The Augsburg Confession

Renewing Lutheran Faith and Practice

Timothy J. Wengert

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781506432946
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506432953
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

The Augsburg Confession is the single most-important confession of faith among Lutherans today. However, it is often taught either from a historical perspective or from a dogmatic one. Yet the context out of which it arose was far more practical and lively: marked from the outset as confessions of faith in the face of fierce opposition and threats. The original princely signers, while clearly outlining the teaching of their churches, were also staking their lives on the witness to the gospel that had been emanating from Wittenberg since 1517, when Martin Luther first published his Ninety-Five Theses. By situating both the history and the theology of this document within the practice and life of faith, Timothy J. Wengert shows just how relevant the Confession's witness is for today's Lutheran parishes and their leaders by unlocking how its articles can shape and strengthen the church's witness today.

ONE

Confessing the Faith (The Doctrinal Articles)

1

“WE ALL BELIEVE IN ONE TRUE GOD”

The rural congregation loved the “new” song their pastor had taught them: Martin Luther’s hymned version of the Nicene Creed set to music from the 1970s composed by Art Gorman for his “Chicago Folk Mass.” With their pastor on sabbatical and Trinity Sunday approaching, the worship committee was only too eager to sing that “old favorite”—except that they could not read music and the new organist knew nothing of Gorman’s setting. Instead, she dutifully played the somewhat somber tones of Luther’s original, modal melody. The result was predictable: looks shot across the room during the introduction; those few who could read music tried nobly for half the first verse; in the end the congregation was reduced to standing silently while the final two-and-a-half verses droned on out of the organ. There were plenty of comments and laughter over coffee an hour later. Somehow the congregation had been robbed of lustily commemorating the only feast in the church calendar celebrating a doctrine: the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

This robbery happens more often than one might imagine and involves not simply songs of praise and confession but the teaching itself—the central, distinctive doctrine of the entire Christian church: found in St. Paul’s letters (2 Cor 13:13; 1 Cor 12:4–6); on the lips of Jesus (Matt 28:19); in the earliest baptismal creeds (the Old Roman Creed that continues in the Western church as the Apostles’ Creed); and most notably in the Nicene Creed (of 325 and 381). Since the eighteenth century, theologians of various stripes have expressed varying degrees of discomfort with such a blatantly Christian teaching. Yet there it is: Christians confess the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not only does the Book of Concord include the three “ecumenical creeds” confessing the Trinity, but five Lutheran Confessions contained in the book also include expositions of this doctrine. Rather than being seen as an embarrassment or a remnant of an all-too-philosophical Christian past, the Augsburg Confession confesses the Trinity as revealing the very heart of God and the ground of all Christian unity.

CA I

[German] In the first place, it is with one accord taught and held, following the decree of the Council of Nicaea, that there is one divine essence which is named God and truly is God. But there are three persons in the same one essence, equally powerful, equally eternal: God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are one divine essence, eternal, undivided, unending, of immeasurable power, wisdom, and goodness, the creator and preserver of all visible and invisible things. What is understood by the word “person” is not a part nor a quality in another but that which exists by itself, as the Fathers once used the word concerning this issue. Rejected, therefore, are all the heresies that are opposed to this article, such as the Manichaeans, who posited two gods, one good and one evil; the Valentinians, the Arians, the Eunomians, the Mohammedans, and all others like them; also the Samosatenians, old and new, who hold that there is only one person and create a deceitful sophistry about the other two, the Word and the Holy Spirit, by saying that the two need not be two distinct persons since “word” means an external word or voice and the “Holy Spirit” is a created motion in all creatures.

[Latin] The churches among us teach with complete unanimity that the decree of the Council of Nicaea concerning the unity of the divine essence and concerning the three persons is true and is to be believed without any doubt. That is to say, there is one divine essence which is called God and is God: eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, of immeasurable power, wisdom and goodness, the creator and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. Yet, there are three persons, coeternal and of the same essence and power: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the term “person” is used for that meaning which the church’s authors used in this case: to signify not a part or a quality in another but that which subsists in itself. They condemn all heresies that have arisen against this article, such as that of the Manichaeans, who posited two principles, one good and the other evil; likewise, those of the Valentinians, Arians, Eunomians, Mohammedans, and all others like them. They also condemn the Samosatenians, old and new, who contend that there is only one person and cleverly and impiously argue that the Word and the Holy Spirit are not distinct persons but that “Word” signifies a spoken word and “Spirit” a created movement in things.

Reflections

Who is speaking in the CA? The signers of the Augsburg Confession were not the theologians who drafted it but rather the princes and cities that were confessing it before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. But in both the German and Latin editions, they do not present simply their own personal confession but either (as in the German) use the passive voice to include all citizens in their territories or (as in the Latin) specify “the churches among us.” Confession of faith is not, strictly speaking, solely the responsibility of the prince or burgomaster but of all in the Christian church. As much as Americans may hanker after individualism in Christianity, the facts are that there is no such thing as the solitary believer but only the Christian assembly, gathered around Word and sacrament (CA VII).

