CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY

In Many, Much RICHARD R CAEMMERER SR The Reforming Role of Religious Communities in the History of Western Christianity CARL VOLZ Biblical Humanism and Roman Catholic Reform: (1501-1542) Contarini, Pole, and Giberti MARVIN W. ANDERSON Notes on "Spirit-Baptism" and ''Prophetic Utterance" VICTOR BARTLING Our Common Confession and Its Implications for Today ROBERT W. BERTRAM Brief Studies Homiletics Book Review

~ol XXXIX November 1968 No. 10 OUf CO~-Dn Confession an.J Implica =ions :~or l'oday

ROBERT '.7. BERTRAM

EDITORIAL NOTE: At its recent Fourth placing it with is His own new order. The World Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden, the World old order, because it is His, is ultimate. Council of Churches featured three speakers from three worldwide sectors of Christendom "For truly I say to you, till heaven and that do not, at present, hold membership in the earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will WCC: one from the Roman Catholic Church, pass from the law until all is accomplished" one from the Pentecostalist churches of the world, and the present author, who spoke, (Matt. 5: 18). But because this old order, though unofficially, as a member of The Lu­ though His, is not His new order, it is only theran Church - Missouri Synod. His address, penultimate. His word of reconciliation, here published by kind permission of the World Council of Churches, appears also as an appen­ not His word of judgment, is His last dix in the official Uppsala Report. word. Yet the word of judgment is still His. What He saves us from, finally, is Y OU have kindly invited me, your grate- ful guest, w ~-' __:_ ~: ~ ___Jmmon Himself. N< radical confession and its implic?sions for today. than that. Permit me to celebrate with you just four b. What is it about the new order that such implications. (Of course there are is new? Does "new" mean up-tO-date, more.) Our common confession - that keeping with the times or ahead of the is, the confession of the Christian church times, futuristic rather than traditional? - is (1) revolutionary; (2) it is corpo­ Is "new" opposed to "old" as "recent" is rate; (3) it is God's own; (4) it is world opposed to "ancient"? That is an impor­ conditioned. tant half-truth, still only a half-truth. To absolutize mere temporal change, as the ( 1) OUR COMMON CONFESSION novelty-mongers do, is to idolize the god IS REVOLUTIONARY Chronos. They commit the Chronic Fal­ a. What is it that our confession, or lacy. They content themselves with one rather the God we confess, is revolutioniz­ word: You have heard what was said to ing? What is He overturning and replac­ them of old time, but we say to you. Or: ing? Our sin with His righteousness? Yes, We thank You, Lord, that we are not as but not only that. Our old world with His other men were. They may be ecumenical new world? That too, but not only that. geographically, but distrusting anything The tyrants and principalities of this age over thirty, they are chronologically sec­ with His new age? Not even only that. tarian. The only one worse than the nov­ What He is replacing is His own old order elty-monger is the reactionary. His god, too, - old, yet truly His. And what He is re- is change, which he worships by fearing. The warning by Karl Barth (here slightly The author is chairman of the department of systematic theology at Concordia Semi­ amended) is still in place: The novelty­ nary, St. Louis. monger is probably wrong but has at least 715 716 OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS a chance of being right; the reactionary is some timeless truth which has prevailed always wrong. With both of them, though, all along. It is the achievement of that what is worse is not their idolatry. Rather truth historically. The Eastern church was they mislocate the real New. For that reluctant to canonize the Book of Revela­ reason they are both old. The New does tion. So were some of our dearest fathers not come simply with historical change. in the West, since the book seemed neg­ It is too revolutionary for that. But that lectful of the historic Christ. But they is why it can take the most drastic changes made the most of it, finding Him even in in stride and can initiate a few of its own. the apocalyptic Michae~ the "Who-is-like­ c. Old and new are not only chronologi­ God" (12: 7). And sure enough, on sec­ cal. They are also, shall we say, biological. ond glance, the One who sits on the throne New is to old as life is to death. Here and makes all things new rules side by side "old" is the idiom of the pathologist, the with "the Lamb." And when He here an­ mortician. Both are the doing of God, nounces, "It is done!" (21: 6), He only death as well as life. He is the "I" who confirms what was said on a hill called makes "all things new" (Rev. 21: 5 ) , whose The Skull outside the walls of Jerusalem: "new" is "life" (v. 6). But alas, He is like­ "It is finished" (John 19:30). To conclude, wise the One who makes the opposite, as the seer does, with "Come, Lord Jesus!" "death" (v. 8) . So death, as no modern (22: 20) is to agitate for a most earthly nihilist doubts, comes with the highest au­ revolution. Do we do less . ,hen we pray thority. Yet not quite the highest. For God that His "will [not His "earthly" will the dying and living that are most the but his "heavenly" will} be done on earth," doing of God are His own: the dying He asking Him in effect