LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 236

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

236 PRESIDENT’S REPORT

horse and say nothing more than: ‘The holy Christian Church
has not yet passed judgment upon it and approved it’ With
the words ‘Christian Church’ they arrest the attention of
both the simple-minded and the conceited. . . . ‘How is
this?’ they say; ‘the Christian Church has not yet passed
her decision; Christendom has not yet spoken’; and then
they wait for councils and diets, where the doctors assemble,
deliberate, and draw their conclusions. As long as this pro-
cedure is not followed, they remain neutral. Now both the
foolish and the ‘wise’ determine to wait until the Christian
Church has come to some conclusion; for one man is speaking
this way, another otherwise; the Christian Church is still
undecided; we want to continue in the faith of our fathers
until a conclusion is reached as to what is right; and then
they turn up their noses at the simple-minded. We do not
deny for instance that Jesus was to come out of Bethlehem,
but for that reason we do not say that He was not to come
out of Galilee, John 7: 40-43. Furthermore, this also is true:
Whoever is not in the Christian Church and teaches doc-
trines not acceptable to the Church is a false preacher
through and through... . But when they say they desire
to wait until the Church has uttered her voice, let the devil
do the waiting; I shall not tarry that long. For the Christian
Church has already decided everything. ... This deciding
is not accomplished through some outward assembly. There
is a spiritual council, and no convention of men is necessary
for that. We may hold a council to decide how we should
fast and pray, how we should clothe ourselves, how articles
of faith are correctly confirmed and confessed, or how other
questions should be judged, as was done in the Council of
Nicaea. But no council is necessary to decide whether the
Christian doctrine is right. I say I accept Baptism and the
Sacrament of the Altar and believe that the Gospel is true
and holy. Should someone reply: Well, your faith is wrong,
then trouble begins. Therefore a spiritual council is neces-
sary that my brother may believe as I believe and preach,
that all Christians everywhere may have the same faith and
be united... . The Christian Church is not an assemblage
of bishops’ and cardinals’ hats. Such a concourse may be
or may grow into a council, but it is not the Christian
Church. For the Church cannot be gathered into one locality;
she is scattered throughout the whole world. She believes
as I believe; and I believe as she believes. There is nothing
conflicting or dissimilar in our belief... . Let this be your
attitude: If you want to be the true Church and bear her
precious name, give this broper proof thereof: teach doctrine
correctly, as the holy Christian Church teaches it; live as
she lives; give evidence of your faith and the fruit of faith;
prove that you are the Christian Church.” Luther accordingly
says that a doctrine does not become certain through the
decision of the Church; but when the Church passes a cor-
rect decision, then it becomes certain that she is the true
Church. Christians indeed believe the Church as a minister-
ing judge, but only as a judge that examines and confirms,
not as one that hands down decrees by virtue of his office
or authority. (On John 7: 40-44, VIII: 97-102.)

The following words are also from Luther’s pen: “A sav-
ing is the Word of God not because it is proclaimed by the
Church, but because the Word of God is proclaimed, there-
fore there exists the Church. The Church does not create the
Word, but is made through the Word. The presence of the
Word of God in any locality is a sure sign of the existence
of the Church in that place. So St. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 14:
24, 25: . ‘just as an unbeliever vrostrates himself and
confesses that God is truly present because he hears them
prophesying.’ Not the Church but the Word of God has
moved him, whereby he has been overcome and judged.”
(On the Abuse of the Mass, A. D. 1521. XIX:1081.) Again, in
regard to waiting for the decision of the Church Luther wrote
as follows: “Who in the meantime is preaching to the
Christians, while the schism is being adiusted and settled?
Yes, it is easy to juggle with councils and the Fathers when
one fools around with letters of the alphabet or constantly
postpones a council, as has been done for the past twenty
years, and has no thought for the souls that should be fed
with reliable doctrine, as Christ says in John 21:6: Pasce
oves meas.” (Article on Councils and Churches, A. D. 1539,
XVI: 2178.) Some indeed answer that the controverted doc-
trines, or “at least those points which are most in dispute,
had better be excluded altogether from proclamation in the
Christian pulpit.”. What prudent advice! What, then, “hap-

