# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 15_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now nor ever."

Published by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 2.

St. Louis, Mo., November 15, 1845.

No. 6.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, half of which they must pay in advance, and the postage of which they must bear themselves. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

(Submitted by Pastor O. Fürbringer.)
Rationalism and the Bible.
(Conclusion.)

Everything that the author brings forward on pages 10–14 against our most holy faith — namely, against the union of true divine and true human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, even in the state of deepest humiliation and utmost self-denial (a faith on which the Christian Church stands or falls) — at times in seemingly pious language but with hostile intent, can easily be refuted by a believing confessor of the truth on the basis of what has gone before. "The punishment lay upon Christ, that we might have peace, and by his soul's anguish and deep-struck wounds we are healed." — Isaiah 53. He fought with Satan in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, and on Golgotha in our place. Only this is remarkable: how Mr. M., on pages 13–14, deliberately presents the highly important article of justification — this precious jewel of Christian doctrine — as a base pillow of rest for obstinate sinners, in order to nullify for penitent consciences the treasure of gospel comfort. (How rationalism and Romanism join hands in theological principles was set forth in detail twenty years ago by Doctor Sartorius, then serving at Marburg.) "If we understand this article rightly and purely, we have the true heavenly sun; but if we lose it, we have nothing else but sheer hellish darkness." That this was taught not merely by some of the apostles, as the author claims, but by Christ himself, is proved by the following passages: Matthew 20:28; 26:28. Mark 14:24. Luke 22:19ff; 24:46ff. John 3:14–18; 6:51; 10:12–18; 14:31; 15:13; 18:11. The word of the cross was, from the very beginning, a stumbling block to the self-righteous Jewish Pharisees, and foolishness to the vicious, self-conceited Gentiles. (1 Corinthians 1:18ff.) The profound simplicity of divine revelation gives little or nothing to the brooding, proud mind of fallen man and his common understanding, but much — infinitely much — to the childlike, believing heart. In this regard Christ points us to children as an example; the free will of man is a free will toward evil, an inclination toward the ungodly, caught up in a dreadful self-love, as a thousandfold experience confirms. Every actual sin presupposes either an inner evil inclination or an outward temptation to evil; to this the principle of sufficient reason leads us. The former occurs in us, but the latter took place in Adam through the abuse of free will; and since we, descending from Adam — whose nature was ruined by sin and death — are born through sinful human beings, the evil must necessarily propagate itself by inheritance before we can know of it or consent to it; thus every sin has its origin and source without any violation of the freedom of the will. If we came forth from the Creator's hand of God with both good and evil inclinations, as the author of this little tract teaches, then, blasphemously, God would be the origin of evil. In such a wretched abomination of contradiction rationalism entangles itself; joy to the Manichaean! — So then it depends not on anyone's willing or running, but solely on God's mercy, Romans 9:16; Scripture has shut up everything under sin, that the promise might come through faith in Jesus Christ, given to those who believe, Galatians 3:22. Do you think that the prodigal son went to the Father in his own wretched name? Does not Christ say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me"? (John 14:6; cf. Acts 4:12.) If you wish to strike out from the history of our Lord's Passion the fact that God, according to his premeditated counsel and eternal purpose, gave up his holy Child into the hands of sinners for reconciliation (Acts 2:23; 1 John 2:1), then do so at your own peril; but take care that you do not lead others with you into the same blasphemy and unbelief.

Christ, in whom the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily (Colossians 2:9), did not "die for his teaching; he did not seal the truth of his words through death, in order thereby to set the crown upon his sublime life and work" (p. 14 above, p. 10 below); rather, it was the apostles and all the faith-emboldened martyrs who died for the truth of his teaching, and he himself confirmed and sealed it through his foretold, glorious victory over death in his resurrection, by which he has thrown open our graves. The fire of his divine love drove the Son to earth, to reveal the bottomless sea of the Father's mercy, and "to offer up on the altar of the cross the living, holy sacrifice of his body and blood," with loud crying and hot, anxious tears in the wrestling of prayer (Hebrews 5:7), to unlock heaven for the lost, that the kingdom of hell might be silenced forever. Thus the significant shadow-image of the Levitical sacrificial ordinances and purifications — from which the idolatrous heathen copied their ceremonies — was made superfluous through his fulfillment of it. And who else gives me the guarantee of my eternal salvation? Where indeed do I have a surer pledge of a reconciled God than in the sending and giving up of the one Holy One for the unfaithful, sin-laden human race? Whoever does not deeply feel his own guilt deserving punishment, nor perceives the impossibility of standing on his own even in God's judgment, or of paying off, by his own future virtue amid human weakness or by any sacrifice whatsoever, the earlier, incalculable debt, can never believe in the merit of the Son of God either; and for such a person nothing remains to be wished but that divine longsuffering would bear with him until he recognizes himself in his own poverty and condemnation. Thus, awakened to consciousness of his condition and admonished by the accusations of his conscience, he will surely find new life and blessedness in faith in the Gospel, which offers comfort and help even where no human being can give it. But what dreadful callousness it betrays, to declare this worship of the crucified Mediator — the wellspring of all truly Christian life and conduct — to be "superstitious folly and heathen idolatry." (pp. 11, 13.)

The author of our tract asks on page 14: "Why should God ever have instructed men in a supernatural way, since, if something of that sort were possible and useful, this would seem, even now, to be just as necessary as it was in

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