Grace Lutheran Church

Confessional Church – Gleanings Article for May 2008

The Lutheran Church is a confessional church. The constitution of Grace Lutheran Church Article 3 is titled “The Confession” and states, “The Congregation acknowledges and accepts all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God, verbally inspired, and acknowledges and accepts all the confessional writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, contained in the Book of Concord of the year 1580, to be the true and genuine exposition of the doctrines of the Bible. These Confessional Writings are: the Three Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian), the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, Luther’s Small and Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord.”

From Getting into The Theology of Concord by Robert D. Preus, “We use the word “confession” in a variety of ways today. A young man confesses his love for his fiancée. A criminal confesses to a felony. Christians confess their sins to a fellow believer or at the appropriate time in the church service. The Lutheran Confessions are something quite different from all that. They are written, formal statements with which a group of Christians, or an individual, declare to the world their faith, their deepest and undaunted convictions.”

When someone asks you, “What is the reason for the hope that is in you?” your response is a confession of faith. This word confession though does not just describe a friendly discussion but also a point of dispute. “I believe this … I don’t believe that.” Most importantly our confession of faith should put us into conflict with Satan. What will you compromise, and what things are so important that you would stake your eternity upon?

In Matthew 16 we find that Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They answered, “Some say you are John the Baptizer, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

We stake our eternity, our salvation, our everlasting peace upon the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God! These words of Simon Peter are part of the foundation upon which the one, holy, Christian and apostolic church is built.

What is so important to you that you would rather die than compromise? In the 16^th century the ruler of Saxony, Elector John Frederick the Magnanimous refused to compromise his faith. This refusal of compromise prompted the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to pronounce a death sentence upon John Frederick. The emperor offered to lift the death sentence, but John Frederick refused stating, “I will rather lose my head and suffer Wittenberg to be battered down than submit to a demand that violates my conscience.” The emperor tried to force Sibylla, John Frederick’s wife, to compromise her Lutheran confession. She chose separation from home and husband, rather than compromise her faith.

In America it is hard for us to imagine religious persecution that would require us to define for ourselves what we could compromise and what we would rather die for than deny. Even in a time when physical persecution is absent we still should be clear the reason for the hope that is within us. While we don’t face the attack of an emperor trying to force us to compromise, we still face the attacks of Satan who seeks to pull us away from Jesus Christ. In the end the question is, “On what will you stand when you come before the judgment seat of Christ?” We must stand upon Christ because all other ground is sinking sand.

We are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law. If we allowed this to be denied we would have no right to be called Christians. Praise to Christ that he has come to deliver us our bondage to sin.