B 
 
 R 
 
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 DING 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
WORKS OF 
 PROF. G. H. GERBERDING, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church. 276 pages. 
 Price, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 New Testament Conversions. 283 pages. Price, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Life and Letters of W. A. Passavant, D.D. Over 600 pages. 
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 The Lutheran Catechist. A Companion Book to “The Lu- 
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 Lutheran Fundamentals. A Simple System of Scripture 
 Truth, with Applications for the Common Man by G. H. 
 Gerberding, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Practical Theology, 
 Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary, Minneapolis, 
 Minn. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
<n OF PR INCE ? > 
 
 acT 20 1925 
 ?- 
 %p 
 
 LUTHERAN a” 
 FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 A SIMPLE SYSTEM OF SCRIPTURE TRUTH 
 WITH APPLICATIONS FOR THE 
 COMMON MAN 
 
 
 
 
 By 
 G. H. GERBERDING, D.D., LL. D. 
 
 Professor of Practical Theology 
 Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota 
 
 a 
 
 ROCK ISLAND, ILL. 
 AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 
 1925 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1925 
 BY 
 
 AUCUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN, PRINTERS AND BINDERS 
 ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS 
 
 1925 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 TO ALL LUTHERAN BROTHERHOODS 
 AND TEACHERS OF RELIGION 
 IN CHURCH SCHOOLS, THIS 
 BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 IN HOPE 
 BY 
 LHE AUTHOR 
 

 
A LAYMAN’S FOREWORD 
 
 4B O WRITE a book on a scientific subject 
 that will be read and understood and 
 appreciated by the common man is a formida- 
 ble undertaking. For a generation Dr. Ger- 
 berding has been writing books on varied sub- 
 jects, many of which have carried a message 
 to the rank and file in our Church and all of 
 which have been received with appreciation 
 in wide circles. For thirty years the author 
 has been a professor of Practical Theology. 
 In all his teaching he has ever emphasized the 
 importance of being practical and so simple 
 that the common man could not fail to under- 
 stand. To the average layman a treatise on 
 Dogmatics would ordinarily make no appeal. 
 He would avoid it as too technical, too diffi- 
 cult to understand. 
 
 We know of no other book which attempts 
 what the author has here accomplished, name- 
 
 7 
 
8 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 ly, to set down in popular form, devoid of 
 technical arrangement and phraseology, the . 
 great fundamental teachings of our Church. 
 We believe the author has done a work which 
 will be well received by many who love our 
 Church and her great mission in the world to- 
 day, and also by many sincere seekers after 
 truth outside of our Church. 
 
 While it is true that the Lutheran Church 
 is noted above all other churches for its won- 
 derful system of dogmatics, we believe it is al- 
 so true that relatively few laymen in our 
 Church have a clear conception of her great 
 doctrines. The object of this book is to famil- 
 larize our laity with the teachings of the 
 Church. The author develops doctrine after 
 doctrine in a most delightful and happy way. 
 It is the experienced teacher explaining the 
 great fundamental beliefs of the Church. It 
 is the well-seasoned Bible student marshalling 
 passage after passage from the Word to prove 
 that our doctrines are not man-made. It is the 
 heart-warm Christian setting forth the things 
 which alone can satisfy the longings and cray- 
 ings of the human soul. It is the practical 
 teacher talking in a way that can be under- 
 stood by the common man, and doing it in a 
 very human way. 
 
A LAYMAN’S FOREWORD 9 
 
 The book is fascinating. Some passages are 
 of extreme beauty. For example, the chapter 
 on the Trinity, where the author shows in his 
 very best style how the different persons of the 
 Trinity fit into the life of the believer at vari- 
 ous times. Or on Baptism, where he draws 
 a pen-picture of the Baptist mother and of the 
 Lutheran mother. 
 
 Pastors will find this little volume invalua- 
 ble for distribution among those whom they 
 are bringing into church membership. It will 
 serve a most useful purpose in the hands of 
 our Church Council-men, our Sunday-school 
 teachers and other lay workers. It should be 
 studied as a text-book in church-schools until 
 each doctrine is clearly fixed in the mind. It 
 is dedicated to all Lutheran Brotherhoods, 
 and every Brotherhood should use it as a study 
 book. 
 
 In these days when there is so much laxity 
 and carelessness in spiritual things we often 
 hear it said that one church is as good as an- 
 other. The peculiar glory of the Lutheran 
 Church is that she holds fast to the Word of 
 God; that she emphasizes the things which 
 that Word emphasizes; that she neither adds 
 to nor detracts from that Word. When the 
 day shall come that the common man in our 
 
10 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Church understands and therefore appreciates 
 the great fundamental teachings of God’s 
 Word, the Lutheran Church will be a vital 
 force not only in the lives of those who consti- 
 tute her membership, but also in the life of 
 our nation. 
 
 This little book, if properly used, will has- 
 ten that day. J. K. JENSEN. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PUPAE CO PTO Ne eer eee ee A ae tose NG os yates 
 
 Division: In Paradise, 21. At its gate, 21. 
 At Babel, 21. Israel’s Kingdom divided, 22. 
 Divisions in Apostolic Church, 22. Schism be- 
 tween Eastern and Western Church, 22. Ref- 
 ormation divided Western Church, 22. Prot- 
 estantism divided, 23. “Iwo Protestant Systems 
 of Theology, 23. New Schism in Reformed 
 Churches, 24. Fundamentalists and Liberals, 
 24. Lutheran Church Sound and Harmonious 
 on Fundamentals, 25. This Book a System of 
 Fundamentals for the Common Man, 26. 
 
 AMIS Dewy Sil eee eee hte Ss a a a Ee ee RAL 
 
 We Believe in God 
 All heathens do, 33. Why? 35. Proofs for 
 
 the existence of God, 35. Proofs from without 
 us, 36. Proof from effect and cause, 36. Proof 
 from design, 37. Proof from within us, 38. 
 Proof from conscience, 39. From experience, 
 
 39- 
 II 
 
 oo 
 
12 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 CHAPTER LDS BG a tc cee ak eee ee 
 The Being and Nature of God 
 
 Who and what is God? 41. God is Absolute 
 Personality, 42. God is Spirit, 42. God is 
 One, 44. Is three in One, 45. So meets our 
 needs and experiences, 46. The attributes of 
 
 God, 50. 
 
 CHAPTER LT psig creas iyi saat ian eae Cay 16 
 The Works of God.—Revelation 
 
 Our Bible, 55. Unaided man couldn’t make 
 it, 59. Why men hate it, 60. Its inspiration, 
 63. It meets the soul’s deepest needs, 64. Story 
 of Littleton and West, 66. 
 
 CHAP TERAT VS U25 0) soe rnc Cy eal ee ae 
 Creation 
 
 Bible gives no date, 69. Order of Creation, 
 
 69. From lowest up, 70. In harmony with 
 
 science, 70. Creation of man, 71. Body—of 
 
 earth—so says chemistry, 75. Soul—not of earth 
 
 —but God-breathed, 76. Man-made Accounts, 
 
 79. Evolution, 80. Unscientific—Unreasonable, 
 
 SI. 
 Creation of Angels 
 
 What are they? 83. Their work, 85. Bad 
 
 angels—Satan, 87. His Kingdom—His work, 
 89. Belief in helps me, 91. 
 
 55 
 
 68 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 
 
 PUPPAU TRE VG te Hye Nera rae eats CO cs 92 
 God’s Work of Providence 
 
 God watches over Creation, 93. Over Na- 
 tions—Over Man, 95. Special Providence, 96. 
 Miracles, 98. Predestination, 99. Relation to 
 Foreknowledge, 99. Ten points in Election of 
 Grace, 102. Relation of Affliction to Provi- 
 dence, 103. 
 
 PART II 
 GTAP LR aN Less it avn Nie the ee iteics hehe con a ENE 109 
 
 Heathens know that they are sinful, 109. 
 Unrest to-day because of sin, 110. Sin, 112. 
 Whence is sin? 113. The Fall, 113. Old story 
 explains world’s woes, 114. Doctrine of orig- 
 inal sin is hated, 118. Still true and funda- 
 mental, 119. 
 
 BART UIT 
 
 REDEMPTION 
 PEM P ERR EY Lit ORS, Cit ye ue ene es at a eis tak 123 
 
 The Redeemer 
 
 In Eden God began to prepare for man’s re- 
 demption, 124. Man could not redeem self, 
 125. Judaism, 125. Law showed guilt, 125. 
 Showed need of a Redeemer, 125. God sent 
 Redeemer, 126. Virgin-born, 126. God-Man, 
 126. His story, 127. His claims for Himself, 
 
14 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 PAGE 
 131. Claims, true or false, 133. If false, what 
 
 then? 134. His Names, 134. Attributes, 135. 
 Works, 136. Worship, 136. Also true Man, 
 137. Comfort of this, 137. This God-man is 
 the Redeemer I need, 138. 
 
 CHAPTER AV 1 Teee on eee eee Gee een 140 
 The Work of the Redeemer, or Redemption 
 
 How did He redeem me? 140. His state of 
 humiliation, 141. My Prophet, 141. My 
 Priest, 143. Vicarious Atonement, 144. Com- 
 fort in, 147. My King, 147. 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE APPLICATION AND APPROPRIATION 
 OF REDEMPTION 
 CHAPTER SLA. ORS ee eee eee ce eae I51 
 
 The Holy Spirit, His Person and Work 
 
 Atonement redeems, but does not renew man, 
 152. Man not fit for Kingdom, 152. Can't 
 make himself fit, 152. For this the Holy Ghost 
 is needed, 153. His Person, 153. Is God, 153. 
 Proofs, 154. Was present and effective in Old 
 Testament, 154. Came in fulness at Pentecost, 
 157. Came to abide, 158. Works through 
 Means, i. e., Word and Sacraments, 159. 
 
 The Church 
 
 Made possible by Christ, 161. He promised 
 to build, 162. Promise fulfilled when Holy 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 15 
 
 PAGE 
 Spirit came, 162. Relation of Church to Christ, 
 
 162. What the Church is, 164. Not perfect 
 here, 164. Hypocrites in the Church, 164. Yet 
 God’s children are there, 165. Holy Spirit 
 gathers them through Word and Baptism, 167. 
 Children also, 168. 
 
 RETA LER Ca ie cts has ae Wits sat whe Gi daa Bakes Pa wi 170 
 The Holy Spirit's Work in Baptism 
 
 Infant Baptism, 170. Children need Grace, 
 170. God can give it, 171. Two roots of error, 
 172. A difference between Lutheran and Re- 
 formed principles of Interpretation, 174. Jesus 
 used means, 175. Can use Baptism, 175. Does, 
 175. Proofs, 176. What of children who die 
 unbaptized? 179. Comfort in Infant Baptism, 
 182. 
 
 HAMPERS Frou, tian) Meerut ne eee ns 183 
 
 Regeneration and Justification 
 
 Confusing systems, 183. Need of systematic 
 clearness, 184. Regeneration is the beginning 
 of a spiritual life, 186. We speak first of in- 
 fants, 187. [he two elements of the new life, 
 
 188. Work different in adults, 189. 
 
 Justification 
 
 How Luther found it, 190. What is it? 192. 
 Its cause, 193. Its ground, 193. Faith grips 
 Christ, 194. Is experience, 194. Proof pas- 
 sages, 196. Fruits: Adoption, 196. Union with 
 Christ, 196. 
 
16 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 CHAPTERS ALTO a eae seer cohe ie tae ee ee 199 
 
 Conversion 
 
 Importance of, 199. Meaning of, 199. Ele- 
 ments in, 200. The process, 201. Who needs 
 it? 203. Not every one, 203. Not self-wrought, 
 205. he prodigal son, 206. Misleading teach- 
 ings, 207. Grace must bring it about, 2009. 
 Through means, 210. Man can go to the 
 Word, 211. Can use it, 211. Can give atten- 
 tion, 211. Can resist, 212. Experiences vary, 
 213. ‘“Lemperaments differ, 213. Great ques- 
 tion is: Am [ now in a converted state? 218. 
 
 Crap: XPD 7 enn ok. i era 219 
 
 Sanctification or Growth in Holiness 
 
 Believer not perfect, 219. Paul, 220. Be- 
 liever conscious of and sorry for his sins, 221. 
 Two kinds of sin, 221. Sins of malice, 221. 
 Sins of weakness, 221. Law needed, 222. 
 What it is to a believer, 222. Thus he grows, 
 223. Ill at ease in worldly atmosphere, 225. 
 Means of Grace strengthen, 225. Sacraments, 
 226. Lord’s Supper, 226. Meaning, 227. 
 Doctrine, 228. Fitness for, 232. Confession, 
 234. Pastoral visit, 235. Public service, 236. 
 
 CHAPTER (XLV eos eat ie eee ee 237 
 Prayer and Sanctification 
 Word and prayer belong together, 237. Dis- 
 
 tinction between, 237. Relation, 238. Prayer 
 not a Means of Grace, 238. Definition of 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 17 
 
 PAGE 
 prayer, 237. Who can pray? 239. Forms and 
 
 attitudes, 241. Mistakes about prayer, 241. 
 Interpret Word rightly, 242. God does not 
 answer all prayers, 242. Distinguish between 
 temporal and spiritual, 244. Dangers here, 246. 
 Prayer for healing, 246. ‘Three safe directions, 
 247. Sin in Lodge Prayers, 249. Prayer in 
 Jesus’ name, 249. Right heart and life needed, 
 252. [hen I have a prayer-life, 253. Right 
 prayers always answered, 255. Always in God’s 
 way and time, 255. Matthesius’ Rules, 257. 
 
 SERAP TERS NV 5 Eis: beg ces ts Mabey Oem ee 260 
 Public Worship in God’s House and God's 
 Works as Aids in Sanctification 
 Influence of week-day occupation, 260. God 
 left two institutions from Eden, 261. ‘The 
 Lord’s Day, 262. Public worship, 262. In 
 early Church, 263. Now, 264. Blessing in 
 worship, 265. Good Works, 266. Christian 
 
 wants to do, 266. Finds joy in, 267. 
 
 PART V 
 THE LAST THINGS 
 
 PAPTRR ON. Domenie eh, Sree Pk See a ee 271 
 The Last Things —Death 
 
 Christian life not for this world only, 271. 
 Death, 272. Experience of, 272. Dreaded, 
 273. Soul immortal, 274. Proofs, 274. Sepa- 
 ration of souls at death, 276. What of heathen? 
 278. 
 
 Luth. Fundamentals. 2. 
 
18 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The Last Times 
 
 Views differ, 280. Shallow optimists, 281. 
 Leave Word out, 281. Contradict history, 281. 
 What saith the Scripture? 282. Present dis- 
 pensation to take out a people, 283. Last times 
 to be bad, 283. Antichrist, 284. A system, 286. 
 To head up in a person, 287. 
 
 CHAPTER o VALLI acre eeeey aot a en een ornate 
 The Second Coming of Christ 
 
 He will come again, 288. Proofs, 289. Two 
 events accompany, 290. First resurrection, 291. 
 Translation of saints, 292. The Millennium, 
 292. “Two views of, 292. Postmillenarians, 
 292. Premillenarians, 293. Augsburg Con- 
 fession on chiliasts, 293. Proofs, 294. Four 
 reflections, 294. Assenting Theologians, 296. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Resurrection 
 
 Death still reigns, 297. Christ conquered, 
 299. Rose, 299. Ergo: All the dead will rise, 
 299. In order, 300. Dead in Christ first, 300. 
 Then all others, 301. With what body? 301. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 e '2 © © (6 | O° \e- sre5e © (0006 C2816 6 fe 6 electra, 6 475) oe 6 
 
 The Final Judgment 
 
 Many refuse to believe in, 303. How then 
 vindicate God’s Government? 304. Judgment 
 
 288 
 
 297 
 
 303 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 19 
 
 . PAGE 
 needed, 304. Righteous dead already judged, 
 
 306. Son of Man the Judge, 307. His norm, 
 307. Why? 308. 
 
 SEPA PT RRMA Lied ithe gees otek Tae ae Mien. 309 
 The End of the World 
 
 The world has been groaning, 309. Second 
 Adam to restore what first Adam ruined, 310. 
 Earth to abide, 310. ‘To be purged, 311. To 
 be the outer court of heaven, 311. 
 
 REEL APTRRS OGL LT ame WS iee ee rca Sete None oe aleve 312 
 Eternal Death or Hell 
 
 An unwelcome subject, 312. “Three prime 
 considerations, 312. 1. God wants no one to 
 go there, 312. 2. Did not prepare hell for man, 
 312. 3. Has done all He could to keep man out 
 of hell, 313. Hell’s anguish, 314. Conscious- 
 ness of lost that they brought themselves there, 
 314. Memory will live, 315. Forever sepa- 
 rated from God and the good, 315. This will 
 be forever, 315. Proofs, 315. Nature of fire, 
 310. 
 
 CTE Ea Feet SES COMI AE Reise pole aii 317 
 Everlasting Life or Heaven 
 
 Lost Paradise restored, 317. Paul and John 
 and Christ describe, 318. Who will be there, 
 319. ‘Their occupation, 320. 
 

 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IVISION! Division is again called for. 
 From the beginning division has been 
 called for. Over and over again, division has 
 come. ‘To the end, division will come. 
 Inside the Garden of Eden God said to the 
 serpent: “I will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, and between thy seed and her 
 seed.” Division was predicted in Paradise. 
 At its very gates humanity divided. Abel and 
 Cain were both religious. Both brought of- 
 ferings to the Lord. God had respect unto 
 Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and 
 his offering He had no respect. ‘There was 
 division. From that day forth, some followed 
 the faith of Abel, others walked in the way of 
 Cain. Humanity was divided. The division 
 has continued and will continue to the end. 
 The Cainites brought on the Flood. The 
 new humanity was of one speech and of one 
 language. The new humanity grew strong and 
 self-sufficient. Men agreed to build a monu- 
 ment to show that humanity could be, and 
 21 
 
22 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 would be, independent of God. God scattered 
 the new race. There was division. 
 
 Through Moses God made a new nation. 
 That nation became a Kingdom. That King- 
 dom was rent in twain. There was division. 
 There came disaster. 
 
 The Fulness of Time came. Peace on earth 
 and good will to men were heralded from 
 heaven. The Church, against which the gates 
 of hell should not prevail, was promised by 
 Jesus. More than once strife and division 
 came unto the band of Christ’s disciples. — 
 Heresy, schim and sect raised their ugly heads 
 in the Apostolic Church. Division was there. 
 
 The Church after the apostles was the 
 Church still in its earliest love. Heresies and 
 divisions came again. Later a great schism 
 split the Church into Eastern and Western. In 
 the latter a mighty, monarchial, despotic hier- 
 archy was built up. Worldly power brought 
 in worldly corruption in faith and in life. 
 
 The blessed, heaven-born Reformation 
 came. It brought back an open Bible and 
 showed poor, burdened, and sin-sick humani- 
 ty how to find forgiveness of sin, life and sal- 
 vation in and through its blessed pages. Those 
 who accepted what the Reformation offered 
 were separated from the church that followed 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 the pope and human tradition. There was di- 
 vision. But for the separated ones it was a 
 second fulness of the time, a time of spiritual 
 refreshing. Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 
 He was again walking among the golden can- 
 dlesticks. Heaven was open, and the angels 
 were singing again the old Glorias. 
 
 But, alas and alack! Division came again. 
 The so-called Protestant Church, which had 
 uncovered, and was building again on the 
 foundation of prophets and apostles, with Je- 
 sus Christ as the true corner stone, was rent 
 asunder. There came to be a Lutheran 
 Church and a Reformed Church, which af- 
 terwards separated into many divisions with 
 various names. ‘There came to be two great 
 Protestant theologies, the one Lutheran, the 
 other Reformed. The latter has many varia- 
 tions. As over against the Lutheran theology 
 it is called Reformed theology. In many 
 points these two theologies are contrary, the 
 one to the other. 
 
 From the Reformed Churches many heret- 
 ical and dangerous sects have gone out. If 
 all thinking people could be made to see that 
 there are real, serious, and deep-going differ- 
 ences between Lutheran and Reformed theo- 
 logy, much confusion of thought would be 
 
24 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 avoided. May this Book help all who read 
 it to distinguish between Lutheran and Re- 
 formed teaching. There are deep-going dif- 
 ferences. A general consciousness of this will 
 greatly strengthen our dear Church. “He 
 teaches well who distinguishes well.” 
 
 All the Reformed Churches that accept, be- 
 lieve, teach, and confess the so-called ecumen- 
 ical or world-wide creeds of the early Church, 
 1. e., the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Atha- 
 nasian Creeds, are generally recognized as 
 Evangelical Churches. 
 
 Leaving out the fanatical and soul-destroy- 
 ing sects, there has grown up within the Re- 
 formed Evangelical Churches a great and 
 threatening modern schism. It grows out of 
 two opposite views and attitudes as to the Bi- 
 ble. The two parties are known as the Funda- 
 mentalists and the Non-fundamentalists or 
 Liberals, or Modernists. The latter refuse to 
 accept and confess, among others, such doc- 
 trines as: The Inspiration of the Bible; The 
 Trinity; The Virgin Birth and Deity of 
 Christ; The Vicarious Atonement; Original 
 Sin; The Need of Regeneration and Renewal 
 by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The former believe that all these doctrines 
 are fundamental to true Christianity and are 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 part of that faith once for all delivered to the 
 saints. ‘There isaschism. Again division is 
 called for. Division is here. 
 
 Here is asurprise,a wonder! The original 
 Protestant Church, the greatest Protestant 
 Church, the Church that more than one prom- 
 inent Reformed writer has called ‘The 
 Church of Theologians,” the Lutheran 
 Church, has no schism on Fundamentals! She 
 believes, teaches, and confesses all the above | 
 named fundamental doctrines. She believes: 
 more. Her theology is deeper and clearer on 
 the Person and Work of Christ than that of 
 any other Church. She not only believes and 
 teaches the sovereignty of grace, but she has, 
 as no other Church has, a precious, helpful 
 and comforting explanation of how divine 
 grace is brought to needy man. 
 
 In her teaching that grace comes through 
 the Means of Grace, she bridges and harmo- 
 nizes the sovereignty of God and the responsi- 
 bility of man. To her this is fundamental and 
 inexpressibly precious. It occupies a promi- 
 nent place in her Dogmatics. 
 
 She sympathizes with all earnest Funda- 
 mentalists. She is ready to help them. They 
 need to know this great, solid, satisfying 
 
26 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Church. We cordially invite them to get 
 acquainted with us. 
 
 This brings us to the purpose of this book. 
 The setting forth of the fundamental beliefs 
 of a Church in a natural and intelligible 
 order is the task of Dogmatics. In Dogmatics 
 the Church sets forth her beliefs and teach- 
 ings, gives her reasons for holding them, and 
 commends them to all earnest inquirers after 
 truth. In her Dogmatics, the Church’s Fun- 
 damentals are to be found. 
 
 The Lutheran Church has probably pro- 
 duced more standard works on Dogmatics 
 than any other Church in the world. She has 
 produced, is producing, and will continue to 
 produce a brilliant array of scholarly, sound, 
 Scriptural, and deeply spiritual men, who 
 have given and will continue to give their life 
 to the searching out and setting forth of the 
 things that God would have His children 
 know and believe. The best books on Dog- 
 matics have been and are those that show the 
 sinner most clearly what he must do to be 
 saved. 
 
 The writer of this book is not and never has 
 been a professor of Dogmatic Theology. For 
 about thirty years he has occupied the chair of 
 Practical Theology. He admires the dogmatic 
 
INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 treatises of our great Church teachers, loves 
 to study them, and hopes that our American 
 Lutheran Church will produce many more. 
 A year ago he spent a goodly part of his sum- 
 mer vacation in a careful study of that great, 
 scholarly, comprehensive, and challenging 
 latest American work entitled “Christian 
 Dogmatics” written by his revered, admired, 
 and beloved classmate in Philadelphia Semi- 
 nary fifty years ago, the Rev. Doctor C. E. 
 Lindberg of Rock Island, Illinois. 
 
 Yes, we need and want these great, learned, 
 and exhaustive works on Dogmatics. They 
 are necessary for the Church’s ministers, 
 teachers, and leaders. They cannot do with- 
 out them. 
 
 But the every day man cannot comprehend 
 and will not read them. They are above him. 
 He cannot reach up. They are too deep for 
 him. He cannot penetrate them. He is nu- 
 merous. He fills our Church pews—in as far 
 as they are filled. As Lincoln said: ‘God 
 must have loved the common people; He 
 made so many of them.” ‘These common peo- 
 ple need to know and understand the funda- 
 mental teachings of the great Church of the 
 Reformation. ‘That Church has a system of 
 truth that invites investigation. It bears ac- 
 
28 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 quaintance. ‘The better it is known, the more 
 it commends itself. Not one of the doctrines 
 of this Church needs to be apologized for. 
 Not one needs to be compromised or explained 
 away. Our’beliefs and teachings need noth- 
 ing more than to be studied with an open 
 mind. 
 
 To such a study this book invites. It wants 
 to help thoughtful people. It desires the com- 
 mon man to read, to think, to understand. 
 
 This book claims to be thoroughly loyal to 
 all the teachings and confessions of the Lu- 
 theran Church. The writer has given his life 
 to the exposition, the defense, and the propa- 
 gation of these teachings. They have satisfied 
 the questionings and the yearnings of millions 
 of devout seekers after truth. They give rest 
 and peace and comfort to the writer’s own 
 soul. He loves them as he loves his life. 
 
 It may be that the arrangement, the order, 
 the system in this book does not correspond to 
 those in the scientific treatises on Dogmatics. 
 Systems, plans, and arrangements are human. 
 They are neither inerrant nor infallible. The 
 old orders and systems may bear re-examina- 
 tion and revision. 
 
 This book may differ from the large, schol- 
 arly, and exhaustive works also in language. 
 
INTRODUCTION 29 
 
 The phraseology and the statements may be 
 different in form and expression. Perhaps 
 this is so much the worse for the older and 
 bigger books. ‘There can be revision of form 
 and restatement without changing of essence 
 and principle. 
 
 We offer this book on Lutheran Fundamen- 
 tals, or Dogmatics, to the Common Man. 
 Come now and let us reason together. 
 
 We cherish the fond hope that this book 
 will also be helpful to the preacher. He 
 preaches to, and endeavors to reach and influ- 
 ence for God and for good, the Common Man. 
 He does not always succeed in getting his 
 message across. May this book assist him in 
 making the precious things of God so clear 
 that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may 
 understand, take to heart, and put into prac- 
 tice all these Lutheran Fundamentals. 
 
ia 
 
 ris 
 
 | 
 —s 
 oon ie 
 
 "t: 
 
 
 

 

 
CHAPTER 1 
 We Believe in God 
 
 H EATHEN who never saw a Bible, who 
 never heard a missionary, believe these 
 four truths: 
 
 1. They believe that there is some kind 
 of a supernatural power, some kind of a god 
 above them, whose rule and reign are su- 
 preme. 
 
 2. They believe that this supreme power, 
 be it a personified god, or gods, is displeased 
 with them, is angry, and is ready to punish 
 them. 
 
 3. They believe that something must be 
 done to appease this power in order to bring 
 about reconciliation, harmony, peace. 
 
 4. They believe that, if reconciliation is 
 not brought about, there will be retribution 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 33 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 3. 
 
34 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 These feelings after God, if haply they 
 might find Him, are remnants in their inner 
 consciousness of God’s revelation. He is not 
 far from any one of them, but they know it. 
 not. 
 
 In this chapter we look at the first of the 
 four beliefs. 
 
 Only the fool says in his heart: ‘There 
 is no God.” Belief in the existence and real- 
 ity of a supreme and powerful being or beings 
 is common to humanity. It is as widespread 
 as the race. It is found even among the lowest 
 and most degraded of the heathen. No race or 
 tribe has ever been discovered among whose 
 people there has not been found a dim, vague, 
 but deep notion of some kind of a power 
 above them, beyond them, on which they are 
 dependent, and for whose favor they long. 
 Even unbelieving, scientific investigators ac- 
 knowledge the universality of this belief. It 
 is an attribute of a human being. It is one 
 of the decisive marks that separate a human 
 from a brute. No brute ever evoluted into 
 a rational, religious, believing, and worship- 
 ing creature. 
 
 If there is such a thing as an atheist, he 
 has made himself such by wilfully crush- 
 ing out his own highest and noblest human 
 
WE BELIEVE IN GOD 35 
 
 man intuition. He is wilfully ignorant and 
 hostile. He has made himself a fool, and the 
 fool still says in his heart, “There is no God.” 
 But we believe in God. 
 
 Why do we believe in God? Can we justi- 
 fy our belief? Can we give an answer to every 
 man that asks for a reason, a ground of our 
 own belief? Some of the most enlightened 
 among the heathen have set forth and elab- 
 orated a number of weighty proofs for the ex- 
 istence of a god or gods. We need name only 
 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Ra- 
 tionalistic, liberalistic, and naturalistic theo- 
 logians always set great store by these heathen- 
 born, traditional proofs for the existence of 
 God. Evangelical and orthodox Dogmati- 
 cians set them forth, evaluate them, and show 
 how far the believer may use the proofs for 
 God’s existence. 
 
 Does the thinking layman, the every day 
 man, need them? He will at least want to 
 know what they are. Without extended elab- 
 oration, we give the more important of these 
 proofs. 
 
 We might divide them into those proofs 
 that come to us from without and those proofs 
 that we have within us. Of the former the 
 first is the so-called Cosmological Proof. This 
 proof reasons from effect back to cause. 
 
36 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 We see, we scan, we study the stupendous, 
 boundless material Universe. Whence is it? 
 Could it be uncaused, or self-caused? ‘To sat- 
 isfy our thinking , must we not believe in a 
 causer Can we think of a building without a 
 builder, an automobile without a maker, a 
 book without an author? Would not such 
 ideas put an end to clear thinking? 
 
 Augustine in his searching and wonderful 
 Confessions says in substance: “I asked the 
 earth and all that is in it, and it answered: ‘I 
 am not He.’ I asked the sea and all that 
 swims, and creeps and lives, and they an- 
 swered: ‘We are not God.’ I asked the winds 
 and the air and all that moves in them, and 
 they said: ‘Look higher, we are not God.’ I 
 asked the heavens, the sun, the moon and the 
 stars, and they replied: ‘We are not the God 
 whom thou seekest!’ And I asked all of these 
 together: ‘Since none of you, nor all of you 
 are God, tell me of Him, and with a loud 
 voice they answered: ‘He Made Us!” 
 
 This is the Cosmological Argument, con- 
 cretely, convincingly, and eloquently put. 
 This is enough for any sincere and devout 
 layman. 
 
 We cast a hasty glance at the Teleological 
 Argument. This argument goes a step fur- 
 
WE BELIEVE IN GOD 37 
 
 ther than the former. It observes not merely 
 the fact that there is a wonderful Universe, 
 but it studies and sees evidence of intelligence, 
 wisdom, planning, adaptation, and design 
 everywhere. Where there is design, there 
 must have been a Designer. Where we see a 
 wonderfully planned and adapted Universe, 
 there must have been a master Architect. We 
 look into the heavens above us. We study sun, 
 moon, planets, and stars. We learn that none 
 ~ are still. All are moving. The stellar Universe 
 is the great clock-work of God, a stupendous 
 exhibition of perpetual motion, without ever 
 a collision; always keeping time for thousands 
 and thousands of years. We learn that our 
 earth is a planet, that it gets light from sun, 
 moon, and stars; its heat, its day and night, its 
 summer and winter from the sun; its rain and 
 snow from the clouds. The air that we breathe 
 is made up of the very gases, in the exact pro- 
 portion, that the body needs. The earth’s sur- 
 face, directly or indirectly, produces all the 
 food and drink we need, and from its bowels 
 we dig up our fuel, our metals, and our pre- 
 cious stones. What a wonderful mother is 
 Mother Earth! Who planned, arranged and 
 adapted it sor We study our own bodies. 
 
38 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Again what wonderful design and adaptation 
 —fearfully and wonderfully made! 
 
