Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1959 · 44th Convention, San Francisco › Page 22
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1959, Page 22

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

22 DOCTRINAL ESSAY

commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son
Jesus Christ and love one another” (1 John 3:23). And he re-
peatedly uses the terms “truth” and “doctrine” obviously as a sum-
mary of the total doctrine which he had received from the Master.
He, too, like Paul, warns against false Christs, which he calls
antichrists, who are attempting to deceive the members of the
church. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits
to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone
out into the world” (1 John 4:1 RSV). “John does not treat
Christianity as a religion containing elements of truth, or even
more truth than any religion which had preceded it. John presents
Christianity to the soul as a religion which necessarily has every-
thing to it, if it is not really to be worse than nothing” (Alex. Ross,
The Epistles of James and John, pp.171,172). Similar warnings
against false doctrine and false teachers we find in the Epistles
of Peter, in Jude, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

We can make only a summary statement regarding the con-
cern of great Christian leaders after the death of the apostles for
the truth and purity of Christian doctrine. In retrospect it appears
that whenever the church was attacked by errorists and heretics,
the Lord of the church raised up stalwart confessors of the truth
who were prepared to suffer all, even death, in defense of sound
doctrine. We think, for instance of Athanasius, the true originator
of the Nicene Creed adopted in 325, who throughout his life
defended the deity of Christ and helped clarify for Christians on
the basis of Scripture the relation between the F ather, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. The Missouri Synod recognized the great
theological contribution made by Athanasius when it in 1926,
at the dedication of the new Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, hon-
ored the memory of Athanasius by an archway bearing a plaque
with this inscription: “Athanasius, 296—373, Preserver of the Faith
of Christendom, Victorious Defender of the Doctrine of the Deity
of Christ, Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake, Revered to Endless
Ages.” We think, too, with gratitude to God of the great ecumenical
councils in the fourth and fifth centuries, which have sometimes
been stingingly referred to as quarrels among theologians (“Theo-
logen-Gezank”), but which were in truth dominated by a pro-
found concern to preserve the truth of Scripture and to establish
unity in the church of Christ.

As we skip over the centuries constituting what we are wont to
call the Middle Ages, we pause whenever we think of the sixteenth
century. For in this century, too, God raised up a great leader,
Martin Luther, who with his loyal co-workers purified the church
from doctrinal errors that had crept in over the centuries, and who
attempted to restore the church doctrinally to the church of the

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