Commitment to the Lutheran Confession: An Act of Spiritual Liberty

Quoting from Peter Brunner’s article titled “Commitment To The Lutheran Confession” in the December, 1969 issue of The Springfielder:

…What does commitment to the Lutheran confession mean for the inner life of the Lutheran Churches themselves? I shall recall once more what commitment to the Lutheran confession does not mean: it is not a sacrificium intellectus, it is not a servile submitting to a doctrinal law as under the rod of a tyrannical driver, it is not a legalistic handling of a letter of the law, nor a formal-legalistic act without importance for the content of doctrine and proclamation. Rather commitment to the Lutheran confession is a gift which cannot be forced on one who has not already received if from elsewhere. Commitment to the Lutheran confession is a gift of the Holy Ghost which no man has at his disposal on his own. Commitment to the Lutheran confession is the pneumatic insight into the harmony between that Gospel that emanates from the Scriptures as living Word and those confessional statements of our fathers. Commitment to the Lutheran confession is an act of spiritual liberty for which only the Gospel heard in the Spirit can free us.