to improve on His did in Jesus His Son, and the resurrection fule of the world? And would we be far by which He outlived it. It isn't that God off if we translated the Second Petition is dead, or ever will be. But His own "Thy revolution come, remembering reign, His old reign, is - "for those who whose prayer it is? (Matt. 6:10) are in Christ Jesus." (Rom.8:1) e. Still, it is not enough that this revo­ d. There, if you will pardon the pun, is lution in Christ is there. Our churches the crux of the matter, the turning point need reminding that that is what it is. of the revolution. There, not in some re­ Many of them, not least the confessional mote heaven or in some apocalyptic vision churches, seem often to suffer from an in­ but in the flesh and the fullness of time, feriority complex. Surrounded by an age as temporally and biologically as could be, of change, they hold the line, loyally but God suffered His own mortal criticism. He still somehow apologetically. In fact, they suffered it out of existence. Into this off­ are sitting on the most revolutionary change limits world, "under the curse," He came. of all. Where else in the world is it the He fraternized with the enemy, a friend reconciler - not the compromiser but also of sinners, and still does, revolutionizing not the gap-monger, but the reconciler­ His judgment into forgiveness, death into who is the true revolutionary? Neither of life. Revolution that is, not only revelation. course is it enough simply to dignify what­ This is no mere charade for human eyes of ever the churches happen to be doing by OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 717 the "in" word "revolutionary," as cheap concern. For it is at least conceivable that apologetic. God's trumping His own criti­ the faith may be confessed, sung, prayed, cism by His mercy, in His cross, and celebrated sacramentally, theologized, sub­ henceforth in His Word, is revolution in­ scribed to, pantomimed in works of love­ deed. If it isn't, nothing is. the very faith of the Christian church! - by men who personally disbelieve it or (2) OUR COMMON CONFESSION misconstrue it. It is hardly beyond imagin­ Is CORPORATE ing that I, who am now rehearsing our a. Is our confession the confession of common confession, am not myself a Chris­ Christians? Yes, but not of individual tian. Yet whatever Christian substance Christians alone, of this believer and that. there might still be in my words you can Nor is it the confession merely of all feel free to share as the Christian faith, Christians added end to end, in the aggre­ in spite of me. Really though, it is not this gate. Much less is it the confession of par­ ugly possibility (its name is hypocrisy) ticular churches or presbyteries or synods. which interests us. Our interest rather - It is the confession rather of the one body indeed, our delight - is this: In that con­ of Christ. And that body, being one, is fession of Christ which every Christian more than the <11 IT) rof ; r< ;:'" "TO Tt- is not does, and in the most various ways, he a sum-total but a one-total, not merely knows he is joined by one holy Christian­ an accumulation but an organic whole. For many of us, particularly for our churches in hood in all times and places. And that the West, this truth of the one body body­ not because of how spiritual he himself ing forth in one common confession has may be but because of what, because of become a forgotten truth - so forgotten, whom, he confesses. Wherever the confes­ in fact, that we find it well nigh incon­ sion is Christian, however unlikely its ceivable except as a theological abstraction bearers, we are all its sharers. or as preacher-talk. But the corporate­ c. Whoever it may be, therefore, what­ ness of our confession is no abstraction. ever denomination or congregation or in­ True, to discern - to divine - in that dividual, who confesses the Gospel of confession the one body of Christ does Christ, speaks for the body as a whole. require the eyes and ears of faith. But For that he need not first ask the members' the confession itself, in which the one permission. Nor could he, since most of church is ever so concretely embodied, is them are inaccessible to him geographically altogether visible and audible to everyone. and in time (and many are yet unborn) - b. This corporate confession is trans­ even assuming he could tell who the true personal. Or suprapersonal. Not that per­ members are. In speaking for the Head, sons aren't needed to speak the confession he speaks for the whole body. Suppose, or to act it out. They are. How else however, that someone who represents the would it be confessed? Still, what is it Christian name should nevertheless defile that identifies their confession as Christian? it by heresy. (That has been known to Is it that they themselves, personally, are happen.) Does he also represent the body? Christians? That of course is no small Indeed, the body at its worst. For it is 718 OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS that too. Also for its hirelings it bears God's final word, but His promise is, it common responsibility. is His promise finally which unifies His d. Since the confession is corporate, the church. And not without the Spirit's em­ whole is represented by its parts. When pirical encouragements. One such encour­ Justin and his pitiful handful of Scillitan agement, of course, is today's ecumenical martyrs answered the Roman magistrate, movement, so apparent in