Without a Complicated Interpretation? — Dean Taylor — Ep. 167

Way back at the first episode of Anabaptist Perspectives, Dean Taylor said in that about the simple hermeneutic of the Anabaptist faith. But how does that apply when reading a verse like where Jesus says, "This is my body"? What about transubstantiation?

So welcome back, Dean. And also we have Marlon Summers on here as well. I remember when we filmed that episode with you, um, a number of years ago now, actually, and it's gotten quite a lot of feedback. And we'd like to do a little follow-up on that episode. It's episode one for those of you who may not have seen it. And it is a privilege to have you all both here. Marlon Summers is part of Anabaptist Perspectives and is on the board, and Dean is the president of Sattler College up in Boston. Um, so I think before we get started, I'm just going to read one of the many comments we got on that, uh, podcast, um, here.

And this is some positive feedback that we got. Um, this person says, "I'm not an Anabaptist, but I agree with everything you've said. It's like an unplugged version of the Bible because over the years people have amplified teachings or tweeted them." I think, I think they might mean tweaked them to suit their perspective. "It's not other men's teaching that we need to heed. It is the words of God, the words of his son Jesus. We need to be interacting with these, with these every moment we can, and in our knees asking for strength and power to act upon these words wholeheartedly." So yeah, Dean, I'd like to, like to hear your response to that comment there.

Well, thank you very much. I, I think he's right on. Um, uh, what really matters is the, the word of God and not any kind of title or anything like that in glorifying God. I remember a, um, a one historian wrote, um, an early Anabaptist, or not early, a modern Anabaptist historian once was speaking about this word Anabaptist. He said, um, "Anabaptist and Anabaptism is not a century. It's a hermeneutic."

Um, and I, this was the way that I would use it. Um, and I, I think it's a good title and I think it is a good hermeneutic. Um, and so yeah, I agree with the, the, the person there that we're not trying to defend. Firstly, there's not a, I don't know of a group called the Anabaptist, you know, like it's not a denomination. It's, it's more of a, of a hermeneutic of how we, we interpret scripture, uh, with a Christocentric fashion and that kind of a thing. So yeah, amen. Yeah, I thought that comment, that kind of summed up what I think a lot of people have found there and what, what I see as the core of it is this, hey, we can take scripture straightforwardly.

Um, Jesus meant what he said and act on it. Anyway, that's really helpful. Yeah. Just a shout out to another, um, thing going on in Anabaptist Perspectives. Um, Dan Ziegler, um, wrote an essay for us and referenced this original video about how you, Dean, you labeled that one as Anabaptism as a hermeneutic.

And then he worked it up into an essay on basically following Jesus into the Bible. Yeah. So that was a lot of the feedback we got on that first episode, but there's also a few others, um, that people commented and, um, maybe were asking, you know, could you have a literalist approach on, on this passage? So I'm going to read one of those comments, um, here. Uh, so for example, uh, and this is just why we pulled off our, our YouTube channel. I'd like to hear you respond to this one, uh, Dean. Um, so this person, uh, his name is Jordan, says, "Thanks for explaining your hermeneutic in approaching the scripture. I found it helpful and interesting as an outsider.

Respectfully, I find it strange how you emphasize quite emphatically that you approach what the scripture says, particularly Jesus's words, with a simple receptivity and yet deny the real presence of his body and blood in the supper. He clearly states, 'This is my body and this is my blood shed for the remission of sins.' Same with baptism. In 1 Peter 3:21, the scripture states, 'Baptism now saves you.' Am I missing something? Food for thought from a Lutheran." Oh, this is such a good question. Uh, and it's hitting really a passion of mine. Um, I have a lecture that I do on Anabaptist, um, sacraments, and so maybe we can go a little deeper. But for just the questions and answer, why don't I give just the beginning parts of those slides, uh, and I'll, and I'll explain what I, what I think about that.

Um, the, the what, my, my answer is this. I do believe those things. Um, I do believe that baptism saves and that God, Jesus Christ is present in the, uh, real present. Where I would believe that the 16th century Anabaptists in many sense have, would push back is the reductionist view that Luther and the, and the Lutherans would have with that. Is that we do believe that his presence was there in this entire communion.

Um, but there's a point that the early Anabaptists made that I think is being ignored and, and, uh, in this whole debate. And so let me just give the skinny and we'll, we'll circle back around and talk about it, uh, maybe a little bit deeper. I can give some of the actual quotes from some of the early writers. So, you know, this was a big deal, uh, to the Anabaptists and the whole concept of the sacraments was not something that didn't make their literature. They talked about it a lot. And let's face it, they died for many of these things. Like here's a, a famous picture from the Martyrs' Mirror where you see the Roman Catholics coming through with the monstrance, uh, having the communion in here and everyone's bowing down to that.

