Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scriffman, Speak Life, the Heavy of the Company. Myself and Paul Feasy are both having a break. We are on some holidays, but the content still comes out from Speak Life. And do make sure that you are subscribed to us so that you get everything in the places where you usually catch them. So if you're listening to this on the podcast, make sure you're subscribed to us on your favourite podcast. And maybe even give us a rating and a review that really helps us to get seen by more and more people. If you're also on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, can you catch us on those platforms as well? We have Speak Life Media on YouTube, and we have Speak Life UK on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Now, on today's episode, I am talking to the Reverend Simioki, who is the pastor of the Saviour Church in Ferrum in the United Kingdom. And he is of Finnish origin, but he's living most of his life here in the UK. And we get into a great conversation about some Lutheran distinctives. This wonderful design to claim the finished work of Christ, to deliver Christ over to people in word and sacrament. I was really challenged and blessed by my conversation with Lady. And I hope you are too. And if you are, why don't you share this episode with a friend and let them know about Speak Life? And listen, if you have uh gamed from ministry here at Speak Life, if we have blessed you, uh then we would love to stay in touch with you. Do you get our emails? You can go to speaklife.org.uk slash sign up. That's S-I-G-N-U-P. And uh you can just uh add your email there and we will keep you abreast of all that's going on at Speak Life, including our new series in the autumn called Reset, where we talk to some fascinating people like Tom Holland, like Douglas Murray, about the meaning crisis and whether the Bible has something to say into this current crisis. But without further ado, let's listen in to my conversation with Tapani Simayoki. Great pleasure to be here with you. Thank you for the invitation. Oh, it's a pleasure. Now, uh, I've just murdered your name Tapani Simayoki. Um, where is that name from? Where are you from, Tapani?
SPEAKER_00Uh, my uh background, I'm Finnish. Uh, my parents are Finnish. I was born and uh brought up for uh the first uh 15 years of my life in Finland, and uh from there I emigrated with my parents to Kenya for a few years, and uh from there I came here. So I've been here most of my adult life, but my name and my nationality uh are Finnish. Brilliant. What took your parents to to Kenya? Uh the missionaries. My dad's a pastor, and uh he was called to do a year's uh furlough cover uh at a seminary there, and uh that stretched to 20 years uh in Nairobi. And I of those uh first uh five of those, I also lived there before I then left home and went to university.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so you're the son of a preacher man. Uh are you second generation or more than that?
SPEAKER_00Uh the first pastor in my family, my father's side of the family, uh, was ordained somewhere in the 1680s.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00And they've been uh so uh until the uh early 20th century, apparently every other generation there'd be a pastor in every other generation a church warden they kept swapping over. Uh okay.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh. You had two pastors in a row. So you were you were hoping to dodge that bullet, but somehow it caught you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly what happened. When I was a kid, I people asked me what you want to be. I said I want to be a musician. And if that doesn't work out, I don't want to be a pastor and I don't want to be a teacher. So can you guess which two jobs I've done in my life? So you started out as a teacher, did you? Yeah, I taught for seven years in secondary school. Um in the words of a friend of mine, I I quit playing Job. Uh quit uh quit playing Jonah and uh and said uh yes to God's call, and I've been now in the ministry. Okay. Uh coming up ten years now.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So uh if we were having a typical conversation with uh an evangelical who'd grown up within evangelicalism, you know, the the you know, the the bland vanilla flavor of it, um, I would ask, you know, tell tell me about your conversion story. Is that is that the sort of thing that you'd sort of uh speak uh uh about within Lutheranism?
SPEAKER_00Some people do. Um can I answer with a story that isn't my story? Uh he's a friend of mine, my father's closest friend. Um he he died um about a decade ago now, but uh he wants to he taught at the University of Helsinki in the theology faculty, and he turned up one Monday morning and uh walked into these staff canteen and said, My son just became a Christian. And everybody goes, Oh, that's great. Tell me what happened. And it turns out their son was about three weeks old and just being baptized. Um that's also my story. There's never been a time in my conscious life that I wasn't a Christian. I went through a stage as a teenager thinking, surely there must be more to this. And I was waiting to be converted, and then somebody very kindly pointed out to me that it's okay, I've been a child of God already all this time. So it does it is a thing, uh, but um the the key point, I think the key difference would be with your kind of typical middle of the road evangelicalism is that the that you feel like the personal moment of decision is the point where is the sort of language that tends to be pretty much absent uh from our worldview.
SPEAKER_02Yes, because I mean you have a belief in baptismal regeneration, for instance. That's that's a thing within Lutheranism. What what what does that mean to you? That's uh obviously you've got the the the language of Titus on your side uh in in terms of the the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, and and and is there that kind of scriptural precedent going on and a lot of historical precedent in terms of the church historic believing in baptismal regeneration. Um what does that mean to you?
SPEAKER_00In a sense, I'm ever so slightly uncomfortable with the question on this count because the moment we start using technical terms like baptismal regeneration, we create fixed images in people's heads. Really, we are far better off speaking of things as much as possible in the way that the Bible speaks of them. Now, baptismal regeneration is indeed what uh the Lutheran Church teaches and confesses and holds to uh quite vehemently if necessary. Um but if we look at that's that's just one aspect of it. Really, the I think the way that I prefer to speak of it is that the scripture seems to be incredibly clear that in baptism God is active, that is a work and action of God. Um I even know somebody who became a Lutheran, an evangelical who became a Lutheran, really by at somebody's instigation, opening up the Bible and just reading all the bits in the New Testament that mention baptism one after another, and then he by the time he finished with them said, Okay, what I believe so far clearly isn't what the Bible teaches. You look at all the passages in the Bible, and in every one of them, it's something that's been done to us, is what theologians like to call the divine passive.
SPEAKER_02So in one sense, you're you're converted when Christ rose from the from the empty tomb. Yeah. Is that is that the the the kind of idea that that you know when was I born again? Well, 1 Peter 1 says we've been given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Yeah. And so baptism is um the means by which I am united to that historical event.
