The Bethel Confession of 1933 (Adapted)[Adapted from the various editions of the Bethel Confession of 1933, namely, the First Draft, the August Version and the November Version]

On the Holy Scriptures

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the sole source and norm for the doctrine of the church. They constitute the fully valid witness, authenticated by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, is the Christ, Israels Messiah, the anointed King of the Church, the Son of the living God.

All church doctrine must be measured solely by the Holy Scriptures and be revealed as pure doctrine through it alone. Everything the church does in Gods service must take place in obedience to Holy Scripture and in relation to it must prove itself to be in agreement with Gods will.

The Holy Scriptures alone witness to the divine revelation. They reveal a one-time, unrepeatable and self-contained history of salvation, beginning with the promise given to the fallen Adam and culminating in the founding of the church. The church proclaims this history as Gods revelatory act that is valid for us. It is in bearing witness to these acts of God that the Scriptures are Gods Word spoken to us. The church can proclaim Gods revelation only by interpreting this Word which bears witness to it, and the church is able to do Gods will only in obedience to the command of Scripture.

The history to which the Scriptures bear witness is salvation history, that is, the history of salvation, which God brings to the world. It does not present the people in the Bible as holy, but only shows that, despite their unworthiness, they were called into the church, for the salvation God had prepared for them. The full understanding of this history begins with the New Testament, testifying to the culmination of Gods plan for salvation in the incarnation, words, deeds and miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the founding of the church. The Old Testament is the Word of God, because it is the one God who calls Israel to be the church, who is rejected by Israel and who founds the church of the New Covenant.

The Holy Scriptures constitute a whole. They have their unity in Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One, who speaks throughout the Scriptures. We are not the judges of Gods Word in the Bible; instead, the Bible is given to us so that through it we may submit to Christs judgment. Only through the Holy Spirit do we hear the Word of God from the Bible. But this Spirit itself comes to us only through the Word of the Holy Scriptures in their entirety, and therefore can never, except by enthusiasm, be separated from this Word.

In accordance with the confessions of the Protestant churches of the Reformation period, we reject the false doctrine, in whatever form it may occur, that Christ may also testify to himself outside the Scriptures and without them, and that the Holy Spirit may be given without the external words of preaching founded on the Scriptures, and without the sacraments. AC V, 4: Condemned are the Anabaptists and others who teach that the Holy Spirit comes to us through our own preparations, thoughts, and works without the external word of the Gospel. Sm. Art. III, VIII, 9f.: In short, enthusiasm clings to Adam and his descendants from the beginning to the end of the world. It is a poison implanted and inoculated in man by the old dragon, and it is the source, strength, and power of all heresy, including that of the papacy and Mohammedanism. Accordingly, we should and must constantly maintain that God will not deal with us except through his external Word and sacrament. Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such Word and sacrament is of the devil. Sm. Art. III, VIII, 3: In these matters, which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before. Thus we shall be protected from the enthusiasts that is, from the spiritualists who boast that they possess the Spirit without and before the Word and who therefore judge, interpret, and twist the Scriptures or spoken Word according to their pleasure.

We reject the false doctrine that Holy Scripture is no more than the record of a past history. God, who revealed himself once in the history witnessed by Scripture, speaks and acts in this history today and all days. This is why Holy Scripture is meaningful for us not because in it general religious truths are enunciated and religious-moral values are contained which are illustrated by the reported facts by way of example.

We reject the false doctrine that presents the history of salvation as a parable, for example that the election of Israel as Gods chosen people can be applied to any other people, or perhaps to all peoples. This is a denial of the uniqueness and the historicity of Gods revelation.

We reject, for the same reason, the false doctrine that concludes from Gods giving the Law of Moses to Israel that the laws of all nations are given to them by God (the doctrine of the Nomoi). The saving acts of God in the Bible are not examples or symbols, to be interpreted as such, but rather revelation to be proclaimed.

The Old Testament law is different from the laws ordering the lives of other nations in that it is given to Israel as the people of God, as the people chosen to be the church. For this reason, it is not an object of comparison, but only an object of proclamation.

We reject the false doctrine that tears apart the unity of Holy Scripture by rejecting the Old Testament or by even replacing it through non-Christian documents from the pagan early history of another nation. Holy Scripture is an indivisible unity because it is in its entirety a testimony of and about Christ.

For these same reasons we reject the false doctrine that recognizes the Old Testament only as the Bible of Jesus, that is, of the original Christian church, and recognizes its validity only in that context (religious antisemitism).

We reject every attempt, for ones own arbitrary reasons or based on ones personal devotional experience, to separate Gods words from human words in the Holy Scriptures. Luthers saying that the Holy Scriptures are Gods Word wherever they bring us Christ does not give us room to arbitrarily choose whatever we want from the Scriptures. The entirety of the Scriptures as they have been collected in the canon brings us Christ. But the Holy Spirit may reveal Christ to us anywhere in the Scriptures and at any time. The Holy Spirit that speaks to us through a word in the Holy Scriptures is always the spirit of the whole of the Holy Scriptures, and thus can never be confused with ones own pious experience in selecting whatever one pleases. Instead, Christ as Lord of the Scriptures must be brought to bear on the Scriptures wherever the Scriptures are in danger of being used against Christ. But such freedom to use the Holy Scriptures comes only from submission to the written Word in its entirety. (Cf. Luthers introductory remarks on the Letter of James, 1522). This humble submission expresses the realization that the Word of God is never in my power, but rather receives power over me from God, that Gods Word for me is always a foreign one.

On the Reformation

Our forefathers sacrificed the outward unity of the Christian church to the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures and the preaching of free grace. Therefore church in the Reformation sense is essentially Protestant church. It is to be distinguished from any church that renounces, for the sake of any historical development, the constant appeal to the Word of God as witnessed in the Scriptures. As the congregation of Jesus Christ, it is and remains just as fundamentally church, and is to be distinguished from the sort of Protestantism that equates the church with any national, cultural or religious movement. The essence of the Reformation is consciousness of the Holy Scriptures, submission to the Holy Scriptures. For the Reformation, Martin Luther is the teacher who is obedient to the Holy Scriptures. To see what he did as the birth of the German spirit or the origin of the modern concept of freedom, or as the foundation of a new religion, goes against his own word. He fought against blind overestimation of human reason, and rejected as a temptation of the devil the human delusion that one could come to God through ones own spirit, without the divine Word. However, since he knew he had been sent to help the German nation to be more fully Christian, he also served, and still serves all nations today, as an evangelist.

