VIII. The Obligation to Confession
CHAPTER VIII
The Obligation to Confession For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. - 1 Cor. 6:20.
Confessing, to be sure, has its root and origin in the heart, but is nevertheless in itself, according to its nature and character, a thing of the mouth, a work of the lips.
There are many of the opinion, however, that this latter is only incidental to confession, an arbitrary addition, at least, only a superfluous good work. And they know how to ornament this, their opinion, with many beautiful thoughts; in personal faith in Christ and for the salvation of the soul the emphasis is laid upon the heart and not upon the external work of the lips. Silently confessing, and testifying in secret has more worth and worthiness and bears richer fruit, than the speaking of great words and the using of pious terms.
Jesus, Himself has said, not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he, who does the will of My
Father, which is in Heaven. Better is it to confess before God in the closet, than to sell the truth in public, and to cast pearls before the swine. The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world, it comes not in outward form, but is within us. Man sees what is before the eye, but God considers the heart.
In opposition to the great untruth and lie, which reigns in the confession of the mouth, this reminding of the absolute necessity of the conversion of the heart is perfectly in its place. A fearful hypocrisy has crept into the work of the lips. There is an unjustlycalled orthodoxy, which seeks a ground for justification before the face of God in the outward and intellectual acceptance of the truth.
Confidence in the merit of outward works of piety is a sin, but no less an evil is confidence in the merit of outward learning and
understanding, which in addition makes one to look down in scorn and pride of heart upon the multitude who know not the law, and in the works of mercy and love it is entirely unfruitful. Therefore, in opposition to this false orthodoxy it is always our duty and calling to lay emphasis upon the heart and to exhort unto uprightness before the face of God. For false lips are an abomination unto the Lord, but those who act faithfully are His pleasure. He has no pleasure in a people who draw near unto Him with the mouth, and praise Him with the lips, but whose hearts are held far from Him. The first thing that God requires of each and everyone is the heart, for out of it are the issues of life. To be a Christian consists not therein that we speak great words, but that, with God, we do great things.
But nevertheless this does not in the least take away the fact that Holy Writ attaches a great worth and worthiness to the testimony of the lips and is especially pleased with a confession of the mouth.
There is no other book that so fearlessly unmasks all hypocrisy and at the same time values so highly the significance of the word and the power of testimony, as the Word of God.
Speaking is nothing more or nothing less than an essential attribute of God, His eternal, unchangeable work. Speaking, the Father generates eternally out of His own essence the Son, who is the Word, the spoken and at the same time the self-speaking Word, which in the beginning was with God and which was God. Speaking in and thru that Word God brings all things into existence, preserves and rules, recreates and renews them. His speaking is doing, His Word is power, He speaks and it is there, He commands and it stands fast, He calls the things that are not as if they were.
Also in this respect is man created in the image of God. He receives from His Creator not only an understanding and a heart, but also a tongue and a language and is therefore called, not only to think and to feel, but also to speak and to testify. His speaking must be a praising, a proclaiming of the great works of God. Thus the Angels praise Him, when they, standing before the throne, sing, one to the
other, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory! Thus the saints praise Him, when they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the Song of the Lamb, saying: Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, Thou Almighty God, just and righteous are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints; who would not fear
Thee, Lord, and who would not glorify Thy name? Yea, again and again in Holy Writ, all creatures are called upon to praise the name of the Lord. Bless ye the Lord, all ye, His hosts; ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion; bless the Lord, O my soul.
In the midst of all those speaking and praising creatures, man, who has received the word for the utterance of his thoughts, may not remain silent. Indeed, he cannot remain silent. His silence is even counted as acknowledgment. Neutrality is as impossible for the mouth as for the heart. Whosoever does not confess Christ, denies
Him. Silence soon passes over into doubt, unbelief, enmity. The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell; it is untameable, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. If we do not bless
God, even the Father, with it, then we curse therewith men, which are made after the similitude of God.
Therefore in recreation it is also the purpose of God, that man shall again speak and praise, and proclaim His virtues. God redeems the tongue no less than the heart, the language as well as the thoughts.
He makes man free, both soul and body, and also again loosens his tongue and opens his lips. He fills the mouth with laughter and the lips with rejoicing. Thoughts and words also belong together and may not be separated. The Word is the full-grown thought, the thought which has come to liberty and independence. The thoughts in the inward man are as it were the branches, and the words are the blossoms and fruit thereof, which through the mouth and lips sprout forth and come to maturity. And also of this fruit of the lips, consisting in sacrifies of praise, God is the Creator and Former.
