PieperF-Our Position 1893, LCR translation in 1971 PUBLISH

LUTHERAN CHURCHES
of the REFORMATION

The Faithful Word

A JOURNAL OF DOCTRINE AND DEFENSE

Vol. 8, No. 2 May 1971

OUR POSITION IN DOCTRINE AND PRACTISE

Franz August Otto Pieper (1852-1931) delivered this essay to the 1893 convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States. By resolution of the convention it was published in the official PROCEEDINGS, in DER LUTHERANER (May 23-August 1, 1893), and as a pamphlet (1896). In the preface to the last named the author wrote, "It is no secret to us that among the largest segment of the ecclesiastical public we are PERSONA INGRATA. But we have also regularly had the experience that individual Christians and theologians substantially amended their evaluation of our synod when they learned to know its real position in doctrine and practise." He expressed the hope that this summary would also serve that purpose - a hope we repeat with respect to our LCR.

In 1897, the diamond jubilee of the synod, the essay was published, in somewhat revised format, in an English translation by W. H. T. Dau. It will be recognized that these presentations are actually the archetype of the BRIEF STATEMENT of 1932. The present translation of the 1893 paper has been prepared and is offered in the belief that our readers, to most of whom the original is not available, will find interest in a study of it.

The reader will note how pointedly and pertinently the essay addresses itself to what some imagine are new theological developments of the most recent decades. Its dissection and refutation of such aberrant attitudes reads as if it were written only yesterday; and it does not hesitate to name error and unbelief what they are. Here lies much explanation why advocates of the errors – and their students who, parroting these teachers, have been heard to deride his work before ever they studied it – so vigorously denigrate Franz Pieper.

Invited by the venerable President to offer the delegate synod a brief essay on current questions in the churches, I have – with the agreement of the presidency – chosen the subject

A SURVEY OF OUR POSITION IN DOCTRINE AND PRACTISE WHICH WE AS SYNOD TAKE OVER AGAINST THE ERROR AND MALPRACTISE WHICH SURROUND US

I begin with our

Position on Holy Scripture

Nowadays not only in visible Christianity in general, but also in such parts of the Church as still call themselves Lutheran the infallible authority of Holy Scripture is attacked. Holy Writ is no longer held to be the infallible Word of God, to which everything human is to be subjected in the obedience of faith, but a book which contains also erroneous notions of men, upon which men therefore may and must exercise criticism.

Such attacks on Holy Writ are nothing new. Heathen and mani-

fest unbelievers in all ages have alleged that errors and contradictions appear in Scripture and that for this reason Scripture cannot be God's Word. Consequently we find both the Church Fathers as well as the later teachers of the Church occupied at times with refuting these assaults on Holy Scripture. But new is this that in our times the teachers of the Church, and indeed such as enjoy the greatest repute, make common cause with heathen and unbelievers in attacking Holy Writ.

This is the state of affairs peculiar to our time. From defenders of Holy Scripture the teachers of the Church have turned into its accusers. They also now aver - by voice and pen - that not all of Holy Writ is God's Word and infallible truth. The ancient Church's doctrine of inspiration, that is, the doctrine that the sacred scribes wrote not their own ideas, but only what the Holy Spirit inspired, must be abandoned. One must distinguish between the essential and non-essential, between matters of major and minor importance in Scripture. The former are inspired by the Holy Ghost, or penned at least under a special guidance of the Holy Spirit, the latter not. In these latter we must admit errors.

It is evident that thus a completely new order of things is introduced in the Christian Church. Men's attitude toward Scripture is totally altered. Men no longer stand under, but over Scripture. For even if one concedes that all essential elements of saving truth are present in Scripture, the determination of what now is infallible divine truth, which is to be accepted in faith, still depends on man. Ultimately not Holy Writ but men, who distinguish between truth and error in the Scriptures, decide our faith. No longer does God rule in the Church through the word of Holy Writ, but in reality men, who accomplish the differentiation between the truth and the alleged error in Scripture, are installed as sovereigns in the Church.

This attitude toward Scripture is impious. Whoever assumes errors in Scripture flatly contradicts Christ who declared of all Scripture and of every single word of it, "And the Scripture cannot be broken." They who would limit the inspiration of Holy Writ to its so-called essentials contradict the apostle of Christ who testifies to us, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God."

But also here the devil seeks to transform himself into an angel of light. Men who deny the infallibility of Scripture claim to be acting in the interest of true faithfulness and piety. Over against us they maintain that the faith which is based so absolutely on the word of Scripture is slavery to the letter and promotes a dead ortho

doxy. Their position, on the other hand, bases Christianity on the inner experience. Christians are urged to accept as truth what certifies itself as truth by spiritual experience. Thus the real life of faith is to be fostered and superficial Christianity prevented. Christianity is supposed to be something which carries its certainty in itself and does not need authentication by the letters of Scripture.

New also in this area are only a number of expressions, in that this type of theology is called a "Christian science", or more particularly, derivation of doctrine from the uniform principle of the regenerate, or Christian, ego, from the Christian consciousness, from the faith of the Church, etc. The substance is old. In substance we have here the same error which Luther attacked over against the Enthusiasts (Schwaermer). The "spirit" is so clever and pious of itself and by itself that it does not need the outward, objective, sure Word of God, indeed, feels itself improperly restricted by it. With respect to the piety of this spirit Luther, and after him our Church, expresses himself in the familiar words of the Smalcald Articles, "Whatever is extolled as Spirit apart from the Word [the outward Word] and Sacraments is the devil himself." (Triglot, 496).

We have the same judgment to pass on the newer theology inasmuch as it seeks to lead from the sure, outward inspired word of Holy Scripture to the "inner life of faith". That this is given the name of "science" does not impress us, and that it is called true "faith life" does not have any effect on us. We know what it is. It is unbelief. In Biblical and ecclesiastical usage faith means to rely upon God's Word as it is set down in Scripture - also against reason and "experience". To want to believe and hold fast only what demonstrates itself to men as true and acceptable - that is indeed - also according to the terminology of Scripture and the Christian Church - unbelief! Also it is not the Christian, but the unchristian Ego which behaves in such fashion. It is the spirit of man's rebellion against God in His infallible Word over which he strives to hang a miserably threadbare mantle of devotion and piety.

By this formula everything in God's Church is twisted around and turned upside down. Faith no longer rests on Scripture, but Scripture rests on faith. The Church is no longer built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, but the Church rests on itself, and the writings of the apostles and prophets are an offshoot, which needs improvement, from the tree of the Church. Scripture does not judge what is right or wrong in the Church, but the Church judges what is right or wrong in Scripture. In short, the self-glori-

fication of the so-called Christian "I" is proclaimed. The Church shall be sovereign over against the Word of God and thereby over against God Himself. This is anarchy in the realm of the Church. Anarchy in the sphere of the Church walks side by side with anarchy in the state. This is the inevitable consequence of surrender of the Christian doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture and its complete inerrancy.

From this insane procedure - for one cannot name it otherwise - we choose by God's grace to stand totally aloof.

