Bishop and Christian, July 2009

The Augsburg Confession, pt. 4

In June, we went through Article Six of the Augsburg Confession, on Good Works and the new obedience of Christians.  The next three articles are about the Church: what the Church is, how the true Church can be recognized, and how one enters the Church.  (By the way, when I capitalize Church, I am referring to the universal Church throughout the world, and throughout time.  If I write “church,” I usually mean the local congregation.)

Article VII calls the Church, in its essence: “It is the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel” (AC VII:1).  That’s it!  Of course, one has to define what the Gospel is, and what it means that the Sacraments are administered according to the Gospel; but where there is agreement on the Gospel and Sacraments, there is true unity in the Church.  “It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church that uniform ceremonies, instituted by human beings, be observed everywhere” (VII:3).  As long as the Church has been on earth, diverse ceremonies have been used.  Ceremonies are not of the essence of the Church; however, as we will see later, the Confessors realized that not all ceremonies are created equal, and some are more useful than others.

Article VIII, which is a continuation of Article VII, confesses the reality of the Church as it appears in local congregations.  Even though the Church is, “properly speaking, nothing else than the assembly of all believers and saints,” there will still be “false Christians, hypocrites, and even public sinners.”  Thus, the Confessors wanted to say what the Church has always said, following St. Augustine: that even if, God forbid, the Word was preached or the Sacraments administered by “unrighteous priests,” they are still valid because they are God’s Word and Sacraments.

Article IX flows directly out of the previous two articles, because it describes how people are brought into the Church: “Concerning baptism [the Lutherans teach] that it is necessary for salvation, that the grace of God is offered through baptism, and that children should be baptized.  They are received into the grace of God when they are offered to God through baptism.  They condemn the Anabaptists [literally, “re-baptizers”] who disapprove of the baptism of children and assert that children are saved without baptism.”

This Article describes as well today (as I find with the rest of the Lutheran Confessions) the points of disagreement with other Christians on Baptism.

As with other areas where we disagree with other Christians, these are the places to start the discussion: to honestly and humbly state our confession, based on the Scriptures, and to pray that the Holy Spirit will bring us to a unified confession of the Faith once delivered to the apostles and prophets.

Pr. Winterstein

*St. Augustine (354-430 AD), Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, said, “For you I am a bishop [overseer]; with you I am a Christian.”

Bishop and Christian, June 2009

The Augsburg Confession, pt. 3

The Third Article of the Augsburg Confession (AC), as we noted last month, has to do with Jesus, the Son of God.  Article Four is the natural extension of that article since it has to do with our justification, or being made right, before God.  Because of who Jesus is and what He has done, our justification is absolutely and without remainder complete.  We can do nothing at all, we can claim no work or merit of our own, when we stand before God.  We can only claim the work and merit of Jesus.  We “receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God out of grace for Christ’s sake through faith when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us” (AC IV:1-2).  This article is at the heart of everything we believe and confess; it is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae: “the article by which the Church stands and falls.”  If this article is taken away or diluted or destroyed, then our whole Faith falls.

Article Five follows directly out of Article Four; in fact, AC V begins, “To obtain such faith….”  Which faith?  The faith described in AC IV, the faith that saves.  AC V: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments.  Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel.  [The gospel] teaches that we have a gracious God, not through our own merit but through Christ’s merit, when we so believe” (AC V:1-3).  The Office of the Holy Ministry, the pastoral office, was given to the Church by God (Ephesians 4:11), in order that people might hear the Gospel and believe it.  That is the sole, defining purpose of the Office into which God puts men.  Certainly the pastor does other things, but if he is not preaching the Gospel that “teaches that we have a gracious God” and delivering the Sacraments, which do the same, he’s not doing his job.

Article Six, likewise, follows directly out of the previous articles.  “It is also taught [by the Evangelicals (Lutherans)] that such faith should yield good fruit and good works and that a person must do such good works as God has commanded for God’s sake but not place trust in them as if thereby to earn grace before God” (AC VI:1).  In other words, good works are absolutely necessary, though they contribute nothing to salvation.  Where, then, do our good works belong?  They belong with our neighbor, who, unlike God, does need them.  God commands good works, and He works through them to provide for those who are in need, and to accomplish His purposes in the world.  All of these good works are done within our vocations, which are those relationships into which God has put us.  We have mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, children, co-workers, friends, neighbors, etc., and our love and good works belong to them, for their sake.  As we have received justifying faith through the Gospel and Sacraments, preached and given to us by pastors, we go out into the world as ambassadors of God’s reconciling love.

Pr. Winterstein

*St. Augustine (354-430 AD), Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, said, “For you I am a bishop [overseer]; with you I am a Christian.”

