LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 21

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DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 21

not provoke your children to wrath, ye fathers, by over-
emphasis on the Law and underemphasis on the Gospel.
Do not “overcorrect your children” (Eph. 6:4 Phillips).
But do overwhelm them with the mercies of God in
Christ Jesus, the Man and the God.

It is natural for us to emphasize the Law in our
dealings with men; it is supernatural for us to empha-
size the Gospel to men into whose hearts the God of
all grace has struck deeply with the pangs of conscience,
the arrows of affliction, the loneliness of pain, the fears
of failure, and the dejection of defeat. If you are in
doubt whether you should say, “Thou art the man,”
or, “Behold the Man,” point your finger upward to God,
and speak of Him whose cross is at once the mightiest
preaching of the Law and the mightiest preaching of
the Gospel.

This convention hall is not an exhibition hall of per-
fect people. It is an assembly of sinners who have been
made saints by the justifying grace of God in Christ
Jesus. In this hall and in this church body are par-
doned penitents living in repentance whose eyes have
been opened to see death in their sins and life in their
Savior. If we are “sainted sinners,” then let us not
succumb to a strange type of perfectionism which ex-
pects the impossible of the brotherhood. We shall need
to practice much forgiveness in this place because there
are only sinners here. Let us not give the impression
to the world and to the rest of Christendom that Mis-
souri thinks more highly of herself than she ought to
think. If we must have an image, let it be the image of
a repentant church.

To the world everywhere we say: “Come unto Him,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and He will
give you rest” (see Matt. 11:28). We know. We have
come to Him. That is why we have come to Cleveland
in His name.

iil

The Confessional Church Views
the Ecumenical Movement

Fred Kramer
Concordia Seminary, Springfield

This morning we wish as a confessional church to
view the Ecumenical Movement. We shall do well, as
we set out to do this, to remind ourselves of what this
means, that we are a confessional church. This means
that we are committed to, and honestly desire and strive
to be loyal to, our Confessions as they are contained
in the Book of Concord.

Anyone who attentively reads the Lutheran Con-
fessions cannot long remain ignorant of the fact that
these Confessions have very definite moorings to which
they are inseparably attached. From the first Confes-
sion to the last they take their stand on the Holy
Scriptures.

When the Formula of Concord, the very last of the
great Lutheran Confessions, states in its opening para-
graph: “We believe, teach, and confess that the sole

rule and standard according to which all dogmas to-
gether with all teachers should be estimated and judged
are the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old
and of the New Testament alone” (Triglot Concordia,
p.777), it is only giving clear and precise enunciation
to the formal principle which guided the Lutheran con-
fessors from the first to the last.

However, in making the prophetic and apostolic
Scriptures the sole source and norm of doctrine, the
Lutheran Confessors did not make the mistake that is
at times made by well-meaning men, the mistake of
interpreting the Scriptures according to uncertain prin-
ciples, much less according to man-made standards —
they had found the very heart and core of all Scripture
in the Gospel of God’s free grace in Christ Jesus, who
by means of His holy precious blood and of His inno-
cent suffering and death had made an atonement for
the sins of men and who now calls all men to faith in
Christ through the Gospel and freely justifies men
through faith.

This Gospel of Christ is always foremost in the minds
of the Confessors. From the vantage point of the Gospel
they judge and evaluate all doctrine and practices in
the church. And so throughout the Augsburg Confes-
sion and its Apology we frequently read that such and
such a doctrine or practice of the adversaries is “against
the Gospel.” Indeed, without an understanding of the
Gospel, the Confessors believed, the Holy Scripture
could not be understood, but where the Gospel is purely
held, there the church has the key to a correct under-
standing of the Scripture.

In this vein the Apology says in the article on Justi-
fication: “In this controversy the chief topic of Christian
doctrine is treated, which, understood aright, illumines
and amplifies the honor of Christ [which is of especial
service for the clear, correct understanding of the entire
Holy Scriptures and alone shows the way to the un-
speakable treasure and right knowledge of Christ and
alone opens the door to the entire Bible],” etc. (Trigl.,
p. 121)

This custom of our Confessions to take their stand
squarely on the Gospel and to judge from that vantage
point is most evident also in the Smalcald Articles.
There Luther first of all clearly sets forth what Christ
has done for our redemption and how we are justified
by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith. And then
he says: “Of this article nothing can be yielded or sur-
rendered, even though heaven and earth, and whatever
will not abide, should sink to ruin... . And upon
this article all things depend which we teach and prac-
tice in opposition to the pope, the devil, and the world.”
(Trigl., pp. 461, 463)

In discussing and evaluating the doctrines of the
adversaries which these sought to press on Luther and
his followers, Luther takes his stand on this chief ar-
ticle, the doctrine of justification by grace for Christ’s
sake through faith, that is, as already Melanchthon had
done in the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, on
the Gospel; and from this vantage point he judges the