SPEAKER_00Um precisely, it's and again, if you take one Peter, I mean one he says that in chapter one, and then chapter three he says uh baptism now saves you through the resurrection of Christ, by the resurrection. So those I mean, and and Romans, Romans six and Colossians uh two talk about this, that we're baptized into Christ's death and resurrection. I mean, Martin Luther was already in the 1520s kind of having this conversation, I think it's too polite a word for what was going on, actually getting it wasn't very polite, but having having this discussion debate uh with uh people who are challenging um this uh this particular teaching, and um and he pointed out, and I think this is one of this um in in the middle of a rather ill temper ill-tempered uh book, he he came up with this rather brilliant way of explain uh making the distinction. You know, that line in the hymn says nothing in my hands I bring, only to the cross I king. And uh which I've I've even I I I I think that's a great, great hymn, but um Luther said, you know, actually, you know, if we want to be saved, we don't run to the cross. The cross is not where our salvation is being distributed to us, the cross is where Christ won for us our salvation. So to use the kind of it's it's the place where our salvation is procured, but it is distributed somewhere else. And the question is where it is. And here's the thing when we say, where do I find this Christ? You know, said our you know, Christ nailed our sins to the body uh in his body to the tree. Well, how do I get my sins to go back in time and across space to Jerusalem 2000 years ago? Or how do I get the cross of Christ to come to me now? Where is that transaction going to take place between what Christ did objectively for the whole world and where where does and and I know subjectively subjectively delivers it to me here? Right. What's the means? And that's the key question.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, how do we link the salvation that Christ won on Easter morning with our own salvation?
SPEAKER_00In the 1520s, Martin Luther was having this debate with his some of the people who opposed his uh doctrine on these matters, and they kept saying that we we don't need to go to baptism for our salvation, but we go to the cross of Christ. Everything that Jesus did, he did on the cross, and therefore there's nothing that needs to be added to that. And Luther pointed out in reply, and I think he was uh right on the money with this, is that the cross is not where we go to gain our salvation. But a cross is where Christ won for us our salvation. But that was a one-off event, sacrifice once for all, as uh the writer to the Hebrews puts it in the New Testament, and that was the place where everything that was needed for our salvation was procured by Christ, if you like. But that's not where our salvation is being distributed to us. And that question of where our salvation is distributed to us, that's the real question. How do I get my sins to Christ so that he might nail them in his body to the tree of the cross? How do I get the fruit of the cross to reach me here today? Because I'm not in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and apart from the thief on the cross, nobody else uh was directed to go to the cross either. In fact, the New Testament never uses that phrase, go to the cross. It talks about the crucifixion, but not the cross. Instead, we need to look to those things which Christ has given to the church whereby he communicates the things that he had procured for us on the cross to us, distributes them. I sometimes use when I'm teaching uh youngsters this um this topic, I I talk about this in a uh the difference between um a uh a farm and a supermarket. Our food comes from the farm, from the field, but we if you are hungry, you don't go to the potato field, you go to the shop where that food is distributed to you. And now baptism is like the time machine whereby the fruits and benefits of Christ in the cross and his resurrection are delivered to us. Luth was uh very fond of pointing out that the gospel is of all above all proclaimed and preached. Faith comes by hearing. Now we live in the liter literate age, um, and so we think of the word of God as the Bible and the Bible as a book. But if it remains in the book or on the pages of the book, it's just so many words. But the word of God is living and active, and it is living and active when it is heard. And the hearing is not just that it goes into my ears, but the the words come constantly with that phrase for you, for you. And at that point, that word accomplishes that thing which it promises. So when the gospel says, No, hear the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in him, that word, that command itself brings about the thing that it commands. And the sacraments are are the you know, the baptism is is where that word, I mean again in the the um the small catechism of of of Martin Luther put it very simply that the it is water joined to God's word. So God attaches his promises to certain places and certain things in the same way that you know I I I wear a ring on my finger. And that's because my wife gave it to me when we got married, and at that point she said, Okay, I give you this ring. With this ring I bewed. And so this object is not just a it's not just some uh bit of jewelry, but it is attached very clearly and very closely to the words that go with it. It's it it accomplishes something. Right, right. And and that language of word being joined to things. I give you this, and this is a pledge. It's like you know, it's like if you go to a pawn shop, you come away with a with a chit, and when you go back with that chit, you get whatever it says on it. Or a bank note says, I promise to pay the bearer of this note, the sum of ten pounds. And you know that what's a banknote worth? You know, it fractions of a penny. But the moment you attach the words of promise to it, it becomes valuable. And that's kind of the key, that's what we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_02So we don't want to simply say to people, come to the cross, unburden your load at the foot of the cross. Instead, we're not we're not telling people to go somewhere else, and we're not we're not even telling them to remember something else, but as a preacher, our words are actually carrying Christ crucified and risen to the hearer such that we are we are what delivering to them the the what are we delivering to them as we preach?
SPEAKER_00Christ. You know, Jesus says to when he sends out descendants, whoever hears you hears me.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And whoever receives you receives him who sent me. And so when a somebody preaches the word of Christ, uh then they are in fact hearing Christ.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00You know, if if if my if my prime is cool aged son is called uh you know, child child comes to his classroom and says uh uh um uh to the child's teacher as uh the head teacher would like to see a euny. She will not say, Well, I don't take orders from children. She will say, Oh, right, okay, and calls somebody and goes off because it's not the word of the child, it's the word of the head teacher, just mediated through the child. When I say as a preacher, here is Christ for you, then the correct response is not to say, Well, how dare you presume such a thing? Rather say, Oh, who sent you? If Christ in fact has sent me to do that, um, then it is his word that you're receiving, and when you hear his word, you hear him. Whoever receives you receives him, right sent me. And so we receive the whole fullness of God in Christ when we receive the word uh the word of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02To the point where Luther said the the preacher, the preacher's mouth is Christ's mouth. Um that's that's quite stunning language. What does that do to you as you prepare for Sunday? What does that do to you as a as a preacher who dares to proclaim in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00Well, let me preface that by saying that the chief reason why I did play Jonah for so many years was precisely because of this. I mean it's an awesome, tremendous responsibility. Um there's a way there's a church. Um, when Luther died, uh he died away from home in Iceland, and his body was carried back to Wittenberg, but it was a two-day journey. So he spent a night in a church in the town of Halle in uh in former East Germany. And I was there two summers ago at a wonderful uh youth conference there, and I went to the church where Juluther's body was kept and they had a death mask. I didn't go to see the death mask, I'm not really into that sort of thing, but I was just a and there was a the the pulpit uh in this beautiful church has a door into the bullet, and over the door is an artery, and it says in Latin, the Latin phrase was Christus introit, crisis entry. And as you walk into the pulpit, the word says crisis entry. And that is the only for most of the people in my church, the only preaching they will hear is my preaching. The only word that will come to their ears is the words that I speak. And it's an awesome responsibility, it's a terrible responsibility, but it's also wonderful, wonderful privilege. But it does mean that I have to think very carefully about what I say and what topics are on the table which are off, and which things are my opinions and which things are facts, and to make sure that if I opine in the pulpit that everybody knows that this is just Tapanit speaking and this is not God's word.
