# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S179
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Is This, Then, the Theology of the American Lutheran Church? 179

...these so highly important truths escape the authors of the cited essays, and one can only wonder that they still tolerate the evangelical preaching office, since, according to their teaching, it does not preach God's Word at all — not even when its preaching is in accordance with Scripture. But it was upon the interpretation that we had our eye, which, on the occasion of the doctrine of confession and absolution, is given to certain scriptural passages in those essays. Matthew 18:15–17, it is claimed, applies only to the apostles, and yet is addressed to the "disciples" of Christ, to whom the admonition of verses 3–13 is given, that is, to all Christians. Indeed, this matters little here, since the author of the essay "Confession and Absolution" himself acknowledges that the verse most important for absolution, verse 18, refers to the congregation or church. In this eighteenth verse, he then says, the Lord Christ teaches that when the church, according to Christ's instruction, excludes an unworthy member who persistently gives offense to the congregation, this act shall be valid before the face of the Savior. The other part of the verse he then paraphrases as follows: To all those to whom you forgive what they have done against my kingdom, and whom you receive again into my church, to them I too will grant forgiveness and regard them as subjects of my kingdom. In this way he claims to have shown to anyone possessed of sound common sense that in verse 18 there is no mention at all of a forgiveness of sins before God, or of a remission of eternal punishment. But with this claim he shows only that to him the lifting of excommunication is nothing but a remission of church penalties, that to him the readmission of the penitent by the church is no admission into the kingdom of heaven, that to him the holy Christian Church is not the kingdom of heaven on earth, that to him the holy Christian Church is what the Romanists too hold it to be — an earthly, worldly kingdom, "like the state of the Venetians" (Bellarmine), or the kingdom of Israel of the Old Testament; that to him the forgiveness of the Lord Christ is not God's forgiveness; that to him the Lord Christ is not truly God; that to him the Lord Christ is the earthly king of an earthly kingdom, like David or Solomon, say; and finally, that he himself interprets Scripture by his own thoughts and those of other men, not by Scripture. Scripture — e.g. John 18:36, Romans 9:5, 1 John 5:20, Luke 10:16, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 5:3ff. — interprets the eighteenth verse to mean that whoever, for the sake of persistent impenitence, is excommunicated or banned is shut out from Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, or, what amounts to the same thing, is delivered to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:5); further, that when the church forgives the penitent who had been excommunicated and reopens its door to him, this is Christ's forgiveness and Christ's reception into the kingdom of heaven — a reception that, to be sure, becomes a fearful judgment to the hypocrite. The word that binds the impenitent to sin, guilt, and punishment — the word of the Law — the church speaks in such a case of church discipline to an individual person not merely on its own behalf, but Christ himself wills it to be acknowledged as His own