# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

54 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

always run the risk of going astray precisely on the basis of Scripture, or we
should have to concede from the outset that we could attain no certainty
whether we have the truth or are going astray.

Further, when Christ says to his disciples in Luke 24:44: "All
things must be fulfilled which are written of me in the law of Moses,
in the prophets, and in the psalms," there lies in this a testimony that
Moses, the prophets and psalms were written by God himself; for
what they have written of Christ must be fulfilled. Who is it
that fulfills all things or lets them be accomplished? It is God himself, who puts his
counsel into effect. But God will not in this be guided by
human books; he will not bring to accomplishment what men
may have devised, but he is guided only by what
he himself has spoken, promised and written. Therefore everything in
Scripture is spoken by him who fulfills it. For this reason Christ points his
disciples to everything that the prophets have spoken; indeed, he rebukes them
as fools for not having heeded everything written of him,
Luke 24:25-26: "O fools, and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" And now he gives them
a lesson, and not merely from what Moses alone, or an Isaiah
alone, has said, but he goes much further. Verse 27: "And beginning
at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning himself."

So also Paul does in Acts 24:14, when he writes: "But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call a sect, so serve I
the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written
in the law and in the prophets." If, then, we are to believe everything and to ground
our confidence upon it, and if we are not to be superstitious in doing so,
the Word in which we are to believe must be thoroughly
divine. Therefore St. Paul writes in the letter to the Romans, chap. 1:2,
of the Gospel, that God "promised it afore through his
prophets in the holy Scriptures (ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις)"; and Rom. 15:4, that
everything "which was written aforetime (ὅσα γὰρ προεγράφη, εἰς τὴν ἡμετέραν
διδασκαλίαν προεγράφη) was written for our learning, that we
through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope (τῶν γραφῶν τὴν
ἐλπίδα ἔχωμεν)."

Also everything that the New Testament writers spoke and wrote,
the Holy Spirit spoke and wrote through them, as Paul testifies
in Rom. 15:18: "For I dare not speak of any thing, save what
Christ hath wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient
by word and deed." Not anything at all does the apostle dare
to speak, where Christ did not speak it through him. So it is
in all matters not properly Paul, but Christ, who