(A Guest Post by Pastor Antonio Romano from Ames, Iowa)
11/28/24
The locus of responsibility of a choice for God largely determine's one's view of salvation. It is a necessarily nuanced issue since the answers place one squarely behind or outside the Lutheran Reformation.
My name is Antonio Romano. I served as a Baptist pastor for almost two decades, as well as time served as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (6 years) and the Church of the Nazarene (approximately 16 years). Both church bodies place a strong emphasis on the role of the will in deciding for Christ. In their view, God has endowed us all with a free will and rightly anointed preaching or evangelism will be a tool God uses to turn the will so that the unbeliever wants to become a believer. But the right decision must be made. At the end of the day, it’s all up to the hearer (a strong push from the Holy Spirit notwithstanding). I want to make sure I am fair in my assessment since it is right to do so and because to this day, I have so many dear friends in both theological camps. I do not believe a different view of human decision pushes people outside of orthodoxy to the point where they are no longer Christians. However, as a recent (and passionate) convert to Lutheranism, I also approach the topics on which I’m writing from a certain perspective: I believe the Lutheran view is biblical and correct. I now serve as a Confessional Lutheran pastor. There are theological reasons for that. I find most evangelical takes on the role of human decision severely lacking, but I hope to at least make clear why that has become the case.
Those Baptists who do not also label themselves “Calvinists,” put a premium on the role of human decision in salvation. Preaching, evangelism, revival services, outreach activities…all these have as (at least one of) their goals bringing lost people to a “point of decision.” You would be hard-pressed to find a Baptist church service that does not end with an altar call, which invites people to decide to believe Jesus. The sermon is usually crafted to push the hearers to a “decision” of some kind, preferably one for salvation for the lost or “rededication” for the slumbering Christian. Strongly emotive music is normally played (the invitational) and the altar call begins. After a few verses, the preacher may stop the music and make another plea of some kind to the hearers before singing resumes. This may include a more severe warning of the consequences of not deciding for Christ or having people be sure to have their heads bowed and eyes closed, “no one looking around,” so that the already difficult decision isn’t made harder by feeling like others are looking at you. The person in the pew must be moved enough to decide for Christ. The (perhaps) unspoken assumption here is that God has done all he can do for us in Christ and now the decision rests in the heart of the hearer. The preacher's job is to convince you. The belief guiding this approach is that we are indeed severely damaged by our sin natures, but we must (and can) still exercise our wills to receive what God is offering through the mouth of the one speaking to us. The preacher (or Christian on the street or at school or in the workplace) is wrestling with the rebellious human will throughout the sermon, or evangelical encounter.
The role of human decision is king in the land where the will is free. Human decision is the ultimate factor in whether any of God’s gifts can be received. This is one of the major reasons why, for example, a Baptist would never baptize an infant: the infant has not (because one cannot) made a decision for Christ. Baptists speak of God’s “plan of salvation” because it must be assessed as good and true and therefore accepted. God has designed a plan. That’s the extent of it. He has done all the preliminary work, made everything accessible, and now it is up to you to accept this plan.
One of the fundamental tenets of Lutheranism is that the human will is bound in the matter of conversion. Lutherans take texts like Ephesians 2:1-3 (“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”) and Romans 8:7-8 (“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”) at face value. Deciding for Christ is simply something we cannot do in our natural state. Our wills will not. We must be born again and given a new will, a redeemed one. And we have as much contribution to our new birth as we did to our natural birth: none. “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:3) “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:5) The description of Christ crucified for sinners is a message from heaven. It is a spiritual word, not a physical one. No matter how well or polished its presentation, it will only ever sound like pure foolishness to those who are lost (1 Cor. 1:18-25). It’s impossible for us to hear it for what it is and decide accordingly. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). All these “cannots” are very important. We aren’t talking about damaged ability here, but utter inability. We are not born morally neutral, waiting exclusively for nature or nurture to determine what kind of person we will become. Rather, thanks to the nature of humanity in the fallen world, we are natural born enemies of God who hate his law, do not want to obey him, cannot obey him, and cannot see the light of the Gospel as true and decide of our own volition to receive it. We are not born free but slaves, slaves to the world, the flesh, and the devil. If this is indeed true, something supernatural must take place before a decision for God can be made. That something is not the perfectly crafted pitch or mood. No, a decision for God must be preceded by a miracle no different than (in fact, for all intents and purposes, the same as) when our Lord Jesus called out to Lazarus at his tomb. “Lazarus come forth” precedes resurrection to life, or the corpse stays in the tomb.