Therefore the Saints of the Old Testament also pray: Lord open my lips, then my mouth shall proclaim Thy praise. Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise, with Thy glory all the day. When God sends forth His spirit the prayer of Moses is answered, that all the people may be prophets of God. Then the sons and daughters, the youths and the old men, man servants and maid servants begin to prophesy and everyone in his own language proclaims the wondrous works of God. Then silence is impossible. The mouth overflows with that of which the heart is filled: Of Thee, O Lord, shall be my praise in a great congregation. I shall praise Thee with all my heart. I will sing unto the name of the Lord, the Most High; I will speak of His wondrous works, each one; I will praise Him among the nations; I will praise the Lord at all times; His glory shall continually fill my mouth; I will praise Him forever.
So highly does God value this fruit of the lips, that in opposition to those who scorn and deride Him, the Lord prepares Himself honor out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. If the disciples should keep silent then the stones would cry out. God demands the whole man for His service. He wills that man shall love Him, with mind and heart, with mouth and tongue and all power. And when man on account of sin holds back this love, then it is He himself, Who, in and through Christ gathers together out of the whole world a church, which proclaims the virtues of Him Who called her out of darkness unto
His marvelous light. It is God, Himself, Who calls His people to this and requires it of them, Who also makes them able and willing. He drives them to it by His Spirit, for this Spirit, leads them in the truth, makes them confess Jesus as the Lord, witnesses in them of their childship, and makes them cry aloud: Abba Father. Because they have been bought with a price, the price of the blood of the Son, they are called to glorify God in their body and spirit which are God's.
This obligation or duty of confessing the Lord's name rests upon each and every believer. In the confession of our mouth it appears whether we mean it, if it is holy earnestness with us, if the love of God is dearer unto us than the friendship of the world. It is, the
evidence of the truth, the verification of the faith, the crown upon the work of God within us. In the confession, returns unto God, by way of the lips, what He Himself out of grace, through His Spirit, has wrought of faith and love in our hearts. It is not a hard duty, not a severe command, but a service of love which never vexes, a blessed privilege, a high honor. For a child of man there is not a more glorious work than to be allowed to confess God and to proclaim His honor.
Such a privilege is confessing for the individual believer and that is it also for the church as a whole. She believes, therefore she speaks.
Throughout all all centuries she confesses. To friend and enemy she gives an account of the hope that is in her. Her testimony is as the voice of many waters. She reveals her faith, in her meetings and religious services, in her prayers and hymns, in her works of mercy and gifts of love. Always and everywhere she confesses. She is and cannot be otherwise—than a confessing church.
In speaking of the confession of the church, it is very unilateral to think exclusively or even in the first place of the written expression of her faith, To be sure, this gradually became necessary for the church because of errors and heresies. And when the church appears in the midst of the world with this, her written confession, she also makes a glorious profession of her faith.
Entirely without ground, the Church of Christ, has, from different sides, been denied the right of expressing her faith in writing and of being watchful for its perfect maintenance. For, with such a written confession she does not encroach upon the word of God but only explains the contents of that word according to the measure of faith and knowledge granted unto her in a given time. With it she does not assail the authority of the Scriptures, but just tries to maintain this, and with it she is upon her guard that the Scriptures be not abandoned to the arbitrary will of the individual. She does not bind the consciences with it, but delivers these from the ever-recurring errors of man and strives to lead all thoughts captive to the
obedience of Christ. With it she does not cut off development but tries to retain this and to lead it in the right path, in the path of building up and not breaking down. The confession of the church does not stand alongside of, much less above, but deeply below Holy
Writ. This is and remains the only, perfect, sufficient rule of faith and life.
Even if a church should never express her faith in print, still she would always, as long and in so far as she is a church, have a confession. But when she expresses her faith in writing, then she obtains thereby this profit, that the truth, in so far as she has acknowledged it, is handed down unaltered from generation to generation and is also easier to be maintained against all adversaries.
Unto the confession of the church belongs a great pedagogical worth and worthiness. The individual coming to maturity grows into this confession and after awhile accepts it freely and independently as his own. Even as a child in every sphere goes in unto the work of his ancestors so he also lives from year to year into the spiritual inheritance of his fathers.
No one begins at the beginning. Everyone stands upon the shoulders of those who were before him. Everyone of us lives and spends of the treasures which parents and grandparents brought together for us.
Only, unto each and everyone of us comes the requirement that, with the exertion of all our powers we shall master and make our own that which we have inherited of the fathers. Thus a child also accepts the confession of the church, so that this may afterwards become the free and independent expression of its personal faith.
But also on account of this, however high the written confession may stand, it may never be severed from personal faith, neither may it ever be torn out of its coherence with the testimonies and deeds wherewith the church distinguishes herself from and places herself in opposition to the world. It is not a document which binds us because of its honored antiquity. It bears no authority that is laid upon us by the remote past. But it is, even as all other acts, borne and