Presentation of the Augsburg
Confession
On June 25th, in 1530, a group of German princes stood before Emperor Charles V, in the city of Augsburg, and made a confession of the true, orthodox, catholic, Christian Faith. Their confession began with a verse from the Psalms: “I will also speak of Thy testimonies before kings, and shall not be put to shame” (Ps. 119.46).
This confession, although recently written, was nothing new. It was something very old – a confession of the teaching of Holy Scripture and a correction of abuses that had corrupted the Church. While written by Philip Melanchthon, the princes and churches that subscribed to it made it their own. When I was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry, and again when I was installed as the called pastor of the McConnellsburg Lutheran Parish, 1 was asked about the Augsburg Confession and our other confessions and creeds. I not only said that I agreed with them; I also confessed, “I make them my own.” This is what it means to be a confessional Lutheran: we aren’t just paying lip service to old documents, we are making them our own, confessing and living the once-for-all-time faith of Jesus Christ and His disciples.
The great twentieth century theologian Hermann Sasse said, “A confession cannot remain a real confession if it is only inherited. It must be confessed. We can only confess if we are deeply convinced that it is the true interpretation of Scripture.” Those first Lutherans gathered at Augsburg had to give an account of what they believed and taught. Their confession was born out of faithfully hearing God’s Word which proclaims that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That truth is at the heart and center of the Augsburg Confession. Clearly and carefully our forefathers in the faith declared that Truth and drew out its biblical implications for the life of the Christian Church. Whether the Augsburg Confession is dealing with the doctrine of sin or the Lord’s Supper, the unity of the Church or the office of the holy ministry, all Christian teaching is unfolded in and around this central theme, that of Article IV:
“It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith, when we believe Christ suffered for us and that for His sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us.”
We are Lutherans not because of denominational loyalty, but in faithfulness to the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We live in an environment where the question once raised by Pilate, “What is truth?” has been replaced by the assertion that there is no absolute truth. Listen again to the voice of Hermann Sasse as he speaks of the Lutheran confessors of the 16th century:
“They knew one thing which the modern man does not know, and does not care to know. They knew that … we literally live by the truth or we die by falsehood. Hence they never shared the cold skepticism … of modern relativism, which holds that there are only relative truths, and that it consequently does not pay to wrestle for the truth…. Their quest after the truth … was conditioned … by the conviction that there is One who is the Truth in person. One who said, to truth seekers of all ages, “Everyone that is of the truth hears My voice” (Jn 18:27).
The Augsburg Confession was made in 1530 for the sake of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, still today in the year of Our Lord 2015 we say our “Amen” to the same confession, for it is the same faith in the same Jesus in every generation that saves.
St. Paul says in Romans, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” That is what the Augsburg Confession is concerned to preserve: the Word of the Lord which alone has the power to create faith. In this day, when contending for doctrine is highly unpopular, we continue to assert the narrow way of the Lutheran Confessions not to prove we are right, better or smarter, but in the humble acknowledgement that only the pure Word of God can give us true comfort and sustain the Church against her enemies.
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” And so we give thanks for the confessors at Augsburg who heard that Word and were not ashamed to speak it before kings. We continue to make their confession our own, and resolve to keep it though the world hate us for it.
To God be the Glory,
Pastor Ray
On June 25th, in 1530, a group of German princes stood before Emperor Charles V, in the city of Augsburg, and made a confession of the true, orthodox, catholic, Christian Faith. Their confession began with a verse from the Psalms: “I will also speak of Thy testimonies before kings, and shall not be put to shame” (Ps. 119.46).
This confession, although recently written, was nothing new. It was something very old – a confession of the teaching of Holy Scripture and a correction of abuses that had corrupted the Church. While written by Philip Melanchthon, the princes and churches that subscribed to it made it their own. When I was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry, and again when I was installed as the called pastor of the McConnellsburg Lutheran Parish, 1 was asked about the Augsburg Confession and our other confessions and creeds. I not only said that I agreed with them; I also confessed, “I make them my own.” This is what it means to be a confessional Lutheran: we aren’t just paying lip service to old documents, we are making them our own, confessing and living the once-for-all-time faith of Jesus Christ and His disciples.
The great twentieth century theologian Hermann Sasse said, “A confession cannot remain a real confession if it is only inherited. It must be confessed. We can only confess if we are deeply convinced that it is the true interpretation of Scripture.” Those first Lutherans gathered at Augsburg had to give an account of what they believed and taught. Their confession was born out of faithfully hearing God’s Word which proclaims that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That truth is at the heart and center of the Augsburg Confession. Clearly and carefully our forefathers in the faith declared that Truth and drew out its biblical implications for the life of the Christian Church. Whether the Augsburg Confession is dealing with the doctrine of sin or the Lord’s Supper, the unity of the Church or the office of the holy ministry, all Christian teaching is unfolded in and around this central theme, that of Article IV:
“It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith, when we believe Christ suffered for us and that for His sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us.”
We are Lutherans not because of denominational loyalty, but in faithfulness to the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We live in an environment where the question once raised by Pilate, “What is truth?” has been replaced by the assertion that there is no absolute truth. Listen again to the voice of Hermann Sasse as he speaks of the Lutheran confessors of the 16th century:
“They knew one thing which the modern man does not know, and does not care to know. They knew that … we literally live by the truth or we die by falsehood. Hence they never shared the cold skepticism … of modern relativism, which holds that there are only relative truths, and that it consequently does not pay to wrestle for the truth…. Their quest after the truth … was conditioned … by the conviction that there is One who is the Truth in person. One who said, to truth seekers of all ages, “Everyone that is of the truth hears My voice” (Jn 18:27).
The Augsburg Confession was made in 1530 for the sake of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, still today in the year of Our Lord 2015 we say our “Amen” to the same confession, for it is the same faith in the same Jesus in every generation that saves.
St. Paul says in Romans, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” That is what the Augsburg Confession is concerned to preserve: the Word of the Lord which alone has the power to create faith. In this day, when contending for doctrine is highly unpopular, we continue to assert the narrow way of the Lutheran Confessions not to prove we are right, better or smarter, but in the humble acknowledgement that only the pure Word of God can give us true comfort and sustain the Church against her enemies.
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” And so we give thanks for the confessors at Augsburg who heard that Word and were not ashamed to speak it before kings. We continue to make their confession our own, and resolve to keep it though the world hate us for it.
To God be the Glory,
Pastor Ray