# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1856_S311
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Election of Grace and Some Related Matters, etc. 311

Matthew 19:17ff.; as it befitted Luther, out of that same school, to encounter an Erasmus. If you deal with God as with a debtor — very well, then God too will deal with you all the more strictly; He will weigh your claims and His against each other in the proper light, and lay before you what you owe to heaven and what you have to demand from Him. Indeed, that no man may prescribe anything whatsoever to God the Lord, nor demand and extort anything from Him as a debt owed, nor forbid Him anything, nor call Him to account, full of loveless envy, as to why He also shows Himself kind to others — this is what the Holy Spirit wishes to show the opponents through Paul. In this passage especially, but also elsewhere in Scripture, particularly when it moves a thesi ad hypothesin, that is, from a doctrinal proposition to its practical application, one should carefully weigh not only the arguments themselves, but also the turns of phrase in the discourse that emotion brings with it, and the whole manner and style of writing. No commentary can be so clear that it might be understood more easily by a self-righteous person than the apostle's own text.

Paul confirms his proposition by God's own irrefutable judgment, which He proclaimed to Moses, Exodus 33:19. Moses had asked, for himself and for the faithless people, for proofs of His grace, and finally for a special revelation of His glory, verses 12–18; yet to this chosen servant, who stood as near to Him as anyone, compare verse 11, God nevertheless speaks, with a certain reservation, the words of verse 19, concerning which further disclosures were only later to be given him through the proclamation of the Lord's name (chapter 84:5ff.) and in the divine work of salvation itself. He says simply: "To whom I am gracious, to him I will be gracious; and on whom I have mercy, on him I will have mercy" — that is, as can clearly be concluded from the earlier answers and from what immediately precedes, and from what the Lord did in chapter 34, verse 5ff., as Moses also perceives accordingly, verse 8f.: You, to whom I will preach in an appearance suited to mortal eyes, are the one to whom I am gracious and will remain so continually, you who recognize it as pure grace; and likewise will

be those who nevertheless boast of keeping God's covenant themselves — servants of the law and of sin who look on with a jealous and sour eye, who do their work only slavishly for the sake of wages; thereby they have earned nothing from God but His disfavor; but insofar as they, blind to their own hypocrisy, imagine they see a right to payment, God, who is so just that He wills that nothing be done by us in vain, condescends out of unspeakable mildness and settles accounts with them, even though they have nothing to claim, but rather, when they have done all that was commanded them, have as bondservants only done their duty to their Lord. He settles accounts with them, gives them, as His servants on earth, their earthly reward, which they then have in full and nothing more; but one day their sin will be reckoned by the flame of fire of the all-knowing judgment. Eternal life is given only out of grace to those who also recognize it as such and wish to know nothing of the works of merit. "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you and your house will be saved" — this is the answer given to those who, terrified by the law, feel only their living sin. "With men it is impossible to be saved; but with God all things are possible."