The final, sixth, panel brings us to the foundation upon which the Church is built, which is the Good News, the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That Good News has been transmitted to us by means of the words of Scripture in the Bible. As Christians, we treasure the Bible not because it is an infallible book but because it contains the Good News of Jesus’ love for all humankind-the love that led Jesus to give up His life for us on the cross. That Good News of Christ is the ‘Word within the word’; it is the central and fundamental meaning of the Bible for us as Christians. That is why we are a church of the Word of God, and why Luther emphasized the idea of sola Scriptura (the Word alone) as the foundation of the Church. We are reminded of this by four symbols in this twelfth panel, symbols that have traditionally stood for the four writers of the gospel accounts of Jesus, life in the Bible: (1) the winged man represents St. Matthew; (2) the winged lion symbolizes St. Mark; (3) the winged ox represents St. Luke; and (4) the eagle stands for St. John.
Written by Tim & Alannah Hegedus, April 1996