Presentation of the Augsburg Confession – Romans 10:4-11
Today is the anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, which occurred on June 25th, 1530. This is a commemoration that does appear on Lutheran church calendars, even though it is seldom observed.
Reformation Sunday – the Sunday closest to October 31st – marks the occasion when Martin Luther, a professor and pastor in Wittenberg, nailed 95 theses of protest against the sale of indulgences and related abuses to the door of the Castle Church in his town.
Reformation Sunday focuses on this specific action of Luther, and in many ways also on Luther himself: his personal pastoral concern for the members of his parish, who were being misled by the indulgence preachers; and his personal boldness, in being willing to stand up to those in authority when he believed that they were either corrupt or indifferent to the genuine spiritual needs of the people.
But the commemoration of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession takes the attention off of Luther as an individual. Today we are leaving aside any thoughts on Luther’s personal weaknesses or his personal strengths, his flaws and foibles or his gifts and abilities.
We do not repudiate Luther as a leader and teacher of the church, whom we believe was raised up by God for the troubled times in which he lived. We feel the same way about many other fathers of the church, both before and after the 16th century: people like St. Athanasius and St. Augustine in the ancient church; and C. F. W. Walther in the 19th century.
But we do not preach Luther – just as we do not preach Athanasius, Augustine, or Walther. We preach the gospel of Christ crucified for sinners, and the message of God’s gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation in his Son, that these men – and millions of others in history – previously preached.
We preach the gospel that God has called his church also in our time to preach. We preach the unchanging gospel that is embodied in the Augsburg Confession.
The Augsburg Confession is an official creedal statement of our church. It is the primary confession of the Reformation period, building on the ancient creeds that came before it.
At the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor – who wanted to try to sort out the religious conflicts that had begun to afflict his empire – this confession was presented at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, by those princes who had begun to implement ecclesiastical reforms in accord with Luther’s protest, on the basis of Holy Scripture and in the spirit of the gospel.
Luther himself was not at Augsburg in 1530. And Luther was not the author of the document that was presented there. This is significant because it shows to anyone who might not otherwise understand this, that Lutheranism is not really about Luther.
The gospel that Luther found in Scripture is the same gospel that anyone else can find in Scripture: if Scripture is allowed to speak on its own terms and in its own context, without the imposition of preconceived ideas and without filtering the words of Scripture through the dictates and restrictions of human reason.
God himself speaks through Scripture, to anyone who is listening, with his warning and judgment that the wages of sin is death, but also and chiefly with his pledge and promise that eternal life is a divine gift that is available and offered to all in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Lutheran Church is not about Martin Luther, and the Augsburg Confession likewise was not and is not about Martin Luther. It was and is about God, God’s Word, God’s church, and God’s salvation.
Confessional Lutheranism has always emphasized its fundamental continuity with the church of the Apostles and ancient Fathers. But the presentation of the Augsburg Confession did, in an important sense, mark the birth of the Lutheran Church as a distinct confessing body of Christians, and as a distinct communion of territorial churches.
It was an accident of history that this ecclesiastical communion came to be known in most places as the “Lutheran Church.” Originally it was described by its adherents as the “Evangelical Church.”
But then the followers of Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin began calling themselves the “Evangelical Church” as well, which required the Lutherans to make a more clear differentiation. Most went with “Evangelical-Lutheran Church” – shortened in time to “Lutheran Church.”
Some, though – especially in Eastern Europe – went with “Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession.” And that was probably a better choice.
Because this Augsburg Confession is an official statement of belief for us – even if we have not named our church after it – we used some key excerpts from it as our creed today. It is one of our creeds. But it is longer than the creeds that we ordinarily use because it addresses a fuller range of topics belonging to “the whole counsel of God” as revealed in Scripture.
At a time of much confusion and theological weakness in the church, when renewed clarity was called for, the Augsburg Confession provided that clarity. At a time when penitent sinners with troubled consciences no longer knew for sure whether God would be merciful to them and accept them into his kingdom, the Augsburg Confession proclaimed from God’s Word the truth of God’s peace and comfort in Christ, for all who call upon the name of the Lord.
