# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S30
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30 DOCTRINAL ESSAY

indicating our dissent from all those who limit or expand the scope
of divine truth.

There are those in Christendom who believe that the sub-
stance of Christian doctrine can be neatly summarized in the sim-
ple confession “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior,” but who leave it
to the individual to interpret this confession as he wills. There are
others who scorn and reject all creeds and confessions as man-
made doctrines and barriers to personal faith. There are still
others who believe that the substance of Christian doctrine is suf-
ficiently summarized in the Apostles’ Creed and that Scripture as
the great fountain of divine doctrine is really antiquated and out-
dated. There are others, finally, who believe that the source of
divine truth is larger than Holy Scripture. They tell us that since
divine truth might be found also in the sacred books of other
religions, Christians ought to expand their canon to include these
other sacred books. Against all these views we Lutherans maintain
that God, who once spoke portion by portion and in various ways
and at various times through His prophets in the period of the Old
Covenant, has spoken in these last days, that is, at the beginning
of the Messianic Age, with finality and with unique clarity and
sufficiency through His Son, and that this Son Jesus Christ has
spoken by His Spirit through His chosen apostles the authoritative
Word of God, and that it pleased God to deposit His Word in the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

With the Formula of Concord we believe, teach, and confess:

Primum igitur toto pectore prophetica et apostolica scripta
Veteris et Novi Testamenti, ut limpidissimos purissimosque
Israelis fontes, recipimus et amplectimur et sacras litteras solas
unicam et certissimam illam regulam esse credimus, ad quam
omnia dogmata exigere, et secundum quam de omnibus tum
doctrinis tum doctoribus iudicare oporteat. (Triglot, 850)

We therefore receive and embrace with our whole heart the
prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testa-
ments as the clear and pure fountain of Israel, and we believe
only the Holy Scriptures to be the unique and most certain
standard by which all teachers and teachings are to be judged.

III. The Content of Divine Doctrine

The term “doctrine” in the sense of “Scriptural doctrine” does
not enjoy great favor in present-day Protestantism. Scriptural
doctrine was oftentimes perverted even in the early days of Chris-
tianity. But in our day, perhaps more so than before in the entire
history of Christianity, the very term “doctrine” is receiving rough
treatment. In any case, the term is frequently regarded with an
air of disdain and condescension. “Doctrine,” so it is claimed,
only sharpens and deepens divisions among churches. Stress on
“doctrine,” so it is argued, leads to static formalism and a dead

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