Dr. Albert Mohler… and the "means of grace"?

      If one reads conservative Christian commentary on the Internet, one will likely come across the writings and media presentations of Dr. Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is an institution of the Southern Baptist Convention, essentially Reformed in its doctrine. Much of his commentary is encouraging for its defense against the anti-Christian policies being promoted or enacted within the United States.  He was especially inciteful for publicizing to a wider audience the events happening in West Lafayette, Indiana in 2022. The city council was debating an ordinance that could impact Christian counseling against sexual sin, in this case the so-called "transgenderism". One may read his Jan. 19, 2022 "The Briefing",  a local television report of a city council meeting, and a World Magazine report of the same city council proceedings. The "Christian counseling" method under indirect attack was, as reported by World, "popularized by the late Presbyterian pastor Jay Adams."  I personally was under this type of counseling for a period of time over 25 years ago, but later discovered its Calvinist basis, since Adams explicitly taught against Universal Justification. In his 1970 book Competent to Counsel, p. 70, Adams states (emphasis mine):

"As a reformed Christian, the writer believes that counselors must not tell any unsaved counselee that Christ died for him, for they cannot say that."

That is pure Calvinism which teaches "Particular Grace".  So I had to leave this counseling, for what good is it if they withhold the Gospel because they are not sure if I am saved or not. Admittedly there was some benefit for me, but not for my Christian faith. I had to return to Lutheranism for my assurance of salvation. The Gospel is, at its core, Universal, Objective Justification (UOJ), 2 Cor. 5:19, John 3:16.

      But this blog post addresses a very surprising phrase that Dr. Mohler used in his Jan. 19 "Briefing" (emphasis and highlight is mine):

"Biblical counseling emerged as an intentional effort to reject the integrationism that claimed you could combine humanistic secular psychology and biblical truth, and instead to counsel just on the basis and on the authority of biblical truth. And biblical counseling doesn't seek licensure, programs like the one at Southern Seminary and at Boyce College, do not lead to the seeking of certification by the state. We're not looking for state licensure, we're looking to equip Christian churches and Christian ministers to conduct truly Christian counseling on an authentically biblical basis. The biblical counseling movement is very well represented by this church in this Indiana town. It is operating on the basis of its own biblical convictions and it understands counseling rightly, not as seeking some form of therapeutic intervention by psychology or psychiatry.

That is not the church's proper role. The church's role is to apply what is preached in the pulpit, in the lives of individual Christians, helping them to make connections and application by the sufficiency and authority of the Word of God so that their lives are conformed to obedience to Christ. And thus, by the power of the Holy Spirit in the means of grace, our lives are conformed as Christians to Christ, to Christ's likeness.

"Means of Grace"?  From a Southern Baptist?  So I decided to research the official doctrines of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary which is an institution of the Southern Baptist Convention.  They are "Baptist" in their teaching.  On their web page it states:

"VII. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming."

No "means of grace" here, only Reformed doctrine that denies the God-given Sacraments as "means of grace" They are only "act(s) of obedience" and performed to "memorialize". — While we appreciate Dr. Mohler's news and analysis on many issues of our day, yet he cannot escape the fact that his doctrine, confessed as a Southern Baptist, calls into question, i.e. destroys, the very doctrines that he otherwise professes: Grace Alone, sola gratia. 

      Dr. Albert Mohler is a Baptist, not a Lutheran, in his confession, and so is being disingenuous by using the term "means of grace" when he actually means no such thing. The use of the term will certainly confuse some Lutherans into thinking there is no real difference, when it actually concerns, what Franz Pieper calls, "The Foundation of the Christian Church".

