LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 85

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

BIBLE STUDY AND DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS
ON WALTHER THEME

1. Alive in Christ—the Word of God

I. The Word Is “Alive in Christ”
If. The Word Makes the Church Alive in Christ

Our task in this morning hour is to walk with you into
a study of the Holy Scripture which will focus on the Word
of God as the totally inspired revelation of God to man, on
the authority of that Word of God, and on the power of
that Word. We are asked to do this keeping in mind the
theme of the convention—Alive in Christ—and also re-
membering the anniversary of Dr. C. F. W. Walther—this
year the 175th anniversary of his birth, and next year the
100th anniversary of his death.That makes for a rather
pleasant assignment, for the interrelation of these various
themes and acts of God has to be quite obvious.

One of the geniuses of Dr. Walther was certainly in the
fact that he could never be accused of “dead orthodoxy”.
He was, to be sure, totally orthodox in his theology and in
his exposition of the Scriptures. But while he was precise
and exact and insistent on the correctness of doctrine
taught from his pulpit or classroom, and through his writ-
ings in the larger church, he also insisted that the correct
understanding of doctrine was never the end in itself, but
the means to the end. Walther would never have been
satisfied with a “Bible study for the sake of Bible study”
approach to Christian education. He would always be con-
cerned about the “why” questions—the results of the study
of Scripture—the power of the Word of God—and its effects
upon the people of God.

I quote the first two paragraphs of Dr. Walther’s first
evening lecture in September of 1884—as taken from his
classic work, “The Proper Distinction Between Law and
Gospel.” He began the first of those 39 lectures by saying:

My Dear Friends:

If you are to become efficient teachers in our churches and
schools, it is a matter of indispensable necessity that you have
a most minute knowledge of all doctrines of the Christian rev-
elation. However, having achieved such knowledge, you have
not yet attained all that is needed. What is needed over and
above your knowledge of the doctrines is that you know how
to apply them correctly. You must not only have a clear per-
ception of the doctrines in your intellect, but all of them must
have entered deeply into your heart and there manifested their
divine, heavenly power. All these doctrines must have become
so precious, so valuable, so dear to you, that you cannot but
profess with a glowing heart in the words of Paul: “We believe,
therefore we have spoken,” and in the words of all the apostles:
“We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and
heard.” You have indeed not seen these things with your phys-
ical eyes or heard them with your physical ears, like the apos-
tles, but you ought to have an experience of them through your
Spiritual eyes and ears.

While in my dogmatic lectures I aim to ground you in every
doctrine and make you certain of it, I have designed these
evening lectures on Fridays for making you really practical
theologians. I wish to talk the Christian doctrine into your
very hearts, enabling you in your future calling to come for-
ward as living witnesses with a demonstration of the Spirit
and of power. I do not want you to stand in your pulpits like
lifeless statues, but to speak with confidence and with cheerful
courage offer help where help is needed.

83

Walther understood well the classic teaching of St. Paul
that the Scripture is given to make people wise unto sal-
vation through faith which is in Christ Jesus—that it is
indeed given by inspiration of God—and that its purpose
is to provide doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction
in righteousness, that the people of God might be complete,
thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And so we approach the Holy Scriptures, standing be-
fore it on holy ground, receiving and studying it with awe
and reverence, for each word in it has proceeded from the
very mouth of God—and at the same time never regarding
it simply as a collection of true and infallible teachings,
but always as the living Word, the power of God both for
salvation and for every good work.

With that in mind, and relating this study to our con-
vention theme, we would seek God’s blessing as we attempt
to make 2 brief points this morning: 1—The Holy Scrip-
tures are themselves Alive in Christ, and 2—The Holy
Scriptures are God’s means and power to make sinful hu-
man beings Alive in Christ.

I. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that, “All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God”. All Scripture is God-breathed.
Every word has proceeded from the mouth of God. There-
fore it is authoritative, therefore it is true, therefore it is
reliable, and therefore it is without error. To be sure, when
the holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, they did not speak or write as robots or dictating
machines. They spoke in their own style and even against
the background of their own experiences. And yet we affirm
that the Scriptures they wrote are verbally inspired.

The miracle of inspiration is just that—even though
written by a variety of authors and in a variety of literary
forms, every word has come from the mouth of God. That’s
what verbal inspiration means. We can very properly dig
deeply into and behind the words of Scripture. We can use
every tool at our disposal to discover what is behind the
words of Scripture historically, grammatically, culturally,
and experientially. But all of this is only to help us better
appreciate the power and meaning of the Word of God. In
His dialogue with Satan in Matthew 4, Jesus several times
based all of His claims on this simple statement: “It is
written!” That was enough. No other proof or argumen-
tation was possible or necessary. He was referring of course
to the writings of the Old Testament, even as St. Paul was
when he claimed that “All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God.”

But Jesus makes it clear that the same authority—an
authority rooted in the divine inspiration of the Scrip-
tures—applied to the fulfillment of the Old Testament as
well. The Old Testament, He claimed in John 5, testifies
of Him. Jesus demanded the same acceptance for His