The Confession of Lutheranism

Similar to June 12th, which commemorates not a person in the Church but an event of the Church’s doctrinal history, June 25th commemorates another important occasion in the history of Christendom: the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession to Emperor Charles V.

This event of unparalleled significance for the Lutheran Church arose when the Lutheran princes and their theologians were asked to present their account of the faith before an imperial gathering. That account, now known as the Augsburg Confession, was read before the emperor on June 25, 1530.

However, like many stories of the Reformation, the history of the Augsburg Confession extends back further to Luther and the Diet of Worms in 1521. Almost nine years after this occasion when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther was called forth to defend his reform, Charles V once again turned his attention to the religious issues of the Reformation era and called the reforming princes to meet in Augsburg in January of 1530. At this meeting, it was decided that the princes who had introduced the Reformation would have a chance to present their religious teachings to Charles.

Due to Luther’s longstanding conflict with the emperor, he could not be present at the diet. Thus, the responsibility for developing the theological arguments that would be presented to the emperor fell primarily on the shoulders of Philipp Melanchthon.

In their preparation for the official meeting, Luther, Melanchthon, and friends met in Torgau in March of 1530 to develop documents now known as the Torgau Articles. Then, Melanchthon took the articles to Augsburg and revised them, creating the final document on June 23 that he called a confession. The final version of the document was sent out for publication, and the Saxon chancellor Christian Bayer read the Confession publicly before the Emperor just two days later.

Containing twenty-eight articles, the Augsburg Confession not only laid out the changes that Lutheran territories had made in their practice of Christinaity but also gave scriptural evidence for the corrections they had made. The articles also provided defenses against various false allegations that were directed at the reformers, defending their position and seeking to present a positive presentation of their theological understandings on the basis of the Bible’s teaching.

The entire confession concludes with a meditation on these reforms, with Melanchthon asserting: “In doctrine and ceremonies we have received nothing contrary to the Scriptures or the Church universal. It is clear that we have been very careful to make sure no new ungodly doctrine creeps into our churches.”

A Brief History

The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession has been long commemorated in the Lutheran Church because of the reformers’ assertion that the Lutherans were not the ones who had strayed away from the traditional theological understanding of the Church. Instead, their argument rested on the claim that their Roman opponents were the ones who had departed from the Church’s tradition by teaching contrary to Scripture.

In the document, the Lutherans were careful to stand unified in their beliefs and to demonstrate the ways in which their calls for reform were aligned with the Word of God. The Confession was meant to assert that the reformers were not against the Church but rather that their understandings of the catholic and apostolic faith were actually the tenets of theChurch. In other words, they were the teachings that had always been central to the Church since the beginning of Christianity in the time of the Apostles.

Thus, the presentation of this document to the emperor not only characterized and codified the Lutheran Church’s understanding of the faith but also provided the argument that the foundation on which the Lutheran reformation stood was grounded solely on the basis of the Word of God and Scriptural doctrine.

Even to this day, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod subscribes to the Augsburg Confession and upholds it as a primary confession of faith. While other Lutheran bodies have disregarded the truth of this document and instead viewed it as something to “take or leave,” our synod understands that this confession crafted by Melanchthon still speaks to the secular and spiritual disagreements that the Church faces—just as it did at the time of its creation. Further, just like other confessions of faith that we have explored here at All the Household (the Confession of St. Peter or the formulation of the Nicene Creed), this document is seen as important since it unites us in our understanding of God and the beliefs that we understand the Church as a whole to hold.

It is for these reasons that we join the Church in joyously remembering June 25th as a day of particular significance to our Lutheran understanding and practice: a day that reminds us to place the Word of God as a central feature of our doctrinal confession.

Collect

Lord God, heavenly Father, You preserved the teaching of the apostolic Church through the confession of the true faith at Augsburg. Continue to cast the bright beams of Your light upon Your Church that we, being instructed by the doctrine of the blessed apostles, may walk in the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Lessons

Resources

References:
1. Weedon, William. Celebrating the Saints. Concordia Publishing House. 2016.
2. Treasury of Daily Prayer. Concordia Publishing House. 2009.

Images:
1. Diet of Augsburg, Christian Beyer, Germany, 1665.
2. The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession painting in St. John’s Church in Schweinfurt, Germany, Unknown, Germany, ca. 16th century.
3. Balthasar Siegmund Setletzky, Allegory of the Augsburg Confession, Germany, 1730.

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