# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1855_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10 On the Doctrine of the Holy Preaching Office.

...through baptizing in the name, etc., through teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you, etc. Now from the promise which He adds — "And behold, I am with you," etc. — it is evident that, if indeed it is to hold for the Church as a whole (as no conscientious interpreter, comparing it with Matt. 18:20 and Rev. 1:13, 20, will deny), the preceding command must also be referred to that latter whole — as indeed it cannot be otherwise, since everything that God requires is already contained in the general law, only that each time the particular kinds of calling, which are grounded in the eternal will of God as the unity of Law and Gospel, also condition a modification. (Cf. Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33; Matt. 10:5ff. and others.) The nearest sense of the mandate would doubtless be this: You who have been witnesses of my life in the flesh, of my teaching, well-doing, suffering, death, and resurrection (Luke 24:46, 48; Acts 1:21–22), are to be chosen beforehand (Acts 10:41) to carry, by virtue of your office, the tidings of my saving appearing everywhere (Acts 1:8), to baptize and to teach, etc. If, however, this concerned the apostles alone — for in all probability it was not merely the eleven disciples but more than five hundred brethren gathered at once at that place in Galilee (1 Cor. 15:6) — then no one in the Church would be permitted to baptize (cf. against this 1 Cor. 1:17), etc., except they and their associates demonstrably sharing that very same office. But Jesus wills that they teach the nations to observe all that He has commanded them — thus also to baptize, to preach, and so forth. With our passage, then, is established both the ongoing missionary calling of the Church of Jesus Christ and likewise the abiding preaching office within it; for the general command involves the specific ones, according as God and His Spirit order the works within the Church, and the former is directed to all who have become Christ's, in every place whither God, through His inward as well as outward governance, shall set them, to bear earnest care to it with all their strength and, where need requires, to lend a hand themselves, so that His salvation and gospel be proclaimed everywhere publicly — whether through the priestly calling of love (cf. Acts 8:1, 4; 11:19–21; 18:24–28), or, where congregations of the baptized already exist, through the church servants afterward ordained thereto, provided they do not falsify the doctrine (Acts 20:17, 30).

We read in 2 Cor. 3 a comparison of the New Testament preaching office with the ministry of Moses — of the Law, insofar as it was to prepare the way for Christ — a ministry not, like the promise of the gospel, given to men directly and freely through the condescension of the Son Himself, but rather set in place mediately, by the angels, through the hand of a servant, Gal. 3. This alone already establishes an essential difference, just as does the priesthood, in both Testaments. Therefore not only the apostles but all believers, without needing anyone further to deal with God in their stead, can look upon the clarity of the gospel of Christ as the goal and end of the passing Old Testament (cf. Deut. 5:22ff.; 18:15ff.).