We elect to found our faith, as not on the pope and traditions of the Church, so also not on the "believing I", but on the Word of the apostles and prophets, that is, on the word of Scripture. Therefore, in spite of all opposition, we hold fast to the inspiration of Holy Writ, that is, we firmly hold that not only some or much in Scripture, but that Scripture absolutely, that is, all Scripture, is given by inspiration of God; that the holy men of God have spoken not only in part by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in part of their own devisings, but, as Scripture testifies, moved by the Holy Ghost.

We are certain that Scripture contains no errors, but is in all its words inviolable truth. And this we do not intend first to establish by a critical examination of Scripture, but this we believe on the basis of Scripture's own testimony about itself, as we accept all articles of faith on this basis. We rejoice indeed that we are able to demonstrate that the contradictions which the enemies of Scripture allege are actually non-existent. But we do not base our faith in Scripture on this proof.

In conclusion on this subject a few words on so-called

Higher Criticism

This is a most marvelous branch of the tree of modern Bible scholarship. It is named "higher" criticism in contradistinction to "lower" or textual criticism, which deals with establishment of the Biblical text on the basis of the ancient manuscripts. This textual criticism is in itself an honorable field of activity. That may not be said of the so-called higher criticism. Because the individual books of Scripture are viewed in a certain "learned" fashion comprehensible only to a small circle of experts, conclusions are to be reached, without reference even to what the book says of itself, as to when and by whom the individual Biblical books were written. We shall not attempt to clarify further this peculiar learned procedure, the more so since its most renowned practitioners declare that only the small circle of the initiated are in a position to understand and evaluate it. We shall only inquire into the results which are comprehensible to all Christians.

The result, for example, is this: Though our Lord Christ testifies, "Moses wrote of me", higher criticism asserts almost unanimously: No word did Moses write concerning Christ; what we now name the five books of Moses have their origin in three or four different authors who lived long after Moses, whose writings were repeatedly re-worked and commingled one with the other and finally brought into the form we have before us by an anonymous editor who lived nearly a thousand years after Moses. Higher criticism reaches this conclusion by arbitrarily assigning or denying to the aforementioned figures certain characteristics of style and expression, and on the basis of these assumed characteristics carves up, reassembles, and muddles the text of Scripture.

As it presents itself to us, we can accord higher criticism absolutely no obeisance. From the standpoint of reason we adjudge it a folly, and from the standpoint of Christianity a blasphemy. Even the most conservative of the higher critics demand a revision, that is, a surrender of the doctrine of inspiration, because they feel, as the method of higher criticism dictates, that we may not operate with a Scripture which is God's Word.

In the Doctrine of God

we believe that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct Persons, the one true God. This we believe on the basis of Holy Writ. We reject the contention made in recent times which would develop the doctrine of the Trinity from a so-called basic concept, for example, from the concept of "impersonality" or of "absolute will" or from the idea of "love" or from any other "concept", and thus would prove it as "necessary" for human reason. All proofs for the reasonableness of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity are ill-conceived, since at very best they prove nothing, but rather are usually associated with entirely mistaken notions and destroy the divine mystery. With all Christendom throughout the world we believe in one Triune God because Holy Scripture reveals this high and blessed mystery to us.

Of the Son of God we confess, over against modern error in particular, that He is of "equal divine power and glory" with the Father and the Holy Spirit. All subordinationism, that is, every doctrine which makes the Son of God according to His divine nature

inferior to the Father, we hold to be a retrogression into heathen polytheism. For if the Son is inferior to the Father in essence, no longer is faith in a single God present, but a plurality of gods is assumed.

Concerning the Son of God we confess further that He became man in the entire fulness of the divine essence. We reject the doctrine of the so-called kenoticists, which offends against both the natural concept of God and clear Scripture, namely, that in His incarnation and with it in view the Son of God put aside some of the divine attributes, to wit, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, and thus, as it were, as a demigod became man.

Rather we firmly hold that the Son of God possessed all divine majesty also in the state of humiliation, and that thus "the Lord of glory" mediated for us with His serving and suffering and thereby provided an eternal redemption. This we believe on the basis of Scripture. As the disciples beheld the glory in Christ also in the state of humiliation, a glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, so we see the same glory in Christ in the holy Gospels. The retreat from the divine glory which modern theology permits itself is induced in this theology by rationalism, which wants to make the obviously great mystery of the revelation of God in the flesh more comprehensible to human reason, but thereby falls into ever new follies, evident also to human reason.

Men in Germany who have recently come forward to cancel "conceived by the Holy Ghost" in the Second Article and to pronounce Christ a natural son of Joseph and Mary stand outside the Christian Church.

Especially with respect to the doctrine of the way of salvation we must confess revealed truth over against modern error.

The characteristic of modern theology is that, alleging concern that men should not be downgraded into machines, it ascribes to man, in whole or part, what belongs only to God; that it would have man cooperate where actually God alone works. This we met already in the doctrine of inspiration. Holy Writ is supposed to be not purely God's Word, which God spoke through men as only His instruments, but a product of the joint activity of God and man, and thus partly divine, partly human word.

Similarly in the doctrine of the way of salvation. Conversion and salvation shall not be dependent on God's grace alone, but a result of the joint activity of God and man. And as man is enthroned as judge over Scripture by the assumption that Holy Writ is partly

divine, partly human, so by the assumption that God and man cooperate in conversion man's activity or attitude is forthwith made the decisive factor in conversion and the attainment of salvation. The result is that our salvation is held to rest not in the hands of divine grace, but in our own. Some have not hesitated to declare that conversion and salvation finally depend on the decision or good conduct of man. That is the general character of modern-Lutheran doctrine on the way of salvation insofar as it separates itself from the doctrine of the Church of the Reformation.

Every teaching under which a cooperation of man in his conversion is assumed we emphatically repudiate as a radical adulteration of all Christianity.

Our Doctrine of Conversion

On the basis of Holy Scripture we believe that man by nature is not only half-dead, but dead - really dead - in sins; that the natural man not only does not reach out for salvation through Christ, but holds this to be folly and resists it to his full ability. On the basis of Scripture we therefore maintain with our Confession that every conversion which takes place rises not in half nor quarter nor even thousandth part out of man's cooperation or favorable attitude, but is in solidum (through and through) a work of the Holy Spirit who accomplishes it in us by His almighty, gracious power through the Means of Grace.

We believe with all our heart: God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts. That we come to faith in Christ takes place according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. When we were dead in sins, He - God - quickened us together with Christ. Conversion is certainly not a repairing of the old man or an arousing (excitatio) of the latent powers of men, but a divinely-effected rebirth, the awakening of a spiritual corpse, the founding of a new spiritual life.

