Hermann Sasse > Quotes

“It causes the world great indignation that the question of God and his revelation could be taken so seriously, as seriously as it was taken by the teachers and synods of the ancient church, and by Lutherans, Reformed, and Catholics in the century of the Reformation.”
― Hermann Sasse, The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, Volume 2

“They founded no mission society, organized no city mission, wrote no books on “dynamic evangelism.” Instead, they celebrated the Sacrament and prayed continually. “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (2:47).”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“None of the words that could be interpreted as such a “sign,” such as eikōn (image), are used of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament. Nowhere is it written that Baptism is an image or a sign of regeneration. It is the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). “We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death” (Rom. 6:4). “You were buried with Him in Baptism, in which you were also raised…. And you … God made alive together with Him” (Col.2:12—13). Also the word tupos in the sense of model or image is not used of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper or of their elements.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“For whether the sun will rise again tomorrow, that I cannot know with certainty. But that God the Father, the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, is still there—that I surely know. That Jesus Christ is Lord, to whom all power has been given in heaven and on earth, that the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, moves over the chaos of this time as He did in the beginning over the dark depths—that I know.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“But I am totally captive; the text there is too powerful and will not allow itself to be torn from its meaning.22”
― Hermann Sasse, The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, Volume 2

“This order, the presbyterial and synodical constitution, which he felt obliged to read out of the NT, is, so far as the Reformed Church is concerned, instituted by God’s command as sacra et inviolable (“holy and inviolable”). In this sense the French Reformed of Old Prussia declared in 1930: “For us Reformed, a discussion about the correctness and applicability of this church constitution is … just as much out of the question as say a discussion on the dogma of the Trinity or the doctrine of Holy Communion or the Sacraments is for other Christians. For us the question of the constitution is a confessional question.”
― Hermann Sasse, The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, Volume 1

“The great renewal of the theological understanding of the Lutheran doctrine of justification in German and Scandinavian Lutheranism since 1917 has certainly influenced preaching. But it was not enough to keep us from offering sacrifices in the house of God to the heathen gods of nation and race.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“As a commentary makes no sense without the text which it is expounding, so also the Confessions make no sense without the Bible.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“God’s Word witnesses to the fact that the Holy Spirit is very God, or to be more exact, God the Holy Spirit witnesses to Himself in the words of Scripture, and nowhere else.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“where there is a people which no longer has a future, there the church still has a future, because the future of the church is the future of Jesus Christ.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“We recognize far too seldom that religious and confirmation instruction and the Sunday school can in no way give what previous generations knew from home through Bible reading and what was learned from pious parents. Today the need of the hour for the Lutheran Church is to become a teaching church again.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology 53-1037 404969/01

“To the world it is inexplicable that the church lives on, always preaching the same old thing. In fact, it is because the same old thing goes on being preached, the apostles’ doctrine, that the church goes on living. This is because the apostles’ doctrine is the everlasting Word of God to all men, to all nations, to all times. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven … and was made man.” He “was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” [Rom. 4:25], He “is seated at the right hand of the Father … and His kingdom shall have no end.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“Where the Word of God, the Gospel, is, there it demands to be preached; so there must be a ministry. Where the Gospel is, there people must come together for divine service in order to hear it. Where the Word is, there the cross must also be; otherwise how could the word of the cross be taken seriously? Where the Word and the sacraments are, there are God’s holy people.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“God’s forgiving grace may bring the erring sinner into the church triumphant, where there is no more untruth. On the other hand, this door will be shut to many a one who has done battle for the truth in perfect orthodoxy, but has forgotten that he too was only a poor sinner who lives only by forgiving grace.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“The "apostolic church" is a poor church. It has no marvelous new revelations, no knowledge of higher worlds, no possibility of proving its faith by reason. It lives from the witness of a few men who were neither religious geniuses, nor ethical heroes, nor original thinkers. The only authority for the unverifiable things they said was that Jesus Christ had sent them and that they were witnesses of His resurrection.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology 53-1037 404969/01

“The essence of a church confession lies, first of all, in the fact that it bears witness to objective truths. These, like the incarnation or the resurrection of Christ, cannot be derived from subjective experiences and are independent of all subjective opinions. Second, it belongs to the nature of such a confession that it is the creed of the church, that it is confessed not only by an I but by a we.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“When it is taught that the devil does not exist, he has achieved the propagation of his most dangerous triumph.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“Wherever the means of grace are rightly administered, there God fulfills His promise that the Word will not return empty, there faith is created, there is the church, the congregation of saints, of justified sinners.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“For whether the sun will rise again tomorrow, that I cannot know with certainty. But that God the Father, the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, is still there—that I surely know.”
― Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology

“According to Article XIV of the Augustana, it matters greatly who exercises the preaching office, namely, whether the person in question is legitimately called (rite vocatus) according to correct ecclesiastical order. Luther also knew that the call (vocatio) causes the devil a great deal of woe.”
― Hermann Sasse, The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, Volume 1