On the Trinitarian Nature of God

The church teaches that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinguished as three Persons within one divine Being and nature, the one and only God, who created heaven and earth; that the Father was begotten by no one, the Son by the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Smalcald Art. I, Iff.), which is the greatest mystery in heaven and earth (F.C. II, VIII, 34). This is the trinitarian God revealed to us man in Jesus Christ, so that the entire Holy Trinity points to Christ as to the Book of Life (F.C. II, XI, 66. The Scriptures testify that no one comes to the Father except through Christ (John 14:6); no one comes to the Son unless drawn by the Father (John 6:44); no one can say that Christ is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3); the Holy Spirit is sent out from the Father and the Son (John 15:16, 14:26). So the trinitarian God is recognized by faith as Father through the Son, as Son through the Father, as Father and Son through the Holy Spirit, as Holy Spirit through the Father and Son. No power of human reason is able to solve this mystery of Gods self-revelation as the Trinity.
We reject any attempt to dismember the revelation of the trinitarian God, to claim to understand the creation or reconciliation or redemption as a concept on its own. Instead, we have in Christ alone the whole revelation of God as Three in One, Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer.

On Creation and Sin

Faith in the Creator and natural knowledgeThe church teaches that in the beginning God created the world out of nothing and is its Lord. We receive this faith only out of the proclamation of the revelation of the triune God, as the church witnesses to it based on Holy Scripture. Pious natural knowledge is able to comprehend neither God as the Creator nor the world as creation in accordance with the witness of Scripture. For natural man, who only knows nature, God remains the ground of the world; and he runs the risk of speaking of unresolved contradictions in the world, thereby reviling the Creator and Ruler. He either is ruined by God in his quest for God or loses himself in speculations about the mysteries of the divine majesty which the creature should and can neither know nor search. The natural, pious knowledge never knows God as the living Lord who calls and summons man in his thinking, willing, and doing. The natural pious knowledge knows God only as exalted, enigmatic, dark, or terrifying. Faith has its foundation, not in the works of God displayed in nature, but in his word. In view of death and evil in the world, it can spring forth only from the word revealed by God himself, not from the world. For faith, creation is something established by God from eternity into time, from nothing into being, from invisibility into visibility. The Creator carries out this establishment every moment anew by his creative word (continuous creation, cf. Hebr. 1:3, FC-SD I, 34ff.; FC-Ep. I, 4). God-wrought faith knows that what blind and spiteful man in his rebellion against God calls contradiction and riddle is transformed into light and life by the revelation of the Christ and of the new creation created by him (1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 5:17).

Faith and natural knowledge are no longer one because we live in Gods creation as men fallen into sin and because this creation therefore can no longer be for our reason the clearly heard word of God. The fall into sin separates us from creation. Not only Gods blessing, but also his curse is active in mans life and in history. Not only does Gods grace create and order our life, but Gods curse also is revealed in every instance of mans godlessness and injustice and in all of the worlds lacking redemption. Not only God, but also the devil is at work among mankind fallen under sin (Ap. II, 46ff.). This is why we depend solely on his self-revelation, witnessed in Holy Scripture, when it comes to knowing God. First in the obedience to the word of Scripture the Creators glory displayed in nature means more to us than the consciousness of our dependence and the commitment to silent surrender, namely, the call to glorify him in the faithful and grateful use of his gifts.

We reject the false doctrine that we can know God the Creator and Father without Christ; for outside of Christ the Creator must become an angry despot for us. All trust in the ruler of all who is kind to all remains limited to the natural content of life and is a hope without certainty and without object.

We reject the false doctrine that this world, as we know it, corresponds to the original creative will of God; that it gives us life and that it therefore is to be affirmed in an unbroken manner. For this means, in contradiction to the bible, that sin is not deadly and that our world has remained undamaged by it.

Struggle is not the basic principle of the original creation, and a fighting attitude is therefore not a commandment by God established by the original creation. Struggle first comes about by the fact of good and evil. Its goal of mutual annihilation is a consequence of the fall, after which good and evil no longer remain unmingled in a single man. This is why all struggle against evil, that is, against sin, must never be directed at the carrier of evil, because evil is at work on both sides. The struggle is directed at the evil as such. Since victory over evil is granted only by God in his sovereign decision, the struggle against sin in this eon is to be carried out only by means of the prophetic word (Eph. 6:17). This struggle is, in regard to man, without promise of victory. The victory is promised and fulfilled only in Christ (1 Cor. 15:57; John 16:33). Only by faith do we now know of the victory (1 John 5:4). It will be revealed at the end of all things, when God is all in all. Then Gods peace in his kingdom begins. It is not the quiet of motionlessness, but Gods undisturbed governing beyond human history which transcends our human understanding. To be sure, pointing to the real condition of this world as it is corrupted and dominated by struggle rightly contradicts all enthusiasm and utopianism. Yet the knowledge that this world has fallen to death is unable to overcome death.

We cannot know God and Gods will apart from the situation given us, in which we are placed as creatures; for Gods will in creation, which is always also his will of preservation, summons us in our creatureliness and binds us to the neighbor.

God, however, does not speak out of a particular, historical time to us and does not reveal himself in a direct action in creation. The desire to perceive Gods will without the external word of Holy Scripture, to which God has bound himself, is enthusiasm.

The thesis that the voice of the people is Gods voice is an enthusiastic interpretation of history. The voice of the people cries: Hosanna! Crucify! Yet then they all cried and said: not him, but Barabbas.

On the OrdersThe church teaches according to Scripture that God the Lord commanded man before the fall to be fruitful, to hold dominion, and to work; that God created man as male and female; that man gets his food from nature by means of his lordship over nature and the service of his labor; that man cannot live in isolation but only through the community. All this creatureliness ordered for man.

The church also teaches that after the Fall and the Flood, God has patience with man, allowing them to live in the fallen world and sustaining them there. To preserve man from their unbridled selfishness and keep them from destroying themselves, God imposes firm orders upon human life. God in the Noahic Covenant blessed and bound all mankind to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1), to hold dominion over every moving thing and the green plants (Gensis 9:2-3), and that whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. (Gensis 9:6)

Every order which is not defined and sanctified by Gods law, must again and again fall to the devil. Thus God keeps man alive through his life-creating word in these orders and gives him in them life and salvation through Christ (Ap. XVI). The orders do not have any value in themselves, but only live from Christ, the Word. Yet this means that they exist as orders of preservation only for the sake of Christs future and for the sake of the new creation. This is, then, their ultimate and deepest meaning and their limitation: that man may and should live in them until redemption. The orders are valid orders of God; therefore they are not indifferent matters, but they are also not final orders of God. The orders of preservation have the unconditional value of being divine institutions, and their transgression makes us enemies of God and closes access to the Christ. At the same time, however, they are cancelled and overcome from Christ and his future.

