# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1855_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Holy Preaching Office.                    11

Now the apostles speak in the name of the rest, whose eyes of the spirit no veil hides from the shining rays out of the revelation of God in the flesh; they declare an experience common to all, that they, unlike Moses, with a face uncovered even toward their neighbor, see the divine majesty of Him who became man — the apostles also bodily, as in a mirror — a mirror which lets the splendor of this blessed countenance, in which the Father presents Himself in most exact likeness, fall into their hearts and from there back upon others, whereby not only they themselves but many along with them are transformed into one and the same image of the All-Holy One; from Moses the radiance which he received upon himself in his converse with God did not spread further, but from those who have beheld and received the spiritual light of the New Testament, the knowledge of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ shines back manifold, so that the clarity of the Only-Begotten makes its dwelling in all in whose hearts the Spirit of testimony glorifies Him, ch. 3 following. That is the office which is in itself eternal and abides, v. 11; it is the Spirit who gives life, v. 6, 8; cf. 1 John 5:6; Formula of Concord, p. 1102 — the preaching of righteousness, of life, of eternal freedom; for even in the heavenly Jerusalem, joined with thanksgiving and praise, with the one Hallelujah of the triumphant perfected ones, is the proclamation of the deeds of God from eternity to eternity, who has turned the sighing and longing of His children, together with the anxious waiting of the creature, into glorious songs of praise. Here, however, on earth, where we are not yet in our homeland but in a foreign land, the office which brings tidings of that blessedness is indeed likewise a good common to all; but according to divine order it is to be administered, within the fellowships, for the teaching, the rebuking, the correction, upbringing, and comfort of the individual members, by those whom the Lord has gifted for it and calls through the congregation, and the rest are to assist these, according to their strength, toward the blessed accomplishing of their precious yet burdensome work. *) Throughout the whole of the fourth and fifth chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle therefore consistently uses a manner of speech **) such that what he says applies, relatively, to every child of God

*) Note. Also the office of the Law, insofar as it is abiding, is to be carried forward into the New Testament — not only in that it is a schoolmaster unto Christ, but as having become, for the inward man, a delight, which is precisely what is New Testament and eternal — just as in the Old Testament the office of the gospel was already present alongside, even among the fathers. What now holds true here, as there, for a succession? And has not the priesthood of the types, from the very beginning, always existed within the holy families — namely insofar as spiritual as well as worldly governance originally had its root in the status oeconomicus (1 Mos. 25:31; 49:3)?

**) Note. The Lord Himself, while He still walked in the flesh and His disciples heard the theological disciplines from Him. Compare especially Luke 19:12ff. and much in the preceding chapters. Matt. 24:45ff.; 25:21, etc. There is no question at all that the pious hearts even of the humblest disciples of Christ have at all times, in holy contemplation, applied and interpreted such words to themselves as well; it is the general consciousness, from the beginning, in the Church of God, concerning the spiritual priesthood of believers.