# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S17
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1906. 17

that is, the doctrine of faith. In Luther we encounter in many places the remarkable phenomenon that at one time he takes the one faith without more ado subjectively (that is, as the confidence of Christians that they have forgiveness of sins) and then again, without more ado, in other places objectively (that is, as the doctrine of faith). In the second sense he sets faith over against the thoughts of men, when they make articles of faith for themselves. This is connected as follows: Luther first takes the one faith subjectively in this sense: we all believe without exception that we have forgiveness of sins solely and alone through Christ. But when this wonderful one faith has come into a man, he is born anew through this faith, receives thereby the Holy Spirit and thereby gets the disposition that he will accept the whole Word of God. He then does not want to accept merely a part of the doctrine of Scripture, but the whole Word of God, and submits himself to everything God says. So this one faith, taken objectively, is just the immediate consequence of the fact that through the Holy Spirit the one faith in the one LORD has been worked. There are in fact such Christians who do not accept the whole Word of God, refusing obedience to it in this or that point; but that comes in their case always only from weakness; inwardly they are so minded that they will accept the Word of God as soon as they are instructed.

It is asked why Paul names only baptism here. That does not happen in the sense, as if there were not also in the Lord's Supper a quite powerful motive to preserve the unity in the Spirit. Paul says expressly in the Epistle to the Corinthians: "For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread," 1 Cor. 10:17. Why does he name only baptism here in Ephesians? It is, as already said, the sacramental means by which Christians are brought into the Church. When the question is then asked: Who marks himself as a Christian? we answer: He who lets himself be baptized. When therefore at the first Pentecost the Jews cried out: "What shall we do?" the answer was: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized!" It did not say: Repent and celebrate the Holy Supper. Besides, the Lord's Supper is not so common to all Christians as baptism is.

The Essayist.

To unity in the Spirit belongs also unity in love. In the three sentences vv. 4–6 the Apostle has said nothing of this; for he does not enumerate what determines or constitutes the unity, but shows how self-evident it is that one preserves the unity of the Spirit, on account of all the items he cites. Love he now comes to speak of in the exhortation; but already in the first three chapters he shows or says that love toward the brethren, too, is something characteristic of the Christian, and that it belongs also to