 We cannot understand all things in or 
 all things about nature. Sometimes she sur- 
 prises, she staggers, she stuns and shocks us. 
 Why did God make it so? Even so chil- 
 dren are often grieved and shocked at what 
 a good and wise father does. They don't 
 know as much as father and can’t see as far as 
 he can. Yet father has a good purpose and a 
 wise design. So we shortsighted children can- 
 not understand all. Sometime we’ll under- 
 stand. Meanwhile we study, we admire, we 
 appreciate more and more the Intelligence 
 and Wisdom that made and arranged it all. 
 The Teleological Argument is old. The 
 writer of the Book of Job in the closing chap- 
 ters sets it forth in a most striking and search- 
 ing way. Psalm 104 sings out its glory. 
 Everywhere “the heavens declare the glory 
 of God and the firmament showeth His handi- 
 work.” We too exclaim, “In wisdom hast 
 Thou made them all.” 
 
 The above are arguments based on exter- 
 nals. Even the glimpse of self was rather of 
 external or physical self. But man is above 
 all else a spirit. The greatest thing in man 
 is mind. The greatest thing in mind is spirit 
 
WE BELIEVE IN GOD 39 
 
 or soul. The spirit or soul has a non-moral 
 and a moral side. The moral side knows that 
 there is a right over against a wrong. It 
 knows that it ought to follow the right and 
 that in proportion as it attains the right it finds 
 the good. 
 
 Within that mental side of man’s nature 
 there is a moral monitor or judge. We call 
 it conscience. Conscience is that power in 
 man’s moral nature that discerns an inner law, 
 a law written in the heart or soul, that hales 
 its possessor before the law and judges him 
 by it. Conscience, if it has not been wilfully 
 blinded and hardened, is conscious of the God 
 who has written that law in the heart. There- 
 fore, as we have seen above, all races and 
 tribes believe in some kind of god or gods. 
 This is the Moral Argument, or the Argu- 
 ment from conscience, for the existence of 
 God. 
 
 The moral nature longs for God. As Augus- 
 tine so beautifully, so appealingly says: “Thou 
 hast made us for Thyself, O God; therefore, 
 we are without rest till we rest in Thee.” 
 
 The soul that truly finds God finds rest and 
 peace. It knows God by experience. It can 
 no longer question or doubt. Day by day that 
 soul experiences the realness, the presence, the 
 
40 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 comfort of companionship with God. Spur- 
 geon was once asked, ‘“‘How do you know that 
 there is a Godr’” Laconically he answered: 
 “Why, I’ve been personally acquainted with 
 Him for forty years.” 
 
 This is the Argument from Christian Ex- 
 perience. It crowns all other evidences. It 
 is final. It is enough. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Being and Nature of God 
 
 N this chapter we take for granted and 
 
 anticipate the fact that God has revealed 
 Himself to man in His Word. In a later 
 chapter we shall come back and discuss the 
 reality and nature of that Revelation. 
 
 Who and What Is God? 
 
 The God in whom we believe is not an idea. 
 He is not an abstraction of human thought. 
 He is not a creation of man’s imagination. He 
 is not a pervasive influence in nature. He is 
 not an impersonal force. 
 
 Pantheism may speculate and dream and 
 imagine a God who is immanent in nature and 
 confined in the physical universe. Panthe- 
 ists may spin their fancies about the soul of 
 the world, the spirit that pervades what the 
 senses perceive. In poetic dreams they may 
 imagine a god who sleeps in every stone and 
 clod, who moves in the winds, who opens his 
 ~ eyes in the flowers, who hums in the bees, 
 
 4I 
 
42 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 chirps in the crickets, croaks in the frogs, and 
 makes melody in the mocking-birds. Let them 
 outrage their own nature if they will. Let 
 them believe in such a god if they can. We 
 pity them. Such beliefs are too irrational 
 and too absurd for us. We cannot command 
 such a stretch of credulity. Our belief is 
 easier. 
 
 We believe in God the Father Almighty. 
 Our God is a living and personal being. He 
 is over all, God forever. He controls and 
 guides all nature. No grass blade springs, no 
 song-sparrow sings, without His will. 
 
 God is absolute Personality. 
 
 Personality implies and includes self-con- 
 sciousness and self-determination. God is con- 
 scious of Himself. He can say and does say: 
 I am, I will, I say, I do. Nothing outside of 
 Himself determines or can determine Him. 
 He wills and does. With Him to will is to do. 
 He is absolutely supreme and as free as He 
 is supreme. 
 
 God Is a Spirit. 
 
 A spirit does not have flesh and bones. God 
 does not have a material body. When His | 
 Word speaks of His face, His arm, His hand, 
 or other bodily parts, the language is figura- 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD _ 43 
 
 tive and is used to aid our weak understand- 
 ing, which cannot comprehend pure spirit. 
 Much less can it comprehend God as pure 
 spirit. As a purely spiritual Being, we can- 
 not by searching find out the Almighty to per- 
 fection. 
 
 If God in His nature and being were al- 
 together such a one as man is; if our finite 
 minds could altogether understand, compre- 
 hend, and conceive Him, He could in no sense 
 be a real God, the God we need, the living 
 God for whom the soul cries out. 
 
 God is absolute. His existence, His being, 
 His personality is entirely independent of 
 any other existence or being. He is abso- 
 lutely self-sufficient and self-dependent. He 
 knows no bounds or limitations. He is 
 conditioned by nothing outside of Himself. 
 He is infinite and cannot be conditioned by 
 anything or anyone that is finite. As absolute, 
 self-sufficient, self-dependent, He can condi- 
 tion Himself. He can will to limit and con- 
 trol Himself. | 
 
 While therefore our finite mind and reason 
 cannot fully understand or comprehend the 
 absolute, the infinite personality of God, we 
 can and do know that His personality is as dif- 
 ferent from a human personality as the in- 
 
44 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 finite is different from the finite, as the heav- 
 ens are higher than the earth. This is the per- 
 sonal God that we believe in. This is the God 
 who can say “I” to me. This is the God to 
 whom I can say “Thou” and “Thee.” I can 
 say: “Abba; my Father, my God.” 
 
 This God has revealed Himself as Triune 
 or three-one. He is one in essence. He sub- 
 sists in three Persons. He is three in one, and 
 one in three. This is the doctrine of The 
 Trinity. To man’s unaided reason this doc- 
 trine is a mystery. We cannot understand it. 
 Shall we on that account deny and reject it? 
 Is not life itself a mystery? Is not life’s whole 
 pathway strewn with mysteries? Do we not 
 largely live on and in mysteries? ‘The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
 sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
 cometh, and whither it goeth.” ‘This we read 
 every Trinity Sunday. 
 
 We noted above that in His nature and be- 
 ing God is a mystery. This God has made 
 Himself known to us in His Word. On the 
 one hand He claims to be One: 
 
 Deut. 6.4. “Hear O Israel; The Lord our 
 God is one Lord.” 
 
 Deut. 4.35. ‘The Lord He is God; there 
 
 is none else beside him.”’ 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD 45 
 
 Isaiah 44. 6. “I am the first, and I am the 
 last; and beside me there is no God.” 
 
 Jesus says: “This is life eternal, that they 
 should know thee, the only true God.” John 
 Wiese 
 
 Paul says: “We know that... there is 
 none other God but one.”’ 1 Cor. 8. 4. 
 
 Therefore the Church confesses in the Ni- 
 cene Creed: 
 
 “T believe in one God,” and in the Athana- 
 sian Creed: “This is the Catholic [ Christian ] 
 Faith: that we worship one God.” And so 
 we Lutherans believe, teach, and confess. . 
 
 This God who is one in essence is revealed 
 in Scripture as three persons. ‘To each one of 
 the three all the attributes possessed by the 
 other two are ascribed. Each one is called 
 God, each one has the attributes of God, each 
 one does works that only God can do, and each 
 one is worshiped as God. (To this we shall 
 return when we consider the Son and the Holy 
 Ghost separately.) Yet there are not three 
 Gods, but one. At the baptism of Christ all 
 three were present. The Son was baptized. 
 The Holy Ghost descended in the form of a 
 dove. The Father spoke from heaven. In 
 John 14. 16, Jesus, the Son, said: “I will 
 
46 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 pray the Father, and he shall give you another 
 Comforter, that He may be with you forever, 
 even the Spirit of truth.” In His last com- 
 mission Jesus directs His apostles to make dis- 
 ciples of all the nations, baptizing them into 
 the Name of the Father and of the Son and 
 of the Holy Ghost.— Three persons, one 
 Name, one God. In the Apostolic Benedic- 
 tion, 2 Cor. 13. 14, we have: “The grace of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the communion of the Holy Ghost” men- 
 tioned together—three in one. 
 
 The Holy Church throughout the world 
 has had good Scripture ground for believing, 
 teaching, and confessing the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. It has ever been one of her Funda- 
 mentals. 
 
 And is not this three-one God the very 
 kind of a God that we need in our hazardous 
 journey through life? Our hearts need just 
 such a God as this. Our experience demands 
 Him. Our life is made bearable and bright 
 by Him. 
 
 Let us look at a few common, Christian 
 experiences. Cannot every Christian reader 
 say: 
 
 I am living in a hostile world. The world 
 of humanity lieth in wickedness. It is un- 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD 47 
 
 friendly to Christ and therefore to me. “The 
 friendship of the world is enmity with God’’? 
 
 Even nature is often in an angry mood. Her 
 elements are sometimes dangerous and threat- 
 ening. I am so helpless over against their fury. 
 
 I am frequently filled with fears and forebod- 
 
 ings. In such situations what kink ft 
 
 do I need? Like a trembling child I Want'a_ 
 
 father. Then I think of and fly to God the > NS 
 Father. I recall that ‘‘as a father pitieth his SS 
 children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
 
 him.” This God is almighty. He is good. 
 
 He loves me. He promises to be with me, to 
 
 protect me. I read Isaiah 43. 1, 2—‘‘Fear not, 
 
 for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee 
 
 by thy name, thou art mine. When thou pass- 
 
 est through the waters, I will be with thee; 
 
 and through the rivers, they shall not over- 
 
 flow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, 
 
 thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the 
 
 flame kindle upon thee.”” I read again Psalm 
 
 23 and 91. I ponder anew Mt. 6. 19-34 and 
 
 Rom. 8. 31-39. And this God is my Father! 
 
 What a Father! Why should I be afraid? 
 
 At other times my sins rise up before me. 
 They show me my unworthiness, my guilt, 
 my condemnation. God has expressed His 
 will in His law. His law demands perfect 
 
48 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 obedience, perfect love: ‘Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with 
 all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” 
 “Cursed is every one that abideth not in all 
 things that are written in the law to do them.” 
 But I never did, I never could keep this holy 
 law. Oh my sin, my sin, woe is me, I am 
 undone! 
 
 At such a time I fear to flee to the glorious 
 and holy Giver of the Law. I cannot fly to 
 Sinai. Whither shall I gor What shall I 
 dor I need God as a Redeemer, a Saviour 
 from sin. I recall that Jesus Christ is God, 
 that He and the Father are one, that He came 
 to save me from my sin. 
 
 I read again the old, old Passion Story. I 
 see again how He who knew no sin was made 
 sin for me. He was made a curse for me. I 
 am moved. Iammelted. I read again Psalm 
 51. I repeat again Luther’s explanation of 
 the second Article of the Apostles’ Creed. I 
 noté;the {cli “thesime/s the iniy ea es ae 
 means me. In God the Son I find the God I 
 need. I believe, I am comforted. 
 
 It is said of Martin Luther that at one time 
 the devil came to him and held up before him 
 a long and frightful list of his sins. In great | 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD $49 
 
 consternation Luther gazed upon the list and 
 recognized it as correct. Anguish and despair 
 were laying hold of his soul. Then he be- 
 thought himself. His face lighted up and he 
 cried: ““Alway, thou accuser, thou liar! These 
 sins are no longer mine. Jesus Christ took 
 them away from me and took them upon 
 Himself. Go, settle with Him.” And the 
 devil fled. Luther had found in God the Son 
 the God he needed at that time. 
 
 Again, at other times, my faith grows weak, 
 my love grows cold. The flame of my inner 
 life flickers low. My soul is drying up. My 
 spiritual pulse is weak. I am spiritually sick. 
 The fervor and joy of my former experience 
 are waning. I do not delight myself in God 
 as I once did. He seems so far away. I am 
 spiritually so drowsy. I am threatened with 
 falling from Grace. 
 
 I am aroused. I am disturbed. I become 
 distressed. What shall I do? Howcan I re- 
 turn? How can these dry bones live? How 
 can I get back my former life and love and 
 joy and peacer 
 
 I recall the third Person in the Trinity. 
 The Holy Ghost is God. He is the Life- 
 giver, the Sanctifier, the Comforter. I read 
 again the wonderful fourteenth, fifteenth, and 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals, 4, 
 
50 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 sixteenth chapters of John. I study the refer- 
 ence passages. I read and pray over Luther’s 
 explanation of the Third Article of the Apos- 
 thes’ Creed.T see myisin.«: D repent ofige t 
 fly to God the Holy Ghost, the Lord and 
 Giver of Life, who with the Father and the 
 Son together is worshiped and glorified. “He 
 restoreth my soul.” He breathes new life in- 
 to my cold heart. I am renewed. I am happy. 
 
 And so I need the Triune God who is Fa- 
 ther, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Christian ex- 
 perience demands the Trinity. The doctrine 
 of the Trinity is a precious possession of the 
 soul. It is Fundamental. 
 
 The Attributes of God. 
 
 There are certain qualities in the Nature, 
 Being, and Essence of God that mark Him off 
 and separate Him from all other beings. 
 They differentiate Him from every creature. 
 They are possessions of His nature without 
 which He would not be God. They are helps 
 for us poor finite creatures in our endeavors 
 to get clearer ideas of the Infinite. In a sense 
 they are marks that help us to know God as 
 God. Taken together they characterize God 
 for us. 
 
 We note them here only in so far as they 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD © 51 
 
 assist us in getting a possibly clearer concep- 
 tion of God as He is in Himself, and also as 
 He is in relation to His creation and in rela- 
 tion to ourselves. 
 
 We have shown above that God is the one 
 Absolute Being. He claims the attribute of 
 Absoluteness for Himself. In Isaiah 43. 10 
 He says: “J am He: before me there was no 
 God formed, neither shall there be after me. 
 I, even I, am Jehovah.” In Ex. 3. 14 He says 
 to Moses: “I Am That I Am.” Sometimes 
 translated: I Am Because I Am. 
 
 God is infinite. In His perfections He can- 
 not be limited or searched out. Psalm 145. 3, 
 “His greatness is unsearchable.” Job 11. 7, 
 “Canst thou by searching find out God? 
 Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
 tion?” 
 
 God is eternal. He is without beginning 
 or end. What we call time does not count 
 with Him. There is neither past nor future 
 with Him. He knows only the everlasting 
 present. Psalm 90. 2, “Even from everlasting 
 to everlasting thou art God.” 1 Tim. 1. 17, 
 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisi- 
 ble, the only God, be honor and glory forever 
 and ever. Amen.” 
 
 God is omnipresent. His presence is every- 
 
52 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 where and everywhen. Jer. 23. 24, “Do not 
 I fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah.” 
 1 Kings 8. 27, “Behold, heaven and _ the 
 heaven of heavens cannot contain the.” 
 Psalm 139. 7-10, “‘Whither shall I flee from 
 thy presencer If I ascend up into heaven, 
 thou gartithere,af bo make? myy bedein hell 
 behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of 
 the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
 of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, 
 and thy right hand shall hold me.” 
 
 God is unchangeable. 
 
 Mal. 3. 6, “I, Jehovah, change not.”’ Psalm 
 LOZ 020: 27. “They shall perish, but Thou 
 shalt aay yea, all of them shall wax old 
 like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change 
 them, and they shall be changed. But Thou 
 art the same.” James 1. 17, ‘The Fatheriot 
 lights with whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning.” 
 
 God is omnipotent. He is the Almighty 
 one. There is no limit to His power. This 
 does not mean that He can do things contra- 
 dictory to His nature. His nature and attri- 
 butes imply certain necessary self-limitations. 
 He cannot do wrong and remain the God that 
 He is. 
 
 Heb. 6. 18, “It is impossible for God to lie.” 
 
THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD - 53 
 
 He cannot sin. To do this would be to un- 
 god Himself. He can do all things consistent 
 with His holy will. Holy Will is His nature. 
 2 Tim. 2. 13, “He cannot deny Himself.” In 
 this sense God is omnipotent. Psalm 115. 3, 
 “Our God is in the heavens; He hath done 
 - whatsoever He pleased.” Psalm 135. 6, 
 ‘‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in 
 heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep 
 places.” Mt. 19. 26, “With God all things 
 are possible.” Luke 18. 27, “The things that 
 aré impossible with man are possible with 
 God.” The attribute of omnipotence is so 
 self-evident that we need discuss it no further. 
 
 The same is true of His attribute of om- 
 niscience. This means that He knows all 
 things. Without this attribute He could not 
 be. God. , Prov. 15..3, “The eyes.of the Lord 
 are in every place beholding the evil and the 
 good.” Psalm 139. 1-3, “O Lord, Thou hast 
 searched me and known me. Thou knowest 
 my downsitting and mine uprising. Thou un- 
 derstandest my thoughts afar off. Thou com- 
 passest my path and my lying down, and art 
 acquainted with all my ways.” 
 
 God is good. His goodness shines out in 
 His love and mercy, and is also so self-evident 
 that we need not dwell on it here. His good- 
 
54 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 ness, His lovingkindness, His tender mercy 
 stand forth on every page of the Bible. 
 
 Without a firm belief in these primary 
 attributes of God, without a living and abid- 
 ing experience of them, we could never have 
 written this book. Every true believer knows 
 by blessed experience that God is good, that 
 His mercies are new every morning, that His 
 lovingkindness brightens and blesses every 
 day. 
 
 All the attributes of God are fundamental 
 to the believer’s idea and concept of God. All 
 are fundamental to his experience of God. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 The Works of God. — Revelation. 
 
 HE great, outstanding works of God are 
 Creation, Preservation, Redemption, 
 Renewal, and Revelation. Without the last 
 we could not know, understand, or be helped 
 by the other four. For this reason we con- 
 sider the last first and and now look at, and 
 look into, God’s work of revealing Himself, 
 or making Himself known to man. 
 
 In chapter two we anticipated the fact of 
 Revelation, took it for granted and used it as 
 argument, proof, and explanation. ‘That 
 chapter would not be complete without this 
 one. 
 
 There are many errors, doubts, and misgiv- 
 ings as to the Bible as God’s Revelation. 
 There is bitter, determined, and persistent op- 
 position to belief in divine Revelation. The 
 opposition often parades itself under the guise 
 of scholarship and critical research. Un- 
 counted thousands, many of them good peo- 
 
 : 55 
 
56 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS . 
 
 ple, have been troubled, misled, and plunged 
 into hopeless unbelief by this opposition. 
 
 Christians still believe that God_has re- 
 vealed Himself and His holy will in His 
 Word, which they call the Bible. 
 
 When we come to study man as a fallen and 
 sinful creature, we shall see more clearly how 
 sorely man needs a revelation from on high. 
 When we study God’s work of Creation, we 
 shall see how the Creator reveals Himself al- 
 so in nature. Here we deal with the Revela- 
 tion written in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 If we believe what is written above as to the 
 Existence, Being, Nature, and Attributes of 
 God, we cannot doubt that this God can reveal 
 Himself to man. Then we also know that 
 such a God would want the children of His 
 creation to know what His will is concerning 
 them. Especially would such a God want 
 His fallen, helpless, and hopeless children to 
 know His good and gracious will. This Rev- 
 elation of Himself and of His loving purpose 
 concerning us we have in the old, familiar 
 Book, the Bible. 
 
 Look at it. It is made up of sixty-six sepa- 
 rate writings, which we call the books of the 
 Bible. It is an old Book. It was nearly a 
 thousand and a half years before Christ when 
 
THE WORKS OF GOD 57 
 
 Moses began to write. Altogether about forty 
 different writers have taken part in writing 
 our Bible. From the time when Moses began 
 to write until John, the last writer, was done, 
 a millenium and a half had rolled around and 
 away. 
 
 These writers lived in different lands, in 
 different ages. They did not all write in the 
 same language. Few of them knew each other. 
 When one was writing he did not know that— 
 or what—another would write. 
 
 When at last, after careful, continued and 
 painstaking investigation, the writings of 
 these forty men were eelenina from other 
 extant writings, they were arranged and put 
 together, each one into its own place. ‘They 
 made a complete Book, a consistent Book, a 
 Book without a self-contradiction if rightly 
 understood. 
 
 The contents of this Book of books cover 
 the widest range. There is not a human in- 
 terest that is not touched. The deepest ques- 
 tions that ever troubled a human soul find in 
 these pages a real answer. Here we have His- 
 tory, Biography, Poetry, Philosophy, Proph- 
 ecy, Gospel, Experience, Doctrine, and 
 Ethics. Here the seeking soul finds instruc- 
 
58 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 tion, admonition, warning, reproof, promise, 
 encouragement, comfort, and peace. 
 
 From beginning to end, from the promise 
 of the seed of the woman to the last verse of 
 John’s Revelation, the Bible looks to, and cen- 
 ters around, one Personality. The heart, the 
 life-nerve, the living center is the old, old 
 story of Jesus and His love. That story, that 
 Personality, that Character, that life, that 
 work! In all the annals of history, in all the 
 pages of literature, there is nothing like it. It 
 is the life blood of the Bible. It has engaged, 
 it has fascinated, it has amazed, it has con- 
 founded, it has overcome the keenest intellects 
 
 ‘~among men. True, some wonder, doubt, and 
 go their way. 
 e often think of a story that our brilliant 
 / pisiewe the revered and sainted Doctor 
 Mann, once told us in class: 
 
 In the days of that distinguished and 
 unusually bright circle of French skeptics 
 and atheists called the Encyclopedists, at 
 one of their evening gatherings, the con- 
 versation turned to the personality, charac- 
 ter, and life of Jesus. One of the number 
 expressed his wonder that such a character 
 could have been invented and such a life 
 portrayed and carried consistently through to 
 
THE WORKS OF GOD 59 
 
 such an end. Others questioned whether 
 such a character, life, and story could be 
 conceived and written now. One of them 
 claimed that he could do it. The assembly 
 requested him to undertake the task. He 
 agreed. He went home and went to work. 
 He studied, investigated, planned, and ar- 
 ranged. He began to write. His imaginary 
 character got into difficulties. He threw 
 away his manuscript and began anew. Again 
 he found that he could not carry his hero 
 consistently through. He made a number of 
 attempts. He failed. He came back to his 
 congeners and said: ‘Gentlemen, it can’t be / 
 done!” 
 
 The brilliant Frenchman was right. The 
 unaided human mind cannot fabricate a Jesus 
 Christ and make up His story. Another 
 Frenchman with a wonderful imagination, 
 with rarely paralleled gifts as a writer, did 
 concoct a so-called Life of Jesus. Renan 
 wrote a brilliant romance, a novel cast in the 
 mold of Parisian life. But— what a carica- 
 ture! With all its bright picture-painting, 
 many pages and paragraphs are revolting, dis- 
 gusting, and impossible. The human mine 
 cannot portray the Divine. Man cannot cre- 
 ate God. To imagine, to fabricate Jesus 
 
60 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Christ and His Gospel, would be a greater 
 miracle than is the Christ Himself. No one 
 can know man but the spirit of man that is 
 in man. And no one can reveal the Christ 
 of God but the Spirit of God. Jesus Christ 
 is the outstanding center and subject of the 
 Bible. ‘The whole Old ‘Testament looks for- 
 ward to, and finds its explanation in, Him. 
 The New is the Testament of Jesus Christ. 
 He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
 and the end, the first and the last of God’s 
 revelation. Without Him the Bible has no 
 meaning. We believe the Bible because it 
 gives us our Saviour. We search the Scrip- 
 tures. ‘They testify of Christ. In Christ we 
 have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salva- 
 tion. 
 
 We look again at the Bible. This Book 
 has been hated, assailed, and abused as has 
 no other book in the world. The keenest 
 intellects among men have spoken and written 
 againstit. The natural heart dislikes it. The 
 old Adam hates it. Why? Because of its 
 humiliations. It paints every man’s true por- 
 trait. It opens up the innermost depths of 
 his soul. It makes him out a poor, helpless, 
 hopeless, lost, and guilty sinner. It shows 
 him that there is no help, no hope in himself 
 
THE WORKS OF GOD 61 
 
 as long as he is left to himself. It demands 
 of him that he recognize and realize that he 
 is a sinner, that he feel, lament, and confess 
 his guilt. It shows him that he needs to come 
 as a beggar holding out an empty hand, plead- 
 ing for mercy; that his only hope and help 
 is, that he fly to the Lord Jesus Christ for 
 refuge and salvation. 
 
 To human nature, proud, self-sufficient, 
 self-righteous, this is humiliating. It is ob- 
 noxious. The natural man hates the Book 
 that tells him all this. He is willing to take 
 pains, to pay money, to satisfy himself that 
 the Old Book is not true. Like the would- 
 be infidel in Ohio who said: “I don’t believe 
 in a hereafter. I don’t believe in a hell.” 
 Then, as if musing to himself he added: 
 “Still I would give my best yoke of oxen 
 if I could be sure.” 
 
 Yes, men hate the Bible. They don’t want 
 to receive or believe it. Every conceivable 
 effort has been made to discredit or destroy it. 
 The kings of the earth have set themselves . 
 against it. Rulers have conspired together 
 against it. Some of the mightiest emperors 
 that ever sat upon the throne of Rome, when 
 that throne ruled the world, set themselves 
 the task to put out of existence every copy 
 
62 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 and every part of the Christian Scriptures. 
 They issued imperial proclamations; they 
 sent out spies to search their lands and their 
 inhabitants for copies or books of the Sacred 
 writings. Wherever such a writing was found 
 it was burned, and the owner or reader was 
 often burned with it. And this went on for 
 generations. But the Book lived! 
 
 We bear in mind also that in those dark 
 days there were no printing presses. The 
 separate books of the Scriptures existed in 
 parchment form. ‘The large square letters 
 had to be carefully made and copied by hand. 
 There were comparatively few copies in ex- 
 istence. Here and there a little group of 
 believers or a rich man owned a parchment 
 containing the Books of Moses, the Psalms, 
 Isaiah, the Gospel of John, Paul’s Letter to 
 the Romans, or some other book of the Bible. 
 It cost more to own one of the manuscripts 
 than to build a house or buy a farm. 
 
 These parchments could not be hidden from 
 sight and search as easily as can our pocket 
 Testaments or India paper Bibles. Yet the 
 Scriptures survived. 
 
 There existed at that time other valued 
 writings, the products of profound and bril- 
 liant minds among the heathen. Every effort 
 
THE WORKS OF. GOD 63 
 
 was made that these writings might be pre- 
 served and handed down to posterity. Many 
 of them were lost. ‘Their names and titles 
 alone exist. 
 
 What a contrast: 
 
 Here is one set of rare writings. Every- 
 thing was done that could be done to destroy 
 them from the face of the earth. ‘They sur- 
 vived. Here are other writings. Everything 
 was done that could be done to preserve them. 
 They are gone. 
 
 How explain it? There is only one ex- 
 planation. The same God who gave His 
 Holy Scriptures watched over, guarded and 
 preserved them. He has made good His 
 promise: ‘‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 but my Word shall not pass away.” We have 
 it with us still. 
 
 And we believe, teach, and confess that the 
 Book with such other-worldly contents, with 
 such a history, is the inspired Word of God. 
 We believe that holy men of God spake and 
 - wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
 The Holy Spirit inspired it. Men wrote it. 
 It is God’s Book, given to us through men. 
 Like Christ, it is both divine and human. 
 
 Every true believer can say: 
 
 I believe that it is God’s Book. It reveals 
 
64 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 so much that the unaided mind of man could 
 never have known. It knows the hidden se- 
 crets of man’s soul as the soul itself could never 
 have known them. It knows and lays bare 
 the secret springs of human nature as no mere, 
 unaided man could do. It found me. It 
 discovered me to myself. It made me see 
 and know myself as I am by nature. It showed 
 me what I need, where and how to get what 
 I need. It meets me in my perplexity. It 
 leads me into the light of a better world. 
 Out of the darkness and death of sin, into 
 the light and life of grace. It takes me to 
 the wells of Salvation. It holds to my 
 parched lips the living water. When I am 
 weak and weary it feeds me with the manna 
 of God, the Bread of Life from heaven. I 
 am satisfied. My cup runneth over. 
 
 Is it too much to claim for such a Book 
 that it has God for its author, that it has Christ 
 for its subject, that is has salvation for its end? 
 It is—vyes it really is—the only Book on 
 earth that was edited in heaven. This is 
 fundamental. 
 
 But it might still be asked: What shall 
 we say to the multitudinous, widespread and 
 popular criticism of the Bible? We might 
 answer that this is nothing new. Faultfind- 
 
THE WORKS OF GOD 65 
 
 ing criticism of God and of His Word is as 
 old as the Garden of Eden. The devil was 
 the first destructive critic. In every age of 
 history hostile criticism has raised its head and 
 made its claims. Modern negative criticism 
 is offering little or nothing that is new. It 
 is in the main rehashing the deistical argu- 
 ments so rife in England in the eighteenth 
 century and the more scholarly and subtle 
 arguments of German Rationalism of a hun- 
 dred years ago. It is threshing over old straw. 
 All of its worth-while arguments have been 
 scrutinized, criticized, answered, and refuted 
 again and again. They have not overthrown a 
 single clear fact or doctrine of the old Bible. 
 
 The Bible and its friends have nothing to 
 fear. We welcome all fair and unprejudiced 
 right criticism. Our Fundamental beliefs on 
 this point need no further apologetic here. 
 Our Bible is its own best apologetic. Every 
 true believer knows by blessed experience that 
 it is of God. 
 
 For the comfort of some possibly perplexed 
 and doubtful reader we refer to this remark- 
 able fact. There are scores of similar facts. 
 They are occurring all the time. 
 
 In the days when Deism was rife and pop- 
 ular in England, two highly bred and cul- 
 
 Luth, Pundamenials. 5. 
 
66 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 tured young friends met together and talked 
 over the questions of the day, especially as 
 they pertained to supernatural Revelation and 
 miracle. Both shared the general conviction 
 that no educated, intelligent, thinking person 
 should hold any longer the old Christian 
 beliefs concerning the Bible and its contents. 
 Both of them, being scholarly gentlemen of 
 leisure, believed it their duty to help along 
 what they believed to be a rational criticism 
 
 of the contents of the Bible. ‘They really 
 wanted to assist in making men more intel- 
 
 ligent by ridding them of unworthy super- 
 stitutions. What could they do? After due 
 consultation Lord Littleton set himself the 
 task of showing that the Bible accounts of the 
 Resurrection of Christ cannot be and are not 
 true. Sir Gilbert West agreed that he would 
 show up and prove the same things as to the 
 Bible accounts of the Conversion of Paul. 
 
 Both went earnestly to work. University 
 libraries were at their disposal. They spared 
 neither labor nor pains. They made all the 
 earnest and honest research they could com- 
 mand. They were sincere. They wanted to 
 know and set forth the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth. 
 
 What was the result? 
 
THE WORKS OF GOD 67 
 
 Lord Littleton wrote a book which exam- 
 ined in minute detail the story of Christ’s 
 Resurrection, noted and criticized all argu- 
 ments against it, vindicated the reality of the 
 resurrection, and triumphantly proclaimed to 
 the world his own unshakable belief that now 
 is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
 first-fruits of them that slept. 
 
 Sir Gilbert West did the same thing as to 
 the story of Paul’s conversion. 
 
 So much for honest research and criticism. 
 The two remarkable little books of these two 
 remarkable men have been published by The 
 American Tract Society. Get them. Read 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 Creation 
 
 | ie the sake of convenience, because in that 
 which follows we need to refer to an 
 accepted written Word of God as our final 
 authority, we discussed Revelation before 
 Creation. Before Creation there was no such 
 thing as time. God was eternal. ‘Time be- 
 gan with creation. In time, creation was the 
 first great work of God. 
 