They would believe, transubstantiation would believe that, you know, that this was literally Jesus Christ, so that we should fall on our knees and, and worship this bread. And then this Anabaptist here, um, Simon Cramer did not want to do that. And you just think of that moment and you realize how important this doctrine was to them. So they didn't take it lightly. Um, also, I've noticed when I look through the different earlier writings, um, this comes up and I'll go into detail more of this on a, in a whole, uh, our whole lecture on this, but you know, the whole coming together as the church for communion was really central for them. The concept of the church was central for them.

So not being frivolous, admonishing one another while you were there, um, not letting these meals be gluttonous, and that the Lord's Supper should be held as often as the brothers are together, thereby proclaiming the death of the Lord, and thereby warning each one to commemorate how Christ gave his life for us and shed his blood for us, that we might also be willing to give our body and life for Christ's sake, which means for the sake of all the brothers. Um, having a common fun and all this. So these ideas were, were very, um, central to them. Again, I'll mention some of these, um, in the, in the bigger lecture. But when we read some of these early Anabaptists, we have to realize that we're coming into it as a debate that's already occurring.

And they didn't just ignore it. I mean, these guys were very well read, very well read with the patristics, well read with the scriptures, with biblical languages. And one of the things that are not properly said about these early guys is that, you know, they were just ignorant to these things. But no, they, they understood the arguments very well. And so they're understanding the concept of the fight here, the, the famous debate between Luther and Zwingli. Um, one of my favorite pictures where Luther is, you know, writing on the table, "This is my body." Zwingli, you know, arguing back and forth on trying to get a consensus on this. They were never able to, to get there.

And then of course, they're both, they're also trying to be coming against transubstantiation. In general, I would say that, you know, we have two ends of the spectrum of how to interpret these scriptures. You have transubstantiation, which takes it to the point where, um, as the Roman Catholics have done, that you literally give the same worship that you give to God in heaven. And it clearly states this in the, uh, in the dogmatic constitution of, um, the Roman Catholics. Um, and this would be transubstantiation. And the memorialism, we're saying it's just, it's just, uh, a symbol and there's nothing but a symbol that's in there. In between here is a lot of us that would say this thing is a mystery.

The whole Greek Orthodox side would say this is a mystery. And some of these Western, uh, definitions, um, have really messed it up. But here's the fight that was going on in the early Anabaptists. They were talking about this concept of ex opere operato. And so it, it, it basically means that you turn the whole, any of these sacraments into, um, a very mechanically done. So in other words, if you perform the baptism, it will create the salvation. If you perform the sacrament of communion, it will bring in the body, uh, of Christ without faith. The reformers and the, uh, particularly the Anabaptists and the reformers hit on this point. Luther himself hit on this point, um, and rejected the ex opere operato, um, that by the work, the work happens.

And so therefore, I think that it'd be clear to say that baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation were considered wrong by them. And I would consider them very wrong today. Where you would have the, the not needing faith to create these acts, taking faith out of it, um, is what these early Anabaptists spoke against and rightfully so. And I think this is important. Uh, I'll talk about some of these things, um, in the, the bigger lecture. Faith was necessary and faith is necessary for our salvation and for the sacraments, and faith must be an evidence. But just to summarize it here for this easy answer, two of the emphases you'll see, particularly from the writers such as, uh, Pilgrim Marpeck and, um, Beltasar Hubmeyer, um, two passages that they believe kind of, uh, well, it gets, it gets often overlooked is what, uh, some of the points that they were arguing, um, are very profound in these two, these two statements.

And so they would say that the whole discussion of communion that we find in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and 11, and then the whole gospel of John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 needs to be put into the category of where it belongs, and that's harmonizing it with the synoptic gospels. Uh, most of the Lutherans and the Catholics were only taking the synoptic gospels. That's the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and to define their literal translation of, um, of the sacraments. But like Hubmeyer and, and, um, Marpeck really stressed that you have to bring John and harmonize John. That's why they would have, why we have, uh, today, um, foot washing within the communion in, in many churches.

And so this idea, though, if you start to read John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, all of those as a communion sermon, I mean, it gets really exciting. And I'll do that in the, in the, in the longer, um, in the longer, um, debate. I mean, the, excuse me, the longer lecture that I'm going to, I'm going to give on this. But so in general, they would say that yes, the real presence is there, but you're going to see the way they describe it, it's much bigger, that there's a reductionism that's occurring in both the Lutherans and the Catholics that are just putting this only into the, the wafer itself. And you'll see a very deep interpretation of how this whole communion service brings in this amazing, um, real presence within the church itself, within the believers themselves.

