# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S26
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

26 Proceedings of the 25th General, or

...Christian. Of the people, namely, who wish to come to God through their
morality or through their works, and who therefore place the essence of
Christianity in morality, Scripture says, Gal. 5:4: "You have lost Christ,
you who wish to be justified by the law; you have fallen from grace," and
Gal. 3:10: "Those who deal in the works of the law are under the curse."
These people therefore do not belong to the Christian church. Of the
Christian church one cannot say, "many heads, many minds." The Christian
church is truly of one mind. The Christian church is the congregation of
believers — that is, the congregation of those who believe that they have
forgiveness of sins through Christ. Luther writes: "There is no more than
one single church or people of God on earth, which has one and the same
faith, baptism, one and the same confession of God the Father and of
Christ, etc., and which holds and remains together in harmony with this.
In this church every one must be found and incorporated who would be
saved and come to God, and outside it no one is saved."*)

With this the question of the essence of Christianity has already been
answered, both positively and negatively. And with this the importance of
holding fast to the essence of Christianity has already been pointed out.

Yet it may be useful to go into the matter somewhat more closely. I set it
forth in somewhat more detail:

    I. The essence of Christianity consists in faith in Christ,
       not in man's own morality.

    II. The Christian church must hold fast to this essence of
        Christianity if it is to fulfill its task in the world.

I.

Let us, then, treat the essence of Christianity somewhat more fully.

By the essence of a thing we understand that which makes a thing what it
is, or: that by which a thing is what it is, and by which, therefore, a
thing is distinguished from other things. Thus we speak, for example, of
the essence of man as distinct from the animals, and find the essence of
man in this, that, unlike the animals, he has a rational soul. So too we
understand by the essence of Christianity that which makes Christianity
Christianity, and by which Christianity is distinguished from all other
religions.

What is that? What in or about a person makes him a Christian? Not this,
that he wears a particular coat, as Luther often reminds us. Nor this, that
he has body and soul, and indeed a rational...

*) Erlangen edition, vol. 9, p. 285f.