Much of what Kenneth Barnes claims in the Dec. 1 Faith section regarding the relationship between Scripture and tradition cries out for a response. I would offer a Lutheran perspective on the issue.

Tradition per se comes under the condemnation of Barnes as something man-made, and he enlists St. Mark for his cause. We have, in Mark 7, Christ’s condemnation of the Pharisees, who nullified God’s Word by setting against it their own tradition. Tradition per se, however, is a valuable, even indispensable, aspect of the ongoing life of the church. For it is simply a handing down of what has been handed to us. In this regard, Mark 7 ought to be compared with St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 11, where he uses the same basic word, from which we get the word “tradition.” He writes, within a discourse on the Lord’s Supper, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered (tradidi) unto you,” etc.

There is such a thing, then, as genuine Christian tradition, quite apart from traditions that are purely man-made and opposed to God’s Word. With 1 Corinthians 11 in view we can go so far as to say that Holy Writ and true tradition are of the same cloth, that the former is actually part of the latter.

We might ask, how did Christ administer his life-giving Word to men in the age before there was a New Testament? He did so then just as he does so now, by means of the preaching of his saving Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The sacraments are not extrascriptural. They are fully scriptural, and their very content is God’s Word. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 4 calls himself and his colleagues stewards of the mysteries of God, a term that can just as easily be translated “sacraments.”

Baptism is not an act of man, but an act of God, in which he truly washes us, not merely a bodily washing, but a true spiritual washing; that is to say, it washes our sin away and brings us new life (1 Peter 3). St. Peter shows in his first letter, Chapter 3, how the ark of Noah prefigured the washing of regeneration in baptism. Just as in the very beginning one might say that the world was baptized by water and the Spirit (the Spirit hovering over the water), with the result being a magnificent creation; just as in the case of Noah’s family eight souls were saved by water (with a dove flying over the waters); just as a baby falls through the watery flood of his mother’s womb and finds a whole new life on the other side; likewise baptism is truly a life-giving work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God by the physical means of the water, by which we find something we could never have thought of or willed or accomplished on our own, true regeneration (John 3). By baptism, as St. Paul shows in Romans 6, we are incorporated into the Paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, the one all-availing sacrifice for sin. In baptism we are plunged into his death and are raised up into his life.

Likewise, the Sacrament of the Altar is not a man-made tradition, foreign to the Scriptures. Nor is it a mere remembering of Christ’s Passion. It is the true body and blood of Jesus, our Immanuel, who comes to unite himself with us to comfort us, forgive us, strengthen and sustain us in our journey through the wilderness of this life. How can we be sure he is thus present? Because his life-giving, infallible Word says so. He instituted the Sacrament on a most serious night with words that ought to be read as his last will and testament. The Eucharist is the most amazing, awesome moment in any Christian’s life, and amazingly we get to experience it often.

This Advent and Christmas the church celebrates the coming of Christ her Lord. Let my meager words here serve to remind us that Christ’s advent among his people is not a one-time historical event but an ongoing reality in the church. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer for his kingdom to come (adveniat), and he answers us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.