# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 12 09_S57
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall now and nevermore pass away."
(Rev. John, ch. 14, v. 6. 7.)

Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Vol. 8.  St. Louis, Mo., December 9, 1851.  No. 8.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents.

Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Proof from the Holy Scriptures and the Symbolical Books that the Office of the Ministry is the exercise of the spiritual priesthood in the public service or office.

For four months now Pastor Grabau at Buffalo has been issuing a monthly periodical which he calls "kirchliches Informatorium, ein geistliches Lehrblatt für alle Christen," in which he has thus undertaken, as informator (schoolmaster), to teach all Christians; and he must indeed possess uncommon zest, strength and skill for it, in order to justify the title of his paper.

In No. 3 of this paper he has furnished an article under the following title: "Proof that our Symbols do not teach that the holy office of preaching and of the keys comes from the spiritual priesthood of a congregation."

There he has first demonstrated that the proper and nearest seat of the keys and of the holy office of preaching is "the revealed Gospel of Christ," which, however, is also to resound publicly according to Christ's command, which service takes place through the office of preaching ordained by the LORD.

And this is gladly and willingly to be conceded.

Then he points out the place in which the office of preaching and of the keys shows itself living and effective, namely the Church; yes, the office of preaching, he says, is "the means of grace, to call and to enlighten and to gather the Church, since faith cometh by hearing."

And this also is not to be denied according to Art. 5 of the Augsburg Confession, provided one at the same time holds fast that faith is engendered and the congregation of believers gathered essentially not through the office of preaching as such, but through the Gospel preached.

Thereupon the Informator says that only in this sense, according to the Smalcald Articles, are the keys given to the whole Church of Christ, in that she is the "ordered spiritual place in which they (the keys) by means of the Gospel and the office of preaching show their power for the comfort and salvation of souls and are in use, in which they dwell and abide; in and at the Church of Jesus, which is gathered in His name (Matth. 18, 20), the keys are to be found, but she herself is not the source and power of the keys, still less do the individual members of the church possess such authority, but she has, in the order of the Gospel and of the office of preaching, Christ Himself and His keys in her midst, or in the midst of her."

Here it behooves us to take heed whether Herr Informator has rightly understood the Symbolical Books and has also taught rightly accordingly, or has not rather mingled truth and falsehood together.

First, then, lest we unfairly provoke his wrath, we will gladly grant that neither the individual members of the church as such, nor their assembly, is essentially and originally the ground and source of the power of the keys, but the triune God alone, and that it is essentially grounded in and flows forth from the grace of the Father, the merit of the Son and the power of the Holy Ghost, or, more briefly and compendiously, that it rests in Christ, who exercised it in the days of His flesh, as the LORD, in unlimited plenitude of power; and we gladly concede also what Herr Informator says later, that the Church of God does not "engender the keys out of her own side," when, namely, the question is asked as to their proper origin.

But false, that is, contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the ecclesiastical Symbols founded upon them, it is, when it is said in the above that the Church is only the "ordered spiritual place in which the administration of the keys takes place; that they are called a "power and authority of the Church" only for this reason, that they are not to be found elsewhere and cannot be seen elsewhere than in and at the Church of Jesus, which is gathered in His name;" for how would such a limitation agree with the words of the LORD in Matth. 18, 18, where, in connection with v. 17, He thus addresses His Church: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

For from these words it is clear to one