# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S40
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

40 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

held. So it was also in the New Testament. There God first spoke the word through his Son and then through the holy Apostles. Later he had it written down. And God has not promised us that he will give any new Word of God. The Word of God written at that time is and remains the foundation of faith until the last day, because all Christian doctrine and preaching is only the written Word set in motion.

We therefore remain with our thesis: "The doctrine that the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament is of divine origin in content and expression is a doctrine the surrender of which means giving up the foundation of the Christian faith." They no longer stand in the faith who speak as Volck and Harnack and others do. Note well the saying in Matt. 5:19: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Here it stands: "And shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." With the newer theologians man is placed over God's Word. Scripture is subjected to man; he is to decide. But whoever accepts something as God's Word because he thinks it is God's Word stands on himself and not on Scripture, and so does not stand in true faith either. In saying this we do not deny what the dear God can still do in a special way with such a man. But it is a quite special miracle of God when such a theologian comes to faith and remains in it. God must lead him to a fortunate inconsistency. But to whom should it occur, because God can do individual special miracles of his grace, to say: this newer doctrine of inspiration is no damnable error that overturns the foundation? How many an adherent of Arius there may have been who spoke wrongly with Arius about the person of Christ, and he stood in the faith! Nevertheless Arianism is and remains an error that overturns the foundation.

Thesis II.

The doctrine of the divinity of Holy Scripture is itself an article of faith and can therefore be recognized only from Scripture itself and, by its power, accepted or believed with full confidence.

To be sure, Holy Scripture, even considered humanly, is such as to make a man thoughtful. Here he has before him a book the like of which has never existed at any time and in the whole world. There also meets even the natural man in this book much that he can never explain with his understanding.