SPEAKER_02So there is a weight to it. Um you're speaking with the very authority and in the name of Christ. Um is there also something liberating about it to to know that this is Christ's word that is being heralded? It is.
SPEAKER_00I mean the one of the I think one of the biggest problems in uh evangelical Christianity, and I I include that not to uh you know the the broadest possible definition of that is that uh we become incredibly results-oriented as a cult church culture. We count bums on seats and we we count growth as a mathematical thing as opposed to the biological thing that it actually is. And so we're really, really um fixated on results and outcomes. And if you want to, you know, if often you say ask, can you ask people to name a really inspirational uh uh churchman or you know uh a Christian, we tend to think of the Billy Graham of this world who reach huge numbers. I was reading a wonderful German uh Lutheran theologian uh of the 20th century called Hermann Sasse just the other day, and he was lamenting in 1948. He wrote this, he was lamenting the fact that the church has basically brought into decree that crisis uh crisis with us, wherever two or three million are gathered together. Um when I preach the word of Christ, the responsible my I have once I preached, I have discharged my responsibility. And it's his word. Faith comes by hearing. And the the Augsburg Confession has this wonderful uh quick summary of of how God reaches us. It it covers as article article one is God, article two is originals in article three is who is Christ, article four is justification, justification uh by grace through faith, received by faith alone. Now that that leaves the question hanging, how do I get that faith? And so the it goes on to say in order that we may have such faith, the ministry of preaching the gospel of administering the sacraments was instituted. And through the word and the sacraments, as by instruments, the Holy Spirit gives faith where and when it pleases God. Now I I cannot think of anything that anything that is more liberating uh for a minister of Christ Church to say than to say that. That I have been given this by Christ Himself, this is the means by which God saves people, gives them that saving, justifying faith, and yet it's the work of God when that happens, so that I cannot boast, but nor must I despair when it you know. Um so what if people come to faith in their thousands, thanks be to God, he's done his work in that marvellous way, and if they don't, as so long as I have been faithful in the discharge of my duties, then it's it's not for me to go and and pass judgment. Maybe God has given me just the one talent, not the ten talents.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What does that mean then for addressing the word to those beyond the church? So as you as you dress address the word uh to those who you you have no reason to believe that they are united to Christ, you have no reason to believe that they are in the family of God. What what's what does a Lutheran uh say evangelistically in that setting?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, if I'm talking one-to-one, one of the first things I find out is whether the person's been baptized or not. And if they say yes, they have been christened or baptized, whatever word they use, I will then tell them that they've actually they've already got a really big treasure. They've got a check in the desk drawer, it's got gathering dust. Go and cash it.
SPEAKER_02And what does that mean? What does that mean? Go and cash it.
SPEAKER_00Cash it. Live by that live by faith in it, you know. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And when I I use that check, I it's this sort of favorite analogy of mine again when when teaching, especially uh youngsters. You know, imagine you've got some rich aunt in in New Zealand who's heard about you and and uh and she leaves in her will a million pounds to you. At the moment that's written in the will, that money's yours. You can't spend it. The check is written and it's put in the post. It's yours, but you can't spend it. Now you received it and you've got it in an envelope, it's yours, but you can't spend it. So what do you need to do? You need to get it out of the envelope. Now what can you do with it? You could put it in the shred and say, not interested, I don't believe in checks. You could put it on a in a in a golden frame on your wall saying, I want no I want to remember this lovely lady who's given me this gift. I never want to forget it. So I'm going to put this on the wall so I can look at it every day.
SPEAKER_01Or you can leave it on your desk because you can go to the bank and start spending. And the spending is the living by faith.
SPEAKER_00You entrust yourself to that Christ who has given himself to you on the cross and in your baptism.
SPEAKER_02So what would the difference be? So somebody says Yeah, what is what is the analogue of banking the check? Living by faith? What I'm trying to avoid is, you know, if Karlstad was wrong to say, you know, go to the foot of the cross or whatever, um, are we in are we in danger of doing a similar thing, sort of meant mentally, mentally cash a check? What does that actually mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Is it just sentences in your head, basically, is what you're asking. No, it's it's it's in practice, it means living that life. Living the life into which you have been now crafted or to which you've been adopted. And that means that you enter into the life of Christ for you. That is to say, you begin to hear the word. You you hear the word, you heed the word, believe the believe the promises and obey the commands. And now you'd be made a member of a family. So start spending time with that family. It's basically fancy hip way of saying it's go to church.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00Go to church. Uh, you know, you've been baptized, you've been made, go to church, yeah, the receive the gifts of word and and and sacrament, you know, the uh of the Lord's supper, and God is your father, he wants you to pray to him, not just because it's his will, but because you need it and he's eager to uh fulfill your your requests and and and immerse yourself in that world into which you've been brought, as opposed to running away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I have a child of friend who was adopted, and he, you know, after a while, once he was old enough, he he ran away.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And he went offended for himself. And that didn't work out well for him.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. And that is the position of the person who has been baptized. They're not living by faith, they're not a member of God's people. They're they basically they've received the adoption certificate and they're living on the streets. Yeah. And you're saying here's the adoption certificate. Come on home.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Come home.
SPEAKER_00You've already got this, and you've forgotten your parents, but you know, your father, but here he is waiting for you like the prodigal's father, you know, just eager, running to meet you.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Should you only just you know give up the pig's food and and and the pig style and come home.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And for the batteries.
