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Concordia Theological Monthly 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.
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