# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1864_S275
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Christian Catechism; a Guide to Religious Instruction. 275

to be valid, since σαρξ is well known in Scripture by no means always to bear this grossly material meaning—indeed the corresponding Hebrew word is used precisely in connection with the resurrection. Job 19:25. That the angels "cooperate in the salvation of men" is, at best, highly liable to misunderstanding. Scripture testifies that the salvation of men is already accomplished, that besides the Lord there is no Savior. In connection with the doctrine of the evil angels, the catechism mentions the physical chaos supposed to have arisen from their fall. It is, to be sure, not the purpose of the present work to enter into a refutation of this assumption, but the question involuntarily forces itself upon everyone: what business has that in a catechism? The catechism further says: the seduction by Satan does indeed lessen man's guilt in being redeemed, but does not remove his guilt. According to the immediately following words—"We cannot feel deeply enough that sin is our own personal guilt"—this lessening cannot refer to any small degree of guilt on the part of man; and to assume a lessening on God's part is destitute of any foundation, since Scripture is silent about it, and the apostle Paul says: How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? To be brief, we suppress various other objections that forced themselves upon us in reading the second part of the catechism, and call attention only to its highly questionable, and, on account of its consequences, extremely dangerous doctrine of the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. First it states: Here it must moreover be noted that Christ, during the state of humiliation, divested himself of the possession, or at any rate in every case of the full use, of his divine attributes, of power and of knowledge, and only with his exaltation entered again into the full possession of the same. Whereas the catechism leaves it undecided here whether Christ's humiliation consisted in the divesting of the possession or of the full use of his divine attributes, it explains itself more definitely later, on the question: Wherein does Christ's exaltation consist? More precisely: in this, that after accomplishing the work of redemption he returned to the full possession of his eternal glory. If it is true that Christ divested himself of the possession, and not merely of the full use, of his divine attributes, the inevitable consequence would be that he was not true God in the state of his humiliation; for the divine attributes are inseparably bound up with the divine essence, so that where the former are lacking, the latter cannot be present either. Now if this is the definite doctrine of the catechism, which it instills in its pupils—although it contradicts this doctrine elsewhere, when it says: Jesus Christ is the God-man, that is, true God and true man in one undivided person, and remains so for eternity—where then remains the comfort that we are truly redeemed? Could Christ have redeemed us at all, if he had not been true, almighty God while he was accomplishing the work of redemption? Most striking