The Central Issue Among Modern-Day Lutherans

In my earlier post I pointed you to the group of Lutherans who have broken away from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to form two other groups or synods. For them the largest issue is what has been called the formal principle. In other words, what is one's final source and authority in matters of faith and teaching. Pastor Scott Grorud, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, Hutchinson, Minn., and a Board Member of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee put it this way

A central conviction of the Lutheran Reformation was that the sole and final authority for all Christian teaching is the Bible, summed up in the catch phrase sola scriptura. The Epitome of the Formula of Concord states it more fully. “We believe, teach and confess that the only rule and guiding principle according to which all teachings and teachers are to be evaluated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments alone.”  

This principle did not embrace a woodenly literal reading of the Bible, but rather expressed the Reformers’ belief that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit…it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) Through the words of Scripture, God speaks the justifying Word of salvation through faith in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Therefore, no other teaching, insight or knowledge can bear greater weight than the Bible, nor can any teaching that is contrary to it be accepted as Christian truth. As the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord declares, “the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments…(are) the one true guiding principle, according to which all teachers and teaching are to be judged and evaluated.” 

The Lutheran reformers further maintained that God’s Word addresses us in two distinct, but related voices, Law and Gospel. The Law is the accusation of God that exposes our sin, destroys all our pretensions of self-righteousness and drives us in despair to cling to the cross. The Gospel is the astounding declaration that, for Jesus’ sake God forgives us and rescues us from death and condemnation. The Word functions on all people in both these ways and must do so in order for God’s work to be done in our life. To hear one voice without the other distorts God’s Word. 

Some people today claim that the Bible alone cannot serve as the source and norm of our faith, because interpretations of it diverge too widely. They appeal to reason, experience, tradition or other means to insure right interpretation. Others have asserted that new scientific or historical knowledge counterbalances or simply outweighs the Bible’s witness in different areas, while still others claim that contradictory ways of reading the Bible are equally valid. Complex interpretations are said to overturn the accepted meaning of certain texts.In the face of all such efforts, confessional Lutherans insist that the Bible, precisely because it is God’s Word to us, interprets itself and needs no other authority to buttress it. Those passages which most clearly proclaim our sinful condition and God’s salvation in Jesus Christ help to clarify more obscure ones, and the overall message of God’s salvation, culminating in the cross and empty tomb, is the context in which every text must be read and understood. Through the words of the Bible, God addresses us, in Law and Gospel, putting us to death in our sin and raising us to new life in Christ. In that way, the Bible is not subject to any other claim of authority, but is the standard by which all other authorities and truth-claims are judged. 

It has been said of the Bible that it is the only book that has been the world's bestseller for 2000 years.The oldest part of the Bible was written more than 3000 years ago, the youngest is almost 2000 years old. But the Bible speaks daily to people around the world today. That makes it the most asked for book in the world. It is being printed in new versions and editions and translations into ever more languages. Just a few numbers can illustrate that:

• 90% of the people in the world have access to the Bible or part of the Bible in the language they understand
• At the beginning of the year 2000 the entire Bible had been translated into 383 languages.
• The New Testament has been translated into 987 languages. Language experts think there are 6500 languages in the world, so there are still lots of people who do not have the possibility of reading the bible in their own mother tongue.
•The Bible is almost a best seller in China.  The Bible publisher Amity celebrated the publication of 25,000,000 Bibles printed since it was founded in 1987. The United Bible Societies printed and distributed in the year 2000 more than 23 million New Testaments

The authority of Holy Scripture was a central issue in the Reformation of the church over 500 years ago. As you can see, it remains the same today. Intimately connected is the central teaching of the Bible, often summarized in these words of John's Gospel:

 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."(John 3:16-17)