The Confession of the Church 10

In this, my last posting on the nature of a Confession of faith, taken from Arthur C. Cochrane’s book, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, I intend to simply quote the author. The text is extremely important; hopefully others will be encouraged to read this book with some interest in the history of that period in Church History and some thought toward the future.

I intend to follow this series up with another on how the Confessing Church survived as a Church within a heretical Church. The information will come mostly from a document attached to the Declaration of Barmen found in The Churches Confession Under Hitler. As I have stated in a footnote, “Those who formulated the Declaration of Barmen also laid out some practical steps for being the Church in a time of division and crisis. This can be found under Barmen as “III. Resolution of the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church.”

The 10th characteristic of a Confession of Faith:

“A Confession of Faith possesses a relative and subordinate authority and freedom. They are founded upon and limited by the absolute and unique authority and freedom of God’s word in Holy scripture. When the Church confesses Jesus Christ as attested in Holy Scripture in the name of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church and in continuity with the Fathers, when its confession fulfills both the dogmatic and ethical requirements of a Confession, and when it comes forth with an unequivocal Yes and a No, such a Confession exercises authority. …”

Referring to the confessional authority as spiritual authority Cochrane goes on to write of the nature of that authority:

“The authority of the creeds and Confessions is not due to the fact that they have been adopted in the constitutions of certain Churches. Conversely, the authority of a Confession is not abolished or lessened by the fact that certain Churches have refused to recognize their validity in Church law.”

Cochrane asks the important question, “Who will deny that the ecumenical Creeds and the Confessions of the Reformation still exercise authority even in so-called confessionless Churches?”

Cochrane shows how the true Confession of Faith is in fact a Christological act. He writes:

“The primary condition of a Confession, the possibility of a Confession, is not that men decide to confess Christ for a variety of reasons—say, for the sake of a Church union—but that Christ for no reason at all, that is, in his sovereign freedom, has decided to confess himself to us. A Confession is Christological not only in the fact that its articles are related to Christ but in the sense that he is the confessor. The Church confesses only in him! The Confession occurs not when we think we have discovered the truth, but when the truth has found us.”

Cochrane writes of the possibility of another or new Confession of Faith by the Church in other lands in his and now our day. He asks some questions. I will finish with some of his questions:

“Are we on the threshold of a day when the Church knows that its only weapon and defense will be its Confession of Faith? Are we conscious of some great heresy by which our Churches are ‘grievously imperiled’ and of some great truth by which we are possessed? Are we prepared to make dogmatic and, much more important, ethical decisions as a Church, and for the sake of them to lose our life in order to find it?”

The Confession of the Church 1
The Confession of the Church 2
The Confession of the Church 3
The Confession of the Church 4
The Confession of the Church 5a
The Confession of the Church 5b
The Confession of the Church 6
The Confession of the Church 7
The Confession of the Church 8
The Confession of the Church 9

The Confession of the Church 9

I remember when the Confessing Churches in the Presbyterian Church USA formed. That was around the time I started writing for renewal groups in the Church, in particular, for Voices of Orthodox Women. The Confessing Churches did not write a Confession of Faith.

They did ascribe to three statements they wanted to emphasize. But they were roundly criticized for their name and their statements. This is what the ninth character of a Confession of Faith is about. Arthur C. Cochrane in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler using his chapter on the nature of a Confession of faith explains:

“A genuine Confession of Faith invariably provokes opposition from the false church and from the world precisely because in its witness to God’s free grace for all people it constitutes a radical attack upon the false Church and the world. As a fighting action of the Church it runs against the stream. According to Matt., ch. 10, the confessors will be hated by all men. A man’s foes will be those of his own household, and he will be dragged before governors and kings for Christ’s sake.”

Of course in the United States you can only throw words not stones.

Cochrane points out that a Confession of Faith will not only affirm the faith but also condemn those prevailing heresies of the era.

He writes of the damnamus of a Confession:

“A genuine Confession, therefore, will not merely confess, declare, and teach; implicitly or explicitly, it will also condemn, reject, and anathematize the opposing error. … This feature of a Confession has often been lamented and denounced on the ground of its intolerance and lovelessness.

The truth is that the negative exists for the sake of the positive, for the sake of definiteness and clarity, Hitler had no objections to Christians who confessed that Jesus is Lord; but he was enraged when they confessed that Jesus is Lord and Hitler is not.

Moreover, the damnamus, like the woes Jesus pronounced upon the Pharisees, has to be uttered just for the sake of a genuine love for the erring brethren. To spare them the anathema would be neither loving nor truthful. Obviously the anathema ought not to be excised rashly or self-righteously. But if we do not have the confidence to say ‘we condemn,’ if we still want to indulge in innocuous sweet-sounding affirmations that can neither give offense nor engender strong loyalties, then it is a sure sign that we are not ready to confess at all.” (I have divided this paragraph up into three parts to make it easier reading.)

I have mostly quoted from Cochrane's book for this posting. I think what Cochrane has to say under his ninth point is so important, now, in the United States at a time when we are so careful not to offend. Diversity is a wonderful word when it is not used to undermine the faith of the church by placing untruths beside truth.

I know a small PCUSA church in my town whose diversity is amazing. People of many ethnic groups attend. There is a wide range of ages, and members include both those who are single and many families. There are many differing personalities that attend. I know this because my Daughter and Son-in-law and their large and "diverse" family attend. Yet, most members stand upon the firm foundation that includes faithfulness to Scripture, faithfulness to Jesus Christ as Lord and faithfulness to each other. This is a proper use of the word diversity for the Church of Jesus Christ. We have a choice to either offend the world or offend Jesus Christ.

The Confession of the Church 8

The Confession of the Church must speak to the political and social issues of its historical time. Arthur Cochrane, in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, writes about the moral focus of the Church’s Confession. His eighth character of a Confession of Faith:

“A Confession of faith not only is relevant for the Church’s own doctrine and life but bears definite implications for concrete social and political issues. This is the ethical character of a Confession. It possesses both ecclesiastical and secular significance. It is a witness to Christ before the Church and the World. It does not shrink from dealing with concrete issues such as racialism, anti-Semitism, nationalism, Fascism and Communism, militarism and economic exploitation. In short, it is relevant for social and political justice, freedom, and peace. A confession which lacked this dimension would not be a true Confession; a Church that neglected to draw the implications of its Confession for the social and political order and that was concerned only about the purity of its own teaching and piety would certainly not be a Confessing Church—not the one, holy, catholic Church of Christ. For then it would have denied that Christ died for the world, and that it has been elected and called to serve the world with its message of God’s grace for all people.”

This is a long statement, but I felt it was very important to draw Cochrane’s whole conclusions out.

The Church does not simply live within its own walls holding onto its tenets as a kind of quietist monastic community, but instead it brings to the world a message of good news. That good news of God’s grace is without question contained in the life, the redeeming death and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That is in fact Cochrane’s first characteristic of a Confession of Faith. “It confesses a Living Person who is the Lord and thus calls for a personal relationship of trust and obedience to him …” Such trust and obedience will shape the Church’s view of the world. And the Church’s view of the world will shape how she serves those in both the Church and the world. And that is both political and social.

Cochrane adds some historical information to show how this was worked out in the Confessing Church. Ten men drew up a memorandum which was sent to the Confessing Synods, to Hitler and to a person who leaked it to the foreign press before it was seen by Nazi government officials. Of the three men who made sure it was read outside of Germany, Dr. Friedrich Weissler was “the first martyr of the Confessing Church”

The Memorandum is an appendix in Cochrane’s book. The authors, among many other complaints, protest young people being sent to work camps where they are not allowed Christian literature. They protest the concentration camps in Germany. They protest the arbitrariness of the law courts and unchristian oaths of allegiance. They protest the attempt to dechristianize the German people.

They write, “When even high authorities in the State and in the Party publicly assail the Christian faith … Church members are more and more enmeshed in their unbelief, the waverers and the doubters are made completely uncertain and are driven to defection. Grave danger, as a matter of fact, exists that the Evangelical youth will be prevented from coming to Him who is the only Savior of German as will as other boys and girls.”

