# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1855_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12 On the Doctrine of the Holy Preaching Office.

...must apply; that which constitutes the essence of the office, ch. 4:6 — from which all those have departed very far who will not regard it as a gift of Christ for faith, the exercise of the love of Jesus in the form of a servant toward one's neighbor, together with the experienced gospel of life and salvation — is laid as a treasure in the earthen vessel of each believer; the fragrance of the precious ointment is wrapped up in this shell and spreads out from there in a weaker or stronger stream; since they all have the very same Spirit of faith, they also speak accordingly; only that the ministry — occupied with the word of reconciliation and originally placed in them all — proves itself, as it were, the focal point within the special officeholders and divine ambassadors of Christ, the apostles, pastors, teachers, etc., in whom the rays that went out from their sun converge, as the mouth through which the Head directs His word to the remaining members. Therefore this office rightly possesses the preeminent dignity and the standing to be an ambassador in Christ's name, to entreat in Christ's name: Be reconciled to God.

In the word of the gospel the testament of the grace and inheritance of Jesus Christ has been left to us, and this word the Holy Spirit has impressed upon the apostles' hearts through faith. Without that faith it cannot be conceived that this word imparts itself, and its saving power, on earth. Christ, then, gives Himself and His promises only to faith. This faith is active through the divine calling of love, to make others also partakers of the blessings of the once more attained blessed fellowship with God, to His praise. But to change, to leave, or to fulfill the condition of one's earthly circumstances — into which God has set us through birth, upbringing, parents, the state, and other such dispositions of His almighty hand — for the sake of the service of the gospel and its proclamation, and to pursue the latter as one's life's calling, requires a setting-apart through a call, whether it be directly from the Lord or mediated through His congregation, which is the possessor and original bearer of that office as the center point of its organism — an organism which the living unity and freedom in the Holy Spirit, through the common bond of mutual working, actuates in every member according to the sharing ordained for it by God. And, that I may add this further: the spiritual body of Jesus Christ, created and built up through the word and faith, is, in another respect, the soul of the bodily, outward Christendom that appears in the world, which dies away to the extent that that spiritual body vanishes from it — after the analogy of a mere confession-faith, which, without the soul through which it shows itself living and effective as true, perfect faith, namely love, is dead in itself, James 2:17, 20, 22, 26; Gal. 5:6; 1 Cor. 13:1ff.; hence, although the gifts of Christ are given to no one except His holy Church, nevertheless the persons in whose office of ministry — the gift from the Lord — the Church, as at its apex, is meant to converge, may well be false Christians