# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 07 23_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

189

Yet it is precious that God's Word is so clear and plain. The Apologist has now long tormented himself to prove that man can already be made free from sin here on earth. But in vain. This saying is as bright as the dear sun; before it all the mists and vapors of the fanatical spirit must vanish, so that one does not even know where they have gone. For even if I wished ever so gladly to prove that we could here on earth already become holy and sinless: I cannot do it, this saying is far too plain and too sharp, for it declares outright all those to be deceivers and liars who hold themselves sinless here. Therefore, ye Methodists, speaking candidly, the best thing for you would be if you would frankly confess: "We have grossly erred in supposing that man could already become free of sin here on earth." If you would do that, then you would be the victors; you would conquer, namely, your own error, and the prejudice that prevails against you, as though you were hardening yourselves against the truth.

(To be continued.)

The Faith, Church and Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Christian.*)

*) Another Alsatian tract. Ed.

1. My Faith. I am an Evangelical Lutheran Christian; I am so from conviction. In this conviction I have found blessedness, and find therein ever again the true rest of the soul; for through the Evang. Luth. faith I have JESUS Christ, the LORD, in Word and Sacrament.

This faith, conformed to the Word, which is founded not upon itself but upon God's deeds in Baptism and the Lord's Supper, protects me against the fanaticism of reason, which clings only to such religious matters as natural reason can comprehend, explain and judge. That faith, conformed to the Word, protects me also against the fanaticism of feeling, which would found redemption upon my inward, changeable world of feeling. That faith rescues me from a fanatical justification of the sinner before God, according to which our justification would be built not first and ever again upon Christ for us, but upon a Christ in us. The sick Jews in the wilderness were not directed by the LORD to look at something in them, but at something outside of them, and those who did so found healing. So also now still; for "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him (who is lifted up outside of them) should not perish, but have eternal life." And this look upon that which was done and finished outside of me and without me draws all the grace which proceeds from Christ ever more and more into me as well.

The cross of Christ — the crucified and risen Christ — now stands in Baptism and the Lord's Supper. What the Word announces to me is imparted to me in Baptism and the Lord's Supper according to the order which the LORD of the kingdom of heaven Himself has appointed; for He has not had a faith without sacraments preached. The fanaticism of reason and the fanaticism of feeling, however, hollow out the Sacraments into mere forms or signs, shadowings, whereas the Christianity of the Church of God, called with us Evangelical Lutheran, makes these known to me according to the Word as means of grace.

Baptized, I have received Christ, otherwise I could not have put Him on (Gal. 3, 27.). But He whom I have put on in Baptism and retain in faith is the same who died and rose again for me. If any man be in Christ (is this Christ perhaps only a form?), he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things (in Christ) are become new. If I believe in this Christ given to me; if I receive Him; if I do not obstinately thrust Him back through hardness of heart and unbelief, then the new creature increases in me — but I decrease. The members which are from beneath must die; but the members which are from above live. Christ gains ever more and more a form in me, so that I also can show forth the praises of Him who hath called me out of darkness into light, and out of the power of Satan into God's blessed power of love; so that I, who "by one Spirit am baptized into one body" (1 Cor. 12, 13.), am also sanctified in this body as a member of Christ through faith in JESUS.

In the Lord's Supper, however, where I enjoy JESUS not only spiritually in the Word, but also really receive His sacrificial body and His sacrificial blood, there my weak faith is made ever more and more strengthened and certain that I abide in Him and He in me (John 6, 56.). Upon Baptism and the Lord's Supper, these two diamond pillars which the wise Master-builder Himself instituted, and in His act of God has grounded to the deepest depth, rests the house, built of God, in which my soul, if it persevere in faith, shall live eternally.

2. My Church. As it is the Evang. Lutheran faith that satisfies my soul — so it is also the Evangelical Lutheran Church which I have recognized as the rose among the thorns. She, as the Church of God in pure Word and Sacrament, preserves me first of all from the Roman papal church, with its additions to God's Word; but also from the reformed churches and sects, where one cuts off from God's Word; in the former, especially, the fanaticism of unchurchly, arbitrary adding; in the latter, the fanaticism of unchurchly, arbitrary cutting off. What is cut off in sectarian Christianity? Words of God which are spirit and life. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, it is said, are only signs of grace, externally attached, but not working regeneration by water and the Spirit, not the "true body and blood" of Christ; they do not give a present good; but a future good they only seal and indicate. That the Son of God has come in the flesh, and now thus through His humanity, in which dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, still comes to us in the Lord's Supper, and as the second Adam comes into us — this is foolishness to the sect-churches. Christ works for them only in powers. The true humanity of the Son of God, as the second Adam, is for them volatilized, evaporated: Baptism gives no whole Christ to put on in the washing of regeneration, at most powers and germs. This covering is not fit for garments, this fabric is a transparent cobweb. One seeks regeneration always, and yet never has it: for it runs on ahead like a will-o'-the-wisp. Such communions confuse conversion with regeneration; therefore their teachers behave as though we, children of men dead in sins (Eph. 2, 5.), could also cooperate in our new creation. Of course, if Adam had cooperated in his first creation; if he had stirred his hand to cooperate before it was created: — then the Adam "dead in sins" could also cooperate in being newly created and born again. Then the Anabaptists would be right, who reject infant Baptism. Such erroneous obscurity our Evangelical Lutheran Church does not know. So let us walk in the light of the Evangelical Lutheran Church!

In her we stand in the deepest core of Christianity and not in empty "forms." In her the "Morning Star" shines upon us bright and clear, without misty obscuring. In her Catechisms, in her unmutilated and unadulterated hymns, in her Confessions, from the Augsburg Confession to the pure Formula of Concord, — and some day again also in her beautiful divine services, whose fragrant crown is the Lord's Supper, the full clearness of the LORD is reflected.

Though she may become poorer in outward goods: in poverty and the form of a servant she will yet make many rich. Through Baptism into Christ the universal Christendom is founded; but through the Lord's Supper, where it is held as the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, the true Church of God in her manifestation is determined, nourished, strengthened, comforted and purified. In Baptism the mother's womb of the Church opens; through the Lord's Supper, where it is dispensed in accordance with the divine Word, she offers the mother's breast.

For this Church let us fight with spiritual weapons. That is a fair, great fight. For bodily food, for possessions, for kindred even the beast fights; the natural man fights for natural ideas of reason, for natural faith and conviction. The Christian fights for the truth and its victory, in himself as in others, the fair, great fight: he fights for the Church