The Confession of the Church 7

These times in the Presbyterian Church (USA) require special attention to the word of God and the Confessions of the Church. In the introduction to his book, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, Arthur C. Cochrane writes:

“First, a Confession of Faith involves a conflict not merely between theological schools within the Church but a conflict between the true and false Church, a conflict that divides the Churches. While love for the erring brethren may still prevail, the division is extremely painful and deep wounds are inflicted. … Secondly, a Confession of Faith is a decision in which ‘the first shall be last, and the last shall be first,’ and none may glory save in the Lord!”

At the end of March I wrote my last posting on the Confession of the Church with, The Confession of the Church 6. I am now returning to that topic with four more postings. This is the first and covers the seventh point from the chapter “The nature of a confession of faith.”1

The seventh character of a Confession of Faith is:

“It occurs when the Church is convinced that its faith and unity are ‘grievously imperiled’ by a heresy that has ripened and come to a head. This is the dogmatic character of a Confession.”

Cochrane names the heresy. It belonged to the German Christians “who taught that in addition to God’s revelation in Christ attested by Scripture there is a natural revelation in nature and history …” For the German Christians that additional revelation in history and nature was found in “German blood, race, and soil, and in the event of the National Socialist revolution and rebirth of the German soul.”

Notice here the basic heresy was adding another revelation to the revelation that God had already given in Christ. This is a heresy whatever the additional revelation might be. And it has found a home in our own faith institutions. Our own heresy has its roots in the same errors that plagued the German Church during its modern history.

Cochrane points out that this was a heretical view that was “the culmination of the errors of the theology of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” And then he goes on to quote Pastor Hans Asmussen who gave the address to those gathered at the Synod of Barmen:

“We are raising a protest against the same phenomenon that has been slowly preparing the way for the devastation of the Church for more than two hundred years. For it is only a relative difference whether, beside Holy Scripture, in the Church historical events, or reason, culture, aesthetic feelings, progress, or other powers and figures are said to be binding claims upon the Church.”

When some in the Church, in any age including our own, lift up additional revelation not based in Scripture it is they who break the unity of the Church, because in appealing to other foundations they divide the Church’s loyalty between two masters. Neither reason nor historical events; neither culture nor progress; there is no other foundation but Jesus Christ.

“Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 9)

1 Those who formulated the Declaration of Barmen also laid out some practical steps for being the Church in a time of division and crisis. This can be found under Barmen as “III. Resolution of the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church,” found in The Church's Confession Under Hitler. I will write on some of their practicalities when I am finished with this series.

The Confession of the Church 6

The Confessing Church of Germany found that to declare the Declaration of Barmen they also had to declare they were indeed the true Church in Germany. Arthur C. Cochrane, in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, in the chapter on the nature of a Confession, emphasizes this with his 6th point.

“6. In and with its Confession of Faith the Church claims to be the one, true Church. Outside this Church, there is no salvation for one who willfully and knowingly separates himself from it. Of course the extra ecclesiam nulla salus does not imply that the one, true Church in which salvation may be found has not existed in other times and places. Nor does it mean that the Church is the indispensable mediatrix of salvation or a ‘redemptive society.’ It means that outside the Church that confesses Jesus Christ there is no revelation, no faith, and no knowledge of salvation. However, where Christ and his salvation are present in the Church’s Confession of him, and where a man has encountered Christ in it and then has deliberately and consciously separated himself from that Church, for that man there is no salvation. For him there remains the threat of damnation.”

Cochrane goes on to state that, “The genuineness of a Confession is reflected in the willingness of its confessors to venture and to stand by this stupendous claim.” Interestingly enough it is his view that, “Throughout the Church Struggle the Confessing Church did not take its stand upon the Reformation Confessions but upon the Barmen Declaration as the only legitimate interpretation of the Reformation symbols. For this reason it claimed to be the true evangelical Church in Germany.”

In several long pages Cochrane gives a history of the struggle for Barmen with the Lutheran Confessionalists, (Not the same as the Confessing Church), lead by Hermann Sasse, Werner Elert, Paul Althaus, and Biship August Marahrens. A part of their argument was that the Synod of Barmen had no authority to declare what was true doctrine and what was heresy.

