# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Some Remarks on the Teaching of the Oberkirchencollegium of the Ev. Luth. Church in Prussia, etc.

should always remain aware that hypocrites, the ungodly, and heretics do not, together with the true believers, constitute one Church, but are only accidentally intermingled with them, because the condition of this world brings that about — just as the chaff and other things are mixed in among the wheat, yet without thereby at all forming, together with it, a heap of wheat. (Compare Quenstedt, Systema theologicum, IV, p. 488 sqq.; Hollazius, Examen theologicum, IV, c. 1, qu. 27, fin.) In what sense this 4th Thesis means its words "Although now the Church merely," etc. — the framer of the thesis states unmistakably clearly in the "Proceedings of the Commission," etc., at Berlin, 1861, p. 121; and the conclusions he draws from them are weighty and dangerous. He himself accordingly remarks, in the passage cited, that he wishes these his words "to be regarded as the main point, inasmuch as the thesis was framed out of practical interest." But his view is not, as he asserts, "altogether that of our symbolical books." Believers are members of Christ on earth only "insofar as they believe, on the invisible side." Christ is the spiritual Head of His spiritual body, but everything spiritual is never visible; He is, to be sure, at the same time also the Head — that is, the Lord — of all men, of all creatures, according to the kingdom of creation; but He is the Head over and above all else (that is, in a wholly exceptional sense)* of His believers as such, not insofar as they are simply human beings; and believers as such are not visible, but only as human beings in general. The symbolical books know no other view, as will become clear from the citations appended further below. Believers are members of Christ solely according to their new man, insofar as this new man draws into itself, out of the whole man, that which endures beyond the grave,** never

*) That this is the meaning of the words "over all things," Eph. 1:22, is taught by the most recent linguistic usage, and here likewise by classical usage.

**) What arises in the innermost ground of the heart, beyond nature, is created through the Gospel, and only what this new man or spirit appropriates from the soul is accounted to God and to eternal life; what is opposed to it, or the flesh, is left to judgment; what is imparted to us through the working of the divine word of grace permeates the whole man; and insofar as the body has served as a spiritual temple, it too shall be a vessel of future transfiguration. All this, however, takes place in an invisible manner. (Hence Heb. 4:12–13; cf. 1 Thess. 5:23; Eph. 4:22f.; Rom. 12:2; 1 Pet. 4:6.) Among the ungodly, who have only the natural soul without the spirit (Jude v. 19), this soul rules the body; among believers, the spirit rules through it; whatever here, of these two, remains behind and has not been taken up into the latter is given over to destruction — there, the spiritless personality to an eternal dying. Thus the invisible, spiritual element in men alone constitutes the concept of the Church, into which, accordingly, no legal aspect can fall, because it is free from the killing letter of Moses. This letter rules over the soul by nature, as Christ rules over the new manner of life with which the conscience is in accord. Luther remarks quite correctly on 1 Tim. 1:9: "Thus I have said above, that God's Law is not abolished, so that it should be no more — which is not possible — but that it should be understood spiritually, according to conscience. — Take a comparison: when a thing goes as it ought to go, no one needs to drive it; when it does what one wants, one need not command, bid, or forbid anything. And whoever undertook to command all such things would have to be a fool. — Law, however, must be given only for that which is not there, or which does not go as it ought to go," etc. Cf. Formula of Concord, p. 290, a, b.