# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S361
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Proposal and Specimen for the Preparation of a Bible Commentary etc. 361

that we have one through whom we are made acceptable to God, even though we are
still caught in sin: for he looks not upon us but upon his beloved Son, in whom
we also find favor with him. Therefore those act foolishly who wish to deal with
God by works and thereby set this means aside. (11, 2838.)

*

Appendix C.

Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles of St. Luke, chapter 1, verses 1–11, from
Dr. Luther, Brentius, Jonas, and the Symbolical Books.

Verse 1.

The former treatise have I made, dear Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both
to do and to teach. a

Notes. Before Luke describes the ascension of Christ, which he had mentioned
only briefly at the close of his Gospel, he connects this book with the former
one in such a way that he briefly sums up what he had there treated at length.
Br.

a) Accordingly the whole office of Christ, during his visible walk on earth,
consisted of two things, namely, in doing — that is, in the performing of
miracles — and in teaching, or in the preaching of the Gospel. So too the two
disciples on the road to Emmaus testified that Christ had been a prophet,
mighty in deed and word, Luke 24:19. Br.

Christ was such a preacher as carried God's word not in his mouth alone, but
also proved it by the deed, L. 13, 721. W. A.

Applications. Works are to go before the teaching; otherwise it is hypocrisy,
where there are words without works, L. 11, 241. — It is plain that there is a
great difference between teaching and life, just as there is a great
difference between heaven and earth. Life may well be unclean, sinful, and
frail, but the teaching must be pure, holy, unmixed, and constant. Life may
well fail to hold all that the teaching requires, but the teaching (says
Christ, Matt. 5:18) must not fail by so much as a title or a letter, even
though life may lack a whole word or line [Riege] in the teaching. The reason
is this: the teaching is God's own word and God's own truth; but life belongs
to our doing. Therefore the teaching must remain wholly pure; and where
someone fails and is frail in life, God can well have patience and forgive.
But the teaching itself, according to which one is to live — that he can and
will not suffer to be altered or set aside, nor should it be suffered; for
that touches his own high divine majesty itself, where no forgiving or
patience holds, unless one lets it stand in peace, undisturbed. L. 16, 2029.

Verse 2.

Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he, through the Holy
Ghost, had given commandment unto the apostles whom he had chosen (that they
should be ambassadors in Christ's stead and should preach the Gospel in all
the world. Rdgl.)

Verse 3.

To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion, by many