# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S29
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

DOCTRINAL ESSAY 29

But the question is in order: What is the relation of the
“dogmas and doctrines” of the church to Scripture as the source
and fountain of ail divine doctrine? We all know that the church
has “dogmas and doctrines,” though, as we indicated above, strictly
speaking, “divine doctrine is one.” We think of the Ecumenical
Creeds (Apostolic Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed). These
Ecumenical Creeds, as we call them, express the faith of all Chris-
tians who revere the Bible as the Word of God: they deal with
most important facets of divine doctrine, such as the person and
work of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Trinity. Yet these creeds do
not presume to be doctrinal additions to what is contained in the
prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. They are not more than sum-
mary statements in which the great Scriptural truth regarding
Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity is precisely and succinctly stated
for the upbuilding of the faith and for the rejection of errors. —
We have, furthermore, our Lutheran Symbols: the Augsburg Con-
fession and its Apology; Luther’s two Catechisms; the Smalcald
Articles; the Formula of Concord. These symbols merely spell out
the pure doctrine of Scripture as Luther and his colaborers and
followers discerned it in Scripture. To both the Ecumenical Creeds
and the Lutheran Symbols every pastor, teacher, and congregation
belonging to Synod subscribes as the true exposition of the Scrip-
tures. Our church subscribes to these creeds and symbols, further-
more, not “insofar as,” but “because” they are in truth the true
interpretation of God’s Word in Holy Scripture.

When we, as Lutherans, confess that Scripture alone is the
source and fountain of divine doctrine, and when we say that the
creeds and our Lutheran Symbols are for us true expositions of
the Christian faith, we are thanking and glorifying God for what
He has done for us, moved only by His love and grace. We are also
in deep humility confessing to the world that we regard ourselves
as belonging to that great multitude of saints known as the church,
which, as Luther reminds us, originated already in the Garden of
Eden, has continued to our own day, and will endure to the end
of time. In making this confession we are also declaring that we
belong and want to belong to that church of the ages which has
most faithfully clung to the pure doctrine of the Holy Scriptures.
We are at the same time thanking God for the many teachers He
gave to the church who taught the Word of God in its purity and
transmitted it in its purity to future generations. And we are,
finally, breathing a prayer that God would preserve to us that truth
and enable us to transmit. it in its purity and fullness to our chil-
dren and children’s children.

But whenever we are aware of our obligation to Scripture and
the creeds and symbols of our church, we are in that moment also