The Great Disconnect – Psychology/Sanctification/Love cutoff ("Broken cisterns", Dogmatik, vol. 3)

      Continuing my project of presenting the full text of Franz Pieper's original German edition of his Christliche Dogmatik.... (Vol. 1a & 1b text is polished; working on Vol. 3a)
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"...without me ye can do nothing" John 15:5

      In my faith journey over 20 years ago, I broke free from secular counseling by professional Psychiatrists and Psychologists, also so-called counselors of various types.  I "graduated" to a "Biblical Counseling" program.  This was sponsored by one of the Reformed sects and was based largely on Jay Adams' "Nouthetic counseling".  Jay Adams is a committed Calvinist and I recall somewhere in his books that although he claims to have "strictly biblical approaches" to counseling, yet he taught Calvin's doctrine that God elected some to damnation – a thoroughly unbiblical doctrine.
      So the subject of "psychology", particularly as it is used to counsel people with personal problems, is close to me – I spent some years in it, was prescribed some drugs.  So when Franz Pieper uses the word "psychological" in his theology, I sit up and listen closely.  In the first few pages of Volume 3, at the section headed "The Relationship Between Justification and Sanctification in the Narrow Sense", (German here, English ed. pgs 7-13) I hit paydirt!  Franz Pieper spoke about a "psychological connection" („psychologisch vermittelt").  What "psychological connection"?  Between

Justification and Sanctification!

Now Pieper admits that the world knows something.  He says:

There is even an analogy available for us in the field of natural life.  Proven love begets reciprocal love.

This is what our natural knowledge knows, what Psychology is based on – reciprocal love. That we are supposed to love someone so that we may be loved... such as our spouse (e.g. "marriage counseling") or someone we are having problems with.  But what worldly Psychology does NOT know is the message of the Bible... only when I knew that God the Father actually loved me in Christ did the scales come off my eyes and I could see a "Father's heart".  Only then (upon hearing the Gospel) could I have the power – by faith! – to be sanctified and produce truly good works!  And here is where "Christianity" (in name only) and Christianity part ways.  Here is where "counseling" from the world is no counsel at all, no matter how good it may seem to our worldly way of thinking.  And here is where Franz Pieper stood, to defend against those false teachers who would have us make "The Great Disconnect".  This "Disconnect" then puts worldly counsel, e.g. "Psychology", in place of Sanctification or "Love" that is brought about by faith in the only Saviour of the world.  This is what was meant by the saying of the Reformation: Sola Fide!  The world's counseling says: "LOVE!", the Bible says: "God so loved the world...", only now can you love, now you can love!"

      Now Pieper brings in why we can take this connection to our grave – Bible passages to remember on our death bed:

• John 3:16 – For God so loved the world,...
• 1 John 4:10 – Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us...
• Romans 5:8 – But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

      I will leave it to the reader to follow Pieper's whole section starting here (English ed. pgs 10 ff.).  It is Franz Pieper who restores the field of "Psychology" to its rightful place, and shows that the world's "Psychology" is only "Broken cisterns":

Jeremiah 2:13 – For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

And so it is that

...without me ye can do nothing. – John 15:5

Walther as Theologian–Justification (by F. Pieper) - Part 9

This post continues a 10-part series (see Preface for Table of Contents) from Part 8 which presents the actual text of Wallace McLaughlin's English translation of the essay C.F.W. Walther as Theologian by Franz Pieper.  This is done to honor the two commenters on Concordia Seminary's own web post publishing a different translation.
This portion can be downloaded here.

• Pieper's text is indented in dark blue text.
• I will add commentary at certain points in green text.
• All underlinings are from the original.
• Highlighting of Pieper's text is mine!

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C.F.W. Walther as Theologian 

Justification – Universal, Objective (Second essay)

By Franz Pieper 

(Translated by  Wallace McLaughlin from  “Lehre und Wehre”, February, 1890, pp. 42-50: Justification- Universal),

(Continued from Part 8)

