The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

June 25, 2017

Text: Rom. 10:5-17

            “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:10; ESV).  On June 25^th, 1530, 487 years ago today, Philip Melanchthon (Luther’s right hand man) and the princes, dukes, and nobility of the provinces and towns where Lutheranism had taken hold, formally presented their confession of faith to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg (a Diet is like a congress).  The document, chiefly written by Melanchthon, came to be known as the Augustana, or the Augsburg Confession.  And make no mistake… This is not some academic treatise on the finer points of theology, better left to historians and divinity professors.  This confession gets to the very heart of the Christian faith, maintaining against the Roman Pope and Curia and the entire Holy Roman Empire that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed in Scripture alone!  Good works are good to do, but they have no place in the equation of our justification before God.  They are a result of justification, not a cause.  Article IV states it beautifully: “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 [3:21-26; 4:5]).”[1]  This is the central article of the Confession, and of our faith, the article by which the Church stands or falls.  You really should read the whole Augsburg Confession.  It’s not very long.  You can read it easily in one or two sittings.  The Augustana defines what it means to be Lutheran.  As a matter of fact, the other documents in the Lutheran Book of Concord, particularly the Apology of the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord, are commentaries on the Augustana.  And this is why we celebrate this document today, hold a Festival Divine Service in thanksgiving to God for it.  These men believed the Gospel, and so they confessed it, at great personal risk, I might add.  And we, their children, confess it, and though we don’t risk much in confessing it at the moment, the day is coming when we will.  Today we are celebrating Lutheranism, to be sure, which is a good gift of God.  But it’s so much more than that.  When we celebrate the Augsburg Confession, we celebrate the very Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And we celebrate the grace of our God who makes this Gospel of Christ known to us, and by His Spirit gives us to believe it and confess it.

            What is a confession?  We use the word in two ways.  We confess our sins, and we confess our faith.  The Greek word translated “confession” is ὁμολογέω, which literally means “to say the same thing.”  When we confess, we say the same thing as God.  When we confess our sins, we say the same thing God says about our sinful condition.  Then we hear the Gospel, the Absolution, and we say “Amen,” which is to add our yes to God’s Word.  “Amen” is always a confession, which is why you should always say it boldly and clearly.  Don’t mumble it.  Say it like you mean it.  When we confess our faith, we say what God says to us in Christ.  We say what God says to us in the Holy Scriptures.  So confession, in either sense in which we use it, means to say the same thing God says, which is a pretty good thing to say. 

            And what is the source of this confession?  It does not come from within ourselves.  It is the gift of God.  With the heart we believe, St. Paul says in our Epistle, and faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ.  Faith is God’s gift.  And then what happens as a result?  That faith wells up into confession.  With the mouth we confess.  We say what God says in His Word.  God’s Word is the source of faith, confession is the fruit of faith.  And this teaches us about the relationship of our Confessions to Holy Scripture and to faith.  Holy Scripture is the inspired and inerrant Word of God.  Scripture alone is the rule and norm of our faith.  Scripture is the Norma Normans, we say in theology, the norm that norms.  The Confessions, on the other hand, are the Norma Normata, the norm being normed by the Bible.  Now, don’t get lost in the Latin.  This is important because Lutherans are often accused of placing the Confessions on a par with the Scriptures, or even above them, which could not be further from the truth.  The Scriptures alone are the source of our doctrine.  The Confessions are not inspired and inerrant in the way that the Scriptures are.  But we unconditionally subscribe to the Confessions because they are a faithful exposition of Holy Scripture, normed by Scripture.  In other words, we subscribe to the Confessions because they say the same thing God says.  The Confessions become your confession, and you say your Amen to them, when you recognize that they say what God says.  And this, by the way, is why you say Amen at the end of the sermon.  If I say what God says, my sermon becomes your confession.  The sermon, like the Augsburg Confession and the other documents in the Book of Concord, is a Norma Normata, a norm being normed by the Holy Scriptures. 

