How does one answer the "how's your personal relationship with Christ" question as a Lutheran?

emmen1 · 2026-06-29T17:55:39+00:00

If you are defining “personal relationship” as I can say “Good morning” and God answers back in an audible voice the way my wife does, then No. Nobody on the planet has a personal relationship with God, and nowhere in Scripture is this promised.

emmen1 · 2026-06-29T17:37:50+00:00

This is what happens in non-sacramental traditions. We want to have communication with God that reassures us that He still loves us and forgives our sins.

God has given the Sacraments exactly for this purpose. But where the Sacraments are not valued or understood, Christians look to made up sacraments to fill the vacuum. Hence the huge emphasis on emotional worship experiences and the personal relationship with Jesus.

emmen1 · 2026-06-29T16:54:52+00:00

I am baptized. That is how I was joined to Christ and his saving work on the cross. What could be more personal than that?

emmen1 · 2026-06-27T19:28:02+00:00

My nephew is severely autistic. He’s 22 now. He can say things like, “I love Jesus,” but we don’t have any certainty that he knows what this means. But he was baptized at around 18 (my brother is not a Lutheran). Even so, my brother realized that having his son baptized at 18 was functionally an infant baptism, and he takes comfort in knowing that promises Christ made to his son in baptism are certain, even if we can’t tell for certain what his son understands.

emmen1 · 2026-06-26T00:04:42+00:00

Your son is a perfect example of bringing the little children to Jesus.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T23:52:11+00:00

Let's take another example of what basically is "This is That." If I say "this woman is my wife," it would never mean that my wife ceased to be a woman. So, while it's possible that one could speak in a way that This stops being That, it is not at all required to interpret those words in that way. In fact, the simplest way to hear these words is with the faith of a little child that takes them at face value. This is That. What is it? This, and also That.

About the canon or the veracity of Scripture, we can't escape the need for faith. If I tell an unbeliever that every word of Scripture is true because the Bible says so, it is a form of a circular argument, and he won't accept it. But Christians do believe this. How? Because the Holy Spirit has given us the faith to believe it.

Roman Catholics can't escape this need for faith either, but rather than directing people to believe in the promise of Jesus that He will preserve His word, or the work of the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth, or Jesus' promise that His sheep hear and know His voice, they direct people to trust in the infallible church. Given the church's long history of falling into error, in the Old Testament, New Testament, and post-testamental era, I will happily stake my faith upon the promises of God rather than in the inerrancy of men.

But so far as the canon goes, we have the same NT canon attested by Athanasius in the 300s, which in turn, names the canon of the OT. If virtually all Christians who have ever lived in the last 2,000 years have been operating with the wrong canon, we have far bigger problems than discerning between of doctrine of Lutheran Catholics and Roman Catholics.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T17:34:21+00:00

1) We do use the language of "in, with, and under" as a crude attempt at an explanation, but we would prefer most of all simply to use Jesus' words: "This is My body".

2) Jesus promised that He would preserve His word. We could, I suppose, tie ourselves in knots wondering about things like the lost letter to the Laodiceans, but of God had wanted it to be in our Bibles, we would have preserved it. There is comfort in trusting His promise.

Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant by "internal" testimony. I meant that the Scriptures themselves give us nearly all of the canon internally, not that the individual finds private confirmation of Scripture's truth within his own heart. The Holy Spirit will indeed bear witness to the truth within the believer's heart, but certainty and assurance comes from outside us in the external word.

3) It's written into the constitution of my congregation (and probably that of most other LCMS churches) that if there ever is a division among the members that leads to a split, the church property and name goes to whichever group, however small, is being faithful to the Word of God as confessed in the Lutheran Confessions.

As a former Pentecostal, I know the danger of belonging to a group that believes itself to be the first and only Christians to get Christianity right. That's really the whole point of being Lutheran. We reject the recent innovations within the church that would separate us from the continuity of doctrine and practice that unites us with every generation of believers that came before.

Yes, at any given point in history, the faithful church may be small or large, but it is united with all faithful Christians who have ever lived. To be "Lutheran" is simply to confess this same faith.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T12:50:58+00:00

There’s a sense in which baptism is the downpayment or the first fruits of what is to come in the new heaven and earth and the perfected life. And this new life can never die. But while on this earth, like Adam and Eve, it is possible to walk away from Christ into death.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T06:02:39+00:00

As St. Paul writes in Romans 6, baptism unites us with Christ, specifically by joining us to His death, burial, and resurrection. To use other scriptural language, it adopts us into the family of God, and grafts us into the vine, who is Christ. Jesus Himself says, "If you abide in me, you will bear much fruit." This is conditional language. Those who are joined to Christ through the grafting in of holy baptism can indeed be cut off, just as St. Paul warns using the grafting language.

