Sermon on the Augsburg Confession

If you have ever attended the ordination of a WELS pastor, you will hear these four questions asked of him:
1)"Do you believe the canonical books of the Old and the New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice?
2) Do you accept the three Ecumenical Creeds - the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian - as faithful testimonies of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, and do you reject all the errors which they condemn? Notice that the third question talks about the Augsburg Confession.
3) Do you believe that the Unaltered Augsburg Confession is a true exposition of the Word of God and a correct exhibition of the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; and that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the two Catechisms of Martin Luther, the Smalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord - as contained in the Book of Concord - are also in agreement with this one Scriptural faith?
4) Do you solemnly promise that you will perform the duties of your office in accordance with these Confessions and that all your teaching and your administration of the Sacraments shall be in conformity with the Holy Scriptures and with the afore-mentioned Confessions?"

The Second Article of the constitution of our congregation also adheres to the six Lutheran Confessions which includes the Augsburg Confession. It even comes under one of the minor festivals during the church year which we are celebrating today. If you read your Meditations for today, reference is also made to the Augsburg Confession. It is a confession that was presented in the city of Augsburg, Germany, on June 25, 1530, 470 years ago.

We remember the Reformation on October 31, 1517, but the Augsburg Confession really marked the beginning of the Lutheran Church. Up until that point Luther and his followers were trying to reform the Catholic Church from its errors but at Augsburg it became very evident that it had rejected the truth of God's Word, and from then on the Lutherans organized a church body of their own. How did this come about? Emperor Charles the 5th of the Holy Roman Empire had ordered this meeting to get the Lutherans and Catholics together to resolve their differences. It was a great opportunity for the Lutherans to proclaim their beliefs and show how they are based on the Holy Scriptures. The Augsburg Confession stresses the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the center of the Christian Faith and this was heard by electors, princes, bishops, representatives of the free cities, foreign ambassadors, and many others. You have an insert in your worship folder a condensed version of the Augsburg Confession which you are encouraged to read and review for yourselves. You will notice that it covers such articles of faith as God, the Son of God, original sin, justification, good works, the Church, Baptism, Lord's Supper, repentance, and many other doctrines. When Dr. Eck, the chief theologian among the Catholics, was asked if he could refute the Augsburg Confession, he said he could from the writings of some church fathers, but not from the Scriptures. The Augsburg Confession answers the question "What does the Bible say?" And that's the same question that the Apostle Paul asked the Christians at Rome in our text. And we learn that what the Bible does say we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths.

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