In John 10, Jesus teaches that he is the Good Shepherd, the one whom the sheep know and the door by which they enter his pasture. They hear his voice and because they know it’s his, they follow him. The thief had killed and destroyed them. But the voice of the Shepherd gives life to the sheep when he calls them. The following chapter in John’s Gospel is the living proof of this. John 11 is simply Jesus practicing what he preached, so to speak. There he provided a precise example of just what it is he meant about calling his sheep, proving what he said was true, even though they are in the grave and unable to do anything. “When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:43-44) It’s all there: name, voice, word, and therefore, resurrection. Salvation is not a plan we choose to accept for ourselves. It is a cosmic miracle where Christ speaks his life-giving, grave-splitting word through the mouth of a preacher by which the dead sinner is literally brought spiritually to life. The gift that is faith (Eph.2:8-9) comes through the hearing of the word that creates and gives it.
It is not that we are robotically forced into deciding for Christ against our wills. Rather, our wills are changed by the gospel when it is proclaimed. Paul speaks as though hearing the word of Christ is what causes faith (Rom.10:17). A decision to believe on Jesus as Savior is simply the result of the power of the gospel to give life in proclamation. “Successful” preaching or evangelism are not reliant on finding the most likely way to change someone’s mind for Jesus. This is because the role of human decision is secondary, not primary. We can determine to know literally nothing but Christ and him crucified (2 Cor.2:2) and Jesus will build his church with or without our contributions (Matt.16:17-18). Scripture does not instruct us to go after the will but to proclaim the only thing that has the power to change it: the gospel (Rom.1:16).
Now, am I splitting hairs? My Baptist and Nazarene friends would wholeheartedly agree that God must proactively do…something to bring a person to himself. He must take a strong initiative. He must woo. He must “open someone’s eyes,” certainly. But if it was truly believed that the ones to whom we preach are blind and dead in sins, we wouldn’t stand at their graves and jump up and down and scream. We’d know that doesn’t work. We would change our approach. Somewhere in those beliefs I used to have is one that thinks if the right words are spoken in the right way, the unbeliever can be convinced and change his mind. God has indeed done something: he made the plan! He sent his son. Jesus died and rose again and made salvation possible. It is now up to us to make that appealing because the role of human decision is king when the will is free. There’s a little bit of light in there somewhere. There is a pulse! So, the lost just need really good CPR in the form of a preacher or evangelist.
In the Lutheran view of the role of human decision, the starting point is different. The will is bound, not free. Appealing to the will, therefore, is not the approach we take. We place our hope in and appeal to the objective word of the gospel (given to us in Word, water, bread and wine) as the only means of conversion. The content and source of that which saves has all the responsibility and carries all the weight. The preacher is merely the means God has chosen to proclaim the good news. In the case of infants, the word (the same one the preacher preaches) makes the water a saving stream flowing over top of the baby’s head.
Nor do we find the proof of our conversion in a one-time decision made at some point in the past. We believe the Word must continue to impart faith. It is not that we are being saved repeatedly, but that the means by which God keeps us (faith, in 1 Peter 1:5) is not only created but sustained by the same word that saves (Rom.10:17). We tell each other to “remember your baptism” because that is where God met us in the water with his word (as infants or adults). We find our hope outside of us, objectively, rather than inside of us in our own will or decision, subjectively. The ground of assurance is never found in feelings or memory but in God’s promise. I must look away from me and to Christ alone. The preaching of law and gospel is the ongoing means by which God constantly brings me back to objective reality. The role of human decision is secondary in the land where the will is bound, but Christ has overcome.