At the same time the Confessing Church was assailed by the Reich Church Government. Cochrane notes that, “The method was to explain that an emergency situation prevailed in a certain provincial Church which necessitated the intervention of the Reich Bishop. Ministers were dismissed or suspended from their parishes, and many were placed under ‘house arrest.’”

In later moves beyond those taken by the Bishop the church endured, “the alarming growth of paganism in the press, radio, theater, and schools,” and the “secularization of public life.” The state placed “hundreds of pastors in jail or under house arrest.” “Professors were dismissed from their chairs, notably scholars like Otto Schmitz, K.D. Schmidt, Gunther Dehn, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Iwand, Edmund Schlink, and Karl Barth.”

Out of all of this turmoil, which included the Reich Church Government officials setting up committees that continued to advocate false teaching, the Confessing Church was forced to claim the position of True Church. They were also forced to insist that “Church administration is an office of the Church. Therefore it can be called and installed only by the Church. Its office-bearers must be obligated to be obedient to God’s Word in keeping with the Church’s Confession.”

The important point here is that a Confession of the Church can only be made by the True Church which will itself become a dividing point between many. It does not come as a great political maneuver to pull the whole Church together nor is its focus meant to solve simply a social problem but rather it speaks to that problem which is tearing apart the faith and unity of the Church. That will be the subject of the next post.

The Confession of the Church 5b

The Word of God, Law and Gospel, Church and State are three areas that the Declaration of Barmen addresses. During the Nazi era these three issues were the pressing issues that demanded the attention of the Confessing Church in Germany. In the last posting on Confessions of Faith and the Church, “The Confession of the Church 5a” I wrote that I would explain the way Arthur C. Cochrane sees Barmen going farther in its declarations then the Reformation Confessions. These areas of concern are how he sees Barmen following the directions pointed out by the Reformation Confessions but going further.

The Word of God.
Going to the end of Cochrane’s paragraph on the Word of God, he writes of general revelation, stating it “does not yield a saving knowledge of God’s truth and will; it serves to render man without excuse and denounces him as being de facto ignorant of God.” The Synod of Barmen wished, with this Confession, to emphasize the Word of God above general revelation in such a manner that it cut away the German Church’s use of general revelation as proclamation.

Historically this happened because the German Christians rather than seeing general revelation as negative, that is, a judgment upon humanity, used it as a positive endorsement of German culture and history.

Cochrane begins with the “first thesis of the Declaration:

“The first thesis of the Declaration contains four propositions: the Word of God is Jesus Christ; the Word of God is attested in Holy Scripture; the Word of God is one Word; and the Word of God is the only revelation of God, or, rather, the revelation which the Church could acknowledge as a source of its proclamation.”

Next he states how this thesis goes beyond the Confessions of the Reformation. And in doing so he shows how Barmen pulls together the unity of God’s Word. Cochrane points out that no Reformed Confession “teaches that Jesus Christ is God’s Word,” instead it is Jesus Christ and the Scriptures as God’s Word. None of the Reformation Confessions “teach that God’s Word is testified to in Holy Scripture,” rather they “usually … explain that God committed his word to writing. None of the Confessions “asserts that God’s word is one.”

Cochrane’s important point is “The Reformers dealt with the three forms of God’s Word—revealed, written, and preached—but they did not concern themselves with the problem of their unity. Finally, no Reformed Confession teaches that God’s Word is the only revelation and the only source of Church proclamation.”

Only in Jesus Christ is God’s Word truly revealed, truly written, (this includes both Old and New Testaments), and truly preached. In Jesus Christ one finds the unity of the word of God both written and proclaimed. As Cochrane puts it, “Barmen sharpened an insight implicit in the Reformers. For when one considers their over-all doctrine of solus Christus, sola gratia, and sola scriptura, one will not be able to claim that Barmen was unfaithful to their basic intent.

