# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S18
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

DOCTRINAL ESSAY

taught them; therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood and
give them poisonous water to drink. (Jer. 9:13-15 RSV)
When we attempt to summarize what it was that constituted
true doctrine in the Old Testament, we arrive at these conclusions:
(1) that all true doctrine comes from God and that false doctrine
was initiated by the devil; (2) that God revealed Himself and His
doctrine through Moses and the other prophets; (3) that God’s
will and doctrine demanded absolute obedience; (4) that God’s
doctrine stood in direct opposition to that of false prophets and
false prophecies, the doctrines of men; (5) that God’s honor was
violated and offended when men falsified and perverted God’s pure
teaching and followed after the teachings of false teachers; (6) that
God’s doctrine in the Old Testament included also the promise of
a Messiah, the Suffering Servant, who would suffer and die and
rise again for the sins and eternal welfare of His people; that this
Messiah would establish a Kingdom of which He Himself would
be King, that this Kingdom would endure forever and that both
Jews and Gentiles would be subjects in that Kingdom. Here, then,
was a great body of “doctrine” which was God’s “doctrine,” since
He gave it, and behind which stood God’s honor and supreme au-
thority, as is evidenced also by His so-often-repeated “Thus saith
the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.” That doctrine was intended to
have Israel recognize God as its absolute Ruler and King whose
laws and commandments, testimonies and statutes could never be
set aside with impunity. But this doctrine included also the theme
that this same God was forgiving and merciful to those who con-
fessed their sins and pledgéd renewed allegiance to God’s covenant.

In the life of Jesus we note both a very positive and negative
concern about “doctrine”: a positive concern for His doctrine and
a negative concern regarding all false doctrine. Jesus Himself
taught. In Matt. 4:23, which summarizes the activity of Jesus in
Galilee, it is said first “that He taught in the synagogs.” Then we
read that He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God
and healed the sick (Matt. 9:35; 12:9f.). Like the Rabbis of His
day, Jesus, too, interpreted passages from the Old Testament
(Luke 4:16 ff.; Matt. 5:21f; 15; 2; 22:37). But He was not pri-
marily concerned about providing intellectual knowledge, but
rather, like Moses and the prophets, toward ordering the life of
His hearers toward God and toward love of the neighbor (Matt.
22:37; 19; 16 ff.). Therefore His doctrine always appealed to the
will and to a decision for or against the will of God. Like the
Rabbis and scribes, Jesus, too, taught that God’s will is revealed
in the Old Testament Scriptures, especially in the Law, so that He
refused to surrender even a jot or tittle of the Law (Matt. 5:17).