SPEAKER_00Those who are not baptized.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, go on then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so unwashed. What do you say to the unwashed the unwashed, come and be washed, come and get clean. So I I you know you tell them what Christ has done for them, and then you tell them, and this is how you can have your share of this inheritance. Believe the gospel, it's true. This is for you, and come and when you are baptized, it becomes your possession. You are united with this Christ, you become a member of his body at that point. So inviting people to be baptized.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Among Calvinist evangelists, there's all obviously uh an ongoing debate. Can you say to the unwashed, Jesus died for you? Um for you as a Lutheran, you're just saying, absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. He's the propitiation for our sins and not ours only by the sinner, but the whole world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. We we we reject limited atonement.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Christ said for all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We um put out on Twitter um some questions that people could uh could ask you, and we got loads in, actually. Um uh so for instance, Will Savory, um hello Will, he says uh if you believe in baptismal regeneration, and also that you can lose your salvation by no longer attending to the means of grace, what is going on at regeneration? Okay, so so you're baptized into Christ, you're in, I guess. Um, but then if you can fall away, which is uh you know the five points of Calvinism would finish with the preservation of the saints. Um whereas within Lutheranism, um you can lose your salvation, I guess. Is it yeah, you you would you would say that? So what what is what is regeneration if it's such a thing that you can lose?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean we we already had the image of adoption. You know, you've been adopted, but you can you can run away. I mean the prodigal son, the story of the prodigal son is the is the story of of him or them who were at home, who were members, who were heirs, and rejected that and took it away and squandered it. But by grace, we're received back. So, but um again, I'm yeah, I understand that the kind of the background to the question is is the whole uh P of Tulip, uh the preservation perseverance of the saints. Um I I I just simply know that scripture is full of warnings from Christ Himself and His apostles against falling away, falling asleep at the wheel, to remain awake and not fall, you know, not fall away like the Israelites did in the wilderness and died, you know. None of those who left Egypt entered the promised land, etc. Those warnings are everywhere. The whole letter to the Hebrews is a letter all about perseverance in the faith. And and and and therefore what the the gifts of God are gifts of God, and he gives them to us without condition, uh without our uh our kind of pre-deserving them or or making ourselves in any way worthy of them, we do have this power which is to throw them away. Um it's in life, faith is a living thing. Faith is born by hearing, it is strengthened by hearing. You know, when it says in Hebrews, no, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfect of your faith. The unsaid other half is, but if you don't, what will happen to your faith? And you know, if you if uh if a child is born, that's the regeneration. You know, what what mother will say, I've I've done my bit, that child's born, my job's done now, right? You know, at you know that's that's the beginning. Now that child needs protection, keeping warm, nourishing, changing, training. And if at any point that child somehow managed to extricate itself from the mother's loving arms, it will die slowly but surely. And it's so faith needs constant feeding. It's not a thing that is kind of it's it's not like this sort of thing that you just either have or you don't have, but it's it's a living thing, and if you nourish it, it will struggle grow and strengthen and it will be strengthened, and you know scripture calls to grow in holiness. Um uh and it can also weaken if we neglect uh faith. So so the gift is there, but we neglect to live by it. You know, the fridge is full of food, but we refuse to eat.
SPEAKER_02Um but isn't salvation eternal life, you know, uh that's I come to Christ for eternal life, and I have eternal life if I am in Christ right now. How can I have eternal life temporarily?
SPEAKER_00Uh the the intention, if you're like the gift isn't temporary. Uh but rather my um how shall I use? Well, the the I think the technical word is whether I appropriate the gift or not, whether I live by that gift is the key issue. I mean, what happens if I uh despair of my salvation? Because I start to stare at myself rather than at Christ who forgive my sins. What happens if I decide to uh hold on to sins and not repent of them? I turn my back on that. It's like it's like a person, if to use a very unbiblical uh analogy, it's like a person who decides to pull the tubes out of the life support machine. The machine is still pumping away quite nicely, thank you very much. I've decided to take a hike home.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so it's not that the gift, the gift is eternal, but if I decide to reject that gift, throw it away, then I I'm essentially I'm I'm separating myself from Christ and the life that he brings.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, very helpful. Um so we we've been thinking about um the word, and the word comes to also with the visible words of the sacraments. Um another thing that people will think of when they when they think of Lutheran distinctives will be uh law and gospel. Um certainly as as the preacher preaches the word. Um there is a can you explain first of all um what Luther and what Lutherans mean by law and gospel, the the law and gospel distinction, um, and where you think it fits overall into a kind of a not only a Lutheran theology of preaching, but but also just the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh I have to give you a little a little health warning here. This is something that currently within Lutheranism is very hotly debated. So there will be Lutherans who might be watching this and and start throwing things at their screens. But uh, this is how I understand it both in scripture and from the way the Lutheran confessions uh uh speak of this, is to put it very very simple terms. Um when God speaks to us, generally speaking, uh He speaks of to us of on two different topics. He speaks to us of those things that we are expected to do, and then speaks to us of those things that he undertakes himself to do for us. And even though you know the the Bible uses both his terms uh uh quite broadly and fluidly, in in kind of uh for for um sake of clarity, we we tend to speak of gospel is uh a shorthand for all the promises that God makes to us. And those are rooted in his name and in what Christ has done for us. The law is their shorthand for all those things that God commands us, commands us to do, which are summarized in the Ten Commandments, but which we find throughout scripture. And we we it's it's really important to understand that when we sp uh when we hear the word and when we preach the word that we need to understand which which what it is that we're hearing. Because, for example, if if I as a father say to my child, go and help your mum do the dishes, because in my household um mums is tends to do the dishes more often than the dad, that's a real command, a real real instruction, but that's got nothing to do with whether that son is going to be my son uh after whether when he's done it or not. Um and our uh faith comes through the gospel. Because gospel is God's promise. We can only have faith in promises. That's the only thing that's how faith works. Faith, the counterpart of faith is faithfulness, and as you know, the the Greek word means both. So the faithfulness of Christ uh creates faith in us, and it is entirely dependent on faithfulness of God in Christ alone. And therefore, the gospel is is uh that word of God that delivers to us the promises of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and by which faith is created and by which we receive the gift of righteousness and sanctification and eternal life. But the gospel uh the the the God also speaks to us of what He wants us to do. And that and we speak like in uh slightly differently, but in similar ways to uh uh the reformed tradition we speak of the three ways that the word uh the law functions. So it's there basically to keep us from murdering each other, kind of as the curb, you know, just make sure that there's some kind of order in the world, uh, and that's for all people. Uh, then the second what we call the second function of the law, which is the theological function, which when we look at the you know the law of God like a mirror, you know, when you come in from the outdoors in the evening and you switch on the lights, look in there and realize how mucky you are, and you never knew, you look in the little more and so it points to us our sin. And then the third use of the law is for those who are Christ's, who are God's children, and it's like a guide for this is you know, you've been made a child of God and and and uh and you've been brought into the kingdom of God. This is how we live in the kingdom of God. I God has done all for me, I want to please him, uh, like an eager child wants to please a father, so God reveals to me his will, so that I may live a life that is more pleasing to him than it would otherwise be. And and it's really, really important that the um justification, our standing before God depends only on Christ, what Christ has done. It's them it's a product of the gospel alone, from the beginning to the end, which also means the gospel is not just what you preach to the unbelievers till they convert. But you continue to preach it also to believers so that they may remain rooted in Christ and they may grow in faith, because that faith alone is then going to uh give them the power, uh, you know, the the the Holy Spirit that dwells in us through faith is alone has the power to lead us to living lives that are God pleasing, that are obedient to his law little by little. Um and and so that's that's really the um you know in a in a small small nutshell is what we mean by the law gospel distinction, which again I what goes wrong.
