LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 197

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

Theology and Church Relations
and Timothy Rossow (Steadfast Lutherans), with other confessional
Lutherans they invite, to
• consider, improve, and revise with necessary additions the attached
“21st-Century Formula of Concord”;
• send the revised document to the 120 theologians (“representing 20
million Lutherans,” according to LCMS press releases) who gathered
in 2012 in Peachtree, Georgia, for the Conference on Confessional
Lutheranism and all of the Lutheran church bodies listed on pages
761–767 of the 2013 Lutheran Annual;
• invite confessional Lutherans all over the world for their comments and
suggestions;
• incorporate valid suggestions;
• and then present to the 2016 LCMS convention a “21st-Century
Formula of Concord” for adoption just prior to the 500th anniversary
of the Reformation. If adopted, send this “21st-Century Formula of
Concord” to other Christian churches all over the world to consider
and adopt for the beginning of a 21st-century reformation on the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation on October 31, 2017.

A 21st-Century
Formula of Concord
Introduction:
God has given us unlimited evangelistic power through His
Living Word. A clear understanding of the biblical doctrine
of the Word is absolutely essential to an effective approach to
evangelism and missions. The Word is absolutely an effective
approach to evangelism and missions. The Word is efficacious.
Martin Luther’s approach to the Word, is solidly biblical, is
indeed exciting: in fact, it is so inspiring, it is so energizing,
that if this understanding of the Word were recaptured today,
there would be a new Reformation and a phenomenal mission
and evangelism threat, even among Lutherans (see footnote 82,
“The Key to It All: The Living Word”).
WE AFFIRM AND CONFESS:
A. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

The plenary divine inspiration of the Scriptures in the original languages, their consequent inerrancy and infallibility, and,
as the Word of God, the supreme and final authority in faith
and life. The Bible (not modern science, philosophy, tradition,
reason, visions, etc.) is the only source and authority of a Christian’s faith and life.
1. We teach that the Holy Scriptures differ from all other books in the
world in that they are the Word of God. They are the Word of God
because the holy men of God who wrote the Scriptures wrote only
that which the Holy Ghost communicated to them by inspiration,
2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21. We teach also that the verbal inspiration of
the Scriptures is not a so-called “theological deduction,” but that it
is taught by direct statements of Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:16; John 10:35;
Rom. 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:13. Since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of
God, it goes without saying that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth,
also in those parts which treat of historical, geographical, and other
secular matters, John 10:35.
2. We furthermore teach regarding the Holy Scriptures that they are
given by God to the Christian Church for the foundation of faith,
Eph. 2:20. Hence the Holy Scriptures are the sole source from which
all doctrines proclaimed in the Christian Church must be taken and
therefore, too, the sole rule and norm by which all teachers and doctrines must be examined and judged.
3. We reject the doctrine which under the name of science has gained
wide popularity in the Church of our day that Holy Scripture is not
in all its parts the Word of God, but in part the Word of God and in
part the word of man and hence does, or at least, might, contain error. We reject this erroneous doctrine as horrible and blasphemous,
since it flatly contradicts Christ and His holy apostles, sets up men

197

as judges over the Word of God, and thus overthrows the foundation
of the Christian Church and its faith.1

We therefore reject the following views:
1. That the Holy Scriptures are inspired only in the sense that all Christians are “inspired” to confess the lordship of Jesus Christ.
2. That the Holy Spirit did not inspire the actual words of the biblical
authors but merely provided these men with special guidance.
3. That only those matters in Holy Scriptures were inspired by the
Holy Spirit which directly pertain to Jesus Christ and man’s salvation.
4. That we should regard non-canonical writings (Christian tradition)
as “inspired” in the same sense as Holy Scripture.
5. That portions of the New Testament witness to Jesus Christ contain
imaginative additions which had their origin in the early Christian
community and do not present actual facts.2

Historic Christianity has always maintained that whatever
the New Testament asserts about the Old Testament, or any part
thereof, is in principle the dogmatically binding position, to the
exclusion of all other interpretations. The Holy Scriptures demand the affirmation, on dogmatic grounds, of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the
unity of Isaiah (that the eighth-century-bc prophet Isaiah wrote
the entire book of Isaiah), and the historicity of Genesis and
Jonah. The Old Testament directly and consciously predicts a
personal Messiah.
While the testimony of Scriptures settles the Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the Bible for the Christian, there is
no scholarly reason why we must reject the Mosaic authorship
of these books.
The view that these books came from certain sources designated by scholars as J, E, D, and P:
a. Contradicts the plain statements of the Old
Testament and of the New Testament that Moses is
the author of the Pentateuch.
b. Contradicts the internal linguistic evidence of the
Pentateuch.
c. Is a theory that has been built up by arbitrary and
high-handed procedures.
d. Is a theory that leads to absurdities.
e. Is a theory built upon a vicious and impossible
principle, namely, the evolution of religion,
whereby the religion of the Israelites has been
a gradual and natural growth from the lower to
the higher, and it leaves no room or purpose for
the supernatural, the divine, the revealed. Such
premises are repudiated by every conception
of bibliology and of God which the Scriptures
contain.3
The New Testament quotes Isaiah more than all the other
prophets put together. Further, the New Testament leaves no
doubt that Isaiah was the author of the entire Book of Isaiah.4
The authorship of the Book of Daniel is settled for the Christian by the words of Christ. The sixth-century prophet Daniel
wrote the Book of Daniel.5
The Book of Genesis presents an accurate historical record
of what took place in real history and not in some realm “above
and beyond history.” The Lord Jesus, who is God, the Second
Person in the Holy Trinity, accepted the Genesis creation account as historical fact. God created the world by His almighty
power in six ordinary days and not through a gradual process of
evolution that required millions of years. While the Bible is not
a scientific textbook and is written in popular language, it does
not present an outmoded, naïve view of the universe.6
2013 Convention Workbook