every corner of "We are Christians" and "We wish to the church. An additional encouragement, undergo vengeance for the sake of the less contemporary and perhaps unexpected, Lord Jesus Christ," for whom all did they may come from our respective historic speak? Only for the six of them? When traditions, which the ecumenical movement 20 years ago some churches gathered at has helped us rediscover. In my own im­ Amsterdam, though they knew they were mediate tradition, to cite but one example, not as such the Una Sancta, yet confessed, over four centuries ago our confessors "We are one in Jesus Christ," whose con­ challenged their posterity to what could fession was that? Isn't it simultaneously have been the boldest sort of ecumenical the Una Sancta's? When the Russian dialog. It could still be that. In full view church prays "for those who hate and of the empire of their day they invoked malign us," and the Roman church bap­ on tL' _____ ~ ___ ~ ______. _oily the verdict tizes in the triune name, and the Church of "God" and of His "Christ" but of "all of England chants the psalms, and the nations" as well, "of all pious people" and helpless in Guatemala or Nigeria or Chi­ of "future generations" (Apology, Pref­ cago are helped "in the name of Jesus," ace 17, 19; Art. XXVIII, 27; Art. IV, and a white congregation in Mississippi or 398.) In effect, they were opening their South Africa heeds the costly call of His books to public audit by the whole church. Spirit - are these their deeds alone? Or also the deeds of their Head - and there­ To quote an expression from this as­ for of His body, one and entire? But what sembly, they recognized that "to be hon­ of the horrendous schisms which still di­ est before God we must be honest with vide them? Ah, but for that too they have one another." This too is encouragement, yet another confession in common: "For­ not for my tradition to vindicate its past give us our trespasses." The "our" extends but to expose itself once again to the whole to the trespasses of all. And so does the church under the one Word of God. Other forgiveness. traditions provide similar encouragements. e. How treacherously easy it would be But it is hard to see how such interconfes­ to invoke the very corporate ness of the sional exposure can occur without some church to rationalize separatism. For after public, whole-church forum. If in the 16th all, if the church is one anyway - and not century the hopes for a "general, free, and only invisibly but also, here and there, Christian council" gradually despaired, and visible - what further need have we of then only very reluctantly, that is no reason unity? That is the way with God's noblest not to renew the hopes today. These en­ gifts. They are the most likely to be couragements, from the past as well as demonized. However, since criticism is not the present, do show promise. That is, they OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 719 show that promise which our Lord has but only that Gospel from God of which given for His church's wholeness. our confession is the echo. b. Too often that Gospel from God has (3) OUR COMMON CONFESSION been restricted by a false individualism. Is GOD'S OWN It has been needles:;ly confined to what a. The church's confession is God's own, used to be called "personal salvation." As not only because it originates in His Word, a result, this individualistic Gospel had nor even because it has His endorsement. little to say about church, especially in an That it does. "Everyone who acknowledges ecumenical age. The misimpression was Me before men, I will also acknowledge given that God's saving and His ecumeniz­ before My Father who is in heaven" ing are two separate operations, as though (Matt. 10: 32). Still, before ever we ac­ He first of all declares this sinner and that knowledged God, He acknowledged us. sinner forgiven and only subsequently, be­ "I have loved you with an everlasting cause of their new resemblance to one love" (Jer. 31: 3 ) . "While we were yet another, declares them one. Now there is sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5 : 8 ) . great truth in all this. It is indeed by God's True, it is we who confess that, but only forgiveness of men, by His being recon­ because it is what God first of all has Clled to them, by His merciful reevalua­ confessed to us. Our confession, as some­ tion of them, that He restores them. .:et thing we do, is only reflexive, our response His reevaluation is not that they ate to an always prior message from God. now righteous, each by each, but-what However, and this is the point, that prior comes to the same thing - they are all Word from God is always implicitly pres­ one. His uniting them is His forgiving ent right within our own response. When them, and vice versa. His previous stric­ we confess, "We believe in God the Father tures upon them, His judgment, had not almighty," that is but God's reverse way of been kept secret in the privacy of the saying: "I will be a father to you, and you divine anger but had been played out shall be My sons and daughters, says the against them in their mutual divisions. Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. 