# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1908. 9

All Christians on the whole earth really have one mind, in spite of their differing views in earthly matters. Insofar as they are Christians, they have exactly the same thoughts concerning themselves and concerning God. Of themselves they hold that they are damnable sinners before God; and of God they hold that He is gracious to them for Christ's sake. In the hearts of them all there glows also the heavenly flame of love, for faith is active, or effective, through love, Gal. 5:6.

With the invisible unity of faith, of thoughts and of disposition there is joined, as Luther puts it, also the invisible unity of being. Through faith all are one body, namely the spiritual body whose Head is Christ. "We, being many, are one body," says the Apostle in 1 Cor. 10:17 (ἓν σῶμα οἱ πολλοί ἐσμεν), and 1 Cor. 12:27: "Ye are the body of Christ" (ὑμεῖς . . . σῶμα Χριστοῦ); Col. 1:18: "He (Christ) is the head of the body, namely of the congregation." That is the wonderful inner, invisible fellowship of the Christian Church.

Luther: "Christendom means an assembly of all believers in Christ on earth, as we pray in the Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, a communion of saints. This congregation or assembly means all those who live in right faith, love and hope, so that the essence, life and nature of Christendom is not a bodily assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, as Paul says in Eph. 4:5: One baptism, one faith, one Lord. Thus, even though they are bodily divided from one another by a thousand miles, they are still called one assembly in the Spirit, since each one preaches, believes, hopes, loves and lives like the other, as we sing of the Holy Spirit: Thou hast gathered into the faith the people out of all the world's tongues. This is properly called a spiritual unity, from which men are called a congregation of saints, which unity alone is enough to make a Christendom, apart from which no unity, be it of place, time, person, works, or whatever it may be, makes a Christendom." (St. L. [St. Louis edition of Luther's works] XVIII, 1013 f.)

Luther (St. L. XII, 898): "There is no more than one single Church or people of God on earth, which has one and the same faith, baptism, one and the same confession of God the Father and of Christ, etc., and holds and remains together in harmony with others in such. In this every one must let himself be found and be incorporated into it, who would be saved and come to God; and outside of it no one will be saved."

The same: "The Christians are a special, called people, and are not called simply ecclesia, church or people, but sancta, catholica, christiana, a Christian, holy people, who believe in Christ, therefore it is called a Christian people, and has the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies it daily, not only through the forgiveness of sins, which