And here's the big point that they stress. What you guys are doing is not the Lord's Supper. And they, and they stress 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 20. And so this is coming against the idea of ex opere operatos, that you can just mechanically go get baptized, mechanically go have communion, and you can force, if may I use, force this grace to happen.

They're quoting Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:20 and saying, where he rebukes them and says, "So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat." Or the Annette Bible puts it. Now, when you come together at the same place, you are not really eating the Lord's Supper.

This is a really important passage to the early Anabaptists, and it should be. Because what this is meaning, particularly when you look at the context of what Paul is doing there in 11, uh, chapter 10 and 11, he's bringing in our moral life, our, our ethics and the holiness of the church, um, not the holiness of the minister, but this whole gathering of a holy people is, is part of what's happening there. And Paul's saying, "What you're doing, it's not the Lord's Supper." So we'll see this in the longer lecture that they'll quote this and say, "You guys are splitting hairs on, uh, between Luther and the, and the Catholics." Luther would say that it's consubstantiation.

So you have the real presence within the elements of bread, but it still remains bread, but the real presence is in there. Um, the, the, the Catholics would go even further and say, "No, it's just absolutely in essence the, the actual person of Christ, so therefore we can worship the bread." Um, they're saying, "Let's not split hairs about all this and let's get to what really Paul and what Jesus is talking about. Let's look at, at, um, John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and look at 1 Corinthians in 10 and 11 and say, 'What you guys are doing, it's not the Lord's Supper.'" And you need to listen to what they're saying. And I think it's an important point that the church needs to hear today.

So I would say I believe these things. Baptism is, has a salvation, a self, uh, it's, it's a saving act as we see in, in the, in the scriptures, but not without faith. It must have faith, repentance, and then baptism. Baptism is the end of the beginning. And you see this coming out in their writings. But if you're going to say an ex opere operato, that the work itself makes the, the thing and it doesn't require faith before the sacrament, that, um, it's not scriptural, it's not the early Anabaptists, and it should be rejected. But just calling it a memorialist view is also wrong. And you would certainly find early Anabaptists that would write like that.

Um, some of the court records, and maybe I'll have time to show some of those, um, make it sound like that. To put it easy, this is the way I, I, I kind of take, take the, uh, that middle between just memorialism and transubstantiationism and all that. I tend to say this, the word merely and any of the ordinances should never be in the same sentence.

Because it's just, there's a mystery there. There's a depth there. And over-defining of this is a reductionist usually in one way or the other. But just saying that misses even the depth of what the early Anabaptists said. Let's look at the context of what Jesus is saying in the, that high priestly prayer in that sermon, that communion sermon. And let's look at what Paul is saying and see what are the implications of that real presence amongst the people of God. I think it's awesome. So yeah, great question. It's a passion of mine. Um, all this, this great stuff about the sacraments and the, uh, the early Anabaptists, I love it. So wow, thanks for that answer there, Dean.

And thanks to Jordan for, for leaving that comment there. Um, yeah, Marlon, I would, I'd be curious to hear your response to that. And, uh, would you have anything you would like to add? Yeah, thank you, Dean. And I'm excited because I think I get to see your whole slide deck in a little bit when you go through it. Um, yeah, 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 are a passage that's really been on my mind when I think about these kinds of things. Um, both the one you mentioned, you know, this is not the Lord's Supper because you're abusing it so badly. Right. Exactly. You're not doing it, um, in a brotherly way, as some of the Anabaptists said.

Um, but also 1 Corinthians 10, because it compares it to, um, the Jewish sacrifices and even pagan sacrifices. Yeah. Okay. That sounds bad if I just stop there. So I won't stop there. Um, but very specifically, he's saying, you know, the reason that eating pagan sacrifices, meat offered to idols can be so bad is because if you eat of it and you've got your heart or your mind turned toward these idols, you're actually like participating with the idols.

And it's like in the same way, when you're taking the Lord's Supper, you're participating or you're having a fellowship, um, with the Lord through that table. Yeah. And you see how crazy important that is for the Anabaptists and how revolutionary it was for their time. They had state church. I mean, that was a thousand years. You had state church, you know, since basically Constantine.

