# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1906. 19

understood as if love were the foundation on which we are rooted and stand, but that love is the disposition in which we are to be as firm as if we were rooted and grounded. From all this it follows that, according to the Apostle's conception, among the characteristic qualities of Christians, by which they distinguish themselves from the quarrelsome heathen, this also belongs, that they have love toward all the brethren and are one in it.

From the Discussion.

Where love toward the brethren is to dwell, nationality, the ego, must be dethroned in the man. As long as this ego is not dethroned, selfishness rules in the heart of every man, the thought of oneself, not of the neighbor. Selfishness is dethroned only by a man becoming a Christian through faith in the Gospel, through the knowledge of the love with which God has loved the world. As soon as this love has become manifest to us through faith, then and only then are nationality, the ego, dethroned in the heart, and then there is love toward the brethren. Love is the fulfilling of the law, but this condition, that the law is written in the heart, is brought about only by God's changing His covenant. In place of the old covenant of the law He must set the covenant of the Gospel. God left Israel for a time under the covenant of the law; but that turned out, so to speak, a failure. God could command His people as much as He wanted, the law remained only outward. Then He put in place of the covenant of the law the covenant of the Gospel, and all at once the situation changes. The Gospel has written the law in the heart, which before was merely outward. There is no other way to bring true love into the heart than that of faith. Only among Christians is love toward the brethren found, but it is found among all Christians.

In the time of the Apostle Paul the Stoics were the chief representatives of Greek philosophy, and they had already written cosmopolitanism, the universal brotherhood of men, on their program. The differences among the nations, the national barriers, had fallen outwardly through the Roman world dominion, and so the thought of a universal humanity had gradually made room for itself in theory. But when it came to putting the theory into practice, the Stoic proved to be an egoist of the purest water. So history also proves that true love of neighbor does not come about without an inner transformation of man.

II.

After what we have discussed so far, it is clear that, according to Holy Scripture, unity in the Spirit is not what the Roman Church understands by it, nor what the sects in the Union