# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1855_S172
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

172 How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded, etc.

fought, finished the course, and kept the faith; for it was precisely for the exercise and strengthening of faith that God sent the cross, so that faith might at last advance from the childlike and childish condition of its first period to maturity in Christ, and, contrary to all the suppositions and opinions of reason and all the feelings of the heart, might itself stand ever more firmly, like a rock, upon the rocky foundation of God’s pledge and promise in Holy Scripture, and from that alone infer God’s disposition in sending the often heavy and protracted cross. It is for this reason alone that, by God’s permission and according to His unsearchable wisdom and incomprehensible governance, both upon His whole Church and upon every individual believing soul, the devil himself, sometimes alone and sometimes through his assistants, the world and the flesh, is set upon Christians, so that even in the hottest fire—whose degree of heat, however, is precisely determined by God—the precious gold of faith may be separated all the more thoroughly from every impurity and be found all the more precious; so that Christ, also in His believers—who then cling all the more firmly to Christ, crucified and risen for them—may, in the midst of His apparent weakness and powerlessness, strike down the proud and mighty spirit and, through the comforting word of the Gospel, tread him beneath the feet of His own. For what could be more disgraceful and shameful to the arrogant prince, indeed, the god of this world, than that, with all his power and cunning—whether he appears as a roaring lion or as a glittering serpent, or even disguises himself as an angel of light; whether, without the world, he shoots the fiery arrows of spiritual temptations into the soul, or through the world sometimes lays cunning snares and traps and sometimes stirs up terrifying storms and surging waves—he nevertheless comes utterly to grief against this or that Christian believer, often even isolated and scattered and lowly and insignificant before the world, who with the shield of faith extinguishes the fiery arrows and with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, drives back all his power and frustrates his cunning schemes.

And as, through the cross, faith thus increasingly makes Christ and His merit its own from the Gospel and Sacrament, and increasingly follows the dear Savior also in suffering and endurance, it comes about that the believer is increasingly transformed into the image of Christ and that Christ increasingly takes shape within him—a sweet fruit that could never be produced without the bitter medicine of the dear cross.

Thus far we have attempted to show in clear outline how the Lutheran Church treats the saving doctrine of God’s Word according to Law and Gospel, and purely and clearly proclaims to her children repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, good works, and the dear cross, so that through these they may be saved.

But just as all Scripture, given by God, is useful not only for doctrine but also for reproof, that is—according to the context in 2 Timothy 3,