# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   171

Exodus 3:6, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," the resurrection of the dead is taught, and indeed so clearly and plainly that he rebukes the Sadducees — who found no testimony of the resurrection of the dead in that passage — as men who did not know the Scriptures. But even this inference does not go beyond the word of Scripture. Here only what is truly revealed in the word of Scripture is being unfolded. If God still calls himself the God of the dead patriarchs, this states that he will also raise them again. For what else does it mean that God is someone's God, than that God showers a person, in body and soul, here in time and there in eternity, with his divine benefits — that he not only forgives such a person's sin, but also frees him from all the consequences of sin, including death itself? Therefore that person cannot remain in death, but must be rescued from the last enemy through the resurrection. God's statement that he is someone's God is not compatible with the body of the one whose God he is remaining in death permanently, for God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. We repeat once more: this inference, too, does not go beyond the word of Scripture. Let this, then, be held fast: only those inferences are right and legitimate that take out what already lies within the word of Scripture and set it plainly before our eyes. As for the principle "a correct inference from Scripture is to be regarded as Scripture itself," it must be added, to guard against all abuse, that this does not hold of mere inferences of reason, by which something is meant to be brought out that is not actually revealed in the word. That is why even John Gerhard already raises his warning voice regarding this principle (de interpret. sc. s. § 179.).

John Gerhard cites the statement of Gregory of Nazianzus: "What is inferred from Scripture is to be regarded as though it were written in Scripture," but adds this caution: "Yet great care is needed here; unnoticed, human reason often creeps in here and then twists Scripture, according to its own judgment, to suit its own inventions." We allow "inferences," but only correct ones. And correct inferences are only those by which what truly lies within the word of Scripture is unfolded — inferences, that is, which do not go beyond the word of Scripture but remain within it. One must guard against every consequence merely "patched onto" the word of Scripture, as Luther puts it. Let us take a few examples from recent times. In the words "God will have all men to be saved," the doctrine is stated that God's gracious will is universal, a will that extends to all people without exception. But a patched-on consequence of the theology of our time is that, accordingly, the people who are actually saved cooperate toward their own salvation. The reasoning runs thus: if God's will stands equally toward all,