New You

Saint Paul pointed toward the continuity and discontinuity between seed and plant. Obviously, the potentiality of the oak is in the acorn, but the oak tree that rises from the acorn looks different from the acorn. Remember, that might hint, too, at why after Christ's resurrection, his disciples kept on not recognizing him even as the wounds revealed his body to be the exact same one that was nailed to the tree. And that led St. Paul to talk about differences in bodies and so in glory because, at the general resurrection, we won't all be the same; we will all be raised, true, but each will be given his or her own glory commensurate with the faithful use God's good gifts to us in this age.

He who is seated on the throne that is, the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who makes all things new. That's not the same thing as making new things and included in that all things is you. This is the fundamental truth about the resurrection. Jesus does not craft a new you; he makes the real you, the old you new. You are truly raised in your body, but in such a way that sin no longer inheres.

It's all beyond our puny minds' ability to figure it out. But we rest assured, He who created and sustained all things by His powerful word will have no difficulty at all in accomplishing this. And with the same old you suddenly made new, there also will be the whole family of the redeemed made new, and the place in which we are to live with Jesus forever made new.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Resurrection Of The Body

 "I believe in... the resurrection of the body..."

What does it mean that a person is saved? Often people think of that purely as my soul being saved. Someday I will go to heaven and float around with the angels on the clouds or something like that. The whole thing is sort of ethereal, disconnected from physical reality, and the body ceases to matter. But the way the Bible speaks about salvation is we are saved holistically, which means we are saved not just spiritually but as whole people, our bodies, and our spirits, which make up a living soul.

One way to think of humanity is as we stand in a unique place. On the one hand, in creation, we have creatures that are purely physical, animal, or plant; they are just a body, and there is no spirit involved. On the other hand, we have purely spiritual creatures: angels and demons. Mankind stands in between in a unique place. We are what Saint Augustine calls embodied spirits.

Chrysostom, writing at the end of the fourth century, concurs, "Thus when you hear that God breathed into Adams face the breath of life, understand that just as He brought forth bodiless powers, i.e., angels, so also He was pleased that the body of man created out of dust should have a rational soul who could make use of the bodily members." Therefore, we dare not separate body and spirit, for we have to begin to think of ourselves holistically as living souls with both body and spirit.

-Pr. David Kind

Immersion

We often get this idea that the word "baptizo" means to immerse. We hear that argument all the time. I don't know why that argument sticks around because the word means to wash in a ritual manner; a ritual washing, rather than to remove dirt; the word means to wash to indicate ritual purity. Mark 7:4, we see Mark discussing the baptism of couches. We know that isn't speaking about immersion there.

One of the arguments for immersion that often happens you hear people say the reason John the Baptist was baptizing down by the Jordan River is so there would be enough water for immersion. But after Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:41), there were three thousand baptized that single day in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is a unique city in the ancient world; it was connected to no major river, ocean, or waterway. It's up upon a mountain, and they had underground springs that fed the pools. You wouldn't go and immerse yourself in one of those pools; they would have thrown you out of town. You were ruining everyone's water system there, so the idea of insisting on immersion simply can't be maintained from the biblical word or biblical text.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Three Uses Of The Law

"We know that the Law is good if one uses it properly*." (1 Timothy 1:8). * Other translations of the Greek word here can be - lawfully, legitimately, and correctly.

The Formula of Concord distinguished three uses, or purposes, in the Law in Article VI. It states: The Law was given to men for three reasons ...

1." that "thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild, disobedient men [and that wild and intractable men might be restrained, as though by certain bars]."

2. that "men thereby may be led to the knowledge of their sins."

3. that "after they are regenerate ... they might ... have a fixed rule according to which they are to regulate and direct their whole life."

The primary concern was to maintain that the Law should continue to be used by Christians after they had been regenerated by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel to counter the doctrine of Johannes Agricola, who taught that the Law was no longer needed by regenerate Christians." Confessional Lutheranism teaches that the Law cannot be used to deny the Gospel, and neither can the Gospel be used to deny God's Law.

The three uses of the Law are:

Curb - Through fear of punishment, the Law keeps the sinful nature of both Christians and non-Christians under check. This does not stop sin since the sin is already committed when the heart desires to do what is wrong, yet it does stop the open outbreak of sin that will do even further damage.

Mirror - The Law serves as a perfect reflection of what God created the human heart and life to be. It shows anyone who compares his/her life to God's requirement for perfection that he/she is sinful.

Guide - This use of the Law that applies only to Christians. The Law becomes the believer's helper. Empowered by the gospel truth of forgiveness and righteousness in Christ, the believer's new self eagerly desires to live to please the Triune God.

-Dr. Jordan Cooper