The orders that we have been given are those of gender, marriage, the family, the nation, property (work and the economy), vocation or trade, and government. Man cannot escape from any of these orders, nor can any of them be transferred or transformed into another. Marriage remains marriage, the nation remains the nation, government remains government.

Furthermore, the Bible and confessions understand the human race as one united race in its origin and its final destination (Adam Christ, Acts 17:26). A man is a man, and this unity of the human race calls for our obedience. In the course of history this unity has unfolded as numerous tribes and peoples. But the modern concept of race is not found in either the Bible or the confessional writings. The tribes of Shem, Ham and Japheth, who were the sons of one father, are not the final boundaries of communities based on bloodlines, but rather become thoroughly mixed together. This is the context for the significance given to thy strangers who are . . . within thy gates in the Old Testament. Whether they are welcome or not, they are simply there. To speak of the Creator God, who made the entire human race, is to speak of the humanity that exists over and above the distinct peoples. That means, the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself . . . I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:34).

Because of the demands of the various orders, man find themselves in a continuous tension. This tension is for us the most highly visible proof that the world is in need of redemption. Worldly authority has the responsibility for resolving the worlds tensions, and it alone defends its legal system by the sword.

Christians receive these orders, which keep man alive and preserve them for their future in Christ, in faith from the hand of our Creator. The orders call us to thanksgiving and repentance. We know that besides the resolution of conflicts by the state, to which we bow in obedience, the churchs proclamation assures us of the ultimate resolution of all conflicts through redemption in Christ.

We reject the false doctrine that there are some final orders in the world which are not placed under Gods wrath for us by the fall and which, as unbroken orders of creation, can be known and affirmed in their original state. For in this way, mans withdrawal into the sinless world would be made possible, whereby Christs death on the cross would be made superfluous.

We reject the false doctrine that the orders of the fallen world mentioned above are an indifferent or even invalid matter for the Christian because they are not final. We therefore reject every attempt to make out of the gospel of love a new law for the construction of a new harmonious order of society. However, as long as this life lasts, God nonetheless lets us use the laws of orders and estates which exist in the world the gospel does not tear apart worldly authority, economy, buying, selling, and other worldly public administration, but confirms authority and government and commands to obey the same as Gods order We have recounted this so that also strangers, foe and friend, might understand that authority, government, imperial law, etc. are not overthrown, but rather elevated and protected by this teaching (Ap. XVI, 2, 5, 13; German text).

We reject the false doctrine that could consider any particular corporative order as belonging to Gods orders of creation. According to Luthers teaching, human society is indeed ordered, but in such a way that the same person belongs simultaneously to various orders or groups (ordo oeconomicus, politicus, ecclesiasticus). To say that a certain historical form of society is based upon natural law and is therefore an ultimate order would be to fall back into Catholic social teaching.

We reject the false doctrine that makes obeying the orders dependent on the Christian faith of the person representing these orders. What obliges us to obeying the person is not that he is Christian or heathen, but that he rightly carries out the duties of his office. The gospel commands and wants to have it that we should obey the laws and the authorities under whom we live, be they heathen or Christians (Ap. XVI, 3; German text). Accordingly Christians are obliged to be subject to civil authority and obey its commands and laws in all that can be done without sin. But when commands of the civil authority cannot be obeyed without sin, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29) (AC XVI, 6f.).

We reject the false doctrine that holds that we ourselves are able to restore the orders of creation, which have been destroyed by sin, to their original purity. Only in Christ can the world be restored; not until the new creation will it again stand in visible purity before its Creator. No one except God alone can separate the corruption of our nature from the nature itself. (F.C.I.I.III).

The CommandmentsThe orders preserve the world for its end according to Gods will. The orders are equally well known to both heathens and Christians. They are to be distinguished from the commandment of God. In the commandments, God speaks through revelation to each man personally. It represents Gods claim to be Lord among mankind, in which we are called to offer up our complete devotion and love for God and our neighbor. The law is revealed in the Bible in numerous specific demands; these do not have the meaning for us of principles to be applied, but rather carry the authority of true witness to the Lord who commands us freely. (The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are in agreement on this.)

The church therefore proclaims the commandments of the Scriptures, not as a principle for us each to apply in different ways, but as the concrete claim made upon us by God as our Lord, which binds us again and again to the one Lord revealed in the Bible. A Christian receives Gods commandment only as it is proclaimed in the church according to the Scriptures. Christians also understand the orders within which they live as Gods commandments only through the Holy Scriptures.

The Old Testament law differs from the laws for living and the orders of other peoples in that it is given to Israel as the people of God, as the people chosen to be the church. Therefore it is not to be made the subject of comparisons, but only of proclamation.
We reject the false doctrine that the orders of God in the Nomos of nations could be the same as the commandment of God. This only applies to the Old Testament law of the people Israel. Israel is both people and church. It alone is chosen. That this is fact is expressed in the difference between the laws of all other peoples and the Ten Commandments. The latters uniqueness is found in the first commandment, which denies any attempt to call upon any other orders as if they were Gods commandments. The entire law of Israel as the people of God is valid only by virtue of this first commandment. The first and second tablets of the Ten Commandments form an indissoluble unity, and are to be proclaimed only as such. The Christian who wants to live in obedience to the orders as if they were the commandment of God can do so only on the basis of the proclamation of the biblical commandment.

On SinThe church teaches that man, fallen away from God by freely transgressing Gods law, is in the misery of sin and in the destruction of death with all his nature and all his deeds, that he also lost the image of God. It teaches that nothing sound or uncorrupted has survived in mans body or soul, in his inward or outward powers. It is as the church sings, Through Adams fall mans nature and essence are all corrupt. This damage is so unspeakable that it may not be recognized by a rational process, but only from Gods Word. No one except God alone can separate the corruption of our nature from the nature itself (FC-Ep. I, 8-10). It teaches that man is not only sick but dead to all that is good, and that he is from the time of his birth without faith, without the fear of God, full of evil desire, and standing under the just wrath of God, but that he still has not ceased to be Gods creature.

