ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONFESSIONS 1 CON1-Q029 JANUARY 2005 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 LOMBARD, IL 60148 * * * * * This text is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * * >> NICK: The Augsburg Confession has 28 articles. Is there any way one could apply a theological structure or an ordered sequence to them? I see, for example, that the first 17 articles present almost a coherent and systematic theological order. >> DR. KLAUS DETLEV SHULTZ: You are certainly correct, Nick, in speaking about a sequence in the articles of the Augsburg Confession, beyond just the two divisions that we have spoken of earlier. The sequence of the Augsburg Confession Articles 1 following is one of describing salvation and how it comes about. If you look at the first article on God, you can say: Who is this God who sends his Son, Jesus Christ, into this world? So it gives us a framework of the triune God explaining who he is in Article 1. And then it looks at the world, Article 2, the lost and fallen world that gives reason to why God sends his Son Jesus Christ. We shall look later at that article itself. But the sequence then moves on to Jesus Christ as the one who is sent into this world. It describes his mission. It describes it as the one of justification, that we are justified through the cross and the resurrection of this Jesus Christ. And the means of appropriating that salvation is through faith alone and not any works, Article 4. And then it speaks in Article 5 on how we obtain that *solific faith. It is through the administration of word and sacrament, through the preaching and through baptism and Holy Communion. And then Article 6 speaks about that what results out of that *solific faith, namely, new obedience. And in the following articles, Article 7 and 8, we can say that within the Christian Church, this salvation is nurtured, and it is continually giving to us believers. The church is important that it is kept in perspective here, and it needs to ensure that the administration of the sacraments and that proper teaching takes place and, therefore, the Augsburg Confession advances from Article 9 onwards to the sacraments and describes these as a means through which salvation is continually given to us. And then it speaks, in Article 14, about the proper way, how the church should go about instituting the ministry, telling us that when that is in place, the church is guaranteed that the preaching of the gospel will continue, and the sacraments will be guaranteed continually given. For this reason, there is an order within the Lutheran church. It demands that a structure is being put in place so that the ministry of word and sacrament continues. And then finally, it looks at the order, that the church is different to that of the kingdom on the left, the civil righteousness or the secular realm. But the church in this world usurps a special place there where salvation, eternal life is given. And also, it concludes in Article 7, as you have already indicated, with the return of Jesus Christ. It means that in the sequence of the Augsburg Confession, we are looking forward, kind of a linear direction, towards the second coming of Jesus Christ, looking at him as the same Christ who died for us on the cross. He will return and redeem us all finally.