# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24 Proceedings of the twenty-second convention

For if it were without this, and we were to be scattered without outward gathering and sign, Christendom could not be spread abroad nor preserved to the end. But now He wants to bind us together through such a divine gathering, so that the Gospel may go on farther and farther, and others also be brought along through our confession. . . . And it is very finely ordained by Christ that in His kingdom, which is to go into all the world and among all creatures, He does not use many and manifold ways, as formerly among the Jews, and as so many differences of lands and peoples, nations and languages must exist, but, without any ceremonies and outward orders, takes the simplest and most universal sign for it, which is everywhere one and the same" (namely Baptism); "as the preaching also is one and the same, here and in all places, and for everything that is in the world, great and small." (St. L. XI, 982 ff.) — On John 17:21 ("That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me") Luther says: "This is the fruit which is to follow through and from such unity, namely, that Christ's Word be spread farther and accepted in the world as God's Word, in which there stands an almighty, divine, invincible power and salvation."

From the Discussions.

In the discussions it was further emphasized that the organization within the Christian congregation covers everything. One tells the congregations the Word, and thereby they become willing to give everything the Lord needs.

Further it was pointed out that the purpose of outward fellowship is also the glory of God, as this is indeed the final purpose of all divine institutions. As the Savior personally has in view only the glory of God, so He also wants to praise God in and through the congregation. Is not the proclamation of the Gospel precisely the proclamation of the glory of God?

Thesis III.

Because many Christians, through weakness in the knowledge of Christ, do not obey His command to hold only to His Word, but contrary to Christ's prohibition form fellowship with false teachers, they thereby separate themselves from the fellowship among brethren in the faith ordained by God, and this fellowship comes into practice only among those Christians who hold to the Church according to Christ's order, that is, who confess the pure doctrine of the divine Word and avoid false teachers.

Whoever teaches otherwise in the Church than what the Church has been commissioned to teach, than what is divine order, divine right in the Church, thereby severs the bond of brotherly, churchly fellowship;