Christ Alone

Augsburg Confession Article IV

Here is a link to the fourth article: https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/of-justification/

This is where we begin to see a significant difference between Lutheran and Roman Catholic teaching. Luther famously asserted that “justification is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”

To be clear, the Roman Catholic Church agrees that “men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works.” Like Protestants, Catholics believe that salvation can be found only through faith in Christ.

The Catholic theologians who responded to the Augsburg Confession agreed with the bulk of this article. However, they added the following caveat: “Nevertheless, all Catholics confess that our works of themselves have no merit, but that God’s grace makes them worthy of eternal life.” (Roman Confutation, Article IV). In other words, an unbeliever cannot be saved. However, a Christian, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is enabled and empowered to do good works that please God and merit salvation. This concept is known as “infused grace.”

The problem with infused grace is that it weakens (or may even destroy) the assurance of the believer: I still have to do my part to ensure I get to heaven. At the time of the reformation, a concern was that many people were expending a great deal of time and money on works such as pilgrimages and fasting for the sake of their own salvation, while neglecting the needs of their neighbor.

As Lutherans, we find insufficient Biblical evidence for the concept of infused grace.

To the contrary, we believe the scriptural teaching is that justification is entirely the work of God. Because of what Christ has done, his righteousness is credited to us the instant we believe. If we believe, this too is a gift. There’s nothing more that needs to be done. This teaching come through clearly in Romans 3 and 4.

Another good passage is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that believers will simply sit on our laurels! We will see in later articles that once a person is justified, they begin to do good works that please God. However, we hold that these works don’t earn us anything — rather, they are a response of gratitude — the fruit of a life transformed by grace.

Christ Alone

Augsburg Confession Article III

This week, let’s read the third article:

https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/son-of-god/

This article addresses the nature of the Son of God, also known as the Word (Logos).

Here is a summary of the key points:

  1. The Son of God assumed the human nature. This statement presupposes that the Son was not created, since he was with God in the beginning (for the Biblical basis of this statement, see John 1:1-18).
  2. Having been born of the Virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18; Luke 2:7) Jesus had two natures: one divine and one human, inseparably joined in one person. This is essentially a restatement of the Chalcedonian Creed (https://www.ccel.org/creeds/chalcedonian-creed.html).
  3. The article reaffirms that we believe everything taught in the Apostle’s Creed about Jesus — namely, that “he was born of the virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, descended into hell, rose again, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”
  4. The reason for Christ’s humiliation was that we might be reconciled to the Father (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Romans 5:8-11).
  5. The reason for his exaltation was that he might “forever reign, have dominion over all creatures, and sanctify them that believe in Him, by sending the Holy Ghost into their hearts, to rule, comfort, and quicken them, and to defend them against the devil and the power of sin.”
Christ Alone

Augsburg Confession Article II

Let’s take a look at the second article of the Augsburg Confession: https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/original-sin/

This article deals with the issue of original sin.

The first humans, Adam and Eve, were created without sin. However, they disobeyed God and brought death into the world. From that point on, they and all their descendants have had a propensity for doing wrong.

Note the careful wording of the article: “all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin.” Apart from Adam and Eve (who were created directly by God), there is only one person who was not “begotten in the natural way,” and that is Jesus (who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary). Being fully God as well as fully man, he was born without sin and lived a perfect life.

With the exception of Jesus, all of Adam’s descendants have been born into sin.

Psalm 51:5: “Surely I was sinful at birth,
    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (NIV)

Romans 3:23: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (NIV)

Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—” (NIV)

Note, however that original sin is more than just a propensity to sin: it is sin, because it involves a lack of faith in God (see Romans 14:23). Hence, all people, even infants, need a saviour.

Christ Alone

This Day in History

On June 25, 1530, the Augsburg Confession was presented to the Emperor Charles V.

It became one of the most significant documents of the Reformation, containing a clear and concise exposition of what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess.

The Augsburg Confession contains 21 articles under the heading “Chief Articles of Faith” and another 7 articles highlighting abuses in the church that the reformers had corrected.

Our church adheres to the unaltered Augsburg Confession because we believe it is a faithful summary of Biblical doctrine.

Over the next several months, I’ll encourage you to read through the Augsburg Confession. Each week, I’ll provide a brief post with some introductory remarks and and a link to the relevant article of faith. Most of the articles are brief and will only take a few minutes to read.

This week, let’s start with the Preface. You can find the text here:

https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/preface/

You may also wish to do some further reading on the history of the Augsburg Confession and how it came to be written:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Augsburg-Confession

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augsburg_Confession