Law and Gospel

Law and Gospel are two terms which figure greatly in both Lutheran and Reformed teaching. Cochrane points out that Barman unintentionally brought the two views closer. But the important point here is that because of the heresies of the German Christians the law needed to be subsumed under Gospel. It could not be a separate thing. For instance a German Christian, Werner Elert wrote:

“What Holy Scripture, especially the New Testament, describes as ‘law’ can in no sense be called a testimony to Christ. The proposition that apart from Christ no truth is to be acknowledged as God’s revelation is a rejection of the divine authority of the divine law beside that of the gospel.”

And the German Christians had also stated that, “God’s word speaks to us as law and gospel. . . . The Law . . . encounters us in the total reality of our life . . . and binds us to the natural orders to which we are subject, such as family, folk, and race (i.e., blood relationship).” One can see from this that the Church would end up with two proclamations.

Cochrane explains that in the “second thesis, we have to hear this one Word as a twofold word: first as gospel, and then as law, but both together—as ‘God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins’ and with the same seriousness’ as ‘God’s mighty claim upon our whole life.’ These two—assurance and claim, gospel and law—are one Word because Jesus Christ himself is God’s assurance and claim, and because ‘through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.’ It is not a matter of forgiveness as such, or of demand as such, but of Jesus Christ himself.”

Church and State

In this section, Cochrane points out that Barmen is different then both Reformation Confessions and the Medieval Church. This is in the third and fifth thesis of Barmen. The Confessing Church had need of explaining the differing vocations of the Church and the State. The State “could not fulfill the Church’s vocation, and … the Church does not ‘trust and obey’ the State as an ordinance of God but ‘the power of the word by which God upholds all things.’”

Notice Cochrane, with Barmen relies on the negative, what neither Church nor State is allowed. So once again the Word, the gospel of Christ is here the focus. The political does enter in here. The State is to maintain peace and justice and the Church by obeying the one Word of God, trusting and obeying the word, speaks out of her vocation and obedience.

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

The Confession of the Church 4

There are often times in history when the Church is hardly visible and in need of renewal. These are times of brokenness when unfamiliar and false teaching breaks apart the unity of the Church. Jesus in his great love for his people lifts to the Father that need for unity in his high priestly prayer given to and for the Church.

“The Glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them even as You have loved Me.” (John 17: 22-23)

Arthur Cochrane, in his chapter on “The Nature of a Confession,” in The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, is so very clear about his fourth point that I will quote the first whole paragraph. He writes:

“4. A Confession of faith is an act in which the Church is born or reborn. In and with its Confession of Faith, the Church’s outward unity becomes visible. Of course, the Church exists prior to its Confession but in such a way that its unity and faith are scarcely manifest. Hence the Declaration speaks of its common confession and unity being ‘grievously imperiled’ and ‘threatened,’ about its theological basis having been ‘continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles.’ ‘When these principles are held to be valid … the Church ceases to be the Church.’ The Church is ‘devastated’ and its unity ‘broken up.’ Thus with its Confession, the Church emerges where it had been scarcely recognizable.” (Italics the author's)

Cochrane goes on to write how Barmen partially brought unity to the Churches of Germany, but as often happens politics entered in and broke apart the unity that was building with a Confession of faith. The Confessing Churches struggled because of a problem that arose within the Lutheran bodies.

As Cochrane points out the various Church bodies were meant to work out their own interpretations of Barmen along the lines of their particular Confessions. This was to be done in their conventions. He writes, “The responsibility for convening the Lutheran convention was left with Bishop Meiser. Unhappily he never called it. Had he done so, it might have prevented, or at least narrowed, the breach that developed between the Confessing Church and the Lutheran confessionalists.”

That breach between the Confessing Churches and the Lutheran Churches was to hamper the Confessing Churches throughout the years of Hitler’s rule. But still the one, holy, apostolic Church did confess in unity including Lutherans such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

One of the important thoughts here is that it is sometimes false teaching, ‘alien principles,’ that weakens unity in the Church. And, it is sometimes the political maneuvering of those in the Church. But generally it is the two forces working together.

But, undoubtedly, the most important point is that the one, holy, apostolic Church still stood, armed with her Confession, although she stood as always in the midst of devastation and suffering.