The Augsburg Confession announced to the larger church, and to the world, what Jesus had told his apostles to announce when he said to them in St. Luke’s Gospel:
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The Augsburg Confession explained to unsettled yet open minds what St. Paul had explained to unsettled yet open minds when he wrote in his Epistle to the Romans:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
Good works – directed in love toward our neighbor in need – necessarily follow, and flow from, a true and living faith, as the natural fruits of such a faith. But we are not reconciled to God by the fruits of faith. We are reconciled to God by the object of faith – that is, by what faith believes, and by the One to whom faith clings.
And what faith believes, is God’s pledge and promise in his Son Jesus Christ – offered to all who repent of their sins and acknowledge their need for his forgiveness – that as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us – as Psalm 103 states.
What faith believes, is what God proclaims to the world about his love for us, and about what that love gives: that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life – as Jesus told Nicodemus.
The Augsburg Confession is not referred to very often in the ongoing life and worship of our congregation. But it is always in the background.
Our church’s constitution pledges us to its doctrine, and obligates all pastors and preachers in our church to conform their teaching to this doctrine – since this doctrine is drawn from Scripture. The Augsburg Confession does not supplement Scripture, and it is not a substitute for Scripture. It is not our equivalent of the Book of Mormon.
Rather, it is a faithful statement and exposition of Scripture. It guides us into and through the Scriptures, as a servant of Scripture and under the authority of Scripture.
It draws together the essential points of the doctrine of the Bible and teaches them to us. It shows us what the Bible says, and warns us against distortions of the Bible, and against heresies both old and new that are dangerous to our souls.
And through the Augsburg Confession, we as a church also declare to others what we believe, and invite them likewise to believe this – and to receive from God the eternal blessings that God offers in his Word and Sacrament to those who do believe in him.
Our confession of our faith is often a private and informal thing. To those we know, who are interested in learning more about the Christian church and its teachings, we explain and defend our belief in the authority of Scripture.
We explain and defend our belief in the mystery of God’s triune existence, and our belief in the mystery of the incarnation of God’s Son as Jesus of Nazareth. We explain and defend our belief in the sinlessness of Jesus’ life, in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death as an atonement for all human sin, and in the vindicating truth of Jesus’ glorious resurrection.
And we share with those we know the divine message of law and gospel, through which the Holy Spirit has brought conviction and hope to our hearts, and has worked within us a new nature and a new life.
We invite those we know to join us in the enjoyment of this hope and this life, by joining us in the enjoyment of Christ, in the fellowship of his church: into which we are incorporated by the supernatural washing of his baptism, and within which we are sustained by the supernatural nourishment of his Holy Supper.
But our confession of our faith is also a corporate thing and a formal thing. As members of the Lutheran Church and of this congregation, we are able to join our voices to the voices of all Confessional Lutherans, in expressing our firm conviction that the testimony of the Augsburg Confession is a faithful testimony of the saving truth of God himself.
We do believe that in the providence of God, the Reformation of the 16th century was a good and beneficial thing for the Lord’s beloved flock on earth.
As the Word of God was once again exalted and restored to its place of honor, and as the gospel was once again proclaimed in all of its truth and power, the Reformation was a purifying and cleansing thing for the church of God in this world. Jesus preserved and renewed his church.
What a comfort it is, to know God’s gracious forgiveness of all our sins. What a blessing it is, to know God’s gracious justification in Christ, with the righteousness of Jesus our Savior now placed upon us and credited to us, making us pleasing and acceptable to God.
And what a privilege it is to be able to confess to other people – to all other people in the entire world – that by means of his Word and promise, God offers this salvation also to them; and invites them, too, to believe him, and to know him.
We can use the Augsburg Confession for this purpose. And for this purpose, God and his church – by means of our subscription to the Augsburg Confession – can use us.
We close with these words from today’s lesson from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – words that are very applicable to what we are commemorating today, and to what we are committing ourselves to today:
“‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’” Amen.