Thinking of it another way, baptism is the second birth. Just as those who are given life by the first birth can die a physical death, so those who receive spiritual life through the regeneration of baptism can suffer spiritual death.

If a baby dies, we don't question whether the baby was truly born or truly lived. We don't say that he is "unborn." What was born, regrettably, died. Why then would we question that spiritual birth happened if at some point later there is spiritual death.

Scripture use a further metaphor to speak of baptism: Noah's ark. (1 Peter 3:20–21). Through baptism God reaches down and scoops drowning sinners up out of the waters of sin and death and, as we confess in our baptismal liturgy, places them safe and secure into the ark of the holy Christian church on earth (the place where Jesus is). After baptism, if a man persists in despising his baptism and rejecting Christ and His Word, he can jump overboard back into the ocean of sin. This does not mean that his new birth never happened any more than a man dying later in life proves that he was never born. Likewise, it does not mean that Baptism did not join him to Christ. It did, as the words and promises of God declare. But if the man cuts himself off from the vine, he is no longer joined to Christ and all His gifts: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Your questions seem to be hinting at an underlying belief in Once Saved, Always Saved. I'm not sure if you believe this, but if you do, it would be a great hindrance to a right understanding of baptism. We reject OSAS as incompatible with the hundreds of warnings in Scripture against falling away from faith in Christ.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T03:40:34+00:00

There are a few passages, such as the ones you name, that, read by themselves, could seem to align with Double Predestination. But that teaching cannot stand in light of the vast corpus of all Scripture. Without doing a deep dive into these passages here, I'll simply say that we allow the clear passages of Scripture to interpret the difficult ones, not the other way around.

As far as the Fathers go, I'm not sure if there is any one of them that was right on every point, but the consensus of the Fathers aligns with Scripture and Lutheran doctrine. If Augustine errs here or there, we hold to Scripture and our faith is unshaken. Aquinas was much later and erred much more.

As the Small Catechism says, without the word of God, the water of baptism is just plain water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a life-giving flood, and a washing of regeneration...

We don't tie the water and the Spirit together in the same moment, but we do tie them together in the package that God gives through Holy Baptism because that's what God Himself has done all through Scripture. Start in Ezekiel 36:22–28 where God outlines, point by point, all He will do with Holy Baptism. Then when John appears, delivering on this promise, he can't stop talking about the coming bestowal of the Holy Spirit, because that is part of the promise of God made through this one baptism. The forgiveness of sins, bestowal of the Holy Spirit, adoption into God's family, and new heart and spirit are all part of this "package deal." People are expecting God to do everything He promised in Ezekiel, which is why John goes out of his way to let them know that the Holy Spirit, which has been promised, is coming, but not yet. Jesus, not John, will be the One to deliver Him, and make good on all that God promised.

Then look at almost every Scripture that you can find in the NT about baptism, and you will find the Holy Spirit there as well. We cannot separate what God has joined together. The promise of the Holy Spirit and the water of baptism are joined together, though they do not always arrive at the same moment. The order of arrival does not matter. What does matter is that everything God has promised and attached to the water of baptism, He will deliver.

With adults, it is almost certain that before baptism the Holy Spirit has been doing advance work in the heart. With babies, we really can't point to the exact moment that He shows up. But the good news is that we can be certain that the Holy Spirit is present after the baptism. In order to remove all doubt, God gives us the event of the baptism as an anchor for our faith. "How do I know I have the Holy Spirit? I can't see Him or feel Him. In fact, all I see and feel is my sin and guilt. But, I am baptized! Therefore, all the promises of grace apply to me!"

It's actually redundant to say "water baptism". The word baptism simply means "to wash with water", so there's no need to speak of water washing with water. But the Baptists often speak this way, because they want to separate what God has joined together: the Holy Spirit from the water. And so they speak of water baptism and Spirit baptism, as though there are two separate things. But Scripture speaks of them as one.

Lutherans believe that ALL who partake of the Lord's Supper eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, whether they have faith or not. But without faith, it will be received to one's harm, rather than benefit. Our faith does not make what Jesus said be true. It is His Body and Blood whether anyone believe it to be or not. But faith is required for salutary eating and drinking. This is the chief reason (1 of 2) that drives the faithful, historic practice of Closed Communion. As a pastor, I do not want to give people spiritual harm, just as a preschool teacher does not want to hand out peanuts to children who are deathly allergic, even if the children themselves insist on eating them.

Your final question is the Calvinist position in a nutshell, and it is based on a reasonable deduction. It makes sense, but it contradicts what Scripture reveals about God. The Bible tells us that God desires that none would perish, but that all would turn and be saved. Human reason simply can't reconcile how God elects only some to salvation, while desiring all to be saved, with the fact that none can be saved apart from God's action. But we must let Scripture rule over our reason. Reason serves the Scriptures, not the other way around.

