“PRESENTATION OF AUGUSTANA”
Saint Matthew 10: 26-33
Presentation of The Augsburg Confession: 25 June Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
“Fear them not” says Christ. Fear whom? Fear the Sanhedrin, Caiphas, the Pharisee; fear Herod, Pilate, Judas, Caesar? No! Fear them not. Fear disease, societal breakdown, unemployment, starvation, and homelessness? No. Fear Satan and his demons—both spiritual and human? You don’t. In fact, you pray twice daily: “let Thy holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me.”
But you should fear—FEAR God. “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me” The Lord wrote with His finger upon the stone tables He presented to Moses.
“Our Churches, with common consent, do teach…the unity of the Divine Essence and concerning the Three Person…there is one Divine Essence, which is called and which is God…and yet there are Three Persons, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost…” [AC I]
The Reformer—the “heart and soul” behind the Reformation, behind Philip Melanchthon’s authorship of the Augsburg Confession—the Reformer explicates: “we should FEAR, love, and trust in God above all things.” There is no true love and trust without fear of God. And yes, fear your own sins, your own “old Adam” sinful nature.
It is your own sinful self, yes, the “et peccator” of even the Christian, you, which falls daily in thought, word, and deed.
“We teach that since the fall of Adam, all men begotten according to nature, are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God…bringing eternal death upon those not born again through baptism and The Holy Ghost…” [AC II]
And so too the gathered community is not immune from error, from sin to be sure, and at times, from heterodoxy and even heresy. The Church of the late Middle Ages—the 15th and early 16th centuries—and fallen into a ditch. There were still Christians in Rome, in Germany, in all of Europe. There were still faithful priests who taught St. Paul, i.e., taught Holy Scripture and the blessed “Rule of Faith.” But institutionally things had been rotten for quite a while. Things were “covered,” and “hid.” The Gospel was imprisoned by the false teaching of the Pope and his minions. The Free Grace of God in Christ Jesus by faith and not of works was obscured, buried, and malformed into indulgences, non-Biblical works of self-piety, and most blasphemous—taking the Work of God in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar and turning it into the work of the priest.
But Luther did not fear. He and Melanchthon and Father Bugenhagen, and all the rest drank beer at the Royal Swan tavern in Wittenberg and trusted in God. The Reformers and those laity—the Princes, Electors, Margraves, Landgraves, city fathers, and all the rest, trusted in The Word. They loved God because He first loved them and gave them The Gospel of free remission of sins through Jesus’ blood and merit. They could love because they feared God.
Saints! Be not triumphal on this day. Cast no stones at your erring neighbor. Repent, and Fear God. Believe!
What The Christ spoke in “darkness” i.e., privately to the “12” before His time of Atonement was come, He would later speak openly and “in light” to His Apostles. They were to be martyrs. They were to be witnesses (that is what martyr means), witnesses in blood to the ends of the earth. They, along with Matthias, Paul, Barabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, and all the rest were to preach “Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins” upon the housetops, the synagogues, the temples, the forums, and in front of The Emperor himself.
By all accounts the Emperor Charles was a pious and good man. He loved the Church. The problem is that there is “no one that is good; no not one.” The Emperor under the sway and influence of his advisors, Pope Leo X, and well, his own “old Adam,” was held by his own blindness to the Gospel—the Pure Evangel of Melanchthon’s peaceful and conciliatory, and Catholic document.
He was in Augsburg Germany to meet, and to give audience to the German evangelicals—to hear their confession—their credo (I believe). The Augsburg Confession is the faith of the Church, not just the so-called Lutheran community. The Augsburg Confession “confesses” i.e., testifies and proclaims nothing contrary to the 3 Ecumenical Creeds, The Church Catholic (as its ancient and early “Fathers” wrote) nor Holy Scripture.
“We teach, that The Word, that is, The Son of God, did take man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures…truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, that He might reconcile The Father unto us, and be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but for all actual sins of men.” [AC III]
And while Charles did not bring an army with him to Augsburg to arrest and execute anyone running afoul of The Romanists, the threat of ex-communication and being declared an open and notorious “outlaw” was real—witness that Luther himself had to stay in hiding during the reading of the Augustana. And this was only 1530. Things would become decidedly more antagonistic, dangerous, and warlike in the decades to come: Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits, The Schmalkaldic League Wars, the siege of Magdeburg, the capture of Wittenberg itself. There would be martyrs. There will always be Martyrs. What about you? Which way Christian man, which way?
Which way? The way of Adam and Eve that clung to The Gospel Promise of Messiah being and doing all that was required. The way of David who spoke of Christ’s free grace and monergistic imputation of righteousness which covers all our sin. The way of The Apostle who confessed to the Roman, Galatians, Colossians, and to the Ephesians: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” [Eph. 2.8].
All leads to the ultimate Article in the Augsburg Confession, Article IV, which we all hold to the death against diabolical man, beast, demon, and the devil himself: “We teach that men cannot be Justified before God by their own strength, merits or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, Who, by His death, hath made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.” [AC IV, and The Word of The Lord—Rom 3 and 4]
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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