The Augsburg Confession
Historical Introduction by B. W. Teigen
Saturday, June 25, 1530, 3:00 p.m., must go down as a red-letter day and hour for every Lutheran. On that day the Lutheran Church as an identifiable unit in world history was born. More significantly, a group of theologians and laymen by the grace of God made a Biblically-based confession of what they believed, and were ready to stake their lives on their confession. The occasion was a public reading before Emperor Charles V of a series of paragraphs on doctrinal points which have come to be known in history as the Augsburg Confession (or the Augustana, its Latin term derived from the Latin name for Augsburg). The representatives from states and free cities throughout Germany had united in presenting a testimony of divine truth before the Roman Catholic Emperor. It was a dramatic moment which has captured the imagination of men ever since. When Luther received the details of the actual presentation, he, in a letter of July 6, 1530, from the fortress Coburg, summed up the event in these words, “I am tremendously pleased to have lived to this moment when Christ, by His staunch confessors, has publicly been proclaimed in such a great assembly by means of this really most beautiful confession. And [so the Word] is fulfilled, ‘I will speak of Thy testimonies also before kings.’ What follows will [also] be fulfilled: ‘And will not be put to shame.’ [Psalm 119:46]. For ‘whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven.’ [Matt. 10:32] This verse which Luther quoted from Psalm 119 became the motto of the first printed edition of the Augsburg Confession in 1531 and has ever since been placed under the full title of the Confession. –B.W. Teigen
The Augsburg Confession
- Preface to Emperor Charles V
- The Chief Articles of Faith
- God
- Baptism
- The Mass
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