# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1859_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On Bible-Sermons.                                                      203

for me the point I had objected to in Thesis VII of Walther's book on the
Preaching Office. You have completely misunderstood me if you assumed
that I held what Walther says in Thesis II about the divine institution
of the Office to be incompatible with the spiritual priesthood of all
believers. No — I meant and intended precisely the opposite, namely
that both must be held together, and that I only wished to fault
Walther for not having, it seemed to me, done this sufficiently. I
understood the phrase "by virtue of the congregation" in Thesis VII in a
quite different sense, misled by the words "every layman is entitled
and called to use the means of grace for himself, etc.," which I did not
refer to the case of necessity (respectively, the fundamental rights of
Christians), and therefore could not, in consequence, reconcile with the
divine order of the Office. With the help of your explanation I now
understand, of course, how Thesis VII is meant, and I not only fully
agree with the phrase "by virtue of the congregation," but also fully
recognize the importance and significance you attach to it for the
doctrine of the Office. I may indeed assure you that in everything you
write concerning the Church and the Office, I do not know a single
sentence in which I would not entirely share your opinion; much of what
you say is so exactly, word for word, what I think, that your
opponents, as you depict them, are altogether my opponents too. I
believe and confess with you the fundamental proposition from which all
our thinking about Church and Office must consistently flow: "Where
there is faith, there is Christ; where Christ is, there is everything —
that is, all the rights, promises, and gifts of His grace." Whoever
truly believes in Christ is certainly a member of His body, and
possesses just as completely and without restriction the keys of the
kingdom of heaven as the Lord Christ Himself possesses them, He who
truly dwells in His believers. In any diminishing of these propositions
I would have to see a violation of the fundamental principle of the
Gospel and of our Church, the justification by faith. — That I already
held this conviction, as expressed here, for a long time, I could
demonstrate by essays I wrote earlier; but to make myself quite clear to
you, I must add that it was only the experiences and struggles of the
recent period that helped bring the oppositions, with their
consequences, more sharply to my consciousness than before; it is this
very lack of sharpness that you, with fine and sure tact, felt and
censured throughout my letter. —

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(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)
On Bible-Sermons.

By this expression I mean sermons on biblical books, which are also
commonly called expository sermons, as distinguished from sermons on
the pericopes.

Already in the Church of God of the Old Testament, biblical books were