We reject the false doctrine that man, on account of sin, is no longer Gods creature; for Christ went to the cross for man and thereby bears witness to Gods love for his fallen creature (FC-SD I, 34).

We reject the false doctrine that sin is only the separation from the organic connectedness of life. This would mean that all acting within the organic connectedness of life would be without sin and good. Yet this means a denial of the biblical idea that also the world of organic life is corrupted by the fall into sin. There is acting that does not tear apart the organic connectedness of life but is still sin, because it takes place without love. Sin is rebellion against Gods absolute claim of lordship in the law of love.

We reject the false doctrine that speculatively reduces creation and sin to a common principle, thereby making sin to appear as only another aspect of creation. Creation and sin are ultimate opposites that cannot be reduced to each other anymore. They relate to each other as Gods world and the devils world, while it of course remains true that God is also the one who overcomes the devil. The Gnostic attempt to understand sin as necessary excuses sin; makes black into white; makes it possible for man to justify himself; thus cancels the reconciliation by the death of the cross; furthermore takes the ultimate seriousness out of the opposition of good and evil; and thus leads to licentiousness.

We reject the false teaching that sin is moral failure or imperfection or ignorance, which one gets rid of by doing better the next time around. Christ bore our sin to the cross, and only by Christs death sin is forgiven (FC-SD I, 16-25).

On Christ

The church teaches: Jesus Christ, Gods Son, Adams Son, Davids Son, true God and true man, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, the Sinless One in the flesh of sin he is the only salvation of man. Those who reject him lose their life and remain under Gods wrath. Christ is the end and the fulfillment of the law, the forgiveness of sins, the victory over death, the Lord of the congregation. He alone is the turn of the ages. Jesus was crucified for the sake of the guilt of all people and through their lack of faith, and resurrected that we might be made righteous.

We are justified in the Risen One. With Holy Scripture and the confessions, we call him Lord because he has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, delivered me and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with silver and gold but with his holy and precious blood and with his innocent sufferings and death, in order that I may be his, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity (SC II, 4).

We reject the false doctrine that the appearing of Jesus represents a flare-up of the Nordic nature in the midst of a world tormented by corruption. He is the splendor of Gods glory in the world (Hebr. 1:2). He was humbled to be born in a human nation. According to his birth, he is a member of the Israelite nation from the family of David, sent not only to the sheep who remained with the Shepherd, but also to the lost sheep of Israel.

We reject the false doctrine that says we confess Jesus as our Lord because of his heroic devotion. He is our Lord only because he is sent by our Father, the Son and Savior crucified and resurrected for us. With the confessions we hereby reject the error of the new Arians, that Christ is not a true, essential, natural God, of one divine essence with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, but is merely adorned with divine majesty and is inferior to and beside God the Father. (F.C. I, XII 8 [28]).

We reject the false doctrine that the cross of Jesus Christ may be regarded as a symbol for a generalized religious or human truth, as expressed in the sentence The public interest comes before private interest (Wieneke). The cross of Jesus Christ is not at all a symbol for anything; it is rather the unique revelatory act of God, in which the fulfillment of the law, the judgment of death on all flesh, and the reconciliation of the world with God are carried out for all people. Therefore the death of Jesus is not to be compared with any other sacrificial death, and the passion of Jesus Christ should not be compared with the passion of any other person or people. Christs passion and cross can only be proclaimed as Gods judgment on and mercy for the entire world.

We reject the false doctrine that would make the crucifixion of Christ the fault of the Jewish people alone, as though other peoples and races had not crucified him. All races and peoples, even the mightiest, share in the guilt for his death and become guilty of it every day anew, when they commit outrage against the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29). Thy grief and bitter passion were all for sinners gain; mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6. A.C. XIII 8, XXIV 56.

On the Holy Spirit and the Church

On the Holy SpiritThe church teaches that the Holy Spirit, true God in eternity, neither created nor made, proceeds from the Father and the Son; that he is given to man only by means of the external word and the sacrament in the church; that he makes comprehensible and effective such message and the sacrament testifying to it; that by him are separated from all nations according to Gods election those who are called to the church of Christ; that he teaches, judges, and creates faith, conversion, and renewal in man.

We reject the false doctrine that the Holy Spirit can be known in creation and its orders without Christ or is given to us by means of our natural impulses; for the Holy Spirit is at the same time always from the Son, in whom this world is judged, in whom the new order of the church as the people of God is established above the peoples. Because God the Father is not the God of one nation; because Christ is the Lord of all men. Only because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son does the church receive its mission to all nations. The rebellion against this teaching about the Holy Spirit is an ethno-nationalist rebellion against the church of Jesus Christ. C.A. I: Therefore all heresies . . . are rejected . . . which hold that . . . the Holy Spirit is a movement induced in creatures. Ap. XXIV: For the Holy Spirit works through the Word and the Sacraments. Art. Sm. III, VIII.: It must be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word which goes before. We say this to protect ourselves from the enthusiasts, that is, the spirits, who boast that they have the Spirit apart from and before contact with the Word.

On Justification, Faith, and SanctificationThe church teaches that godless man finds a gracious God only by faith in Jesus Christ who as Mediator was crucified and rose for him. The Holy Spirit gives this faith through the word concerning Christ. Against reason, against the pride of the flesh, against erring conscience, faith clings only to the biblical word promising Gods grace. It is this faith alone that justifies.

When the gracious God is gracious toward a person and reveals him his grace in his word, so that the person realizes that Christ is the crucified and risen one for him in particular, then the person is called by this word to new obedience. Since faith brings the Holy Spirit and produces a new light and life in our hearts, it is certain and follows necessarily that faith renews and changes the heart. And the prophet shows what kind of renewal of hearts this is when he says (Jer. 31:33): I will put my law into their hearts. After we have been born anew by faith and recognized that God wants to be gracious to us, that he wants to be our Father and helper, we begin to fear God, to love him, to thank him, to praise him, to ask him for and expect all help, and also to be obedient according to his will in afflictions. Then we also begin to love our neighbor. There is now inwardly a new heart, mind, and mood by the Spirit of Christ (Ap. IV, 125; German text). There is no faith without obedience and no justification without sanctification. Merely hearing the word without obeying it despises Gods grace and is mans deadly insolence. The church that only teaches and believes, but does not act, is not the body of Christ. Gods call summons us to make a decision.

