# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 49

we: "But all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which the LORD
spoke through the prophet, when he says," and so on. Here we
have a clear and plain answer; the LORD, the great God himself, it is
who through the prophet made the prophecy that a virgin
should be with child and bear a son whose name should be
"God with us." According to Acts 4:24 ff., the apostles call upon the LORD, the
"God, who has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is therein,"
and say: "Who through the mouth of David, thy
servant, hast said: Why do the heathen rage (Ps. 2:1-2)?"
Accordingly, here again it is not originally and properly a psalm composed by David
that is cited there, but God, the LORD, the Creator
of heaven and earth, who spoke through David as through his instrument.
So also Heb. 4:7 says that God said through David
(Ps. 95:7-8): "Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden
not your heart." According to Rom. 9:25 the prophet Hosea also was only an
instrument through which God spoke; "as he (God, v. 22) says
through Hosea." And that in general in the Holy Scripture of the Old
Testament God spoke and in doing so made use of his prophets as his
instruments, St. Paul says in Rom. 1:2 in the words: "Which
he (God, v. 1) promised afore through his prophets in the
holy Scriptures."

But as in the old Nicene Creed the Holy
Spirit is described as the one "who spoke through the prophets," so also
in Scripture this work is especially ascribed to the third person of the Holy Trinity,
as when it says, for example, Acts 1:16: "This Scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy
Ghost spoke before through the mouth of David." According to Acts 28:25, what is written in Isa.
6:9-10 "the Holy Ghost spoke through the prophet
Isaiah." Yes, already the man of God David says expressly
that the Holy Spirit spoke through him; for we read 2 Sam.
23:1-2: "Now these be the last words of David: David said ......
with the psalms of Israel. The Spirit of the LORD spoke through me,
and his word was upon my tongue," according to which, then, the words which
were on David's tongue, when the Spirit of the LORD spoke through him,
were not properly his, but the speech of the Holy Spirit. It was not
left to their own will what the holy writers were to set down,
as St. Peter also, in his second letter 1:19-21, where he speaks
of the sure prophetic word, the Holy Scripture, stresses this
and says: "No prophecy ever came by human
will, but holy men of God
spoke, moved by the Holy Ghost"; they gave themselves over to his will and
impulse; what He willed, that they wrote, and as
He willed, so they wrote it. The Spirit of God, who was in them,