The Promise and the Church

The Lutheran Confession is that the Church is called into being and sustained by the promise of God that we call the Gospel - spoken in words (preaching and absolution) and sacramentally enacted (Baptism and Eucharist). Where this promise is spoken and enacted, there God by His address calls forth the faith that justifies. But faith in this case means precisely that which holds to the promise and the Promiser in what He says He is giving.

Oswald Bayer interestingly observes what happens when the nature of the Gospel is shifted from promise; how faith itself then changes correspondingly.

"If the word becomes an appeal, faith becomes its performance in action. If the word becomes a demonstration, faith becomes insight; if it becomes a statement, faith becomes knowledge. Finally, if the word becomes an expression, faith becomes a ground of experience given with human being as such. Only if the word is promise (promissio) is faith really faith." [Theology the Lutheran Way, p. 139]

Faith really faith - that is, such faith as St. Paul spoke of. That lively, active faith Luther praised.

What happens then to the Church when the Gospel is altered from its nature as divinely given, free promise? Wow. Here's the ultimate lex orandi, lex credendi. In His Word preached, in His sacraments delivered, God is giving promises - fundamentally so - and to alter the verbal form of the promise is to alter the Church's faith at its foundation. Sigh. It gives one furiously to think... That Bayer, he is one very helpful theologian indeed.