Um, and so with this idea, now you have a group of people that are coming together as a nation, as a new little city, as a kingdom of God people. Um, and that's a holy people. So Michael Sattler, you know, writing the Schleithaim Confession, when he says, he says, you've got the, you've got the sword to execute, to put people out of your nation. All we have is excommunication. And so this keeping of a holy people, a, a communion that's holy, um, is actually important. And I, and that they don't mean that in the Donatus kind of way as far as the minister is concerned, but they do mean that somehow Paul at the end of the day is saying, you know what, what you guys are doing in Corinth and Corinth is not the Lord's Supper.

So what Hubmeyer and Marpeck in particular was pushing to Luther and the Catholics were saying, have your theology, have split your hairs. It's not the Lord's Supper. Uh, and so you can't make it happen mechanically. This is about a body of Christ, which is the people of God and that indwelling of Christ's presence within his people, uh, and in the, and in, and in the ordinances. So yeah, it's, it's, it's an awesome present and it usually gets ignored. Um, the, the contribution that the Anabaptists make to this whole, um, discussion on the sacraments. I love it. Yeah. And if I go back like directly to Jordan's question, you know, this is my body.

And we're often given these options like, okay, either it's, this is like literally my body in a way that, um, I can't quite pronounce the Latin phrase, but it's just, you know, from the work itself, the sacrament is the body independent of faith. Or else you go to the other hand and say, well, it's just a memorial. And I come back to 1 Corinthians 10 and it says, well, it says this is a participation or. Yes. Could it be in the body and blood of Christ? Yes.

And so that feels like a whole lot more than a memorial, but it's not this simple literal like, you know, it's literally the body of Christ. And even if an unbeliever takes it, it's still the body. It's the whole context of relationship. Yeah. No, you're right on. And that's the beautiful passage that this is a fellowship, a koinonia, a communion in the blood of Christ. And what that means is the whole people. And so one of them, I can't remember if it was Marpeck or, or Hubmeyer, you know, says, let's, let's not just reduce too much. This is the body of Christ. Remember when you put that, that Matthew, I mean, excuse me, the John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 communion, and think of all the rich vocabulary of being in the vine and you can do nothing apart from me and I and the Father are one and me and you and you and me and all that as a communion hymn, a communion prayer with this whole concept together, this becomes much more rich and much more full and much more powerful than the reductionist views of both the Lutheran and the Catholic that we're putting to this.

And I think it's powerful. Yeah. Just one more piece from 1 Corinthians 11. Maybe you'll hit it later, but as he spells it out, he says, the reason this isn't the Lord's Supper is you don't recognize the body.

And body there clearly at least includes the idea of you don't recognize the brotherhood. You don't realize the status of the people you're interacting with, um, as the body of Christ. So not just a physical body, but body as believers comes into this picture of communion. It seems the obvious reading, and it's certainly the, when you follow Paul's, his whole thing is, is the morals and the ethics of the, of the congregation. And that's the concluding point within their communion. It could be argued just language alone that he's talking about the bread itself. And that's his way, of course, a Catholic theologian would, would defend it. But I, I think you're right that there's a, a bigger picture that's being put there that needs to be included.

Um, and that it seems to match the, the, the simple, the simple reading of, of the scriptures.

Yeah. It's good stuff. I love that stuff. Thanks to both of you for speaking into that question that came in. Um, I think I'll move to the next comment here, uh, from someone named Chad who left this. Yeah. And he, this person is kind of hitting again what you're talking about, Dean, with the simple hermeneutic and, and so forth, but he's going with a different topic. Um, this is what Chad says. He says, the book of Acts in its original wording clearly describes baptizing young children. Why don't Anabaptists follow this clear example? Going back to, if we have this, you know, taking the Bible like without a complicated interpretation. Um, yeah, I would, I'd, I would love to, love to hear your input on that.

It's again a very good question. And again, a note, one that certainly the 16th century took extremely seriously. Uh, and they really did engage with the arguments. Um, Hubmeyer again wrote a lot on this. And when you look at the extensive amount of reading he did in the patristics, uh, someone did a dissertation I was just reading a few months ago that lists all of the sources that Hubmeyer quotes from the patristics. And it's, it's surprisingly large. He was able to use Wingley's library and some of that. So it's not like they're not ignorant of the arguments. And I think that's, uh, I think the stress that I'm trying to make on this. Um, it's a fair argument that, um, households.

So we see the book of Acts, um, whole households getting married, excuse me, getting baptized. Um, the Acts 2:38 passage that I think it was Chad that quoted there, I, I think the, the obvious language there, even to an honest Catholic theologian would be that, and this promise shall be to you and to your children, um, just gives us an idea that this is something that's passing on. This is a legacy. This is something that this promise isn't just for you guys. This is going to keep going. This is going to go on. And I think that even a Catholic theologian at, at on the Acts 2:38 passage would, would quote it in that way, an honest one.

Um, however, I do think we need to take seriously the argument about infant baptism in the early church and, uh, the scriptures. And what I teach in my historical theology class here, I say this, an argument that has lasted more than 500 years, any argument that's lasted more, more than 500 years is not stupid.

Um, and, and so what we tend to do is sort of just reduce these theologies to something that's kind of a joke or say, oh, that's dumb. They didn't read this verse and that verse and think, oh, what were these guys thinking? They're so stupid.

Um, I think that's really hurt us. And it's also hurt us not to be able to hear each other and to engage in real robust theological discussions on these topics because we just, we just explain away these things and don't get them. And so I, I think these arguments are more than 500 years old and they're, they're serious. Um, and they're good arguments.

At the end of the day, I, I would say that the, that when I look at the early church and I look at the scriptures, the, the, the biggest point that infant baptizers would have is it's an argument from silence. We don't have it mentioned there. We don't have it mentioned in the, in the scriptures. We don't have it mentioned in the early church. The earliest reference we have explicitly, explicitly to infant baptism is by Tertullian writing around the year 225 or so. And he's writing against it, uh, saying that it's not, he's, he's saying that it's not a good idea. Um, nevertheless, it's, you see it, it's, it's mentioned there. Um, and so it's an argument for silence.

The only thing is that when we look at the order, and this is what the early, the early Anabaptists would have stressed, that it's clearly this faith, repentance, and baptism. And even in Acts 2:36 through Acts 2:38, we see that, that they were convicted of their sin, were pierced in the heart, cried out, what shall we do? And then it was told to them that they should repent and be baptized, repent and be baptized. So if we're going to keep a literal interpretation of this passage, a baby can't repent.

Um, Luther, crazily enough, actually tried to say that, you know, babies, infants, even in the womb can have faith. I know. Um, and so there's these arguments there. I would say one of the arguments that I, I, I wrestled with for the longest time was the reformers giving the sign of commun, uh, excuse me, the giving the sign of, of circumcision, um, as a comparison. And I think this is a good argument. Um, so the reformers would say, well, the circumcision was the sign of the covenant in the Old Testament, and you did that on the eighth day. And in the New Testament, um, the, the covenant is baptism. Why can't we do that on the eighth day?

Even Cyprian in around the year 250 makes a similar argument. Um, it's a good argument that the, the thing that again, we have to do is keep this understanding of the necessity of faith and repentance for the receiving of these, of these sacraments. And my favorite answer to this is by Peter Ritterman and the early Hutterite. And Peter Ritterman says, um, something like, um, yeah, I agree. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's do just baptize them on the eighth day. But then he answers back, but let's make sure they're born first.

Let's make sure they're born. And this is a very important and very crafty argument that Ritterman's bringing back to them because it is the sign of covenant, but we come into the dispensation of God, the kingdom of God through faith that then God gives us the ordinances. And, and, and, and yes, baptism is the way that God uses it, but it must have faith. It can't be done apart from faith. So when this person has had the faith and repented, they seal all this up with baptism, then they go through it. You don't baptize a baby. I mean, you don't circumcise a baby before they're born, and you don't baptize a person before they're born.

They must first be have faith, repentance, and then baptism. Um, and this would be the salvation process that we see in the early church, um, the scriptures and the early Anabaptist. Yeah, it's a good question. Okay. Well, thank you, uh, Dean, for coming back on and, and explaining some of those things. That, that was very interesting. And I feel like, uh, I feel like we learned a lot. Um, and especially thanks to the audience for your feedback and, uh, comments. Uh, we'd love to hear from you and feel free to leave a comment or, or send us an email. Um, that's really helpful. And, and maybe we can get to your questions in a follow-up episode.

Um, so yeah, Dean, before we close it out, is there, uh, anything else you would like to share? I just really appreciated, um, what's, what we're doing here with, um, the Synod Baptist Perspectives. And, um, I do like that we can finally start talking about some of these theological things and get back and forth discussions. I, I think, you know, in the scholarly world, we have kind of a, a peer review idea. And, um, and that's really healthy. And it's, it's time for us to be able to bring some of this Anabaptist, um, hermeneutic, uh, to engage with the larger, um, theological discussions. And I'm, I'm really thankful for what you guys are doing to, to make that happen.

So keep up the good work. Thank you for joining us for this episode. We invite you to join our monthly partner program. Monthly partners are key to the financial sustainability of Anabaptist Perspectives. Partners also gain access to bonus content, including our exclusive podcast where we respond to audience questions and comments. Sign up at anabaptistperspectives.org.