Men have challenged us: What sort of gulf are you creating between the natural man and the Christian? Do you have no perception of the natural good in men, of the uprightness and honorableness and the virtuous strivings which inhere in men by nature? We do indeed recognize - even as does our Confession a civil righteousness in natural man. We esteem it highly as a precious, yes, the most precious, endowment in the realm of the state or civil life. But all natural civil righteousness is neither a part of con

version nor a preparation for it. All human striving, also in its noblest form, remains on the plane of the flesh. Spirit never issues from the flesh. By no mere instruction, education, and culture, neither by logic nor psychology nor metaphysics, can one draw the spirit forth from the flesh - since it simply is not there. That. which is born of the flesh is and remains flesh.

Only what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Only God's almighty hand of grace can bridge the humanly impassable gulf between flesh and spirit. Man can do only one thing in this area. He can obstruct God's work. The more he seeks, for example, to fit himself for grace by his uprightness, the farther he removes from grace, and the more he exercises himself to measure the mystery of grace with his reason, the more foolish it seems to him.

As our Confession [Formula of Concord, Sol. Decl. II, Trig. 882] puts it: "When even the most ingenuous and learned men on earth read or hear the Gospel of the Son of God and the promise of eternal salvation, they cannot of their own powers perceive, apprehend, understand, or believe and regard it as true, but the more diligence and earnestness they employ, wishing to comprehend these spiritual things with their reason, the less they understand or believe, and before they become enlightened and are taught by the Holy Ghost they regard all this as simply foolishness or fables."

But here men object: "We also mean no cooperation in conversion or personal decision for conversion out of natural, but out of spiritual powers previously bestowed by God's grace. Grace is everything to us!" In this form the error holds many captive in our times. That these people still do not allow conversion to be effected by grace evidences itself in a variety of ways. By this supposed human cooperation, personal decision, good conduct, etc., they wish to explain to man's reason why one man is converted as over against another. But a favorable disposition effected purely by grace would not explain why one is converted rather than another. In this case they themselves expressly put the favorable disposition in contrast to grace, since they say that conversion depends not solely on God's grace, but in a certain respect also on the behavior of man. In short, this teaching that one's conversion depends on his cooperation, personal decision, or favorable disposition has the denial of "by grace alone" underlying it.

But, it is objected, if conversion is effected by grace alone, one cannot comprehend why not all men are converted. We reply: We know only that it is God's grace, and indeed God's grace alone,

which converted us; and on the other hand, we know that the fault of man, and most surely men alone and not a deficiency of grace, is the cause if men are not converted.

There we let it rest because Scripture does not reveal more to us. A Christian is really not concerned that all questions which human reason raises be answered for him. Above all things he wants a sure answer to one question, namely, the question how a sinner is saved. If he has answer to this question, it suffices him. Through faith he has God's grace, heaven, salvation. And after all, that is everything! No more is his heart consumed because he cannot know everything; he must confess regarding many things which it is not necessary to know for salvation, "I do not know," especially since the holy apostle very emphatically reminds all Christians, and also all theologians, that here below our understanding of divine things is fragmentary, and that this incompleteness will only end when perfection comes. When men in modern times speak so much of the "intellectual requirements" of Christians and assign theology the task of satisfying them, a rationalistic, degenerate theology is foisting its point of view on the Christian Church. The Christian Church wills to be wise in nothing beyond God's Word.

The Doctrine of Justification

Since we contend for the "by grace alone" in the doctrine of conversion, naturally we contend therewith for "by grace alone" in the article of justification. When Erasmus entered the lists against Luther with the contention that man's free will has some ability, even though slight, in spiritual matters, Luther in his reply confessed, "You have seized me by the throat." Thereby Luther was saying: "If Erasmus is right in his assertion of the cooperation of a man in conversion, my doctrine on the basis of which I oppose the papacy falls, namely, the doctrine that a man is justified and saved by grace for Christ's sake, that is, through faith alone and not by works."

So it is! The patrons of free will are enemies of grace. Each and every kind of synergism subverts the article of justification. If conversion or faith depends not solely on God's grace, if faith is not a result of grace alone but also a product of the human will, then man is no longer justified by grace for Christ's sake, even if men still ostensibly hold to the expression "through faith", or even "through faith alone". This is now no longer that faith which the holy apostle, discussing justification, opposes to man's works when

he writes, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law", and, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be of grace"; but the faith of the Semi-Pelagians and synergists is in itself a partially human work and their doctrine of justification by faith is actually a justification also by works.

So thoroughly is synergism in its essence a denial of the article that man is justified and saved alone by grace that at every turn the mantle of orthodoxy with which it seeks to cloak itself by use of a few orthodox expressions is displaced, and it is exposed to all spectators in the shame of its nakedness. The very same people who on occasion mouth high praise of "by grace alone" at other times frankly and freely say that a man's salvation ultimately rests upon his own free decision, or that faith in justification is to be conceived of as a free spontaneous act of men.

Therefore, if we want to hold fast the principal article of the Christian religion, the article which distinguishes the Christian religion from all heathen and purportedly Christian religions, to wit, the article of justification, that man is saved by grace for Christ's sake through faith, we must stand unentangled with any synergism. Our struggle in the controversy on conversion and election had to do with the article of justification. If for the sake of preserving an outward peace we had accorded the rising synergism a place among us, we should have ceased to be the Church of the Reformation.

We have just mentioned the article of the

Election of Grace

To present our position in this article of doctrine very succinctly we will say: We reject all errors old and new by which in any fashion, gross or fine, universal grace or free grace is denied.

In the first place, we oppose all who deny or detract from the universal grace of God. We teach that there is no predestination to damnation, neither of the sort that God from the first created a part of mankind to damnation, nor of the sort that God with His grace passed by a part of mankind. We do not distinguish between a weak general and a strong converting grace, of which the former covers all men, the latter only those attaining salvation; but we maintain that also the grace which falls to the lot of the lost is, as to its power and purpose, a converting grace. We teach further: True it is that there is a hardening of heart, but we know from Scripture that this hardening takes place as punishment only when

a person persistently sets himself against God's grace, so that in fact obduracy is a proof that God's universal grace is earnestly purposed.

Further, we do indeed see that many men of other and even our own times have not the preaching of the Gospel. But also this does not move us to call the universal, earnest grace of God into question. Scripture, which testifies that God wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth - Scripture is clearer for us than history, whose course God has not disclosed to us. We anticipate that in eternal life we shall understand also how God willed just as earnestly to save the heathen who lived without His Word, such as the heathen in the heart of Africa, as men who live where the Gospel sounds forth. Meanwhile we take Him at His word. We want to remain uninvolved with any theology which is willing to believe and trust God in His Word only as far as it can verify His correctness and trustworthiness in it.

In short, we maintain that no man is lost by reason of a deficiency in God's grace. There is no predestination to damnation, and we do not teach it. For us God's grace is a universal and serious grace. That some have charged and still charge us with particularism in the doctrine of grace [that is, with teaching a "special grace"] is a work of the father of lies.

But there is a predestination or eternal election to bliss, and we teach that. Even as a deep silence with respect to an election to eternal damnation prevails in Scripture, even so it clearly attests an election to eternal bliss. From the doctrine of the way of salvation we already know that as many as are converted and saved are led into the way of life and preserved on it not by any merit of theirs, but purely by grace for Christ's sake. To this Holy Writ adds the revelation that what God thus effects in every one of those attaining salvation He already in eternity determined to accomplish in each one of them. This is the eternal election or predestination to bliss.