 From the earliest ages great thinkers among 
 men have busied their brains in trying to ac- 
 count for the existence of the universe, of our 
 earth, and of its inhabitants. Out of their 
 brains these speculative thinkers have spun 
 the most weird, fantastic, and absurd theories 
 as to the origin of the world and of man. 
 The mythologies, cosmogonies, and fairy tales 
 of creation form a strange commentary on 
 the possible aberrations of the human mind. 
 
 Over against all such vague and vain specu- 
 lations we have the short, simple, straightfor- 
 ward creation story of the Bible. 
 
 68 
 
CREATION 69 
 
 Look at it. How meaningful the first four 
 words of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God.” 
 God, the beginning. God, before all and 
 beyond all. In the beginning God created. 
 Before that beginning nothing existed outside 
 
 of God. In the beginning God created the 
 heaven and the earth. 
 
 No man-made account of creation starts 
 with a majestic ring like that. Here rings 
 out a startling voice from another world. 
 
 We are not told when this beginning was. 
 There is no date here. Let us not forget this. 
 There may have been countless ages during 
 which the earth was without form and void 
 and when darkness was upon the face of the 
 deep. During these primoridial ages, if such 
 there were, the Spirit of God was moving or 
 brooding upon the waters. 
 
 After this introductory statement, which 
 gives us the big, undated fact, we have the 
 ordered account of the progressive creation 
 out of the now existing chaos. We have first 
 the creation of light and the separating of 
 night from day. ‘Then the separating of the 
 firmament from the earth. ‘hen the sep- 
 arating of the waters on the earth from the 
 land. Then the calling forth of vegetation 
 from the earth. ‘Then the creation of the 
 
70 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars. 
 Then the fishes in the rivers and seas. Then 
 the fowls of the air. Then the creeping things 
 on the earth. Then the higher animals, the 
 quadrupeds, the mammals. And then the 
 crowning act, the creation of man in the image 
 of God. 
 
 This is the story. Here is order; here is 
 progress. First the earth is made fit for 
 production, for life. Then the heavenly 
 bodies, to give the kind of light and heat 
 needed for vegetable and animal life. Then 
 animals, beginning with the lowest forms, then 
 higher and higher, genus and species, each 
 after its kind, each reproducing its own kind. 
 
 And this is the order of science. Nature 
 herself, God’s secondary revelation, tells the 
 same story. Geology reveals the same order. 
 In the rock-layers, the strata, the internal 
 masonry of God, Geology finds the fossils of 
 flora and fauna in the order of the first 
 chapter of Genesis. 
 
 Some students have been troubled by the 
 division of the work of Creation into days. 
 There is no real difficulty here. The Hebrew 
 word for day is “Yom.” It has various 
 meanings in the Bible. The first chapter 
 of Genesis counts six ‘“Yoms,” or days, in 
 
CREATION 71 
 
 the progressive story of creation. Genesis 
 2. 4 calls the six Yoms, one: “In the day 
 
 that the Lord made the earth and the 
 heavens.” In 2 Pet. 3. 8 we are admonished: 
 “Forget not this one thing, beloved, that one 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years and 
 a thousand years as one day.” The whole 
 present dispensation of grace is called a day. 
 Thus in 2 Cor. 6. 2 we read: “Behold now 
 is the accepted time, now is the day of sal- 
 vation.” In Scripture usage the word day 
 may mean an age-long period. 
 
 But the main thing is not the exact measure 
 of time but the fact and work of creation. 
 Matter is not eternal. God is. Matter 
 could not evolve a universe like this. It is 
 more rational to believe that God created it 
 all. Heb. 11.3: “Through faith we under- 
 stand that the worlds were framed by the 
 word of God, so that things which are seen 
 were not made of things which do appear.” 
 “T believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth.” 
 
 We must still look at the creation of man, 
 the crowning work of God. 
 
 The earth had been made ready. The 
 Mineral Kingdom had been established and 
 systematically arranged in its bowels. The 
 
72 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Vegetable Kingdom had covered its surface 
 with verdure, fruit and beauty. The Animal 
 Kingdom had made its waters, its woods, its 
 fields, and its air teem with living creatures. 
 But there was as yet no earthly lord of cre- 
 ation. Man would not belong to, and could 
 not fit into, any of the three Kingdoms. 
 
 One of the early, good kings of Prussia once 
 visited a public school. He loved children. 
 He explained to them the three Kingdoms 
 Then he asked the school: “Now to which 
 Kingdom do I belong?” A little girl held up 
 her hand and answered: “To the Kingdom 
 of God.” She was right. For this Kingdom 
 God made man. Every man who is not in 
 this Kingdom is out of the place for which he 
 was intended. 
 
 Man’s creation shows this. Before God 
 created man, He had caused the earth to bring 
 forth life. That there might be a Vegetable 
 Kingdom, His creative and creating Word 
 said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the 
 herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding 
 fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself up- 
 on the earth,” and it was so. 
 
 And that there might be an Animal King- 
 dom, the same Fiat-Word said: “Let the 
 waters bring forth abundantly the moving 
 
CREATION 73 
 
 creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly 
 above the earth in the open firmament of heav- 
 en.” And so the earth and its waters pro- 
 duced the living things and the air was made 
 to swarm with life and music. All this be- 
 fore man and for man. 
 
 Now the Creator makes a new start. His 
 work is not yet completed. It is not yet 
 crowned. 
 
 God pauses. He takes counsel with Him- 
 self. As if musing aloud as to this great 
 crowning act, this special creation, He says, 
 ‘Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
 ness.” Had He said anything like this when 
 He made the lower animals? No; He had 
 made the waters and the earth bring them 
 forth. Of man alone He says, “Let us make 
 man in our image, after our likeness.” If this 
 does not mean that the making of man was a 
 separate act, a special creation, apart from and 
 different from all the other work of creation, 
 then language has no meaning. He says fur- 
 ther of this His special, crowning creature: 
 “Tet them have dominion over the fish of the 
 sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the 
 cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 
 creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 
 The inspired historian sums it all up and 
 
44 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 says: “So God created man in His own image, 
 in the image of God created He him; male 
 and female created He them.” Let the reader 
 read over again the first two chapters of his 
 Bible. This is God-inspired history. 
 
 Let us look briefly at man as made in the 
 image of God. What does it meaner There 
 has been much deep, elaborate, useless, and 
 confusing speculation as to this. For the or- 
 dinary, average believer it is enough to know 
 that the image, or likeness, of God, in which 
 He made man, means that God made him with 
 special spiritual endowments, by the right use 
 of which he was able to know, have fellowship 
 with, and imitate God in righteousness and 
 holiness of truth. Luther says: ‘When 
 Moses says that man was made in God’s image 
 he shows thereby that man is not only like 
 God in having reason, or understanding, and 
 a will, but especially that he is confronted 
 to God, that is, he has such understanding 
 and will as to understand God, and will what 
 God wills.” 
 
 The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, 
 which Apology is one of the Creeds of the 
 Lutheran Church, says: “That in man there 
 were embodied such wisdom and righteous- 
 ness as apprehended God and in which God 
 
CREATION 75 
 
 was reflected; that is, to man there were given 
 the gifts of the knowledge of God, the fear of 
 God, confidence in God, and the like.” 
 
 We look again at man as he came forth 
 from the hand of his Creator. As to manner 
 or method of his making, Gen. 2. 7 tells us: 
 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust 
 of the ground and breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of his life; and man became a liv- 
 ing soul.” God made man of two parts: a 
 body and a soul. God formed the body out 
 of the dust of the ground. As to his body, 
 man’s origin is from the soil; it is of the earth, 
 earthy. 
 
 One of the younger of the natural sciences, 
 Chemistry, has demonstrated that there is not 
 an element or substance in man’s body that is 
 not found in the soil of the earth. The physi- 
 cal body is closely related to ground. True 
 science always agrees with the Word of God. 
 God’s works cannot contradict God’s Word. 
 
 “Mother Earth” is what man often calls the 
 ground. It is a good name. To man’s body 
 the earth is a good mother. She provides 
 abundantly for his bodily life. Is he hungry? 
 The earth provides vegetables, grains, and 
 fruits. Huis meat he gets from earth-nourished 
 creatures. Is he thirsty? ‘The earth furnishes 
 
76 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 water and other drinks distilled from her 
 plants and fruits. Does he need clothing? 
 The cotton and the flax, the silk and the wool, 
 from earth-nourished creatures, provide him. 
 Does he need shelter, a place for rest and com- 
 fort? From the mines and forest he gets ma- 
 terial to build him a home in which to pre- 
 pare his food and to furnish heat when needed. 
 Does he have the desire for sex? Earthy 
 bodies have been made by God. Male and 
 female created He them. Yes, man’s body 
 was made from earth. It can live from the 
 earth. When man’s bodily life is ended, 
 Mother Earth opens her bosom; and the body, 
 till the resurrection morn, goes back, earth to 
 earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 
 
 We are not done with man. We are not 
 Materialists. Neither are we Sadducees. God 
 was not done with man after He had formed 
 his body out of the dust of the ground. I[n- 
 to that earthy body God breathed His breath, 
 the breath of life. Now after this inbreath- 
 ing, there was something in man that was not 
 out of the ground, not of the earth, earthy. 
 Now he had in him, as part of him, something 
 from another world, something from heaven. 
 Now he had in him the breath of God. Now 
 he could say: ‘The spirit of the Lord hath 
 
CREATION 77 
 
 made and the breath of the Almighty hath 
 given me life.” Now he was related to two 
 worlds. 
 
 The soul is not only a part of man, but it 
 is the chief part. The soul, thus originally 
 made, the soul, the breath of God, makes man 
 man. Such a soul forever differentiates man 
 from the brute. Into what brute, into what 
 ape, did God ever breathe a soul? 
 
 The soul has its wants, its longings, its 
 yearnings, its upreachings, its outcryings. It 
 has no Mother Earth. No earth, no world of 
 man, can ever satisfy the soul. The Bread of 
 Life, the bread from heaven, the manna from 
 above, alone can satisfy soul-hunger. The 
 Water of Life alone, Christ’s living and life- 
 giving Water alone, can satisfy soul-thirst. 
 The robe of Christ’s righteousness alone can 
 fitly clothe the soul. And the resurrection 
 body is the house not made with hands, with 
 which the soul will be clothed and made eter- 
 nally and perfectly happy in the House of 
 many mansions in heaven. The pleasures of 
 the world can never satisfy the soul. The 
 riches of the world can never still its yearn- 
 ings.* 
 
 
 
 
 
 * For a further discussion of man’s relation to the soil read 
 chapters one and two of The Lutheran Church in the Country. 
 
78 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 With Shakespeare we may admire man 
 and say: “What a piece of work is man! 
 How noble in reason! How infinite in facul- 
 ty! In form and moving how expressive and 
 admirable! In action how like an angel! In 
 apprehension how like a god!” 
 
 But with Augustine we can more truthfully 
 say and pray: “Thou hast made us for Thy- 
 self, O God. Therefore we are without rest 
 until we rest in Thee.” 
 
 The Bible story of the creation of man, the 
 Bible view of the nature, capacity, powers, 
 and destiny of man satisfy a reasonable man’s 
 own thinking. This explanation of man’s ori- 
 gin and nature gives a resting place to the in- 
 quiring mind. Man can think it through and 
 arrive at a point of peace. 
 
 But from the beginning there have been 
 those who have been unwilling to accept 
 God’s own account of His creation. They will 
 not believe His Word. ‘The devil was the 
 first agnostic, the first skeptic, the first infidel. 
 He whispered his unbelief into the ear of 
 Mother Eve. He made her believe that God 
 is not good, that His Word is not true, that 
 to disobey, to sin, would bring sense-gratifi- 
 cation and intellectual advance and advantage. 
 The devil perverted Eve, she perverted Adam. 
 
CREATION 79 
 
 The race that was in Adam’s loins fell.—Of 
 this more hereafter when we study sin. 
 
 From that time forth the children of Adam, 
 as long as they were in their natural state, un- 
 changed, unrenewed, when they knew or 
 might have known God, “they glorified Him 
 not as God, neither were thankful, but became 
 vain in their reasonings and their senseless 
 heart was darkened. Professing themselves to 
 be wise, they became fools, and changed the 
 glory of the incorruptible God into an image 
 made like to corruptible man and to birds 
 and four-footed beasts and creeping things... 
 For they exchanged the truth of God for a 
 lie and worshiped and served the creature 
 more than the Creator, who is blessed for- 
 ever.’ Read Romans 1. 16-32. Here you 
 find God’s inspired delineation of Darwinian 
 Evolution. 
 
 Naturalistic, materialistic evolution pro- 
 fesses to describe, to portray, to set forth in an 
 elaborate system, the origin, development, and 
 progress of man. It utterly ignores God’s 
 Revelation. It goes on the supposition that 
 man must dig out, and make up, his own his- 
 tory. That for which he can find no historic 
 basis, he must invent, hypothecate; and then, 
 on his own fancied hypotheses or guesses, he 
 
80 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 must build a system and call it Science. His 
 fellow men must accept his fabrications, his 
 invented system, his science, falsely so-called, 
 or be dubbed as credulous dupes, ignoramuses, 
 followers of senseless traditions, men living in 
 the Dark Ages, content with outworn creeds 
 and wilfully blind to the new light of this 
 new age. 
 
 The writer of this, along with thousands of 
 other sincere, serious, and earnest seekers after 
 truth, utterly repudiates such arrogant epi- 
 thets. ‘There is, and has been, probably more 
 persistent, prayerful, painstaking search and 
 research for truth on the part of conservative 
 Christians than on the part of flippant, credu- 
 lous unbelievers and liberals. 
 
 We cannot here enter into a full discussion 
 of Darwinian Evolution. This would not fit 
 into the province or plan of this book. Since, 
 however, evolution is so persistent in its propa- 
 ganda, since it is so insidiously instilled into 
 our children and youth from the public kin- 
 dergarten up through grammar grades, high 
 schools, state Normals, and universities, we 
 cannot entirely ignore it. 
 
 We can only enumerate, and call attention 
 to, a few of its positions that have been pointed 
 out by so many of its able opponents as utter- 
 
CREATION 81 
 
 ly unscientific: We charge the proponents and 
 defenders of naturalistic evolution that they 
 have utterly failed to show what was, or to ex- 
 plain, the origin of matter or force or life. 
 
 They have utterly failed to show how the 
 lifeless clod could produce vegetable life. 
 They have utterly failed to show how vegeta- 
 ble life could evolve into, or produce, sen- 
 tient animal life. 
 
 They have utterly failed to show how mere 
 sentient animal life could evolve into, or pro- 
 duce life, intellectual life, or how mere in- 
 tellectual life could evolve into, or produce, 
 spiritual life, life in conscious, happy, blessed 
 communion with God. They fail to account 
 for a Christian man. Look again at their 
 lower failures. 
 
 They have utterly failed to show how the 
 invertebrate animals could, or did, evolve into 
 the vertebrates. They have utterly failed to 
 show that one species ever evolved into an- 
 other. They have been challenged again and 
 again to show a single instance. They have 
 none. When a hybrid or neutral, like the 
 mule, is produced, that hybrid is sterile. Evo- 
 lutionists have failed to show a single excep- 
 tion. Nature jealously guards her species. 
 Each species brings forth according to God’s 
 original fiat “after its kind.” 
 
 Luth. Fundamentals. 6. 
 
82 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Natural Evolutionists have no explanation 
 even of the origin of physical man. There is 
 not a scintilla of evidence that man has 
 evolved from the ape. All research, all inves- 
 tigation, all evidence, shows that man, as we 
 have portrayed him above, did not, and could 
 not, evolve from a brute. The missing link 
 is still missing! It will be. 
 
 No, no. Unassisted Nature knows and 
 shows no push from below upward. There 
 must ever be a pull from above upward. 
 There is, there can be, no spontaneous genera- 
 tion. The lifeless cannot generate life. Life 
 can only come from life. Natural and ma- 
 terialistic evolution is unscientific. 
 
 The old Creation story is scientific. It 
 answers a thousand questions before which 
 godless naturalists and scientists are dumb. It 
 satisfies sanctified common sense. ‘To the re- 
 newed mind it is the highest reason. 
 
 For further light on Evolution we advise the every-day man 
 or woman to read: 
 
 “The First Page of the Bible,” by Bettex. 
 
 “Evolution,” by Prof. Th. Graebner. 
 
 “Evolution at the Bar,” by Philip Mauro. 
 
 “In His Image,” by Wm. Jennings Bryan. 
 
 “Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation,” by 
 George McCready Price. Also his: “Back to the Bible.” 
 
 “The Lie of the Age,” by Wm. Shoeler. 
 
CREATION 83 
 
 The Creation of Angels. 
 
 We have studied Creation especially as it 
 is related to, and includes, man. We have 
 looked at the material things and the physical 
 creatures. But there are also existences that 
 are neither material nor visible. ‘There are 
 beings that do not have bodies like ours. 
 There are spiritual beings that are called 
 angels. They are creatures. God created 
 them. He created all that exists. We do not 
 have the story of God’s creation of the angels. 
 God did not reveal it to us as He did the story 
 of His creation of man. The story of man’s 
 creation looked forward to the story of man’s 
 redemption. Good angels never needed to be 
 redeemed. Bad angels could not be redeemed. 
 For angels no Saviour died. Christ did not 
 take upon himself the form of an angel, but 
 He was made in the likeness of man, in the 
 likeness of sinful flesh. Angels are in a sep- 
 arate class. ‘They are not, as creatures, re- 
 lated to the human family. This may be a 
 reason why God did not give us a full account 
 of their creation. But God did reveal the 
 fact of their creation. In Col. 1. 16 we read: 
 “For by Him were all things created that are 
 in heaven and that are in earth, visible and 
 
84 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 invisible, whether thrones or dominions or 
 principalities or powers; all things were 
 created by Him and for Him.” This is all 
 we know of the fact. It is enough. 
 
 The time of their creation we do not know. 
 The writer of the Book of Job in chapter 1. 6 
 calls them “‘sons of God.” In chapter 38. 4, 7, 
 God asks Job: ‘Where wast thou when I 
 laid the foundations of the earthe . . . when 
 the morning stars sang together and all the 
 sons of God shouted for joy?” The sons of 
 God in this place are generally understood 
 to have been angels. They were created be- 
 fore the earth. This is all that we know of 
 the time of their creation. It is enough. 
 
 The angels are spirits or spiritual beings. 
 Sometimes God enables them to take on bodily 
 form. They have the attributes of personal- 
 ity. The Bible shows that they stand high 
 in intelligence, in powers of mind and reason. 
 They do not possess divine attributes or pow- 
 
 ers. They are neither omnipresent nor omni- 
 scient. They are immortal. As God made 
 
 them, they were all sinless and holy. Good 
 angels are still so. They are a mighty host. 
 In numbers they are countless. Dan. 7. 10: 
 “Thousands of thousands ministered unto 
 Him and ten thousand times ten thousand 
 
CREATION 85 
 stood before Him.” Matt. 26. 53: “He shall 
 
 even now send me more than twelve legions 
 of angels.” There are ranks among them. 
 There are angels and archangels. Michael 
 and Gabriel are archangels. There are prin- 
 cipalities and powers in heavenly places. 
 The angels are all ministering spirits. They 
 serve God day and night. They behold His 
 face, await His commands, go on His errands 
 of protection, rescue, help, and render services 
 to man. The Bible is full of beautiful ref- 
 erences and stories of their loving ministries 
 to the children of God. We can refer to but 
 a few. Angels were present and interested 
 in Creation. They had a part in giving the 
 Law. A host of them protected Elisha, slew 
 the Assyrians, and fought against the prince 
 of Persia. They were specially interested in 
 God’s great work of Redemption. They de- 
 sire to look into its mysteries. An angel an- 
 nounced the birth of Christ. An angel choir 
 sang the first Christmas anthem. An angel 
 protected the Infant Saviour. They ministered 
 to Him in His temptation and in His agony 
 in Gethsemane. They rolled away the stone 
 from the sepulcher, announced His Resurrec- 
 tion, His Ascension, and His coming again 
 
86 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 to Judgment. Inthe Judgment they will take 
 a prominent part. 
 
 Time and room would fail us to tell of 
 their loving ministries to Abraham, and to 
 Lot, and Jacob; to Daniel, to Lazarus, to Pe- 
 ter, and Paul. And eternity alone will reveal 
 how often these unknown, unseen ministers of 
 mercy came down from heaven, protected en- 
 dangered children, rescued God’s redeemed 
 ones, and helped them over hard places. In 
 heaven, dear reader, you and I will learn 
 something of how often these our invisible 
 guardians saved us from perishing. 
 
 Yes, it is still true, however much we may 
 forget or ignore it; it is a precious comfort 
 of God that “the angel of the Lord encampeth 
 round about them that fear Him, and deliver- 
 eth them.” God still gives “His angels charge 
 over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” All 
 His angels are “ministering spirits.” He sends 
 them forth to minister to, “to serve them that 
 are heirs to salvation.””’ How much we lose 
 when we forget the comforting, eae UT 
 doctrine of the angels! 
 
 There is another—an unpleasant — fact 
 about the angels that we dare not leave out 
 nor forget. God has revealed it. We dare 
 not ignore or doubt God’s facts. 
 
CREATION 87 
 
 It seems to be in the mind, plan, and pur- 
 pose of God that He will give to all His ra- 
 tional creatures an opportunity of being tested 
 and a power of choice. In God’s mind this 
 seems to be necessary to develop His creatures, 
 to strengthen them, to make of them free 
 moral agents. 
 
 The angels also had their testing time. 
 Jude in verse 6 speaks of “the angels which 
 kept not their first estate, but left their own 
 habitation.” ‘This states the fact. From other 
 Scripture passages we gather that a chief, 
 a prince, fell from his high estate. Jesus says, 
 Luke 10. 18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
 from heaven.” In Mt. 12. 24 he is called 
 “the prince of the demons.” Paul intimates 
 that this prince, this leader fell through pride: 
 1 Tim. 3.6. “Lest being lifted up with pride 
 he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” 
 Jesus calls him “a liar” and “a murderer from 
 the beginning.” It seems that a multitude of 
 the heavenly host were deceived and contam- 
 inated by him. They joined him in his re- 
 bellion. They became “his angels.” They 
 were organized into “his kingdom.” With 
 their chief they were cast out of heaven. Since 
 man’s creation they have busied themselves 
 tempting men to evil and trying to drag them 
 
88 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 into their own sin and guilt and condemna- 
 tion. Milton brought his powerful imagina- 
 tion to bear on this other-world tragedy and 
 its consequences, and wrote what is, in many 
 respects, the most wonderful epic poem ever 
 conceived or composed by man. Milton was 
 not inspired, but he had studied deeply and 
 earnestly the inspired record of God. We 
 cannot follow him in all his details, but we 
 can learn much from him. 
 
 There is a real devil. He has great power. 
 He is the “strong man armed.” But he is 
 not omnipotent. God is stronger. Neither 
 is the devil omniscient. Nor is he omnipres- 
 ent. But he has a well-organized kingdom. 
 Legions of swift, subservient devils are under 
 him, doing his bidding. Through them he 
 brings his power to bear and tempts whom 
 he will. He loves the shining mark. He 
 aims high. He wants to get the leaders, the 
 key-men. He is persistently out after min- 
 isters of the Gospel, theological students, 
 Christian leaders, deaconesses, Sunday-school 
 and church workers. He works not only 
 through under-devils, but also through devil- 
 ish men. He tempted Eve and Job and Saul 
 and David. He tempted Christ and Peter, 
 and Judas and Paul. Personally and through 
 
CREATION 89 
 
 his under-imps he is still “going to and fro 
 in the earth” and “walking up and down in 
 it.” He still “as a roaring lion, walketh about, 
 seeking whom he may devour.” 
 
 We know that in our day belief in the ex- 
 istence of a personal devil is scoffed at as a 
 superstition unworthy of an intelligent man. 
 But we know also that his real existence, his 
 inexpressibly heinous character, his fiendish, 
 hellish work, his unspeakable danger to every 
 son and daughter of man have a big place in 
 the Bible from its first pages to its last. If 
 what the Bible says of a real devil and his 
 work and danger is not true, how do I kncw 
 that anything else is true? He no doubt 
 rejoices in the widespread disbelief in his 
 own existence. What could be more welcome 
 to him than such unbelief? The men who 
 believe that there is no devil will never be 
 on their guard against him. ‘They are open 
 to all his attacks. They become his easy prey. 
 He laughs. 
 
 In this, as in all things taught in the Bible, 
 belief in a personal devil and in his invisible 
 kingdom of darkness helps us to understand 
 the ongoings in this old world of ours. We 
 have often said that if we did not believe in 
 a devil we should be dumfounded with our 
 
90 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 morning paper. Every issue is stained and 
 befouled with stories of vice and crime, cru- 
 elty and debauchery, that are enough to give 
 one a perpetual horror. How can we under- 
 stand such doings and undoings of man? How 
 can man, with such God-given endowments, 
 and capacities sink solowr How can he low- 
 er himself below the brute? How can he 
 be such a fiend? Oh, the inhumanities of man! 
 
 I go back to the old Book. It tells me of 
 the powers of darkness that work in and 
 through men and women who love darkness 
 rather than light. It tells me how such peo- 
 ple wilfully turn their backs on God, on His 
 teachings, on His goodness and truth; how 
 they say of the blessed and Holy One, who 
 would fain save them and their sin-steeped 
 companions, “Let us break His bands asun- 
 der; let us cast away His cords from us.” 
 They yield themselves to the devil and his 
 angels. They become children of the devil. 
 They do the works of the devil. They are 
 earthly, sensual, devilish. Inspiration has 
 painted their portrait in the short Epistle of 
 Jude, in 2 Peter, chapter 2, and in Romans I. 
 I restudy these divine descriptions. I recall 
 the passages quoted above. I have an answer; 
 I have an explanation to the otherwise dis- 
 
CREATION QI 
 
 tracting question. How can man be such a 
 fiend incarnate? Now I can understand the 
 gruesome human horrors chronicled by my 
 morning paper. There isa devil. His “pow- 
 ers of darkness” are “working in the children 
 of disobedience.” ““An enemy hath done this.” 
 Without him and his hellish influence man 
 could not, and would not, fall so low. 
 
 The light of Revelation dispels the dark- 
 ness. Humanity is relieved. The old Book 
 solves the problem. 
 
 Belief in the existence of the devil and in 
 his evil angels is so Biblical and so helpful 
 to my poor understanding that it is fundamen- 
 tal. 
 
CHAP LER AV, 
 God’s Work of Providence. 
 
 B* God’s providence we mean His proteci- 
 ing and directing care over all things that 
 He has created. ‘To us finites it seems only 
 natural that the Almighty Maker of heaven 
 and earth, and of all that is in them, should 
 always be interested in all that He brought 
 into being. It seems but natural that He 
 should care for, rule, and govern all His 
 works and all His creatures for their good and 
 for His own glory. 
 
 It would seem unnatural, it would be hard 
 to believe, that the God that we believe in 
 should, or consistently could, after the idea 
 of the old Deists, create and arrange all this, 
 and then withdraw from it, and leave it to 
 itself without care or guidance or protection 
 from Him who made it. 
 
 Still more absurd and unbelievable would 
 it be for us to lock upon our God as making 
 Himself an immanent part of His creation, 
 identifying Himself with it, so that nature, 
 
 as we know it, would be God and God would 
 
 92 
 
GOD'S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 93 
 
 be nature. This is the teaching of Pantheism. 
 It is a widespread and popular world-view. 
 It is held by multitudes among the so-called 
 high-brows. It runs through Eddyism and 
 Theosophy. Such muddled thinking, such 
 absurd conceptions are a disgrace to the hu- 
 man intellect. Of all who try to make them- 
 selves swallow such absurdities God says: 
 “Professing themselves to be wise, they be- 
 came fools.” 
 
 Our God is ever active over and in His 
 creation. His power directs all. His influ- 
 ence is in all. He implanted the necessary, 
 permanent forces in His created works. ‘These 
 forces are part of His creation. He does not 
 need to continue to create. ‘The heavens and 
 the earth were finished.” Living things were 
 made after their kind to reproduce and prop- 
 agate their kind. No further direct creation 
 was needed. 
 
 The Providence of God sustains and regu- 
 lates inanimate nature. Psalm 119. 90, “Thou 
 hast established the earth, and it abideth.” 
 Heb. 1. 3, “Upholding all things by the word 
 of his power.” Col. 7. 17, “By Him all 
 things consist.” Isaiah 29. 6, “Thou shalt be 
 visited of the Lord of Hosts with thunder and 
 with earthquake and great noise, with storm 
 
94 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.” 
 Psalm 107. 25, 29, “For He commandeth and 
 raiseth the stormy wind.” “He maketh the 
 storm a calm.” Psalm 148. 8, “Fire and 
 hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling 
 His word.” Ez. 13. 11, “There shall be an 
 overflowing shower; and ye, O great hail- 
 stones, shall fall.” 
 
 We might go on quoting passage after pas- 
 sage showing that God watches over, directs 
 and controls nature and its elemental forces. 
 Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, sum- 
 mer and winter, day and night are from Him. 
 
 His Providence extends also over animate 
 nature. Psalm 104. 10, 11, “He sendeth the 
 springs into the valleys, which run among the 
 hills. ‘They give drink to every beast of the 
 field; the wild asses quench their thirst.” 
 (Read the whole wonderful Psalm and look 
 up the reference passages. ) 
 
 Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount points 
 His disciples to the grass and flowers which 
 God so beautifully clothes and to the birds 
 which He feeds. God hears the cry of the 
 raven, He notes the fall of the sparrow. The 
 Bible is full of assurances that God watches 
 over all vegetation and over all animal life. 
 Thus all nature is constantly preaching the 
 beauty, the goodness, the wisdom of God. 
 
a 
 
 GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 95 
 
 To note God’s interest in, and care for, His 
 whole creation is an edifying study. There 
 would not be so much of this in our Bible if 
 the study of it were not good for us. But 
 our highest interest is reached when we study 
 God’s Providence as it relates to man. 
 
 It takes in all humanity. ‘What is man 
 that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
 man that thou visitest him?” This refers to 
 mankind.. Isaiah 40. 15, 17, 22, “Behold the 
 nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are 
 counted as the small dust of the balance .. . 
 All nations before him are as nothing; and 
 they are counted to him less than nothing and 
 vanity ... Itis he that sitteth upon the cir- 
 cle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
 are as grasshoppers.” God rooted out the cor- 
 rupt and corrupting Canaanites and divided 
 their land to the twelve tribes. He had di- 
 vided the earth to the sons of Noah. Ps. 67. 4, 
 “Thou shalt govern the nations upon earth.” 
 Bible Story and Poetry and Prophecy are 
 filled full with God’s providence and ruler- 
 ship over the nations. All lands and all their 
 peoples are under His control. 
 
 For His own wise and good reasons, which 
 we finite creatures cannot always understand, 
 He has favored some nations above others. It 
 
96 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 is His good and gracious will that the more 
 favored nations shall lift up and bless the less 
 favored. Here also; “to whomsoever much is 
 given of him will much be requored.” ‘The 
 Nation of Israel was favored in order that it 
 might be a light-bearer and a life-bringer to 
 the other nations of the earth. 
 
 And we believe that it is just as true that 
 among modern nations, America is the favored 
 one, the chosen of God, to blaze the way for, 
 and to lift up the other nations of the world. 
 America should ever show the other nations 
 that national greatness is national goodness. 
 So, in God’s great world plan of Providence, 
 can America work out her true destiny. 
 
