# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S26
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

26 DOCTRINAL ESSAY

But what Paul declared to be the source of his doctrine was
also the source of what the other apostles proclaimed and taught.
They, too, regarded the Old Testament not only as God’s author-
itative Word, but also as God’s revelation in which He held out
the promises of a Messiah-King. These other apostles had been

not see and hear, They saw the Messiah-King in person, were
called by Him into His fellowship, discipleship, and apostleship,
and under the guidance of His Spirit, the Comforter, composed
those books of the New Testament not written by Paul. The doc-
trine which they proclaimed, taught, and wrote they, too, received
from Christ Himself and from the Old Testament Scriptures. And

At first the church read only the Old Testament books in its
divine services. But in the course of time our New Testament

Old Testament and the New Testament, therefore, constitute for
Christians the source of divine doctrine. It is these Scriptures
which were given by the Spirit of God. In them God speaks to
every generation regardless of culture and language. They are the
deposit which contain for all times the divine doctrine, the divine
teaching, through which God builds and preserves the church.

By the grace of God Luther discovered, in the course of his
controversies with the Roman Church, the great truth that Scrip-
ture alone is the source of divine doctrine. This became also the
position of his followers, in fact, also of the Reformed churches that
came into being in the sixteenth century. The principle “Scripture
alone” is made most explicit in the Formula of Concord, the last
of the Lutheran Symbols. From “The Summary, Content, Rule,
and Standard according to which all dogmas should be judged,
and the erroneous teachings that have occurred should be decided
and explained in a Christian way” we quote the following:

We believe, teach, and confess that the sole rule and standard

according to which all dogmas together with (all) teachers

Holy Scriptures, but all of them together be subjected to them,
and should not be received otherwise or further than as wit-

MoM Rote ROA