And since all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, we are going to be okay.
11/28/24
The locus of responsibility of a choice for God largely determine's one's view of salvation. It is a necessarily nuanced issue since the answers place one squarely behind or outside the Lutheran Reformation.
My name is Antonio Romano. I served as a Baptist pastor for almost two decades, as well as time served as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (6 years) and the Church of the Nazarene (approximately 16 years). Both church bodies place a strong emphasis on the role of the will in deciding for Christ. In their view, God has endowed us all with a free will and rightly anointed preaching or evangelism will be a tool God uses to turn the will so that the unbeliever wants to become a believer. But the right decision must be made. At the end of the day, it’s all up to the hearer (a strong push from the Holy Spirit notwithstanding). I want to make sure I am fair in my assessment since it is right to do so and because to this day, I have so many dear friends in both theological camps. I do not believe a different view of human decision pushes people outside of orthodoxy to the point where they are no longer Christians. However, as a recent (and passionate) convert to Lutheranism, I also approach the topics on which I’m writing from a certain perspective: I believe the Lutheran view is biblical and correct. I now serve as a Confessional Lutheran pastor. There are theological reasons for that. I find most evangelical takes on the role of human decision severely lacking, but I hope to at least make clear why that has become the case.
Those Baptists who do not also label themselves “Calvinists,” put a premium on the role of human decision in salvation. Preaching, evangelism, revival services, outreach activities…all these have as (at least one of) their goals bringing lost people to a “point of decision.” You would be hard-pressed to find a Baptist church service that does not end with an altar call, which invites people to decide to believe Jesus. The sermon is usually crafted to push the hearers to a “decision” of some kind, preferably one for salvation for the lost or “rededication” for the slumbering Christian. Strongly emotive music is normally played (the invitational) and the altar call begins. After a few verses, the preacher may stop the music and make another plea of some kind to the hearers before singing resumes. This may include a more severe warning of the consequences of not deciding for Christ or having people be sure to have their heads bowed and eyes closed, “no one looking around,” so that the already difficult decision isn’t made harder by feeling like others are looking at you. The person in the pew must be moved enough to decide for Christ. The (perhaps) unspoken assumption here is that God has done all he can do for us in Christ and now the decision rests in the heart of the hearer. The preacher's job is to convince you. The belief guiding this approach is that we are indeed severely damaged by our sin natures, but we must (and can) still exercise our wills to receive what God is offering through the mouth of the one speaking to us. The preacher (or Christian on the street or at school or in the workplace) is wrestling with the rebellious human will throughout the sermon, or evangelical encounter.
The role of human decision is king in the land where the will is free. Human decision is the ultimate factor in whether any of God’s gifts can be received. This is one of the major reasons why, for example, a Baptist would never baptize an infant: the infant has not (because one cannot) made a decision for Christ. Baptists speak of God’s “plan of salvation” because it must be assessed as good and true and therefore accepted. God has designed a plan. That’s the extent of it. He has done all the preliminary work, made everything accessible, and now it is up to you to accept this plan.
One of the fundamental tenets of Lutheranism is that the human will is bound in the matter of conversion. Lutherans take texts like Ephesians 2:1-3 (“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”) and Romans 8:7-8 (“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”) at face value. Deciding for Christ is simply something we cannot do in our natural state. Our wills will not. We must be born again and given a new will, a redeemed one. And we have as much contribution to our new birth as we did to our natural birth: none. “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:3) “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:5) The description of Christ crucified for sinners is a message from heaven. It is a spiritual word, not a physical one. No matter how well or polished its presentation, it will only ever sound like pure foolishness to those who are lost (1 Cor. 1:18-25). It’s impossible for us to hear it for what it is and decide accordingly. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). All these “cannots” are very important. We aren’t talking about damaged ability here, but utter inability. We are not born morally neutral, waiting exclusively for nature or nurture to determine what kind of person we will become. Rather, thanks to the nature of humanity in the fallen world, we are natural born enemies of God who hate his law, do not want to obey him, cannot obey him, and cannot see the light of the Gospel as true and decide of our own volition to receive it. We are not born free but slaves, slaves to the world, the flesh, and the devil. If this is indeed true, something supernatural must take place before a decision for God can be made. That something is not the perfectly crafted pitch or mood. No, a decision for God must be preceded by a miracle no different than (in fact, for all intents and purposes, the same as) when our Lord Jesus called out to Lazarus at his tomb. “Lazarus come forth” precedes resurrection to life, or the corpse stays in the tomb.
