ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 62 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 3238 Rose Street Franklin Park, IL 60131 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >>Does Luther imply that a believer loses the Holy Spirit every time he or she commits a sin? How does his example of David relate to this question? And what about Saul of the Old Testament? >>DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: I believe that your question is addressing paragraphs 43 and paragraphs 44 in part 3 of the Smalcald Articles. In this particular section under repentance. In this section Luther concludes with these words "Therefore it is necessary to know and teach that when holy people aside from the fact that they still have original sin and also daily repent of it and struggle against it, somehow fall into a public sin such as David who fell into adultery and blaspheme against God at that point faith and the Holy Spirit have departed." Well, the question often arises then I suppose every time we sin does the Holy Spirit leave us? Every time we sin, do we fall from faith? Well, I might begin by affirming first and foremost that we cannot say absolutely positively that such is the case. In as much as we cannot look into the heart of any individual to determine whether faith is present or not and whether the spirit is still alive and kicking, if you will. But we might think of it, also, in the following fashion: I think a key sentence is the one that follows that paragraph I just read. "The Holy Spirit does not allow sin to rule and gain the upper hand so that it is brought to completion. But the spirit controls and resists so that sin is not able to do whatever it wants." Something very similar to this is also addressed in Article 2 of the Concord. First of all, Luther is not addressing the question of sins of weakness I suppose as we call it. Now, it might help if I put that into a little bit of an anthropological context. Namely the Christian is composed of an old Adam and a new Adam. The unregenerate person as well as the regenerate person. And these two are engaged in an ongoing battle with one another. One might also liken it to the battle of the bulge during World War II in France where at one point the German forces might forge forward and make an offensive thrust. And then a few days later they would get pushed back as a counter offensive would ensue and they would go back and forth in terms of where the enemy lines lie. Well, I think an analogous fashion, that's maybe what occurs within the Christian battle between the flesh and the spirit. So when it comes to the ish you of sins and weakness, Very often I suspect that a person may have a sudden flare up in anger, if you will, or lose one's temper. But just as quickly, the Holy Spirit charges back in so that the individual says "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose my temper." See, in other words, you might say a sense of pushed out and then maybe the spirit comes in to produce contrition and Confession. And then very often our life is an ongoing series of those kinds of skirmishes or battles. Now Luther is talking not so much about sins of weakness but as he calls it public sins, specifically mentions, adultery, murder, and blaspheme against God. Maybe if he used that battle of the bulge analogy and push it a little bit further it would run something along like this: As long as we struggle with temptations, as long as we wrestle with it and recognize that something is wrong and repent of it and seek to amend our lives, you could say the spirit is alive and kicking. In other words, that is the very fact I wrestle with temptation, that I struggle with it is evidence of faith and evidence of the spirit at work. Well, it may be that I continually plan out a sin. I carry it out. And do it in such a fashion over and over and over again that I reach a point where the struggle ceases. Where the struggle simply stops and it doesn't bother me anymore. Well, at that point I would say: Time to worry. It may well be the spirit said "Fine. Have it your way." Now, again, we cannot look into other's hearts to see whether or not this has happened. Or even within our own hearts, it may at times be difficult to discern. But I think it is somewhat helpful to realize that as long as the struggle is there, you know that the battle is engaged. When the struggle ceases, then it will be time to worry. In the meantime, however, once again, this ties in with enthusiasm. David has pulled away from God's word. Therefore, it's all the more important for us to be in God's word and stand firm lest we may fall. In other words, stand firm on that word. And again, I would not say that what I just shared is dogma or doctrine. It's perhaps more a hunch as to how things work. Certainly Luther is on target when he says they have won openly and publicly and intentionally blasphemes God and the like that basically what you're saying is "Get out of here Holy Spirit and get out of here word." And that's a risky thing to do. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***