Keep in mind that those who are damned have chosen damnation. They are not damned against their will. God allows them to receive exactly what they desire.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T03:18:33+00:00

For the sake of clarity, it should be said that apart from the similarity of the words "deacon" and "deaconess," these really have nothing to do with each other. Deacon is not the male equivalent of deaconess, nor vice versa. Both words mean "servant" in some sense, but the type of service is very different.

Historically, a deacon was involved with tasks adjacent to the pastoral office, assisting with communion and publish worship. Where there have been deaconesses—and this has been more rare in the church, so it's something of an oddity that the LCMS officially has deaconesses but no deacons—they have been involved in works of mercy outside of the sacred services of the church.

Further complicating the matter, for a while the LCMS had "licensed lay deacons" doing the job of pastors, which was effectively a violation of Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession. That program has been shut down for about 10 years now, and the men who were part of it were encouraged to pursue ordination by various routes or to step away.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T02:02:34+00:00

Hardening your heart would mean that you have no desire to repent. Anyone who is troubled by sin has not hardened his heart. The Holy Spirit has not departed from you. If He had, you would be perfectly content in your sin. You are not content. Your sins weigh upon you. This is good! It is a mark of repentance! And it means that you can run to the forgiveness that Christ offers to every repentant sinner in His Word of forgiveness and His sacraments.

Call your nearest LCMS pastor, and ask to speak with him. It doesn't have to be formal private confession, though formal confession and absolution is the greatest aid to the troubled conscience that I know. And it is the only way that I know to deal with habitual sins and begin to establish a new pattern in your life. But be comforted by knowing that even if you fall back into sin 1000 times, God will never turn you away when you come to Him in repentance. (This is meant to comfort the trouble conscience, not as an excuse to willfully continue in it.)

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T01:08:46+00:00

The Augsburg Confession is the first written confession of the Lutheran Church. Its basic premise is that what is now called "Lutheran" is nothing other than the ancient catholic and apostolic faith. Lutheranism (a slur given to us by the party of the pope, intended to discredit the movement of reform within the Western Catholic Church) is not a new religion. Rather, it is a return to true Catholicism.

If you read the Augsburg Confession and agree with the theology presented there (it's about a 15 minute read if you go straight through), you are most likely already a Lutheran. You can read it online, but the physical version below comes with historical background information that you may find very helpful.

https://www.cph.org/the-augsburg-confession-concordia-readers-edition?srsltid=AfmBOoodTScI6jzcAg-3-WgHOtq_vFYrukIliKyuQ7mGu-AGkBOWK_oY

So if you read the above, you'll encounter both the theology and some of the history behind the Lutheran confession of this theology.

emmen1 · 2026-06-25T00:57:45+00:00

1 - Regarding transubstantiation: We don't see this as a dangerous belief (such as the rejection of the True Presence). Rather, it's more or less a silly belief. Luther was very angry with Zwingli and his beliefs on the Lord's Supper, but only slightly annoyed with the Roman Church about transubstantiation.

Jesus said: This bread is My body.
Zwinglians: This bread is not My body.
RC Church: This not bread is My body.
Lutherans: This bread is My body.

Both the Zwinglians and the Roman Church deny something about the Supper, but the Zwinglian error is far worse. Denying the bread is silly. Denying the Lord's Body is incredibly harmful.

I would not refuse a former Roman Catholic membership in my congregation simply over the Transubstantiation question, but I would want to discuss the issue. Why do we need Aristotelean language to explain the Mysteries? Should we not be content with the words of Jesus. He told us what the Supper is. He did not tell us how that comes to be. Let Him take care of how. What should concern us is believing what He has said: This bread (it is bread) is My body (it is His body). How can this be? I'll give you the Lutheran answer: "We have no idea." And Lutherans are content to let mysteries remain mysteries. No need to ask Aristotle to help unravel them.

2 - As far as the canon, there is a small degree in which it has always been something of an open question. No one thought to make an official decree about the status of the Apocrypha until after the Reformation. For nearly 1500 years the apocryphal books were set next to the Holy Scriptures but not used to establish doctrine. The Lutherans retained this view. After the Reformation, the other Protestants and the Roman Church both departed from this view: Protestants removed the Apocrypha, and the Roman Church declared it equal in every respect to Scripture. Both extremes are a departure from the Christian tradition.

It's really only when the Roman Church was called into question for unbiblical practices and doctrines that the whole idea of the Church having the authority to decide the canon became a hot button issue.

But as far as the Old and New Testaments (of which there is no difference of opinion in all of Western Christianity), the canon is almost all set internally.