 From general we pass to special Provi- 
 dence, or Providence as it concerns the in- 
 dividual. Here our interest grows. We come 
 to self-interest. “he question for every one 
 now is: Does God know, notice, and care for 
 mer Is my life, are my ways, directed by 
 Hime From the multitude of Scripture pas- 
 sages we select a few to show that from the 
 cradle to the grave our God watches over us. 
 To every one who sincerely accepts His Word, 
 He says, “Yea, I have loved thee with an 
 everlasting love, therefore with loving kind- 
 ness have I drawn thee.” Job. 10. 8, “Thy 
 
eS 
 
 GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 97 
 
 hands have framed me and fashioned me.” 
 Jer. 1. 5, “Before thou camest forth out of 
 the womb I sanctified thee.” Prov. 20. 24, 
 ‘A man’s goings are of Jehovah. How then 
 can man understand His way?” James 4. 13- 
 15. “Come now, ye that say, To-day or to- 
 morrow we will go into this city, and spend 
 a year there, and trade and get gain; whereas 
 ye know not what shall be on the morrow .. . 
 Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall 
 both live, and do this or that.” Psalm 37. 23, 
 ‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the 
 Lord.” Yes, God knows me. He loves me. 
 The very hairs of my head are all numbered. 
 If He so clothes the grass of the field, will 
 He not much more clothe me? And when 
 danger threatens, I read Psalms 23 and 91, 
 
 ' and recall Isaiah 43. 2, “When thou passest 
 
 through the waters, I will be with thee; and 
 through the rivers, they shall not overflow 
 thee; when thou walkest through the fire, 
 thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the 
 flame kindle upon thee.” I read Mt. 6. 19-34 
 and Romans 8. 31-39. Yes, there is a special 
 Providence, and I am counted in. As I 
 learned above, He uses His angels to protect 
 and serve me. 
 
 I recall what I learned above about the 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 7, 
 
98 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 nature, being, and attributes of God. This 
 God is my God. He can do for me whatso- 
 ever He will. He can work miracles. He 
 did work them, and He does work them. 
 They are not contrary to, but above, nature. 
 Nature is not above God, but God is above 
 nature. From man’s viewpoint, God Him- 
 self, His existence, nature, and being, is the 
 miracle of miracles. When God was mani- 
 fested in the flesh, the miracle of miracles was 
 manifested. If I believe in God, in His mani- 
 festation of Himself in Christ, in His inspir- 
 ing prophets and apostles who write of Him, 
 then I believe in miracles. It would be the 
 height of absurdity to believe in God and not 
 believe in miracles. 
 
 To the God that I believe in I can pray. 
 My God can and does, in His own way and 
 on His own conditions, answer prayer. Every 
 true believer knows by experience that God 
 has answered his prayers. We know that He 
 heareth us. 
 
 Yes, I can sing: “I’m a miracle of grace.” 
 
 “T that was all defiled by sin, 
 
 An outcast from my God: 
 
 I that had crucified the Son 
 
 And trampled on His blood; 
 
 What strange, perplexing grace is this 
 That such a soul finds room! 
 
 My Saviour takes me by the hand 
 And kindly bids me come.” 
 
GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 99 
 
 This is miracle. ‘This is answer to prayer. 
 
 We cannot pass by the relation of fore- 
 knowledge and predestination to Providence. 
 Here many earnest souls have found perplex- 
 ity. Many have been plunged into doubt. 
 
 We cannot in this place enter into an ab- 
 stract, dogmatic discussion of this deep and 
 perplexing problem. Scientific Dogmatics 
 often darkens counsel with words. We are 
 writing for the common man. As stated above, 
 we cannot and do not expect to understand, 
 measure, or judge the whole mind of God. 
 We do not and cannot expect by searching 
 to find out the Almighty to perfection. 
 Enough has been revealed to satisfy a renewed 
 and sanctified mind and heart. Enough to 
 direct a sanctified will. We neither want, 
 nor do we profess, a knowledge that is wise 
 above what is written; such knowledge puff- 
 eth up. 
 
 It is helpful always to remember that there 
 is a real difference between foreknowing and 
 foreordaining. Foreknowledge does not bind 
 or coerce. Foreordination does. It belongs 
 to the very nature of God to foreknow all. 
 But what to us would be future, to God is 
 present. With God there is neither past nor 
 future. All is the eternal present. We speak 
 
100 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 after the fashion of man when we say that 
 God foresaw all the future. But this cannot 
 mean that God willed and foreordained all 
 that He knew would take place. He knew 
 that evil would come. He knew that sin with 
 all its untold and untellable consequences 
 would take place. But to say that He willed 
 or foreordained all this would be to deny His 
 holiness and goodness. On the other hand, 
 when God foresaw all the good He also willed 
 and foreordained it. In this His knowledge 
 and will were in harmony. In this sense He 
 predestined the good but not the evil. Even 
 in thought we dare not admit that evil or sin 
 had its origin in the mind and will of God. 
 The problem of the existence of moral evil 
 we simply cannot understand. ‘To do so we 
 should have to be as infinitely wise as God 
 is wise. ‘Here we know in part and we pro- 
 phesy (or teach) in part; when that which is 
 perfect is come, then, (and not till then), shall 
 that which is in part (or imperfect), be done 
 away.” We do know that God hates sin and 
 therefore could not will to create sin. Let 
 this suffice. Let us humbly believe and adore. 
 Sin and evil came from the outside. Sin 
 originated in a creature. As we have seen, 
 the devil brought it into heaven. Then he in- 
 
GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE IO! 
 
 troduced it into the human race when the 
 race was yet in Adam’s loins. Of this, more 
 hereafter. 
 
 God has done all that He consistently could 
 do to save man from sin and its baleful con- 
 sequences. ‘This we shall see more clearly 
 when we study Redemption. 
 
 We cannot well leave this topic, however, 
 without a brief glance at the related doctrine 
 of God’s election of Grace. In this also we 
 must still take for granted and anticipate 
 teachings that belong to, and must be dis- 
 cussed more fully when we take up the great 
 subject of Redemption. In touching on it 
 here as related to God’s Providence, we postu- 
 late and emphasize our firm conviction that ; 
 
 / salvation is all of Grace. Every one who ever | 
 | was, or ever will be, saved will attribute the | 
 
 beginning, the progress, and the completion | 
 
 ' of his salvation to the free and unmerited | ui: 
 Grace of his merciful God. On this funda-\<— 
 
 mental point, all sound and consistent Luther- 
 an theologians agree. | 
 With this basis ever in mind we look at tHe 
 doctrine of election. 
 That there is a doctrine of election in the 
 New Testament cannot be denied. To cut 
 out every reference to this subject in the New 
 
102 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Testament would mean to blot out much of 
 what is most precious, most helpful, and most 
 comforting in the whole Bible. Election is in 
 the Bible. The New Testament is full of it. 
 God has put it there. What does it meanr 
 What all does it include? We survey the suc- 
 cessive steps. 
 
 We believe, teach, and confess: 
 
 1. That God loved and loves every human 
 soul. : 
 
 2. That God provided a Redeemer, who 
 purchased salvation for every soul. 
 
 3. That God sent His Holy Spirit into the 
 world to offer the purchased salvation to all. 
 
 4. That the Holy Spirit offers, and ap- 
 plies this salvation through the Means that 
 God Himself has ordained for this end. 
 
 5. That these Means are the Word of God 
 and the two Sacraments of Christ, Baptism 
 and the Lord’s Supper. 
 
 6. That man has in himself the melan- 
 choly power to refuse the Means, to wilfully 
 absent himself from them and to wilfully and 
 persistently resist their divine power, when 
 their influence is brought to bear upon him. 
 
 7. ‘That when man thus wilfully and per- 
 sistently neglects or resists these Means, he 
 
GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 103 
 
 thereby puts himself into the class of the non- 
 elect 
 
 8. That man has the power to go where 
 the Means are dispensed and offered, and to 
 diligently and prayerfully use them; that by 
 so doing he is doing what he can do and what 
 God wants him to do toward his own salvation. 
 
 9. ‘That when he does this, then, he does 
 not renew himself, but the Holy Spirit, 
 through the Means of Grace, renews and 
 sanctifies him. 
 
 10. That when thus renewed and in pro- 
 cess of sanctification, he is one of God’s elect 
 and saved ones. It is all of free Grace. 
 
 This we believe is the helpful and comfort- 
 ing New Testament teaching on election. It 
 will be better understood and more deeply 
 appreciated when we study man’s Redemp- 
 tion and Renewal. 
 
 Before we close our brief and cursory study 
 of God’s work in Providence we need to note 
 briefly the afflictions and sufferings that come 
 so often and so perplexingly upon God’s chil- 
 dren. They certainly do come. They certain- 
 ly do sorely vex the very saints of God. In- 
 spired and uninspired men have written their 
 Theodicies. A Theodicy is an attempted jus- 
 tification of God’s dealings with men when 
 
104 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 He allows them to suffer so sorely. The Book 
 of Job is a wonderful, inspired Theodicy. 
 Psalm 73 is a shorter one. Psalm 34 is help- 
 ful. The latter half of Romans 8, is a tri- 
 umphant Theodicy. In Hebrews 12. 1-13 
 we have an instructive and a comforting The- 
 odicy. Here we are so gently reminded that 
 in God’s sight we are but shortsighted chil- 
 - dren, and that even when we don’t understand 
 we need corrective chastening. 
 
 This precious passage will help us to ap- 
 preciate the many other passages so rich in 
 heavenly comfort. 
 
 We must also bear in mind that we bring 
 many afflictions upon ourselves by our sins. 
 We then reap what we ourselves have sown. 
 Such self-incurred suffering we cannot and 
 dare not attribute to the mysterious providence 
 of God. We brought it upon ourselves. Let 
 us not blame it on God. 
 
 But there are losses and crosses that come 
 directly or indirectly from the loving heart 
 and hand of God. These are disciplinary. 
 They belong to the “all things” that God 
 makes to work together for our good. They 
 are a loving Father’s chastenings. They are 
 intended for our profit. 
 
 A widowed father had an only child —a 
 
GOD’S WORK OF PROVIDENCE 105 
 
 precious little daughter. She was stricken 
 with a serious malady. Her life trembled in 
 the balance. The physician was entreated to 
 spare no pains or cost to save the sufferer. 
 He shook his head. He said there might be 
 one drastic, last resort. He hesitated to tell 
 it to the bowed and broken father. The father 
 demanded to know. The doctor said: Every 
 fifteen minutes, for twelve hours, you must 
 immerse her in a tub of ice water. It may 
 save her, it may not. 
 
 The father plunged her in. She shivered 
 and whimpered. He did it again and then 
 again, she clung to him, she begged most 
 piteously, “Papa, don’t do it again.” He 
 steeled himself. He shivered and suffered a 
 thousand times more than the child. He kept 
 on. Over night his hair grew snowy white. 
 Before dawn the fever broke. Perspiration 
 came. The child was saved. Oh, the love 
 that drove that father to so afflict that child! 
 
 Our heavenly Father does not suffer in mak- 
 ing us suffer. He afflicts but not willingly. 
 He chastens out of love. Let us trust Him. 
 

 
PART II 
 
 
 

 
CHAPTER VI 
 Sin 
 
 EATHEN, without a missionary, without a 
 Bible, know that there must be some 
 kind of a god or gods. ‘They are conscious 
 that for some reason their gods or higher pow- 
 ers are not pleased with them. There is some- 
 thing in them that the gods don’t like. This 
 is an unwritten revelation in their nature. 
 Their conscience bears witness that there is 
 something wrong with themselves. They are 
 not what they ought to be. There is some bad 
 element in them that makes their gods angry. 
 This consciousness of indwelling badness 
 keeps out peace and joy. Heathen are not 
 happy. There is a sad cast of countenance 
 on all heathen peoples. The deep, settled, 
 melancholy look on their faces betrays an in- 
 ner want, an inner weight, an inner pain even 
 when they laugh. Their laugh is not hearty, 
 
 free and ringing, like that of a Christian. 
 
 109 
 
110 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 There is a minor key in all their music. 
 Whether they try to sing or play there is a 
 plaintive undertone. It is the wail of an 
 aching heart, the outcrying and up-yearning 
 for a paradise lost, the homesickness for a lost 
 home. 
 
 Luthardt in Lecture VII of his Fundamen- 
 tal Truths of Christianity sets fort the signi- 
 ficant fact that in all the ancient, ethnic lt- 
 eratures there is this undertone of sadness, this 
 homesickness for a lost home. Everywhere 
 there are dim, deep-seated traditions of a gol- 
 den age, a happy home, a blessed life in the 
 beginnings of the race. Reminiscences and 
 longings are blended through the testimonies 
 of the ages. The story of humanity, the laying 
 bare of the open heart of humanity, is all one 
 continuous sad tale, the never ceasing wail, 
 iterating and reiterating the tragic fact that 
 there is something desperately wrong, clam- 
 oring out the eternal quest and question: Who 
 will show us any good? 
 
 And what of the quest and the test of to- 
 day? Who can adequately describe the un- 
 rest, the wild rush for external diversion, 
 amusement, excitement? Why is the mass 
 of our young people so restless and discon- 
 tented unless there is a nightly date for a show, 
 
SIN III 
 
 a feast, a bridge-party, a dance, a joy-ride? 
 Why is a quiet evening at home, with cultured 
 companions, with church papers, good, pure, 
 uplifting books, and the old Bible, now so 
 generally counted a borer Why the wide- 
 spread distaste for an evening at churchr 
 What’s wrong with the world? What ails 
 the human heart? What possesses our young 
 peopler Is there no cure for these ailments? 
 Is there no balm in Gilead; no physician 
 there? 
 
 Remedies have been and are being offered. 
 The proffered remedies promise satisfaction. 
 Restless, roving, running humans are told that 
 pleasures will gratify and satisfy. ‘They fail. 
 Too often they leave the aching head and end 
 in the breaking heart. The discontented ones 
 are told that riches, honor, position, power 
 will solace the ills. These also fail and leave 
 behind a wreckage of disappointment and de- 
 spair. 
 
 The seeker after satisfaction is often told 
 that he must look higher and deeper. World- 
 ly wisdom, philosophy, culture — these are 
 the curealls for him. Again there is illusion, 
 there is disappointment. The aching void 
 remains. ‘The deeper longings and yearnings 
 still possess the soul. 
 
112 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 The remedies fail because the disease has 
 not been rightly diagnosed. Worldly wisdom 
 cannot do this. God alone can do it. He 
 made the world. He knows what is wrong 
 with it. He made man. He knows what 
 ails humanity. He tells us in the old Book. 
 It shows us, from its first pages to its last, 
 that the one all-conditioning fundamental ail- 
 ment of humanity is 
 
 Sin. 
 
 Sin makes every man sinful. Sin makes 
 the whole man sinful. Sin makes the flesh 
 lustful, makes the heart impure, makes the 
 mind unclear, makes the will perverse. Sin 
 is everything that is out of harmony with 
 God’s will. Sin alienates from God; is ab- 
 horrent to Him. Sin makes man conscious 
 of guilt. Sin brings man all that restlessness 
 and unhappiness depicted above. Sin is the 
 great tragic fact in humanity. Ignoring it 
 will not obliterate it. Denying it will not do 
 away withit. Itis here. It rankles in every 
 bosom. It worketh hitherto in every heart. 
 It manifests itself in every life. It meets us 
 at every turn. It glares at us in the headlines 
 of our daily paper. It is the great tragedy 
 of the world. 
 
SIN 113 
 
 W hence ts sin? 
 
 We have seen that it cannot by any possi- 
 bility be from God. We have seen that when 
 God made His first intelligent personal crea- 
 tures He endowed them with a rational mind 
 and a free will. We have seen that He has 
 made it part of His plan that such creatures 
 should undergo a testing and so be developed, 
 strengthened, and perfected in their moral 
 nature. We have seen that in some way, in- 
 scrutable to our finite minds, evil entered into 
 one of the chiefs of the angels and corrupted 
 him;* that when he had fallen he tempted 
 and corrupted other angels. Sin started in 
 heaven, but was banished from there. 
 
 The first fallen angel, the devil, brought 
 sin into our world. When the human race 
 was all in Adam, the devil tempted him and 
 made him fall. 
 
 We look again into the sad, old, unvar- 
 nished, artless, short, simple story of human- 
 ity’s fall into sin. The natural man does not 
 like this story. 
 
 From the beginning it has been ridiculed, 
 denied, perverted, misconstrued, and misun- 
 
 *Read or re-read the author’s “What’s Wrong with the 
 World.” 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 8, 
 
114 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 derstood. But after all that has been said, 
 written, speculated, and invented, the story is 
 the only explanation that explains. It is the 
 only real and full answer to the questions, 
 What’s wrong with human nature? What’s 
 wrong with the world? ‘The Bible story re- 
 quires candid, careful examination. It is often 
 flippantly and irreverently referred to as the 
 taking and eating of a forbidden apple. The 
 forbidding of an apple is held forth as an act 
 ridiculous in itself, and its penalty as utterly 
 unworthy of God. The taking and eating is 
 held up as so natural, and so inconsequential 
 that it is at its worst but a trifling thing. Such 
 has ever been the superficial and flippant way 
 of Rationalism and unbelief. Let us look 
 more closely into the story of the Temptation 
 and Fall. 
 
 We note that God had made and fitted out 
 a most delightful place of habitation for man. 
 Read again Genesis 2. 8-15. It was neither 
 a wild forest nor a treeless prairie. It was a 
 garden. It was well watered by three rivers. 
 Under its soil were gold and precious stones. 
 The garden was planted and prepared for 
 man’s enjoyment. Every tree that was pleas- 
 ant to the eye and good for food was there. 
 
SLING He 115 
 
 God was lavish in His loving kindness to His 
 
 crowning creature. 
 God was generous in His permissions. Man 
 
 was told that he might eat of every tree save 
 one. The prohibition of one was for man’s 
 testing and developing. 
 
 Into this garden comes the _ tempter. 
 Note his wiles. He approaches the weaker 
 vessel. He engages her in conversation. 
 He withdraws her attention from all the 
 permitted trees. He focuses her attention 
 on the one forbidden tree. She lingers, she 
 listens, she looks, she contemplates, she ad- 
 mires, she realizes that the tree is good for 
 food, that it is pleasant to the eyes, that it is 
 to be desired to make one wise. The devil 
 is implanting the lust of the flesh, the lust 
 of the eye, and the pride of life. Sin is root- 
 ing as she lingers to listen further. 
 
 The devil awakens a suspicion that God is 
 not good. ‘Yea, hath God said that ye shall 
 not eat of every tree?” Is God restricting 
 your liberty? Suspicion is started. Suspicion 
 starts doubt. Doubt starts unbelief. Un- 
 belief is the root of all sin. 
 
 The devil has Eve prepared for the second 
 fatal step: If God is not good, then perhaps 
 His Word is not true. To be very frank, it 
 
 tee 
 
i16 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 is not true. Hear his boldness, ‘Ye shall not 
 surely die.” Oh, this liar from the begin- 
 ning! This originator of unbelief. This first 
 negative critic of God’s Word. 
 
 He has implanted unbelief. He has Eve 
 ready for the last bold step. Why should she 
 obey a God who is not good and who is not 
 true? Break His bands asunder! Cut loose 
 from Him! Disobey! So you will be free. 
 You will be wise! 
 
 Eve believed. the devil rather than God. 
 She obeyed the devil and disobeyed God. She 
 had broken with God. The virus of unbelief 
 and disobedience had entered her soul. She 
 at once became devilish. Having herself 
 broken away from God and become a rebel, 
 she wanted Adam to become like herself and 
 also break away from God. Imitating the 
 devil, she tempted Adam. As the devil had 
 made her fall, so she makes Adam fall. Thus 
 sin at once propagated itself. So sin has ever 
 done. So it does to-day. Herein is its devil- 
 ishness. 
 
 What a change, what a catastrophe in Para- 
 dise! Where happy Adam and Eve had 
 awaited and walked and talked with God in 
 the garden, they now flee, hide themselves, 
 and cower under the bushes. Where they had 
 
SIN’ 117 
 
 walked, erect and glad, they are now ashamed. 
 Hiding and crouching and covered with fig 
 leaves, terror in their souls and trembling in 
 limb, they want to creep away from God. 
 
 Sin had come in, sin was seething and burn- 
 ing in their souls. They were the race. They 
 were humanity. Diseased, defiled, con- 
 demned, appalled! 
 
 This is the short story of the genesis and 
 growth of Sin. Whata psychology! Is there 
 anything approaching it in other ancient lore? 
 Compare the heathen mythologies! Could 
 unaided man have invented a story that ex- 
 plains so much, that answers so many other- 
 wise unanswerable questions, that throws such 
 a lurid light inward upon the nature of man’s 
 soul and forward upon human history? Here 
 is an ancient philosophy, an explanation of 
 things. Did human ingenuity ever propose a 
 better one? No, no, this explanation stands 
 alone. It explains. It is God’s explanation 
 of the riddle of humanity. It satisfies sancti- 
 fied reason. 
 
 Now I know whence sin is! Now I know 
 why the race is sinful! The race was in 
 Adam’s loins. When Adam fell the race fell. 
 
 Now I know that sin is not all or not only 
 in and of the flesh. Adam and Eve had flesh 
 before they had sin. Matter in itself is not 
 
118 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 evil. Eve’s intellect was appealed to. Eve’s 
 will was perverted. Eve’s flesh became full 
 of evil lust. Now I know that Paul’s dark 
 and tragic picture in Romans VII is true, even 
 of the regenerate. Yes of me. Oh, how 
 frightfully true of the unregenerate who have 
 crushed out all their better longings and 
 aspirations! I know whence and what sin is. 
 I know what’s wrong with the world. Paul 
 has it all in Romans v. God’s witness to me 
 has become a witness in me. 
 
 I know that there is original Sin. There 
 is a native depravity which I brought into 
 the world with myself. “I was shapen in in- 
 iquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” 
 I know that we are all by nature, i. e. by our 
 natural birth, “children of wrath,” “flesh born 
 of the flesh.” From beginning to end my 
 Bible teaches and takes for granted the sad 
 fact of original sin. 
 
 Human reason may clamor against this un- 
 welcome teaching. Human pride may rebel 
 against its humiliation. A shallow optimism 
 may deride it. Liberalists may shriek out 
 their assertions that such a belief belongs to 
 the Dark Ages, that it is unworthy of the 
 twentieth century, that it ought not once to 
 be named among enlightened Americans. 
 
SIN 119 
 
 Truth is still truth. Sinful human nature 
 may wince under it. Neither reason, nor 
 pride, nor unbelief in any form can wipe out 
 a fact. They cannot shriek a fact out of ex- 
 istence. Facts are still fundamental. 
 
 That from birth on there is an evil bias, 
 a tendency toward, and a preference for, the 
 bad is patent to every open and unbiased 
 mind. Without a teacher the child learns the 
 bad. To learn the good, to love what God 
 loves, requires constant teaching, training, 
 watching, warning, and luring. Why? De- 
 pravity is native. 
 
 The wages of sin is death. Dying, thou 
 shalt die. All pain, all suffering is a preven- 
 lent dying and as such a wage, a result of sin. 
 Where there is no sin there can be neither 
 sickness nor death. Innocent angels neither 
 suffer nor die. Neither do the spirits of just 
 men made perfect. In the New Jersusalem 
 there is no sin. There “the inhabitant shall 
 not say, I am sick.” ‘There shall be neither 
 sorrow, nor crying, nor death.” No sin there. 
 No baby would ever get sick or die if it were 
 sinless. Facts are stubborn things.* 
 
 The acceptance of the full, sad teaching 
 of the Bible on Sin is fundamental. 
 
 *Read chapters I and II of “Way of Salvation in the Lu- 
 theran Church.” 
 
« ea 
 
 ae se 
 Pac Bh a 
 
 i 
 
 Te 
 
 
 
Pa es het 
 REDEMPTION 
 

 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Redeemer 
 
 HE terrible tragedy had taken place. 
 
 The progenitors of the human race were 
 fallen creatures. In intellect, in will, in flesh, 
 they had broken with God. Their physical, 
 mental, and moral nature had become corrupt. 
 The race to be was as yet in them. We were 
 in Adam. Therefore, 
 
 “Tn Adam’s fall 
 We sinned all.” 
 
 At once Adam and Eve were conscious of 
 the tragic change. Heretofore they had been 
 the happy companions of God. God had 
 walked with them and talked with them in 
 the garden. Now all is changed. In con- 
 scious guilt they flee. They hide under the 
 bushes. They make themselves aprons of fig- 
 leaves. They do not want to see God. They 
 
 123 
 
124 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 do not want God to see them. Sinful, cor- 
 rupt, guilty, they can no longer abide His 
 pure presence. ‘They are lost. 
 
 Left to themselves they would have fallen 
 deeper and ever deeper. They would have 
 wandered farther and ever farther. As the 
 first prodigals they would have gone down 
 among the swine. 
 
 They neither contemplated nor took a single 
 step back toward God. But God had com- 
 passion. His great loving heart yearned for 
 His lost children. He pitied them. He 
 sought them. He called them. He found 
 them. He showed them that the sin and guilt 
 were all their own. He brought them to re- 
 pentance and then—oh, blessed fact!—in the 
 seed of the woman He promised them a Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 From that time forward began that long 
 course of preparation. God began to prepare 
 a fallen race for redemption. Outside of 
 Eden God began to school and discipline the 
 race. The pedagogy of God runs through 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 As noted in the Introduction, outside the 
 gates of God’s garden the race divided. One 
 part elected to follow the faith of Abel. The 
 other part elected to walk in “the way of 
 
THE REDEEMER 125 
 
 Cain.” Later on came the great division be- 
 tween Judaism and Heathenism. The latter 
 carried forth some traditions from the cradle 
 of the race. As we have seen, they never could 
 altogether forget four great basic truths. 
 Throughout their age-long, dreary wander- 
 ings, God was disciplining the heathen. He 
 was teaching them two great essential lessons; 
 First, that with all its nature worship, with / 
 all its culture in art, in philosophy, in civiliza-/ 
 tion, in statecraft, and in state religion, hu-) 
 manity cannot redeem itself from corruption 
 and guilt, and cannot make a moral and happy 
 world. Second, that, despairing of self-sal-' 
 vation, humanity must look for redemption 
 from above. 
 
 Judaism also had to learn needed lessons: 
 First, that they could not save themselves by 
 virtue of inherent superiority, nor by the 
 mere fact that God had highly favored them 
 and had given them a written Revelation. 
 The fact that they were Abraham’s seed 
 would not in itself save them. Not even the 
 divine law nor their own efforts after an ex- 
 ternal and artificial obedience could save 
 them. The law could only be their pedagogue 
 to show them their sin and to drive them to 
 a prophesied, God-given Redeemer. 
 
126 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 This was God’s plan. This is His covenant. 
 Unaided human wisdom could never have de- 
 vised it. Reason may find fault and criticise. 
 Reason cannot measure the mind of God. A 
 sanctified reason, a reason enlightened and re- 
 newed by the Holy Ghost, studies, admires, 
 and adores the manifold wisdom of God. The 
 individual Christian searches and sees and 
 says: Yes, this fits me; this saves me; this satis- 
 fies me. What I cannot comprehend I leave 
 to His inscrutable wisdom. The judge of all 
 the earth has done right. So from Genesis 
 3. 15 to John 3. 16 the great scheme of God 
 unfolds. In the fulness of time the seed of the 
 woman is revealed as the only begotten Son of 
 God. It was love that promised the seed to 
 ruined man. It was love that prepared 
 the heathen world to see its need of redemp- 
 tion. It was love that prepared redemption 
 through the Jewish world. It was love that 
 provided a Redeemer. It was love that led 
 Him to come gladly. 
 
 The Redeemer had no earthly father. He 
 was born of a virgin mother. Joseph was His 
 fosterfather. He adopted the son of his be- 
 trothed virgin. Joseph thus became the legal 
 father of Jesus. In law Joseph had the rights 
 and responsibilities of a father. The inspired 
 
THE REDEEMER 127 
 
 story tells us how nobly he carried his self-as- 
 sumed responsibilities. 
 
 Those who deny Revelation, inspiration, 
 and miracle have vehemently attacked the 
 teaching of the virgin birth. To a true 
 Christian who has experienced the Grace that 
 comes through inspired Revelation, who 
 knows himself to be a miracle, a miracle of 
 Grace, there is no difficulty in the miracle of 
 
 ~..the virgin birth. He asks only what is written. 
 
 He~knows that Isaiah prophesied, (7. 14) 
 “Behold, @ virgin shall conceive, and bear a 
 son.” He knows that an angel promised a 
 Son to Mary while she was yet a virgin. Luke 
 1. 35, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
 and the power of the Highest shall over- 
 shadow thee; therefore also that holy thing 
 which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
 Son of God.” And Matthew 1. 18 says that 
 after His mother Mary was espoused to Jo- 
 seph, before they came together, “she was 
 found with child of the Holy Spirit.” And so 
 the Word became flesh. He was born of a 
 woman, born under the law. So the Chris- 
 tian reverently confesses: I believe in Jesus 
 Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
 born of the virgin Mary. 
 
 How beautifully all this fits into the whole 
 
128 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 New Testament portrayal of Christ. He is 
 the miracle of miracles. Why shouldn’t His 
 conception and birth be a miracle? What a 
 fitting start it is for that exceptional earthly 
 career! What natural mind could have con- 
 ceived it? This altogether unique, this other- 
 worldly, earthly beginning prepares us for all 
 that is to follow. We know in advance that 
 we are to have a God-man for a Saviour, a 
 Saviour who can save—save to the uttermost. 
 There is a heavenly naturalness in the super- 
 natural. It prepares for, and fits into, the 
 precious Christmas story. It fits the first 
 Christmas sermon, preached by an angel. It 
 fits the first Christmas anthem, sung by an 
 angel choir. It fits our minds and hearts into 
 the Christmas spirit. It tinges and tones the 
 whole year with Christmas. It fits the short, 
 simple, straightforward story of the infancy 
 of the Holy Child. 
 
 The Emperor on the world’s throne had to 
 help make Micah’s prophecy come true. The 
 shepherds visited the manger crib. They saw 
 the little Lord Jesus. ‘They became lay- 
 preachers and “made known abroad the say- 
 ing which was told them concerning this 
 child.” This was preaching the good tidings. 
 He who ‘was made of a woman, made under 
 
THE REDEEMER 129 
 
 the law,” was circumcised on the eighth day 
 according to the law. He was purified in the 
 temple on the fortieth day according to the 
 law. Simeon took the little Lord Christ in 
 his arms and indited our Nunc Dimittis. 
 came coming into the temple at that instant, 
 “gave thanks, and spake of Him to all feed 
 that looked fa redemption in Jerusalem.” A 
 holy woman preached the glad tidings without 
 leaving a good woman’s sphere. This daugh- 
 ter of God prophesied. Wise men from the 
 heathen Orient, guided by God’s special star 
 and directed by hostile students of the 
 prophets, came and worshiped and offered 
 costly gifts. An angel directed the flight in- 
 to Egypt, and so saved the child from the 
 murderous intent of Herod. Then came the 
 quiet years in Nazareth where “the child 
 grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 
 wisdom; and the grace of God was upon 
 Him.” What a story! What a childhood! 
 What a child! It was “the Holy Child Je- 
 sus.’ Who could have invented the story? 
 Who would have restrained himself not to 
 tell more? 
 Between the return to Nazareth and the 
 beginning of the public ministry there lie 
 nearly thirty silent years. Once only is the 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 9, 
 
130 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 curtain lifted. We get one short glimpse at 
 the twelve year old boy in the temple. What 
 a glimpse! How meaningful! A volume of 
 information in the short story and the signifi- 
 cant summary of the following eighteen years: 
 ‘Fle went down with them and came to Naza- 
 reth, and was subject unto them... And Je- 
 sus increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favor with God and man.” He is a Son of 
 the Law, He is a carpenter. That is all. It 
 is enough. 
 
 It does not fall into our present purpose to 
 delineate the three years of His public min- 
 istry. That story is full. Its study has en- 
 gaged the greatest minds in the world. They 
 are talking about it in heaven. You and JI, 
 dear reader, expect to spend an eternity with 
 the angels looking into these things which hu- 
 man eye cannot all see, nor ear hear, nor heart 
 conceive. What we want to know as far as 
 a human being can know, what we want to 
 be assured of is this: Who is this Son of 
 Manre We want to be ready to give an answer 
 —an answer that will at least satisfy ourselves 
 —to the question of all questions, ‘“‘What think 
 ye of Christ?” No man can claim to be well- 
 informed, to be an intelligent man, and yet 
 be ignorant of the life, character, and mission 
 
THE REDEEMER 131 
 
 of Jesus Christ. We want to learn, we want 
 to know, all that we can of the person, the 
 nature, the character, the meaning, the mission 
 of Christ. All sorts of deep, metaphysical, 
 and speculative answers have been given. 
 What is your answerer What is miner 
 
 We first ask: What claims does Jesus 
 make for Himself? 
 