Holy Writ ascribes the calling, conversion, justification, sanctification, preservation of those who are saved to their eternal election to these things. One need only hear the simple, clear words of Scripture to know that. So, for example, St. Paul in Ephesians 1:3 lauds the grace which the children of God at that time experienced: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ", and adds in verse 4, "according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without

blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."

In 2 Timothy 1:9 in the name of all the children of God the apostle glorifies God "who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling," and continues, "not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began". Our Formula of Concord expresses this in the well-known words, "God was so greatly concerned about the conversion, righteousness, and salvation of every Christian and so faithfully purposed it that before the foundation of the world was laid He deliberated concerning it and in His purpose ordained how He would bring me thereto and preserve me therein." (Trig. 1078.) This is the eternal election of God's children to bliss.

Now, what did God see in men that moved or induced Him to such an election? Nothing! As Scripture explicitly declares, "Not according to our works" - thus not according to our good attitude either - "but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Accordingly, our Confession also says concerning the article of eternal election that it establishes "very forcibly the article that we are justified and saved without all works and merits of ours, purely out of grace alone for Christ's sake."

When men now continually charge that by our doctrine that in the election to salvation God considered nothing in men we set up a new, a second way of salvation for the elect, this rises from the fact that in their doctrine our opponents have abandoned the one ancient Christian way of salvation. Indeed, he who teaches that man's salvation rests ultimately on his own free decision, or he who asserts that man's conversion and salvation depend not only on God's grace, but in a certain respect also on man's disposition, has departed so far from the one Christian way of salvation that it now seems completely foreign to him.

But we on our part are certain from Scripture that with our doctrine that in the eternal election God regarded nothing in man we are on the one Christian way of salvation, while our adversaries have settled themselves on papistic ground. We want - God in His grace grant it - never to migrate to that province, which is indeed a wretched domicile for poor sinners; but much rather we, with our Confession, know over against a synergistic generation, also in the

doctrine of election: "It is false and wrong when it is taught that not alone the mercy of God and the most holy merit of Christ, but that also in us there is a cause of God's election, on account of which God has chosen us to eternal life." (Trig. 1093.)

We realize full well that with this teaching many questions remain unresolved for human reason, for example, also the question, "Why some and not others, since all by nature are equally corrupt and guilty?" But God's Church does not have the assignment to satisfy human reason, which is totally blind in spiritual matters, but to lead sinful men to salvation by the proclamation of divine revelation. But the divine revelation goes only so far, as our Confession also testifies, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help." On this doctrine, so comforting in all the needs of Christian life, we intend, by God's grace, to stand.

The doctrines of sin and grace - more closely defined, the doctrines of conversion, justification, and the election of grace - have been focal points of controversy in the church in the past two decades. But we also continually have occasion to confess the correct

Doctrine of the Church

and what is connected with it, the doctrine which engaged our fathers particularly in the first decade of their churchly activity.

Also the correct doctrine of the Church is very simple. The substance of the whole doctrine, which we have held fast over against multiform error, lies in the answer to two questions. They are the questions, "What is the Church?" and "Whom on earth has Christ originally invested with all power in the Church?"

What is the Church? The Church is nothing more and nothing less than the communion of saints. The Church is not a compendium of ecclesiastical ordinances, arrangements, etc., but the sum total of people who believe in Christ. The Church is not an outward organization, an "institution", as men like to describe it nowadays, in which Christians constitute only a more or less substantial part, indeed, can be wholly absent; but the Church is the marvelous society of believing persons which is hidden here on earth from the eyes of men. Whoever among men - from the rising of the sun to its setting - by the working of the Holy Spirit believes in Christ his Savior is a member of the Church, even though he should in weakness err in some points of Christian doctrine, be in an erring association, and be very infirm in life.

Contrariwise, whoever does not believe in Christ does not belong to the Church, but is in the devil's realm, even though he have a correct head knowledge of the doctrine in all its articles and he be diocesan councilor or even chief bishop in the church. Whoever has not the Spirit of Christ is none of His, even if he should have all else. Whoever is not a reborn Christian is not a member of the Church, even though otherwise he be everything in world and church. The Church is the spiritual body of Christ, the totality of those who, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, are through faith in Christ filled with spiritual life and are ever filled anew.

To maintain this is of utmost importance. Surrender of this concept of the Church as a spiritual entity, which alone is Scriptural and with which also children of seven years formerly were familiar, and the introduction in its place of the concept of the Church as an outward institution quickly bears its bitter fruit. Now the maintenance of external ecclesiastical usages is emphasized instead of unity and purity in doctrine. Now Christians are obligated in conscience to the preservation of outward peace in the church instead of confession of the truth. For development of the church as an outward institution one may, of course, turn to the arm of earthly authority, the whole state-church apparatus, physical force, human ordinances, yes, indeed, fairs, tea parties, oyster suppers, etc.

On the other hand, when one maintains that the Church is nothing more or less than the spiritual fellowship of those who believe in Christ, that therefore the Church is built when a soul trusts in its Savior and the believers are strengthened in the faith, and that the Church is done injury when faith in Christ is hindered or done injury - I say, when this understanding is firmly held, one sees to it first, last, and always that the Gospel is purely preached and the Sacraments correctly administered, as the only means by which faith in Christ is nourished and preserved.

Then discipline in doctrine and life is practised. Then false teachers are always opposed as the worst enemies of the Church. Then the training of such teachers and preachers as can teach God's Word clearly and purely is diligently pursued. Then ecclesiastical regulations are, indeed, not despised, since such arrangements must necessarily be made when a number of Christians live together, but they are esteemed of value only insofar as they serve the progress of the Word, and are changed or discarded as soon as they no longer serve this purpose or oppose it and thus impede the building of the Church, which is the communion of believers. And finally - and

this is not the least important: When it is firmly held that the Church is not an outward institution, but the communion of saints, then each person who is in the external fellowship of the Church examines himself in the privacy of his chamber whether he himself also holds the faith and belongs to the community of believers outside which there is no salvation, since it is written, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.

The second question is: "Whom on earth has Christ originally invested with the spiritual power which the Church possesses; for example, with authority to call preachers, to exclude impenitent sinners and to absolve the penitent, to establish regulations, etc.?" Is it the pope? The so-called bishops? The so-called pastoral estate? Is it perhaps in the final analysis the temporal sovereigns or the temporal government? Nothing of all this! All spiritual power in the Church belongs to those who are the Church, the Christians. Through faith in Christ the Christians are God's children and thereby invested with the whole spiritual inheritance. All that is unbelief, be it ever so highly placed outwardly, be it in state, be it in the external alliances of the church, does not bear spiritual authority, neither much nor little, but God's wrath and eternal condemnation. Only faith possesses and retains all that Christ has won. Faith holds all; unbelief nothing.

