# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S325
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law. 325

otherwise I pay no heed at all to your telling me much out of Moses. For Moses with his word was not sent to us, and even if Moses had never come, we would nevertheless still have had this natural knowledge written by God into our hearts, that there is a God who makes and sustains all things. For the Gentiles too worshiped God without the teaching of Moses, although, just like the Jews, they too fell short of God. Therefore you can quickly answer: Dear enthusiast, Moses here, Moses there. If you want me to listen to you, tell me a word that concerns me; otherwise I hold you to be a seducer and an apostle of the devil, for you preach what has been commanded to others, not to you. If I were to accept and keep every word of God, I would also have to build an ark, like Noah; for God's word commanded him to build an ark. Now, since that is indeed God's word, go then and do as Noah did, build an ark. Likewise, Christ told Peter to go to the sea and cast in a hook, and catch the first fish that came up, in whose mouth he would find a half-gulden, which he was to give as tribute for himself and for him. There too is God's word. But, dear enthusiast, go and do likewise as Peter did; let us see how well that will suit you. Therefore God's words must carry with them the qualification that I know to whom they were spoken. So I say here, that image-breaking and the tearing down of idols may not be forced out of this text" (of the first commandment). "For it was spoken to the Jews alone, and not to us. Show me a text by which God has forbidden images to me — not that I am fond of images, but that we should know for certain on what our faith is grounded, so that we do not build on sand, and so that we might be able to answer our adversaries. For a preacher, indeed every Christian as well, should and must be certain of his teaching, not build on mere opinion or deal in human conceit, but be altogether certain of the matter, that it is so and not otherwise — that which Paul calls "plerophorian" (Col. 2:2, "riches of the full assurance of understanding"), so that he might stand firm in every trial, and answer the devil and all his angels, indeed God himself, without any wavering. The Jews indeed have a commandment that they should not have images; but they have drawn that commandment too narrowly. For God forbids the images that one sets up, worships, and puts in God's place. For there are two kinds of images. Therefore he makes a distinction, and gives a rule as to which images are forbidden, namely, those which are set up as though they were images of God; as indeed the text plainly concludes. Therefore the mouths of those are here stopped who say: All images are forbidden to the Jews. Here no image is forbidden except that through which divine worship is hindered. So then, no other image is forbidden here except the image of God that is worshiped. One restrains children so that they should not climb onto the bench and sit on the table, lest they fall down; likewise, that they should not go to the water, lest they drown; one does not let them have bread-knives in their hands, lest they cut themselves; thus one restrains children in matters that nature itself does not forbid.