---------------  Pieper  --------------------------------

            Particularly in connection with Walther’s discussions on absolution, that is, the “preaching of the Gospel to one or more particular persons who desire the comfort of the Gospel”, the manner in which the complete redemption of all men through Christ lived in Walther’s heart came to expression.  Absolution, says Walther, is based upon the perfect redemption or universal justification.  “When the pastor absolves he distributes a treasure which is already at hand, namely the forgiveness of sins which has already been gained”. (L.c., p. 43.)   [SCR1872S.PDF, 1872: pg 185, col. 1] Walther holds only that man to be a true Lutheran preacher who holds that he by speaking the absolution has absolved all the penitents and only that man to be a true Lutheran Christian who believes that through the absolution of the pastor he has truly been absolved by God.  He adds: “Only he indeed can believe thus who believes that the world is redeemed; for if I believe that, then the absolution is only the communication to the penitents of the fact that they were redeemed 1800 (1900-)  [2000-] years ago, and the plea: Only believe that and you are saved”. [See also SCR1872S.PDF, 1873: pg 2, col. 1 – "Thesis 8"]  That so many take offense at the absolution which is customary in the Lutheran Church comes from the fact that they do not believe in the complete redemption of all men through Christ and hence suppose that we ascribe to the preachers as “ordained persons” a special authority and mysterious power.  “But we say: It is no art to absolve someone; that any ordinary Christian man, any woman, any child can do, if it can only tell that the Lord Jesus died for all, and that whoever believes in Him receives the forgiveness of sins.  For the absolution depends not upon the quality of the speaker but upon the word of the Gospel concerning the accomplished redemption”.

            In this connection Walther insists again and again that one must not make the essence of the Gospel dependent upon faith, but is to regard it as an offer of God’s grace which is valid of itself. 

----------------- Comments -----------------------------
As Walther insisted "again and again" (usque ad nauseam) on this teaching, I want to repeat this statement in the face of the whole world, and especially to those "Lutherans" who make faith a condition (i.e. a work of ours) upon which the Gospel (and our Justification) is dependent:

"...Walther insists again and again that one must not make the essence of the Gospel dependent upon faith, but is to regard it as an offer of God’s grace which is valid of itself."  —  C.F.W. Walther (and Franz Pieper)

This is where the old Ohio Synod left the orthodoxy of the Synodical Conference.  They removed themselves from the Synodical Conference and are now lost somewhere in today's ELCA, the so-called "the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States".
----------------  Pieper  ----------------------------------

“The glorious benefits of Christ have been given us; mark well! They have already been given us (in the Gospel) and indeed they are always at hand for us, even if we do not believe”.  (Western District, 1874, p. 47.) [Convention Essays, pg 79; also new CPH book here.]  If one makes the Gospel essentially dependent upon a man’s believing, or, which is the same, if one talks as though faith must first be there before the Gospel is in itself valid and effective or before the benefit of the forgiveness of sins is at hand for the sinner, he thereby both denies Christ’s all-sufficient merit, the redemption and reconciliation of the world, and then also faith is thereby made something quite different from what it properly is; it is then no more a grasping and receiving of the present forgiveness, but a work which must be furnished in order that there may be forgiveness in the Gospel; finally, faith has then simply nothing on which it can take hold.  “If the Gospel is not valid unless a man first believe it, what then shall he believer?”  Faith thus comes to be founded on itself instead of on the Gospel.  “That amounts to increasing the distress of people who are in anxiety and doubt concerning their salvation”. (L.c., pp. 57-64.)  [SCR1872S.PDF, 1873: pg 2, col. 1 to pg 3, col. 1, "Thesis 8"] Walther reminds us again and again that, with a doctrine or practice according to which faith is first demanded in order that forgiveness of sins may be there, no tempted person can be comforted.  “The tempted supposes that he cannot believe.  Such a person must despair with this doctrine, whereas one should seek to convince him that the Savior is already there for him, has already forgiven him and will receive him”. (Western District, 1875, p. 38.)  [Convention Essays, pgs 110; see also my blog post here].

----------------- Comments -----------------------------
"Anxiety", "doubt", "distress"... words that today's so-called "Christian Counseling" attempts to alleviate with its nice sounding words such as "get in touch with your feelings", or "think positive", "feel good about yourself", etc., etc.  Even Lutherans attempt to follow the sects with programs like "Doxology". But these all fall short of God's counsel of an existing forgiveness for all.  If this counsel is not believed, then there is no human counsel left... unbelief leaves a person in anxiety, doubt, and distress.  Ah, but with true faith, now the believer is comforted not by a human, but by God himself... the believer can "Taste and see that the Lord is good". Psalm 34:8
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The next Part 10 presents the final portion of Pieper's essay dealing with an Objection – What about God's wrath?