# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S185
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   185

but that this would not do for the theologian. Mediation, after all, is precisely the theologian's special task. No — the theologian, too, has to let the plain statements of Scripture stand side by side unreconciled, unless Scripture itself supplies the reconciliation. That has always been the principle of the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church lets the clear statements of Scripture stand as they read. She does not let herself be led into the slightest alteration of them, even where they seem to fit poorly with other revealed doctrines. Reason may hold that two doctrines contradict each other — if both stand in Scripture, the Lutheran Church accepts both. Our Confession says (Concordienf. Art. 11, S. 715) of such "reconciling" or "mediating": "which we are not commanded to do." — And how should we be able to find a mediation in spiritual things, when our knowledge of them simply does not extend beyond the word of Scripture? "Our knowledge," says the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:10–12, "is fragmentary [Stückwerk], and our prophesying is fragmentary. But when the perfect comes, the fragmentary will cease. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, and was wise like a child, and had childish plans; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. We now see through a mirror, in a dark word [i.e., a riddle]; but then, face to face. Now I know in part; but then I will know, even as I am known." Note that the apostle does not say: our knowledge is a rounded, complete whole in the sense reason would want, but rather he says: it is fragmentary — that is, according to the original text: God has given us his revelation piece by piece, or in individual pieces, and beyond these individual pieces all knowledge fails us. As long as we are in this life, we will know divine revelation only piece by piece, that is, according to its individual pieces. Only when the perfect comes, that is, blessed eternity, will piecemeal knowledge cease, and we will then see face to face; we will then also see what a glorious, harmonious whole divine revelation is — a harmony that in this life we believed with our hearts but did not fully perceive, because here on earth we "saw through a mirror in a dark word." That word is, in itself, bright and clear; but compared with the revelation that awaits us in heaven, it is only a dark word, revealing to us only as much as we need to know for our salvation. And the church will never get beyond the word of Scripture. The newer theology admits that it has not yet succeeded in "mediating" everything and bringing it into an "intelligible system." Yet it hopes the solution to this task still lies in the future. But in vain! The church, in her knowledge, is bound here below to the word of Scripture. Even if the world were to stand for many thousands more years, and during that time all