However, sanctification and obedience are not autonomous deeds of man, but God himself in his Spirit through the miracle of love prepares me, and equips me for obedience and love. The believing Christian is utterly bound to Christ as the word of God who judges us, who lets us die before God, and who calls us back to life by invisible grace and power. The believing Christian knows Gods wrath, stands in repentance, fears God, takes his grace as the miracle without par which the world cannot comprehend. Yet the believing Christian also knows that God prepares and opens man for himself in the miracle of love to hear him, the living God, and to obey him. In the miracle of love God gives the joy of obedience and the strength to fulfill his gracious will.

The heathen who trusts in god understands god as an anonymous power to which one must submit, that is, as fate. The believing Christian knows God as the living, holy, righteous, and merciful Father and Lord who reveals himself in Christ alone. The person who in Christ trusts in God obediently accepts this world and his place in it out of the hand of the Father revealed in Christ; he takes up his cross and bears it in the power of the promise that God will create a new heaven and a new earth at the end of all things. The believing and obeying Christian therefore is always in a state of waiting for the end.

We reject the confusion of heathen trust in god and faith as disdaining God-wrought faith. Claiming Gods grace in self-confident presumption without fear as something natural for oneself turns faith upside down: it turns the eyes to the events in this world; it seeks the justification by God before the world without knowledge of Christ, of the end of all things in Christ, and of His future.

We reject as Israelite thinking the teaching that at the Last Judgement God will ask man only whether they have been decent folk. This is a basic misunderstanding of the Gospels meaning and of the faith in Luthers sense. In judging mankind, God intends only to ask whether we have believed in Christ, and this faith is to justify each of us before God. This faith is His work, and its fruit are the works to which he has prepared us beforehand (Eph. 2:10). Trusting in God and a sense of duty also belong to the fruits of faith. Yet they must by no means be confused with faith itself. One must also not draw conclusion about a persons faith based on their trust in God and their sense of duty. For both can be phantoms, temptations, and thus works of the devil in man. The faith that is entirely Gods work does not look to its fruits, but only to its Lord. It does not appeal to itself, but only to Christ. Trust in God, sense of duty, and joy of struggling in the service of Christ grow out of faith in the kingdom of God in Christ as gratefully received gifts.

On the ChurchThe church is the body of Jesus Christ. The Crucified and Risen One is the Lord who created and continues to create his people. His people is the church. It is present wherever people are called to repentance and faith and are connected to each other by him in the word of the gospel and in the sacrament. This is how the church becomes the communion of saints. Its members are not holy because they are without sin. Their holiness is not the fruit of human efforts; it rests in Gods active call alone. This is why the church is a communion of sinners, that is, a communion of the godless, that is, a communion of men who are lost. These godless individuals in the church become Gods children only from God in his forgiving justification which seeks and saves and makes alive those who are lost.

Looking on man, there is no possibility of self-boasting for the church; it is certain only of its own utter weakness and insufficiency. This is why the church confesses that it fails and sins. On the other hand, however, when the church looks on Christ whom it proclaims, it can only be filled with boasting in the certainty of the fact that he cannot be overcome. It confesses that it is the communion of saints. This is why it is withdrawn from every judgment of the world. It stands under Gods killing and life-giving word under his judgment that is always also grace.

What the church is can only be understood within the church, never outside of it. For natural reason, the doctrine regarding the church is either presumptuous or foolish. No science, but also no politician or worldly authority is able to comprehend what the church is, except by faith in and through Christ the Lord.

Before the eyes of the world the church as Gods people and body of Christ is hidden, as the Lord of the church, God the Creator and Redeemer, is hidden to the eye; through him, it is a reality in the world. Only faith knows the true church in the visible institutions and forms in which the church enters into history. Its only marks are the purity of the proclamation of the gospel and the right administration of the sacraments; the religious or moral condition of its members is not a mark for the reality of the church, but a fruit of the faith living in the church.

Wherever on earth the gospel is proclaimed in its purity and the sacraments are administered according to their institution, there God gives faith by the Holy Spirit; there the holy, catholic church is a reality in the world. Where one of the two is falsified or abridged, there the church is no longer present; there is then only one group among the many religious associations and world views.

With these statements we declare ourselves again for the doctrine regarding the church, as it is set forth in the seventh article of the Augsburg Confession and, in indissoluble connection with it, in articles five, eight, fourteen, and twenty eight of the same as a fundamental doctrine of the evangelical church and as it is explained in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. We reject the following false doctrines:that the church is a religious society which comes about through the association of pious individuals (Enlightenment, Pietism, Liberalism);

that the true church is invisible and that every visible church is only an imperfect attempt to realize the ideal of the true church (Idealism);

that there are yet other marks of the true church in addition to word and sacrament, especially that the moral or religious perfection of its members belongs to the essence of the church (perfectionism);

that the unity of the church rests on other things in addition to unity of doctrine; that there could be unity of the church and church fellowship where there is no unity in doctrine (unionism);

that the church has a prescribed polity on whose presence depends the existence of the true church (Romanism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, Irvingism,[3]etc.);

that the external order of the church is irrelevant because the doctrine of the gospel is not affected by any polity (spiritualism);

that the government of the church by the princes during the reformation era was something other than the transitory emergency privilege of the foremost members of the church over against the antichristian papacy and the worldly bishops who no longer carried out the functions of the spiritual office; that, rather, the worldly authority as such is the ruling estate in the church (later Lutheran doctrine of the threefold order and the estates ruling the church);

that the state government as such has the right to govern the church; that it especially has the right to install and depose ecclesiastical office holders and to make laws which directly or indirectly affect the doctrine of the church (doctrine of the absolute state, Erastianism, Caesaropapism);

that the church will be absorbed into the state and must more or less give up its independent existence as a publicly and legally recognized corporation (idealistic liberalism, religious socialism);

that the church, because it is essentially not bound to a certain nation, should not be considerate of the peculiarities of each individual nation in its structure and proclamation (clerical internationalism);

that the church is the religious organization of one nation; that it should give religious support to ethnicity; that the boundaries of the church and the nation should be identical (religious nationalism).

On Office and ConfessionAs the church, so the ecclesiastical office also does not have its foundation in the will of man or in human needs, but only in the gracious will of God. Jesus Christ called his apostles. He commissioned them to call the nations to faith by the preaching of the gospel and holy baptism. Thereby he instituted the office of proclamation and of the administration of the sacraments. For faith comes by preaching (the hearing of the word), but preaching comes by the word of God. The church cannot be without this office. It is a ministry of service to the Word and through the Word. It has no foundation before the Word or outside the Word, but stands upon the authority of the Word alone. It continuously renews itself out of Gods word in which the Lord of the church says to those who are his: As the Father has sent me, so I send you [John 20:21].