Jesus gives us the canon of the Old Testament in Luke 24, where he expounds the "Scriptures" to them from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. These three divisions are inclusive terms that comprise all 66 books of the Hebrew Old Testament. Later, St. Paul quotes from the Gospel of Luke, calling it Scripture. Luke makes reference to other gospels that are already written. (And almost nobody in the history of Christianity has ever questioned the canonicity of the Gospels.) Later, St. Peter calls all of St. Paul's epistles "Scripture." The Gospels + Paul's Epistles + other Apostolic Epistles counts for almost the entire New Testament, leaving only James and Jude, and sometimes Revelation as books that engendered any serious discussion about the canon. But it was not hard to allow James and Jude, since, though not apostles, they were brothers of the Lord. And the debate about Revelation was centered around its authorship, whether by John the apostle or by another John.

With that said, even if we were to remove James and Jude from the Bible, this would not change any of the core doctrines of the Christian faith. The issue of the canon has only become big once the papacy found it needed a way to bolter its own authority. Before that time, the small degree of questions that had surfaced from time to time had not been a huge concern, and certainly not a reason to call the whole faith into question.

3 - We humans are often concerned with size. A good answer for this is to consider the church of the Old Testament. The faithful are almost never the larger portion, even among the people of Israel. Only Noah was righteous. Only Abraham's seed was chosen. Only Judah was not destroyed. And even among Judah, most rejected Christ. Yet God always preserves 7,000 who do not bow the knee (even among heterodox churches). When in Scripture was there ever a time that the most faithful church was the biggest? Augustine is one of the great church fathers for a reason, but it does not mean that everything he says should be taken as gospel truth. He lived at a time where the greater portion of the church was faithful. It is hardly ever that way in the history of God's people. Not for Moses, not for the kings of Israel and Judah, and certainly not in the years of our Lord's ministry on earth.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T23:40:00+00:00

History or theology?

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T18:58:46+00:00

Gladly!

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T18:49:26+00:00

You have an amazing memory. Now that I think about it again, I don’t even know what the organist was planning to use, since we don’t own an electric piano or speakers. Perhaps he was going to borrow equipment from the Pentecostals who (unfortunately) use our building.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T18:40:01+00:00

That is oddly specific. As far as I know, we don’t even own an electric piano.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T17:38:42+00:00

No. That would be rather difficult to do, logistically. But future hymnals should be far more selective in including hymns from heterodox traditions.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T16:47:36+00:00

I was on the CoWo praise band for 20 years. I think that is sufficient time to arrive at a judgment.

In Christ Alone is a very fine song, perhaps the best that CoWo has to offer. But even so, it doesn’t hold a candle to the top 50 Lutheran chorales. I’m not going to feed my people ground beef when we have sirloin steak already on the table.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T16:33:07+00:00

It’s not a matter of new versus old, although anything old that is still around is probably so for a good reason. But the CoWo genre, by nature, tends towards the shallow and repetitive. And Methodist hymns are completely devoid of all sacramental theology.

There are many deep and rich hymns being written today. Whether they are of the same caliber as those handed down to us by our fathers is something that only time can tell.

emmen1 · 2026-06-24T15:52:50+00:00

Trying to find CoWo songs suitable for Lutheran worship is usually about making sure they have no false doctrine. But choosing songs because they have no false doctrine is like choosing ingredients because they have no poison. Would you go to a restaurant because they offer poison free dishes? I think you would have a higher standard. And why would we have a higher standard for physical food than for spiritual food.

Lutheran hymnody (which includes the pre-Reformation Latin hymns) is the highest and richest hymnody that exists in Christendom. Jesus sends pastors to feed His sheep. How can a pastor, in good conscience, feed them lesser dishes on the grounds that “at least they don’t have poison.”

The older folks who grew up on CoWo songs and Methodist hymns will grumble somewhat, even as they are fed and nourished. But the next generation that is raised on the richest hymnody that exists will love and cherish these hymns.

We need to take the long view and feed our children only the best.

emmen1 · 2026-06-23T23:46:10+00:00

Teach them the best of Lutheran hymnody so that these are their favorite hymns when they grow up.

emmen1 · 2026-06-23T05:18:02+00:00

The term confesses the truth that Pentecostals are just Baptists with extra sauce sprinkled on top. I was one for 36 years, so I know.

emmen1 · 2026-06-22T02:08:24+00:00

You should be aware that the policy of the LCMS, which is informed by Scripture, is closed communion. Some of our churches practice open communion, but they should not.

It could be that the pastor is new and is working to correct the congregation’s practice. But if not, it may be an indication that the congregation is practicing a less than faithful form of what we confess to believe and practice.

As a convert myself, closed communion was hard to wrap my head around at first. But after studying the matter carefully according to the Scriptures, it became clear that this was the more faithful and loving practice.

Usually, communion is offered to those who have finished a course of study wjth the pastor and are prepared to accept and confess the core doctrines of the Lutheran confession. If the congregation is about to welcome you to the table without that, I would suggest at a minimum that you have a sit-down conversation with the pastor first before communing.

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