# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 11 23_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
(Rev. John, Chap. 14, v. 6, 7.)
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall not pass away, now or evermore."
Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Year 9.  St. Louis, Mo., the 23rd of November 1852.  No. 7.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay it 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, 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.

Why should and can the belief that the true Church is properly invisible and scattered over the whole world not mislead us into forsaking the orthodox visible Church?

A sermon, delivered at St. Louis, Mo., on the 22nd Sunday after the Feast of the Holy Trinity 1852.*)

*) We should not have yielded to the request of our congregation to communicate another sermon to wider circles through the "Lutheraner," did the sermon here communicated not treat of a subject on which we, in consequence of accusations made against us, certainly owe our readers closer explanations. The Editor.

In the name of JESUS!

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from the LORD JESUS Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and in love, be with you all. Amen.

Beloved brethren and sisters in Christ JESUS!

"I believe one holy universal Christian Church, the communion of saints," so it stands in the oldest, in the Apostolic Creed. So all Christians at all times and in all lands, great and small, learned and simple, have believed and confessed. From this we see: The Church of JESUS Christ, outside of which there is no salvation and no blessedness, is first an invisible, and then a kingdom extending over the whole world.

It is first invisible, for it is, according to the Apostolic Creed, an object of faith; but faith is, according to God's Word, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb. 11, 1. The true Church is properly nothing else than the communion of all those who are believers from the heart and sanctified in Christ JESUS, their LORD. These, to be sure, are not all invisible spirits, but visible men: but who can see the faith wrought in their souls by the Holy Ghost? And who can therefore perceive it in even one man that he is a believer, and therefore say of even one man that he sees in him the Church, or even a member of the Church? The true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and no blessedness, is, furthermore, to be sure, everywhere where the means of grace are visibly administered, where, that is, God's Word is preached purely and clearly and the holy Sacraments are administered according to Christ's institution. Where the true Church is, this, therefore, everyone can easily recognize. But since the true Christians, who alone belong to the true Church, are everywhere mixed with false Christians, as the wheat with the tares, who can now find out the true Christians from the false, and so see the Church? No one; one sees, indeed, the men among whom the Church is found, but those who among them alone make up the Church, only He sees and knows of whom it is said: "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His." Therefore Christ also calls His Church a kingdom of heaven on earth, which cometh not with observation; and the holy Apostle Paul calls it the body of JESUS Christ, the bride of the LORD, a spiritual house, yea, the Jerusalem which is above, and the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.

But the Church, outside of which there is no salvation and no blessedness, is not only an invisible, but also a kingdom extending itself over the whole world. For after Christ sent the holy Apostles forth into all the world, and these preached the Gospel among all nations, there are now also under all zones of heaven souls who truly believe on Christ and who therefore belong to His Church. Christ's Church is therefore also everywhere whither the blessed sound of the Gospel has penetrated, according to that irrevocable and eternally certain promise: "So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Is. 55, 10. 11. Of no people, of no city, of no land, yea, of no quarter of the earth can it therefore be said: "Lo, here is Christ, or there" (Matth. 24, 23.), that is, only