# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1912_S9 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PuBuisHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyNopIcAL CoNFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFYF, Eprror. Entered at the Post Ofice at St. Vol. XXXIV. ST. LOUIS, MO., Perfect Peace. A mind at perfect peace with God — O, what a word is this! A sinner reconciled through blood — This, this indeed is peace! By nature and by practice far, How very far, from God! Yet now by grace brought nigh to Him, Through faith in Jesus’ blood. So nigh, so very nigh, to God, I cannot nearer be; For in the person of His Son [ am as near as He. So dear, so very dear, to God, More dear I cannot be; The love wherewith He loves the Son: Such is His love to me! Why should I ever anxious be Since such a God is mine? He watches o’er me night and day, And tells me, “Mine is thine.” Selected. Oe Peace in Christ. In a paper sent us by a friend, we read that a _woman, much troubled in mind, came to a sectarian preacher: with the question, “How can I get the peace of God?” ‘The preacher did not point the poor woman to Christ who made peace for us through the blood of His cross, Col. 1, 20. Instead of pointing her to the work of Christ, he pointed her to her own works, telling her that the flower mission, whose aim it is to take flowers to the sick in the hospitals, needed help, and that she might also find something to do if she applied to the temperance rooms of the city. When the woman, after some time, came back to. the. preacher and told Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. FEBRUARY, 1912. No. 2. him all she had done, he asked her, “And what have you found in all this?” She replied, “Christ and peace.” Poor, deluded soul! There are many such souls led astray by blind leaders who themselves know not the way of peace. “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?” Luke 6, 39. There ‘is no salvation in the Law. No peace, no rest. For it is written: “By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be: justified in His sight; for by the Law is the knowledge of sin,” Rom. 3, 20. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the Law,” Rom. 3, 28. Peace is found in Christ only. At His birth the angels sang: “Peace on earth!” In Him the aged Simeon found peace, so that he could joyfully say: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” He saw in Christ God’s salvation prepared for sinners, and therefore he found peace in Him. For there can be no true peace where there is no salvation, no peace where sins are not forgiven. It is Christ “in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” He “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” reconciling God with the sinful world. That work of Christ is offered to sinners in the Gospel, in which Christ Himself “preaches peace.” ‘The moment the sinner by faith takes it as his own, and as long as he thus takes it, he has peace, peace of conscience, peace of soul, peace with God, everlasting peace—a peace not resting on his own feelings or his own doings, but on: that which Christ did for him when He bore the punishment of our sins. “All that believe are justified from all things,” Acts 13, 38. There- fore they have peace, as St. Paul plainly says: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord. Jesus Christ,” Rom. 5, 1;