# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 08 07_S193
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 5.  St. Louis, Mo., August 7, 1849.  No. 25.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, 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, 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.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them."

Exod. 20, 45.

These words, which are included in the holy ten commandments, Luther, as is well known, did not take up into his Small Catechism. This has often been laid to his charge as a reproach, and not seldom now, as we hear, simple people are made suspicious of the Lutheran Catechism on this account by Unirt-Evangelical preachers, and it is praised as a special advantage of their new catechism that those words are contained in the latter literally as one reads them in the Bible. Let Luther himself therefore be heard on this matter in what follows; it will then soon become plain what good reason Luther had for leaving out those words, and that those who press for their retention in the time of the New Testament prove thereby only how utterly they lack true insight into the relation of the Old and New Covenant, of the Law and the Gospel, of Moses and Christ, in short into the true nature of Christianity and of Christian evangelical liberty.

Luther writes in his exposition of several chapters of the second Book of Moses, from the years 1524—1526, on the above text as follows (See: Werke. Hall. A. III, 1563—1573):

"The fanatical spirits have brought forward this text, and have wanted to drive it against us. Therefore we will deal with it, first in the manner of a dispute, afterward in a plain manner. Our factious spirits, Master Smartling, who have devoured the Scripture whole, say: Hearest thou God's Word, which saith to thee: Thou shalt not have strange gods? Thus they frighten the people with this appearance, that they pretend God's Word; they drive them by force to this, that one should not suffer the images, because God hath forbidden it: they think it a precious thing to storm idols. But what shall we say to this? It is indeed God's Word; to that we cannot say No.

"Dear Christians, you have heard, then, that when they come in with their Moses and want to bind your conscience with his laws, you shall say to them: Dear sir, set the spectacles on your nose, and look at the text aright. We know well that one ought to obey God in that which He saith, and that we belong to God as well as the Jews. But one must make a distinction between the Word of God and Word of God. I must give heed to this, when God saith anything, whether it concerns me. Therefore, dear fellow, if thou wilt constrain me with God's Word, then tell me a text that concerns me; otherwise I care nothing for it that thou citest me much out of Moses. For Moses with his Word is not sent to us; and even if Moses had not come, we should nevertheless have had this natural knowledge, written by God in our hearts, that there is a God who maketh and preserveth all things. For the heathen also worshipped God without the teaching of Moses; although they, like the Jews also, went astray concerning God.

"Therefore thou canst answer readily thus: Dear fanatic, Moses hither, Moses thither. Wilt thou have me hear thee, then tell me a word that concerns me; or I hold thee for a seducer and an apostle of the devil; for thou preachest what is commanded to others, not to thee. Should I accept and keep all the words of God, I must also build an ark, like Noah; for God's Word commanded him that he should build an ark, Gen. 6, 14. Now this is indeed God's Word: so go thou, and do as Noah did, build an ark. Likewise, Christ, Matt. 17, 27, bade Peter go to the sea, and cast in a hook, and take the fish that first cometh up, in whose mouth he should find a half guilder, which he should give into the lap, for him and himself. There is God's Word also. But, dear fanatic, go thou, and do also as Peter did; let us see how it will suit thee. Such blind heads are our factious spirits, they blunder into the Scripture like a peasant into his boots. How should I come to it, that they would lay all God's Word upon me? They prove beforehand that GOD would have had the words preached to me.

"Therefore God's words must have the addition, that I may know to whom they are spoken. The angels also have God's Word; but what is it to us, since it is not spoken to us. Therefore we hold to the word which is spoken to us. Christ drove Peter back, when he asked concerning John: Lord, and what shall this man do? Christ answered: What is that to thee? follow thou me, John 21, 21. 22. I have not said it to him, but to thee, to thee: thou, thou follow; he shall get his own answer also. I say it not to him, but to thee. Therefore I have said that God taketh hold of each one in particular, as though He had nothing else to do with any other, than with him. When He now layeth a word upon thee, accept it, and keep to thy command, and let another wait upon his command. They are worthless simpletons and veritable swine, who would be great Doctors, write great books, and yet know no distinction of the Word of God. Abraham received from God circumcision for a sign of his faith, as Paul also showeth, Rom. 4, 11. That is God's Word. But it is at an end with the circumcision of Abraham; it standeth alone there as an example of faith, but doth not bind or constrain me.

"Thus I say here, that the storming of images and overthrowing of idols cannot be enforced from this text. For it is said to the Jews alone, and not to us. Show me a text whereby God hath forbidden me the images; not that I am fond of the images, but that we may know for certain upon what our faith is grounded, that we build not upon the sand, and may be able to answer our adversaries. For a preacher, yea, every Christian also, ought and must be sure of his doctrine; not build upon a delusion, or deal in conceit of men, but be wholly sure of the matter, that it is so, and not otherwise, Col. 2, 2., which Paul calleth Pliro-