Bishop and Christian, May 2009

[a little backed up on these…]

The Augsburg Confession, pt. 2

The first 21 articles of the Augsburg Confession (AC) are summarized by Philip Melanchthon in this way: “This is nearly a complete summary of what is preached and taught in our churches for proper Christian instruction and the comfort of consciences, as well as for the improvement of believers…Since, then, this teaching is clearly grounded in Holy Scripture and is, moreover, neither against nor contrary to the universal Christian church—or even the Roman church—so far as can be observed in the writings of the Fathers, we think that our opponents cannot disagree with us in the articles set forth above” (AC, Conclusion of Part One, Kolb/Wengert 58).  Thus, the first part of the AC is trying to lay out the Christian Faith which “is believed everywhere by everyone.”

The AC follows a very logical path from God, the Source and Goal of all life (Article I), to Original Sin, the intrusion of death and destruction into God’s good creation (Article II), to the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity and the solution to Original Sin (Article III).

Article I.  The AC starts in Art. I by citing the Council of Nicea and confessing that there is only one God (one “essence”), and yet “there are three persons in the same one essence” (I:3).  The counterpart of this confession is that those who hold to a different god are rejected (e.g., Manichaeans [who thought, among other things, there were two gods, one good and one evil], Arians [who believed that the Son was created, and so not of “one substance with the Father”], and Mohammedans, or Muslims, who hold to an absolute divine oneness).

Article II.  “Furthermore, it is taught among us that since the fall of Adam, all human beings who are born in the natural way are conceived and born in sin” (II:1).  The AC goes on to affirm that this means that no human can possess by nature true fear of and faith in God, and that Original Sin is truly sin—which needs to be forgiven and taken away—not just an inclination toward sinning.  Thus, Original Sin “condemns to God’s eternal wrath all who are not in turn born anew through baptism and the Holy Spirit” (II:2).  “Rejected, then, are the Pelagians” (II:3), who believed that human nature was not completely corrupt and could, by its own power, do what was pleasing to God.

Article III.  If it is the case that Original Sin damns to hell, it is also true that God did not leave His creatures without hope.  So, Christ, fully God and fully man, was “‘born, suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried’ in order both to be a sacrifice not only for original sin but also for all other sins and to conciliate God’s wrath” (III:3).  This article goes on to speak about Christ as we confess Him in the Apostles’ Creed.

Next month, we will continue with the next three articles.

Pr. Winterstein

*St. Augustine (354-430 AD), Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, said, “For you I am a bishop [overseer]; with you I am a Christian.”

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

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The Third Sunday after Pentecost

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The Second Sunday after Pentecost

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The Holy Trinity

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The Funeral of Lelia Charais

[I was filling in for Pr. Steve Bohler at Our Savior’s in Crookston, Minnesota]

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The Day of Pentecost

“The Story of the Church”
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

You know, I’m not sure that this section from John’s Gospel applies to us today.  In fact, the lectionary had to leave out three-and-a-half verses in order to make it apply, omitting the part about being thrown out of the synagogues and killed (16:1-4a).  Since we have our own churches, and we have no connection to synagogues (is there even one around?), those verses clearly don’t apply.  And if we put them back in, it is clear that Jesus is addressing His first, Jewish apostles.  I suppose we could “adjust” the text so that it would apply to radical Islam, which certainly thinks it is offering a service to God with its homicide bombings.  But that doesn’t hit too close to home in northern Minnesota (though it may be different in a few years).  And it’s hard to apply the text as comfort for our sorrow when we’re not all that sorrowful that Jesus ascended into heaven, if we think about it at all.  There is one thing that does apply to us: none of us is asking where Jesus is going.  So maybe we should go to a different lesson.  But is the second lesson any better?  Peter is speaking in a very specific place and at a very specific time: in Jerusalem, at the Jewish festival fifty days after the Passover.  We have no flames, no speaking in other languages, no sons and daughters prophesying here, and there are no Israelites around, let alone Parthians and Medes and Elamites and all the rest.  Maybe we should stay away from Acts 2.  But Ezekiel is even worse: a valley of dry bones?  Sure, we’ve sung some silly Sunday school song about dry bones connecting to each other, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten.  And God specifically says that the bones on which He puts sinews, flesh, and skin, and in which He puts the breath of life, is the whole house of Israel (Ezekiel 37:11).  I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just move on to the Offertory.

