# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1857_S164
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

164 On the Doctrine of the Election of Grace and Some Matters Connected Therewith, etc.

with its hatred, in order to move it. From the divine working upon the
newborn infant it is unambiguously plain how developed
self-consciousness is by no means required for entry into the kingdom
of Jesus Christ; likewise, how the guilt of sin can also weave itself into
their existence through a connection, passing over to each individual,
with the fullness of life of their original progenitor — a guilt which, as
soon as it comes to light, finds redemption already prepared for it.
Through the outpouring of the Spirit in the free, open fountain of that
living water, the disposition — which an armed strong man guards as
his palace — is taken possession of by faith and by One stronger; hence
comes the immediate certainty of that which the ear perceives as
divine truth, and the will is powerfully inclined to decide at once, as
soon as it expresses itself, for the motives and impulses which the
testimony in conscience — unfolding according to the maturity of the
child, of having been freed and made at peace from a condemning
demand of guilt through the Crucified One and His blood — presents.
Cf. 1 Pet. 3:21, Heb. 10:22, 9:14. So there begins, then, in place of the
unhappy condition of inner division into which we are born, life in the
faith of the Son of God, in Him Himself and in great delight in the
Lord's commandments; through the strength of the Holy Spirit, who
mediates it, the self has, day by day, to put off from itself the old man,
who constantly wants to gain the upper hand over it again, and to
preserve for itself the new man, Christ, who draws it into Himself. Not
that it is said to the believer as such: You shall bear good fruit — for
that would be a ridiculous thing to say; the righteous man does it
unbidden, he is created for it in Christ Jesus, the new life of the one
born of the Spirit carries its own principle within itself. Only the
creature in whom the Triune God graciously dwells should know that
this very restoration of such fellowship is a leading back into grateful
bondage, that the freedom granted from the law of sin and death makes
servants of God and of righteousness; it should recognize the
beginnings of its eternal blessedness, faith and love, at the same time
as the holy, true will of its personal sovereign Lord, and that the
unfolding of the new birth from within is governed by the pattern, set
before the soul's eye, of the most perfect, purest virtues of him who
willingly placed himself under the law for us. No "shall" that cannot
help us, nor serve piety, but is indeed deadly, may rule and hold sway
in a believer's conscience — a "shall" that confronts him demandingly
in the form of law only to the extent that the old nature is still present
in the Christian; whatever, of one's own willing, has already placed
itself outside of opposition to the divine command and has been
absorbed into being driven by the Holy Spirit, that is, in its striving, at
one with, and within, the law of Christ; this law, however, does not
dwell merely as an immanent determination in the heart (Heb. 8:10),
but at the same time bears witness to it, as an outward rule in the
Word, of its dependence on its God. Also the