# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1857_S165
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Election of Grace and Some Matters Connected Therewith, etc. 165

final consummation of the sanctified soul in eternity is not to be God
oneself, but rather the highest degree of God-likeness is the full
satisfaction found in beholding face to face. — But at all times there is
for him who has been justified through Abraham's seed no law apart
from the imputed holiness of the One who blots out sin; insofar as,
even within the Old Covenant, the content of Mosaic revelation
concerns the life of man in every age, that which was formed in stone
was, through the promised and believed fulfillment of the Messiah,
meant to become inward for the Jew together with circumcision —
which was, at the same time, a circumcision of the heart, a
foreshadowing of the testament that writes on tablets of flesh.
Therefore the work of education unto eternal salvation consists in this,
that God brings His will, as an object, to an ever clearer consciousness
and more distinct insight in those who are redeemed and set free; for
them there is no preaching of divine commandments apart from the
voice of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel. Every demand first receives its
light for man from this latter source; otherwise there is in him only the
vain delusion of presumption in works of hypocrisy, or the despair of
Cain and Judas; the righteousness of doing, which is nowhere and in no
way found by nature, but which is continually attested in prophecy and,
as it were, shares in its character, obtains its full confirmation through
a righteousness of faith, which demonstrates the impossibility of the
former, and which is the nearer to us the further removed the former is
from us. (Deut. 30:11ff., 6 Rom. 10:5ff., 11:32, Gal. 3:22, Acts 4:12,
2 Cor. 3:14ff.) The Comforter convicts the world — to lead it to this
righteousness — of sin, that they do not believe in Him who, through
suffering and death, entered into the sanctuary of heaven; but the law,
insofar as it stands by itself, knows nothing of Christ — only through
the Gospel. Cf. Formula of Concord, p. 984 (Latin, p. 714). Chemnitz,
Loci Theologici, Frankfurt 1690, p. 208f. So too, in the case of those
grown to maturity, the very benefit of the divine call of grace and of
enlightenment never comes about through a word that works wrath and
preaches damnation, just as no sacrament is bound up with such a
word; how could it ever gather into the fellowship of Him who is a
Prince of peace, life, and blessedness? See Wandalinus, Hypotyposis,
p. 301. Through the ministry which gives the Spirit, I am able to
behold the brightness of the spiritual nature of the law without a veil,
the sign of bondage; this brightness of the law illumines; but it does
not shatter me, for its end is the overflowing glory (doxa) of my Lord
and Reconciler, who, through faith in the Gospel, traces out in my
spirit an outline, substantially as in a mirror, so that I am not put to
death, but rather am raised up to freedom and to life. We see Christ in
His glory and grace with unveiled face; an image of God comes into
our heart, according to which the torn and confused features of our
spirit order themselves anew. The Lord is the Spirit, the power of an
indissoluble, true life, 2 Cor. 3:17, cf. v. 6; in Him our spirit lives,
precisely for the sake of His righteousness imputed to us, Rom. 8:10;
whoever is His also has