In the familiar passages in Matthew 16 and 18 and John 20 Scripture names no others than the believers as the possessors of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Only to the believers does St. Paul declare, "All things are yours." (1 Cor. 3.) They, the believers, are originally commissioned to preach the Gospel. The command, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," is directed to all Christians, as is evident from what follows, "and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." They, the believers it is therefore who according to Christ's command establish the ministry ordained by Christ among them by delegating the ministry to qualified persons by means of a call. It is they also who in Christian freedom, according to circumstances of place, time, and particular conditions, arrange all things which Christ Himself has not specified.

This is the simple and clear doctrine of God's Word and our dear Lutheran Church. It is the catechism verity. That some have

forgotten this and have accorded the spiritual authority to individuals in the church or state results from the situation that men really forget what Christianity and a Christian are. It rose and rises, as our fathers who are now for the most part in eternal rest emphasized ever and again, from the fact that men forgot the article of justification.

We insist upon holding fast to the precious truth that the Christians possess all spiritual authority. When this lives in the heart, one will properly thank God for the wonderful dignity and glory with which He has endued what the world despises, the Christian status. Then there is recognition of the obligation which is laid not only on some individuals in the Church, but on all believers, each one, to be occupied with spreading the Gospel, that all Christians are charged with seeing to the preaching of the Gospel and everything pertaining thereto, with the establishment, for example, of schools, missions, etc.

Furthermore men will, on the one hand, guard zealously the rights of Christians and the Christian liberty which Christ has gained and bestowed on faith, not with gold or silver, but with His blood; for every action by which men seize or encroach upon the Christian rights of the community of believers is sacrilege, the worst and most shameful kind of theft. On the other hand, whenever Christian liberty is not threatened the Christians, submissive to proper evangelical exhortation, will practise a proper rivalry to serve one another by love, to be subject one to the other and to get along with one another.

Here there is occasion to touch on several subsidiary questions in connection with the doctrine of the Church.

How many Christians possess all spiritual authority? Is it the collective Church? Is it the church of an entire country? Or perhaps an entire synod? This is really a strange question, since it is established that the believers as believers possess everything, and that therefore whether there are many or few is not pertinent. But this question, strange in itself, must be answered in view of the error which has arisen. Men have wanted to grant the church power only to the collective Church, or at least only to the church of a whole country or district, or to an entire synod. But in His Word God has very explicitly answered this question. In Matthew 18 Christ names the local congregation as the community or church which has been invested with the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven and therewith

all spiritual power. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Large church bodies such as synods hold only so much authority as is delegated to them by the local congregations. To accord to the church of a country or to a synod a place superior by divine right to the local congregation is a principle of most fearful import. It is the principle on which the papacy is based.

As the public ministry is the only divinely-instituted office in the Church, so is also the local congregation assembled around this ministry the only external communion instituted by God. The unions in which the congregations of one or more regions join are only human arrangement.

Some have indeed recently again called the local congregation an "indefinite quantity". But here we are concerned not with human assertions and opinion but with the Word of God. But God's Word speaks not only of the universal Church, but also of local churches. When Scripture says, for instance, that God the Father has set Christ "to be head over all things to the church, which is his body", it is speaking, of course, of the universal Church, that is, of the totality of believers from the rising to the setting of the sun. But Holy Writ also speaks of churches or congregations in the plural. It speaks, for instance, of the churches in Asia, 1 Cor. 16:19; of the churches in Macedonia, 2 Cor. 8:1; of the congregation of God in Corinth, 1 Cor. 1:2; of the congregation in Jerusalem, Acts 8:1. In Matthew 18:17 we read, "Tell it to the church." In all these passages local congregations, or particular churches, are spoken of. We speak also with Scripture when we speak of local congregations.

And precisely to the local congregations Scripture assigns the keys of the kingdom of heaven and all that is connected therewith. Matt. 18. The first ecclesiastical election which Acts reports to us is a choice made by the congregation, Acts 6. At the behest of the apostles the local congregations choose elders, that is pastors, Acts 14. The local congregation received the instruction to put out the evil men (1 Cor. 5) and again to absolve the penitent (2 Cor. 2). The local congregation is reminded by the apostle to see to it that the public ministry is properly discharged in its midst, Col. 4:17.

What is the relationship, then, of the universal Church and the local congregations? The total of the local congregations, with the addition of individual souls which are cut off from all outward fellowship with local congregations, are the universal Church. Also the local congregation consists not of believers and hypocrites, but

only of believers. The hypocrites are admixed with the local congregations only by external association.

This Holy Scripture teaches as clearly as is possible. St. Paul names the local Corinthian congregation "the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2), and the local congregation at Rome, "beloved of God, called to be saints" (Rom. 1:7). Dr. Walther is therefore in full agreement with

Scripture when he defines an evangelical Lutheran local congregation thus: "An evangelical Lutheran local congregation is an assembly of believing Christians at a definite place among whom the Word of God is preached in its purity and the holy Sacraments are administered according to Christ's institution, as recorded in the Gospel."

As hypocrites are not members of the universal Church, which is a holy Christian Church, neither are they members of the local congregation, but are admixed therewith only in an external visible association. On this is based our practise of receiving into the local, congregation only those whom we in love can consider to be Christians, and of excluding those whose unbelief is manifest. The hypocrites admixed in the local congregation are not saved, but will be damned if they do not repent.

Also the spiritual rights with which Christ has invested the local congregation belong not to them, but only to the true believers. When hypocrites mixed with the congregation execute the directions of Christ correctly, they do this on behalf of the truly believing children of God who constitute the congregation.

Visible and Invisible Church

Since the Church is nothing else than the communion of saints (believers), as our Confession expresses it on the basis of Scripture, and since the Searcher of hearts, God, alone knows who truly believe, the Church always is and remains invisible in this life. When men have spoken of the Church as partly invisible, partly visible, either this is based on a false concept of "church", under which is understood not the totality of believing persons, but a collection of external ecclesiastical regulations, or there is a mental confusion in which what is connected with the Church – be it necessary or accidental - is mistaken for the Church itself.

Thus men have wished to ascribe a "visible side" to the Church because God's Word and the Sacraments are audible and visible. Certainly this is true: The Word of God and the Sacraments are necessarily connected with the Church. They are indeed the means

of grace by which the Church is brought into being and preserved. God's Word and the Sacraments are therefore a mark of the Church. We look for the wheat field where wheat has been planted. Thus we look for the Church, the communion of believers, where the seed of the Church is, the means of grace by which children of God are born and nurtured. And we do not look for children of God in vain where the Word of God has been presented. We know the promise of God that His Word will not return void, but shall accomplish that whereto it was sent. But as little as we count the air and daily bread a part or side of man, though man surely cannot live without these things, so little do we denominate the means of grace a part or visible side of the Church.

The Church is nothing else than the communion of believers. Thereby we do not "etherealize" the Church, as men charge, but let it stand in its full divine magnitude and hidden glory. True, we do not see it, but we believe it on the basis of God's Word. We also know surely that it is the most real power in this world, about which all revolves. We know that the whole world and all it contains is only a scaffolding for the building of the Church.

