# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30 Proceedings of the 25th General, or

...earn heaven. We men are inclined to call that "spiritual." But according
to Scripture that is nothing but a fleshly disposition. If someone, thinking
thereby to earn God's grace, gave all his possessions to the poor, fasted
almost to death, scourged himself till he bled — indeed, tore the flesh
piece by piece from his body — that would still be flesh. Luther writes on
Gal. 3:3 ("Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the
flesh?"): "Paul here calls 'flesh' not lust, brutish passions, or sensual
desires. . . . Flesh (here) is nothing other than the righteousness, the
wisdom of the flesh, and the thoughts of reason, which strive to become
righteous through the Law."*) In short, wanting to become righteous
through one's own works is the characteristic mark of blind heathenism;
wanting to be saved without one's own works, through faith in Christ, is
the characteristic mark of Christianity.

With this it is also connected that Christianity is, by nature, a deeply
hidden mystery to all people. Harnack, to be sure, holds that what John
the Baptist and Christ himself taught had already been substantially known
to mankind beforehand. He says: "What could have been 'new,' after
mankind had already lived so long before Jesus Christ and experienced so
much spirit and knowledge?"**) But this opinion of Harnack's rests on his
mistaken view that Christ taught only morality, or the Law of God. The Law
is, to be sure, nothing new to mankind. Even the heathen know of God's
Law, as Scripture often and expressly testifies. The heathen know not only
that there is a God, Rom. 1:19, but they also know "God's righteous
judgment," Rom. 1:32. The work of the Law is written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness, Rom. 2:15. When missionaries preach
the Law to the heathen, they preach them nothing new. The writing of the
divine Law in the hearts of fallen men is, to be sure, somewhat blurred,
but by no means entirely blotted out. Hence we find even among the heathen,
as Luther says, excellent summaries of the Law — compilations in which not
only the evil deed but also evil thoughts and desires are declared to be
sin. In short, Christianity has the Law in common with the heathen
religions, even though Christianity possesses, in the word of divine
revelation, the divine Law in its original and perfect purity. But one
thing is wholly unknown to the heathen. It is wholly unknown to them that
there is one who has kept the Law in their place. It is wholly unknown to
them that God sent his Son into the world to render satisfaction to the
divine Law in the place of mankind, and that now people, without their own
works, through faith in...

*) St. Louis edition, IX, 288f.
**) "Das Wesen des Christentums" [The Essence of Christianity], 3rd ed.,
p. 30.