# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S842
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 259

Lutheran Church itself (any effort on the part of the Synodical
Conference to reach unity on the acceptance or rejection of the
Declaration without the interpretation of the American Lutheran
Church will result in added confusion and _ strife) ;

Wuereas, our Committee on Doctrinal Unity has encountered
many difficulties in their negotiations with the commissioners of

the other synods of the Synodical Conference and also those of the -

American Lutheran Church (cp. Lutheraner, Aug. 10, 1943, p. 247,
and Lutheran Witness, Sept. 14, 1943, p. 315);

We therefore petition Synod to send the following open letter
’ or a similar open letter to the American Lutheran Church for their
official action (this mode of procedure has met with the approval
of various responsible leaders in our own as well as other synods
of the Synodical Conference; and the consideration given by the
leading commissioners of the American Lutheran Church gives us
reason to believe that the following letter will receive their official
consideration) :

To tHe Hon. AMERICAN LUTHERAN CHURCH:

In order to hasten the day of uniting all true Lutherans we, the
, ask you for certain official assurances with regard to your
Declaration:

1. When you use the word “authors” in I, b, you mean “inspired
writers” and not in the usual sense of “originator, or creator,” for.
we believe that only God can be considered the Originator, the
Creator, of Holy Writ. (2 Tim.3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21.)

2. In the same paragraph the phrase “without contradiction and
error” is not only to be applied to an “organic whole,” but to every
word of the Bible. (Rev. 22:18,19; Deut. 12:32.)

3. Your statement in I,c, “The Bible is the Word of God...
a means of grace” refers only to the Gospel and the Sacraments and
not to the Law as revealed in the Ten Commandments. (Rom. 11:6.)

4, You will change the wording in the statement II,-A, “to this
end He also purposes to justify those who have come to faith” so
that it can be clearly seen that you officially believe that God in
Christ has declared the whole world righteous, “not imputing their
trespasses unto them” (2 Cor.5:19; Rom. 4:5; 5:6, 8), and that
faith, which in itself is purely a gift of God (Eph. 2:8), is the empty
hand. which grasps what long ago, has been accomplished on Cal-
vary’s cross (John 3:16; John 19:30).

5. When you state II,C,3, you do not intend in the least to
solve the Scriptural mystery of why some are elected and others
lost (1. Tim. 2:4; Hos. 13:9; Rom. 11:32-34), nor do you permit the
false interpretation that by nature the believer is not guilty to the