LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1967, Page 66

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66 THE DOCTRINAL ESSAY

but as participants in the real drama of life. The role
of the saints extends to every part of life, public and
private, professional and personal, in the community
and in one’s own family. In the ordinary life of the
saints the holy life of the church becomes discernible,
as St.Paul says: “Be subject to one another out of
reverence to Christ. Wives, be subject to your hus-
bands as to the Lord. The husband is the head of the
wife as Christ is the Head of the church and is Himself
its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let
wives also be subject to their husbands. Husbands, love

your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Him- .

self up for her, that He might sanctify her, having
cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word,
that the church might be presented before Him in
splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so
husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever
hates his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, as
Christ does the church, because we are members of
His body.”

The holy church of Christ lives as Christ lives in
the saints by faith. The holy church of God forgives
as saints forgive who are themselves forgiven. The
holy church of God is the new Israel, God’s own people,
a priesthood set apart, bringing its own sacrifices to
God holy and acceptable in Jesus Christ.

W. E. Sangster has pointed out, this is not a holiness
found in retreat or in spiritual ecstatics or in hypo-
critical perfectionism or in the cult or holiness; rather
it is a holiness found at home by the washtub as well
as in the chapel, at the executive’s desk as well as in
the church pew, at the wheel of a car as well as in
a Bible class, in community enterprises as well as at
the altar.

Repentant

The world bestows a certain grudging admiration on
its adulterers and adulteresses, Not so God! God hon-
ors His saints, who live by faith in Christ and are faith-
ful to Him despite all their desperate weaknesses,
Through faith in Christ, saints of God’s own making
are a penitent people. Indeed, penitence is one of the
outstanding marks of their holiness.

The church which cannot repent is not the church.
Repentance requires a clear eye so that we do not re-
pent of the wrong things — that we repent of our faith-
fulness and forget our unfaithfulness, that we repent
of the forward look which takes the church down the
unforeseen path with faith in God and concentrate in-
stead on the backward look which Paul said he had
put behind him that he might press forward toward
the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ.

Repentance is a kind of self-loathing which does not
result, however, in self-contempt. That would be a dead
end. The road along which God leads the church is
a glory road. It is the road of faith. The church of
God is never beyond hope. It is always open to reform
and renewal. It looks to God for strength and power,
and He looks upon it with His benign favor,

Christ’s Bride
To the Lord Jesus Christ the church looks like a

bride — His bride. Brides can become adulteresses, but

not this one. She is the bride of Christ, and He loves
her. He gave Himself up for her that He might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with
the Word, that the church might be presented before
Him in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Again we come face to face with the great fact in the life
of the church: justification of the sinner before God,
complete and entire, through the blood of Christ, who
made the all-sufficient sacrifice that He might present
the church to His Father holy and without blemish.

The church needs the prophetic voice of protest
against the evils of the world and against evils within
the church itself. That voice cannot be tinged with
cynicism — not in the face of what the Scriptures tell
us regarding the holiness of the church. This is the
community of the living disciples of Christ. It is the
priestly community where the constant attitude is one
of worship toward the God and Father of Jesus Christ.
It is constantly engaged in prayer and intercession for
all men and in works of mercy that know no boundaries.
It is a joyous community, constantly declaring the won-
drous works of God, who has called the saints out of
darkness into the marvelous light of Jesus Christ. It is
a witnessing community whose corporate testimony is
at the same time the witness of every believer. It puts
the Gospel to work even as it takes the Gospel out into
the world. It is a loving community, bringing deliver-
ance to the captives and to those who sit in darkness.
Just think, my brethren—we are a party to this great
miracle —God’s handiwork in the world —the holy
church of the living God.

Catholic

In Stephen’s great sermon, Acts 7, the martyr was
talking about Moses, who had been declared by the
angels to be both ruler and deliverer and then led
Israel out after having performed wonders and signs
in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty
years. “This is the Moses,” said Stephen, “who said to
the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet from
your brethren as He raised me up.’ This is he who was
in the ekklesia in the wilderness with the angel speaking
to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. There he
received living logia to give to us.”

Acts 9:31 talks about the ekklesia, not only at Jeru-
salem but throughout all Judea and Galilee and Sa-
maria, which, following the conversion of Paul, experi-
enced peace and was built up, walking in the fear of
the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and
thus was multiplied.

In Paul’s Letters

In Rom.16:5 Paul tells the Christians at Rome to
greet Priscilla and Aquilla, who had risked their necks
to save his life, for which all the ekklesiai of the Gentiles

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