 We can only name some of His most unique 
 and striking claims. Limitations of space for- 
 bid our quoting all the proof passages. Most 
 of them are well known. 
 
 In a quiet, unboastful, modest way Jesus 
 claims to be far above the great men of His 
 nation—in a class by Himself. With the 
 Father “before the world was.” “Before 
 Abraham.” “David’s Lord.” “Greater than 
 Solomon.” “Greater than Jonah.” He is 
 “from above.” ‘Came down from heaven.” 
 “Came forth from the Father,” “from God.” 
 He claims to be “the Light of the world;” 
 “the Life of the world;” “the Resurrection 
 and the Life;” “the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life.” He claims that He can give rest to all 
 the weary and heavy laden. He claims to for- 
 give sin, to save. He desires that all men 
 “honor Him as they honor the Father.” He 
 claims that no man can come to the Father 
 
132 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 but by Him. That all power is given Him 
 in heaven and in earth. That He will give 
 His life “a ransom for many.” That He will 
 come again in glory and all the angels with 
 Him. 
 
 Will the skeptic, the rationalist, the Uni- 
 tarian, the Eddyite, give us a clear, unequivo- 
 cal answer to these plain questions: Did any 
 mere man ever make such claims? What 
 would they think of such aman? How would 
 these claims sound from the lips of a mere 
 man? 
 
 We go further: Jesus claimed that He and 
 the’ Father) aresone!: “Chat hle ris, inesthe 
 Father and the Father in Him. That who- 
 ever has seen Him has seen the Father. 
 
 Still further: The enemies of Jesus under- 
 stood Him as claiming equality with God. In 
 John 10. 33 we read: ‘The Jews answered 
 Him saying, For a good work we stone Thee 
 not, but for blasphemy, and that thou being a 
 man makest thyself God.” For blasphemy 
 these Jews afterwards brought Jesus to trial. 
 They put Him on the witness stand. They 
 adjured Him, 1. e., they made Him take an 
 oath, they made Him swear. The high priest 
 said: “I adjure thee by the living God that 
 thou tell us whether thou art Christ the Son 
 
THE REDEEMER 133 
 
 of God.” Jesus answered: ‘Thou hast said,” 
 1. €., it is as thou hast said. Then, on the 
 witness stand, under oath, Jesus goes on: 
 “Hereafter ye shall se the Son of man sitting 
 on the right hand of Power and coming in 
 the clouds of heaven.” ‘To their ears and by 
 their law this was blasphemy, and for this they 
 said, “He is guilty of death.” Had He been a 
 mere man, then according to their law their 
 verdict would have been just. 
 
 Such were the claims of Jesus for Himself. 
 Such were they understood to be by those who 
 heard them. Under oath He answered the 
 enemies that they had understood Him aright. 
 He swore that He was the Christ, the Son of 
 God, that He would sit on the right hand of 
 power and would come again in the clouds of 
 heaven. 
 
 Now! Were His claims true, or were they 
 false? One or the other they must be. He 
 was either speaking, teaching, testifying, 
 swearing to, truth or falsehood. If truth, then 
 He was all that He claimed to be. Then we 
 say with John: ‘The Word was God.” We 
 say with Peter: “Thou art the Son of the 
 living God.” We fall at His feet, we wor- 
 ship, we adore, as we say with Thomas: “My 
 Lord and my God.” 
 
134 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 But if His claims were not true? What 
 then? Shall wesay it? Wemust. Then He 
 would have been the greatest pretender, the 
 worst impostor that ever lived. Say it who 
 dare! 
 
 Here we might rest our own claim for the 
 essential Deity of Jesus Christ. But we desire 
 to call the reader’s attention to a few more 
 convincing proofs. 
 
 Not only did Jesus Himself claim for Him- 
 self essential Deity, but the whole New Tes- 
 tament, its whole evangel, is based on, builded 
 on, and pervaded by, the claim. Without the 
 essential Deity of Christ there is neither life, 
 nor attraction, nor power in the Gospel. 
 There is no good tidings in it. It is degospel- 
 ised. 
 
 For those who accept the Bible as the re- 
 vealed and inspired Word of God the old ar- 
 guments or proofs forever settle the question. 
 With those who have so far stifled their 
 higher reason and the deepest yearnings of 
 their better nature as to deny Revelation, 
 miracle, and in fact the supernatural, we have 
 here no argument. 
 
 Note carefully these passages. Look up 
 the parallel references. Furst as to the 
 NAMES given to Jesus. Jer. 23.6. “This 
 
THE REDEEMER 135 
 
 is his name whereby he shall be called: the 
 Lord our Righteousness.” John 20. 28. 
 Thomas said unto Him, “My Lord and my 
 God.” Romans 9.5. “Whose are the fathers, 
 and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ 
 came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” 
 1 John 5. 20. “And we know that the Son of 
 God is come, and hath given us an understand- 
 ing, that we may know him that is true; and 
 we are in Him that is true even in his Son 
 Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eter- 
 nalehite:’ | 
 
 Note, second, that He has the ATTRI- 
 BUTES of God: 
 
 He is Eternal. John 1.1. “In the begin- 
 ning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God.” John 8. 58. 
 “Before Abraham was, I am.” Heb. 13. 8. 
 ‘“Tesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and 
 forever.” He is everywhere present. Matt. 
 18.20. “Where two or three are gathered to- 
 gether in my name, there am I in the midst 
 of them.” Matt. 28.18. ‘All power is given 
 unto me in heaven and in earth.” He is all- 
 knowing. John 2. 25. “He knew what was 
 in man.” In John 21. 17 Peter says to Jesus: 
 “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest 
 that I love Thee.” Col. 2.3. “In whom are 
 
136 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
 edge.” The whole Gospel record shows that 
 He had and ever manifested the attributes of 
 goodness, mercy, righteousness, and holiness. 
 All these are essential attributes of God. 
 
 To Him are ascribed WORKS which God 
 alone can do. John 1. 3. “AII things were 
 made by him and without him was not any- 
 thing made.” In Heb. 1. 3 He is said to be 
 “upholding all things by the word of his 
 power.” We know that He had power over 
 nature. He turned water into wine, stilled 
 the storm, drove shoals of fish into the net, 
 multiplied loaves and fishes. He also healed 
 all manner of diseases, cast out demons, and 
 raised the dead. He could and did forgive 
 sins. 
 
 He receives divine WORSHIP. In Acts 
 7.59, 60 we see Stephen praying to Him. In 
 Acts 9. 14 Ananias says to the glorified Lord 
 that believers “call on thy name.” Phil. 
 2.10. “At the name of Jesus every knee 
 should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
 earth, and things under the earth.’ Men may 
 refuse to confess and worship Him here, and 
 so make it impossible to worship Him in heay- 
 en. But in hell they will bow the knee to 
 Him. Also Heb. 1. 6 describes the worship 
 
THE REDEEMER 137 
 
 in heaven. “And let all the angels of God 
 worship Him.” But enough on this supreme 
 fundamental. To get rid of the essential 
 Deity, or Godhead, of Jesus would mean to 
 get rid of the New Testament, or to make its 
 words meaningless. 
 
 We need not tarry to prove that Jesus is 
 also true man. He is called man. He has 
 soul and body, flesh and bone, hands and feet. 
 He grew up asa boy. He ate and drank, and 
 was weary and slept, and suffered and died. 
 
 What a comforting truth this is. He had 
 a real, a true human nature. He carried a 
 real, human heart. He experienced all that 
 really belongs to human nature. Sin does not 
 belong to the substance or essence of human 
 nature. Adam had a complete human nature 
 before he had sin. Jesus Christ, the second 
 Adam, had a complete human nature without 
 sin. This human nature was glorified after 
 He had finished His state of humiliation. He 
 took His glorified humanity with Him to 
 heaven. At the right hand of God a human 
 heart beats for me. He can be, He is touched 
 with the feeling of my infirmities. I can ap- 
 proach Him. I can come bodily to His 
 throne. He can and does feel for me. 
 
 In the Person of Christ the two natures 
 
138 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 were intimately and mysteriously blended. In 
 the one person the natures were in perfect har- 
 mony with each other. There was commun- 
 ion and intercommunion. There was a re- 
 ciprocal communication of attributes and ac- 
 tions. What one nature experienced and did 
 was participated in by the other. The attri- 
 butes of one nature were shared in by the 
 other. The majesty of the divine nature was 
 in a mysterious way communicated to the 
 human. In all His heavenly and divine of- 
 fices as our Prophet, our Priest, and our King 
 both natures were active. All this is clearly 
 shown in the passages already quoted and 
 many more that might be quoted. 
 
 This God-man, this “true God begotten of 
 the Father from eternity and also true man 
 born of the Virgin Mary” is the very and only 
 kind of Saviour that could have redeemed 
 me. Had he been God only, He could not 
 have suffered and died for me. Had He been 
 man alone, His suffering and dying could 
 never have had value enough to pay for the 
 sin and guilt of the human race. A mere 
 man’s suffering and dying could never have 
 been a sufficient atonement to satisfy eternal 
 justice, to take the sting out of death, and to 
 overcome hell and the devil. 
 
THE REDEEMER 139 
 
 The God-man answers all and for all. He 
 is the one Mediator between God and man. 
 He is my advocate at the throne of grace. In 
 Him alone is my salvation. The doctrine of 
 the Person of the Redeemer is fundamental. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Work of the Redeemer, or Redemption. 
 
 Ma™ things in this chapter have been 
 I anticipated, 1 need .togrecallathaten 
 am by nature and by practiceasinner. I need 
 to recall that sin inevitably brings suffering 
 and death. Thisissin’s penalty. Left to my- 
 self, my sin would assuredly bring upon me 
 physical, spiritual and eternal death. Left 
 to himself no man can by any means give a 
 ransom for himself. If I am to be redeemed, 
 bought back, ransomed, saved, it must be by 
 another. And for this my Redeemer came. 
 He came “‘to save His people from their sins,” 
 “to seek and to save the lost,” to “give His 
 life as a ransom,” to “save to the uttermost.” 
 
 FHow-Did deer edesnmies 
 
 As the oldest finished creed says: ‘‘Who 
 for us men and for our salvation came down 
 from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy 
 Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made 
 man.’”’ More than two centuries earlier the 
 
 140 
 
REDEMPTION 141 
 
 Holy Ghost had said through Paul, “He 
 humbled himself and became obedient unto 
 death, even the death of the cross.” In this 
 state of voluntary self-humbling, which we 
 call His state of humiliation, he remained un- 
 til He said: “It is finished.” After that be- 
 gan His state of exaltation in which He exists 
 now and will exist world without end. 
 
 His state of humiliation and all that goes 
 with it He took upon Himself willingly and 
 of His own accord. He was not coerced or 
 compelled or driven. All those cheap, cur- 
 rent objections against God, as if He had laid 
 hold of His Son, bound Him and thrown 
 Him upon the altar of suffering, like Abra- 
 ham caught and bound and burned the ram, 
 fall to the ground when Jesus says of giving 
 up His life: “No man taketh it from me, but 
 I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay 
 it down, and I have power to take it again.” 
 Again we read, Heb. 10. 7, “Then I said: Lo, 
 I come, (in the volume of the book it is writ- 
 ten of me) to do thy will, O God.” Love 
 drove Him to want to humble Himself, to 
 want to live that life of sacrifice and suffer- 
 ing, and then to die for my salvation. 
 
 In that state of humiliation He became my 
 Prophet. The law demanded perfect obedi- 
 
142 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 ence in thought, word, and deed. Gal. 3. 10. 
 “Cursed is every one who continueth not in 
 all things that are written in the book of the 
 law, to do them.” Jas. 2. 10. ‘Whosoever 
 therefore shall keep the whole law, and yet of- 
 fend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Who 
 then can be saved? By the Law, no one. 
 There is none righteous, no not one. No nat- 
 ural son of Adam ever could, or ever did, 
 keep the whole law in its own inner intent. 
 Left to itself humanity was condemned. 
 Then He, my Prophet, came. The law 
 found nothing to condemn in Him. He was 
 the maker and giver of the Law. He had a 
 righteousness as far above the Law as heaven 
 is above earth. But, voluntarily He was made 
 under the Law. As a Prophet He taught it. 
 He opened up its deep spiritual meaning. He 
 showed what its demands are on the soul, the 
 mind, the heart. He put Himself under that 
 Law. He fulfilled it in its deepest demands. 
 He owed nothing to the Law. But, after 
 showing me its deeper, fuller meaning, He 
 kept it in my place. He was my substitute. 
 For me He worked out a righteousness of the 
 Law. For me He worked out this active obe- 
 dience. This perfect obedience He wanted 
 to have set down to my account. His own 
 
REDEMPTION 143 
 
 earned and acquired righteousness of the Law 
 He wanted to have counted over to me. His 
 legal perfection He wanted imputed to me. 
 I could have no such righteousness of my own. 
 But I could have His righteousness set down 
 to my account as thoughit had been my own. 
 
 But Redemption is not yet complete. There 
 is another debt to be paid. Man had sinned. 
 God’s nature abhorred sin. Sin must be pun- 
 ished. God’s word was pledged. ‘There must 
 be suffering for sin. God’s justice demanded 
 an atonement. 
 
 Therefore my Prophet becomes my Priest. 
 He brings Himself as God’s lamb to the altar. 
 He Himself becomes my substitute. In effect 
 He says: Let me take the sinner’s place. Let 
 me be the guilty one. Let the blows fall on 
 me. All that the sinner deserves I will suffer. 
 
 So real was this substitution that He who 
 made Himself at the same time the Priest and 
 the Sacrifice, faced, looked upon, and con- 
 templated, all the sin of all the race of all the 
 ages as His own sin. He gazed upon all the 
 dark sins, all the vice, all the crime that ever 
 had been committed by man, as if He had 
 done it all. How the very thought, the very 
 sight of all this foul array must have filled 
 
144 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 His pure soul with horror unspeakable! As 
 my substitute He so looked upon my sin. 
 Not only did He see it all as His own, but 
 He felt the guilt of it all. The sin was His, 
 the burden was His. The guilt was His. He 
 felt as if He had committed it all; as if He 
 must answer for it all; as if He deserved all 
 the penalty for it all; as if He must suffer all 
 that it all deserved. As the guilty one He 
 must bear the awful load, He must drink the 
 bitter cup, because He had made the sin His 
 own. He made Himself the guilty one. 
 Still further: While He was working out 
 that vicarious Atonement He underwent all 
 the punishment due for all the sin of all the 
 race. In a sense His whole earthly life was 
 vicarious. All that He suffered in all that 
 life was vicarious. In anticipation also, as He 
 knew the end from the beginning, He suffered 
 Gethsemane and Calvary a thousand times 
 over. And when it was all upon Him, He 
 suffered the torments of the damned, and the 
 pangs of hell took hold upon Him. The devil 
 had tempted Him in the wilderness. He had 
 left Him “for a season.” Now, on this the 
 darkest night of the world Jesus says: ‘The 
 prince of this world cometh and hath nothing 
 inme.” Now He says to the devil’s imps and 
 
REDEMPTION 145 
 
 implements: ‘This is your hour, and the 
 power of darkness.” And so the fiends of Hell 
 were let loose upon Him and shot their hellish 
 darts into His soul. He was being “made a 
 curse.” He was “made sin.” The Lord was 
 laying ‘“‘on Him the iniquity of us all.” He 
 was “bearing our sins in His own body.” Sin 
 deserved Hell. He suffered Hell. As infi- 
 nite God He could suffer in a comparatively 
 short time what would take an eternity for 
 man to suffer. What His suffering lacked in 
 extensiveness it made up in_intensiveness. 
 God was suffering. 
 
 True, God, in Himself, cannot suffer or 
 die. But while in Christ dwelt all the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead bodily, Christ was not 
 simply, purely, solely God. He was God- 
 man. As we have seen, God had united Him- 
 self with human nature in a mysterious, but 
 real and intimate union. God, thus made 
 man, could undergo, endure, suffer, and die. 
 God ununited with human nature could 
 not undergo all this. But our sacrifice, our 
 vicarious Atonement is that of God united 
 with man. The Man, Christ Jesus, suffered 
 and died. ‘The God who was in Christ recon- 
 ciling the world unto Himself suffered and 
 
 died. Inareal sense with Watts we can sing: 
 Luth, Fundamentals, 10. 
 
y 
 ; 
 i 
 
 146 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 “When God the mighty Maker died 
 
 For man the creature’s sin.” 
 With Luther we may sing: 
 
 “O Grosse Noth! 
 Gott selbst ist tot!” 
 Oh awful dread! 
 God’s self is dead! 
 
 We can further sing: 
 
 “Jesus paid it all; 
 All the debt I owe.” 
 
 And so all the other precious passion and 
 pardon and peace hymns written by men who 
 believed in, and had experienced, the pre- 
 ciousness of the vicariousness of the Atone- 
 ment of the God-man. 
 
 _ The sainted Rev. Dr. Passavant of Pitts- 
 burg once told the writer how he had been 
 called in to see a dying stranger. He found 
 an old man with a patriarchal beard on his 
 dying bed. After a kindly greeting Dr. Pas- 
 savant asked the man what his hopes were for 
 the next world. The old man closed his eyes, 
 folded his hands across his breast, and slowly 
 
 repeated that next to inspired gem of Evan- 
 ‘gelical truth, Luther’s Explanation of the sec- 
 ‘ond Article of the Apostle’s Creed, as he had 
 
 learned it over three score years ago in the 
 confirmation class. Here it is: 
 
REDEMPTION 147 
 
 “IT believe that Jesus Christ, true God, be- 
 gotten of the Father from eternity, and also 
 true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my 
 Lord; who has redeemed me, a lost and con- 
 demned creature, secured and delivered me 
 from all sins, from death and from the power 
 of the devil, not with silver and gold, but 
 with His holy and precious blood and with 
 His innocent sufferings and death; in order 
 that I might be His own, live under Him in 
 His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting 
 righteousness, innocence, and _ blessedness; 
 even as He is risen from the dead and lives 
 and reigns to all eternity. This is most cer- 
 tainly true.” 
 
 Dr. Passavant said that in his ministry of 
 fifty years he had not seen a more beautiful 
 deathbed nor heard a more blessed dying tes- 
 timony. 
 
 May it be yours and mine. 
 
 It expresses a fund of fundamental truth. 
 To be fundamental and saving for me, it must 
 be more than a precious treasury of memory. 
 It must be a living heart experience. ? 
 
 Jesus Is Also My King. 
 
 Because Jesus has redeemed me, therefore 
 
148 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 I.can.be Hist: -Hercanvbe my King? cf ‘can 
 live under Him in His Kingdom. 
 
 Because He finished His work of Redemp- 
 tion, He can send His Holy Spirit to renew 
 me and make me a fit subject for His King- 
 dom of grace. 
 
 In this blessed Kingdom He exercises over 
 me His rule of love. He guides me, directs 
 me, protects me to the end. 
 
 As my King He will come again and take 
 me out of His Kingdom of Grace into His 
 Kingdom of glory. All this will become more 
 clear as I study the application and appro- 
 priation of the work of Redemption and the 
 
 Last Things. 
 
osha BOY 
 THE APPLICATION AND 
 
 APPROPRIADILON. OF 
 REDEMPTION 
 

 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER IX 
 The Holy Spirit, His Person and Work 
 
 HE God-man had finished His Work. 
 He had purchased a full and free salva- 
 tion for guilty and condemned humanity. He 
 had paid in full the sinner’s penalty. He had 
 paid in full all the demands of God’s holy 
 law, which is the expression of God’s holy 
 will. He had satisfied in full all the demands 
 of God’s justice. The obstacles that separated 
 man from God had now been removed. The 
 way back to favor with God was again open. 
 God could now be just and yet justify the sin- 
 ner. A vicarious Atonement had been ren- 
 dered. A perfect salvation had been pur- 
 chased. The Redeemer could say of His 
 great work, and did say, “It is finished.” 
 But Atonement was not all that was needed 
 
 151 
 
152 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 for man’s salvation. No man ever could be, 
 no man ever was, saved without the Atone- 
 ment. And yet the Atonement alone never did 
 and never could save man. A further work of 
 God was needed. Man was still unsaved, still 
 sinful, still guilty and condemned. He needed 
 to take, to appropriate to himself, the pur- 
 chased salvation. Man had to be made fit for 
 salvation, fit for fellowship with God, fit for 
 heaven. Man’s sinful nature needed to be 
 changed, to be made over, before he could be 
 made a partaker of the salvation purchased 
 for him. The work for man was finished. A 
 work in man was yet to be done. Man could 
 not do this for himself. He could not make 
 himself over. He could not change his na- 
 ture. He could not re-create himself. He 
 could not make himself a new creature. 
 Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, 
 or the leopard his spots, than that man might 
 change his own nature. Jesus says: ‘‘With- 
 out me ye can do nothing.” The carnal mind, 
 1. e. the mind of the natural, unrenewed man, 
 is “enmity against God.” 1 Cor. 2.14. “The 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the 
 Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto 
 him; neither can he know them, because they 
 are spiritually discerned.” By nature all are 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 153 
 
 “dead in trespasses and in sins.” ‘The dead 
 cannot make themselves alive. A new work 
 of God is needed, a creative work in man. To 
 renew man is the special work of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Who is the Holy Ghost? Is He a mere im- 
 personal influence? Is He merely a divine 
 power that goes out from Godr Are His 
 names and titles mere figures of speech, ideas 
 personified? So many rationalistic writers 
 and teachers believe, and so these perverters 
 of the Scriptures, these men who unhesitating- 
 ly translate God’s words and thoughts into 
 the thinking and wording of their own un- 
 renewed reason, would have us believe and 
 teach. But we believe that God is true, that 
 He has not given His Word to us to confuse 
 and deceive us. He tells us the truth. He 
 says what He means. He wants us to under- 
 stand Him. 
 
 According to this inspired Word, the Holy 
 Ghost is in the Godhead. He is the third per- 
 son in the Trinity. He is a Person in the same 
 sense in which the Father is a Person and the 
 Son is a Person. Jesus names Him with the 
 Father and the Son in the baptismal commis- 
 sion. Mt. 28. 19. At the baptism of Jesus, 
 He, the Son, was visibly baptized, the Father 
 
154 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 spoke audibly from heaven, and the Holy 
 Ghost descended in the form of a dove and 
 rested on Jesus. When Jesus was speaking to 
 His disciples, He, the Son, promised that the 
 Father would send them a Comforter, the 
 Holy Ghost. In these three instances the 
 whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, are 
 working together, each in His own personlity, 
 each on an equality with the other two. 
 The historic Church has always so under- 
 stood and so confessed. The ancient and 
 modern Evangelical creeds harmoniously cen- 
 
 fess that there is one God in three Persons; 
 that the Father is God, that the Son is God, 
 
 that the Holy Ghost is God, and that the three 
 together are the one Triune God. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is distinctly called God: 
 Acts 5..3,4, “Ananias, why hath Satan filled 
 thine herat to lie to the Holy Ghost? .... 
 Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” 
 1 Cor. 3. 16. “Know ye not that ye are the 
 temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in your” 
 
 The Holy Ghost has the attributes of God. 
 He is everywhere present. Read Psalm 139. 
 He is Almighty. 1 Cor. 12. 11. “AII these 
 worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, di- 
 viding to every man severally as he will.” 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 155 
 
 Read the preceding verses. Psalm 33.6. “By 
 the word of the Lord were the heavens made, 
 and all the host of them by the breath of his 
 mouth.” Jos 33.4. “The Spirit of God hath 
 made me.” Jesus said: “I cast out demons 
 by the Spirit of God.” He is omniscient, i. e., 
 He knows all things. 1 Cor. 2. 10. ‘““The Spirit 
 searcheth all things.” He is called the eter- 
 nal Spirit. He brooded upon the face of the 
 waters in the beginning before God had made 
 a world out of chaos. This doctrine of the 
 Person of the Holy Spirit is fundamental. 
 
 This Holy Spirit then is God in the same 
 sense in which either one of the other two per- 
 sons of the Holy Trinity is God. He is my 
 Life-giver, my Sanctifier. As seen in a for- 
 mer paragraph, He is the very God I so often 
 need, to Whom I can confidingly pray in my 
 spiritual distress. He hears and answers true 
 prayer. 
 
 Let us look at the works of God the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 As the third Person in the one Godhead, 
 the Holy Spirit had from the beginning a 
 part in every work of God. He is mentioned 
 in the second verse of the first chapter of the 
 Bible, as moving or brooding upon the primi- 
 tive, chaotic, watery world. He had a part 
 
156 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 in creation. He is mentioned again and again 
 in the Old Testament as striving with man, 
 filling men, giving them wisdom, as coming 
 upon and resting on men, as speaking through 
 men. He inspired the writers of the Old Tes- 
 tament books, for “holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 
 
 But He had not yet come in all His fulness 
 and power. Prophets predicted a special out- 
 pouring of the Spirit upon all flesh. This 
 special outpouring did not come until Christ 
 had finished His work of redeeming man. 
 
 Christ Himself promised and explained 
 that New Testament coming of the Spirit. 
 That wonderful farewell address to His dis- 
 ciples on the eve of His suffering and death, 
 recorded in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and six- 
 teenth chapters of John, deals largely with the 
 sending, the coming, and the work of the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter. 
 
 Jesus Christ had promised, “I will build my 
 Church.” Mt. 16. 18. This Church was stil! 
 in the future. In a sense there had been a 
 Church in the Old Testament. In Acts 7. 38, 
 Stephen speaks of a Church that was “in the 
 wilderness.” The people of Israel, gathered 
 about and worshiping in God’s tabernacle, 
 were God’s Old Testament Church. After- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 157 
 
 wards they worshiped in God’s temple, on 
 Mount Zion in Jerusalem. 
 
 Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the Temple 
 are often personified and typified as God’s 
 dwelling place, God’s Church. The Book of 
 Psalms was the Hymn-Book of the Old Tes- 
 tament Church. That Book is full of appre- 
 ciation and praise of this Church. Read, for 
 example, Psalms 46, 48, and 84. To be a 
 doorkeeper, to dwell in the House of the 
 Lord, are accounted as the most precious 
 privileges. The Prophets promise glorious 
 things to the future Zion, the perfected New 
 Testament Church, which Christ made possi- 
 ble and promised to build. 
 
 Jesus had instructed His disciples to tarry 
 in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the 
 Father which He had given them. It is in- 
 teresting to note how seriously these disciples 
 took this waiting. ‘They all continued with 
 one accord in prayer and supplication.” Acts 
 1.14. They listened to Peter as he expounded 
 and applied the Scriptures. 
 
 They realized that something new was 
 about to take place. ‘They organized for work. 
 They had an election and filled up the breach 
 that had been made in the Apostolate. They 
 were ready. Pentecost was here. In a mirac- 
 
— 
 ee 
 — 
 ee 
 
 158 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 ulous way the Spirit came. The New Testa- 
 ment Church was born. 
 
 That Pentecost has always been looked upon 
 as the birthday of the Church. The Holy 
 Spirit in all His fulness was here. He had 
 come to stay. Jesus had said: “He shall 
 abide with you forever.” He has been in and 
 with the Church ever since. He is the 
 Church’s ever-present, living and life-giving 
 Spirit. Should He ever leave the Church, she 
 would die. 
 
 Where those emotional Christians, who are 
 guided by their own impulsive feelings more 
 than by the teaching of the Word, get the idea 
 that the Holy Spirit came only as a transient 
 guest and then departed and comes again in 
 times of special revival and then goes again, 
 we never could understand. It is a confusing 
 and comfortless notion. The Spirit need never 
 
 / come again in the same miraculous way. We 
 
 need not, we should not pray for, another 
 such a Pentecost. The Holy Spirit abides 
 in the Church forever. There is no trouble 
 about His presence. The trouble is with those 
 who do not believe in His constant presence 
 and do not use His life-giving Means. 
 
 On the very day when, by His coming, the 
 Church had been born, He began to work in 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 159 
 
 His ordinary way through His own means. 
 He used human instrumentalities. That has 
 ever been God’s plan. God’s way is to bring 
 His saving grace to man through and by man. 
 He used Peter, then others. Read the Book of 
 Acts. He used Apostles and laymen and 
 women. 
 
 God has given into the hands of His human 
 agents certain Means. These Means are God- 
 made and God-given. We merely name the 
 Means of Grace here. They will come up 
 again. 
 
 The first and great Means, the Means 
 which makes and conditions the other Means, 
 is the Word of God. Many otherwise good 
 people have never grasped this precious 
 truth. They are destitute of that abiding as- 
 surance and comfort and joy which this doc- 
 trine brings. To them the Bible is a book of 
 information, of instruction, and a guide—only 
 this, and nothing more. 
 
 The Bible is all this, but it is also much 
 more. It tells me what I must do to be saved. 
 But it also conveys to me the strength to do it. 
 Jesus says, (John 6. 63) “The words that I 
 speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are 
 life.’ In Romans |. 16 Paul says of the Gos- 
 pel: “It is the power of God unto salvation to 
 
160 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 everyone that believeth.” Heb. 4. 12 says: 
 “The word of God is quick [living] and 
 powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
 sword.” In 1 Peter 1. 23, the New Birth is 
 ascribed to the Word: “Born again, not of 
 corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
 word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
 ever.” Also James 1. 21, “Receive with meek- 
 ness the engrafted word, which is able to save 
 your souls.” Could the Word more plainly 
 claim for itself that it conveys power and life? 
 It is life and begets life and nourishes life, 
 because the Spirit of God, who gave and in- 
 spired it, uses it and conveys Himself to man 
 through it. In 2 Cor. 3.8 Paul calls the Gos- 
 pel a “ministration of the spirit.” In Eph. 
 6. 17 he calls it “the sword of the Spirit.” 
 
 We might go on and show from the Word 
 that the same saving operations are ascribed 
 indiscriminately to the Spirit and to the 
 Word: thus clearly showing that where one 
 is, there the other is also, and that one acts 
 through the other. Calling, enlightening, re- 
 generating, and sanctifying are all ascribed to 
 both the Spirit and the Word, because the 
 Spirit works through, and brings saving and 
 sanctifying Grace through the Word. 
 
 On the day when the spirit had come in 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 161 
 
 Pentecostal power on the gathered disciples, 
 and the Church had thus been born, Peter 
 preached the Word. Through that preaching 
 of the Word three thousand were awakened 
 when they were “pricked in their hearts.” 
 They cried out: “Men and brethren, what 
 shall we dor” The Holy Spirit was now 
 working in the Church through His own 
 chosen Means. 
 
 Peter exhorted the awakened ones to repent 
 and be baptized. Here he brings in another 
 Means of Grace, the Sacrament of Baptism. 
 Sacraments are never without the Word. The 
 Word makes them, conditions them, and goes 
 with them in their administration. They have 
 been called the Visible Word, and the Sacra- 
 mental Word. Of this more hereafter. 
 
 The Church. 
 
 The Church was born. The Holy Spirit 
 was working. He was making disciples by 
 “baptizing” and “teaching.” The infant 
 Church “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ 
 doctrine [or teaching] and fellowship, and in 
 the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The 
 breaking of bread refers to the other Sacra- 
 ment that had been instituted by Christ, the 
 Holy Communion. God’s Word and Christ’s 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 11. 
 
162 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 two Sacraments were at once in use. Through 
 these Means, administered as instituted and 
 commanded by Christ and used in a prayerful 
 spirit, the Lord added daily to the Church 
 such as were being saved. 
 
 Christ had promised to build the Church. 
 Through the Holy Spirit He was now build- 
 ing. As by His Atonement He had made it 
 possible for the Holy Spirit to come; as He 
 had sent the Spirit, He is the Church’s one 
 foundation. 1 Cor. 3.11. For other founda- 
 tion can no man lay than that is laid, which 
 is Jesus Christ. 
 
 Eph. 2. 19-21. ‘Now therefore ye are no 
 more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citi- 
 zens with the saints, and of the household of 
 God: and are built upon the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner stone; in whom all the 
 building fitly framed together groweth unto 
 a holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also 
 are builded together for an habitation of God 
 through the Spirit.” 
 
