LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 109

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a Christian is a life of confession, and we who are
Lutherans are particularly aware of this truth. In the
Lutheran Church today, we are accustomed to celebrating the Festival of the Reformation on Oct. 31, the
day that in 1517 Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five
Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. What was Luther’s response to the false teaching
of his day? Confession. It started with the very first of
the Ninety-Five Theses, and it has continued for 500
years. The Lutheran Church began as a confessing
church. And as you know well, Martin Luther was not
the only confessor.
On June 25, 1530, the Augsburg Confession was
presented to Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire. This was the first public confession produced
by the Lutherans and subscribed to by all Lutheran
congregations. It was written by Philip Melanchthon,
who had depended extensively on the writings of
Martin Luther for its content. It was written to demonstrate that the Lutheran teaching was, simply put, the
teaching of the Bible and of historic Christianity. And
although it was a confession embraced only by the
Lutherans at that time, it was nevertheless a confession for all Christians. Because in all its teachings, in
everything it says, it is in complete agreement with the
Scriptures, and it faithfully teaches the pure Gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. The Augsburg Confession was
in many parts rejected by the Church of Rome. So the
Lutherans produced another confession, the Apology of
the Augsburg Confession. The Apology expanded upon
the teachings of the Augsburg Confession, laying out
at great length and with extreme clarity the scriptural
teaching of justification by grace through faith in Jesus
Christ. These two initial confessions were followed by
the Smalcald Articles, further clarifying the Lutheran
teaching over and against the false teachings of the
Roman Church. Eventually, the Formula of Concord
was written to clear up disagreements that arose after
the death of Luther, and all these confessions, together
with Luther’s two catechisms and the three ecumenical
creeds, were gathered together in 1580 into what we
call the Book of Concord.
“Whoever confesses me before men.” Every congregation of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and
every pastor and every commissioned minister subscribes to The Book of Concord and says on the day of
ordination or installation, “This is my confession.”

“Built on the Rock—Confess”

What a wondrous treasure we have in this unity of
confession!
And this treasure is even greater than at first might
be imagined. In The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod, we subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions in
a very specific way. There are two ways in which one
can state support for these Lutheran Confessions. We
have historically described these ways with two Latin
words, quia and quatenus. Quia means “because”;
quatenus means insofar as. Over the years, there
have been liberal Lutherans who have claimed that
they subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions “insofar”
as they agree with the Scriptures. At first glance,
this might sound rather pious. After all, we certainly
would not want to confess anything as true that is
in disagreement with the Scriptures. Unfortunately,
this kind of approach strongly implies that there are
statements, maybe many statements, in the Lutheran
Confessions that are not in agreement with the Bible.
To these statements a person with a so-called quatenus subscription would not want to agree. But a
quatenus subscription is really no subscription at all.
After all, I can subscribe to the Book of Mormon insofar as it agrees with the Scriptures. I can subscribe
to the Yellow Pages insofar as they agree with the
Scriptures. I suppose I could even subscribe to the
Koran insofar as it agrees with the Scriptures! To say,
“I subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions insofar as
they agree with the Scriptures” is actually to say, “I do
not subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions.”
In all faithful Lutheran churches, a quia subscription
to the Lutheran Confessions has always been the
practice—by pastors, by teachers, by congregations.
The service of ordination in our Lutheran Agenda
gives a good example of how faithful Lutherans
subscribe to the Book of Concord. The question is
asked of a man who is seeking ordination as a pastor.
This is not the only question, of course, but one of
many, and it is a very important question. It follows
immediately questions about the pastor’s commitment
to the Scriptures and the ecumenical creeds.
Here’s the question:
Do you confess the Unaltered Augsburg Confession to be a true exposition of Holy Scripture and a correct exhibition of the doctrine
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church? And do
you confess that the Apology of the Augsburg
U P O N T H I S R O C K Essay

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