# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1922_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Proceedings of the twenty-eighth convention

10:20. And of associations and joint undertakings on the part of the "churches" the holy apostle says: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them!" Rom. 16:17. Of all such fellowship holds the solemn "Beware!" of our Savior, Matt. 7:15.

Now how does it stand with our Synodical Conference? Dear brethren, we know from God's holy Word that it is a fellowship given by God, in which God therefore has pleasure, and over which we as children of God may only rejoice. For it is founded, and has stood from the first day until now, in the unity of faith given by God himself.

It is indeed God's Spirit who works and sustains in our hearts the faith which no one can have from his own reason or strength. This faith, which alone saves, in Christ our Savior, the Holy Spirit has created in you, my dear fellow Christian, and in me, as in countless human hearts. And this right, united faith is the holy bond with which God himself joins and unites us and all Christians in the world into the fellowship of which we confess: "I believe one holy Christian Church, the communion of saints."

Now this communion of saints is, to be sure, invisible, because the right, united faith which the Holy Spirit gives, and which binds all Christians together, is not perceptible to us. But the Holy Spirit works and sustains this faith and this unity of faith through the Word of the Gospel, which we hear and read, and which is sealed to us through our Baptism and through the sacrament of eating and drinking. Through these outward means he creates the unity and the fellowship that he wills. From the Word that is preached to us and that we hear comes faith, according to the testimony of the apostle, Rom. 10:17. And from the Word that we read; for the Holy Scripture "is able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus," 2 Tim. 3:15. And from Baptism; for the apostle says: "Let every one of you be baptized, . . . and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost," Acts 2:38. So we have our common faith and are united through these outward means of grace. This is the fellowship that our great High Priest obtained for us from the Father by his prayer — which we therefore have to thank him for — when he said: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one," John 17:20, 21. And his apostle declares: "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," 1 Cor. 12:13. And again: "We being many are one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread," 1 Cor. 10:17.

After all this, true faith is nothing other than trust in God's holy Word; it relies on the Word, clings to the