Transcript Augsburg Confession and Apology

Augsburg Confession
and Apology
Wittenberg
Leipzig
Worms
Speyer
Nuernberg
Ingolstadt
Thomaskirche in Leipzig
Worms
Wittenberg
Torgau
Marburg
Coburg
Schwabach
Augsburg
Dr. Eck’s 404 Articles, March, 1530
• To our glorious Lord and Imperial Majesty, Charles V,
Emperor of Rome:
• All Catholics believe that…the Lord would work the
salvation of the Christian world through your hand.
But Martin Luther, the Church’s enemy within the
Church, has refused to heed the high admonitions
addressed to him by your Majesty and hurled himself
into a veritable whirlpool of godlessness… He
blasphemes God; he has no reverence for saints or
sacraments and no respect for ecclesiastical or
secular magistrates… He kindles the fires of sedition
throughout the empire… Thus he has produced
Dr. Eck’s 404 Articles, March, 1530
a vast offspring, much worse than himself, bringing
forth broods of vipers. We must acknowledge as
Luther’s sons the iconoclasts, the Sacramentarians,
the Capernaites, the Neo-Hussites and their
descendants, the Anabaptists, the Neo-Epicureans
who declare the soul to be mortal, the enthusiasts,
also the Neo-Cerinthians who deny the deity of
Christ…
• In behalf of the faith and for the Church I have hastily
gathered these few [excerpts] out of their infinite
errors… I offer…to discuss in public the points below
noted against any assailant of the Catholic truth, so
as to establish our dogmas and overthrow the false
dogmas of the adversaries.
I. Concerning God
• Eck had charged Luther with
being an Arian and a Manichaean
II. Concerning Original Sin
•
There is an eternal being with whom we
must deal.
– There are absolutes in the world.
•
Original Sin
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Origin
Extent (Romans 5; Psalm 51)
Nature = the great Lutheran definition
Result
Escape
THE HUMAN CONDITION
• Before the Fall: divinely created in God’s
image (fully human)
– Able to know and advance in knowledge
• Of God: fearing, loving, trusting above all things
• Of God’s creation: with wonder, gratitude,
dominion
– Able to choose (with a genuinely free will)
• What God commands (posse non peccare)
• Yet, being free and not a robot, also to choose
what God forbids (posse peccare)
This is our original righteousness.
THE HUMAN CONDITION
• What Scholastic teachers taught
– On account of our first parents’ disobedience, we
inherit in our bodies the penalty of their sin:
subjection to mortality
– This penalty does not render us totally helpless;
we retain a frustrated potential to be good and do
good.
– The penalty of our parents’ sin is totally removed
in baptism.
– Carnal desire (concupiscence) may lead to sin, but
being naturally human (like hunger and sleep), is
not sin of itself.
THE HUMAN CONDITION
• What the Augsburg Confession and its Apology teach
– Because of our first parents’ disobedience we inherit a
condition of total sinfulness and helplessness that renders
us guilty before God.
– This inherited sin has so corrupted our God-given human
nature that we are
• Unable to fear God with a perfect heart
• Unable to trust in God with a perfect heart
• Enmeshed in a love that turns away from God to self as
exhibited in self-glory, self-service, self-satisfaction, selfgratification
– In this condition we are enemies of God, our knowledge of
God blinded, our will to choose the good powerless (non
posse non peccare)
This is our fallen state of unrighteousness.
THE HUMAN CONDITION
• Our condition of sinfulness remains with us until
death, but the guilt of this inherited sin is removed in
baptism and we are clothed in the perfect
righteousness of our Savior Jesus.
• After this life (in heaven) our old sinful nature will be
laid aside and we will be perfected in the knowledge
of God and the will to be good and do good.
non posse peccare
D: 15-19
IV. Concerning Justification
•
•
The chief article of the Augsburg Confession
Three hammer blows (like the 95 Theses)
1. Powers
2. Merits
3. Works
V. Concerning Ministry in the Church
•
What church work is all about
1. Teaching the gospel
2. Administering the sacraments
•
Anabaptists and others (the Scholastics)
are condemned
VI. Concerning the New Obedience
• Good works result
from inner
compulsion, not
outward force
• Works commanded
by God in the Ten
Commandments
SCHOLASTIC TEACHING
• GRACE IS A QUALITY (rather than God’s favor)
INFUSED through the SACRAMENTS
• FAITH is mere KNOWLEDGE and of itself cannot
save
• SIN carries a double PENALTY
– Eternal: Christ removes through confession to a
priest
– Temporal: I remove through meritorious works of
penance
SCHOLASTIC TEACHING
• I DO HAVE STRENGTH but it remains paralyzed
until activated by infused grace.
