Introduction
Luther and the other confessional writers, did not want to be doctrinal
innovators. They, together with their contemporary descendants, maintain that we believe
and teach nothing more and nothing less than what the Scriptures themselves teach and what
Christians through the ages have always believed. We therefore consider ourselves to be
catholic (small "c"), which means "universal." At the same time, we
have always thought of ourselves as evangelical (in some countries, the Lutheran Church is
still today referred to as simply the Evangelical Church), since the evangel -- the
Gospel, the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the sins of the
world -- is at the heart and core of everything we believe and teach. We Lutherans,
therefore, can rightly be regarded as evangelical catholics. Standing firmly in the
tradition of the trinitarian and Christological formulations of the 4th and 5th centuries,
we believe that sinners are justified (declared right) with the Creator God by grace alone
(sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), on the basis of Scripture alone (sola
scriptura).
The Apostles' Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and Earth
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God
the Father Almighty.
From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Christian Church,*
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the lifer everlasting. Amen
* The ancient text: the holy catholic Church
The Commission on Worship of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
(1982). Lutheran Worship. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 186.
The Nicene Creed
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father,
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried.
And the third day he rose again
according to the Scriptures
and ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of the Father.
And he will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead,
whose kingdom will have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshiped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church,*
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
* The ancient text: one holy catholic and apostolic Church
The Commission on Worship of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
(1982). Lutheran Worship. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 185-186.
The Athanasian Creed
Quicunque Vult
Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the catholic faith.
Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally.
Now this is the catholic faith:
We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor
dividing the divine being.
For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another.
But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in
majesty.
What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.
Uncreated is the Father; the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.
The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.
Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit.
And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal;
as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings, but one who is uncreated and
unlimited.
Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit;
And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty.
Thus the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God;
And yet there are not three gods, but one God.
Thus the Father is Lord; the Son is Lord; the Holy Spirit is Lord;
And yet there are not three lords, but one Lord.
As Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so
catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten;
the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father;
the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son.
Thus there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not
three spirits.
And in this Trinity, no one is before or after, greater or less than the other;
but all three persons are in themselves, coeternal and coequal; and so we must worship the
Trinity in unity and the one God in three persons.
Whoever wants to be saved should think thus about the Trinity.
It is necessary for eternal salvation that one also faithfully believe that our Lord Jesus
Christ became flesh.
For this is the true faith that we believe and confess: That our Lord Jesus Christ, God's
Son, is both God and Man.
He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the father,
and is man, born in the world from the being of his mother-
existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body;
equal to the Father in divinity, subordinate to the Father in humanity.
Although he is God and man, he is not divided, but is one Christ.
He is united because God has taken humanity into himself; he does not transform deity into
humanity.
He is completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures.
For as the rational soul and body are one person, so the one Christ is God and man,
He suffered death for our salvation.
He descended into hell and rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all people shall rise bodily to give an account of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith.
One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.
Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship. (1978). Lutheran Book
of Worship (3rd print). Minneapolis: Augsburg. 54-55.
The unaltered Augsburg Confession
Under date of Jan. 21, 1530, Emperor Charles V summoned an imperial
diet to meet the following April in Augsburg, Germany. He desired a united front in
his military operations against the Turks, and this seemed to demand that an end be made
of the religious disunity which had been introduced at home as a result of the
Reformation. Accordingly he invited the princes and representatives of free cities
in the empire to discuss the religious differences at the forthcoming diet in the hope of
overcoming them and restoring unity. In keeping with this invitation the elector of
Saxony asked his theologians in Wittenberg to prepare an account of the beliefs and
practices in the churches of his land. Since a statement of doctrines, known as the
Schwabach Articles, had already been prepared in the summer of 1529, all that seemed to be
needed now was an additional statement concerning the changes in practice which had been
made in the churches of Saxony. Such a statement was therefore prepared by the
Wittenberg theologians, and since it is commonly referred to as the Torgau Articles.
Together with other documents, the Schwaback and the Torgau Articles
were taken to Augsburg. There it was decided to make a common Lutheran statement,
rather than merely a Saxon statement, of the account which was to be submitted to the
emperor. Circumstances also demanded that it be made clear in the statement that
Lutherans were not casually to be lumped together with all the other opponents of Rome,
and other considerations suggested the desirability of emphasizing the agreements with
Rome rather than the differences from Rome. All these factors played a part in
determining the character of the document which was now prepared under the hands of Philip
Melanchthon. The Schwabach Articles became the principal basis for the second part
of what came to be the Augsburg Confession. Luther, who was not present in Augsburg,
was consulted through correspondence, but revisions and emendations were made to the very
eve of the formal presentation to the emperor on June 25, 1530. Signed by seven
princes and the representatives of two free cities, the confession immediately achieved
peculiar importance as a public declaration of faith.