            Now, we confess when we say “Amen” to a sermon or a prayer or in the liturgy.  How else do we confess, say the same thing God says?  This seems to me to be a very important question for a mission congregation.  The essence of mission is confession.  Maybe we should call ourselves a confessing congregation, which is a more scriptural word than mission.  But what does that mean?  How do we confess?  There are the obvious parts.  We preach and we teach.  Most of that falls on me, but what else do we do as a congregation?  In many ways, we make this too complicated.  Understand, your very coming to Church on Sunday morning, and whenever you come, is a confession.  That you come to this Church is a confession that you believe what this Church teaches.  Whether you know it or not, you’re confessing the Augsburg Confession every time you come here.  Every time you trace the sign of the Holy Cross upon yourself or say “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” you are confessing the Triune God and the gifts given in your Baptism.  When you come to the Lord’s Supper, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor. 11:26).  That’s a confession.  You confess that you are receiving the true body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and that you are in unity with the doctrine of this congregation.  The liturgy itself is a confession of faith.  There are the Creeds, which are a clear confession, but the whole thing is confession of faith from end to end.  The liturgy comes right out of the Bible.  That’s why the historic liturgy is so important to this confessing congregation.  Our music sounds different than what you hear out there in the world.  That is a confession.  And if our music sounded like what you hear out in the world, that would also be a confession, but it would be a very different confession than we make here, for then we would be saying the same thing as the world.  Our hymns are a confession of faith set to music.  It matters what we sing.  This is why we sometimes sing very difficult hymns.  Don’t be afraid of them.  The hymns we sing are a strong confession of faith.  God’s Word is placed on your lips in the hymns.  You confess as you sing.  And the tunes are very carefully and intentionally married to the text of the hymn so that the confession is enhanced.  Sometimes we have special music during the service (and I’d love to have more).  And that music is a confession of the Gospel.  That is why we don’t just sing everything and anything.  During Holy Week we had a wonderful selection of choir tunes, and Christy brought me the lyrics and music beforehand, because she wanted to make certain that the choir presented a strong confession of the Gospel and our Scriptural doctrine.  Now nobody ordered anybody to do anything, and no one is trying to be tyrannical in this, but that’s how seriously we take our confession in this confessing congregation.  Our practice says something about what we believe.  Everything we do should somehow be a confession of faith.  When we build a church, our architecture should preach.  It should confess.  We shouldn’t just pick plans that look nice.  We should ask what it means that we build what we build in the way we build it.  What does it say?  What does it confess?  And I hope we fill the thing up with sublime artwork that preaches.  (Not kitsch.  We don’t just need smiling pictures of Jesus or Precious Moments angels.)  Good, historic or contemporary, but biblical, preaching art.  The name of our congregation, whatever it turns out to be, should be a preaching name, a confessing name.  It shouldn’t just sound pretty.  It should say something (and no, I’m not contending for any particular name… all our choices are good).  Everything in the Church, the sights, the sounds, the touch (your hymnal, for example), even the smells should confess!  And taste.  Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8), His body, given into death for you, His blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of all of your sins.

            Last week, Pr. Rossow told us that evangelism as we understand it today is not really a biblical concept.  Ah, but confession is.  We confess to our family when we teach them the faith.  We confess to our friends and neighbors when we talk about Jesus and invite them to Church.  We confess when we speak against ungodliness and point to a better way, the way of Jesus.  And, of course, we poor sinners so often fail to confess.  We don’t speak when we should.  Then we speak when we shouldn’t, and we say things that don’t really say the same things God says.  God help us.  Repent.  But also, rejoice.  Your sins are forgiven.  Even your failure to confess.  And confession is God’s gift.  It is God’s gift to you.  He sends a preacher.  He gives a Church.  He fills you with His Word and faith, and that is the source and content of confession.  Confess!  Say what God says.  There is no pressure here.  Not on you.  The Lord does what He will do with what He has given you.  Most of your confession takes place when you are unaware.  For finally, to confess, is simply to be a Christian, abiding in Jesus and in His Word. 

            And here is this tremendous Promise God proclaims to us by the Prophet Isaiah.  His Word does its thing.  Always.  It does not return to Him empty.  It always accomplishes that which He purposes and succeeds in the thing for which He sends it (Is. 55:11).  You know that is true because you are here.  Someone said what God says to you.  Your parents brought you to Baptism and Church, or someone spoke the Word to you later in your life.  And now you say what God says to one another.  You’re doing it right now in the Divine Service.  You do it as you live your life in Christ.  And we do it here and now in a Lutheran Church because 487 years ago today our fathers did it in Augsburg on pain of excommunication, persecution, and death.  This is a Church of the Augsburg Confession.  So this morning, with God given faith in your heart, you are confessing with your mouth.  In fact, you’re confessing the Augsburg Confession.  Now, go home and read it.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.            

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[1] McCain, AC IV.