Christ" in Baptism, and still again in Colossians 2:12-13 saying that we have been buried with Christ and raised up together with Christ. How is this Baptism connected with the word? Well, in Ephesians 5:26 Paul writes that Christ has cleansed His Church "by the washing of water with the word". See then that here in Baptism is water, word, and the Spirit, not merely water.

In another same way Christ has instituted His Supper, the Holy Eucharist, which He says His own flesh and blood (Luke 22:19-20), and St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 argues the same, writing that in these meager elements of bread and wine is Christ's flesh and blood which is what we partake of. That the one who partakes of the gifts of the altar are partakers of the sacrifice (1 Corinthians 10:18). So that here in Christ's Supper is His flesh and blood, pierced and poured out for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. By His own word He declares this to be true, and to be received, for indeed He has said, "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." (John 6:54-56)

So I speak here of the ways God has chosen to be present in a particular way, in a saving way. The way God is active and present in our lives, by our communion with Christ, through the word. Means of Grace by which God comes and dwells in our midst as His people.



The truth of these things does not mean that, when we are not presently hearing the Gospel or receiving the Supper, or etc that then God is somehow less present in our lives; only that these are the loci of His presence and work in our lives. It is these things which build us up, strengthen us, encourage us, create faith in us, by which we can be confident in God's promises and the assurance that we are His. We are then invited to go out into the world as faithful servants, loving our neighbor, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. To welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked.

We are built up in Christ by these gifts and means which He has given us, and then sends us out to live out lives as disciples, carrying our cross of discipleship, in the various vocations of life in which we live. As mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, friends, workers, colleagues, students. It is in the vocation of life that we live as Christians, having the foundation of our faith firmly in Christ and Christ's gifts.

Of course God is with us, always, the Spirit lives in us and is the One who appropriates the good things of God for us, and who keeps us, and causes us to endure, to continue in faith amid struggle.

Our relationship to God isn't about God whispering in my ear, but rather God inviting me to come and sit at His Table, and hearing His Word, and sharing in His life, by our union to Christ, our communion together as His Church, His own mystical Body, and being a people who are then faithful in the world to this word and fellowship which we have received as grace.



I think that the language of "make a decision to accept Jesus" is bad language, built upon bad theology known as Decisionism. It places the emphasis of salvation on the individual's will and power, rather than on the objective, saving work of Jesus Christ.

Also, it places the emphasis of relationship on us, that is, "God wants a relationship with you, but you have to take the initiative and come to God"; and that's backward. It isn't us who come to God to have a relationship with Him. It is God who comes to us to have a relationship with us.

God doesn't need convincing, we do. God isn't the One who is distant from us, we are the ones who are distant from Him. That is why God comes down to us, God comes down to meet us, God comes down to save us.

We don't go up. God always comes down. That's what I mean here when I speak of the importance of the Incarnation, of the preaching of the Gospel, and the Sacraments. God comes down. God always comes down.

-CryptoLutheran

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Hi, thanks for your reply.....I think perhaps my experiences of church or fellowship have been a bit different....I realise that's the theory of what happens....but what evidence is there beyond what the bible says will happen when believers get together, that God is actually present? How does one know that they know that they are saved too?

AV1611VET said:

Do you want to live on this old, sin-cursed earth forever? or does Heaven sound good to you?

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I actually think the earth is pretty awesome, and maybe our focus should be on taking better care of her instead of looking up to the sky for imaginary friends in an attempt to explain to ourselves why we are here.

And a desirable afterlife exists in other belief systems too, not just Christianity.

TheTrueWay said:

Hi, thanks for your reply.....I think perhaps my experiences of church or fellowship have been a bit different....I realise that's the theory of what happens....but what evidence is there beyond what the bible says will happen when believers get together, that God is actually present?

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This is going to sound kind of simplistic, but it really does just boil down to faith. What I've said is contingent on the believing that what Jesus says, and what the Apostles wrote, and what the Church has confessed is actually true. If these things are true, then they are trustworthy, and then they can believed. If these things are not true, then they are not trustworthy, and shouldn't be believed.

