Sorry friends, I had every good intention of posting Sunday on the confessions, but the weekend had other plans. The good news: the seatbacks are fully installed for Razorback game day and the marching band has raised more money for their fall trip. The bad news: I’m late.
We are now week three into this year-long series on the confessional documents. The first installment was an introduction to the series, and in the second installment we dove right into the Large Catechism with a meditation on “worship theft.” The whole series is for paid subscribers of this blog, but if you want to follow along and just can’t subscribe right now, drop me a note.
Today we’re going to go to the very beginning (literally). The Augsburg Confessions, which are arguably the most important confessions in the Lutheran Confessions, begin with the article: Concerning God.
I’m going to go ahead and quote it here in full from the most contemporary translation of The Book of Concord. Note that the Augsburg Confession was originally published in 1531 in two languages: German and Latin. There are slight variations between the two, but for the sake of this post, I’m only quoting the German version (here translated into English by Timothy Wengert).
In the first place, it is with one accord taught and held, following the decree of the Council of Nicea, that there is one divine essence which is named God and truly is God. But there are three persons in the same one essence, equally powerful, equally eternal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are one divine essence, eternal, undivided, unending, of immeasurable power, wisdom, and goodness, the creator and preserver of all visible and invisible things. What is understood by the word ‘person’ is not a part nor a quality in another but that which exists by itself, as the Fathers once used the word concerning this issue.
Rejected therefore, are all the heresies that are opposed to this article, such as the Manichaeans, who posited two gods, one good and one evil; the Valentinians, the Arians, the Eunomians, the Mohammedans, all all others like them; also the Samostenians, old and new, who hold that there is only one person and create a deceitful sophistry about the other two, the Word and the Holy Spirit, by saying that the two need not be two distinct persons since ‘Word’ means an external word or voice and the ‘Holy Spirit’ is a created motion in all creatures.
There’s a lot going on in this first confession, so let’s unpack it a bit.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Lutheran Confessions to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.