Pure means sound. . .

The Lutheran use of the word pure with respect to doctrine is often confusing to people and gives the wrong impression.  This is largely due to the fact that Lutherans themselves have given purity a connotation and example beyond what the word means.  We have, and here I am speaking of conservative, confessional Lutherans, made purity into the sole pursuit of doctrine.  We have invented sieves to run doctrine through to weed out what is impure.  This is not quite what purity means.  The goal here is not to render doctrine like oil, pressing it and straining it until it is pure, extra virgin doctrine.  The goal here is to preserve sound doctrine.  Doctrine is surely refined as challenge and heresy demand.  That is certainly what happened at Nicea.  But it was not refined from raw material into something different.  It was held against the Scriptures to make sure what was confessed was sound and if it was sound then it was also healthy.  Unsound doctrine is inherently unhealthy and will corrupt, spoil, and make rancid what God has said and done for our salvation.

Nicea gathered the bishops not to preserve purity but to make sure that every challenge and heresy had been placed against the rule and canon of what God said.  The bishops did not vote on what they thought but for what God had said.  They knew that even small deviations from the Scriptures would provide an entrance point for heresy that could not be allowed or the health of the whole Church would suffer and her ability to address the world with Christ and the power of His life would be compromised.  This was not about purity but about health, not simply about soundness but the soundness upon which truth lives and flourishes to accomplish its purpose and the unsoundness upon which it surely does not life.  

From St. Vincent of Lerins reminds us that what we believe and how we worship are inseparably connected.  I have for a long time loved the way the sainted Martin Franzmann put it -- theology must sing!  Indeed, it must, or it is not right thinking.  The theology must be sound, built upon the firm foundation of God's Word, or it cannot inspire or inform prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  We guard doctrine not because we have been given job to refine it but unless it is sound, it is not healthy and if it is not healthy it cannot aid us in our purpose of glorifying God above all things.  Those who take pot shots at the preoccupation with doctrinal purity assume that it is about straining away impurities to preserve doctrine as if we were conservators of something to be admired.  The reality is much more ordinary.  We are guardians of truth so that the Church's song may continue, so that praise of God may abound, so that the lost and dead may be found and raised, and so that the health and healing of God may preserve us.

Not long ago my wife and I spent many hours at the St. Louis art museum.  It was a marvelous day and I highly encourage you to visit.  What is remarkable to me is how accessible such wonderful treasures are.  They are not hidden behind glass nor locked up in a vault.  They are there to move your eyes, minds, and hearts with beauty.  Surely we cannot say anything less of doctrine!  Churches are not museums preserving the doctrinal content behind thick glass cases or locked up in vaults.  We are there with the beauty of God's eternal and saving truth for the world to know and believe.  Doctrine must be sound (pure, if you will) because only when it is sound is it healthy and only when it is healthy does it heal the sin sick unto death with the medicine of Christ's saving work, raising them and us to life that death cannot overcome.