LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 16

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16 : DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

by the prophets, and finally proclaimed and revealed
by Christ among the Jews and spread by the apostles
throughout the world.” (Ap. XII, 53)

This classic distinction of Law and Gospel, which
means the Law in the service of the Gospel, hence, the
primacy of the Gospel, is the unique contribution of
the Lutheran Reformation, which the Formula of Con-
cord calls “an especially brilliant light which serves the
purpose that the Word of God may be rightly divided
and the writings of the holy prophets and apostles may
be explained and understood correctly” (S.D. V, 1).
“The Word of God ... leads us to Christ, who is the
‘Book of Life’” (Ep. XI, 7). Thus the what of the Bible
in its ultimate dimension is Christ.

And that at once suggests the what for. The Bible
has only one purpose, and that is to confront a rebel-
lious humanity with God-—the God who, in Luther’s
vigorous language, through the Law “with one blow
destroys both open sinners and false saints. He allows
no one to justify himself. He drives all together into
terror and despair .. . in order that they might know
how they stood before God and recognize themselves
as lost men. In this way they were to be prepared to
receive grace from the Lord and to expect and accept
from Him the forgiveness of sins” (S.A. III, iii, 2 ff.).
“To this end,” says the Formula of Concord, “in His
boundless kindness and mercy, God provides for the
public proclamation of His divine, eternal Law and the
wonderful counsel concerning our redemption, namely,
the holy and only saving Gospel of His eternal Son, our
only Savior and Redeemer.” (S.D. II, 50)

This sole purpose of the Scriptures is also the sole
purpose of the church, for the Scriptures are the sole
norm and judge of all that is to be taught and preached
in the church. The church is the assembly of true
believers in whose midst the Gospel is purely preached
and the sacraments are administered in accordance with
Christ’s institution.

It will not be possible even to begin saying all that
could be said about the confessional attitude toward
the Scriptures. I can only urge you all to read the Book
of Concord, particularly in the new, smoothly flowing
English translation, to discover for yourself how com-
pletely our Reformation fathers were committed to the
Holy Scriptures as the Word of God and, as such, the
inexhaustible source of spiritual power. I should like
to use what time remains to suggest some applications
to our church and to our own situation.

We remember that the Confessions are the voice of
the church, a great chorus of many thousands of voices
expressing their harmonious consensus. The people
who wrote the Confessions, and those who subscribed
to them, claimed thereby to be the kind of church God
wanted them to be. Since the 16th century all churches
that have accepted the Lutheran Symbols as a true
response to God’s revelation have by their subscription
expressed their desire to be the kind of church envi-
sioned by the Symbols.

And this is the platform of The Lutheran Church —

Missouri Synod: The Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran
Confessions. So states our Synod’s constitution, Ar-
ticle II, Confession: “Synod, and every member of
Synod, accepts without reservation: 1. The Scriptures
of the Old and the New Testament as the written Word
of God and the only rule and norm of faith and of
practice; 2. All the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated state-
ment and exposition of the Word of God.” This really
means, the Scriptures alone, from the perspective of
the Symbols. That is to say, we who subscribe to the
Lutheran Confessions because they are a correct exposi-
tion of the Scriptures want to be the kind of church
they picture.

What does this mean?

Luther’s 95 Theses, which in the light of history trig-
gered the Reformation, begin with a call to repentance,
and the Lutheran Confessions take up this call and
make it their own. All of them place strong emphasis
on repentance. Recall the words of Luther in the Smal-
cald Articles: “This is what the beginning of true re-
pentance is like. Here man must hear such a judgment
as this: ‘You are all of no account. Whether you
are manifest sinners or saints, you must all become
other than you now are and do otherwise than you now
do, no matter who you are and no matter how great,
wise, mighty, and holy you may think yourselves. Here
no one is godly.’” (S.A. III, iii, 2 ff.)

Accepting the Symbols, as we profess to do, we must
be a repenting church. Of course, repentance is required
of individuals, but the church is nothing but a company
of individuals. Surely, no one will want to deny that
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, corporately
and individually, has much to repent of: all its sins
against faith and love, all its failures and wrongs on
all levels and in all areas of the work of the Lord.

Second, and above all, the Confessions emphasize
the holy Gospel, not only as the chief article of doctrine
but as the standard to which all of theology and all
life and work of the church must be oriented. We want
to be an evangelical church, say the Lutherans. We
want all progress and success in the work of the church,
all programs and methods, to be the fruit of, and con-
form to, the Gospel of the inexpressibly rich and patient
mercy of God in Christ. And so say we, as we profess
adherence to the Lutheran Symbols.

It is to be regretted that the word “evangelical” is
disappearing from more and more official names of Lu-
theran bodies. The presence of the word does not in-
deed guarantee a corresponding attitude, nor does its
absence signify an unevangelical attitude. But surely,
in its approach to its preaching and practice, its pro-
grams and methods, its activity in the parish and the
church at large, its professional training system and its
corporate administration, any church sincerely com-
mitted to the Lutheran Confessions has to be governed
by the Gospel with all that this implies of spontaneous,
seeking, fraternal, hallowed, edifying, winsome, self-
forgetful ‘love. ,