# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S35
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

DOCTRINAL ESSAY 35

Faith and Order which convened in Oberlin, Ohio, Sep. 3—10, 1957.
There was evident in that conference a genuine interest in the
ascertainment of truth and of “sound” and “good” doctrine, as will
be granted by anyone who carefully studies the official report,
which appeared under the title The Nature of the Unity We Seek
(St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1958). What the criteria were for
Paul in determining what “sound” and “good” doctrine is, we
noted above. It is the Christological interpretation of the Old
Testament, it is the Gospel which he had received from the Lord
Jesus, and it is the words of Jesus. In our day we would merely
say: It is the Holy Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament,
with the constant accent on the article of justification by faith.

The Lutheran Church, and in our country particularly the
synods affiliated in the Synodical Conference, have sometimes been
faulted because of their concern for “sound” and “good” “doctrine.”
Prof. Hermann Sasse’s observation is relevant at this point. In one
of his letters (“The Problem of the Confessions in World Lu-
theranism,” p. 108) he writes: “If the orthodox leaders in the
fourth century had been more concerned about evangelizing than
about defining Scripturally the nature of Christ, they might have
done more evangelizing, but they would have lost the Gospel,
whose heart and center is Christ, who is both God and man in
one person.”

Similarly, Lutheranism in the sixteenth century had to take
most seriously the concept of “doctrine” and “pure” doctrine. For

the leaders of the Lutheran Church in that period it was a most
serious matter so to state their teaching that they could with a good
conscience face the judgment seat of Christ. And so it was in the
seventeenth century, that period which is stigmatized by many
as “the age of dead orthodoxy.” So it has been in the history of
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. This we need to recog-
nize with humble gratitude to God and without any Pharisaic pride.
But this concern of our church also means that we need constantly
to examine “doctrine” in the light of Scripture. There is no other
infallible authority in Lutheranism or outside of Lutheranism
which is capable of determining with finality the purity and right-
ness of any aspect of the divine doctrine except the Holy Scrip-
tures. Nor can any aspect of doctrine be valid if it cannot be
demonstrated and supported Scripturally. What an obligation
therefore also for our church constantly to examine its teaching
with reference to its Scripturalness!

But, now, what is the content of divine doctrine? What is the
content of the “faith” of which Jude speaks when he refers to
“the faith once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3) and when he
admonishes his readers: “Beloved, build up yourselves on your