 Christ is also the Head of the Church. Eph. 
 1. 22, 23. “[ God] gave him to be head over 
 all things to the church, which is his body, the 
 fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Eph. 
 4.1416. “That we... may grow up into 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 163 
 
 him in all things, which is the head, even 
 Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly 
 joined together and compacted by that which 
 every joint supplieth, according to the ef- 
 fectual working in the measure of every part, | 
 maketh increase of the body unto the edifying 
 of itself in love.” 
 
 Christ loves the Church. His relation to 
 the Church is likened to that existing between 
 a loving husband and his wife. Eph. 5. 25. 
 “Flusbands love your wives, even as Christ 
 also loved the church.” In a true sense the 
 Church is the Bride of Christ. In and through 
 the Church the Holy Spirit speaks; “The 
 Spirit and the bride say: Come.” The 
 glorified Church, the Church triumphant, is 
 frequently called the Bride of Christ. With 
 this Bride Christ will sit down in glory, when 
 many shall have come from the East and from 
 the West and from the North and from the 
 South, to celebrate the marriage supper of 
 the Lamb. 
 
 He purchased the Church with His blood. 
 He “loved the Church.” He wooed and 
 called and won her. ‘Yea, I have loved thee 
 with an everlasting love; therefore, with lov- 
 ing-kindness have I drawn thee.” He desires 
 through His spirit to “cleanse her with the 
 
164 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 washing of water by the Lord, “so that He 
 may present her as a glorious Church, not 
 having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” 
 Surely: 
 
 “Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
 
 Zion, City of our God!” 
 The best uninspired definition of the Church 
 that we know is that of the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion; ‘“[he Church is the assembly of saints, 
 or believers, in which the Gospel is rightly 
 taught, or preached, and the sacraments are 
 rightly administered,” i. e., as Christ insti- 
 tuted them. 
 
 This definition fits finely the Church that 
 was brought to its birth by the Holy Spirit on 
 the day of Pentecost. It fits the spirit and 
 work of that Church as it is depicted all 
 through the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 There is nothing perfect in this world. No 
 purely human being ever was, or ever will be, 
 perfect in this world. Paul must have come 
 as near to it as is possible. But he confessed 
 that he was not perfect. He was still ever 
 pressing forward and striving after the mark 
 of his high calling. In the Church the Gos- 
 pel net takes in fishes both bad and good. In 
 the Church’s field in the world the wheat and 
 the tares will grow together. The tares can- 
 
CHE HOLY SPIRE 165 
 
 not all be gathered out until the harvest. 
 There was a Judas among Christ’s twelve. 
 Ananias and Sapphira were in the infant 
 Church. And even there we find strife and 
 contention; we find the Grecian widows mur- 
 muring against the Hebrew widows. Only 
 in so far as a member of the Church has put 
 on Christ and is covered with the robe of His 
 righteousness is he a saint, or holy person. 
 “The Lord knoweth them that are His.”’ Such 
 ones still have and commit sins of weakness, 
 but they hate them, mourn over them, ex- 
 ercise daily repentance, and ever strive to 
 grow in grace and in the knowledge of God’s 
 Word. ‘These are the true members of the 
 Church. We cannot always pick them out. 
 They are often called the Invisible Church, 
 the true Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In our time and in our land the Church is 
 sadly divided. There are many Churches, so 
 called, and many good people are perplexed 
 by this sad situation. With which Church 
 shall they uniter 
 
 We cannot go into a discussion of this prob- 
 lem here. We like the statement of that saint- 
 ly and deeply spiritual old Lutheran theolo- 
 gian, John Gerhard. In substance he says: 
 The different Churches vary in their degrees 
 
166 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 of purity. Some are less pure, and some are 
 more pure than others. ‘That is the purest 
 Church which, as a whole, in her teaching and 
 confession receives, believes, confesses, and 
 teaches all things that the Holy Spirit teaches 
 in God’s Word. After a life-long, painstak- 
 ing and prayerful study of the Word Gerhard 
 was satisfied that, by his own test, the Luther- 
 an church is the most scriptural, and there- 
 fore the purest, Church. With this we fully 
 agree. 
 
 Let every sincere seeker after God’s truth 
 search, sift, compare, judge, prove all things, 
 be fully persuaded in his own mind, hold fast 
 that which is good. 
 
 But let every one beware of the popular and 
 perilous heresy that it makes no difference 
 what a person believes. There is no solid 
 Scripture ground for such a statement. 
 
 Let us all learn to appreciate the goodness 
 of God in. planting the Church in this world 
 of sin. What would we be without the 
 Church, her sermons and her sacraments, her 
 hymns and prayers, and the blessed fellow- 
 ship in the Communion of Saints. 
 
 How sadly strange that so many men in our 
 Christian land stand aloof from, and despise, 
 the Church of Christ! How puzzlingly 
 
‘PHEPHOLY, SPIRET 167 
 
 strange that men and women who claim to be 
 intelligent prefer some man-made organiza- . 
 tion or order to the Institution ordained by 
 God, purchased and loved by Christ, brought 
 into being and guided by the Holy Spirit! 
 
 We go back to the work of the Holy Spirit 
 in the Church. 
 
 The Church was in operation. It was, and 
 from that time forth has been, the Spirit’s 
 work to strengthen, to build up, to build out, 
 to expand the Church. Those in the Church 
 needed to be nourished, fostered, edified, and 
 made strong and ever stronger in the Lord 
 and in the power of His might. Other mil- 
 lions were to be won. 
 
 Her blessed influence was to cover the 
 earth, even as the waters cover the sea. The 
 Church was to preach the Gospel to every 
 creature, she was to make disciples of all 
 nations. Through the Church the Holy 
 Ghost wanted to save all who would allow 
 themselves to be saved. 
 
 Naturally and necessarily the Church had 
 to begin by reaching, converting, and gather- 
 ing grown up men and women. It was to 
 these that Peter preached, and from these he 
 won three thousand, and daily more and more 
 were added to the Church through Word and 
 
168 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Sacrament as Grace-bearing means. But 
 Peter was not satisfied to gather in adults 
 alone. The Old Testament Church, in which 
 he had been brought up, had from the be- 
 ginning made members of her children when 
 they were eight days old. Peter carried this 
 ordainment of God over into the New Testa- 
 ment Church, ‘““Uhe promise is unto you, and 
 to your children,” he had preached in his first 
 sermon. 
 
 When Abraham had become a believer, he 
 circumcised his sons. In the infant Church 
 adults were first converted, then, in the house- 
 hold baptisms, they and their children were 
 added to the Church. So is it on our mission 
 fields to-day; adults are won and converted; 
 then they and their children are baptized. 
 
 Where the Church is established, she, the 
 Bride of Christ, with the same mind that was 
 also in Christ Jesus, her Bridegroom, gathers 
 the lambs in her arms and carries them in her 
 bosom. ‘Then, following His instruction, she 
 feeds His lambs. 
 
 Families and nations perpetuate themselves 
 and grow by adding children. So does the 
 Church. By their natural birth children are 
 not in covenant relationship with God. A 
 theology that teaches that some children are 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 169 
 
 elect, have a birthright in the Church, and 
 naturally are born as children of the covenant, 
 is inconsistent with the Bible teaching of 
 universal, original sin. In the chapter on sin 
 we have shown what and where children are 
 when they come into the world. Read that 
 chapter again. 
 
 After their natural birth all children need 
 a second birth, a birth from above, a regenera- 
 tion. 
 
 As the Sacrament of Baptism is an agency 
 in infant regeneration, we consider that Sac- 
 rament next. Then we return to Regenera- 
 tion. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 The Holy Spirit's Work in Baptism 
 
 W°* deal first with Infant Baptism. We 
 need not stop to argue that God loves 
 little children. “God was in Christ reconcil- 
 ing the world unto himself, not reckoning unto 
 them their trespasses.” 2 Cor. 5. 19. Chil- 
 dren are a large part of the human world 
 which God so loved that for it ““He gave His 
 only begotten Son.” The Son said: “It is 
 not the will of your Father which is in heaven, 
 that one of these little ones should perish.” 
 These little ones are sin-sick. He has com- 
 passion upon them. He desires to heal them. 
 
 Can Hee Can God love them? Could 
 Christ redeem them? Can the Holy Spirit 
 apply to these little ones the blessings that 
 Christ has purchased? Can He work in them 
 a change of nature? Can He implant in them 
 the germs of a new lifer 
 
 We are almost ashamed to write down such 
 questions. We do not ask them for ourselves. 
 Surely no believer in God’s being, nature, and 
 
 170 
 
BAPTISM 171 
 
 attributes ought ever to dare to ask such ques- 
 tions. Jesus tells us that out of stones God 
 could raise up spiritual children to Abraham. 
 Do we believe it? Dare we doubt Christ? 
 But, can God make a covenant with a child 
 that is unconscious of it? Can Her Why, 
 God once made a covenant with the beasts of 
 the field! Don’t you believe it? Read Gen. 
 9. 9, 10, “And I, behold I established my 
 covenant with you, and with your seed after 
 you; and with every living creature that is 
 with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of 
 every beast of the earth with you.” Could 
 Her Did Her Dare you doubt Him or 
 His Word? 
 
 Men make covenants, effective agreements, 
 with their unconscious babies. Fathers, by 
 writing their wills, bequeath to them their 
 properties of every kind. These wills or 
 covenants stand in law. They are effective. 
 The babe in the crib or on its mother’s breast, 
 when that covenant has been properly written 
 and attested, really owns a farm, a business, 
 a bank, or a share in a railroad. He doesn’t 
 know or understand it. But that does not 
 make the ownership less real. And will you 
 say that God has less power than man, that 
 He cannot bestow a spiritual benefit on an 
 
172 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 unconscious child? Is not this rationalism? 
 Is it not skepticisme Is it not unbelief? 
 Does it not destroy the very foundation of our 
 Fundamentals?r”’ 
 
 Jesus, in whom were hidden all the treas- 
 ures of wisdom and knowledge, once showed 
 us, in a sentence, the two roots of all error 
 and unbelief. ‘The Sadducees were the Ra- 
 tionalists, the skeptics, the unbelievers of His 
 day. ‘They were out to show Jesus that His 
 teachings were unreasonable and even ridic- 
 ulous. Jesus said to them: “Ye do err, not 
 knowing the scriptures, nor the power of 
 Gods? Mite22.°292 Wass ever more truth 
 packed into fewer words? ‘These words are 
 seldom appreciated. They deserve more care- 
 ful and prayerful study than they get. They 
 are fundamental. ‘hey show us the roots of 
 all heresy, unbelief, apostasy, and sinful sep- 
 arations from the New Testament Church. 
 They show up the rationalism of the objec- 
 tions against infant regeneration through bap- 
 tismal grace. 
 
 Oh that men might know the Scriptures! 
 That they might but realize that God wants 
 His children to understand Him! That they 
 might realize the danger of tampering with 
 what is written, the danger of putting reason 
 
BAPTISM 173 
 
 in the place of faith, of changing the wording, 
 of fiippantly making out expressions to be 
 figurative, because reason cannot apprehend 
 them or because the carnal mind does not like 
 them! O that they might realize that they 
 need to compare Scripture with Scripture, 
 that the difficult texts are to be explained by 
 the plainer texts on the same subjects, and 
 that they need to study all the passages that 
 bear on a subject, carefully compare them 
 with one another, and so find what the mind 
 of the Spirit is and what the doctrine of the 
 Scripture is! O that they might see the 
 danger and the absurdity of building a doc- 
 trine, or a sect, on a few isolated texts torn 
 out of their connection and used as if they 
 were the whole Bible! The devil tried to 
 make Christ disloyal to His Father and to His 
 own mission by saying, “It is written,” and 
 quoting—rather misquoting—a single text out 
 of its connection, and as if that text were all 
 that is written. Jesus knew the Scripture and 
 knew how to interpret and use it. He said: 
 “Tt is written again,” i. e., there is more writ- 
 ten than you quote. We must not pick out and 
 believe only that which suits our notions and 
 our desires. We dare not be “slow to believe 
 all.” We must learn to study aright in order 
 
174 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 rightly to know the Scripture. The divided 
 Church will never come to harmony so long 
 which theologians and their creeds differ. 
 ‘The Church must begin by seeking to agree 
 on principles of interpretation. 
 ~~ The-writer-of this-was-impressed for life 
 when, as a seminary student, he heard the 
 long since sainted Rev. Doctor Charles Por- 
 terfield Krauth say in substance: ‘When 
 Evangelical Reformed and Evangelical Lu- 
 theran Christians argue against the Unitarians 
 they use the same arguments, the same rules 
 of interpretation, in the same manner; they 
 use the same proof passages in the same sense. 
 They find the same fault with the Unitarians 
 | for misinterpreting, misapplying, allegoriz- 
 ,ing, and rationalizing Scripture. But when 
 ‘the Reformed argue against the Lutheran 
 doctrines on the Sacraments, then the Re- 
 'formed use Unitarian methods of argument, 
 interpretation, allegorizing, and rationaliz- 
 / ing.’ When the Reformed and Lutheran 
 _ Theologies once agree on principles of inter- 
 pretation, they will begin to understand and 
 \ approach each other. They must first know 
 the Scriptures in the same way. 
 
 The second heresy of the Sadducees was that 
 
 
 
 
 
BAPTISM 175 
 
 they did not know the power of God. In this 
 they were like those who question His ability 
 to bless an unconscious babe. We want to 
 know the Scriptures, we want to know the 
 power of God. God wants to bless, make fit, 
 and save little children. Hecan. He can do 
 everything, except what would do violence 
 to His nature as God. 
 
 Can He regenerate the child through 
 Means? Can He choose and use His own 
 Means? Or shall we pick out Means for 
 Hime These questions also answer them- 
 selves. All through the Old Testament, God 
 used Means. Among others, He used words, 
 blood, water, figs, branches, and leaves. Jesus 
 used Means. He healed by a word, a touch, 
 a mixture of spittle and clay, the hem of His 
 garment. He fed five thousand with a few 
 loaves and fishes. He can do Godlike things 
 through simple means. 
 
 He ordained the Word and the Sacraments 
 to be the Means, the channels, the vehicles, 
 through which His Holy Spirit should con- 
 vey redeeming and renewing grace to man. 
 
 He instituted Holy Baptism. When He 
 gave to that chosen group, that was about to 
 become the nucleus of His Church, the Great 
 Commission, to make disciples of all nations, 
 
176 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 He gave them the Means through which they 
 were to carry on this stupendous task: By 
 “baptizing” and by “teaching” they were to 
 disciple and win the world. 
 
 He instructed them to baptize into the 
 Name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost. The Triune God was to be in 
 the administration of the Sacrament. The 
 Holy Name of the Triune is used in every 
 valid form of Baptism. The reverent repeat- 
 ing of the name of the Three in One is 
 the Word that goes with the water. To 
 Nicodemus, Jesus puts water and spirit to- 
 gether. Three things are present in every 
 scriptural Baptism: Water, Word, and Spirit. 
 
 We have already seen that in the first ser- 
 mon to the newborn Church, Peter said: 
 “Repent and be baptized every one of you in 
 the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of 
 sins.” Ananias says to the penitent Saul: 
 “Arise and be baptized and wash away thy 
 sins.” Paul writes: Romans 6. 3, “Know ye 
 not that so many of us as were baptized into 
 Christ were baptized into His death?” Gal. 
 3. 27, “For as many of you as have been bap- 
 tized into Christ have put on Christ.” Eph. 
 5. 26, Christ desires ‘‘to sanctify and cleanse” 
 the Church “with the washing of water by 
 
BAPTISM 177 
 
 the word.” Col. 2. 12, “Buried with him in 
 baptism.” In Tit. 3. 5 Paul calls it “the 
 washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost.” 1 Pet. 3. 21 says, “Baptism doth 
 also now save us.” 
 
 These are the principal passages that speak 
 of Baptism. Do they mean anything? Toa 
 plain believer who has confidence in the pow- 
 er of God and in the Word of God, what sense 
 do they convey? Could such a reader, after 
 carefully examining these and other passages 
 that deal with the subject, say: there is nothing 
 in Baptisme Could he say that it is only a 
 form, a ceremony, a sign, a something that 
 can do no harm, but is really of no conse- 
 quenceP Can he find any real Scripture 
 proof for such flippant, off-hand assertions? 
 Or will he perhaps say that he has a right to 
 his own opinions on the subject? Hold a 
 moment! The right of private judgment is a 
 precious right. The Reformation gave it 
 back to the people; but, has it no limitations? 
 Can it overthrow God’s teachings? Can it 
 wave them aside with a wave of the hand or 
 a toss of the head? That is what such flip- 
 pant objections really come to. 
 
 It is easy to say as has been said a thousand 
 times: ‘What good can a little water dor” 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 12. 
 
178 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 But hold! Is baptism nothing more than “a 
 little water?” 
 
 We have shown above that every properly 
 administered Baptism has in it the Spirit, 
 Word, and Water. Luther rightly says: 
 “Baptism is not simply water, but it is the 
 water comprehended in God’s Word and con- 
 nected with God’s promise.” Even suppose 
 it were “mere water,” what can not God do 
 through a little water if He wants tor 
 
 Again, what good can a little water do? 
 No good at all, if the baptismal use of the 
 water is a rite or ceremony instituted by man. 
 No good at all, even if it had been instituted 
 by the Church. God alone can institute a 
 Sacrament and couple a blessing with it. 
 Christis God. We get this simple Sacrament 
 from the hands of the Son of God. As His 
 ordinance, it is divine. It is above man’s 
 reason or ‘criticism. He who truly believes 
 in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, 
 asks only: what does He, what do His inspired 
 Apostles, say about it? He is satisfied with 
 what is written. He makes his reason bow 
 under the Word. He accepts, He trusts, He 
 adores, He follows. 
 
 Any principle of interpretation by which 
 baptismal grace and regeneration can be elim- 
 
BAPTISM 179 
 
 inated from the quoted passages will over- 
 throw every doctrine of our holy Christian 
 faith. 
 
 There is a solid and comforting realism in 
 the Lutheran theology and its teaching on 
 Grace through Means. The Lutheran doc- 
 trine of the Sacraments has in it a realism 
 that is not found in any Reformed theology. 
 The Lutheran theology here also is more loyal 
 to what is written, and therefore furnishes a 
 more solid ground for abiding rest and com- 
 fort. 
 
 The sad fact that many children lose their 
 baptismal grace will come up when we discuss 
 Conversion. 
 
 Here some readers will naturally ask: If 
 Baptism is really such a spirit-bearing, grace- 
 bringing, life-giving Sacrament, what then of 
 a child who, through no fault of its own, dies 
 unbaptized? Is that child lost? Lutheran 
 theology emphatically answers, No. Luther, 
 Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and the other Lu- 
 theran Reformers repudiate the idea. No 
 acknowledged Lutheran theologian ever 
 taught this repulsive doctrine. Lutheran 
 theology accepts Augustine’s saying: “It is 
 not the absence of the Sacrament, but the con- 
 tempt of it, that condemns.” 
 
{ 
 
 180 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Ordinarily God the Holy Ghost bestows 
 His renewing grace on the child through 
 Baptism. But while we are limited to the use 
 of the Means that He has given, He is not 
 so limited. He can use other Means; and, 
 since it is not His will that any should perish, 
 we believe that He does reach and change 
 the unbaptized child in some other way. The 
 fact that He has ordained a Means of Grace, 
 so suited, so fitting for these sin-sick lambs, 
 whom Christ purchased with His blood, gives 
 us the comforting assurance that He renews 
 and saves every one not reached by His ordi- 
 nary Means. 
 
 »——It was Calvinistic theology that taught the 
 
 repulsive doctrine that there are infants in 
 hell. Dr. Charles Hodge in his “Systematic 
 Theology” denies this. Dr. C. P. Krauth, the 
 great Lutheran Theologian, wrote a little 
 book called “Infant Salvation in the Calvin- 
 istic System.” In this Dr. Krauth marshals 
 the great Calvinistic theologians from Calvin 
 down, quotes their writings, and shows that 
 they all taught what Hodge denied. So con- 
 vincing was the proof that Dr. Hodge, be- 
 tween whom and Dr. Krauth there was a 
 warm, mutual friendship and admiration, 
 wrote a letter to Dr. Krauth in which, like 
 
BAPTISM 181 
 
 the Christian gentleman that he was, he frank- 
 ly says, “Your paper proves that you are far 
 better read in Calvinistic theology than I am.” 
 This letter is published in full in Spaeth’s 
 Biography of Charles Porterfield Krauth, 
 Vou opage.3 17, 
 
 We need not here discuss or prove the right 
 to baptize infants. The opposition to it is 
 dying out. It was and is untenable. John 
 Bunyan, that devout Baptist, with his keen, 
 clear, broad, and deep insight into the teach- 
 ings of the old Bible, had all his children bap- 
 tized. Why shouldn’t hee Children need 
 grace. Baptism confers grace. The Church, 
 the Bride of Christ, is the Holy Spirit’s work- 
 shop. In and through the Church He dis- 
 tributes to lost humanity the renewing and 
 saving grace of God. The Church is made 
 up of men, women, and children. In the Old 
 Testament Church God instituted infant mem- 
 bership. God never revoked this. Man dare 
 not. The New Testament Church is not nar- 
 rower, but broader, than the old. The divine 
 
 commission is to baptize all nations. There 
 never was a nation without children. Our na- 
 
 tion’s census-takers enroll every infant as a 
 part of the nation. The Church must not be 
 narrower than the nation. Some one has dras- 
 
182 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 tically said that there are only two places in 
 which there are no children, one is the 
 Church that denies baptism to infants, and the 
 other is hell. We should not have expressed 
 it in this way, but there is truth in the ex- 
 pression. 
 
 And after all the pious Baptist mother’s 
 heart is generally more Scripturally orthodox 
 than her head. She looks into the smiling face 
 of her babe, presses him to her bosom, and 
 prays God to bless him. Deep down in her 
 heart she knows that the babe needs God’s 
 blessing and that God can bless the dear little 
 one. Why not believe that He can and does 
 bless little ones like hers through “the wash- 
 ing of the water by the word’? 
 
 /7 The devout Lutheran mother looks into her 
 
 f baby’s eyes and from the depths of her heart 
 thanks God that He has blessed him, im- 
 planted the seeds of the new, divine life, and 
 made of him a son of God and an heir of 
 heaven. Blessed comfort! Her babe is a 
 lamb of Christ’s flock and bears on his body 
 the marks of the Lord Jesus. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 Regeneration and Justification 
 
 MONG theologians there has been much 
 
 difference of opinion as to the place that 
 Regeneration should occupy in their so-called 
 systems. ‘Their systems are variant; often un- 
 natural and confusing. Some place Conver- 
 sion, Contrition, Faith, and Justification in 
 this order, before Regeneration. Others have 
 this arrangement: Faith, Justification, the 
 Gospel Call, Illumination, and then Regen- 
 eration. Others again have this order: Grace, 
 Faith, Justification, Calling, Illumination, 
 Regeneration, Conversion, and Sanctification. 
 Still others systematize thus: Grace, Call- 
 ing, Illumination, Mystical Union, Renova- 
 tion, Sanctification. Doctor Philip Schaff in 
 his Theological Propedeutic, or Outline of 
 Theology, does not outline a system, but sug- 
 gests that the Work of the Holy Spirit in 
 man, or Pneumatology, can be comprehended 
 and arranged under Regeneration and Sancti- 
 fication. With proper subdivision, this strikes 
 us as natural and sensible. 
 
 183 
 
184 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 The writer of this is not a dogmatician in 
 the scientific sense. He claims to know what 
 Scriptural dogmatics ought to teach. His 
 chair is Practical Theology. His mind tends 
 to run along practical lines. He believes 
 that there is such a thing as sanctified com- 
 mon sense. He believes that, within proper 
 limitations, there is natural law in the spir- 
 itual world, though he does not agree with 
 all that Drummond says on this subject. He 
 has long since had a quarrel with the artifi- 
 cial systems builded by some learned dogma- 
 ticians. He has no quarrel with the teach- 
 ings, the doctrines, of true Lutheran Theolo- 
 gy. It is the too much over-refining and sys- 
 tematizing that he objects to. He also finds 
 fault with many far-fetched statements and 
 expressions, used to bolster up the systems. 
 He heartily agrees with the oft repeated 
 statement that it is the task of all true Theolo- 
 gy to answer for fallen and guilty man that 
 most important of all personal questions: 
 What must I do to be saved? He believes that 
 Theology ought to be so clearly stated that 
 the every-day, ordinary layman would be 
 able to interest himself in it and be helped, 
 comforted, and strengthened by it. Dogma- 
 tics ought to be so presented that it can be 
 
REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 185 
 
 preached to the common people and that 
 they will hear it gladly. 
 
 Too much systematizing, too much divid- 
 ing and hair-splitting and split-splitting does 
 not help the common sinner. And he is the 
 one that needs to be helped. Our churches 
 are full of him. May this little book help the 
 preacher so to preach sound doctrine that his 
 every sermon may interest, attract, and help 
 the common sinner. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 logy, never builded a.th€ological system. He 
 wrote and preaetied sound doctrine forthe 
 
 common 
 
 Calvin omked out-and left for posterity a 2 
 
 system, a logical system, a masterful sys- 
 tem, a wonderful system. The Westminster 
 Shorter Catechism epitomizes that system. 
 That Catechism has been used as a textbook 
 in Logic in some of the best educational in- 
 stitutions. Luther’s Small Catechism from 
 the day of its publication has been used as 
 a book of devotion. It is the only catechism 
 that can be prayed. Calvin’s Institutes and 
 the Confessions, the catechisms and theology 
 that have been drawn out of it and builded 
 
 “Phe_Holy Spirit never builled a system, 
 but He pave Rs. truth we, ned, Hi 
 ther, the people’s man, the incoln A theo- 
 
Cine a 
 RS 
 
 186 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 on it, could not be preached. The Insti- 
 tutes loaded a burden on the Churches that 
 neither they nor their children were able to 
 bear. The great, grand Presbyterian Church, 
 
 whose excellencies we have always admired, 
 
 and whose people we love, has groaned and 
 suffered under the colossal burden of the the- 
 ology of Calvin’s Institutes. It is pitifully 
 torn and divided to-day. Other Churches are 
 torn and distracted because they have no theo- 
 logy, no system at all. We believe that we 
 can find order and method in the work of the 
 Holy Spirit. We believe that the Spirit, us- 
 ing His own chosen Means, begins some- 
 where in man and progresses in a way best 
 suited to man’s nature. 
 
 That Holy Spirit finds man full of sin, in- 
 clined to evil as naturally as sparks incline 
 to fly upward. He must re-create man. He 
 must give him another birth, a new birth, a 
 birth from above, a birth of the Spirit. He 
 must implant into man the beginnings of a 
 new life. This is regeneration. It is God 
 the Holy Ghost’s first work in man. 
 
 In discussing this great fundamental sub- 
 ject it is important that we be clear as to what 
 we are talking about. There are differences 
 between the work of regenerating an infant 
 
REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 187 
 
 and the work of regenerating an adult. Of 
 the latter we shall speak more fully when we 
 discuss Conversion. Here we confine our- 
 selves to the work of regeneration in infants. 
 
 We have already studied the Means which 
 the Holy Spirit uses in reaching and chang- 
 ing the child. The Means is holy Baptism. 
 In discussing Baptism we have anticipated 
 much that pertains to regeneration. We re- 
 call that through Baptism the Holy Spirit 
 implants the beginnings—the germs, or seeds 
 —of the new life. It is not a full grown, a 
 mature, life that is implanted. It is a small 
 beginning, suited to a small, young child. It 
 is, therefore, called a birth. The result of a 
 birth is not a man, but a babe. At birth that 
 babe has all the potencies of a full, strong 
 life. The possibilities and powers are there, 
 but they are in the germinal stage. Sin is 
 there, but sin is not yet developed. Why 
 should it be impossible for grace to be there, 
 though not yet developed? Is sin stronger 
 than grace? The limbs and organs and senses 
 are all there, but undeveloped. The facul- 
 ties of mind and reason are there, but unde- 
 veloped. The infant is not conscious of these 
 potential possessions; shall we therefore deny 
 that he has them? As we saw above, a rich 
 
188 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 legacy may be given to the babe. The legacy 
 has thus become babe’s own. Huis not being 
 conscious of it does not make the possession 
 less real. Even so the babe may have and 
 hold new life and grace, spiritual potencies 
 and powers, though all unconscious of these 
 possessions. 
 
 The elements of the new, the spiritual life 
 are penitence and faith. Penitence means 
 a knowledge of sin, a sense of sinfulness, a 
 feeling of guilt, a hatred of sin, a longing for 
 forgiveness and deliverance from sin. This 
 is penitence, or contrition. It is sometimes 
 called repentance. This word, in the Scrip- 
 ture, is, however, often used in a wider sense 
 and is made to embrace faith also. For clear- 
 ness, therefore, it is always better to use the 
 word penitence, or contrition, when speak- 
 ing of the first element of the new life. Peni- 
 tence might then be called the negative ele- 
 ment of the new life. It is a breaking with sin, 
 an aversion to it, a breaking away from it. 
 
 The other element of the new life, the posi- 
 tive element, is faith. Penitence looks within; 
 it mourns and longs. Faith looks outward, 
 away from self. Finding no deliverance in 
 self, faith sees in the proffered Christ the 
 One who has taken all the sinner’s sin upon 
 
REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 189 
 
 Himself and suffered all that the sinner de- 
 served to suffer. Faith looks to Him, lays 
 hold of Him and finds in Him a free, a full, 
 salvation. He who has thus experienced con- 
 trition for sin, cast himself upon and surren- 
 dered himself to Christ, has the new life. He 
 is born again. He is a new creature. He is 
 a son of God. 
 
 The Holy Ghost through baptism can, and 
 does, implant into the young soul these ele- 
 ments of the new life in embryo or germ 
 form. The germs of penitence and faith have 
 been implanted through Baptism. Regenera- 
 tion is there. Grace put it there. The child 
 is born again. It goes without saying that 
 this potential life requires nourishing and 
 fostering for its healthy development. To 
 this we shall return when we treat of sancti- 
 fication. 
 
 For clearness’ sake it may be well, even at 
 the risk of future repetition, to point out here 
 a few of the most striking differences between 
 the Holy Spirit’s work in regenerating an in- 
 fant and His work in regenerating an adult. 
 
 The adult has his physical and mental 
 powers fully developed. He can think, rea- 
 son, and understand. He can refuse to ac- 
 cept and believe what is offered to his under- 
 
190 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 standing. When the Holy Spirit speaks to 
 him through the Word, shows him his guilt 
 and need; when that Spirit offers him Christ 
 and Salvation, he can resist, harden his own 
 heart, stifle his feelings, and so refuse to 
 yield. ‘The infant never resists. 
 
 On the other hand when the Holy Spirit 
 shows the sinner his sin and need, by and 
 through the enlightening Word, He conveys 
 power to cease resisting, to repent and believe. 
 The sinner is thus regenerated. At the same 
 time he is converted. Of this more hereafter. 
 
 Justification. 
 
 The doctrine of justification by faith alone 
 is most prominent in the theology of the Re- 
 formation. Luther calls it “the doctrine of 
 a standing or a falling Church.” It was the 
 turning point of the Reformation. The 
 Church of Rome was a falling Church, fall- 
 ing lower and ever lower in proportion as 
 she drifted farther and ever farther from the 
 Pauline interpretation of Christ and of His 
 work for man. Luther had to have a deep- 
 going and searching experience of the power 
 and guilt of sin, of his own utter failure to 
 make himself good enough to be justified in 
 God’s sight by his own strivings, doings, mor- 
 
REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 191 
 
 tifications, penances, prayers, and ritual ob- 
 servances. Instead of finding peace he only 
 sank into ever deeper gloom and despair, 
 until he was found on the damp floor of his 
 cell, having fainted away from exhaustion on 
 account of his protracted vigils, fastings, and 
 self-torture. He had to learn further that 
 it was not in himself that he was to look for 
 a righteousness acceptable to God, but that 
 Jesus Christ, by His life of obedience to the 
 law and by His vicarious death on the cross, 
 had wrought out a righteousness pleasing to 
 God; that Christ did not need this righteous- 
 ness for Himself, but that He had procured it 
 for poor, sinful brother Martin and for all 
 other poor sinners who want it. Luther had to 
 learn to believe this; and when he did believe 
 it, when out of his broken and contrite heart 
 he did reach up a trembling hand and grasp 
 Christ, then he was justified on account of 
 Christ, then he realized that his sin was all 
 forgiven, then there flowed into his soul a 
 peace that passes all understanding. Luther 
 had experienced and now understood justifi- 
 cation by faith. 
 