This commission of Jesus Christ is carried out by men. It is directed at the whole congregation as the body of Christ, and every believer as a member of this body has a share in it. However, as the functions of the body are not carried out by every member, so the exercise of the office is also bound to order (1 Cor. 12:12ff.). The external forms in which the office takes shape e.g., the external forms of the call are human institutions and therefore changeable. Yet in all external changes the office remains the same as to its essence. Whether it is conferred by an individual office holder, by an individual congregation, or a territorial church, it is always the office of the church only through the commission of Christ.

The other offices of the congregation, the presbyters and deacons, also participate in this commission. The existence of this office is the presupposition for the congregations effective appearance in the world. As shepherds, overseers, elders, leaders (Heb. 13:7, 17) the bearers of the office are leaders of the congregation. Such leading, however, is essentially different from every kind of leadership in the world. It is not lordship, but service. It has its authority not in the person of the leader, but only in the command of Christ. In this sense, the bearer of the office is ambassador in Christs stead. We therefore reject the attempt to apply the modern idea of leadership, which has grown out of the natural world, to the preaching office.

The office is carried out by people. This is why the purity of the proclamation of the word and the scriptural offering of the sacraments is always threatened. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it [John 1:5]. This threat gives the task of teaching its deadly seriousness. Christs word is never just speech, but always speech and act at the same time. Therefore, all doctrine must not only be order of thought, but also ground of action. Therefore, everything depends on teaching rightly, because otherwise not only thinking but also acting is falsified. This is why the church must time and again take refuge in Scripture (Luther) and judge and adjust all proclamation according to this single rule. This is why the confession is the indispensable safeguard of the churchly proclamation against every form of arbitrary scriptural interpretation as well as against anti-scriptural false doctrines, regardless of whether these are championed by individual teachers, groups, or denominations. The Christian community has the duty and the right, at any time when it may be threatened with distortion of the divine Word, to confess and do honor to the Word by stating the doctrine that is recognized as correct over against that which is in error. Such confessions are always to be examined with reference to the Word to ensure they are correct, and are the norm for service in the ministry to a congregation.

We reject the false doctrine that makes the ministry an order that would take precedence over Word and sacrament and would be their source. We reject this doctrine in the form of the Roman church hierarchy and those who aspire to be like it, and in the form of enthusiasm. The power of the ministry does not depend either on an historically established institution nor on the powers with which a human soul may be gifted.

As service to the Word of reconciliation, ministry lives by the word of the Holy Scriptures alone, and can only be performed by taking this word as its source. Ministry receives its mission neither from the nation, nor from the state, nor from any political and spiritual movement.

The office of bishop, in its essence, is identical with the office of proclamation and therefore not superior to it. According to human, not divine right it is superior to the office of congregational pastor in order to unite the congregations in an orderly church body. The bishop is to be a shepherd of the shepherds, a leader of the leaders. The foundation and limitation of his office is found in the word of the Scriptures and of the confessions, and therefore cannot ordain that the tie that binds the community to the confession be loosened or undone. Therefore, where the bishops teach, introduce, or institute anything contrary to the Gospel, we have Gods command not to be obedient in such cases (AC XXVIII, 23).

The Church and the Communities in HistoryBecause the foundation of the church is solely the presence of Jesus Christ, who has entered into history in Word and sacrament, the outward forms of the churchs usage and its constitution are not part of its essence as church. They make it possible for the church to fulfil its duty to bring the Gospel to all nations. The church enters with its preaching and its outward forms into the various cultures and into every age. Following the example of the apostles, it can become to the Jews as a Jew, to the Greeks, as a Greek, to the Germans, as a German, to the Chinese, as a Chinese, so that I might by any means save some. The manner and extent of such entering into time can be determined only based on the commission of the church. This adaptability to different cultures finds its parameters in the content of the proclamation. This content alone, from the churchs very essence, determines the ways and forms through which churches enter into history. The proclamation of the church always remains the alien grain of seed that is planted in the ground. Where the content of a specific time becomes the content of the proclamation the gospel is betrayed, because it is no longer said to the time, but absorbed by it.

The proclamation of the message concerning Christ is equally accessible and equally inaccessible for all nations. This proclamation is always good news and offense at the same time. Gods Holy Spirit alone works faith in man. He alone creates the fellowship of confessing rightly. The fellowship of such confessing is never coextensive with the boundaries of a certain ethnicity.

The church of Christ never floats above the nations. It lives in the nations. The nations are not the church. Yet the members of a specific nation, who are at the same time members of the church living in this nation, are inextricably connected to both. They participate in the glory and guilt of their nation and in the promise and guilt of their church.

We reject the false doctrine, in whatever form it may appear, concerning a naturally Christian soul of certain individuals, nations, or races.

We reject the false doctrine that the existence of the nation is a presupposition for the existence of the church, or that the existence of the church is a presupposition for the life of a nation.

The church can live even where there is no nation, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them [Matt. 18:20].

A nation can live and have a grand history, even where there is no church. Nations live within the natural world and have incurred the law of death that reigns over all creation. This is why a nation as a whole cannot be redeemed, for redemption is always Gods act upon an individual. However, the church, grateful to God, always lays hold of the assistance offered to it in the ethnicity or other natural orders for the execution of its commission.

We reject the false doctrine that the church belongs to the nation, or that it exists for the nation. The church does not belong to the nation, but to Christ. He alone is its Lord. Only in intrepid obedience to him it truly serves the nation in which it lives. It exists for every member of the nation, to gain him for the congregation of Jesus.

We oppose the teaching that it belongs to the essence of the church to be a national church. The church is free to be national church, so long as this form is a means to carry out its commission.

Church and Worldly AuthorityOnly in Christ man has salvation and life before God. This is why the word of the church lays hold of the whole man.

Church and worldly authority are both from God. Both have been given an office in the world judged from Christ. We again declare ourselves for the teaching of the reformation (AC XXVIII, 4) that because of Gods command both authorities and powers are to be honored and esteemed with all reverence as the two highest gifts of God on earth. Both are entirely dependent on each other and yet separated from each other by insurmountable boundaries.

Church can never be absorbed into worldly authority. It always remains opposite to every worldly authority due to the content of its proclamation.