The basis of Christian unity. Many outsiders, when viewing the variety of churches, denominations, and sects among Christians may sometimes wonder what ever happened to Jesus’s prayer to the Father in John 17 “that they [his disciples] may be one.” Yet here the CA echoes one of the most remarkable aspects of Christianity down to the present day: the sheer number of different Christian bodies that confess the Nicene Creed: “with one accord” (CA I, German) or “with complete unanimity.” While many of the articles of the CA may seem to distinguish Lutherans from other Christians, this article in particular unites them. The point of the entire CA is not to divide the church but to unite it in confession around the Triune God. This first article refutes the false notion of beginning an account of one’s faith with what divides one group of believers from another instead of what unites all Christians.

One God . . . Three Persons. This article’s basic point, explained far more fully in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, is a simple one: Christians worship one God in three persons. As much as this was hardly under dispute between Lutherans and Roman Catholics in the sixteenth century, still the stakes for this article are high, so that the Latin version insists that this “is true and is to be believed without any doubt.” Notice that this article is not describing individual faith and doubts—that will come in CA II—but our commonly held faith. Such strong language demonstrates just how crucial this faith is for the whole Christian church. But the word “without doubt” also points to another side of the Christian faith: that faith itself is the gift and work of the Holy Spirit, not an action of the human being’s pusillanimous will (see CA V). Thus, “without doubt” not only reveals our weakness but also God’s strength in overcoming our doubts.

Yet the article does not stop with the slogan (“one God in three persons”) but explains more fully who this God is, using a slew of attributes (in the Latin): “That is to say, there is one divine essence which is called God and is God: eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, of immeasurable power, wisdom and goodness, the creator and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. Yet, there are three persons, coeternal and of the same essence and power: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Christians share many parts of this description of the Godhead with other, non-Christian religions, especially with adherents of Judaism and Islam. The “almighty creator,” confessed in the first article of the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, does not, however, encompass all that Christians have to say about God. For that readers will have to wait especially for CA III, where the scandal of the incarnation comes to light.

“What is understood by the word person?” Why add this note? Here a history lesson comes in handy. Just as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and their compatriots were preparing to confess their faith before the emperor, a man arrived in Wittenberg claiming new insights into the nature of God. The Wittenbergers were horrified by what they heard. Johannes Campanus claimed that only the Father is truly God and that the Son and the Holy Spirit are lesser beings, so that “person” in the phrase “three persons” describes simply a quality of relationship and not a true, distinct, co-equal hypostasis. With this shocking encounter fresh in their minds, Philip Melanchthon and his fellow drafters insisted that the word person “is not a part nor a quality in another but that which exists by itself, as the Fathers once used the word concerning this issue.” The Latin even employs the technical term: subsistence. The Wittenberg Reformers and their collaborators assembled in Augsburg refused to abandon the ancient church’s confession (“of one being with the Father”): not simply out of respect for ancient church authorities but more importantly because if Christ is less than God, then salvation itself comes into question (see CA III).

“Rejected therefore” (German) and “They [the teachers] condemn” (Latin). Twenty-first-century Christians may imagine that they can define their own faith without excluding other options. In many cases, this kind of deception demonstrates either a lack of seriousness about one’s own beliefs or a refusal to realize that claiming to believe one thing excludes its opposite. Indeed, condemnations are a key factor in Christian faith, going back to St. Paul (Gal 1:8–9) and including decrees of the ancient councils, including the Council of Nicaea in 325, where the bishops condemned followers of Arius who claimed that when it came to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, “there was [a point] when he was not.” These rejections, then, function as a well-defined border between Christian, Trinitarian faith and its opposite—not simply hearkening back to ancient times but always addressing contemporary threats to the Christian confession. For us to read the list that follows as bygone history misses entirely the point of confessing the Trinity.

Manichaeans and Valentinians: These Gnostic groups (the former opposed by Augustine and the latter by Irenaeus) had one thing in common: they understood that the world was governed not by a single God but by two competing principles: one good and spiritual, and the other evil and fleshly. Both groups constructed elaborate myths describing how in the spiritual world, a fall occurred that trapped shards of spiritual light in the darkness of matter and flesh. Salvation involved an escape from this materialistic god and a return of the light to its origin. One cannot but think of modern spiritual movements (such as the New Age), where once again the point of reflection and renewal is an escape from this world into the pure world of thought and spirit. In the face of the twenty-first century’s addiction to spirituality, Luther and his colleagues confess a robust carnality by focusing on Christ’s incarnation (enfleshment!) and on Christians’ callings in this world not out of it.

Arians and Eunomians: The Nicene Creed addressed the christological heresy named here. Arius, a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, gained notoriety by teaching about Christ that “there was when he was not.” By emphasizing the sovereignty of the Father, he allowed (especially in the view of his opponents, chief among them Athanasius, Alexandria’s bishop) the Son of God to be something of a god of second rank—like or of a similar substance to God the Father. Many historians have concentrated their descriptions of this “Arian controversy” in the Church on political matters (the role of Emperor Constantine in calling the council of Nicea to maintain religious peace among the newly recognized Christians) or on philosophical matters (especially the role of philos...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Lutheran Quarterly Books
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introducing the Augsburg Confession
• The Preface: Obedient Disobedience
• Confessing the Faith (The Doctrinal Articles)
• Practicing the Faith (The Disputed Articles)
• Epilogue: We Confess and Teach
• Appendix: Articles XXII–XXVIII
• Index
• Lutheran Quarterly Books
• Back Cover