 Has not a large part of the Protestant 
 Church practically lost this Reformation 
 
192 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 doctrine? Has she not lost the blessed ex- 
 perience that comes from rightly accepting 
 it? Is she not unconsciously drifting back 
 into the old Romish heresy of justification by 
 works, by service, by doing? Is she not, un- | 
 consciously perhaps, drifting into the Ration- 
 alistic and Unitarian idea of justification by 
 self-made characterr 
 
 The Church needs to restudy, to reaccept, 
 to reaffirm, to reexperience justification by 
 faith. This is fundamental. 
 
 This doctrine regulates all other doctrines. 
 It presupposes and demands a right under- 
 standing and acceptance of the Doctrine of 
 God, the Doctrine of Man, the Doctrine of 
 Sin, the Doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of 
 the Holy Spirit, and the Doctrine of the 
 Church. It is necessary for an appreciative 
 understanding of the Doctrine of the Last 
 Things. 
 
 What do we mean by Justification? It is 
 that act of God in which He forgives the 
 penitent and believing sinner all his sins, re- 
 mits all their penalties, declares him right- 
 eous, and treats him as if he were innocent 
 and holy. All this He does, not on account 
 of any worthiness or merit in the sinner, but 
 solely on account of the merit and satisfac- 
 
REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 193 
 
 tion of Christ, apprehended and appropri- 
 ated by faith. 
 
 Justification is not a change in man’s na- 
 ture, but a change in his standing before God. 
 Instead of standing before God guilty and 
 condemned, he stands acquitted, released, re- 
 garded and treated as if he had never been 
 guilty or condemned. Justification takes 
 place, not in man, but outside of man and for 
 man. It is a judical act of God. Read the 
 argument in the third and fourth chapters 
 of Romans and note the parallel passages. 
 Rome taught that Justification is an infusing 
 of righteousness into man. Many nominal 
 Protestants follow Rome. 
 
 The originating cause of justification is the 
 love of God. God looked upon man in his 
 sin, his guilt, his helplessness, his hopeless- 
 ness and condemnation. God pitied him, 
 planned for him, and worked out that won- 
 derful scheme of redemption whereby God 
 could be just and yet justify the ungodly. 
 
 The ground of justification, as we have 
 seen, is in the vicarious obedience of Christ; 
 First, his active obedience, when He took 
 man’s place and obeyed the law in man’s 
 stead. Then in His passive or suffering obe- 
 
 Luth. Fundamentals. 13. 
 
194. LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 dience, when He endured all the penal suf- 
 fering that«guilty man had deserved. 
 
 This righteousness of Christ, purchased by 
 Him and proffered to the sinner, must be 
 laid hold of and appropriated by him. As 
 we have seen in studying Regeneration, it is 
 faith out of a penitent heart that reaches up, 
 lays hold of Christ, and makes His righteous- 
 ness its own. It is not the faith that works 
 or merits justification. It is Christ who justi- 
 fies. Faith lays hold of Christ’s merit. Faith 
 sees in that merit the only hope. Faith grips 
 and clings to Christ. It is the gripping char- 
 acteristic that makes faith justifying. Faith 
 has no merit in itself, but faith holds Christ. 
 A faith thus holding Christ justifies. It is the 
 Christ whom it holds that makes it justifying. 
 
 Such a faith is not a mere intellectual be- 
 lief. It is not a cold acknowledgment of 
 the truth of the doctrine. Such a cold belief 
 is a dead faith. Saving faith cannot be of 
 the head alone. “With the heart man be- 
 lieveth unto righteousness.” The heart is 
 the seat of the emotions. The heart must be 
 penitent. Penitence is a feeling. Contrition 
 is a feeling. It is the broken and contrite 
 heart that God does not despise, but in which 
 He delights to dwell, because that is the only 
 
REGENERATION anp JUSTIFICATION 195 
 
 kind of a heart that can appreciate Christ and 
 longingly, lovingly, livingly lay hold of Him 
 and trust in Him, and in Him alone. 
 
 Oh how cold, how formal, how external, 
 how heady, how purely intellectual is much 
 of the preaching on faith and justification! 
 And this is unhappily true of the preaching in 
 many orthodox Lutheran pulpits. It is head, 
 head, head! The preacher doesn’t even seem 
 to know that with the heart man believeth. 
 Luther’s living, loving, burning words on the 
 faith that justifies made John Wesley write in- 
 to his Journal, where he tells of hearing Lu- 
 ther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans 
 read: “I felt my heart strangely warmed, I 
 felt that I also was justified.” Luther had ex- 
 perienced justification. He knew that heart- 
 penitence must be an element in justifying 
 faith. Are these cold, intellectual preachers 
 without heart-experience? Are they them- 
 selves unjustified? Does this explain the bar- 
 renness of so much present day preaching? 
 
 Faith must be living, but it is not its liv- 
 ingness that justifies. It is its grippingness 
 and what it grips and holds that saves. 
 
 Adoption grows out of such justification. 
 
 The justified one has peace with God. He 
 is adopted into the family of the redeemed. 
 
196 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 He is a member of the household of faith. 
 Such an one is a son or a daughter of God, an 
 heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. 
 John 1. 12, “As many as received him, to 
 them gave He power to become the sons of 
 God, even to them that believe on His name.” 
 Rom. 8. 14, 16, “For as many as are led by 
 the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” 
 
 . “The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
 our spirit that we are the children of God.” 
 2 Cor. 6. 17, 18, “I will receive you, and will 
 be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
 sons and daughters.” Gal. 4. 6, “Because ye 
 are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of 
 His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
 Father.” 1 John 3. 1, “Behold what man- 
 ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
 us, that we should be called children of God.” 
 
 Adoption is thus one of the precious fruits 
 of justification. 
 
 A like precious fruit is what has been 
 called the believer’s Mystical Union with 
 Christ. This is most beautifully brought 
 home to us by Christ’s wonderful words on 
 the vine and the branches in John 15. 1-8. 
 As the branch is united with the vine, draws 
 its substance and life from the vine, and is 
 part of it, so is the justified believer united 
 
REGENERATION anv JUSTIFICATION 197 
 
 with Christ and Christ with him. Rom 8. ], 
 10, “There is therefore now no condemna- 
 tion to them that are in Christ Jesus... And 
 if Christ is in you, the body is dead because 
 of sin; but the spirit is life because of right- 
 eousness.” 1 Cor. 6. 15, 17, “Know ye not 
 that your bodies are the members of Christ? 
 
 . But he that is joined unto the Lord is 
 one spirit.” Gal. 2. 20, “I am crucified with 
 Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me.” Eph. 2. 22, “In whom 
 ye also are builded together for an habita- 
 tion of God through the Spirit.” Eph. 3.17, 
 “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by 
 faith.” Eph. 5. 30, “For we are members of 
 his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” 2 
 Pet. 1. 4, ““Whereby are given unto us ex- 
 ceeding great and precious promises; that by 
 these ye might be partakers of the divine na- 
 ture.’ 1 John 1. 3, “And truly our fellow- 
 ship is with the Father, and with his Son 
 Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Truly the fruits of justification are rich 
 and precious. More’s the pity that justifica- 
 tion is so often preached so heartlessly, in such 
 a cold and lifeless way. In all our study of 
 theological fundamentals, in every chapter, 
 let us bear in mind and never forget that the 
 
198 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 true, the really Scriptural, Fundamentalist 
 appreciates, and ever insists on, the clear 
 head, but also always insists on, and absolute- 
 ly demands, the warm heart. 
 
 We have placed justification next to re- 
 generation; they belong together. In thought 
 we keep them apart. It is important that we 
 ever bear in mind the distinction between the 
 two. Regeneration is not justification and 
 justification is not regeneration. But, in time, 
 they go together. When one is regenerated, 
 then at that moment he is also justified. Peni- 
 tence and faith are the content of regenera- 
 tion. How could one have these and not be 
 
 justified P 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 Conversion 
 
 NOTHER important fundamental, an in- 
 tensely important one. Eternal destinies 
 hang upon it. Every one is personally inter- 
 ested. ‘lo be in an unconverted state is to be 
 in a state of grave personal peril. It is of 
 vital importance that every one who is at all 
 interested in the Christian religion should be 
 clear on the subject. Many good people are 
 not clear. We are often confronted with the 
 strange paradox that people who talk and 
 even preach most about it are most unclear 
 as to its meaning and as to how it is brought 
 about. 
 
 What is Conversion? ‘The word con- 
 vert means to turn, to turn around, to face 
 about. A traveler finds himself going in the 
 wrong direction, he turns, returns, changes 
 his course. He converts himself. In the re- 
 ligious sense Conversion means a _ turning 
 from sin to righteousness, from Satan to God. 
 The unconverted man has been walking in 
 
 199 
 
200 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 the way of enmity and disobedience to God, 
 toward eternal death. He comes to himself, 
 
 he realizes where he is and whither he is 
 going. He is halted. He faces about. He 
 is turned into the way of righteousness, to- 
 ward eternal life. He is converted. There 
 has been a change of direction, but this is 
 not all. It is a change of state—from a state 
 of sin to a state of grace. It is still more, it 
 is a change of nature. From being an un- 
 saved sinner, he is changed into a saint. 
 There is also a change of relation. From 
 being an alien and an outcast he is brought 
 into the relation of a child and an heir. His 
 turning about, or conversion, has brought 
 about an entire change. The converted one 
 is different, he is a new man in Christ Jesus. 
 When Jesus was sending Paul to the Gen- 
 tiles to convert them, Acts 26. 15-18, He 
 described the work of conversion: Paul was 
 “To open their eyes and to turn them from 
 darkness to light, and from the power of Sa- 
 tan unto God, that they may receive forgive- 
 ness of sins, and inheritance among them 
 which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” 
 Looking more closely into this transforma- 
 tion called Conversion we find in it the in- 
 coming of the two new elements that we have 
 
CONVERSION 201 
 
 previously designated as the constituent parts 
 of the new life: 
 
 Penitence, contrition, heart-sorrow for sin 
 —this is the first step in, or the first part of, 
 Conversion. The sinner has been halted. 
 He has been made to realize his lost, ruined, 
 and guilty state. Realizing the heinousness, 
 the damnableness of his sin; recognizing the 
 justness of God’s wrath and condemnation, he 
 now hates his sin and cries out for deliverance. 
 He is in the way of Conversion. He con- 
 fesses: “I am vile.” “I loathe myself.” “O 
 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death?” 
 
 To this repenting sinner the Christ, the 
 whole Christ and His full, completed re- 
 demption must now be offered. Through the 
 foolishness of sound preaching he must be 
 made to see Christ as his sin-bearer. He must 
 come to see “all his sins on Jesus laid.” He 
 must come to see what the vicarious Atone- 
 ment, described above, means in itself and 
 what it means for him. This pure and full 
 preaching of the Cross, as God’s power un- 
 to salvation, must grip him and convert him. 
 By and through the Word the Holy Spirit 
 begets faith. The penitent sinner reaches up 
 a trembling hand of faith. He grasps the 
 
202 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 cross. He casts himself upon the Saviour. 
 He cries out first, “Lord if Thou wilt, Thou 
 canst make me clean”; then, “Lord, I believe, 
 help ‘Thou mine unbelief”; and finally, joy- 
 fully, “My Lord and my God.” This is faith. 
 The sinner is converted. 
 
 Many years ago an Indian who had mur- 
 dered a man was brought in chains to the 
 /little town of Zelienople, Pa., and locked up 
 ‘ in the jail. The Lutheran minister, Gottlieb 
 Bassler, a true soul-curate, went daily to the 
 felon’s cell and endeavored to bring the In- 
 dian to Conversion. As a true Scriptural 
 evangelist Bassler began with the Law. By the 
 Law is the knowledge of sin. He tried to 
 show that heathen how he had broken the 
 Law of the God of high heaven who says: 
 “Thou shalt not kill.” Day by day for weeks 
 the faithful minister kept on sowing the seed 
 of the Word and watering it with prayers 
 and tears. The pastor was growing discour- 
 aged. The Indian’s heart seemed as adamant 
 as his face. But the pastor kept on preach- 
 ing the sharpness of the Law. One morning on 
 entering the cell he noticed that the hard face 
 was changed. There were traces of tears on 
 the brown cheeks. The Indian rose up to greet 
 the pastor, stretched out his hands and cried: 
 
CONVERSION 203 
 
 “O father, me break law, me break law!” The 
 hammer of the Law had broken the stony 
 heart. It had become a lowly and a contrite 
 heart. He was God’s penitent. Now, and not 
 till now, he was ready for the story and the 
 meaning of the cross. By its preaching faith 
 came and the Indian was converted. 
 
 Who needs conversion? 
 
 Not everyone, but certainly all who are not 
 in a converted state. All who do not have in 
 their hearts true penitence for sin and true 
 faith in Jesus Christ. All such are in the gall 
 of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. 
 All such must be converted or be lost. 
 
 We have learned in a former chapter that 
 where little children have Christ’s Sacrament 
 of Baptism administered to them, the seeds 
 of the new life, the germs of penitence and 
 of faith, are implanted. Such baptized chil- 
 dren are the lambs of Christ’s flock. If prop- 
 erly and spiritually nourished, watched and 
 guarded and tended, they grow up into sheep 
 of Christ’s fold. Many of them never lose their 
 baptismal grace. With growing conscious- 
 ness they become more and more clear in 
 their knowledge of sin and grace. Where 
 properly instructed they learn consciously to 
 appreciate the blessings bestowed in baptism. 
 
204. LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Penitence for sin and faith in Christ grow 
 with the years. They are ever children in 
 the House. They have not become run-away 
 prodigals. 
 
 Luther in his small Catechism, asks: What 
 does such baptizing with water signify? He 
 answers: “It signifies that the old Adam in 
 us is to be drowned and destroyed by daily sor- 
 row and repentance, together with all sins 
 and evil lusts; and that again the new man 
 should daily come forth and rise, and live in 
 the presence of God in righteousness and 
 purity forever.” 
 
 Whoever thus lives up to, and utilizes, the 
 blessings of baptism; whoever thus exercises 
 daily repentance, by daily drowning the old 
 man, his sins and evil lusts; whoever thus 
 daily exercises faith and daily makes the new 
 man come forth and rise, remains in cove- 
 nant relationship with God. He always hates 
 sin and trusts in Christ. He never knows of 
 a time when he did not love his Saviour; not 
 always as fervently as he should, but he al- 
 ways wanted to love Him. He never wil- 
 fully and with set purpose broke away like a 
 prodigal son. He needs no conscious, crisis 
 conversion. The sainted Dr. Cuyler once 
 
CONVERSION 205 
 
 said: ‘The children of Christian parents 
 ought never to need conversion.” 
 
 But many, all too many, largely through 
 the fault of parents, guardians, and teachers, 
 do lose their baptismal grace. Some simply 
 neglect the Means of Grace, grow indiffer- 
 ent, cold, worldly, and come to live as if they 
 had never been touched by divine grace. 
 Others wilfully break away and repudiate 
 all that has been done for them. Still others 
 never were either baptized or instructed in 
 the things of God. They have grown up as 
 heathen in a Christian land. All such need 
 conversion. This ought to be preached every 
 Sunday in every church. 
 
 How is this transforming change brought 
 about? Can a man convert himself? Em- 
 phatically, No; no more than the Ethiopian 
 can change his skin or the leopard his spots. 
 Of this transforming change it is true that 
 it is “not by might [i. e., not by human 
 might], nor by the power, but by my spirit, 
 saith the Lord.” ‘No man can say that Jesus 
 is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” “TI be- 
 lieve that I cannot by my own reason or 
 strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or 
 come to Him,” says Luther. 
 
 Conversion is a divine work. The Spirit 
 
206 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 of God must bring it about. As we have 
 seen above, He works through the Word. 
 Through the Word He calls. Every time a 
 warning or inviting word from God is read, 
 heard, remembered, or flashed into one’s con- 
 sciousness, it is a call of God. 
 
 With the Word the Holy Spirit enlightens 
 and instructs the sinner, and shows him what 
 he is, what he needs, and how to get what he 
 needs. Every sermon that clearly sets forth 
 God’s teaching on sin, grace, salvation, and 
 the way to attain it; every Sunday-school les- 
 son, every private conversation, every book or 
 paper that thus instructs, is a divine illumina- 
 tion, an enlightening by the Spirit of God. 
 This calling and enlightening Word, where 
 not wilfully and persistently resisted, works 
 conviction of sin, contrition, and faith. 
 Through the Word the Holy Spirit converts 
 the sinner. 
 
 In the adult who has fallen away from the 
 grace of Baptism, Conversion is a turning 
 back to that lost baptismal Grace. It is a 
 quickening, a reviving of the erstwhile dor- 
 mant elements of penitence and faith. It is 
 an awakening from the sleep in sin, which 
 sometimes becomes so deep that it is called 
 being dead in sin, as in the case of the prodi- 
 
CONVERSION 207 
 
 gal. But the prodigal was still a son. The 
 baptized sinner is still baptized. Conversion 
 returns him to his baptism and its content. 
 He consciously appropriates that content. 
 
 In the unbaptized adult, regeneration and 
 conversion go together. ‘They are simultane- 
 ous. Through the Word, penitence and faith 
 are implanted; where these are there is regen- 
 eration. Penitence and faith are at work. Con- 
 version is there. We speak of the regenera- 
 tion of infants, never of their conversion. Con- 
 version requires consciousness. The unbap- 
 tized adult is regenerated and converted at 
 the same time. 
 
 What part does the human will have in 
 Conversion? 
 
 On this point also there has been much seri- 
 ous perplexity, confusion and spiritual hurt. 
 Theologians have darkened counsel with 
 words. They have made statements that stag- 
 ger souls. They have driven earnest inquirers 
 and seekers after peace with God unto doubt 
 and despair by creating difficulties and con- 
 tradictions where there need be none. We 
 have met men and women who have had the 
 joy taken out of life and who had been liv- 
 ing under a cloud, because of unclearness and 
 confusion on the subject of Conversion. We 
 
208, LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 have met others who had become rank un- 
 believers; some of them had been confused 
 by ignorant, superficial, and wild revivalists. 
 They had been made to believe that they 
 must by their own frantic efforts, by agoniz- 
 ing groans and prayers and wrestlings, “get 
 religion,” “get through,” and so raise them- 
 selves into harmony with God. For such 
 shallow, impulsive, and individualistic no- 
 tions and doings there is neither precept nor 
 example in Scripture. The scene that is likest 
 to some such wild revival scenes is that of 
 Elijah and the priests of Baal on Mount Car- 
 mel. A large crop of skeptics and infidels 
 has been the fruitage of such efforts at self- 
 conversion. 
 
 We have also met serious souls who had been 
 so instructed in repellent and unscriptural 
 doctrines on election that they too were walk- 
 ing in the shadows, deeply perplexed and anx- 
 ious. They tormented themselves with such 
 questions as these: Were they elected? Would 
 irresistible grace find, call, and convert them? 
 When and how would this call come? Some of 
 these confused ones were drifting into doubt 
 and despair, others had already made ship- 
 wreck of their faith and were bitter unbeliev- 
 ers. Can that be Gospel truth, which thus 
 
CONVERSION 209 
 
 drives souls away from God? Is the blame for 
 nonsalvationin God, orisitinman? Some Lu- 
 theran theologians come dangerously near to 
 teaching the same kind of destructive doc- 
 trine when they emphatically and persistent- 
 ly insist, iterate and reiterate,, that man can 
 do nothing at all toward his own salvation. 
 Unexplained, unqualified, such a statement is 
 dangerous. The hearer also has some under- 
 standing, some judgment. He too does some 
 logical thinking. He says: Well if that’s 
 true why should I trouble myself. What’s 
 the use? “I should worry!’ How careful we 
 should be to make ourselves understood. 
 
 Let us bear in mind what has been set forth 
 and insisted on above. 
 
 The natural man, untouched by the Spirit 
 of God, is ignorant, blind, helpless and 
 hopeless in his enmity to God. The whole 
 man is full of sin. His mind is dark- 
 ened, his heart is impure, his will is perverted. 
 He is dead in trespasses and in sin. He needs 
 to be quickened, made alive, converted. He 
 needs a new light in his intellect, a new love 
 in his heart, a new bent in his will. All this 
 must come from God. God must reach down, 
 touch, vivify, renew him. Life-giving and 
 saving Grace must be brought to man by God | 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 14. 
 
210 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 the Holy Ghost. But the Holy Ghost works 
 through Means. His own Means convey His 
 own Grace. We have shown above the scrip- 
 turalness, the helpfulness, the preciousness of 
 this doctrine that Grace comes through the 
 Means of Grace. We repeat, that this doctrine, 
 rightly understood and apprehended, bridges 
 the otherwise impossible gulf between the sov- 
 ereignty of God and the responsibilty of man. 
 this doctrine that Grace comes through the 
 Lutheran theology. Reformed theology has 
 weakened and pauperized itself by refusing 
 to understand, appreciate, and accept it. To 
 Lutherans it is absolutely fundamental. 
 
 The question as to Man’s agency in, and 
 responsibility for, his own conversion ought 
 never to be studied without ever keeping in 
 mind that Grace comes through Means. 
 
 We have seen that the Word is the Spirit’s 
 principal Means. That the Word makes and 
 conditions the Sacraments which are some- 
 times called the Sacramental Word. In in- 
 fancy renewing grace comes to us in Baptism, 
 which is water and Word. After baptism 
 Grace comes through the Word alone. To 
 adults who need conversion the Holy Spirit 
 must come through the Word, through Law 
 and through Gospel. Through the Law He 
 
CONVERSION 211 
 
 wakes contrition. ‘Through the Gospel He 
 enkindles faith. The Word read, pondered, 
 heard in conversation, in a teacher’s class, in 
 a sermon, carries the Spirit and His Grace. 
 The Word carries renewing and converting 
 power. 
 
 Now we come back. What can the uncon- 
 verted man do, or what can he will to do to- 
 ward his own conversion? 
 
 First, ‘He 'can'go to the Word. He ’can 
 read, ponder and hear. He thus does some- 
 thing toward his own conversion. We want 
 no argument with the fatalist who claims that 
 man’s will cannot direct his body; that his 
 will cannot choose between going to church 
 or going to a picnic on Sunday morning. 
 Man can by his own natural powers will to 
 go or not to go to church. He can will to 
 read the Bible or read the Sunday paper. If 
 any one doubts it, let him try himself out. 
 
 Second. At Church he can will to hear, 
 to pay attention. As he hears and sees he is 
 influenced. The dim religious light of the 
 sanctuary, the impressive tones of the organ, 
 the voices around him joining in responses, 
 in prayer, in confession, in singing. All this 
 has its influence. It is the influence cf an- 
 other world. He is ina holy place. Uncon- 
 
212 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 sciously a feeling steals over him that he is 
 not what he ought to be. He is in the Holy 
 Spirit’s workshop. ‘The Bride of Christ is 
 throwing over and around him a holy atmos- 
 phere. The windows are open toward the 
 New Jerusalem. The minister opens his 
 mouth. Oh that he may be, in the full sense, a 
 messenger of God to guilty man! He speaks 
 as the oracle of God. As an ambassador of 
 Christ he beseeches in Christ’s stead: “Be ye 
 reconciled to God.” ‘The hearer hears. The 
 Spirit through the preached Word would 
 bring into the sinner’s soul sorrow for sin and 
 faith in Christ. The Spirit strives to bring in 
 the new light into the intellect, the new love 
 into the heart, the new bent into the will. 
 
 The hearer still has the melancholy power 
 to resist, to shake off the holy influences, to 
 harden himself, to remain unconverted. Un- 
 der and through the divine influences at work 
 on him, he can cease resisting, he can yield. 
 Not by his own power, but with the power 
 given by the Word he can repent, he can be- 
 lieve, he can become converted. 
 
 How clear it all becomes when we under- 
 stand and accept the old Bible doctrine, that 
 
 _“ Grace comes through the Means of Grace. 
 
 This precious doctrine gives all the glory to 
 
CONVERSION ai 
 
 God, while it throws all the responsibilty on 
 man. 
 
 Before we leave the subject of Conversion 
 it will he helpful to note some of the varied 
 phenomena and experiences incident to this 
 change. 1 Cor. 12.6. “There are diversities 
 of operations, but it is the same God which 
 worketh all in all.” All adults who are in 
 an unregenerate, or an unconverted state must 
 be converted. In all conversions the Holy 
 Spirit uses Means. The process, however, 
 is not the same in all. Methods vary and sub- 
 jective experiments differ, even as the people 
 to be converted differ from one another. They 
 are constitutionally different from one another. 
 They differ in heredity. They have been in- 
 fluenced by differing environments. ‘Their 
 bodily health varies. ‘Their nervous systems 
 are far from alike. ‘The nerves work differ- 
 ently in different individuals. ‘The nerves 
 are affected by the condition of the vital or- 
 gans. The nerves affect the mental machin- 
 ery and its working. ‘Temperaments differ. 
 Temperaments are affected by states and de- 
 grees of health. Temperaments modify abili- 
 ty, mental capacity, mental operation. Minds 
 differ. It is a psychical and a psychological 
 impossibility for all minds to see and under- 
 
214 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 stand all points alike. Their judgments 
 are constituent parts of their constitutional 
 make-up. But the mind is always superior 
 to the body. 
 
 Necessarily then subjective experiences in 
 the process of Conversion cannot all be alike. 
 The Holy Spirit knows the human variations. 
 He makes allowance for them. He fits Him- 
 self into them. With one He must use the 
 Word as a hammer to break open the stony 
 heart. With another He needs to use it as a 
 fire to burn out the accumulations of dross 
 and corruption. Into another heart He makes 
 the Word drop as the rain and distil as the 
 dew. A heathen jailor needs an earthquake 
 to make him think and listen to the saving 
 Word. A stubborn, self-righteous Paul, full 
 of fanatical zeal to destroy the infant Church, 
 needs to be knocked down and made blind. 
 A black eunuch needs only to have the Word 
 he is so earnestly studying opened and ex- 
 plained by an authorized minister of Jesus 
 Christ. A gentle, thoughtful, Lydia, at a 
 woman’s prayer meeting, under the search- 
 ing preaching of Paul and Silas, has her heart 
 opened like the rosebud that opens under the 
 softening rain and the warming sun of the 
 early summer. 
 
CONVERSION 215 
 
 Here is a man of phlegmatic temperament. 
 His mind is sluggish. It works slowly. He 
 is rarely excited. His feelings are unrespon- 
 sive. His disposition is cool and calculating. 
 He moves cautiously and deliberately. He 
 wants to feel the ground before he takes a step. 
 He is hard to move. ‘There are many of him. 
 
 When the Word comes to such an one, it 
 does not, as a rule, revolutionize him at once. 
 He hears, he thinks, he weighs, he takes it 
 home, he ponders, he wants to hear more. 
 Gradually, slowly, line upon line, precept 
 upon precept, the divine Word comes. The 
 seed roots, it sprouts, it grows. The new life 
 shows first the blade, then the ear, then the 
 full corn in the ear. He has been converted 
 gradually and almost imperceptibly. 
 
 Here is another prospect. He has a san- 
 -guine temperament. He is impulsive, easily 
 aroused, ready to jump at conclusions. 
 
 When the Word comes to him he is likely 
 either wilfully to resist and oppose or to 
 drink it in with avidity. Asa flash the truth 
 may open up to him his sin, his guilt, his 
 need. He is likely to have a deep experience 
 of contrition. When Christ’s love and atone- 
 ment for guilty sinners are clearly and warm- 
 ly presented, he is likely to lay hold of the 
 
216 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 hope set before him and to make a complete 
 surrender at once. He is quickly, often sud- 
 denly converted. He will always know when 
 and how he was converted. But his conver- 
 sion is no more real than that of the former 
 one. Indeed it may be, and often is, less real 
 and less lasting. 
 
 The experience may also be influenced by 
 the former life of the convert. 
 
 Here is one who has wandered far away 
 from his Father’s house. He has been walk- 
 ing in the counsel of the ungodly, standing 
 in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat of the 
 scornful. Among boon campanions in sin 
 he has been spending years in that waste, wild 
 world where God is not. Such an one is 
 arrested in his mad career. He hears the 
 Word. It shows him all his heart and all his 
 sin. He comes to himself. He thinks. He 
 feels, feels deeply his guilt and his shame. 
 He sees the Cross, he grasps it, and the bur- 
 den of his guilt rolls away. Peace flows in 
 like a river. He is converted. The sharp 
 contrast between what he was and what he is 
 makes his a clearly marked conversion. He 
 
 also will always know the when and the how. 
 Another may nothave wandered so faraway. 
 
 Baptized in infancy, brought up under the in- 
 
CONVERSION 217 
 
 struction, the restraints and the constraints of 
 religion, keeping up perhaps some of the out- 
 ward observances of religion, he has never- 
 theless not consciously and deliberately sur- 
 rendered himself to Christ. Though out- 
 wardly respectable, he is not inwardly a Chris- 
 tian. He is in an unconverted state. When 
 such an one comes to the Word, is awakened 
 and comes to himself, his penitence may not 
 be so marked and his faith may not be so glad 
 as that of the former. But his conversion is 
 not less true. 
 
 So conversions differ. They vary in inten- 
 sity, in depth of feeling, in duration of pro- 
 cess. With many the process is long drawn 
 out. The Word stirs a feeling of dissatisfac- 
 tion with self. It wakes a longing for a bet- 
 ter self. It implants consciousness of sinful- 
 ness, feelings of guilt, self-condemnation, 
 longing for pardon and peace. By and by, 
 perhaps after weeks of thinking, wavering, 
 feeling, and indecision, the will acts and says: 
 I will arise and go to my Father, and I will 
 say, Father I am not worthy. There was a 
 decisive moment, but he does not know when 
 
 or where it was. But he is converted. There 
 are gradual conversions and there are sudden 
 
 conversions. The former cannot always point 
 
218 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 to time and place. It is wrong, it is unscrip- 
 tural, to make this a test. 
 
 Zacchaeus, Saul of Tarsus, the Philippian 
 jailor, and the three thousand of the Day of 
 Pentecost, could doubtless all tell the time and 
 place; but could all the apostles of Jesus tell? 
 
 A more important question is: Can and 
 should every one know whether he is now in 
 a converted state? Here there should be no 
 uncertainty. Let the inquirer honestly and 
 earnestly look into his own heart: How do 
 his sins affect hime Do they grieve him? 
 Does he hate them? Does he earnestly and 
 constantly long for deliverance? Does he 
 daily turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness? 
 If so, then the elements of the new life are 
 there. He is in a converted state. 
 
 But if his sins do not trouble him, if he 
 can snap his fingers and laugh at them, if they 
 do not daily drive him to the cross, then he is 
 not converted. 
 
 Let him come to himself. Let him prayer- 
 fully read and ponder the fifty-first Psalm. 
 In his closet and in the church let him repent 
 and confess and fly to the Lord Jesus for 
 refuge and help. He cannot live and die in 
 an unconverted state and be saved. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Sanctification or Growth in Holiness 
 
 HE believer is justified. He is freed from 
 the threatenings and curses of the Law. 
 Justification was declared at the time when 
 the new life was started. The new life 
 is a spiritual life. It is a life from God, a life 
 toward God, a life in God. It is godliness, 
 and godliness means God-likeness. As the liv- 
 ing plant stretches and reaches toward the sun, 
 so the newborn believer reaches out toward 
 God and follows Him. The new life in its es- 
 sence is holy. It follows after holiness. It 
 thinks on, follows after, strives for, ‘“whatso- 
 ever things are true, whatsoever things are 
 honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report.” 
 
