# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 32 —

...that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not
from here." What the true, the actual character of his kingdom or his
church consists in, he indicates by adding: "For this I was born, and for
this I came into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.
Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." To this belongs also the fact
that Christ elsewhere calls his kingdom a kingdom of heaven, and that the
holy apostles call it the house and city of God, the Jerusalem that is
above, the free woman, the congregation of the firstborn who are written in
heaven, and the like. Christ's kingdom and church is thus a kingdom of
truth, a spiritual, heavenly kingdom, a kingdom of God, in which only free
citizens of the kingdom of heaven dwell — members of God's household,
prophets, priests, and kings.

Who, then, holds power in this kingdom? — Jesus Christ alone. He
declares himself to be this. He says: "I am a king." "I am the good
shepherd." "You have one master, Christ." The apostle, however, calls him
"the head of the church over all things, which is his body, the fullness of
him who fills all in all." By what means, though, Christ exercises power in
his church — even though he has withdrawn his visible presence from it and
has seated himself at the right hand of majesty on high — we see from the
last statement he made when he parted from his disciples, which reads: "All
power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and teach
all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to keep everything I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the world." His Word, then,
accompanied and sealed by the holy sacraments, is the means by which Christ
exercises power in his church. That is the "righteous scepter" with which he
rules his people, the "rod and staff" with which he shepherds his flock.

But Christ not only declares himself to be the one who holds power in
his church, holds it alone, and exercises it through his Word — he also
expressly and entirely denies every other power, every other rule, every
other authority to command in his church, to everyone else. He says not
only, as already noted, "You have one master, Christ," but adds: "And you
are all brothers" — that is, in my church you are all equal to one another,
all subject to me, and none the lord and commander of another. Elsewhere he
says to the disciples: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it
over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not
be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
and whoever would be first among you must be your slave."

What Christ thus denied the apostles, they themselves never claimed.
They demanded submission to no one but Jesus Christ — that is, to his Word.
They said: "We do not practice cunning, nor do we falsify God's Word, but by
the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves... For we do not
preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants
for Jesus' sake." 2 Corinthians 4. So when St. Paul, at the end of the
first chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, used the expression
that he had not come to Corinth in person because he wished to "spare" the
Corinthians, it might have seemed to some that the apostle was thereby
making himself a lord who had the power to demand or relent, to punish or
spare, as he pleased. To keep this appearance from resting on him, he
adds...