LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 15

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DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 15
THE DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS
A Confessional Church in Christendom and in the World

I

The Inspired Word and the
Lutheran Confessions

Herbert J. A. Bouman
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

It is highly appropriate and profoundly meaningful
to begin the series of theological studies planned for
this convention with a consideration of the inspired
Word of God and the Lutheran Symbols, or Confessions.
The Lutheran Church is committed to the Bible. This
commitment is in the framework of history. As the
ancient church formulated its loyalty to Scripture truth
in creeds, so the Lutheran Church has built on and
carried forward this loyalty and projected it into the
future..

It is highly appropriate, furthermore, that these
theological studies are to be presented within the frame-
work of worship, in-a devotional setting. All of theology
and religion, as well as the church in all its being and
work, has to do with the true knowledge, faith, wor-
ship, and service of God. The Bible itself was produced
under God by and for the people of God, and its com-
ponent parts were gathered into their final collection
in the worship life of the church. Also the great creeds
of the church are intimately associated with the mission
and growth of the church.

The great Reformation periods of the church were
great because they revolved around the acknowledg-
ment of the true God revealed in Jesus Christ and
confessed as Lord of all through the Holy Spirit, and
the resolute rejection of every man-made and man-
centered abridgment of the honor that belongs to God
alone. And this is worship in the highest and truest
sense of the term.

The 16th-century Reformation was centered in an
overpowering concern to cast down every idol throne
and let God reign supreme and reign alone as the
sovereign Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of life and
to confess: “Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord.
Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most
high in the glory of God the Father.” And that is wor-
ship in the deepest meaning of the word.

The Lutheran Symbols are the abiding fruit of that
holy hour of church history. There is an atmosphere
of awe and adoration about the Lutheran Symbols.
They are truly confessions. The Christians who made
them their own gave expression to their devotion to
the Triune God in humble awareness of their own sin-
fulness and frailty, yet in courageous affirmation of their
hearts’ convictions and above all in joyful and exu-
berant doxology of the incredible grace of God that
prompted His mighty acts “for us men and for our
salvation.” The Confessions teem with strong .avowals

of faith, with tender prayers, and with exultant hymns
of praise. When the Confessors “believe, teach, and
confess,” they do so in the presence of God, ears and
hearts open to His Word and will, and their faith, doc-
trine, and confession is but the adoring echo of what
they were convinced God was saying to them in the
Scriptures.

The approach of the Lutheran Confessors to the
Scriptures is therefore a thoroughly existential one,
not a detached, objective, academic consideration of
a doctrine about the Bible, replete with learned specula-
tion about its composition and awe-inspiring analysis of
its development — while its unique and utterly practical
power for faith and life have been allowed to fall by
the wayside.

It is as if the bird outside my window, recklessly
trilling his melodious rhapsodies in praise of the Creator,
intrigued me academically and made me curious to
isolate that song and analyze the structure of the music.
To do so I kill the bird and proceed to dismember him
bit by bit, being careful to label each fragment with
scrupulous precision. But the sweet song is forever
silenced.

The Lutheran Symbols have no such interest in the
Scriptures. In fact, to list the items in which they show
no interest is to give a very good idea of what their
real concerns are. They have no time for questions per-
taining to the how, the when, the where, and the from
where. They take for granted, out of a certainty born
of faith in the Lord, that the prophetic and apostolic
writings of the Old and New Testaments are “the Scrip-
ture of the Holy Spirit,” “the Word of God,” the eternal
truth, pure, unalloyed, infallible, unalterable, the sole
authority for all doctrine in the church. They are in-
terested in the what and the what for. When they speak
of the Bible, they speak of it as containing everything
that a “Christian must know for his salvation” or as
“the Word that alone brings salvation.” For the Lu-
therans the key to the Bible is to be found in the doctrine
of justification by faith. Of this doctrine the Apology
says: “It is of especial service for the clear, correct un-
derstanding of the entire Holy Scriptures, and alone
shows the way to the unspeakable treasure and right
knowledge of Christ, and alone opens the door to the
entire Bible.” (Ap. IV, 2, German text)

The Lutheran Confessions like to think of the con-
tent of the Bible in terms of the works of God. “These
are the two chief works of God in men: to terrify, and
to justify and quicken the terrified. One or the other
of these works is spoken of throughout Scripture. One
part is the Law, which reveals, denounces, and con-
demns sin. The other part is the Gospel, that is, the
promise of grace granted in Christ. This promise is
repeated continually throughout Scripture; first it was
given to Adam, later to the patriarchs, then illumined