In John 10, Jesus teaches that he is the Good Shepherd, the one whom the sheep know and the door by which they enter his pasture. They hear his voice and because they know it’s his, they follow him. The thief had killed and destroyed them. But the voice of the Shepherd gives life to the sheep when he calls them. The following chapter in John’s Gospel is the living proof of this. John 11 is simply Jesus practicing what he preached, so to speak. There he provided a precise example of just what it is he meant about calling his sheep, proving what he said was true, even though they are in the grave and unable to do anything. “When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’ The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:43-44) It’s all there: name, voice, word, and therefore, resurrection. Salvation is not a plan we choose to accept for ourselves. It is a cosmic miracle where Christ speaks his life-giving, grave-splitting word through the mouth of a preacher by which the dead sinner is literally brought spiritually to life. The gift that is faith (Eph.2:8-9) comes through the hearing of the word that creates and gives it.
It is not that we are robotically forced into deciding for Christ against our wills. Rather, our wills are changed by the gospel when it is proclaimed. Paul speaks as though hearing the word of Christ is what causes faith (Rom.10:17). A decision to believe on Jesus as Savior is simply the result of the power of the gospel to give life in proclamation. “Successful” preaching or evangelism are not reliant on finding the most likely way to change someone’s mind for Jesus. This is because the role of human decision is secondary, not primary. We can determine to know literally nothing but Christ and him crucified (2 Cor.2:2) and Jesus will build his church with or without our contributions (Matt.16:17-18). Scripture does not instruct us to go after the will but to proclaim the only thing that has the power to change it: the gospel (Rom.1:16).
Now, am I splitting hairs? My Baptist and Nazarene friends would wholeheartedly agree that God must proactively do…something to bring a person to himself. He must take a strong initiative. He must woo. He must “open someone’s eyes,” certainly. But if it was truly believed that the ones to whom we preach are blind and dead in sins, we wouldn’t stand at their graves and jump up and down and scream. We’d know that doesn’t work. We would change our approach. Somewhere in those beliefs I used to have is one that thinks if the right words are spoken in the right way, the unbeliever can be convinced and change his mind. God has indeed done something: he made the plan! He sent his son. Jesus died and rose again and made salvation possible. It is now up to us to make that appealing because the role of human decision is king when the will is free. There’s a little bit of light in there somewhere. There is a pulse! So, the lost just need really good CPR in the form of a preacher or evangelist.
In the Lutheran view of the role of human decision, the starting point is different. The will is bound, not free. Appealing to the will, therefore, is not the approach we take. We place our hope in and appeal to the objective word of the gospel (given to us in Word, water, bread and wine) as the only means of conversion. The content and source of that which saves has all the responsibility and carries all the weight. The preacher is merely the means God has chosen to proclaim the good news. In the case of infants, the word (the same one the preacher preaches) makes the water a saving stream flowing over top of the baby’s head.
Nor do we find the proof of our conversion in a one-time decision made at some point in the past. We believe the Word must continue to impart faith. It is not that we are being saved repeatedly, but that the means by which God keeps us (faith, in 1 Peter 1:5) is not only created but sustained by the same word that saves (Rom.10:17). We tell each other to “remember your baptism” because that is where God met us in the water with his word (as infants or adults). We find our hope outside of us, objectively, rather than inside of us in our own will or decision, subjectively. The ground of assurance is never found in feelings or memory but in God’s promise. I must look away from me and to Christ alone. The preaching of law and gospel is the ongoing means by which God constantly brings me back to objective reality. The role of human decision is secondary in the land where the will is bound, but Christ has overcome.
And since all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, we are going to be okay.
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