The Confession of the Church 3

Arthur C. Cochrane’s third point, about the nature of a Confession of Faith ,in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, would be nonesense without his first two points. The third point is:

“3. A Confession of Faith is a Confession of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” (Italics author’s) (185)

Cochrane explains in the negative that the Confession “is not the Confession of an individual theologian, of a party within the Church, or even of a particular denomination or group of denominations.” His positive statement on this has to do with what the Confession says. He writes. “It speaks for the whole Church to the whole Church.”

To go further, “The ecumenicity of a Confession is grounded in the fact that it undertakes to confess the One Lord and the one faith attested in Holy Scripture and given to the whole Church.”

He therefore brings back to the discussion the first two points.

“1. “The Barmen Declaration teaches first and foremost that a Confession of Faith is a written document drawn up by the Church which confesses Jesus Christ.” (Italics the author’s) and, “2. According to Barmen, a Confession of faith confesses Jesus Christ as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture.” (Italics the author’s)

The point here is that it is only the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church which confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and does so knowing Jesus Christ only from the Old and New Testaments. With that clarified it is possible to understand how and why Cochrane, a Reformed professor and theologian, can write, “… a Confession does not confess the ‘Reformed point of view,’ or Calvinism, Lutheranism, Methodism, or Barthianism. It will not even wish to represent ‘evangelicalism’ or ‘Protestantism,’ for that would be to confess an ecclesiastical tradition rather than Christ.” (186)

While some readers are now, of course thinking of “The Scots Confession,” or more probably “The Westminster Confession of Faith,” it should be noted they do confess above all, Jesus Christ as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture. And those two Confessions do confess that point as given to the whole Church. Cochrane will dwell more deeply on this issue in another point using the Lutheran Confession, the Formula of Concord.

But the most important part of this third point, the statement, “The ecumenicity of a Confession is grounded in the fact that it undertakes to confess the One Lord and the one faith attested in Holy Scripture and given to the whole Church,” has a challenging aspect for the troubled mainline Churches of today. That is, that when the Confessing Churches of Germany and the members of the Synod of Barmen offered the Declaration of Barmen to the Church of Germany they offered it as though they were the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. As Cochrane writes:

“The Synod of Barmen made this claim [The ecumenicity of a Confession is grounded in the fact that it undertakes to confess the One Lord and the one faith attested in Holy Scripture and given to the whole Church.] when it dared to speak in the name of the German Evangelical Church and not merely in the name of an orthodox party opposing the ‘German Christians’ and when it declared that ‘we are bound together by the Confession of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.’ This one Christian Church, Article 3 states, is ‘the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit.’”

And here is the wisdom for today, “A Confession that did not assume the awful daring and risk involved in such a claim would prove only that it was not a genuine Confession.” Those who confess must gather into their statement the whole Church, must speak as though they are speaking for the whole Church. So above all, Jesus Christ as Lord, the confession of Him founded only on the Holy Scripture and the recognition that this is the Confession of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is risky but is the only true Confession of the Church.

The Confession of the Church 2

Holy Scripture is vital to the Church’s confession. This is probably the smallest section of Arthur C. Cochrane’s chapter on the nature of a confession in The Church’s Confession Under Hitler. But it is extremely important for both the time of Barmen and today. We have looked in the first post at what or rather who it is that the Church confesses. In the second point how Jesus Christ is known by the Church is explored.

“2. According to Barmen, A Confession of faith confesses Jesus Christ as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture.” (Italics the author’s) (184)

This leads once again to a negative section, and Cochrane explains how the Church is not allowed, indeed, cannot know Jesus Christ in any other way than through Holy Scripture. Because of the negative part we are able to understand that there is an absolute picture of Jesus Christ as he is known by the whole Church in all places and times. The negative part followed by the positive is:

“It [the Church] does not confess a mystical Christ who may be apprehended in the general religious consciousness, in world history, or in reason and experience, but the Christ whom the Church hears in the witness of the Old and New Testaments.”

