# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1884. 47

double text. For Zwingli said: This signifies my body, and his fellow believer Oecolampadius: This is the sign of my body. Luther, on the other hand, says: I have only one text, which God's Word gives: This is my body. You cannot now say to God: I will rather hold to the double text, for it is not in the Bible.

And when Luther says: "If anything is dark in it, thou hast willed to have it so dark," we should note this well precisely now in the doctrine of election. There is indeed something dark there too. God says plainly that he wills that all men be saved, and then we hear again in the doctrine of election: while millions are lost on account of their unbelief, the others are saved without their doing through faith, which God alone has wrought in them. This we cannot reconcile with our reason at all. What are we to do? We are simply to let both stand, to believe both. Both are taught in Scripture. The grace of God extends over all men, that is bright as the sun and clear in Scripture and is our highest comfort day and night, in good and evil days and in the hour of death. This we also teach with all earnestness. And if our opponents deny that we hold this doctrine, they are shameful slanderers. Our alleged sin consists only in this, that we also believe what is taught alongside it about election in Scripture. What of it is dark God alone will resolve in the light of eternal life. We have only a single-minded text on election. Our adversaries, on the other hand, have a double-minded one. For the chief passages on election, Rom. 8, Eph. 1, John 15 and Acts 13, are interpreted by them quite differently; the one teaches so and the other otherwise.

How Holy Scripture defines faith we see from Heb. 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Here the apostle states what belongs to the essence of faith, namely a sure confidence (ὑπόστασις in Greek, that is, a firm foundation on which one can rest securely). Whoever, then, wavers to and fro in a doctrine, or who indeed wants to hold fast a doctrine but grounds it on human authority, has no faith in it.

The father of all believers, Abraham, the apostle describes, Rom. 4:20–22, thus: "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." That is therefore the right faith, when one knows something with the fullest certainty. This is possible, however, only when our faith is founded on God's Word and promise, like Abraham's faith. Even the simplest Christian may not rely in matters of faith on his preacher. No