# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 02 22_S98
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

2. set before your eyes, for your warning, also his fate in that world.

God, we know that thou triest the heart, and that uprightness is pleasing to thee; therefore we beseech thee, keep us, that none of us deceive himself with a mere semblance of faith and Christianity. Grant us ourselves to know how we are and how we stand with thee, that thou mayest not, when we one day appear before thy countenance, have to dismiss us as unprofitable servants, but that we may here serve thee with our whole heart, and one day be acknowledged by thee as thine own, and be saved. Hear us, thou faithful God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, thy dear Son. Amen.

1.

If I am to sketch for you, my beloved, the picture of a false-seeming Christian, I must show you two things: first, the Christian appearance which such a man has, and second, what he lacks in order to be a Christian — in a word, first his outward form, and second his inward state.

As for the first, then, Christ, in the parable contained in our Gospel, describes the false-seeming Christian as one who has accepted the invitation to the wedding and complied with it, who has entered the wedding hall, has mingled among the festively adorned guests and has sat down with them at the table, who now eats and drinks and comports himself entirely like the other wedding guests. With this Christ himself gives us in a few words the complete picture of a false-seeming Christian according to his outward form.

From this we see: a false-seeming Christian is, accordingly, not one who lives in manifest unbelief or in manifest sins. No; whoever does not even believe in the word of Christ and of his holy prophets and apostles, and does not at all believe the holy Bible, does not hold it to be God's Word and Christ to be God's Son; who therefore despises the means of grace, does not come to church and to the celebration of the holy Lord's Supper, is ashamed to pray, denies Christ before the world, separates himself from Christians and holds with the scoffers; or whoever lives in cursing and swearing, or in unbridled anger, in unforgivingness, enmity and vengefulness, or in unchaste words and gestures and in drunkenness and gluttony, or in fraud, usury and manifest greed, or in lying and slandering others and in boasting and self-praise, and the like, and openly joins in all the lust and vanity of the world — such a one does not belong among the false-seeming Christians, but among the un-Christians; not among the hypocrites, but among the godless; not among the false brethren, but among those who have manifestly fallen away; not among the readily deceiving tares among the wheat in God's field, but among the thorns and thistles.

The false-seeming Christian, rather, as Christ tells us in the Gospel, has also accepted the invitation to the heavenly wedding and complied with it; he is, then, also a baptized Christian and boasts of his baptism; he listens to the Word of God and confesses that he believes it, and that he holds Christ to be the Son of God who came to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth. The false-seeming Christian, as Christ further says, has also entered the wedding hall; that is, he too has turned to the true church, holds with it, professes it, accepts the pure doctrine, perhaps has a very good knowledge of it, and indeed defends it well, even with great earnestness and zeal. The false-seeming Christian has, further, as Christ says, mingled among the festively adorned guests; that is, he holds no longer to the world, but keeps friendship and fellowship with true, believing Christians, gladly converses with them about spiritual matters, visits them and invites them to himself. The false-seeming Christian has, further, as Christ says, sat down with them at the table and eats and drinks along with them; that is, he uses the means of grace as the true Christians do, diligently partakes of the bread of life, that is, diligently hears God's Word, and often appears at the Table of the Lord, occupies himself too with God's Word together with his household, and reads eagerly in Scripture and in other godly books. The false-seeming Christian, finally, comports himself, as Christ says, like the other wedding guests; that is, he lives outwardly as pious Christians are accustomed to live; one can charge him with no manifest sins; he lives honorably; his speech is Christian and betrays no arrogance; his bearing is decent and shows modesty; his works are praiseworthy; he is zealous against injustice; he is generous, ready to serve, and concerns himself, as befits Christians, with the common good; he gives every man his own and is no dishonest debtor; he is temperate; he is diligent in his work; he shows himself reconcilable toward those who wrong him, and lets himself be corrected where he is convicted of a fault. Wherein, then, does the outward form of a false-seeming Christian consist? In a few words, it is the form of an upright, godly Christian.

But how? Should it be possible to live so Christian a life, and yet be only a false-seeming Christian? — Is it not appalling that a man, despite so praiseworthy a walk, should be lost? For if even many who live so Christian a life are not saved, what hope, then, can those have who have not even come that far? Who, then, can still be saved? — Terrible as this truth is, it is nevertheless truth, for Christ adds distinctly: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

What is it, then, that all false-seeming Christians lack, that with all their Christian, honorable life, their good works, their godly exercises and their active zeal, they are still not true Christians? — Christ says they lack the "wedding garment." What might Christ mean by this? To be sure of Christ's meaning, we must consult Holy Scripture itself, and must not go by our own thoughts. Now Holy Scripture, in other places too, speaks not seldom of certain garments which a man needs if he is to be saved. Among other things, Christ has it said to the bishop of Laodicea: "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." To the same effect is what is written of the church of Christ in the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation of St. John, where it says: "And to her was granted that she should array herself in fine, pure, bright silk"; and by way of explanation it is added: "For the silk is the righteousness of the saints." Hence Isaiah too says: "The Lord hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, and covered me with the robe of righteousness." But the meaning of Christ is made clearest of all by the saying of St. Paul in the epistle to the Galatians: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ"; or, as he writes to the Romans: "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ."

From this it is clear that when Christ portrays the false-seeming Christian as a wedding guest without a wedding garment, he means to say: a false-seeming Christian is a man who, for all his splendid outward Christian appearance, does not yet bear in his heart the true faith by which true Christians put on Christ and his righteousness as a garment. The false-seeming Christian indeed shines outwardly before men through his seemingly Christian life, but before God's all-seeing eyes his life has a form that cannot please him, for, says Scripture, "without faith it is impossible to please God." The false-seeming Christian is indeed rich in so-called good works, but because these do not flow from the good spring of a heart cleansed by true faith, they are before God nothing better than sins, for, says Scripture, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." The false-seeming Christian indeed speaks beautifully of Christ, but Christ is only on his tongue, not in his heart. The false-seeming Christian indeed bears the name of a Christian, but he is not what the name says, for a Christian, translated into German, means "an anointed one," namely with the Holy Spirit, and this Spirit does not dwell in his soul. The false-seeming Christian is, through his orthodox confession with the mouth, indeed a branch on the vine, Christ, but a withered branch. The false-seeming Christian indeed also bears fair-looking fruits of an honorable life, but the fruits are inwardly rotten, for he himself is still a wild, rotten tree that has not yet been grafted onto the tree of life, onto Christ. The false-seeming Christian indeed also has a covering over his sins, but these are the fig leaves of his own imagining, and not the garment that is spun from the wool of the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world. The false-seeming Christian is a grave which looks fair on the outside, but within is still the mold of spiritual death; he is like the picture of a Christian, which indeed has a great resemblance, but has neither substance nor life. The false-seeming Christian is, therefore, indeed in the church, but not of the