SPEAKER_02What goes wrong? Yeah, so so how how how typically do those two things get kind of blurred together, or how how does the gospel get lost in in that distinction, do you think?
SPEAKER_00Um very easily, very often, uh all the time, because humans, we are by nature creatures of the law. You know, nobody likes a free gift, really. We all like to be feel that we are part of the you know involved in the deal. And this is how the fall comes about. Go and take for yourself. You know, God's giving gave me a whole garden full of fruit, eat whatever you like, just don't touch that one. And they said, actually, no, I'm gonna reach out for myself here. I want to make my own decisions. And so we are creatures of the law, and so it's very easy to turn this into different in different ways. So, for example, we can turn faith into a work. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in should not perish but have eternal life. Oh, but I don't have I don't believe. Now, how am I gonna believe? And we turn our faith and and whether I have faith or whether I'm doing the right kind of believing into a work.
SPEAKER_02Do I believe enough?
SPEAKER_00Do I believe enough? Um, you know, and and my faith isn't, you know, I don't have the faith of Peter or of Paul, so therefore am I even a Christian? Or we start examining our status as Christians on the basis of what our lives look like. Am I really a Christian when I fell into in for that sin again? Maybe I'm not a Christian anymore. As if the whole thing was really constantly actually dependent on what I'm what I what I'm making of it. Um or you can uh you can turn the promises of the gospel into into a law. I mean, this is this is a typical preaching trope of the Middle Ages. You behold the sufferings of Christ, and and I've seen heard many evangelicals do the same thing essentially. Say, look at how much Christ suffered for you, now what you're gonna do for him.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and the moment you take the gift, sweet gift of God and say, right, okay, now. Yeah, no, it's over to you. That's what Jesus did for you. How are you gonna match that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. There's a famous, famous uh missionary CT stud um who's an absolute hero of the faith in in so many ways. And he he went to China and India and Africa um over many, many decades. He was an incredibly impressive uh man. He was at Cambridge, he played cricket for Cambridge and for England, and he played in the in the original Ashes Test. And uh anyway, uh he a very impressive man given over to God and his purposes in the world. But his most famous quote is Umfr be God and died for me, then there can be no sacrifice too great that I should make for him. And it's the sort of thing that people sort of love to put on posters up on walls, and they they love to if Christ died for me, uh and yeah, Jesus' death becomes the standard. Which, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can preach the book. It's a wonderful hymn, but yeah, when I survey the wondrous cross, it was the climate for that. It's true, yes, but that's not the central truth. Right. That's not the central truth. The central truth is that God was in Christ to reconcile the world to himself. Right. That's the central truth.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And this again, I mean, I I'm I'm sorry to have to to to to sound so stereotypically Lutheran, but this is why this I mean, you say, you know, what what what is what can Lutheranism contribute to the oh uh have to say to the UK Churchill, yeah. The sacramental reality of these things, that these things aren't just sort of in the thoughts in the ether, but Christ is delivered to you for real through the word and through the sacraments. And and and you used that phrase earlier, visible words, and and I didn't want to interrupt you, but uh I I hate that phrase. I don't hate that. I dislike that phrase because they're not just words dressed in a different garb, but each gift of God is unique. So through the word we hear the message of the cross and what Christ has done for us, and that's only the word can do that. Baptism is the is the means by which we are united with Christ and his gift to us, and his life and our lives become interchange. In the Lord's Supper, he gives to us the fruit of the cross, the the sacrifice, if you like, is like the peace offering in the Old Testament, that the sacrifice we get to participate in the sacrifice repeatedly, again and again and again through the eating of his body and drinking of his blood, and we also therefore have a foretaste of him feeding us in in eternity, just as Christ is at the right hand of God the Father, and from there he gives us his heavenly gifts. So, and but they only the the if you like the the the sacraments only become effectual by the power of the word. And so Christ is speaking, you know. I when I consecrate the bread and the wine at the at the at the altar, I I don't face the congregation make eye contact with them. My eyes are on the bread and the wine. Because I'm not telling the congregation what Jesus once said, I'm speaking the words of Christ over the bread and the wine. Not as a magic trick, as in a like the source, you know, sorceress apprentice, you know. I don't know what I'm saying, but if I say it happens, but because Christ Himself is has called me to speak those words. And this also links then to the whole law gospel distinction. What has Christ called me to say to the world? And to all people he has called me to say, Christ died for you. Repent and believe the gospel. And that repent is you are a sinful man or woman, child, and if you remain in your sin, you will perish. Believe the good news, therefore, Christ died for your sins. Hand them over to him. And if you will remain unrepentant, I will have nothing to say good to say to you. I will simply say that if that is the case, you will die in your sins until you repent. You know, when Jesus says to the disciples, you know, whose sins you bind on earth, they will abound in heaven. That's pretty strong stuff. I don't know how common it is in the evangelical church of the UK for people to buy bound in their sins by minister of the word, but it's it's it's it's half the deal. Um but by the same token, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven in heaven. And anyway that's that's kind of my thing by the way I counted the third sacrament, the gift of absolution. But there is a pit for you're right. I mean, to get back to your original question, there is a real danger also in law gospel preaching to turn it into a kind of pro forma that ceases to do that thing that I was talking about earlier, which is addressing people in their real lives. I used to go to a church many years ago in another country, a Lutheran church, and having been in a slightly wishy-wash environment for a while, I was so delighted. First Sunday I went to church, and the preacher preached this wonderful sermon where I, by the time he finished the first half of the sermon, I was squirming in my pew, thinking I'm going to hell if there isn't a better news than this. And then he turned the whole thing around and delivered this beautiful gospel of Christ died for you. And not only did he do that, but his gifts are here for you today. And I thought, wonderful. I went to that church for a year, and he preached the same sermon every Sunday. It's just every year, every week had different readings, and the different readings seem to have provided a different way of getting you to the start of that conveyor belt. And that's when he becomes a kind of you know, you you stop, you just the gospel gets it simply becomes you're a sinner, going to hell, Christ died for you, and he delivers his gifts to you here in word and sacrament. Go in peace, amen. And that's you know, kind of that's been the bane of at least certain kinds of Lutheranism for the last half century or more.