We know that in spite of its invisibility the Church is the firmly-framed edifice which not only men, but also devils, assail in vain. Visible establishments, also the mightiest earthly kingdoms, have come and gone. The Church has remained - remained the same - in the face of all change and disappearance of earthly realms; and it will stand to the Last Day. And when we, obedient to the command of the Lord of the Church, go out with the Gospel to build the Church, we know surely that we are not building castles in the air, but incorporating one stone after the other in the wonderful edifice of the Church. And when the structure is complete, when the last soul has been converted, the Lord of the Church will then return visibly and remove the veil which hid the city of God from our physical eyes here, and we shall then also see the city of God in its perfect beauty and glory. Meanwhile we believe what we shall hereafter see.

But may we not speak of visible church communions here on earth? We not only may, but must so speak. The Christians of a locality shall not hold each to himself alone, but also associate in the outward communion. They shall establish the public ministry in their midst and assemble about it in a visible fellowship. One who persistently makes himself invisible, that is, declines to enter upon the outward fellowship of the local congregation, reveals that

he does not belong to the Church, that is, the communion of believers. The outward union of Christians in a local congregation is divine order. Christians may in Christian liberty join themselves in larger church unions, for example, synods; they must, according to divine order, affiliate with local congregations. So we rightly speak also of visible church communions.

There you have - so men tell us - two churches, a visible and an invisible. Not at all! We maintain one Church. Since we men neither can nor should look into one another's heart, we in harmony with love consider all to be members of the communion who with us confess the true faith and do not nullify their profession by their manner of living. At the same time we remember that before God only they are members of the Church in whose hearts truly dwells the faith which the mouth confesses.

Orthodox and Heterodox Church Bodies

As we have already noted, Christians shall associate with one another in outward communions. They shall establish the public ministry in their midst and as a society discharge other tasks laid upon them by Christ. Of what sort shall this external communion be as regards the doctrine confessed and proclaimed? All Christians are under the command to congregate about the correct doctrine of God's Word and to avoid all false teachings and teachers. So an association in which, according to Christ's command, the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments administered according to Christ's institution is a communion as God wills it. That is an orthodox church.

Regrettably, however, not all Christians follow Christ's command, but in weakness give allegiance to such teachers as introduce also false doctrines. Thus heterodox churches rise and continue. Heterodox churches are such as do still teach essential parts of God's Word, but alongside them preach also errors. To be sure, in our days men make much sport of this sharp distinction between orthodox and heterodox churches. In part they make very vicious remarks about "pure doctrine" and declare it presumptuous for a communion firmly to maintain that it has the pure doctrine and to declare itself an orthodox church body in all respects.

Yes, men speak as if the various church bodies with their varying doctrines are something God wills. That is gross blindness! According to Scripture only the one pure doctrine revealed in Holy Writ is authorized in the Church. No teacher is given permission

to teach anything in the Church other than God's pure Word, and no Christian is given permission to follow any teachers other than such as hold fast to God's Word in all points.

As a matter of fact, when such teachers and associations as have inscribed doctrinal errors on their banner nonetheless exist, they exist only under God's sufferance, not by God's will. God wants only an orthodox Church on earth. Sects exist under divine sufferance. They are not there for men to join, but for men to avoid. "Mark them," the apostle admonishes in Romans 16:17, "which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them." We shall not permit the distinction between orthodox and heterodox churches to be effaced.

Two considerations are to be held fast. First, we must retain the correct concept of an orthodox church body. In the prevailing usage among the sects men often call those churches orthodox which, as over against the general anarchy, still hold to certain chief truths, but leave to men's choice others clearly-revealed in Scripture. We, to the contrary, name those church groups orthodox who accept and confess the total salutary doctrine revealed in Holy Writ. Such church bodies are possible because God's Word is fully clear in all articles, and understandable also to the simple - and particularly to them.

Secondly, we maintain that the doctrine which is actually in vogue and promulgated, and not merely the "officially recognized" doctrine, determines the character of an ecclesiastical association. Christ wills that His Word be not only officially acknowledged in some document in the archives, but above all that it actually be proclaimed. Only by the positive proclamation of the pure doctrine is the empire of the devil dismantled and the kingdom of Christ built. Therefore we may not grow weary of so teaching our prospective pastors that each of them is prepared to present the true doctrine in all points. Likewise we dare not cease to watch over the doctrinal purity of those who are already in office. Also, we may grudge no pains to censor most carefully all synodical publications with respect to their orthodoxy. Pure doctrine, so much jeered at by an indifferent generation, is what God wants, and it is the greatest adornment of a church group and the greatest blessing for a locality and for a whole country.

A brief confession of our faith concerning a few points connected with the doctrine of the Church may be added here. We reject

Chiliasm [Millennialism]

By chiliasm we mean the teaching that a glorious estate of the Church here on earth is coming in a future thousand year kingdom. We reject this teaching as false because it stands in direct opposition to many revealed truths, especially to the Scripture passages which tell us that the Church here on earth will be - and the more as the end approaches - under the cross. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. Anything else, as far as outward circumstances are concerned, is not promised Christians. When the Son of Man cometh, think you, will He find faith on the earth? - that is the sign of the Church in the last days.

We also reject chiliasm as a dangerous doctrine because it deranges the Christians' objective and turns their hope in the wrong direction. It misleads Christians to direct their hope to an imaginary glory here on earth instead of to the glory of heaven alone. Therefore we do not treat chiliasm as an "open question". We grant it no right to exist, but emphasize that each and every Christian, congregation, and church body has the duty to reject chiliasm.

Also concerning

Antichrist

we do not believe that he is still to come, but maintain that he is before our eyes large and clear, and that it is a special deception of the devil that so many Christians, though they know about the papacy and its essence, yet do not recognize it as the Antichrist prophesied in Scripture (especially in the 2 Thess. 2 passage). We confess with the Church of the Reformation that the papacy is "the very Antichrist" (ipsum verum antichristum) because " all the vices of Antichrist, which are prophesied in Holy Writ, plainly agree with the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents." [Smalcald Articles, Of the Power, Trig. 514,39.]

Scripture speaks in one place of many Antichrists, 1 John 2:18, "Now are there many antichrists." Thus it designates all false teachers. All false teachers are in reality antichrists. Christ wills that His Word alone shall be proclaimed and thus alone rule in the Church. But false teachers, who preach their own Word instead of Christ's, actually seat themselves in the Church in Christ's place and against Him. As they proffer their own doctrine they seek to establish their own authority over against Christ's. We will always take well to heart also this word of Scripture regarding the many antichrists, so as not to forget what an abomination false doctrine is. All false teaching in the Church is rebellion against the authority of Christ.

But in addition we do not forget that Scripture speaks also of one Antichrist in whom the abomination of all false doctrine reaches its zenith and whose coming is a special working of Satan. In the apostles' time Antichrist was still to come, but St. Paul has already especially described him in 2 Thess. 2. And he has come in the papacy and was exposed through the Reformation.