In accordance with the emperor's instructions, texts of the confession
were prepared and presented in both German and Latin. The actual reading before the
diet was from the German text, which may therefore be regarded as more
official. Unfortunately neither the German nor the Latin text is extant in the exact
forms in which these were submitted. However, more than fifty copies dating from the
year 1530 have been found, including drafts which represent various stages in the
preparation before June 25 as well as copies with a variety of new changes in wording made
after June 25. These versions have been the object of extended critical study on the
part of many scholars, and a German and a Latin text have been reconstructed which can
claim to be close to, even if not identical with, the documents presented to the emperor.
There are differences between the two texts.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 23-24.
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession
Emperor Charles V's summons to the diet which was to meet in
Augsburg in 1530 requested that a statement of faith be presented not only by the princes
and representatives of free cities who called themselves Evangelical but also by those who
remained loyal to Rome (see above, Augsburg Confession). Instead, two days after the
Augsburg Confession had been read in the diet, the Roman party decided to prepare an
answer to and refutation of the Lutheran document. This task was committed to a
commission of theologians headed by the papal legate. After a first draft proved
unsatisfactory, a shorter, abler, and more irenic statement was prepared, and this was the
"Roman Confutation" which the Augsburg Confession had previously been
read. The emperor promptly demanded that the Evangelicals acknowledge that their
position had been refuted, and until they did so he refused to let them have a copy of the
Confutation.
Despite this handicap, the adherents of the Augsburg Confession decided
to prepare a reply to the Roman Confutation on the basis of notes hastily taken during the
public reading. The preparation was entrusted especially to Philip
Melanchthon. Work on the reply was delayed by Melanchthon's participation during
August in a series of conferences with Roman theologians intended to reconcile differences
between the two parties. However, the first draft of the Apology of the Augsburg
Confession was ready for submission on September 22. The document was refused by the
emperor.
On his journey back to Wittenberg Melanchthon began to revise and
expand the Apology, and he continue to work on it for months, aided at last by receipt of
a copy of the Confutation, presumably from Nuremberg. In its enlarged form the
Apology was published at the end of April or beginning of May, 1531. At first
regarded as a private publication of Melanchthon, it became an official confession of
faith when it was signed, along with the Augsburg Confession, in Smalcald in 1537 (see
below, Smalcald Articles). It is important as a contemporary commentary on the
Augsburg confession by the principal author of that Confession.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 97-98.
The Smalcald Articles
During the early years of the Reformation Luther and others proposed
again and again that a general council of the church be convened to discuss and arbitrate
the questions of doctrine and practice that were in controversy. When sterner
measures had failed to extirpate the Protestant heresies, Pope Paul III finally called a
council in June, 1536, to meet in Mantua the following May. Although the council did
not actually convene until 1545, and then in Trent, the papal summons confronted the
Lutherans with the necessity of deciding what their attitude toward such a council should
be. This was especially necessary since the situation was no longer the same as it
had been when Luther first appealed to a council.
Under these circumstances the elector of Saxony instructed Luther in a
letter of Dec. 11, 1536, to prepare a statement indicating the articles of faith in which
concessions might be made for the sake of peace and the articles in which no concessions
could be made. Luther set to work at once on what came to be called "The
Smalcald Articles." By Dec. 28 the document was ready for review by a small
group of theologians assembled in Wittenberg, who, among other things, proposed the
addition of the section on the invocation of saints. The first eight signatures were
affixed at this time, Philip Melanchthon's with a reservation.
The elector of Saxony then took the Articles to Smalcald, where
representatives of the Smalcald League met on Feb. 8, 1537, in the hope of having the
document adopted. This hope was not realized. Partly because Luther's
continued illness prevented him from attending and throwing the weight of his personal
influence behind the proposed adoption and partly because Melanchthon succeeded in
persuading the princes that the Articles would only precipitate doctrinal disputes among
the members of the League. Although not officially endorsed at Smalcald, the
Articles were signed by many of the clergymen who were present in token of their personal
adherence to the faith expressed therein. In later years the Articles were looked
upon with growing favor as a witness to genuine Lutheranism, and as such they were finally
incorporated in the Book of Concord.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 287-288.
Luther's Small Catechism
Several years before he put his own hand to the task, Luther had
suggested to some of his friends that they prepare a catechism for the instruction of
children. Finally Lutheran himself undertook to fill the need, impelled especially
by dismay over the ignorance of the people whom he encountered when he visited parishes in
Saxony during the fall of 1528. Before and after this visitation, as often in
earlier years, Lutheran preached several series of sermons in Wittenberg on the Ten
Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the sacraments, and he used these sermons
as a basis for the preparation of his Large Catechism.
In December, 1528, while he was still working on the Large Catechism,
Luther also began on the text of the Small Catechism. As they were finished, its
original five parts were printed on large charts, and about the middle of May, 1529, the
completed Small Catechism was made available in an illustrated booklet. For this
edition in book form Luther furnished the Preface at the beginning and the Table of Duties
at the close. Other writings of Luther were later added, probably by the printers
with or without Luther's consent: A short Form for Marriage, A Short Form for Baptism, and
the Litany.
