# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 47

Thesis III.

The doctrine of the divine origin of Holy Scripture
is clearly and plainly revealed in Scripture in several ways.

A. Scripture teaches that the holy writers were not
the actual authors of this Scripture, but wrote as
instruments of the Holy Spirit.

When St. Paul begins his letters: "Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ . . . to all that be in Rome," Rom. 1:1 and 7, or: "Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus,"
Eph. 1:1, he thereby makes use of a formula generally current in his time
for designating the writer of a letter and the person
or persons to whom the letter was in the first place addressed. The apostle
designates himself as the writer of his letters outright in many places. Thus
he writes, for example, Rom. 15:15: "I have nevertheless dared, and wanted to write
you something"; 1 Cor. 5:9: "I wrote unto you in an epistle";
2 Cor. 2:3: "And I wrote this same unto you"; verse 4: "For I wrote to you in great sorrow"; v. 9: "For to this end also did I write";
Gal. 1:20: "What I write to you, behold, God knows, I do not lie";
Eph. 3:3: "As I wrote above in brief words"; Phil. 3:1: "That I write the same things
to you always does not vex me"; 1 Tim. 3:14: "These things write I
unto thee." So John also designates himself as the writer
of his letter, 1 John 1:4: "And these things I write unto you"; chap. 2:1:
"My little children, these things write I unto you"; v. 13: "I write unto you,
fathers," and so on. — So Moses and the prophets, the holy
writers of the Old Testament, are likewise designated as the writers of their books,
as when it says, for example, John 5:46-47: "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed
me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his
writings, how shall ye believe my words?" Luke
3:4: "As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the
prophet" (Isa. 40:3 ff.). Matt. 13:14: "In them is fulfilled the
prophecy of Esaias" (Isa. 6:9-10). Matt. 15:7:
"Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you" (Isa. 29:13).
Luke 20:42: "And David himself saith in the book of Psalms: The LORD
said" and so on (Ps. 110:1).

Now we read, however, Rom. 16:22: "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle,
salute you." At the beginning and throughout the letter
Paul names himself as the writer of the letter, and here Tertius says
that he wrote the letter. Is that not a contradiction? No.
We know well how this fits together. Paul dictated, and Tertius
wielded the pen. So other letters of the apostle also came into being