• MY WORKS HAVE MERIT with strength
activated by infused grace my works satisfy
the temporal punishment of sins.
• MY WORKS JOINED TO FAITH PERFECT IT.
SCRIPTURE’S TEACHING
as presented in the Augsburg Confession
NOT by our STRENGTH
NOT by our MERITS
NOT by our WORKS
BUT
1. FREELY (by grace)
2. JUSTIFIED (forgiven)
3. THROUGH FAITH
– As TRUST that God’s FAVOR has smiled on me
– As TRUST that Christ has fully paid sin’s debt
– As TRUST that Christ’s SATISFACTION IS MINE
Faith does not
save because it
is a meritorious
good work.
Faith saves
because it is the
instrument
which enfolds
Christ and his
perfect merits.
The God-pleasing good that we do
1. Does not proceed from our strength
2. Has no spiritual merit of itself
3. Does not make faith perfect
BUT
is the spontaneous expression of grateful hearts
redeemed by Christ.
D: 20-21
THE BENCHMARKS OF
LUTHERANISM
1st Benchmark: All Scripture is Law and
Gospel. (AAC IV:5 p. 83)
2nd Benchmark: Only the Word of God
shall establish articles of faith. (SA
II:15 p. 266)
3rd Benchmark: God does not deal with
us except through Word and
Sacrament. (SA VIII:10 p. 281)
VII. Concerning the Church
• Lutheran apostolicity
• The assembly of saints in which
– The gospel is taught purely
– The sacraments are administered rightly
• True unity is not outward unity
VIII. What is the Church?
• Those who truly believe, the assembly of
saints
• Christ’s institution makes the sacraments and
the Word effective
• Donatists
– Donatus the Great of Carthage d. ca. 355
– Controversy until 7th century when the Saracens
destroyed the church in Africa
D: 22-23
IX. Concerning Baptism
• A long defense of Baptism was not necessary
• Eck’s 404 Theses had mixed Lutherans with
Swiss Protestants and Enthusiasts
• Luther: We are required to obey God’s
ordered power regarding baptism.
X. Concerning the Lord’s Supper
• A Torgau Article
• Swiss Protestants rejected the Augsburg
Confession because of this article
• To please Calvin, Melanchthon later dropped
– “distributed” and substituted “exhibited”
– “They disapprove of those who teach otherwise.”
D: 24
XI. Concerning Confession
•
•
•
•
Private confession has not been discarded
Stresses absolution
Nothing more comforting than the oral word
Why did the Pontifical Confutation reject the
second half?
• 1215: 4th Lateran Council – private confession
at least once a year
XII. Concerning Repentance
•
Repentance:
1. Contrition
2. Faith
•
•
Supererogation = beyond the normal call of
duty to love God and serve fellowman
(fasting, pilgrimage, etc.)
Perfectionism: Methodists
D: 25-26
XIII. Concerning the Use of Sacraments
• vs. Enthusiasts and Swiss Protestants
• The Holy Spirit kindles and preserves faith
• Ex opere operato = by the mere performance of the
act
• Absolution a sacrament?
• Lombard’s (d. 1160) Sentences: 7 Sacraments;
adopted in 1510
• Catholic sacrament: A sacred ceremony which has
the command of God and through which grace is
conferred to the heart
XIV. Concerning Church Order
• To assure papists they follow good order; not
like the Enthusiasts
• Papacy: bishop places priests
• The Christian community calls the individual;
the individual must not foist himself on the
community.
XV. Concerning Church Regulations
XVI. Concerning Public Order and
Secular Government
• Inserted because of war with Turks
S
C
C
S
C
S
Amish
S
C
Lutheran
Catholic
State
Church
abortion ?
divorce ?
gay rights ?
war ?
taxes ?
XVII. Concerning the Return of Christ
to Judgment
• Anabaptists taught a
universal restitution
theory
• Jehovah’s Witnesses
teach annihilation and
millennialism
– like Jewish hope for an
earthly Messiah
– See Mt 19:28 and 1 Cor
15:27
• Mt 19:28 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at
the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits
on his glorious throne, you who have followed me
will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel.
• 1 Cor 15:27 For he "has put everything under his
feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been
put under him, it is clear that this does not include
God himself, who put everything under Christ.