It is true that not only the papists find fault with us for this confession. Also the modern theologians count it improper. But this rises from the fact that a person either has totally fallen away from the fundamental truths of Christianity or at least has only an unclear and defective knowledge of them. One needs to know only two catechism truths to be convinced that the papacy is the very Antichrist and that there can be no greater enemy of the Christian Church than the papacy. These are the two truths: 1) The Christian Church is the communion of those who believe that they are justified and saved by grace alone for Christ's sake through faith, and not by their own works; and 2) The Christian Church is subject only to Christ and His Word and to no man and his word. Let us briefly bring home to ourselves the meaning of these catechism truths and then compare the essence and the pretensions of the papacy.

Wherein does the inner life of every single Christian and of the whole Christian Church consist? What is the real pulsebeat of the spiritual life of all who are Christians? The faith that they have forgiveness of sins through Christ alone and not through their own works. This faith constitutes the real essence of the spiritual life of a Christian. What water is for a fish and air is for the physical life of man, namely, the life element, this for the Christian is the faith that through Christ alone he has forgiveness of all sins and lives under God's grace. He who will not permit the Christian this faith assaults his very life. He who most compromises and attacks this faith does the Church the greatest injury.

Accordingly, who is the greatest enemy of the Church as we survey its enemies? Nero, Decius, and their ilk, who cruelly slaughtered thousands of Christians? Oh, no! Christians could nevertheless hold the faith, sing hymns of praise to Christ as they were martyred, and enter heaven. But when anyone takes Christ from the heart, then truly life itself is attacked, that is, spiritual and eternal life. And that the papacy does.

The papacy curses the doctrine of justification, the doctrine that the sinner is justified and saved by God's grace for Christ's sake

alone, and the whole vast machinery of the papacy has the purpose of serving the doctrine of works and of tearing Christ as the one Savior of sinners out of men's hearts. And this murder of Christians it carries on not openly like outspoken unbelievers, against whom Christians guard themselves from the first, but under a show of superlative Christian character and holiness. It lures the peoples to it under the pretense that it is the only saving church, and then leads all who yield to its call not to reliance on Christ as the one Savior, but on the way of works, and so to doom.

Under the pretense that it is the only saving church, supported by all sorts of lying powers, signs, and wonders, Rome practises the murder of Christians on a grand scale. It continues to lead millions to hell under the pretense of directing them to heaven. Rome is the greatest enemy of the Church, Antichristianity. At the same time it becomes clear why some do not recognize what the Church of the Reformation unanimously confessed. The largest segment of the socalled Protestant Church has abandoned the article of justification. Sometimes crassly, sometimes subtly the way of works is taught as the way of salvation. With respect to the doctrine of the way of salvation the great bulk of so-called Protestant Christianity has defected to the Roman camp.

It is the same case also with the synergists within the Lutheran Church. That we and all who hold with us confess afresh with the Church of the Reformation that the papacy is the great Antichrist results from the fact that by the grace of God we hold the correct knowledge of the doctrine of justification. He who knows Christ aright can also know the Antichrist. And Christ is only rightly apprehended when we understand that nothing in us, whatever name may be given it, but only God's grace in Christ is the cause of our salvation.

The second catechism truth which, truly taken to heart, brings recognition of the papacy as the very Antichrist is that the Christian Church is subject only to Christ and His Word and to no man nor his word. Christ wills to rule alone in the hearts and consciences of Christians through His Word. This prerogative He demands for Himself. Among Christians no one shall rule the rest, but they are on an equality as brethren. "One is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren."

But now comes the pope and immediately to all effects casts aside Christ's Word by declaring the Bible to be a dark book, and in the bargain he forbids the general reading of it. For himself he

advances the claim to be the head of Christians, to whom all who wish to be saved must subject themselves. Under cover of the monstrous allegation that he is the infallible vicar of Christ on earth he alters Christ's Word and commandments according to his pleasure.

Alleging that he represents Christ on earth, he establishes his own dominion and makes salvation depend on submission to his dominion. What an abomination this is one simply cannot express. That men in Protestant Christianity in general in our times have no sense of this abomination and therefore do not recognize the papacy as the Antichrist issues from the fact that they themselves have also in this point strayed into Roman territory. Either expressly in doctrine or actual practise men grant princes, consistories, pastors, etc., authority over the Christians as Christians. As the article of justification has been surrendered, so also the article concerning the liberty of the Christian man, the article that the Christian as Christian is subject only to God's Word and free of all human mastery. By God's grace we once again understand the article of the Christian's liberty and are shocked to inmost being by the abomination of the papacy.

The papacy gives itself airs also in America. Especially in these last days its efforts to achieve control appear more clearly than ever. And most Protestants also in this country are blind with respect to the papacy. Consequently we have the duty, as much as lies in us, to open the Church's eyes to the real nature of the papacy.

So you hold - men shout at us - the doctrine that the pope of Rome is the Antichrist to be a fundamental article! Most certainly not! We hold that a person is saved only through the knowledge of Christ and not through knowledge of the Antichrist. But at the same time we maintain that men who know about the pope's doctrine and practise and yet do not recognize him thereby as the Antichrist are miserable theologians. Also we maintain that pastors cannot properly discharge their duty to warn the souls committed to them against the heinousness and seduction of the papacy if they themselves do not recognize the papacy as the Antichrist.

Our Practise

Now a few words on the relation of doctrine and practise in general.

Doctrine standing alone does not exist in the Christian Church, but all doctrine shall be carried over also into practise. The Chris-

tian Church is not a school of philosophy, in which matters are merely lectured on, but a society of people who, believing the Gospel and crucifying the flesh, walk the way of everlasting life and have the call to lead others on this way. To be sure, there is also teaching in the Christian Church and indeed first there is teaching and everything carried forward on the basis of the teaching. Doctrine is the foundation for all activity in the Church. But teaching is not the ultimate objective, but only the means to that objective. For the Word of God preached in the Church shall, in the nature of the Word, also produce results. The Gospel is to be received in faith by individuals and held fast, and also the Law shall be put to its threefold use by the individual hearers. And not only shall each person himself give attention to it that he respond to God's Word, but Christians shall, by God's ordering, extend a helpful hand in this matter to one another; each shall be his brother's keeper.

In particular, by reason of his office, the pastor has the duty to see to it that the Word of God is not only heard but translated into practise by the whole congregation and the individual members. In short, since only that man is saved who from the heart believes the Gospel and does not drive faith away again by a life of sin, people in the Church – each on his part and according to divine ordering – have the responsibility to see to it that the Word of God has its fruits. There is no mere theory in the Church. The Church is the most practical institution in the world.

So we maintain, first, that in the Church

Discipline in Doctrine and Life

is to be exercised. It is true that this discipline is not of the essence of the Church. Also where discipline in doctrine languishes, so that everyone is permitted to teach and believe just about whatever pleases him - even here there are still true children of God if the essential elements of God's Word are still taught. Also where discipline in life is wholly lacking, where in instances of sin no brother in hearty compassion practises fraternal admonition on the other, and also the pastor as curate of souls does not fulfill his duty over against the individual, even there God knows how to preserve individual souls in the way of life and to lead them back to it, if God's Word has not completely disappeared from the scene there.

