# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1858_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Divisions in the Lutheran Congregations Here. 81

And that we are so stiff and stubborn, St. Paul teaches us here by his own example, who, for the sake of a matter that seemed to the false apostles and their disciples not only slight and trivial but altogether unjust (for both sides held that the one taught rightly and in a godly manner, and the other believed rightly and in a godly manner), dares to condemn the false apostles so freely and boldly, saying: "They will bear their judgment, those who trouble you." Therefore, as I am often and much accustomed to admonish, one must diligently separate doctrine from life. Doctrine is heaven, life is earth: in life there is sin, error, disunity, mere toil and labor; there love should overhear and overlook, should suffer, there the forgiveness of sins should rule and reign — yet only so far as one does not wish to defend such sin and error. But with doctrine it is quite a different matter; for it is holy, pure, clear, heavenly, divine. Toward whoever wants to alter or falsify it, neither love nor mercy is to be shown; therefore it needs no forgiveness of sins either.

Therefore it does not do at all to compare doctrine and life with one another: for a single letter, indeed a single word of Scripture, matters more and weighs more than heaven and earth. Therefore we cannot tolerate anyone wanting to shift it even in the very smallest point. But as for the failings and faults of life, there we can well be lenient and overlook them. For we too are poor human beings who stumble and sin daily; indeed, all the dear saints confess with great earnestness in the Lord's Prayer that they are sinners, and believe in the forgiveness of sin. But our doctrine is, by God's grace, pure; there is no article of our faith for which we do not have a good, firm foundation in Holy Scripture: these the devil would gladly like to defile and pervert for us. That is why he attacks us so maliciously with this argument, blaming us through the sects, saying that we do not keep peace but are quarrelsome and tear apart the unity and love in the church or in Christendom.

There you see what St. Paul thinks of a small error in doctrine, one that lets itself be regarded as trivial, indeed even as the truth; namely, he considers it so great and dangerous that he dares to curse the false apostles, who by outward appearance were great men. Therefore we must not regard the leaven of false doctrine so lightly: for however little it may be, it still, if one is not on guard, brings it about that truth and salvation are thereby laid low and trodden underfoot, and God is thereby denied. For when the Word is falsified, and God (as must necessarily follow) is denied and blasphemed, there is no more salvation to be hoped for. But if we ourselves are slandered, cursed, and strangled, that carries no real power: for He is not yet strangled who can in turn awaken and redeem us from curse, death, and hell.

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