# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1855_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Holy Preaching Office.                    9

...binds with the keys, one is compelled then also to link with it the foregoing point — that the Holy Spirit, as a special gift of the grace of office, must be present even amid inward unbelief and must be distinguished from the ordinary endowment common to Christians (see more on this below) — a doctrine which the Lutheran confession abhors as belonging to the papacy, because without faith it is impossible to please God. One may compare, besides, how Christ, even before His death, appointed those gathered in His name — who as believers are temples of the Holy Spirit — as holders of His keys, the administration of which, alas, is possible even through those devoid of the Spirit, Matth. 18:15–20. (We shall return to this passage at length later.) So then, to speak with the victorious Luther, faith has with it everything that follows upon faith — keys, sacrament, power, and everything else; and to set up an estate that should be better and higher than that is a perverse thing, and denies and curses Christ. (“Discussions against Dr. Eck concerning the power of the pope,” 1519; Exposition of Psalm 117, §30.) And his explanation of John 20:21ff. in the Church Postil, sermons for Dominica Quasimodogeniti, neither friend nor foe has yet overturned.

Now if we have gained so strong an argument from the words of Christ in St. John's Gospel, then Mark 16:15ff., together with Luke 24:46–47, will not contradict us. The latter expresses itself quite generally: that it be caused to be preached, that repentance and forgiveness of sins etc. be preached in His name; the former reports that the Lord Jesus, though His promise (v. 17f.) — a command to preach in all the world already generally contained in the sending out of the disciples by Christ, here made more specific — did indeed precede, yet assigned it not exclusively to the apostolic office as such, but rather to faith, to the Eleven as representatives of the believers on earth, who all already possess in themselves, through the working of prayer, a hidden miraculous power, which today — partly because of the weakness of those believers, partly because of the unworthiness of the world — no longer manifests itself as it once did.

Matt. 28:18ff. instructs us somewhat more precisely. Here the Lord says: To me is given, etc.; go forth in the power of my dominion over the world, since I will that my kingdom of grace be spread over the whole earth, and make disciples, as you yourselves are, of all nations — whoever among them shall receive your word,

*) Note. One more thing. Through faith we become lords of all things; through love, everyone's servant. The power to preach and to absolve is an office of service, whether according to the priestly calling or according to a special calling — indeed the highest service that I can render to my neighbor, and unblessed and cursed is the life that knows it not nor practices it; but faith in the gospel and its absolution grants me royal power, heaven, dominion over the world and hell, and is the wellspring alike of all love and of all service. Which power, then, stands higher: that of the one who believes, or that of the one who speaks? Cf. Luther, Church Postil, loc. cit.