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That kind of predictable preaching that has nothing to say. You go into church, and it's like a kind of groundhog day without the piano lessons. Nothing changes. You know, you just it's the same day again and again, you go back to church, and it actually destroys faith. Because he's essentially saying there's nothing he knew for you, you're gonna have to wait for heaven. You're stuck in that situation you're in, you're just gonna sin and sin and sin and sin, but we're gonna go forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive until heaven.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Whereas the scriptures speak of growth. Luther in the catechisms and the Lutheran tradition speaks of growth in faith, growth in holiness that we learn to love God more. Met an elderly lay preacher when he was a young pastor in rural Finland, and they were talking about this. And the old man who's in his 80s saying, For sixty-five years I've been following Christ. And if I said to you that my love for him hadn't grown at that time, I would be a damned liar. You know, can you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you and leave no impact? That's the kind of challenge, and that's the challenge I suppose we pose, you know, the law gospel distinction poses. Not to be predictable. Right. Not to just preach by rote, but say, what does this text have to say to us today? And if every passage of scripture has if like its own promises and its own own also its own uh challenges and burdens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because I mean I this is I if if you uh you know the when Paul says in First Corinthians, in his says, I came to you know knowing nothing but Christ crucified, this can you know we can understand it the wrong way and preach about nothing but the crucifixion. And this I think has been not just a Lutheran thing but an evangelical thing more broadly. We just we have nothing more to say other than Christ died for your sins. Yeah, but it's not but it's it's not a reductive principle, you know, that the one thing we talk about. It's rather it's the center of our preaching. Everything we say arises from the fact that the Son of God was crucified for us, but that that then opens up the whole of the rest of the gospel in all its fullness. And Paul, you know, he says that in 1 Corinthians is it chapter 2, beginning of chapter 2, and he doesn't really return to the case. We do preach a message of wisdom among the mature. Yeah, yeah. And and you know, but everything is the gospel of Christ crucified for us, but that gospel does consist that's just the that's the foundation. Yeah, but if that's what you've got in your house, you're gonna have a really windy and rainy existence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it he then applies it to the church fractures that are going on and he applies it to various aspects of sexual immorality. And then do I eat this kebab or do I not eat this kebab? And you know, it's right down to the nitty-gritty.
SPEAKER_00Um has all sorts of applications. Yeah. Yeah, so it's the heart of the message, it's the foundation of the message, but it's not the totality of the message.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. So yeah, Liam Beel.
SPEAKER_00House without foundations cannot stand, but without walls and roofs and pictures on the wall, it's not that great either.
SPEAKER_02Right. Because yeah, that that's a question that Liam Beadle asked on Twitter. Hello, Liam. Um in terms of how do how do you stop law and gospel preaching uh becoming boring or predictable? Um, and I and I guess I mean one of the one of the things you've highlighted is the third use of the law, that you know the law can be applied to Christians today, and and here is a way that you can live out the life of Christ today. Um but but also I I guess you're saying as well that law and gospel need to be kept distinct. Yes, you don't need to slavishly follow a first the law, then the gospel, then the Lord's Supper, then you get out of there.
SPEAKER_00That's an ancient Christian tradition, that that distinction going back at least to the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah. You read the Luther, I mean you read the sermons of Lutheran. Luther preached just countless sermons. He often preached two or three times on a Sunday, once at seven o'clock, once at midday, and then in the evening in his home. And a lot of his sermons were written down and published. You read the sermons of Luther, and he certainly didn't follow that at all. He simply preached what was in the text and what was the direct what what he needed to address his hearers with. And one of his one of his sermon tropes is that he he often, especially when he's preaching from the epistles, he says that this passage, like so many, deals with the two topics of the Christian life, faith and love.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00And then he says, and no, first faith. And then he then he, you know, six pages later, and now love, and another six pages.
SPEAKER_02You mean he went from gospel to law? Frequently.
SPEAKER_00Just like the apostles did. Right. Luther, I have to say that Luther would not pass the helmetics courses of all Lutheran seminaries today. But it's again, he was preaching to people whom he who had been baptized in the same church, who came to church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00So that he didn't need to convert them again.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00You know, there's a there's a way that we are all forever being converted uh through whether it's manipulation or theological manipulation, um, you know, being converted again to you know need to the another moment of decision. But that's not again, that's not biblical view. The biblical view is that we are in and now we need to grow. We are saints.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're saints who need to grow in holiness, we're not sinners who need reconversion.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Unless we have repent, you know, lost the faith or or or fallen into repent under repentant sin, in which gives we need to repent and return to what we have. Prodigal must come home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we don't need to be re uh you know, like reborn in that sense. There's just one rebirth.
SPEAKER_02Right. I guess the Lutheran service itself, though, has a kind of a shape to it, in which I come to the point of the Lord's Supper where I'm completely unworthy and simply receive Christ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and then go in peace. Um, so there is even if preaching might start with faith and end with love, it's put into a shape of the liturgy and the and the service. Oh, yeah. Um we've one one question that somebody had was um uh he loves Lutheran preaching and the preachers that that he's heard, but you're very high church, aren't you? How are you going to how are you going to reach and connect with ordinary everyday people when actually they they come into the service and you know you're you're all robed up and saying the liturgy and those sorts of things? Is is that really going to connect with modern 21st century people?