Premillenialism
Postmillenialism
Range of Bible Chapters
Schemes
7 or 8 Dispensational
Scheme
4 Dispensational
Scheme
3 Dispensational
Scheme
(minimalist)
Genesis 1-3
Genesis 3-8
Genesis 9-11
Genesis 12
to Exodus 19
Exodus 20 to
Acts 1
Acts 2 to
Revelation 20
Revelation 20:4-6
Revelation 20-22
Innocence
or Edenic
Conscience
or Antediluvian
Civil Government
Patriarchal
or Promise
Mosaic
or Law
Grace
or Church
Millennial Kingdom
Eternal State
or Final
Mosaic
Ecclesial
Zionic
Grace
Kingdom
Patriarchal
Law
XVIII. Concerning Free Will
• Luther vs. Erasmus
– On the Free Will 1524
– On the Bondage of the Will 1525
• We have a measure of freedom
“among the things reason
comprehends”
• Augustine did not write Hypognosticon
• Melanchthon added the antithesis later
– Would the PC have accepted this?
The Bondage of the Will
• If we believe that original sin has so destroyed
us, that even in the godly who are led by the
Spirit, it causes the utmost molestation by
striving against that which is good; it is
manifest, that there can be nothing left in a
man devoid of the Spirit, which can turn itself
towards good, but which must turn towards
evil! If we believe that Christ redeemed men
by His blood, we are compelled to confess,
that the whole man was lost: otherwise, we
shall make Christ superfluous.
• Eph 2:4 But because of his great love for us,
God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive
with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions--it is by grace you have been
saved. 10 For we are God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
• Rom 8:7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It
does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
XIX. Concerning the Cause of Sin
• God is not the author of sin
– Satan is the source of his own
sin
– I inherit sin from my parents
• Nature is good but sin affects it
• Was there a flaw in creation?
• “Anything that is not eternal, by
the mere fact that it is not
eternal, can change.”
(Augustine)
XX. Concerning Faith and Good Works
• A repeat of Article IV on justification and
Article VI on sanctification
10: “by works and can merit grace despise
Christ”
• Eph 2:8,9
• Augustine
• 23: not the faith of the devil and ungodly
• 27: good works “for God’s sake and to God’s
praise”
XXI. Concerning the Cult of the Saints
•
•
•
•
Sect = split from a church
Cult = new teachings
“Dienst” = service
Is it proper to celebrate saints’ days in
the Lutheran Church?
THE END OF PART ONE
XXII. Concerning Both Kinds of the
Sacrament
• Not a divisive issue any
longer but of historical
interest
• Corpus Christi in late 1200s
because of
transubstantiation
XXIII. Concerning the
Marriage of Priests
• Luther: God’s Spirit permits the body its way
and its natural work. Thus God does not
take away from people their male and
female form. The goodness of the body
removed that strong opposition between
flesh and spirit that glorified asceticism as
the perfect way of life. God is pleased with
matrimony.
• Karlstadt thought a bishop must marry.
• Celibacy for clergy began in Spain; enforced
in 1070s by Pope Gregory VII
?
XXIV. The Mass
• 1-2: We have not abolished the Mass
• 9: Celebrated with great devotion
• 10: The more masses the shorter the stay
in purgatory?
• 14: No correction by bishops.
• 21: The Mass was turned into man’s work
to God
• 25-29: The evangelical perspective
XXV. Concerning Confession
• 3: Absolution is the
voice of God
• 4: John 20 “Whosoever
sins you…”
• 7: Consciences should
not be burdened
XXVI. Concerning the
Distinction of Foods
• Paragraphs 1-17 Human traditions kept as being
meritorious
• Paragraphs 18-29 Human traditions have not
been commanded
• Paragraphs 30-39 Bodily discipline is good
• Paragraphs 40-45 Traditions are wholesome for
good order
AC XXVII MONASTIC VOWS
• Part I: 1-17 The development of
monasticism
• Part II: 18-35 Vows can not nullify the
command and institution of God
• Part III: 36-62 Every service of God
instituted by man to merit justification
without the command of God is wicked.
AC XXVIII ECCLESIASTICAL
POWER
• Part I: 1-29 The secular and spiritual power of
bishops must be differentiated.
• Part II: 30-78 The introduction of new usages in
the church.
– 31: “He will guide you into all the truth” is
used to defend the teaching that
pronouncements by the pope have the same
authority as the Bible.
– 70: The most hard-hitting statement in the
AC