Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1959 · 44th Convention, San Francisco › Page 19
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1959, Page 19

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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DOCTRINAL ESSAY 19

For Jesus, however, the will of God was inextricably bound up
with Jesus’ own person. He declared Himself to be the Son of
God and the Messiah. This amazed His hearers as much as what
He taught, for He put Himself on the same level with God. (Matt.
7:28; 13:53; 7:29; Mark 1:22)

It is in the Gospel of John where we learn most clearly what
His doctrine was. It was not only an underscoring of the Law
of Moses and a stress on God’s absolute claim on man. It was
rather — and that was the distinctive aspect of His doctrine — that
as the Son of God He had come to declare the Father, to reveal
Him, and to execute the Father’s will for the redemption of man,
to die as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world, and to give
eternal life and salvation to all who believed on Him as their
Savior. Such believers would not enter into judgment, and He
would raise them up on the last day. And those who believed in
Him would live also in Him and would manifest their love for
Him by their love of the brethren.

We note also that Jesus, though He recognized the validity
of God’s Law as given in the Old Testament, rose above the false
interpretations of that Law with His majestic and authoritative
“But I say unto you” (Matt. 5:21 ff.). His authority was that of
an ambassador sent from God, who does not have His doctrine
from Himself, but from Him who sent Him (John 7:16; 8:28). And
His doctrine did not consist in exalted and esoteric wisdom in-
tended for a few brilliant minds, but in the revelation of Himself
to all who would hear Him by His words and deeds as the Messiah,
the Son of God, and the Savior of mankind. His call to repentance
demanded a conversion by God Himself, and His teaching a whole-
hearted discipleship and an absolute obedience. He Himself se-
lected the Twelve whom He meant to send out into the world.
They did not choose Him. These disciples did not become teachers
in the sense that they, too, now founded schools of thought. But
they remained faithful students of that one Master who had called
them into the service. Their task was to be His ambassadors, to
communicate His Word, which He Himself had received from the
Father, to recognize His authority as final (Matt. 26:18; Mark
14:14; Luke 22:11; Matt. 23:8), to witness to Him, to His Word
and mighty acts, in particular to His resurrection from the dead.

But just as Jesus was concerned in a positive way about the
doctrine which He taught and communicated to His disciples, so
He opposed also all false doctrines. Therefore He warned against
the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that is, their false doc-
trine. Therefore He rejected the traditions of the Jewish teachers
which had taken the place of God’s doctrine recorded in the Old
Testament. Therefore He warned against false prophets who would