SPEAKER_00That's a very good question. I first like to point out that we're not half as high church as the book of Revelation. We haven't got even instance. I mean, my church in a scout hall we hire, and the uh not only would half the people leave because of the asthmatic, but also the smoke alarms would go off. Um but um that's a concern that we've had in our church. I've been to countless mission meetings in our in my own local context where members of the church have expressed concerns about this, and we sing the psalms. The service is sung every week, except you know, the couple of Sundays in Lent when we speak the service, and it's really weird, you know, when you sung the whole yen, all of a sudden you don't. It makes a huge, you know, the resounding silence, the absence of singing. Um we sing the it's the the whole thing is scripted. The only thing that isn't scripted is the sermon and the press. And it's the same more or less week after week, the musical setting changes, but it's always the same. The structures are saying, the words are more or less the same. And people have said this, you know, this must be really unwelcoming to outsiders. It must be really bizarre. They come and say, This is bizarre. Why would they want to be part of this? Then we once had a mission meeting. I invited along to the mission meeting two young ladies who both become Christians uh very, very recently. One of them I baptized, she was a complete pagan when we first met, and another one who had been going to church since she uh to the age of about nine or ten and then hadn't been to church for over 20 years and didn't know anything. And we asked them, yes, this is what we are concerned about. Is that a real concern for somebody who's actually come to our church as a complete outsider who knows nothing? And they started both started laughing to know. It's you know, as far as we were concerned, that's we expected church to be quite churchy. It's kind of on the tin. I said, okay, so for so what what exactly were your concerns when you came to a church? And so, well, the number one concern, both of them independently said, was knowing where to sit.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00That was the thing that was really hard coming to church, where to sit. Are there reserve pay spaces? Would you be asked to move? Can you sit at the back and not be noticed because you don't really want to be too conspicuous? The thing is, and this is where I I find um Peter Lighthart, the uh the uh uh American uh reform theologian, uh, he wrote this uh this book with the greatest of titles, Against Christianity. Um and uh and and he makes the point there that the the church's task is not to learn to speak like the world speaks, but to teach the world to speak the word the language of the word of God. And how do we do that if we are just mimicking the world? And the thing is that it's it's really a question of confidence in the word of God. I mean, we have a liturgical service. This is one of the things that Lutheranism and Anglicanism at the Reformation retain the historic Christian liturgy because it's not Roman Catholic, it's just Catholic Catholic. It's I mean the the part of the the part of the the Western liturgy, which and the Lutheran and Anglican liturgies are very similar, parts of those liturgy go to the second century back to the second century, and the whole caboodle was kind of in place by the by the 800. And you you can read a second century description of Christian worship from Justin Martyr, for example, writing in Roman 130s, and it has an awful lot like a Lutheran or Anglican liturgical service in his structure and his content. And so they retain this, and we use this uh American Lutheran hymnal uh called Lutheran Service Book, and it's got the order of service in the beginning, and they did this genius thing. When they printed the liturgy, they put in the margin in italics every Bible reference, all the Bible reference to the lines that we are we are singing. So if there's any bit of the liturgy that was actually either directly quoted from the Bible alluding to a specific Bible passage, they put in the margin, and that margin is full. It's about 80% scripture. And I can tell you that you know, I I can be on all my day, I can I can be reasonably good with words, and I I can come up with a reasonably kind of felicitous sentence. But I don't think I'm gonna top the word of God when it comes to putting express giving expression uh to God's own mind. And so when we come together in a liturgical service, we are putting God's word in people's ears and their mouths. You know, we sing hymns that either respond to scripture or actually paraphrase scripture because we're putting God's word in people's mouths and through people's mouths into each other's ears. And then the question is, well, where are we? I mean, the whole question, what is the service? If we are really delivering Christ to people, and we confess that Christ is at the right hand of God in heaven, if we're in the presence of God and Christ is in heaven, ergo, where are we?
SPEAKER_03Right? Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How then should we conduct ourselves? Well, actually, the book of Revelation is not a bad place to start. And there's a load of robes in a book of Revelation. There's a fair bit of genuflection and bowing down. Okay, Christians have been making the sign of the cross since at least the second century. All these things, because we are, and this is something I feel very passionately about. We mustn't over-intellectualize the faith. It's not just about what I hold in my head. What I hold in my head is a crucial part of it, but then that leads to something. If I if I sit in my hut in the middle of the moors for the rest of my life thinking, I think loving thoughts of my wife, she won't be very pleased and I won't be very happy. Those thoughts translate into action. And when we worship, I mean the word worship in English is really unhelpful, but the biblical word worship, as as you know, both in Greek and Hebrew, actually has nothing is a direct reference to bodily posture. To worship means to prostrate yourself. And so what I do with my body either supports what I'm saying and and and uh harmonize with it, or it ignores it or contradicts it. If I smile at you and say, Glenn, I really, really hate you, you won't believe me. Or if I'm shaking my fist at you and say, I love you, man, uh you also won't believe me. And if I've got my back turned away from you, or if I start talking to you like this, you know that I'm actually not paying attention to you. Every time I make the sign of the cross, every time in the liturgy it says that in the name of the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit, I make the sign of the cross. Just like Christians have been doing since the second century, because those words refer to the fact that I'm baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So when I make that, my physical, it kind of wakes me up from my slumber from saying the same thing without thought. Every time we say, Glory be to the Father and Son to the Holy Spirit, what do the angels do in heaven when that's happening? They prostrate themselves. So we bow, at least, and if we don't manage to prostrate and get up again, we bow and say, This is the reality. And we act as if that's the reality. This is why a lot of Christians for centuries have dressed up, you know, have your Sunday best when as a kid. We also go into church in our Sunday best. Because if you go to a wedding dressed up, well, if you go to the wedding feast of the lamb, I mean, that that requires requires a really nice hat. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you you want to communicate that the that the word meets you in all your filth and sin and unworthiness. Um and you want to communicate that the word takes flesh um and is is human and humane towards you. Yeah. Um but yeah, all those all those points stand.
SPEAKER_00You know, you know the story of the conversion of the of the Slavs.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, when when when uh um the the Prince of Kiev sent his emissaries, so the story goes to uh Constantinople and to Rome to report, and they want to be on Christians, they came back and they put it, and the prince, you know, so okay, so what do you find? And the Romans said, Well, the big ones who went to Rome said, Well, it's all they've got a load of gold, and they're quite wealthy and things, but it's you know it's all very ordered and neat and and tidy and and it's very impressive. And then the ones came back from Constantinople and said, We went to their church and we didn't know whether we were in heaven or on earth. And ever since then, Russians have been Eastern Orthodox. And it's the whole thing that when people come into your service, are they just getting more of what they used to, just with Jesus veneered on? Or are they being transported to different reality? And of course, you want to do it in a way that's communicable, that's in that that reaches people, but you don't want to just say, look, we know what you want and we can give it to you. That's not the gospel. You know, the gospel comes from outside like a lightning bolt, and he says, Okay, you think you're good, you're bad, but we're gonna make you real good.
