# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1930_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 Proceedings of the thirty-second convention

us to the conditions of the visible Church. He alone knows how much real knowledge is present in the faith of a baptized (and perhaps also of an unbaptized) child, or in the thief on the cross. He seems to point to similar things in 1 Cor. 3:11-13: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it." If one were to understand this passage as referring to the Christian fellowship of the visible Church, it would in any case stand opposed to other clear doctrines of Scripture, which condemn all false doctrine and human opinion presented in the Church as confession. Therefore the Apology is undoubtedly right when it declares: "And although in the company that is built on the right foundation, that is, Christ and faith, there are many weak ones who build hay and straw on such a foundation, that is, some human opinions and opinions of men, with which they nevertheless do not overthrow or reject the foundation, Christ, for which reason they are nonetheless Christians and such faults are forgiven them, and they are also somehow enlightened and better instructed: so we see in the Fathers that they also sometimes built straw and hay upon the foundation; yet they did not wish thereby to overthrow the foundation." (*Conc. Trigl.*, 232 f.) It can therefore well happen that a member of the Church of Christ holds an erroneous opinion or conception of a revealed truth, since our knowledge and our prophesying are in part, 1 Cor. 13:9. Even on this side of the grave many of these erroneous opinions vanish through further thorough study of the revealed Word, to be removed completely in the light of the coming great day. But as to the doctrine of the Church, which is set forth by its preachers and teachers, this must agree exactly with God's Word in its main outlines as in its elaborations.

That the declaration of our Confession agrees best with Scripture follows also from other passages, especially of the New Testament. Thus we are told in 1 Cor. 12:12 ff. of the congregation of God as the body of Christ: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. . . . For the body is not one member, but many. . . . But God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another." 2 Tim. 2:19, 20: "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour." And so we can say also of the invisible Church as the temple of God that not all members are like columns, like carved oriels, like palaces, but many a member is like an unimpressive stone, like an unnoticed rafter in the building of the Church which God is raising for eternity. Many of these imperfections and weaknesses come to the surface also in the visible Church, but we find them stated definitely of individual members of the Church that is rightly called the invisible. Yet it remains true that the Church, all its members, is cleansed by the blood of Christ, so that he presents it to himself a church that is glorious, not having