The Old Testament and its witness to Jesus Christ is as important as the New Testament. Cochrane refers to a statement by Wilhelm Vischer who stated that the Old Testament “tells what Jesus Christ is,” while the New Testament “tells who he is.” Cochrane’s extremely important point is that “A Confession of Faith acknowledges Jesus Christ to be the unity of the Bible.” (Bold mine)

Locating our knowledge of Jesus Christ in the Old and New Testaments means that the Church is not allowed to view Jesus Christ through New Age revelations such as “A Course in Miracles,” or through extra-biblical texts such as Gnostic accounts or other such cultural mythologies.

And while we acknowledge that all Christians may experience the presence of Christ, we are not to use experience as a criterion for who Jesus Christ is. Nor does any cultural account of Jesus Christ outside of the pages of the biblical texts have any validity, including the view that other religions are differing accounts of the Spirit’s way to the Father.

At the same time any Confession which excludes Jesus Christ from the Old Testament promises is unacceptable. Likewise any attempt to erase any part of the New Testament's witness’ to Jesus Christ, such as that work done by the Jesus Seminar, should be scathingly denounced by the Church’s Confession of Faith.

Cochrane goes on to write,”a Confession looks upon itself as subordinate to Scripture, as a fallible, provisional exegesis of Scripture. The question of whether its exegesis is good exegesis must always be asked.”

Cochrane insists that this emphasis on the witness of Scripture is why the members of the Synod of Barmen, who offered the Declaration of Barmen to the Churches of Germany, asked them to test this document against Scripture. The Holy Scriptures, and their witness to Jesus Christ in both Old and New Testament, must be the ultimate foundation for all Confessions of the Church.

The Confession of the Church 1

The subject of essentials and confessions continues to surface in other writer's essays, postings comments and editorials. Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick has, according to Rev. James D. Berkley , suggested the PCUSA adopt the The Confession of Belhar, "and urged as 'necessary' the study of the Confession of Accra with Belhar."

In his book, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, Arthur C. Cochrane has a chapter entitled “The Nature of a Confession of Faith, Illustrated from the Theology and History of Barmen.”

Using that chapter I am going to lay out his points although not with quite his extensive amount of detail. I intend to quote a great deal with just a small amount of commentary. I will look at each point for each posting.

First Cochrane explains that a confession is not a dead document. He writes that instead, “It acts upon its environment and the environment reacts to it. It affects the lives of all who come in contact with it. The Barmen Declaration is such a document. It invited and secured decisions from the Church and the nation. It evoked love and hate, joy and grief, praise and blame, obedience and disobedience.” (181)

Then Cochrane lists the qualities of the confession as supplied by Barmen. The first point:

“1. The Barmen Declaration teaches first and foremost that a Confession of Faith is a written document drawn up by the Church which confesses Jesus Christ. While the Church confesses certain doctrines and dogmas and supplies answers to specific questions, it does so only in order to bear witness to Christ. It confesses a living Person who is the Lord and thus calls for a personal relationship of trust and obedience to him—not to the Confession as such or to the doctrines contained in it.”

Cochrane shows how, in this Declaration the unity of the Church is founded on the ultimate confession that is made by the Church. He writes, “…in its preamble Barmen declares: ‘We are bound together by the confession of the one Lord.’ Jesus Christ is directly spoken about in the first three articles and indirectly in the other three.”

This one confession of Jesus Christ as Lord produces a negative side of the confession, that is, it allows the Church to understand what a confession is not:

"A Confession is therefore not the publication of the opinions, convictions, ideals, and value judgments of men. It does not set forth a program or system of theology or ethics. It is not a set of principles or constitution for a fraternal order, social service club, or a religious society. It is not a political or ethical, religious platform. It does not bear witness to certain events, powers, figures, and truths in nature and history that may be championed by certain groups in society."

And confessing one Lord Jesus Christ allows for the positive side, that is what a confession is:

“It confesses Jesus Christ as the one Lord, the one justification and sanctification of men, the one revelation, and the one Word of God which we have to hear, trust and obey in life and in death.”

So the Church's unity is bound up with its confession of Jesus Christ. This will gain greater meaning in another point which deals with Holy Scriptures.