pens to the souls that one should feed with reliable doc-
trine?” Or has God perhaps revealed unnecessary things?
Indeed, is certainty on any point of faith an unnecessary
thing when a controversy has arisen and consciences are dis-
turbed over those points? “Good consciences,” says the Apo-
logy of the Augsburg Confession, “are crying out for the
truth and sound instruction from the Word of God; and for
them death is not so bitter as doubt in some point of faith.”
(Of Confession and Satisfaction, Trigl., p. 290,32.) “But it is
likely that there are many in many places who waver con-
cerning matters of no light importance and yet do not hear
such teachers as are able to heal their consciences.” (Trigl.,
p. 291, 33.) God preserve us from such a perpetual “interim”
which some men would bring upon our Church today through
such principles!

Just one more testimony from our beloved Luther. In the
introduction to a sermon by Guettel, in 1541, he wrote as fol-
lows: “Guettel is writing against the exspectantes, i. e., those
who are waiting for a council. They may be wise and pru-
dent people who thus wait and stake their salvation upon
some human ordinance, but they are fulfilling the proverb:
A wise man will not commit a small folly; or they must be
entirely ignorant and inexperienced concerning the Christian
faith, not being able to discern the wide difference between
the Word of God and the word of man. I would, however,
not fault them for this, because up to the present time the
world, deceived by the Pope, was forced to believe that de-
crees of councils were just as valid as, yes, even more valid
than, the Word of God, which (thank God) at the present
time not even the ducks and the geese, the mice and the lice,
among us would believe if it were possible for them to be-
lieve something. But he who does not hear anything cannot
learn anything, and he who cannot or will not hear cannot
or will not learn and know. Such exspectantes we commend
to the mercy of God.” (XIV: 392.)

Dannhauer therefore classifies the practise of the Roman
Catholic Church as conservative syncretism because it per-
mits freedom in non decisis, i.e., freedom in points not yet
decided by the Church. Gerhard declares this practise to be
skepticism. The statement of the Jesuit Dillinger “Just as in
the days of the most ancient Fathers, so today in the interest
of unity of faith and peace differing opinions are permissible
in those points of religion which the Church has not yet de-
fined as long as every one is ready to submit himself to the
judgment of the Church” js answered by Gerhard as follows:
“What absurdity! Since the Pope can establish new articles
of faith, the papists can never be certain about dogmas, but
must always remain skeptics. . . . According to Bellarmine’s
admission the Church cannot make any book canonical, but
only declare it to be canonical. In like manner an opinion is
heretical even when no ‘decision’ has confirmed it... . The
certainty of dogmas does not depend on the judgment of the
Church. but on the divine revelation in Holy Writ, a fact
which Christ and the apostles ever hold before our eyes....
The certainty of Holy Writ disappears if its statements must
first be confirmed by the decrees of the Church. Then also
all means of sound Bible interpretation which have been
employed with great success bv the entire Church are sur-
rendered and cast overboard.” (Consideratio Quarund.
Queestt., etc. Jenae, 1631, p. 1.)

It is indeed true that our Church, together with the Roman
Church, has always denied the validity of a private interpre-
tation of Scripture, but each Church in an entirely different
sense. In the Roman Church a private interpretation is that
of an unofficial individual, and the correct interpretation is
that which has been approved by the Church in her public
decrees. But our Church considers that interpretation private
which, according to 2 Pet. 1:20, rests on human reason and
biased points of view; for when the apostle says “that no
prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation”
(idiacg émadcews ob yivetai; Vulgate: propria interpretatione
non fit), he does not mean to say that the official interpreta-
tion of the Church is the correct one. but rather that an in-
terpretation is acceptable only then when it corresponds with
the intention of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the holy writ-
ers. Therefore Kromayer wrote as follows: “We must give
a more ready ear to a plain layman when he adduces Serip-
ture than to a whole council which takes a stand contrary
to Scripture. We must be more ready to believe Mary, the
eye-witness, than the deceitful crowd of Jews. For the fact
that a multitude of persons errs does not make the error