# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 12 06_S61
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

61

of Luther, how and in what manner preachers, teachers, and members of the congregation in particular, each according to the measure of his calling, ought to pursue the Catechism, and what benefit the diligent practice of the Catechism brings. This introduction therefore relates not merely to the holy Ten Commandments but to the whole Catechism, and leads us without much circumlocution straight into it; it also shows in particular how he who is a right pupil of the Catechism will likewise read the Scripture with delight and good understanding. As an introduction to the holy Ten Commandments there then follows a section treating of the two tables of the Ten Commandments in general. Besides the customary teachings which the consideration of the division into two tables brings with it, there is found here an excellent presentation of the relation of the two tables to one another, namely that the second table must yield to the first, and that the sins against the second arise from the sins against the first: that ignorance and perversion of this relation ordained of God is the ground and cause of the abominable and destructive vice of work-righteousness, is made as clearly evident from this presentation as it is seldom known and heeded by few. From there we are led, after the content of both tables has been briefly indicated, to the individual commandments themselves. It struck me at first that the heading of the holy Ten Commandments, I am the Lord, thy God, was not expounded before the individual commandments themselves; for the sake of these words the exposition of all the commandments, the first excepted, evidently begins with the confession: we should fear God (because He is the Lord), and love Him (because He is our God). Soon, however, I found that in the textual exposition of the first commandment the meaning of those words is demonstrated, and that in the second commandment the "we should fear and love God" is shown as a consequence of the "I the Lord thy God." This arrangement also must serve to prepare for the first commandment a peculiar place, as this already appears from the form of the exposition, which is so different from that of the other commandments. So then, after a brief survey of the content of the first commandment, it is shown how the same comprehends all the other commandments within itself, yea, how from it, as from the chief fountain, all wisdom wells and flows, how the kernel of it is faith, and how from the keeping of this one commandment all righteousness, from the transgression of it all sin, proceeds. The form of the first commandment, as it is given in the Catechism, is justified against all those who reproach us that we separate the threat and promise from it, and omit the prohibition of images. Next, the exposition in the Catechism gives the theme according to which the transgression and fulfilment of the first commandment is carried out, and this is, for once, an evangelical exposition: for although in the section which treats of the transgression, unbelief against Christ is not directly from the outset pointed out as the chief sin and summit of transgression, precisely because it is the very point in which all sins of idolatry run together, yet these mighty discourses, which let the thunder of God resound on Sinai, are pervaded by the shattering thought of sorrow that through the transgression the God is grieved who also spared not His own begotten Son. The doctrine of the fulfilment of the first commandment, however, proceeds from the very beginning from the evangelical truth that the commandment can truly be kept only through faith in Christ, and as little as Law and Gospel are ever mingled with one another, so little is the sweet, lovely evangelical refreshment lacking in the answers, which lets us divine why John says: His commandments are not grievous. Already in the survey of the content of the first commandment Dr. Luther answers to the question: What must one say of him who lives according to the first commandment? thus: "O a blessed, holy soul, esteemed in God's eyes, that so takes pleasure in God, and seeks Him, that it counts all that it sees, hears, and feels as tribulation and misery without God, so that it can say with truth: My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me: Where is now thy God? When one can say this with truth even in the days of temporal prosperity, it is a great grace of God, etc." Especially, however, at the close, where in Question 199 a fourfold garland which Dr. Luther makes of the first commandment is set forth, the faithful teacher lays obedience to the first commandment upon our heart with such earnestness and yet with such sweet, refreshing words, that one would think, whoever read it could not but repent.

The exposition of the remaining commandments proceeds in substance always thus, that first the individual commandment is treated in general, namely of its connection with the preceding one and of its position among all, then of the transgression and fulfilment of the commandment, thereupon of the promise which God has laid upon obedience, and in the second commandment also of the particular threat against the transgressors, and each time at the close an instruction for the fourfold use of the commandment is given. Hardly would a question from the sphere of Christian walk and life be found to which a concise and clear answer is not found here. If you ask, for example: may I then actually swear at all, since the Lord Christ with His own mouth and through His apostle James forbids swearing? so Dr. Luther does not answer you as a famous scholar of the present time endeavored some years ago to give me information on this difficult point of doctrine. This latter held that the Lord Christ forbids in Matthew 5:33 ff. only swearing by things such as heaven or earth, and that the prohibition in James 5:12 was given only to the Christian people of that time, since it would not have been fitting for them to swear before a heathen magistracy. That was an explanation with which the man locked the door to understanding against me. Let us on the contrary hear Dr. Luther, the very man of whom it is judged by many Christians and theologians of today that he understood himself well enough in the doctrine of faith but not especially in the doctrine of love. Luther says then of Matth. 5:33 ff: "Christ has certainly meant it so, that one is not to swear at all. For the words stand there clearly: Ye shall not swear at all. Is therefore the meaning: to the Jews it is forbidden to swear falsely and yet they are permitted to swear: but to you I command, (saith Christ), in no wise to swear, neither by heaven, etc. thereby He wills that no one of his own and free will should ever swear, as much as in him lies. And if one says more than yea, yea, nay, nay, he does sin and wrong." Then Luther shows that this word of Christ touches only that swearing in which one has not God's Word, that on the other hand, when God commands it of us by office and for His sake, or requires it through those who are in office (the magistracy, etc.), we are bound to take an oath. So he comes in Question 234 to the following conclusion, which will surely quiet the doubting and anxious conscience and guide it to sure and firm action: "the words Matthew 5:33 ff," says Luther, "the Lord speaks plainly to those who have no command or necessity to swear; but when the two things come thereto, command or necessity, then it is no more called swearing of oneself, for thou doest it not for thine own sake, but because he who requires it of thee, as thy magistracy, or the neighbor's necessity and God's commandment. One shall not swear to evil, that is, to a lie, and where it is neither needful nor profitable; but to good and to the neighbor's betterment one shall swear, for it is a right good work, whereby God is praised, truth and right confirmed, lies repelled, people brought to peace, obedience rendered and strife composed; for God Himself comes in there between and separates right and wrong, evil and good from one another." Here everyone sees at once that Dr. Luther had quite another kind of scriptural learning than is common nowadays. It is not merely single parts of Scripture, single sayings and passages, which are present to him for use; rather the whole Scripture stands constantly before his eyes, and every doctrine, yea the content of every discourse, of every saying, he sets at once together with all that is said about the doctrine in question, and therefore never falls upon that unhappy way of so many otherwise well-meaning Christians, who bring forward a single utterance of Scripture but disregard the others and thereby even fall into false doctrine