And yet, maybe we miss the point if we try to apply these Scriptures to ourselves.  Our tendency, bred into us by years of personal Bible study, is to read the words right off the page into our current circumstances.  We don’t put ourselves into the world of the Scriptures; we superimpose the Scriptures on top of our world.  If we read these passages as they really are, without removing verses and skipping parts that indicate specific times and places, it is not surprising that we cannot make them fit exactly, as one piece of our otherwise full lives.  But maybe if, instead of us interpreting the Scriptures, the Scriptures interpret us; if, instead of saying what the Scriptures are about, the Scriptures tell us what we are about, we might begin to see more clearly what is happening.  It is not really a matter of putting ourselves into the Scriptural world, but recognizing that the Scriptural world is the only real world.  What we call the “real world” is only a shadow of the way things really are.  We need the Holy Spirit to adjust our eyesight, as much today as they did on that first Spirit-filled Pentecost, so that we see everything in terms of what God is doing in the world; so that we see everything from the perspective of a man or woman who has been written into the story of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When Jesus told His disciples that He had to go physically away from them, their hearts were filled with sorrow and grief (John 16:6).  But perhaps they were apprehensive because Jesus had also told them that when He was gone, they would be hated by the world and persecuted (15:18ff.); they would be tempted to fall away under the pressure of their culture (16:1); they would be put out of the synagogues where they had worshiped God since they were children (16:2); they would be killed by people who thought they were bringing an offering of worship to God (as Paul himself thought) (16:2); and their message, which the Spirit of truth would bring through them, would be rejected by many of their own people, who knew neither the Father nor the Son (16:3).  Not a happy prospect.  But Jesus told them that it would ultimately be better for them if He went away, because He would send them the Helper, who would give them everything they needed.  The Spirit of truth would guide them in all truth, in all the things commanded by Him who is the Truth.  And this is the work of the one God, Father, Son, and Spirit.  Jesus said, “[The Spirit] will glorify Me, because He will take from Me and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is Mine; therefore, I said that He will take from Me and declare it to you” (John 16:14-15).  Neither the Son nor the Spirit speaks independently (John 14:10; 16:13), but they speak in total unity with the Father.  And through those Eleven Apostles, and then Twelve with Matthias, and Thirteen with Paul, the triune God was going to continue the story begun in creation, rewritten in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and amplified by the Holy Spirit in the Church .

It is in that story that we find our place.  The Holy Spirit did not fall on us at Pentecost, but in the baptism given by Jesus to the Church through the Apostles.  There, as in our Lord’s baptism, we were anointed with the Spirit.  He breathed new life into these dry, dead bones and strengthened us for our life-long struggle with the devil and our own flesh.  We know that He is Yahweh, our God, because when we were cut off and without hope, He raised us from the graves we dug with our own sin, and He is bringing us to the land of promise (Ezekiel 37:11-14).  Most of us do not speak to large crowds of foreigners who hear us in their own languages, some of whom think we’re drunk.  We speak to individuals, one by one, what has been handed down from the Apostles of the Lord: that Jesus, the Son of God, was delivered into the hands of sinful men, that He was crucified, that He was raised on the third day, that He was exalted in His flesh to the right hand of God, and that He poured out the Holy Spirit on His Church so that the glorious Gospel would be spoken without embarrassment, because it is the power of God for salvation—for your salvation and mine.  We are not, and we cannot be, the Church of the Book of Acts.  But because Jesus is present wherever the Spirit is present, the Spirit bears witness today exactly as Jesus did while He was on the earth: that this world’s damning sin is unbelief; that this world’s righteousness is nothing more than impurity and uncleanness before the God who judges according to the righteousness of Jesus; and that this world’s judgment has already come upon it in the Word made flesh (16:8-11; cf. 3:18-19).  We are here because the same Spirit who fell on the Apostles and the rest of those 120 believers came to us through water and Word, and wrote us into a story that, ultimately, has only one Word: Jesus.

There is no true story other than the one that we tell in our liturgy, Sunday after Sunday: the story of Jesus.  There is no story other than the sixth-day story, where God re-creates our chaotic and worn-out lives by His Word: He speaks and it happens.  There is no story other than the Easter story, where Jesus dies and rises for us so that when we die in confession and sorrow over our sin, He raises us to the new, baptismal life lived in Him by His Body and His Blood.  There is no story other than the Pentecost story, where the Spirit falls on us and makes us bold to speak of the love that has been lavishly and extravagantly and excessively poured out on us here.  And all to this end: that we would follow in the footsteps of our ancient fathers and mothers and devote ourselves and hold fast to the teaching of the Apostles and the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42); and that the things the Lord has given to us we would use for the good of those in need (Acts 4:34-35; 11:29; Galatians 2:10).  As the Lord sustains us in these two intertwined creations of the Gospel—faith in God and love for each other—He will continue to do the same work He did in the early Church: He added to the fellowship of the baptized, gathered around Word and Meal, day by day those who were being saved (Acts 2:47).  This is the story of the Church, it is your story, and it is the story of all whom God the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies.  By His grace, God will continue to write it through us here in Fisher/Euclid.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV).  Amen.

— Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 5/27/09