But where things move in such fashion the Church does not present the proper, divinely-willed external character. According to God's will, clearly revealed in Holy Writ, the Church shall have

this external character that in it only God's pure Word is preached and a conduct befitting Christians is observed. And this outward condition of the Church shall be maintained, when it is endangered, by application of discipline in doctrine and life.

That discipline in doctrine must retain first place is self-evident, since correct doctrine is the prime foundation, or - to speak after Luther - "where the doctrine is false there also can be no help for life." But that discipline in life is not to be neglected follows from the consideration that all who remain sunk in mortal sins have no hope of eternal life.

Just how the discipline shall be practised in the Church and how carefully one must distinguish in this matter between sins of weakness and mortal sins lest, as the sainted Dr. Walther put it - "church discipline overreach itself and the whole congregational life be transformed, contrary to the Gospel, into a life under perpetual discipline, that is, under the Law" - this is not the place to exposit that in more detail. I would mention only this one point briefly: Church discipline administered in a spirit lacking in Christian love, merely external and legalistic, is poison and death for individuals and for the whole congregation, and is before God the greatest injustice; a discipline applied in heartfelt compassion and in truly evangelical fashion is spiritual medicine and one of the most excellent elements of Christian righteousness in life. "Let all monks and holy orders" - says Luther - "submit themselves to the test whether they can claim credit for having won one brother." But I must leave this point in order still to touch on a few individual items of church practise.

To begin with, a topic bearing on our external relations. We are continually viewed with grave suspicion because we practise church fellowship only with such as with us confess the correct doctrine in all articles. That we do not admit Methodists, Baptists, the United, etc., to our pulpits and altars, but only orthodox Lutherans, alienates almost all Protestant Christendom and is condemned almost without exception as loveless.

Nonetheless our practise is correct. Read through the entire Holy Scriptures from the first book to the last - you will find not a single passage in which individual Christians or whole congregations are given permission to listen to and in general to practise church fellowship with those - be they many or few - who present false doctrine. But we do find hundreds of passages in which all

Christians are most earnestly commanded to be sure to avoid those who teach false doctrine.

"So you excommunicate all other church bodies" - men hurl at us. Certainly not! We know and confess that insofar as the essential elements of the Word of God are available and in use in them, also in erring communions there are many dear children of God, who from weakness of understanding remain in a camp where they do not belong. But it would be contrary to God's will and foolish if for the sake of those erring Christians we for ourselves established fellowship with the false teachers and thus chose to strengthen the erring Christians in their error and the false teachers in their false teaching. The circumstance that those 200 men of Jerusalem in their simplicity joined the rebel Absalom did not give warrant to the loyal Israelites to join the rebels' camp or at least to cultivate friendly relations with them.

Our position with regard to current efforts toward church union will continue to be much criticized. This is our position: We deplore the fragmentation of the church into many parties which advocate varying doctrines. This fragmentation is a work of the devil whereby unspeakable damage is done the church. But how is the injury to be healed? The division was caused by false teachers rising and by Christians who, instead of avoiding them, adhered to them.

If men want to put an end to the division, there is in the world no other way of doing it than that the Christians again isolate the false teachers, rebuke them, and avoid them. In order that the Christians may be equipped to do this we continually combat the false doctrine and witness to the correct doctrine in our periodicals, from the pulpit, and also in personal intercourse. We are also ready to do more, for example, to join in so-called free conferences and in them to deal in all patience with the doctrinal differences on the basis of God's Word. To plan a mere "external union" without unity in all articles of the doctrine revealed in Scripture or, in other words, to discuss how much of God's Word may be yielded, instead of how one comes to understanding and acceptance of the entire revealed truth - that does not befit Christians.

Our long-standing, well-known position with respect to the lodges, such as Odd Fellows, Freemasons, etc., we still hold firmly and intend by God's grace to hold fast also in future. Lodgery and Christianity are two things which simply cannot be reconciled. In the lodges - looking aside from the secret affiliation, the sinful oath, and some other impious elements - also a way to bliss or a

"better beyond" is spoken of. But this way is not Christ the Crucified and faith in Him, but the moral improvement of man by way of the lodges' naturalistic formula.

Furthermore, in the lodges prayer is offered, but not in the name of Jesus, through which name alone God can and wills to be appealed to. A Christian who knows that salvation for all men lies only in Christ and His precious merit, and that prayer may be offered in no other than the dear name of Jesus, can have nothing to do with the lodges. We may not grow weary of testifying this in order, as much as in us lies, to warn all who will listen against partnership in the lodge, and to rescue from affiliation with the lodge such weak Christians as have already permitted themselves to be misled.

So far as relates to our position in general with respect to the multiform organizational situation; time and occasion do not permit us to discuss the individual organizations in detail. But I would at least point to a few basic principles which can cover the matter. They are the same which the pastoral conference of the Central District discussed.

Sinful organizations, or those which lead to participation in sin, are those (1) which, even though if only as a secondary purpose, teach a false religion and practise a false worship; (2) which demand sinful actions of their members and undertake sinful activities; (3) which, as organizations, arrange sinful amusements, even if they leave participation to the discretion of the individual members; (4) which do things which are in themselves proper, but involve a perversion of divine regulation. Which organizations are included in this group must in each instance be decided on the basis of a very conscientious and careful evaluation.

As for the church's position with respect to such organizations as are sinful or lead to participation in sin, this is to be firmly held, first: What is sin must be rebuked as sin. We would not be faithful if out of fear of the spirit of the times or because of other human considerations we should let ourselves be deterred from exposing and reproving as sin what is sinful in the organizational affairs. Indifference toward what is sinful and wicked would spread among us; and indifference toward sin is a mortal enemy of the Gospel and Christianity. On the other hand it is not to be forgotten that in admonishing regarding these sins we must indeed take into consideration the prejudices and circumstances of the times and carefully distinguish between mortal sins and sins of weakness.

Nor is it to be forgotten that the question of organizations is in most cases not so much a question of doctrine as of life. Members of our congregations who have become entangled in the organizations for the most part do not want to disavow correct doctrine, but joined them out of concern for material advancement, etc.

The general cure for the mischief of organizationalism is public and distinctive witnessing of the Gospel. We want not merely to eliminate the damage outwardly, but to cure from within. The important thing is to strengthen the inner spiritual life. That is accomplished by diligent instruction in the Gospel. If we will preach that faith into the heart and fan that faith to a bright flame, so that Christians possess heaven through faith in their Savior, they will not hold anxious concern for this life's brief span. Thus the root of the organization-evil is cut away. As long as we have the pure Gospel and men are willing to hear it from our mouths, we are equal to the most difficult situation. So ever anew we conquer the world, which seeks to force its way into our congregations by a different route and by way of the organizations.

Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide,

For round us falls the eventide;

Nor let Thy Word, that heav'nly light,

For us be ever veiled in night. Amen.