I have no material evidence to present that can act as a kind of empirical piece of data saying "this is true". So what I've expressed has been predicated on Christianity being true, rather than make any argument over whether or not Christianity is, in fact, true.

This may come across as somewhat odd, but I generally don't find the sort of apologetical arguments attempting to argue for the veracity of the Christian religion particularly worthwhile or even all that meaningful. Not because I don't think it's true, but because I don't believe that faith is something that can be forced, or argued, or coerced. I can't make someone a Christian by having the best argument, or by presenting some series of logical proofs. I simply don't think that's how faith works. In part, because that's not really how humans work.

We all like to think of ourselves as very rational animals, and thus if something is true it can be demonstrated, and I will take the evidence, and thereby come to the right conclusion on a purely rational level. But, just as often, we are entirely irrational animals. It doesn't take a great deal to demonstrate this, just go and find the people who believe the earth is flat, or who deny that vaccines work, or who subscribe to any number of conspiracy theories, or easily debunked ideas. So from a purely mundane, almost common sense perspective, we recognize that even on the basis of pure reason people are all over the map. And no matter how objective and reasonable we may believe ourselves to be, that does not necessarily match with reality.

Now I'm not arguing against objectivity and reason, only wanting to acknowledge the reality that standing in the way between the mind and objective truth exists us. And while we could go down this rabbit trail on epistemology, how do we know what we know and so forth. For my purpose here I am just acknowledging that nobody is what we might call a purely, perfectly rational blank slate. And that even when it comes to matters of empirical data, convincing someone of the veracity of a claim--even ones for which there is an over-abundance of evidence (the earth is round, the theory of evolution, the continued expansion of the universe, etc) people can still be rather stubborn and not want to believe things that are very obvious.

So, when it comes to matters of faith, like religion here, of the Christian religion in particular; I simply do not think that trying to argue a person to faith is a worthwhile endeavor, I don't think it particularly helpful, nor particularly fruitful.

Instead, I fall back to the things I've already mentioned--that God works to bring faith, that God gives faith. That faith happens, not as a rational exercise, but as a supernatural working of God through the Means of Grace.

How does one know that they know that they are saved too?

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Coming from the Lutheran POV, we have a Latin phrase, baptizatus sum, it means "I am baptized".

How can I know I have faith? Baptizatus sum.
How can I know that I am being saved? Baptizatus sum.
How can I know that Christ is mine? Baptizatus sum.
How can I know the Holy Spirit lives in me? Baptizatus sum.

Now this might beg the question, "What if someone identifies as a Christian but isn't baptized?" Well, the most obvious answer to that is, well, be baptized. But secondly one should not be terrified if for some reason they have not yet received Baptism, because they simply do not know better, or have been taught that Baptism does not truly matter, or some other thing. The point about identifying baptism in this way isn't to say that if you have not, for some various reason, yet received Baptism then you are not or cannot be saved; but instead to be pointing outside of oneself to the external, objective works of God. The point is not the "working of the work itself" concerning Baptism, but what God has promised about Baptism, it is the word which is connected to the water. That word being the Gospel. It is the Gospel here that matters. And what is that Gospel? Jesus Christ died for you.

If one is a Christian but has not yet received Baptism, go be baptized.
But in the interim, don't fret, because the point isn't about doing the right things, the point is what God has done, and what God has said. God loves you, Christ died for you, Christ has risen from the dead.

The point is that it's not about you, or about me. It's about Jesus Christ, and what He has done. It is from within this foundation of faith--Jesus Christ who suffered, died, and rose--that we speak of Word and Sacrament as the Means of Grace, as the Means which makes us what we are in Jesus, and keeps us in Him.

Faith is not supposed to be an obstacle, the Sacraments aren't obstacles. It's not about scoring an A on the test, or getting all our i's dotted and t's crossed. It's not about anything like that. It's about God loving us, and giving Himself to us, and it is in the Self-giving of God that we can speak of faith and the confidence of faith.

-CryptoLutheran