Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Sasse Quotes

From "Here We Stand"

There are really few churches which have been so receptive to alien influences, and which have borrowed so much from other churches, as the Lutheran. But whenever, after such periods of learning from other communions, the Lutheran Church returned to concentrate upon itself, this was not due to a spirit of ecclesiastical separatism, but rather to a recognition of the fact that its agreement with the church of the Fathers was still far greater than its agreement with the other churches. And every time this happened, the Confession of the sixteenth century became alive again in a manner unknown to any to communion. The artificial stimulation of anniversary celebrations was not required. The Confession simply began to speak again. "After I learned from the Scriptures what saving truth is, I turned to the Symbolical Books of my church. I cannot describe how surprised and how moved I was to discover that their content conformed with the convictions I had gained from the Scriptures and the experience of faith."

How often this experience of young Harless in 1827 has been repeated! How is it that men of our own day, who believed they had long since outgrown all church dogma, suddenly regain and understanding of what the Confessions of our church teach, on the basis of Holy Scriptures, about the depths of human sin, about the heights of divine mercy, about the power of God's Word? How meaningful, today, is the old teaching of the Augsburg Confession and its Apology concerning the State! Not because it was the opinion of this or that great man, but because it expounds the New Testament. How often has it been proposed to do away with Luther's Catechism! And yet it has always been restored because it is an exposition of the Scriptures. (179-180)

Just good stuff.

No comments: