# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S65
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 65

say, of the Low German language, which the one asking understands alone, he also
takes care to use a style suited to the understanding of the one asking: would
that be unworthy of a scholar? Certainly not. Rather would the
scholar prove thereby that he is also a practical head. So the dear
God also has done in the Bible. There one writes a lofty
style, another plain and simple. When Scripture is read by people,
one is especially seized by John's words,
another again by Paul's words, and so on. For every kind of
person Scripture is fitted out. That is the divine condescension. For
the sake of such presentations we must of course let the German
scholars call us narrow-minded heads. Yes, because we admit no
human errors in Scripture, we are even supposed to be a kind of new Docetists;
for as these denied Christ's true humanity, so we
deny everything human in Scripture. But this comparison does not fit
in any way. The Son of God did take upon himself the weaknesses of human
nature and became man, not even as Adam in paradise, but as we are, only that he had
no sin. So it is with the Bible. It is human in so far as it is written in
human language, the Old Testament in Hebrew,
the New Testament in Greek. And a Matthew wrote
in a style that Mark does not have, Mark again in a
style that Luke does not have, and so on. That is true. But as Christ,
the incarnate Son of God, had no sin, so the incarnate
Word of God has no error.

Fifthly, a great outcry is raised over the fact
that the Old and New Testaments have come down to us in a shape and
form that could never have belonged to a divine
Scripture. By this the various readings are meant, and it is thought that if the whole Bible
were God's Word, God would also have had to watch over it that no various
readings should exist. But first, it is not for us at all
to say what God ought to have done. And is a doubt
about the divinity of Holy Scripture then justified if men have corrupted something
in this book? If one of us writes a book
and the typesetter makes a misprint, does it follow that the author
did not write the book word for word? We find elsewhere, too,
in nature much that the devil has corrupted and man in his
weakness misuses; does it follow that nature as a whole was not created by God?
What is to be wondered at in Holy Scripture is precisely this,
that despite the existing variants not the slightest doubt prevails
whether a doctrine is grounded in it or not. And more: precisely the
existence of the variants is a proof that, among others, we also have
the original reading, only that for us not by the Holy Spirit ge-