# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 11 18_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

there is no salvation and no blessedness; whoever does not have her on earth as mother does not have God in heaven as Father. (Galatians 4:26.)

It is therefore indeed no unnecessary question: Where do I find the true Church? Where is the congregation of those who believe and are saved? This concerns no wrangling of theologians, no unedifying hairsplitting, but a matter about which every human being must come to clarity, if he does not want to grope in the dark all his life concerning the most important business of his soul, and stand in danger of missing the way to heaven. The answer to this question is by no means the concern of scholars alone; no — whoever wishes to be a Christian, however inexperienced he may be in worldly learning, can and must here have his own open eyes; he must not merely ask what the scholars say about it, but form his own judgment. Christ does not want immature, childish Christians who accept without examination whatever is told them, who let themselves simply be led wherever others lead them, but rather understanding Christians who know how to distinguish truth from error. Therefore St. Paul says: "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians 4:14.)

When a man dies, no pope, no bishop or priest can carry him up to heaven tucked in his wide robe; indeed, were it an entire council, it could not go down to hell in his place; there each one must stand for himself; therefore every human being must also already beforehand be certain for himself in matters that concern the salvation of his immortal soul.

But is it not too difficult, one may ask, to decide where the congregation of the saints is — the true bride of Christ, the one true temple of God on earth which God's Holy Spirit alone has built, where Jesus Christ dwells and where all the treasures of his grace are to be found? To be sure, it is not possible to be safe here from error and deception unless one goes by the right marks and applies the right touchstone; but whoever does this honestly cannot go astray, for he has the promise: "God gives success to the upright." (Proverbs 2:7.)

These true marks, however, are none other than Word and Sacrament. For the true marks of a thing are only those which, first, the thing to be recognized by them must possess, so that they can never be separated from it, and, second, which necessarily and infallibly indicate the presence of the thing without danger of deception. Now since no one can deny that, without the Christian doctrine recorded and handed down in Holy Scripture by Christ through his holy Apostles, and without the holy Sacraments bound up with it, no Christian Church can be conceived; and since further no one can deny that believers — that is, the Church — are to be sought and are certainly to be found only where

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God's Word is preached and received, these means of grace are therefore also the only infallible marks of the true Church.

We are speaking here, of course, only to such readers as already hold Holy Scripture to be God's Word; for those who do not yet believe this must first be convinced of the truth and divinity of the Bible, before it can even be discussed with them where they are to find the fellowship of those who have and confess the right, saving faith — namely, the Church. But to all believers Holy Scripture testifies clearly and plainly that Word and Sacrament are the living seed by which the members of the Church are begotten, and kept and strengthened in faith (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; John 2:5), and from which, accordingly, the tree of the true Church grows up.

According to Scripture, God's Word is furthermore the foundation of the Church, for it is written: "Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord." (Ephesians 2:20–21.) According to Scripture, Word and Sacrament are, finally, the means by which the congregation of God is founded, gathered, and preserved, and by which it is to spread itself; for the Lord gives to the instruments he has chosen for this purpose the command and the promise: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:18–20; Mark 16:16.) According to these divine testimonies, then, it is plainly impossible for the Church to exist anywhere that Word and Sacrament are not found; they are as inseparably joined to her as seed-corn and the growing crop, as spring and stream, as cause and effect. — But is God's Word not often preached in vain? Is the pure doctrine not often proclaimed for a long time, and yet it bears no fruit among the hearers? How, then, can I rely on such a mark? Might I not be deceived, and even where the Word is, perhaps encounter no true believers, and thus no true Church?

— No; here no deception is possible. One can be deceived precisely when one looks to something else. Whoever, for example, looks to mere unity can be deceived, for people can also be united in error; or to holiness, for this may perhaps be only a semblance of holiness; or to outward descent from an apostolic congregation, for such descent can be present and the church nevertheless have fallen away, and so forth. But where God's Word is preached and confessed purely and unmixed, and the holy Sacraments are administered and used according to Christ's institution, there certainly at least some children of God are to be found, according to the precious divine promise: "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah 55:10–11.) True, the seed often falls by the wayside, or upon stony ground, or among thorns, but some part always bears fruit. (Matthew 13.) True, many regard the Gospel as foolishness, but it is and remains the power of God (Romans 1:16), sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12–13), which certainly pierces some hearts, brings them to true faith, and keeps them in it. Wherever, therefore, this means of grace is at work, we can say, without danger of deceiving ourselves: Here the gates of the Church stand open, here stands the true ladder of Jacob to heaven, here surely also are people who rightly believe, here Christ has a congregation of saints, here the Church becomes visible, to which I must confess myself and hold fast, if I do not wish to be severed from the body of Christ and thus be lost.

Here, then, is no circular argument, as Mr. Oertel imagines; a circular argument would be this: the Church is there where true Christians are, for the fellowship of true Christians is precisely the Christian Church. We, however, say: the Church, or the communion of saints, is visibly (or definitively) to be recognized there where that is found which alone makes people Christians; we look for the effect where we find the necessitating cause, for the outflow where the spring wells up, for the tree where the seed was planted. Here a circular argument can be found only by one who holds the popish principle that God's Word first has its validity when the Pope with his bishops has pronounced and confirmed it; for then, indeed, one must first be certain that one has found the church consisting of pope and bishops, before one can know whether one has God's Word. But this is a detestable principle. To be sure, the Church bears her testimony concerning Holy Scripture, but she does not thereby first give it its authority. To be sure, the Church alone is God's letter-carrier to the world, in that God's Word is entrusted to her to preach and confess, but it is the Holy Spirit, not she, who impresses upon it the seal of divinity. To be sure, we can find God's pure Word and the unmutilated Sacraments only in the Church, for she alone is the keeper of these highest treasures which God has given to mankind; it is these treasures that distinguish her recognizably from all other worldly communities — but we do not recognize the correctness of these treasures by the truth of the Church; rather, where we find those treasures, there we conclude (a posteriori) to the presence of the true Church, of which we already know (a priori) that she must have them.