LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 32

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32 DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

vidually or collectively, may properly join other pro-
fessed Christians, who are not in full doctrinal agree-
ment with them, in religious activities such as worship
and church work? Self-evidently, the question of who
is to be regarded as a Christian can be answered only
on the basis of profession not on what is in the other
person’s heart.

I suggest that we start with the Christian’s relation-
ship to God, or the explicit and implicit requirements
of being disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are
familiar with the directives of our Lord to those who
would be His disciples. They are asked to deny them-
selves, to take up their cross, to forsake all, to love Him
more than father or mother, son or daughter, to confess
Him before men, to be with Him in a clear-cut align-
ment against all competing claims, to be ready to suf-
fer reproach and persecution for His name’s sake, to
abide in Him, to continue in His Word, to keep His com-
mandments, to love God with all their hearts, souls,
minds, and strength, to fear God above all, to beware
of false prophets and of the leaven of the Pharisees,
to bring forth much fruit, to let their light shine and
to glorify the Father in heaven, to bear witness to Christ,
to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, to make
disciples of all nations, to be perfect as the Father in
heaven is perfect, to be one with all believers even as
Christ and the Father are one, to seek first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, not to offend the little
ones who believe in Him, to be alert and ready always
for the Lord’s return. This does not exhaust the list
of imperatives which the Lord addresses to all who
want to be His disciples.

Is it not a Staggering array? Time does not, of
course, permit even a superficial analysis of all these
words of Christ in their manifold contexts. No attempt
has been made to bring them all into a neat arrange-
ment. The purpose has been simply to be overwhelmed
by the all-encompassing claims of the Lord upon those
who by faith call Him Lord. So radical and so exalted
is the commitment which the Head of the church re-
quires of the members of His body that there is no room
at all for a breezy nonchalance and an easygoing free-
wheeling. Christ gave no less than His all, His very
life for us. He asks us to yield Him our all, our very
selves, no less.

This perspective must.determine my course of action
in all areas of my life, in all relations, whether personal,
domestic, or social — or religious. The first question
should not be, Is this unionism, but rather, What does
this act do to my disciple relationship, to my acknowl-
edgment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ? If I talk to
this professing Christian or pray with that fellow Lu-
theran or fellow Christian or cooperate in the promo-

. tion of some project related to the worship and work

of the church with another denomination — does this
perforce manifest an abridgment of my Lord’s total
claim upon me? Does this automatically involve denial
of His name, departure from His Word, sanction of false
doctrine, an occasion for my fellow believer to suffer
injury or loss to his faith? Does it prevent me from

hallowing God’s name, from letting His kingdom come
or His will be done? Does it display indifference to the
purity of the Gospel? Does it give aid and comfort to
the enemies of the cross of Christ? Does it abuse the
holy injunction of total love to God and to the neighbor,
or does it aid and abet a legalistic perfectionism? It is
in terms of questions such as these that the rightness
or wrongness of my religious contacts with other Chris-
tians should be evaluated.

It may well be that in this light I must conclude
that a specific activity will stand condemned as union-
istic. But can this be determined in advance? Can it
ever be settled automatically by quoting a father or
by having recourse to an alleged “historic position”?
Must not our judgment be made anew at each concrete
occasion on the basis of our disciple relationship as
clearly stated for us in the Word of the Lord?

From this vantage point, then, I may act freely,
so long as my attitudes and actions conform to the
principles inculcated by the Lord Himself, unless and
until I am confronted with specific admonitions and
prohibitions. Such directives may reasonably be ex-
pected in that portion of the New Testament in which
the ascended Lord’s church is seen in action in actual
life situations and the inspired teachers of the church
deal with the practical problems of the church, as seen
in the Acts and the epistles. Here we may see how
the first disciples absorbed and were now applying the
guidelines which their Lord had given them.

Those first Christians took the apostles’ doctrine and
fellowship very seriously. They wanted no untruthful
elements to pervert the purity of their fellowship. They
would brook no moral laxity. They wanted to live and
work in full view of the expected imminent return of
their glorified King and to’ save themselves from their
crooked and perverse generation.

Several accents in particular stand out: the pervad-
ing concern for preserving and manifesting the unity
of all the Christians from one end of the empire to the
other; the detestation of all that made for disunity and
schism. To this end they condemned all that threatened
to undermine the Gospel of Christ, all that sprang from
selfishness, pride, legalism, contentiousness, lovelessness,
and_ worldliness. Contrariwise, they extolled and
pleaded incessantly for faith and loyalty to Christ, for
brotherly love, for humility, gentleness, patience, for-
bearance, and mutual assistance. Read the letters of the
apostles and see for yourself.

The Christians at Rome are reminded that all believ-
ers are one body in Christ and every one members one
of another and that all should be kindly affectioned one
to another with brotherly love and be of one mind one
toward another. They are to owe no man anything but
to love one another. They should receive the weak
in faith, not put a stumbling block in the brother’s way,
walk charitably, follow after the things that make for
peace and things wherewith one may edify another.
They should be like-minded one toward another accord-
ing to Christ Jesus that they may with one mind and
one mouth glorify God, and receive one another, as