Church and authority are connected to one another in three ways:Their service is intended for those people who receive the fellowship of bodily life, with all that it contains, in the same civil or political order. Both lay hold of the whole man in their office.

Worldly authority summons and forces man into its order, which the church teaches him to know as Gods order and for which it equips him to act rightly out of obedience to God.

Worldly authority is above the church insofar as the church stands in the order administered by worldly authority. The church is above worldly authority insofar as it delivers to it the claim which God has over it in the execution of its office.

The symbol of the God-given office of the state is the sword. It is Gods servant for good and the prosecutor of the law over against the evil (Rom. 13:4). It is not without from God, that is, God establishes its beginning and end. It is a sign of Gods goodness who halts his wrath over the world and preserves it from dissolution by means of worldly authority. It does not protect the soul, but with the sword and physical penalties it protects body and goods from [external violence] (AC XXVIII, 11).

The content of the God-given office of the church is word and sacrament. Its power consists in the word alone (AC XXVIII, 8). It forgives and retains sins. It does not protect body and possessions, but through the word of the joyful news concerning the redemption in Christ it proclaims the liberation of the souls to life, by which man comes under the grace-filled rule of Christ. In obedience to God, it enables him to act resolutely in the order of this world.

Worldly authority is bound together with the church only in that the latter is confined within its own orders by the right preaching of the Gospel, and thus does not become an instrument of the devil who, in the end, seeks only to create disorder through which to destroy all life. This is the only service that worldly authorities should expect from the church. Here the church serves the state by keeping the man under state authority safe from the devils deception, which would urge them to worship the state as the unlimited giver of life and of salvation.

The church and the authorities come into conflict first of all when the church misunderstands its service as that of a state within the state, seeks to be a factor with political power, if the former, e.g., wanted the latter to make membership in the church (baptism) a prerequisite of citizenship. In other words, it does violence to its office if it fails to carry out its office either out of fear or out of incompetence only by means of scriptural proclamation and confession. Worldly authority does violence to its office and transgresses its limitation if it wants to abuse the church as a tool for its self-seeking will to power and no longer puts up with the witness of the sole rule of Christ; if it can no longer hear that its dignity, along with the world of sin, has incurred death and judgment.

When church and worldly authority carry out their office rightly, that is, according to Gods order, then they are genuine help and genuine protection for each other. We reject the false doctrine of the Christian state in any form. The authorities, whether in a land of heathen or of Christians, only carry out their office rightly when they exercise the power of the sword rightly and remain within their boundaries. The Word can have no emperor or judge, or protector, other than God alone (W.A. 17.2, p. 108). The state cannot presume to bring salvation to man. It cannot misuse the church as its moral and religious foundation. It is false doctrine to think of the church as the soul or the conscience of the state. On the other hand, it always remains the goal of the church that those who are charged with the office of authority are Christians who obediently serve under the word of God revealed in Christ.

We reject any attempt to set up the visible rule of God on earth, through the church, as interference with the states orders. This would mean making the gospel into law. The church can neither protect nor preserve earthly life. This remains the office of worldly authority.

The Church and the JewsThe church teaches that God chose Israel, from among all the earths peoples, to be the people of God. Israel was chosen solely by the power of Gods word and in Gods mercy, not because of any natural merit of its own (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:7-11). Jesus, the Christ promised by the Law and the Prophets, was rejected by the High Council and the Jewish people according to the Scriptures. They wanted a national Messiah who would liberate them politically and make them masters of the world. But this, Christ Jesus was not, and did not do; he died at their hands, and for their sake. Through the crucifixion and raising from the dead of Christ Jesus, the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles has been broken down (Eph. 2). The place of the Old Testament people of the Covenant has not been taken by another nation, but rather by the Christian church, called out of, and within, all nations.

God has given proof of overflowing faithfulness in remaining faithful to Israel, according to the flesh from which Christ was born in the flesh, despite all Israels unfaithfulness and even after the crucifixion. God still wants to complete with the Jews the plan for redeeming the world that began with the calling of Israel (Romans 9-11). This is why God has preserved, according to the flesh, a sacred remnant of Israel, which neither becomes absorbed into any other nation by emancipation and assimilation, nor becomes itself a nation among others through zionistic or similar efforts, nor can be annihilated by measures such as those used by Pharaoh. This sacred remnant has the character indelebilis of the chosen people.

The church has received from its Lord the mission to call the Jews to conversion and to baptize those who believe in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 10:5-6; Acts 2:38ff., 3:19-26). A mission to the Jews that refuses altogether to carry out baptisms of Jews because of cultural or political considerations is refusing to obey its Lord. Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:22ff.). He represents the religious ideal of the Jewish soul no more than the religious ideal of any other peoples soul. Neither can a Jew be given faith in Christ through flesh and blood, but only through the Spirit from the Father in heaven (Matthew 16:17).

The fellowship of those belonging to the church is not determined by blood, therefore not by race, but by the Holy Spirit and baptism.
We reject any attempt to compare or confuse the mission of any other nation with that of Israel, which is part of salvation history.

It can never in any case be the mission of any nation to take revenge on the Jews for the murder committed at Golgotha. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35; Hebrews 10:30. We reject any attempt to misinterpret Gods special faithfulness to Israel as proof for the religious significance of Jewish or any other culture.

We object to the assertion that the faith of a Jewish Christian would, unlike that of a Gentile Christian, be a matter of race or blood; this is a Jewish form of enthusiasm.

We object to the attempt to make the German Protestant church into a Reich church for Christians of the Aryan race, thus robbing it of its promise. This would put up a law based on race at the entrance to the church, making such a church itself legally into a Jewish Christian congregation. We therefore oppose the establishment of congregations for Jewish Christians, because they would be based on the false premise that there is something particular about Jewish Christians at the same level as, for example, the special character that French refugee congregations in Germany have for historical reasons, or that Christians from Jewish backgrounds had to develop a particular Christianity appropriate to their race. What is special about Jewish Christians has nothing to do with their race or kind or their history, but rather with Gods particular faithfulness to Israel according to the flesh. In fact, so long as Jewish Christians are not set apart legally in any way within the church, they serve as a living monument to Gods faithfulness and a sign that the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles has been broken down, and that faith in Christ must not be distorted in any way to do with a national religion or with Christianity according to race. Gentile Christians should be ready to expose themselves to persecution before they are ready to betray in even a single case, voluntarily or under compulsion, the churchs fellowship with Jewish Christians that is instituted in Word and sacrament.