SPEAKER_02Love it. Okay, I want to be respectful of your time. So um perhaps let me let me summarize a final question out of uh a few different people. Um so Dan Haymes has asked, uh, what is it that really distinguishes Lutheranism from Luther loving Reformational Christianity? Um, because you know, lots of people love Luther. They've got the Playmobil Luther thing, you know. You know, I I watch Lutheran satire. I'm Lutheran, right? Um so you know what what distinguishes Lutheranism from Luther loving Reformational Christianity is what Dan's asking. And Tim Vesby Burney asks a very similar question. Um, what would what would you say are the pastoral benefits of being Lutheran rather than Reformed?
SPEAKER_00Um again, I mean it's hard to hard to be respectful of time in answering this, but uh uh the first I think the first thing I say is that we must def differentiate between uh Lutherism and Lutheranism.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh we don't Martin Luther is not the founder of the Lutheran Church, he's not our he's not our source of doctrine, uh but he is, if you like, the the chief teacher of the Lutheran Church uh in reality. What Lutheranism is, is uh adherence to the Book of Concord. I don't know if I dug it out to share share this beautiful thing. It's quite a substantial book, the Book of Concord, which is the confessions of the Lutheran Church, which begin with the three ecumenical creeds, Apostles, Mycenae, and the Phoenician Creeds. Those are the first Lutheran confession, the Orks were confession and his uh and his uh Apology, essay at the two catechisms and so on. There are several books. Um what is contained in there is uh what the Lutheran Church confesses, and and within itself understanding within the Book of Concord, what we're confessing is that the scripture is the sole rule and norm of all faith. And this book tells you what uh it means on these points, right? This is how we understand the scripture to speak on these particular questions that are here herein expounded. Um and the the other really important thing that uh uh Lutheranism again uh holds, and I think this is the this is a distinctive, definitely a distinctive, uh in in reality, is that uh again this is the Autobook Professional Article 7 about the church, that the true unity of the church it is sufficient to agree on the the uh the right proclamation of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments according to the gospel and everything else, whether it's ceremonies like with regard to say Rome or church government or governors like the Church of England or or or uh the Presbyterianism, those things are not church dividing or church uniting issues, it's the gospel preached and administered in the sacrament. Um, first of all, Martin Luther and the Lutheran teachers are teachers of the whole church. So, for example, when we republish the small catechism of Martin Luther, uh we deliberately place it outside of copyright in the public domain or under very loose license that this is the gift of the Lutheran Church to all of Christendom. And therefore, if anyone reads Luther and loves him, and I'm I I love it in reading like Pope Benedict XVI, you know, he he's clearly read a lot of Luther and appreciates in the Augsburg Confession, he's a real fan of. And my Roman Catholic priest friend from down the road, I gave him a copy of the small catechism, and I when I next went to visit him, he was on his desk open. It was great, you know. There is there's obviously, and if we learn from each other, and I I read Reformed theologians, I read Catholic theologians, I read all kinds of things, and and that's great. But Lutheranism is not just in our self-understanding, it's not just another kind of tradition within this broad stream called evangelicalism or broad stream called Christianity. Oh, um, it's not another branch of the church. I mean, I don't subscribe to the branch theory of the church at all. Rather, this is what we believe the gospel to be. And that's why the the I mean that's why Lutherans have always been really un uh frustrating ecumenical partners for uh um other Reformation Christians, because we really, really, really insist on the sacrament. We insist on that. They're not negotiable, we they're not things over which you can agree to disagree. Because if if baptism is the way by which Christ is delivered to us and we are united with him, then we're I'm sorry, but we can't agree to disagree on how Christ is delivered to us. And and to answer uh Tim's question, hi Tim, uh the you know, the what's the what are the partial benefits? I mean, I asked some of my congregation members and some other friends, especially people who become Lutherans from other denominations, the question what you know, I'm gonna be talking to Glenn Screw, and what should I, you know, what should I tell them? And what they all said was that the thing that they have found within the Lutheran church is the absolute joyful freedom of objectively knowing that I am in Christ. The gospel has been delivered to me, and I can put a name and date on it. And that name and date is not when I made something happen, when I made a decision, I gave myself to Christ, but it's that day when it was delivered to me. And therefore, I have this complete freedom of the gospel. And I know, and it's it's not based on how I feel or what I've done or anything like that. Likewise the Lord's Supper. You know, if Christ is there delivered to me, if the bread is the body of Christ, not just present spiritually, but it is the body of Christ, and the wine is the blood of Christ, then I can't agree to disagree with somebody who says, no, it's not. I hope you can sympathize with that viewpoint. Sure. But if it is, yeah, but if it is, then I also know that when I come to the Lord's Supper, it doesn't depend on my faith whether I receive something. It just depends on his promise. And therefore, faith can take faith can only take hold of something outside itself. You know, if you if you fall out, if you're about to fall out of an airplane and you grab your sleeve, you might feel more secure, but you're not. You have to hold something that's outside of you that's secure. And the the the the our emphasis on the word being sacramental in its effect in the preaching, coming entirely from outside, of baptism being an objective gift of God by which you are grafted into the the body of Christ. The Lord's Supper is the delivery of God Christ's body and blood, the gifts of the fruits of the cross and the foretaste of the of the heavenly kingdom to you. If the uh word of absolution that the servant of the word pronounces to me is the word of Christ to me, then my world within the family of God is completely secure, regardless of how much I'm wobbling.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Where I'm coming out going, it's neither here nor there because it stands fast.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Brilliant, Tapani. We could keep talking for for hours and hours and hours, but uh need to need to draw a line under it at some stage. But perhaps we should uh pick up again uh at a future date. And uh I would be delighted.
SPEAKER_00I'm just getting warmed up here.
SPEAKER_02That's right. We we've only just begun, but um uh we'll pick it up at another point. But uh Tapani Simiyoki, thank you so much for joining us with Speaker.