# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1924_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Proceedings of the twenty-ninth convention

ing faith. No one else besides the members of the Church of Christ has this faith. Saving faith is that which separates the members of the Church, and indeed all members without exception, from all other people and unites them into one body. Thus St. Paul writes in Gal. 3:26: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." And in Eph. 2:19 he describes the members of the Church as members of the household of God. In John 11:51, 52 he writes: "For Christ should die for the people, and not for the people only, but that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." The Church of Christ, which the Son of God has founded and still governs in grace, is composed of the whole number of the children of God, His household. And what makes them children of God? Faith in Christ Jesus.

This is also the teaching of our Church in its confessional writings. In the Augsburg Confession, Art. VIII, the Christian Church is described as "the assembly of all believers and saints." The word "holy" is used here and in Scripture as synonymous with "believing." In the Smalcald Articles we read, Part III, § 12: "For, God be praised, a child of seven years knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers." The Bible calls the Church the body of Christ. The word "body" is not used here in its proper meaning, but means a spiritual body. Thus St. Paul writes in Eph. 1:22, 23: "And gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body." Christ is the Head, with whom the body is most intimately joined. As a member of this body every Christian stands in close union with Christ, the Head, and with all the other members. Of this intimate union of Christ with all His members, and of the members with one another, Paul speaks when he writes in Eph. 4:3-6: "Be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." And still more clearly the same Apostle expresses himself in his letter to the Romans, chap. 12:5: "So we are many one body, but among one another each is a member of the other." Here too the Apostle testifies that Christians are so closely joined together in a spiritual manner that they are called members of one another. The same truth confronts us in his letter to the Ephesians, chap. 4:15, 16: "Let us grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom [from which source] the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." The same thought of a close union of every member of the Church with Christ, and of all members with one another, is contained in the words of our Lord, John 15:5: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Here the Lord teaches that separation from Him means spiritual death, but union with Him spiritual life and fruit-bearing. He is the source of life and of spiritual fruit. And what is it now that joins us with Christ; what is it that unites the members of the body with the Head? It is faith in Christ Jesus, the saving faith of the Christian. The Bible speaks everywhere of this faith as equivalent to union with Christ as