Although prepared simultaneously and utilizing the same materials, the
Small Catechism is not merely a condensation of the Large Catechism, nor is the Large
Catechism simply an expansion of the Small Catechism. The tone is different, for
there is not a trace in the Small Catechism of the polemics which punctuate the Large, and
the intended audience is different, for the Small Catechism was written for use in the
households of plain people while the Large was addressed particularly to the clergy.
The high esteem in which the Small Catechism was held is reflected in its incorporation in
many church orders of the sixteenth century and in several early collections of
confessional statements. It was quite natural, therefore, that it should be taken up
into the Book of Concord.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 337-338.
Luther's Large Catechism
Once the Evangelical churches had achieved some external stability,
the need was to strengthen them internally. Luther had already produced a number of
sermons and pamphlets, beginning as far back as 1516, to present popular instruction on
basic elements of Christian doctrine. In 1525 he assigned to his friends Justus
Jonas and John Agricola the task of composing a book of religious instruction for
children, which he referred to as a "catechism." When this work suffered
delay, as did also an attempt in 1528 by Philip Melanchthon, Luther took the initiative
again. He assigned to Melanchthon the composition of the "Instruction to the
Visitors of the clergy in the Electorate of Saxony" (1528) while he himself undertook
the preparation of a catechism.
The immediate background material consists of three series of sermons
which Luther preached in May, September, and November-December, 1528, and March,
1529. Before these sermons were ended Luther was at work writing the Large
Catechism. Parts of it were sent to the press before the whole was completed, which
helps to explain the discrepancies in the text of the Ten commandments.
In April, 1529, the "German Catechism" appeared, printed by
George Rhaw in Wittenberg. (The title "Large Catechism" is not
Luther's.) Later the same year Luther issued a revised edition which added an
"Exhortation to Confession," a lengthy insertion in the introduction to the
explanation of the Lord's Prayer, and several marginal notes. This edition was the
first to be illustrated, some of the cuts coming from Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Another edition appeared in 1530, furnished with a second and larger preface which had
probably been composed at the Coburg. The last revision corrected by Luther himself
came out in 1538.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 357.
The Formula of Concord
In the wake of Luther's death (1546) and the military defeat (1547) of
Lutheran princes and estates, a series of controversies about the "pure
doctrine" of the Reformation threatened to split the Lutherans into two camps: an
increasingly isolated "Gnesio-Lutheran" party claiming to adhere to the original
teachings of Martin Luther and initially led by Matthias Flacius, and a
"Philippist" party composed of followers of Philip Melanchthon who carried their
mentor's insights to extremes. The desire for unification was abetted by strong
political pressures from both Roman Catholic and Calvinist sides.
The open breach among Lutherans that the Colloquy of Worms (1557)
revealed led to two ineffective conferences of princes at Frankfurt-on-the-Main (1558) and
Naumburg (1561). Beginning in 1568, a theological solution for the rift was
attempted with generous moral and financial support from the princes. The first
formula proposed was James Andreae's five-article "Confession and Brief
Explanation," expanded in 1573 in his "Six Christian Sermons." A
recasting of the contents in the latter year produced the "Swabian
Concord." A reworking of this document, largely by Martin Chemnitz in the light
of comments from theological faculties and conferences and individual theologians,
resulted in the "Swabian-[Lower] Saxon Concord" (1575). In the following
year Luke Osiander and Balthasar Bidembach were directed to draft another proposal, the
so-called "Maulbronn Formula." With the exposure of the Crypto-Calvinist
Conspiracy in Electoral Saxony, Elector August joined the movement for unification; in the
late spring of 1576 he convoked a conference of theologians in Torgau, where the
Swabian-Saxon Concord and the Maulbronn Formula were combined into the so-called
"Torgau Book," which Andreae summarized in the Epitome (or first part) of the
Formula of Concord. After being sent to all interested territories for comment, the
Torgau Book was reworked at Bergen Abbey into the Solid Declaration (or second part) of
the Formula of Concord, the so-called "Bergen Book" (1577).
During the next three years, while the Preface went through draft after
draft, 8,188 theologians, ministers, and teachers in the participating territories signed
the Solid Declaration. Finally, on June 25, 1580, fifty years to the day after the
reading of the Augsburg Confession before Charles V, the complete Book of Concord was
placed on sale.
Tappert, Theodore G. et. al, (Eds.). (1959). The Book of
Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press. 463-464.
The Book of Concord
The Book of Concord is a collection of many of the writings the
Lutheran church has grounded its' faith on, namely, The three ecumenical creeds, The
Augsburg Confession, Apology of the Augsburg Confession, The Smalcald Articles, Treatise
on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, Luther's Small and Large Catechisms, and the Formula
of Concord.
For further information on the Lutheran faith, see: The article What Do Lutherans Believe by By Dr. Samuel Nafzger, a text summary of the
Lutheran Faith. and The home page of Pastor Theodore (Ted) Earl Mayes (LCMS), an excellent source of Lutheran
teachings and history.
The Book of Concord
