# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1855_S117
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

James's Teaching on Justifying Faith. 117

...kingdom that is still yet to come? What indeed would one call such doings?

82) Summary judgment on the "un-Lutheran theses": the poodle's very core is flat rationalism, its fleece pietistic lamb's wool.

83) Occasion of these theses: the embittered rage of pietistic pride in works over the again-increasing spread of the Gospel of the free grace of God in Christ. — Vexation at the Lutheran exposures and the resulting calamities of unionism thereby brought about; — doubt and unease over the godliness of the indifferentist religious principles maintained mala fide against one's own former conviction; — anxiety at being found a Laodicean in the eyes of the unshakeable confessors of Christ, etc., etc. "The message I hear well enough, but faith is what I lack" — this honest confession is too bold for Dr. Faust's present-day kinsmen in unbelief; in cowardly un-Lutheran theses — rather than courageous un-Christian ones — they vent their rage upon those who believe the Gospel.

84) Should I hold forth any further against my smith Alexander? I asked wise Solomon. He answered me as it stands in Proverbs 14:7; 27:22. Gladly I follow the good counsel, especially since it is not unknown to me how "un-Lutheran theses" are forged together. Indeed the birds on the rooftops sing of it: a blacksmith sat at peaceful ease, smoked his pipe of tobacco, and in his own name appended his pious two cents with an "Amen."

(Submitted by Pastor Hoyer.)
James's Teaching on Justifying Faith.

May God, the Father of light, enlighten us, that we may clearly recognize and set forth James's teaching on justifying faith! Thereafter we shall ourselves be able to judge whether James, in this chief and fundamental article of Christian doctrine, preaches a different Gospel than the apostle Paul and the other apostles and evangelists. Let the readers open the second chapter of the Epistle of James and direct their gaze to verses 20–26; this is the chief passage from which we may answer the question: what does James teach concerning justifying faith?

Verse 20 begins with "But wilt thou know…"? The "but," following the opening words of the sentence, indicates that James is passing to a new thought, which is nevertheless related to the earlier train of thought; we are thereby compelled to look back at the preceding verses. In these, James shows what he had already stated in verse 14, that the faith which