On History and on the End of All Things

Ever since the fall of man the world is sustained by the gracious will of God toward the end until the end. God leaves his promise to man who has entered into opposition to him, namely, the promise to subject the earth to himself, that is, to shape it according to the gifts God gave him. This human activity is called history. In all liberty of willing and doing, man still remains bound in his creatureliness. This is why God is the Lord who in grace and judgment acts also in history in inexhaustible liveliness.

Man believes to recognize and shape in history something that is ultimate, that is accessible to him, for the deepest motive of all human activity in history is sinful mans desire for power and greatness out of his own strength in assertion against God. The goal of Gods acting is the redemption of all of mankind. In immeasurable patience God again and again calls man into the decision.

He chose Israel to be his people to raise up the Messiah in it. Yet it rejected the Christ. Israels heir became Christs church. It is the people of the elect from every nation. The nations are therefore directed to the church in a peculiar way. It lives among them as the living promise of God. This is what makes the life and history of every nation, among whom the word concerning Christ is preached and baptism in his name is administered, rich and dangerous. For now this nation always runs the risk of walking the way of Israel. It runs the risk of abusing the promise lifted up in its midst in the church, the host of the ones called out, in the same way Israel abused it: it demanded that the Messiah glorify the greatness of the chosen people and did not want to hear that God has his kingdom proclaimed as one that is not of this world.

In all historical events God and the devil are at work. Gods blessing and curse, grace and judgment can therefore not be separated and distinguished by natural man in an unequivocal manner. Natural man, the nation, the world seek to interpret and recognize history as events surrounding them; the believer, the church confesses the revelation of God in history as something that happens towards Him. Such confession can only be received and spoken in faith, only in free, intrepid obedience under the command of the Lord of the church based on the testimony of Scripture.

The nation that demands that its church speak where it has not been granted a word, or remain silent where it hears Gods commission to speak, commits the sin of Israel.

The church that out of attachment to the world, that is, out of a will to power and ambition or out of fear, speaks where it is not commanded to speak, or is silent where it is commanded to speak, becomes a false prophet and thereby a tool of the devil.

In view of God, all history is history of the end; for He is the end, that is, the cancellation of history. This is why every moment is a last moment for the believer and an incomprehensibly great gift of the patience of God who once more gives room for the decision.

In view of the world, every moment is at the same time end and beginning, result and cause, and therefore a call to shape the future anew. This is why every moment is a gift of the grace of God for the believer which orders the creatureliness, by which he is called to work and act.

Only where both are fully present the total devotion to the historical moment and the total detachment from it can the individual as well as the church speak and act rightly. This is why it is the task of the church to fill every moment with the witness of its message that the nation with all who live through the moment are called into the responsibility of the decision for or against Christ. This responsibility comprehends the entire life: the things that are Caesars as well as the things that are Gods. This is why the word of the church, spoken in faith, is always a living word, that is, a word that creates action.

God establishes his kingdom according to his plan that is withdrawn from human understanding. All human attempts to bring such kingdom of God about are therefore ridiculous presumption. We reject with the reformers such Jewish opinions [AC XVII, 5] in every form, whether they appear in the form of apocalyptic fantasies or in that of secular utopias, in the form of belief in progress or in that of pacifism.

The world of the resurrection will be a new earth and a new heaven where the former shall not be remembered anymore (Isa. 65:17). God will wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there will be no more death and suffering and crying and pain; for the former things are past (Rev. 21:4).

The church teaches that Jesus Christ is the end of the world and its history. He who was born, crucified and resurrected within history will come again to judge the living and the dead. Because the Christ of history, the Christ who is present and the Christ who is to come are one and the same; in him the end time and the judgment are present now as well as in the future. (The hour is coming, and is now here . . . John 5:25). Therefore faith and hope are inseparable. Faith says, now, but now, while hope says not yet. (We are Gods children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. 1 John 3:2). The unity of both is Christ, who is present to us in the commandment to love and thus brings the end time near.

Before the end comes the antichrist who, with a false appearance, declares himself to be the Messiah, the Christ, and wants to seduce the church. He is dangerous in the world, more dangerous yet in the church. He brings struggle to the congregation of Christ; people will be divided because of him. The end of history is division; the struggle of the congregation of Christ against the rule of the antichrist. Yet this end of history that comes is coming already now.

Both the Christ and the devil are at work at every moment. This is why the division takes places continuously. The power of the coming antichrist is seen in all seduction to disobedience and to denial; the power of Christ, however, becomes apparent in every strengthening of his disciples unto joyful confessing, unto faith that makes ready for deed and sacrifice, for obedience, for suffering. The task of the church in the time is therefore not the calculation of what is to come, but watchful readiness in the fear of God and in the certainty of his promise.

We reject all false doctrine which unilaterally either affirms or negates either the world of hope or our world. All flight from the not yet or from the now to the now or to the not yet is flight from the Lord of all things in whom time and eternity are one. Unbroken worldliness as well as pious world flight are unable to grasp the certainty that the world has been judged in Christ and awaits judgment; that the redemption is present and coming only the believer is able to grasp it as he totally stands in the world and is totally taken out of the world, because he is certain of the promise of Christ.

We reject the false doctrine that would see within the world a gradual development taking place which will culminate in the new world. Even that which is most noble in this world must go to its death. Christ had to go to the cross. As Christ went through death, so the whole world and each man, as a whole being, must go to their death. There is no possible gradual step by step process or progression from this world into the new world. Everything must pass through death. For our sake, Christ was cursed by God upon the cross, but as Christ was raised from the dead, so at the end time God will awaken the dead and call them before his judgement seat. Even the most devout are not spared the judgement and only those who believe can stand this judgement. But who are those who believe, and who are those who don't believe? This question, which we have to answer for ourselves is the final thing that can be said about it here. No teaching can be given about the outcome of the judgement; neither the restoration of the entire world nor its eternal rejection. This is why the church can only proclaim the summons of God to the world. It must not take up as God's call what sounds forth from the world and return it as God's word. Its proclamation is always a call to decision before Christ and for Christ. Such decision is judged in judgement. It is God who judges at the end of time. He alone knows what always remains hidden from man's eyes. This is why no person nor church can proclaim his judgement in time. Only in prayer is it possible to speak about the outcome of the judgement.

We reject any version of the doctrine of the thousand-year that clearly seeks to interpret certain historical events as the beginning of Christs visible reign on earth.

To him, however, be glory and praise, who was, and who is, and who comes. Christ the Lord.