6:18; Has. 1:10; That was His doing no less than theirs. Is. 43: 6 ). Our confession is God' s Word But His forgiveness likewise is no far-off meeting itself coming back. For that very thing. As down to earth as His divisive reason, however, we claim too little when criticism, it invalidates these critical divi­ we say that it is only the public proclama­ sions where they are. "There is neither Jew tion of God's Word which creates and nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, unites the church, if by proclamation we there is neither male nor female; for you mean merely a formal, people-directed are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). preaching. All confessing, also by the peo­ His cross was not to reconcile us first to ple - in their liturgy, for example, or their God and only after that to one another, bearing of the cross - already contains but rather to "reconcile us both to God God's preconfessional, proclamatory Word. in one body through the cross" (Eph. 2: 16). But then neither is it "our common con­ If we are not one, then by that same token fession" as such that unifies the church, we are not forgiven. Being forgiven is 720 OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

being one. For the disinherited of this age, the "new age" - ignore what in the world, the forlorn, the sectarian, who need world He is doing. How else but in closest to be forgiven by hearing that they are, identification with that moving world will wouldn't it be all the same thing to assure the church join purpose to purpose, trans­ them that they are one holy people of God mitting tragedy into joy? (1 Peter 2: 9), one "household of God" b. From this ambitious standpoint there (Eph. 2: 19) , one body with one Head, one is no reason to boggle at the suggestion faith, one hope, one Baptism, animated by that "the world help write the agenda for one Spirit (Eph.4:4-5; 1 Cor. 12-13; Rom. the church." What have we to fear? I am 12:4-5)? And isn't it that confession, be­ sure, of course, that that motto may be cause it is God's forgiveness which forgives quoted out of context by critics who may the church into unity? wish to make trouble. But even their criti­

(4) OUR COMMON CONFESSION cism (which ought not automatically be Is WORLD CONDITIONED equated with God's) need not be feared, not when the agenda which the world a. Ordinarily when the church's confes­ helps write belongs to the church of Jesus sion is conditioned by the world, that is our lord. And where His Spirit of Pente­ thoug~ '. gret. But that cost still emboldens the church, why not may also be cause for joy. For the world, (as the suggestion is also being made) not only the church but the world, is invite into the very strategy sessions of the God's. Isn't that finally why we abjure all church also those dear worldlings whose neat bifurcations of church and world: not only because the church is in the world pleas we must heed? And need we re­ or the world is in the church, but ultimately strict their advice only to our medical work because operative in both of them is the or our social action? Haven't they an in­ same God? True, His function in the terest as well, sooner or later, even in our world, also in His worldly church, is a evangelism and proclamation of the Gos­ critical one (krima, krinein) . Yet that is pel? They are free, of course, to decline not His final function. The church of our invitation. And it is only fair that we Christ must see to that. The church is the admit from the outset what predatory world in process, from under the divine designs of love we have on them, and that criticism into the joy of His love. Here the church fully intends to stay in business His worldly law, if I may call it that, is as the world's happy subversive. But for being sublimated to higher service, domes­ such godly goals as the "development of ticated to the humbler role of "our custo­ peoples" and a "new humanity," about dian until Christ came" (Gal. 3:24). The which our Gospel has some ideas of its selfsame God of church and world does own, we are not above being advised. not conduct the two in isolation, ambi­ e. Finally, as the church goes about ab­ dextrously, as though His right hand didn't sorbing into the surpassing cross of Christ know what His left hand was doing. But the world's guilt and suffering, it absorbs then neither dare His church - that sector yet another thing from the world: its con­ of history where His world is to come of tradictions. It absorbs them, as it has OUR COMMON CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 721 reason to, into The Higher Laughter. This paradoxical organization in the history of is that holiest humor for which the world the Church," and he proceeded to docu­ is so sorely ready: not only the scornful ment his thesis. But that humor by which humor of Him who sits in the heavens the church triumphs requires more than and laughs and holds them in derision paradoxes. As Schlink went on to say: (Ps. 2: 4) but, beyond that, His laughing "The WCC can exist with these paradoxes away all tears from their eyes by His eter­ only so long as it does not make them nal Easter. The church can be, even now, a permanent fixture, but must . . . press that one locale in which the world hears on towards the Coming of Christ who will the last and kindliest laugh. For, speaking gather and judge his flock." And that­ of contradictions, who has more of them that gathering, coming Christ - is finally than the churches? The WCC, as you the secret of our earth-shaking laughter. know better than I, is no exception. As Here is humor enough for the world, and Edmund Schlink once said: "The World not for this world alone. Council of Churches is probably the most St. Louis, Mo.