LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 92

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90 BIBLE STUDY AND DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

the world began (Eph. 1 :4). By the power of the Holy Spirit
we have been incorporated into the church, and we have
His own promise that not even the gates of hell can prevail
against it (Matt. 16:18).

In the third place, we have been made alive in Christ
by the power of the Spirit working through the marks of
the church, the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. This truth
has two very important implications. On the one hand, this
teaches us that the unity of the church comes into being
through the means of grace. But this means that the basis
for the visible unity which God wants those who are one
in Him to manifest (John 17) must not compromise or con-
tradict the Gospel through which the unity of the church
is created in the first place. Dr. Walther reminds us:
“Everyone is obligated by his salvation to flee all false
teachers and avoid fellowship with heterodox congrega-
tions or sects.”® Association with a visible, orthodox con-
gregation is not a matter of indifference. Those who think
accommodation to perversions and distributions of the
Gospel are permissible make the same error as those who
think that just because Christians continue to commit sins
of weakness after they come to faith in Christ, they can
therefore knowingly and maliciously continue to do that
which is contrary to God’s will. Jesus’ last words before
His ascension were “teaching them to observe all that I
have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20 RSV).

But the fact that the church comes into being by the
power of the Spirit working through the means of grace
also teaches us that God is at work gathering for Himself
“a holy church of elect persons,” to use Walther’s words,
“also there where His Word is not taught in complete pu-
rity and the sacraments are not administered totally ac-
cording to the institution of Jesus Christ, if God’s Word
and the sacraments are not denied entirely.”* Let us never
forget this as we cooperate and dialog with, witness to, and
talk about our brothers and sisters in Christ in other Chris-
tian denominations.

Over the years in my work with our Synod’s Commis-
sion on Theology and Church Relations, I have found the
words of 1 Peter 3:15 increasingly appropriate and mean-
ingful for our work: “In your hearts remember Christ as
Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone
who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do
it with gentleness and reverence” (RSV). The very nature
of the church compels us always to be prepared to give an

answer for the hope nm Christ that is in us. This means

that we must ever be prepared to confess, and yes, to give
a defense for that precious Gospel through which we have
been made alive in Jesus Christ. But, it also means that
we are constrained to make our defense of the hope that
is ours in Christ with gentleness and reverence, winsomely
and with grace. Here, too, Dr. Walther, defending his will-
ingness to be open for discussion with other Lutherans,
gives us some good advice regarding the dangers of falling
into the clutches of an arrogant, separatistic spirit:

Ifthose who by God’s grace have come to recognize the glory
of all our churchly confessions timidly withdraw from all those
who have the same faith but not the same knowledge, an
equally . . . dreadful danger would threaten, namely, that the
one part would become guilty of a pharisaic, carnal, spiritually
proud, loveless insistence on its strict confessionalism, while
the other part, instead of being filled with confidence and love
for the continued puilding and further fortification of our
confessional castle, would more and more be scared off as from
a prison tower of the spirit and of faith. In consequence, the
work of rejuvenating our church in America on the old tried
foundation, a work so obviously begun by God, would be halted
even though there was the best intention to further it.”

Thank God, you and I, as members of Christ’s body, the
church, are alive in Christ! May He now give to us the
grace to be about the task of proclaiming the Gospel with
renewed excitement, always “speaking the truth in love”
(Eph. 4:15 RSV).

Prayer

Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank and praise You
for making us members of Your body, the church, through
faith in Your Son. Forgive us for our indifference to the
truth of Your Word, and for our loveless lack of concern
for all our fellow members of Your body. Give us, we pray,
hearts on fire to share the life-giving Gospel so that Your
kingdom may come and all people everywhere may know
the joy and the hope of being made alive in Christ. In His
glorious name we pray. Amen.

Samuel H. Nafzger

Notes

1. Quoted by Carl S. Mundinger in Government in the Missouri
Synod, 1947, p. 210.

2. Robert Bellarmine, Disputationes, Paris, 1615, I, p. 34.

3. Walther on the Church, CPH, 1981, p. 34.

4. Ibid., p. 31.

5. Ibid., p. 52.

6. Ibid., p. 45-46

7. Editorials from Lehre und Wehre, CPH, 1981, p- Al.

4. Alive in Christ—the Local Congregation

Mr. President, chaplain, honored delegates and friends:

An old proverb tells us (Goethe):

“What from the fathers has come down to you, be sure to earn

it that you might possess it.

Our theme this morning is: “ALIVE IN CHRIST—THE
LOCAL CONGREGATION.”

As you think of your own home congregation at this
moment, what pictures come to your mind? What do you
see?—People at worship? A support community which

helps people in need? Enthusiastic youth? Families? Par-
ish school and Sunday schools? An outreach-mission pro-
gram?

Now take the image you have of your local congregation
and then ask yourself? “How does it function?” How do you
do things together?

The Bible has much to say about the church, the eccle-

sia, the people called out from the world to be God’s people,
to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

enantio nimeni