LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 88

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88

CONVENTION ESSAYS AND REACTIONS

believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Mouth and heart go together. No matter how uncomfortable our world may be
with the concept of truth, Christians will confess it because
it is in their hearts.
Now, of course, there are many truths in this world; but
here we are speaking of just one, God’s truth—the truth
that really matters—because it is the truth that saves. As
Christians, we really have no vested interest in numerous
issues about which people can argue, like politics or sports,
and no commitment to any number of truths that come out
of human experience and investigation, like science and
history. These things can be interesting, maybe even important. But for us in the church, our sole concern is for the
truth that God has given us in the Scriptures. We call this
truth “doctrine.” We teach it, we preach it, we live it—and
urge others to do so also—because it comes from God. It is
His truth, not ours; and so we are not free to take it or leave
it, but must value it, treasure it, and confess it. Doctrine
belongs to God, not us.
Admittedly, it might be easier to get along today in modern America if we could reduce the truth requirements of
our faith to just a few basic propositions on the basis of
which we might join with others to combat the evils of the
day and to win people for Jesus. This is one of the great
temptations of our times—the temptation to say, “Let’s
unite on the basis of what we have in common and set to
one side everything that divides us. The need is too great
for us to remain apart on the basis of things that don’t matter.”
In one sense, of course, this is correct, as even our
Lutheran Confessions maintain: we ought not be divided
“by human traditions or rites and ceremonies instituted by
men” (AC VII).6 So we can tolerate enormous variety and
differences regarding what is ours. But not doctrine. Doctrine is something different, for doctrine is the truth that
matters—matters much more than any other truth that we
could ever know or communicate—matters because God
uses this truth to save us and all others from our sins and
to grant us salvation, as our Lord Himself has said, “If you
hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you
will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John
8:31–32). And so too our Lord also, when He sent out the
disciples and gave them the Great Commission to “make
disciples of all nations,” He told them how to fulfill that
commission—by baptizing and by “teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). How
much of it were they to teach and obey? Just some of it?
Just the basics? Just the really important stuff? No, all of
it! Every last word!
Which one of us here would dare to tell God that some of
what He has revealed to us in the Bible doesn’t matter and
that we are going to ignore it for the sake of getting along
with others, or that we are going to discard some of His
truth for the sake of the mission of the church? Surely, we
can all see that that’s impossible. The mission is His, the
church is His, the doctrine is His. We cannot discard any
one of the three without putting the others in jeopardy. We
preach the Word to fulfill the mission to bring people into
the church.
200l Convention Proceedings

Admittedly, correct doctrine is worthless if we do not use
it—preach it and teach it—to hold forth before people their
need and their hope, their sin and their Savior. There is no
real point to insisting on a pure confession unless that confession is going to direct the way in which we present the
Good News of salvation. People need to hear about Christ.
That’s why we’re here—to make sure that they do.
But they need to hear the truth about Christ, not human
speculation and opinion, not mistakes and errors, not false
doctrine. Our Lord Himself warned us, “They worship Me
in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (Matt.
15:9). Therefore, we are not free to mix in a little falsehood
with the truth, to teach correctly about one thing but not
another. Our souls and the souls of our hearers are at stake
when we do not preach God’s truth.
Nor are we free to ignore the errors of others, for teaching the truth demands that we also condemn falsehood.
Just think of how often St. Paul does this in his epistles,
for example, warning the Colossians, “See to it that no one
takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy
which depends on human tradition and the basic principles
of this world rather than on Christ” (Col. 2:8), or the Romans, “I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who
cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from
them” (Rom. 16:17), or the Galatians, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be
eternally condemned” (Gal. 1:9).
Mixing truth with error only confuses the truth; and
false doctrine cannot save anyone. It’s that simple. Therefore, we in the Missouri Synod have bound ourselves to the
truth and only the truth in carrying out the Great Commission. This is why—as the first and foremost condition
of membership in the synod—we have pledged ourselves to
the Scriptures as the “only rule and norm of faith and of
practice” and to the Confessions of the Lutheran Church as
“a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the
Word of God.” 7 Therefore, when pastors enter the pulpits
of our churches, congregations have a right to hear this
truth come out of their mouths and nothing else.
But this is also why we do not open our pulpits to those
who are not in doctrinal agreement with us. Clearly, in a
matter like this, the fact that the Synod is advisory to its
member congregations has no relevance, for we are talking
about faithfulness to the Word of God. All members of the
Synod are supposed to agree with the Synod’s public doctrine and to avoid those who teach otherwise—not because
it is synodical policy but because it is biblically correct.8
True enough, in our day, we find it difficult to maintain
such a strict approach. In an era that places a premium
upon “tolerance,” including tolerance of all sorts of immoral
behavior and of false religious views and in an age that is
all too skeptical of authority, especially in large institutions, members of the Synod often find it hard to accept the
fellowship decisions of synodical conventions that come
about on account of our commitment to God’s truth. Nevertheless, we should accept them and follow them—not because the Synod says so but because God’s Word says so.
Unity is in the Word, not in the institution. And the Synod
expresses that unity in the Word when it insists on faith-