The Confession of the Church 5a

In Christian vocabulary the Church has several descriptions of itself such as the Church militant, that is, the visible Church on earth, and the Church triumphant, the saints in heaven. These two descriptions are connected because in Christ the whole Church, in heaven and on earth has unity. In the same way contemporary Confessions of the Church have important connections with past Confessions.

Arthur C. Cochrane in the chapter on the nature of a Confession in his book, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, has as his 5th point the connections contemporary Confessions make with the Church’s past Confessions. He writes:

“5. A Confession of Faith, as the voice of the one, holy, catholic Church, reflects its unity and continuity with the Church of the fathers. Consequently the Declaration [of Barmen] states: ‘Precisely because we want to be and to remain faithful to our various Confessions, we may not keep silent.’”

In other words in order to remain faithful to past Confessions of Faith a new Confession was needed. The Confessing Churches of Germany had no intention of ignoring or doing away with their various Confessions. Rather, according to Cochrane, they were using the past Confessions as pointers toward a new Confession in order that once again the Church might confess. He offers two important points about past Confessions. First they are “… a mighty signpost directing us to Jesus Christ in Scripture.” And second they are “an invitation and challenge to confess Christ in our day.”

Cochrane looks at a Confession as an explanation of past Confessions. Using the “Formula of Concord,” a Reformation Confession of the Lutheran Church, he clarifies his meaning. Cochrane writes “For instance, the Formula of Concord explains that ‘because directly after the times of the apostles, and even while they were still living, false teachers and heretics arose, and symbols, i.e., brief, succinct confessions, were composed against them in the Early Church, which were regarded as the unanimous, universal Christian faith and confession of the orthodox and true Church, namely the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, we pledge ourselves to them.’”

Looking at Reformed Confessions of Faith one sees the same links, shown by Cochrane, connecting the Reformation’s creeds to the more ancient creeds. For instance “The Second Helvetic Confession,” states, “And, to say many things in few words, with a sincere heart we believe, and free confess with open mouth, whatever things are defined from the Holy Scriptures concerning the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are summed up in the Creeds and decrees of the first four most excellent synods convened at Nicaca, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon—together with the Creed of blessed Athanasius, and all similar symbols; and we condemn everything contrary to these.” (The Book of Confessions PCUSA 5.078)

Cochrane writes of how Barmen also fit into this process of affirming but also enlarging on past Confessions. He writes:

“Similarly Barmen is a genuine Confession in that it clarified the meaning of the Reformation Confessions in a new situation, confessed the old faith in a new way, and gave a more precise definition of the old. In order to counter the errors of that time, Barmen had to speak more clearly than the Reformers had done, especially in regard to revelation and the Word of God. It was faithful to the Reformers by going farther in the direction to which they pointed.”

Cochrane then looks at three ways that Barmen went farther than the Reformation Confessions. I will cover those in my next posting, however, an important last point here is that new Confessions of the Church never move away from past Confessions but instead move along a path that has already been lit with the flame of the confessing Church.

The Confession of the Church 1

The Confession of the Church 2

The Confession of the Church 3

The Confession of the Church 4