What are the Lutheran Confessions? Part 4

Why do we use these nearly five hundred year old documents that we’ve been talking about still today?Why do Lutheran pastors promise to teach in accord with what they say? Why do Lutheran pastors tell people this is one of the three books every Lutheran should own (along with their Bible and hymnal)?

Simply put, because the Lutheran confessions get it right. They put Christ and what he did for sinful mankind at the center and keep him there. In 1529, Luther said:

Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here. So even though we have sins, the ‹grace of the› Holy Spirit does not allow them to harm us. For we are in the Christian Church, where there is nothing but ‹continuous, uninterrupted› forgiveness of sin (Large Catechism, II:55).

At Augsburg, the princes confessed

Our churches teach that people cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works. People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. By His death, Christ made satisfaction for our sins. God counts this faith for righteousness in His sight (Romans 3 and 4) (Augsburg Confession, 3:1-4).

 In the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), Melanchthon called this the “chief topic” that “opens the door to the entire Bible” (Apology, IV:2), and went on to say:

But let us remember that the Gospel gives a sure promise of the forgiveness of sins. To deny that there must be a sure promise of the forgiveness of sins would completely abolish the Gospel….Christ, however, condemns confidence in our works; He does not condemn confidence in His promise. He does not wish us to lose hope of God’s grace and mercy. He attacks our works as unworthy, but does not attack the promise that freely offers mercy (V:143, 218).

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 In 1537, Luther called it the “first and chief article” and said:

 Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls…. Upon this article everything that we teach and practice depends, in opposition to the pope, the devil, and the whole world. Therefore, we must be certain and not doubt this doctrine (Smalcald Articles, II:1:5).

I do not know how to change in the least what I have previously and constantly taught about justification. Namely, that through faith, as St. Peter says, we have a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. Although sin in the flesh has not yet been completely removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it (Smalcald Articles, III:13:1).

 And, finally, forty years later, they remained convinced.

Therefore, the righteousness of faith is the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and our adoption as God’s children only on account of Christ’s obedience. Christ’s obedience alone—out of pure grace—is credited for righteousness through faith alone to all true believers. They are absolved from all their unrighteousness by this obedience (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration, 3:4).

 The sad truth

The sad truth is that for many these confessions are, at best, historical documents, at worst, unknown. By default, Lutherans are at least, even if only dimly, aware of the Small Catechism, from years of slogging through “We should fear and love God” and “What does this mean?” and “This is most certainly true.” The Creeds also make it on to our radar because of their use each week in the Divine Service. But for many the other documents are barely, if at all recognizable.

This isn’t a rebuke coming from a pastor to the people. It’s a general admission of guilt and shame. These documents are the backbone of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. They do not compete with the sola Scriptura of the Reformation, they support and bolster it. They prove time and again that what the Lutheran Church teaches is what the Bible teaches and what the Bible teaches the Lutheran Church teaches. They give us the tools we need in this theologically confused time to say, “This is what the Scriptures teach about this, that, or the other thing.” They help us, as we talk to our Baptist friend, our Catholic neighbor, and our Methodist mailman, to say, “This is what it means,” as we all stare at the one Bible we each read in our own way.

As we come closer to the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, my prayer is that we don’t just remember Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses and sing, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” I pray that we would take complete ownership of our Lutheran heritage and dig into the confessions of faith our fathers made, for they are a part of that great cloud of witnesses Hebrews 12 speaks of, the cloud of witnesses who help us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).