ST. CATHARINES CONCORDIA - Brock University

36 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
means of salvalion.
Sixthly, that such faith is a gift of God, which we can neither
acquire by any p~eced~ng work or merit nor produce by our own
power, but the Holy Spirit gives and creates the samc in our hcarts
where He desires, when we hear the Gospel or Word of Christ.
For the acquisit~on of faith we are agam direcled outside of ourselves to the
external work of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel of Christ. This givcn, cxternally
directed faith is counted as righteousness and justifies.
Seventhly, that such faith is our righteousness before God, since
on account of this God reckons and rcgards us righteous, godly,
and holy, without any work and merit, and through this He delivers
from sin, death, and hell, Lakes [us] into grace, and saves [us] for
thc sake of His Son, in whom wc thus believe, and thereby enjoy
and are partakers of His Son's righteousness, life, and all goods.
By a faith wh~ch trusts in Chr14t's work, we \hare in all the spoils of His victory
as a gift.
The external means then receive further exposition. The work or the Holy Sp~r~t
15 repeated in an expl~citreatment of the externality of thc Word:
Eighthly, that the Holy Spirit, to speak of proper order [or-dentlich
ziiredden], gives no one such faith or its [His?] gist withoul
preceding preaching or oral Word or Gospel of Christ, but through
and with such oral Word He works and creates faith, where and in
who111 He desires.
ln the next article he cites Baptism as also institutcd "for such faith. One notes
that in place of thc Sclzwnbaclz Articles' "dos yr-edig ambt oder. muntlich wort
[Preaching Office, or oral Word]" Luther offers "P~digt oder murrt1ic.h wort oder-
Eumgelion Christi [preaching or oral Word or Gospel of Christ]". This is one solution
to the possible confusion the Schwabach Articles allow: not the entire Oflice, but the
"preaching" aspect thereof is identified wilh the oral Word. These central articles are
unified by the thcmc: "such faith".
AN EARLY DRAFT OF THE AUGSRURG CONFESSION (NA)
On 8 May 1530 the cmpcror rejected thc Schwabach Articles, sent by Elector John
in preparation for Augsburg. Until this point new theological work had Iocussed on
abuses (producing the Tor-guu A~.ticles), with the intention that the Schwabnch Articles
would serve as thc doctrinal confcs~ion.~~ Their rejection gave need for an improved
confession. Melanchthon and the other theologians and lawyers began work in the last