# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

50 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

it actually was, whom the old fathers heard and whom we hear in the
promises of the Son of the virgin, the Child born to us, the
Son given to us, the Lamb led to the slaughter, as the same
apostle teaches us in 1 Pet. 1:11 f., where he says of the prophets that they
"have searched, what time or what manner of time the Spirit
of Christ pointed to, who was in them and testified beforehand of the sufferings
that are in Christ, and the glory that should follow"; according to which, then, the Spirit
of Christ himself it was who testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ;
the same was in the prophets and through them made known to men
what he wanted to proclaim to them. In the same breath, however, the
apostle says in the passage cited that in the New Testament also a sermon
wrought by the Holy Spirit has gone forth through men, in that
he writes in v. 12: "Which are now declared unto you by them that have
preached the Gospel by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." So too we hear
repeatedly from St. Paul that Christ himself speaks in him and through him, when he
writes, for example, in 2 Cor. 13:3: "Since ye seek a proof of him that
speaketh in me, namely Christ"; and Rom. 15:18: "For I dare not
speak of any thing, but what Christ hath not wrought by me";
as he also writes, including the others, in 2 Cor. 2:17: "But as
of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ." For it had indeed been promised beforehand to the holy
apostles that the Holy Spirit should speak through them,
so that properly it would not be they who spoke, but precisely
the Spirit of their Father, as their LORD and Master announces this to them
in Matt. 10:19 in the words: "Take no thought how or what ye shall
speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of
your Father that speaketh in you." Cf. Mark 13:11, Luke 12:12.

Therefore, as also happens in Scripture, it can be said briefly
of what the apostles and prophets spoke and wrote,
without naming the persons whom the Holy Spirit used,
that God spoke it. So the apostle writes in Rom.
3:2 of the Jews: "Unto them were committed the oracles of God" [German: "what God has spoken"].
Matt. 22:31 the LORD says: "Have ye not read, concerning the resurrection of the
dead, that which was spoken unto you by God, saying: I
am the God of Abraham," and so on? In other places words
of Holy Scripture are designated straight out as utterances of the Holy Spirit,
without mention of the instrument which he used. So
it says in Heb. 3:7: "Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith: Today,
if ye will hear his voice" (Ps. 95:7 f.); and Heb. 10:15 f.:
"Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he
had said before: 'This is the testament that I will make with them
after those days,' saith the LORD: 'I will put my laws into their hearts.'"
Here belong also all the passages in which the word of the