Jesus is God.  The Nicene Creed.
"(I believe) in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made: who for us men and for our salvation camd down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man...." 
The Nicene Creed, Article II.
(All quotations will be from The Book of Concord, Tappert, Fortress Press, 1959.)

It irks me to have to begin here.  On one hand it is best to begin at the beginning.  On the other hand, most who read this are probably going to say, "Duh.  Of course."  The reason I begin with this "first principle" is that over the past several years I am running into more and more pastors who deny the eternal divinity of Christ!  At first it shocked and appalled me.  Now it just baffles me.  Sometimes it comes from the influence of "the historical Jesus" movement.  Sometimes I think it comes from a desire to be ecumenical across religions.  This is actually fairly astute.  Because in reality most world religions today believe in Jesus.  None (except Christianity) believe He is / was / has always been / always will be eternal God.  So the divinity of Christ actually does set Christianity apart from every other religion "in the history of history."  ("Contact") 

There is plenty of scriptural evidence that Jesus is God.  Books have been written.  I will settle for John 1:1 and the first chapter of Colossians (OK and Hebrews 1). 

Here's another quote from The Lutheran Confessions:

"It is also taught among us that God the Son became man, born of the virgin Mary, and that the two natures, divine and human, are so inseparably united in one person that there is one Christ, true God and true man...."   The Augsburg Confession, Article III.

So this one should be so easy that no one needs a post about it.  Yet... pastors continue to deny that Jesus is eternal God. 

Remember, we took an oath.  If a pastor does not believe Jesus is God, is he or she teaching what he or she does not believe?  Faithfully?  How is that possible?  If not, then ignoring the teaching is, in my opinion, an equal violation of the oath we took. 

As I mentioned, what a confessing Lutheran actually is has been brought into question by the controversial votes that took place allowing the ordination of homosexual clergy without the vow of celebacy previously required by "Visions and Expectations."  With the subsequent exit of some ELCA pastors and congregations since that vote, there have been frequent opinions stated in my Synod that if a pastor feels that he or she can no longer serve in the ELCA, that pastor should leave, but NOT orchestrate the exit of the Lutheran congregation he or she is currently serving. 
And I agree. 

Now this is the USA and people are free to reject the doctrine of Christ's divinity.  On the other hand, if a pastor has taken an oath to faithfully teach and preach The Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions, and that pastor does not believe them, maybe that pastor should also consider whether, in light of his or her conflict in keeping the oath under which he or she was ordained, that maybe that pastor ought to serve in a Christian denomination that is not "confessional" in its theological approach?

There is a powerful line in the movie LUTHER where the Cardinal confronts Luther at his trial at the Diet of Worms. 
"You wait in vain for a disputation over matters which you are obligated to believe."
Now in Luther's case, of course, those matters were not only unscriptural, but in some cases anti-scriptural.  In the case of an ELCA pastor, however, The Creeds and other Lutheran Confessions ARE a faithful exposition of the doctrines of scripture because we all agreed that they were when we took the oath at ordination.

The purpose of this blog is to take another look at those matters which under the oath of our ordination we are "obligated to believe."

Jesus is eternal God.