 But the believer is not perfect. He is not 
 sinless. He is in process of being sanctified. 
 But his sanctification is not perfect. It would 
 certainly be a rare saint or sanctified one, who 
 would measure himself with that experi- 
 
 219 
 
220 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 enced, purified saint who labored more than 
 all other Apostles, suffered more, achieved 
 more, was exalted more, could say, and “For 
 me to live is Christ.” But Paul never claimed 
 sinless perfection. Read again his wailing 
 confession in Romans 7; hear him in Phil. 
 3. 12-14: “Not as though I had already at- 
 tained, either were already perfect; but I fol- 
 low after, if that I may apprehend that for 
 which also I am apprehended of Christ 
 Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have 
 apprehended; but this one thing I do, forget- 
 ting those things which are behind, and reach- 
 ing forth unto those things which are before, 
 I press toward the mark for the prize of the 
 high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 
 
 The old Adam was not dead in Paul. The 
 flesh was warring against the spirit and the 
 spirit against the flesh. Paul was conscious 
 of this inner warfare. The lusting and striv- 
 ing and fighting of the flesh against the spirit 
 grieved him, pained him, and made him con- 
 stantly cry for deliverance. And this, indeed, 
 is a sure and safe test by which every one can 
 know whether Christ is in him, and whether 
 he is in Christ and in the way of Sanctifica- 
 tion. How do his sins affect hime If he is 
 unconscious of the sin that dwells in him, or 
 
SANCTIFICATION 221 
 
 if he can laugh at his sins, snap his fingers 
 and say, “I don’t care,” and go gaily on sin- 
 ning, then he is still in the gall of bitterness, 
 in the bond of iniquity, carnal, sold under 
 sin. But if his sins trouble him, rob him of 
 peace, grieve him, and make him hate them 
 and mourn over them; if they make him long 
 for deliverance, pardon, and peace; if thus 
 the old Adam is daily drowned by daily sor- 
 row and repentance, then he is a child of 
 Grace and in the way of Sanctification. 
 
 It is helpful to bear in mind that there are 
 two kinds of sins: ‘The unregenerate, the im- 
 penitent, the unbelievers, or those who have 
 fallen from Grace, constantly sin, live in sin 
 and don’t care if they do. Even when sinful 
 things and sinful doings are pointed out and 
 they are warned against them, they don’t care, 
 but go right on in these sins. Their sins are 
 sins of malice. They sin wilfully. They 
 often defy God, sin of set purpose, and say, 
 “Let us break His bands asunder and cast 
 away His cords from us.” “We will not have 
 this man to reign over us.” Such wilful sins, 
 such sins of malice, the believer cannot com- 
 mit. 
 
 There are also sins of weakness. In un- 
 wary moments the old Adam asserts himself, 
 
222 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 the law of the flesh asserts itself, and the be- 
 liever falls. Caught off his guard when he 
 is not watching and praying, he succumbs and 
 sins. The flesh, the deceitful heart, over- 
 come the drowsy spirit, and the law of sin 
 prevails. Sudden fear of danger may over- 
 come a disciple, as when Peter denied His 
 Lord. Even after his bitter sorrow and true 
 repentance he again “dissembled” and acted 
 the hypocrite at Antioch. Paul had a bitter 
 contention or quarrel with Barnabas. So Job 
 and David and Hezekiah and many Old Tes- 
 tament saints had sinned. So great and good 
 men and women have often fallen into sins 
 of weakness. But they always repent, con- 
 fess, and strive anew against sin and after 
 more holiness. Their sins are sins of weak- 
 ness. 
 
 They still need the Law. In so far as they 
 sin they need its pedagogic use to give them 
 a clear knowledge of their own sins and to 
 drive them to daily sorrow and repentance. 
 They need also its didactic use. The Law is 
 the expression of God’s holy will. They want 
 to know, want to be constantly reminded 
 what that holy, good, and gracious will of ° 
 God is in order that they may follow it more 
 closely. In their inner life they delight to do 
 
SANCTIFICATION 223 
 
 God’s will. ‘The Law of the Spirit constrains 
 them to want to do the will of their Father 
 in heaven. And so, through much weakness 
 and fear and imperfection and sin, they still 
 trustingly press forward in the way of Sancti- 
 fication. Their motive power is grateful love. 
 They want to be good, they want to do good, 
 not because they must, not because they are 
 driven from without, but because they are 
 contrained from within. ‘The love of Christ 
 contraineth” them. 
 
 Free from the Law, they never allow their 
 freedom to be a cause of confusing or offend- 
 ing a weaker brother. They never forget 
 that while, in the good sense, all things are 
 lawful unto them, yet all things are not ex- 
 pedient. They contend not so much for 
 liberty, for rights, as that they may not offend 
 one of the least of these for whom Christ died. 
 The law of love waives rights, performs du- 
 ties, and goes the second mile. 
 
 This is Sanctification. This is growth in 
 holiness. It is not a single act, not a sudden 
 achievement, not a momentary experience. 
 It is a process, a progress, a constant going 
 forward, a growing, an increasing, an abound- 
 ing yet more and more. It is a Pilgrim’s 
 Progress from the City of Destruction to the 
 
224 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Sinless Canaan. Life is a growth. The pil- 
 grim grows while he lives and travels and 
 struggles and serves. 
 
 Like a plant that grows from a seed-corn, 
 so is the new life in the soul. With the plant, 
 life is a small, faint, feeble beginning. So it 
 is with the Christian life. Its seed is the Word 
 of God. In baptism it is the Word connected 
 with the water. The Word implants and 
 starts the life. This life, too, is germinal, 
 feeble, small in its beginnings. Plant life, in 
 its beginnings, grows, man knows not how. 
 Gradually, imperceptibly, there comes the 
 germ, the tiny blade, the stalk, the ear, the full 
 corn. So is it also in the Kingdom of God. 
 
 By a change of figure, the beginning of new 
 life is birth. A birth presents a feeble, help- 
 less life, a babe. A plant needs nourishment. 
 Its first nourishment is drawn out of the same 
 seed that started the life. In the Kingdom of 
 Grace the Word starts the life and the Word 
 must nourish, strengthen, and build up the 
 life. “Desire the sincere milk of the word 
 that ye may grow thereby.” Of the impera- 
 tive need of feeding diligently, daily, careful- 
 ly on the Word, we have previously spoken. 
 Lack of feeding on and living on the Word 
 accounts for the weak, sickly, worldly, cold, 
 
SANCTIFICATION 225 
 
 do-less and joyless spiritual life in so many 
 Christians today. Plant life needs to be 
 watched, tended, cultivated, fenced about, and 
 safeguarded in every possible way. So does 
 the spiritual life. 
 
 A spiritual life cannot be healthy and vig- 
 orous in a worldly atmosphere. Irreverent, 
 scoffing, unclean, profane, and godless com- 
 panions blight, chill, and kill the spiritual 
 life. The card-table, the pool-room, the dance 
 hall and the drink den have poisoned thou- 
 sands of souls. It is a serious signal of soul- 
 danger when any one can feel at home in such 
 an unchristian and antichristian atmosphere. 
 We must be in the world, but not of the world. 
 Our garments must remain unspotted from 
 the world. “Love not the world, neither the 
 things that are in the world. If any man love 
 the world, the love of the Father is not in 
 Nite, tal Nee 15 (Ot Ly ive ye 
 
 Lov help, \.to-anourishs:; tov.refresh’ to 
 strengthen, to safeguard those who walk in 
 the way of Sanctification, our loving Saviour 
 has instituted the Means of Grace. Of the 
 Word as a Means of Grace we have written 
 in a previous chapter. We have seen that it 
 is a Means because it is a bearer of the Holy 
 Spirit, that He is in it and works through it 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 15. 
 
226 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 wherever and whenever it is rightly used. 
 We have also seen that the Word, in and with 
 the Sacraments, makes them effective. With- 
 out the accompanying Word the Sacraments 
 would be invalid and useless. They have been 
 called the Sacramental Word. We have 
 shown that in infants Baptism starts the new 
 life, and that in unbaptized adults the Word 
 implants and starts the new life while Baptism 
 seals, deepens and confirms the life. 
 
 T he Sacrament of the Altar or Lord’s Supper. 
 
 This precious Means of Grace is given us 
 to build up the spiritual life. The Holy 
 Communion, therefore, has an important 
 place in Sanctification, or growth in holiness. 
 When rightly used this holy Sacrament is 
 the most blessed privilege of the believer. 
 This side of heaven there is no place so near 
 to heaven as the Communion Altar. Here the 
 blessed Christ who gave Himself for the be- 
 liever gives Himself to the believer. Here 
 more than anywhere else Christ comes in to 
 the believer, sups with him, and he sups with 
 Christ. Here the mystical union of the be- 
 liever with Christ is most fully realized. 
 Here are offered and communicated peculiar 
 blessings, heavenly blessings — blessings that 
 cannot be obtained, in the same measure, any- 
 
SANCTIFICATION 227 
 
 where else. This is the believer’s sacramental 
 feast, his soul’s most precious comfort, his 
 deepest joy. From this feast he goes forth 
 with new heart, new hope, new faith, and 
 new courage to meet and overcome again an 
 unfriendly, a hostile world. In a special 
 sense he has been with Jesus on the mount. 
 His face shines and his heart glows as he 
 girds himself anew and goes in the strength 
 of this meat many days. 
 
 To realize these unspeakable blessings the 
 believer must understand the meaning of this 
 Sacrament and be in the right spiritual frame 
 to receive it worthily. 
 
 It is one of the saddening facts of Ameri- 
 can church life that in so many quarters the 
 Sacraments are so lightly esteemed, so flip- 
 pantly neglected, and so carelessly and irrev- 
 erently used. Multitudes of would-be Chris- 
 tians and church members have never seri- 
 ously studied these Sacraments that the 
 Church originally received from the hands 
 of the Son of God. They think and act as if 
 Christ could have instituted and made bind- 
 ing on the Church empty, meaningless, and 
 useless rites and ceremonies. With such con- 
 ceptions of Christ’s Sacraments, what think 
 they of Christ? 
 
228 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Of the Sacrament before us they imagine 
 that it is only an ancient ceremony which 
 some people like and revere. ‘They tell us 
 that it is at best a sign, a symbol, a ceremony 
 that reminds the observer of something that 
 its Founder did in the dim and distant past. 
 It has no objective value. It conveys nothing. 
 It may serve as a memorial to stir pious 
 thoughts and emotions. There is nothing in 
 it except what the communicant brings to it. 
 
 Now we seriously submit: Is this a becom- 
 ing attitude for one who believes that the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead dwells in Christ and that 
 all power is given to Hime Shall my imper- 
 fect, sin-blinded reason judge Him, question 
 His wisdom and power, or sit in judgment on 
 His institutions and declarations? I bear in 
 mind who He is that gave to the Church this 
 Sacrament. I call to mind the time when He 
 instituted it. I recall the scene, the sur- 
 roundings, the impending sacrifice. I re- 
 member that dark and doleful night, the up- 
 per room, the company, the footwashing, the 
 paschal meal, the table-talk, the surpassing 
 climax in the institution of this Sacrament. 
 I read over that other-worldly, high-priestly 
 prayer, the silent walk to Gethsemane, the 
 struggle, the bloody sweat, the vicarious suf- 
 
SANCTIFICATION 229 
 
 fering, the insults and ignominy of the six 
 trials, the scourge, the thorn-crown, the cross. 
 In the very shadow of this vicarious Atone- 
 ment He instituted for me this holy Sacra- 
 ment! I bow, I am silent, I worship, I adore, 
 I accept His last Will and Testament. I 
 take His words as He gave them. I dare 
 not make His testamentary words figurative, 
 but, as Queen Elizabeth put it: 
 
 “Just as my Lord did make it, 
 So I believe and take it.” 
 
 So says every true believer. He shrinks 
 from changing Christ’s words. He dare not 
 say “signifies” or “represents” where the Lord 
 says “is.” He knows that, a generation after 
 the institution, the inspired Paul explains the 
 _words of institution in 1 Cor. 10. 16 thus: 
 
 ‘The cup of blessings which we bless, is it not 
 the communion of the blood of Christ? The 
 bread which we break, is it not the commun- 
 ion of the body of Christe” It takes two 
 things to make a communion, and both must 
 be present. Bread and body must be present. 
 Wine and blood must be present; otherwise 
 there can be no communion. In the following 
 chapter, Paul denounces the irregularities, 
 the faults, and abuses prevalent in his Corin- 
 
230 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 thian congregation, and also instructs his 
 members on worthy and unworthy commun- 
 ing. He takes the real presence of Christ’s 
 body and blood for granted all through the 
 chapter. In verse 27 he says: “Whosoever 
 shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the 
 Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body 
 and blood of the Lord.” Verse 29, “For he 
 that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth 
 and drinketh damnation to himself, not dis- 
 cerning the Lord’s body.” 
 
 On the basis of these and other passages 
 that bear directly on this subject our Church 
 believes in the Real Presence of the glorified 
 body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. 
 She does not believe that the bread is tran- 
 substantiated, or changed, into flesh, or that 
 the wine is changed into blood. Neither does 
 she believe that there is a consubstantiation, 
 or physical mixture, of bread and flesh or of 
 wine and blood. She believes that the com- 
 municant receives plain, natural bread and 
 wine, but that these earthly elements convey 
 to him the glorified body and blood of Christ. 
 The earthly elements convey the heavenly 
 food. Both are administered and both are re- 
 ceived. This real presence is taught in Lu- 
 ther’s Small Catechism, in the Augsburg Con- 
 
SANCTIFICATION 231 
 
 fession, in the other Lutheran creeds, and by 
 all true Lutheran theologians. ‘This teaching 
 is different from that of Reformed Cate- 
 chisms, creds, and theologies. We Luther- 
 ans count our doctrine of the Sacraments 
 among our Fundamentals. Should there be 
 any risk of being mistaken here, our Church 
 would rather run that risk by taking her 
 Master at His Word than by changing His 
 Word. She would rather believe too much 
 than too little. She would rather trust Him 
 too far than not far enough.* 
 
 With this view of the Holy Supper it is 
 readily seen how its consideration fits into, and 
 indeed is a part of, the Way of Sanctification. 
 And so we come and sing: 
 
 “Lord at thy table I behold 
 The wonders of Thy Grace; 
 But most of all admire that I 
 Should find a welcome place. 
 
 I that am all defiled by sin: 
 A rebel to my God; 
 
 I that have crucified the Son 
 And trampled on His blood! 
 
 What strange surpassing Grace is this 
 That such a soul finds room; 
 
 My Saviour takes me by the Land 
 And kindly bids me come!” 
 
 *For a fuller discussion of this important subject, see chap- 
 ters 13—16 in “The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church.” 
 
232 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Fitness for Communion 
 
 Our exalted conception of the meaning of 
 the Sacramental Feast implies and demands 
 a special spirit of reverent appreciation in the 
 communicant. With a firm and intelligent 
 conviction of the spiritual realism that in- 
 heres in the Holy Communion, as set forth in 
 all that the Scriptures say on the subject, what 
 manner of persons should we be when we ap- 
 proach what is not man’s, nor our, but the 
 Lord’s, table? If we were going up to this 
 table to receive bread and wine only, then 
 special fitness would not seem so necessary. If 
 it were no more than a natural eating and 
 drinking of a natural meal and thinking holy 
 thoughts during the partaking; if it were a 
 mere memorial meal; if bread and wine mere- 
 ly represented or symbolized something that 
 is not present; then we should not be moved 
 to insist so earnestly on a heart-searching pre- 
 paring for the feast. Then we might throw 
 the table wide upon and invite everyone to 
 come, on the spur of the moment, on a sudden 
 impulse, without any previous special prep- 
 aration, and eat and drink with us; then we 
 might make of it a Christian social meal; yes, 
 then we might pass the bread and cup up and 
 
SANCTIFICATION 233 
 
 down the aisles into every pew and invite all 
 to eat and dring with us. 
 
 The writer’s spiritual sense has been 
 shocked by seeing such things done. Without 
 even a word of consecration he has seen and 
 heard the minister request women to thus pass 
 the bread and wine. 
 
 But if everything that the Word of God 
 says on the subject has convinced us that our 
 blessed Saviour, the God-man, Christ Jesus, 
 is really present and really gives to us, with 
 the bread and wine, His own spiritual, glori- 
 fied body and blood, then we stand in awe and 
 worship. Yes, then we see the fitness of heart- 
 searching self-examination, of first sitting in 
 judgment on ourselves, of bewaring of un- 
 worthy participation, of eating and drinking 
 judgment upon ourselves. Every Lutheran 
 minister, who is a true spiritual guide, a real 
 shepherd of his sheep and lambs, instructs and 
 insists on all this in his catechetical classes, in 
 his sermons, and in his preaching from house 
 to house. His Church also, in conformity to 
 her doctrine, has made special provision for 
 the proper preparation of those who purpose 
 to come to the Holy Communion. The Augs- 
 burg Confession says (Article 25): “It is 
 not usual to communicate the body of our 
 
234 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Lord except to those who have been previous- 
 ly examined and absolved.” 
 
 Back in the sixteenth century, the official 
 Church Orders, or Disciplines, as we would 
 call them, required that everyone who wishes 
 to receive the Sacrament shall personally give 
 notice of his wish to the pastor, who may then 
 discover whether he needs special instruction, 
 or comfort him with the absolution or as- 
 surance of God’s forgiveness. The normal 
 method was to have a service in the Church 
 on the Saturday afternoon before the Com- 
 munion. After this service every commun- 
 icant came privately to the minister. This 
 was called private confession. It was intended 
 to help the communicant to examine himself 
 and so to eat of that bread and drink of that 
 cup. Surely there is nothing unscriptural or 
 unevangelical in this old pastoral custom. 
 Think of the advantage to the pastor, in his 
 care of the individual soul, if he could thus 
 have a private and confidential interview, a 
 heart to heart talk with every communicant on 
 his spiritual state, his temptations, perplex- 
 ities, doubts, sins, and sorrows, before every 
 communion. How it would help the pastor 
 to fit in the needed instruction, warning, re- 
 proof, encouragement, and consolation. Nat- 
 
SANCTIFICATION 235 
 
 urally such soul-cure requires ideal ministers 
 of the New Testament and also that perfect 
 confidence. and love by his parishioners set 
 forth in the Parable of the Good Shepherd 
 and His Sheep. What a wonderful help such 
 a relation would be toward growing in grace 
 and in spiritual knowledge and in walking in 
 the way of Sanctification. 
 
 Where the good, old-fashioned custom of 
 such ideal private confession has fallen into 
 disuse the pastor can substitute a true, soul- 
 curing pastoral visit. ‘The spiritual pastor, 
 who is a true under-shepherd, will want to 
 know all his sheep, every sheep and every 
 lamb. He realizes that he must give heed to 
 all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has 
 made him overseer. Especially before every 
 communion he will want a private, personal 
 interview with his weak, careless, worldly, 
 endangered members. Those who need him 
 most will get the most of his attention. He 
 will remind them of the meaning of the Lord’s 
 Supper, show them how much they need it, 
 and how it will nourish and build up those 
 who rightly use it and so forward them in 
 their growth in holiness. Yes, ‘This Sacra- 
 ment hath been instituted for the special com- 
 fort and strengthening of those who humbly 
 
236 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 confess their sins and who hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness.” 
 
 Special preparation for special seasons of 
 grace is God’s order. Israel of old had such 
 seasons of preparation before special manifes- 
 tations from God; e. g., before the giving of 
 the Law, the sending of quails and manna, the 
 crossing of the Jordan, the great festivals. 
 Jesus had a most solemn preparatory service 
 with His disciples before He instituted the 
 Last Supper. He moved them to self-exam- 
 ination. He showed them their sins of pride 
 and jealousy, rebuked their quarrels, warned 
 them of their defection, of Peter’s fall and 
 Judas’ treachery. What a preparatory ser- 
 mon! He also had special words of sweet 
 comfort and promise, and prayed that other- 
 worldly, high-priestly prayer. Here is an 
 example of what a public preparatory service 
 should be, in order that the communion may 
 be the heavenly feast it ought to be and give 
 the needed strength to walk in the way of 
 sanctification. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Prayer and Sanctification 
 
 W: HAVE shown above that the Word is 
 the principal Means of Grace. We have 
 also shown that the place which it bears de- 
 mands a receptive mind and heart. The Word, 
 whether the written, spoken, pondered, or Sac- 
 ramental Word, if its full precious blessing is 
 to be experienced, must be used in a prayerful 
 spirit. Word and prayer belong together. 
 The prayerless reader of the Word misses the 
 personal and experimental blessing. He who 
 prays without relating his prayer to the Word 
 does not pray aright. He misses the real com- 
 fort and blessing of prayer. 
 
 In the Word God speaks to me. I should 
 always study it with a devout, earnest, and 
 reverent mind. What do these words that I 
 am reading mean for me? Again and again 
 I find that they find me. They fit me as if 
 they had been written especially to me and for 
 me. I am moved to pause, to send up an 
 earnest, ejaculatory prayer that God may help 
 
 237 
 
238 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 me through His Word to take it to heart, to 
 profit by it, to grow more and more into what 
 I ought to be. And so I unite my prayer with 
 holy contemplation. God has spoken to me. 
 In my prayer I answer back to Him. He has 
 promised; in my prayer I rest on, I claim, the 
 promise. 
 
 From this we see that, in the proper sense, 
 prayer is nota Means of Grace. In the Word 
 God speaks to me. He proffers and conveys 
 Grace, renewing Grace, nourishing Grace, 
 strengthening Grace, comforting and uplifting 
 Grace. Every spiritual Grace, every real 
 good,isfromabove. He is the Giver of every 
 good and perfect gift. He promises and gives 
 through the Word. My prayer asks for, and 
 thanks for God’s gift. Grace comes down. 
 Prayer goes up. God promises. I take Him 
 at His Word. He gives, I receive. The 
 child is hungry, he asks for, or prays for, a 
 piece of bread. The mother hears, she gives 
 the bread. The child eats and is satisfied. It 
 was not the asking or praying that stilled the 
 hunger. It was the bread. Prayer asks for 
 Grace. God gives Grace through His own 
 Means. Clear thinking distinguishes between 
 asking for, conveying, and receiving. Clear 
 thinking prevents me from making my word 
 
PRAYER 239 
 
 to God equal with, or more important than, 
 God’s Word to me. My word cannot convey 
 Grace. God’s can. My word enables me to 
 receive and use the Grace that God gives. 
 
 God wants me to pray. He holds out the 
 richest and most precious promises to those 
 who pray and pray aright. Without prayer 
 there can be no true spiritual life. The true 
 Christian feels that he must pray. Even the 
 natural man who has not quenched his better 
 nature prays. Of all earthly creatures man 
 alone prays. Every man has within him an 
 impulse to pray. In times of sudden distress 
 or danger the infidel tries to pray. The child 
 loves to pray before he knows what it means. 
 The sick, the sorrowing, the lonely, the dying, 
 want to pray. Heathen pray. We come across 
 it among the civilized and the barbarous. We 
 have seen above that the heathen, without a 
 
 Bible or a missionary, know that there is some 
 kind of a God or supreme power above them, 
 
 that there is something in or about themselves 
 that offends their god or gods; that they must 
 do something to propitiate these higher pow- 
 ers; that if they do not get right with their 
 gods there will be retribution beyond the 
 grave. These innate truths make man a wor- 
 shiping being. The lower animals cannot 
 
240 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 worship. They cannot be evoluted into crea- 
 tures that pray. Man alone prays. The ancient 
 heathen prayed morning, noon, and night, and 
 at meals. Millions of them do so to-day. 
 Great festivals and great undertakings, wars, 
 battles, congresses were and are preceded by 
 official sacrifices and prayers. Heathen na- 
 tions, peoples, religions and their individual 
 followers in their habits of devotion and sac- 
 rifice put to shame Christian nations and their 
 people. They even put to shame thousands of 
 professing Christians. If prayer is the pulse 
 beat of the Christian life, oh how sickly, how 
 feeble the life of most of our Christians! 
 True prayer is a conversation of a penitent 
 and believing heart with God. He who knows 
 nothing of heartfelt penitence for sin, who 
 does not trust in Christ alone for forgiveness 
 and acceptance with God cannot offer accept- 
 able and prevailing prayer. “If I regard in- 
 iquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” 
 Ps. 66. 18. Also Prov. 28. 9, “He that turn- 
 eth away his ear from hearing the law, even 
 his prayer shall be abomination.” Is. 1. 15-17, 
 ‘‘And when ye spread forth your hands I will 
 hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make 
 many prayers, I will not hear you: your hands 
 are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; 
 
PRAYER 241 
 
 put away the evil of your doings from before 
 mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well.” 
 Jn. 9. 31, “We know that God heareth not 
 sinners; but if any man be a worshiper of God 
 and his will, him He heareth.” Only he who 
 is in a converted state or is in the way to con- 
 version can truly pray. 
 
 True prayer may be read from a book, 
 repeated from memory, or spoken in one’s 
 own words. If only the confessions, the peti- 
 tions, the thanksgivings express the feeling of 
 the heart, then the form is of no vital impor- 
 tance. “The Lord looketh on the heart.” The 
 words may be spoken aloud or they may be 
 the silent expressions of the heart. If sincere 
 and earnest, God knows and notes and hears. 
 Groanings that cannot be uttered are often 
 most acceptable to God. Prayer may be of- 
 fered in a standing, sitting, or kneeling pos- 
 ture, also lying on a bed. The heart must be 
 in it always. 
 
 Mistakes about Prayer. 
 
 Many such are afloat. They confuse many 
 sincere souls. They unsettle the faith of many. 
 They breed doubt, skepticism, and unbelief. 
 How important to be clear on the Bible teach- 
 ing of prayer! How necessary to know the 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 16, 
 
242 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 conditions and limitations that God lays 
 down! 
 
 Here again we need to recall some of the 
 simple, sane, and safe principles of interpre- 
 tation: Every passage of Scripture is to be 
 studied in connection with what goes before 
 and what follows after. It is to be compared 
 with other passages that bear on the same 
 subject. ‘The dark and difficult passages are 
 to be explained by the passages that are clear 
 and easily understood. A doctrine or teach- 
 ing dare not be drawn from, or built on, a 
 single, isolated text. We should always search 
 the whole Scripture, endeavor to find all the 
 passages that bear on the subject, carefully 
 examine and compare them with each other, 
 and then draw our conclusion from their com- 
 bined teaching. 
 
 After studying the subject of prayer with 
 these simple principles in mind, we find that 
 God does not promise to answer all prayers. 
 See Jas. 4. 3, “Ye ask and receive not, because 
 ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon 
 your lusts,” or selfish pleasures. 1 Jn. 5. 14, 
 “Tf we ask anything according to his will, he 
 heareth us.”’ God does not answer a selfish 
 prayer. God does not answer the prayer of 
 one who boasts of his own power with God 
 
PRAYER 243 
 
 and loves to publish and recount before others 
 how God has healed, has regulated the weath- 
 er, stilled a storm, or sent money in answer to 
 his own all-prevailing prayer. Humility is 
 a most becoming grace in him who prays. 
 In self-defense Paul on several occasions felt 
 himself “compelled” to self-glory, but in deep 
 humility, he adds (2 Cor. 12. 11-13), “I am 
 become a fool in glorying ... Forgive me 
 this wrong.” 
 
 Again God has not promised to hear a 
 prayer that asks Him to depart from His 
 own plan and purpose. If He has shown us 
 that it is His will that His salvation shall be 
 brought to man by man, no one has a right 
 to request Him to bring it or take it in some 
 other way. It is ours to do our part that the 
 right man may go and, in the right way, offer 
 salvation to the other man. Then we pray 
 for God’s blessing on His own means and 
 methods. 
 
 Again we must remember that God will not 
 force His salvation on anyone. The wilful, 
 defiant blesphemer cannot be converted, ex- 
 cept through God’s means and in God’s way. 
 He may have gone so far that God has given 
 him up. We must be careful that we do not 
 dictate to God. 
 
244 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Some years ago the whole Christian En- 
 deavor world, the flower of the Christian 
 youth of the Reformed churches, was on its 
 knees praying God to convert Robert Inger- 
 soll. This praying was published to the world. 
 Ingersoll went on defying and blaspheming 
 God. Who can ever count the multitudes of 
 skeptics that were made by that mistaken idea 
 and method of prayer? God has His own 
 wise way. We must do the Lord’s work in 
 the Lord’s way and expect Him to do it in 
 His way. 
 
 In praying we must also distinguish be- 
 tween that which is temporal and that which 
 is spiritual. 
 
 When we really desire greater spiritual 
 blessings, larger measures of Grace, a more 
 perfect righteousness, a deeper spiritual life, 
 a closer walk with God, more growth in holi- 
 ness, then we may be sure that our desires and 
 our aspirations are in harmony with God’s 
 will concerning us. Then God’s encourage- 
 ment is, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will 
 fill it.” Then we know that “this is the will 
 of God, even your sanctification.” Then we 
 may pray without condition and with full 
 assurance of faith that He will answer. In 
 spiritual things God is always ready and will- 
 
PRAYER 245 
 
 ing to give more than we can ask or think. 
 There is here no limitation but the limitation 
 of our heart’s desire. In our desire, however, 
 we must always count the cost, the self-denial, 
 the cross-bearing, the sacrifice, and the suffer- 
 ing that such advance in sanctification may 
 entail. 
 
 But when we desire temporal gifts, earthly 
 gifts, the good things of this life, the things 
 that would bring us more worldly comfort, 
 ease and pleasure, even though it be health or- 
 life for self or for some loved one, then we 
 cannot always be sure that our desires are 
 God’s will concerning us. Then we must re- 
 member that He is the Allwise Father, that 
 He can see farther, that He knows better than 
 we, poor, weak, shortsighted, ignorant and im- 
 pulsive children. Just as loving but wise 
 parents often inflict on their beloved children 
 what these do not want and even what they 
 abhor, and often withhold from them what 
 they intensely desire and beg for, because 
 they know better than the children what is 
 good for them and love them too much to 
 gratify their own, unwise desires, so our heav- 
 enly Father deals with us, His erring children. 
 As good children we must learn to make all 
 earthly requests conditional. We must learn to 
 
246 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 say, “Thy will be done,” and in our Father’s 
 refusal we must see His answer of love. 
 
 What serious mistakes are often made on 
 this point! Luther doubtless made such a mis- 
 take when he practically demanded that God 
 must make the dying Melanchthon well. God 
 yielded to Luther’s demand and Melanchton, 
 it might seem, lived to hinder the Reforma- 
 tion, to bring in bitter controversy and divi- 
 sion, and to plague the Evangelical Church. 
 This is the writer’s private judgment. It may 
 be wrong. Paul had a thorn in the flesh,— 
 we do not know what it was. We do know 
 that it was some ailment in the body, “in the 
 flesh.”” He besought the Lord three times to 
 remove the thorn. It remained. It was bet- 
 ter for Paul that it should remain. Yet God 
 answered Paul’s repeated earnest prayers. 
 God gave him something better than the re- 
 moval of the thorn. He gave him Grace to 
 bear it. Many a saint has been thus per- 
 fected through suffering. 
 
 Yes, we may pray for healing, for earthly 
 goods and gifts. Jesus taught us to pray for 
 daily bread. But His Holy Spirit also in- 
 spired Paul to say: “If any will not work, 
 neither let him eat.” 2 Th. 3. 10. In answer 
 to prayer God has raised up many a one whom 
 
PRAYER 247 
 
 the doctors didn’t cure. But He does not cure 
 all who are prayed for, else we might pray 
 disease out of the world. We must say, ‘Thy 
 will be done.” 
 
 In all our praying for earthly good we must 
 always use the means within our reach. The 
 present is a dispensation of means. For heal- 
 ing we need to use the recognized medical 
 profession. We need scientifically trained and 
 recognized doctors and the drugs they pre- 
 scribe. Elijah, Hezekiah, Paul, James, and 
 Jesus used means. ‘Then we should pray, 
 pray earnestly, pray with strong crying and 
 tears, pray continuously that God may bless 
 the physician’s skill and remedies and always 
 say, “Thy will be done.” 
 
 Lord teach us to pray! ‘Teach us to pray 
 as Thou wouldst have us pray! 
 
 How does our Lord want us to pray? 
 
 First: Our whole heart and soul must be 
 in every prayer. We must realize and con- 
 sciously feel our sinfulness, our guilt, our own 
 helplessness, our need of help from above. 
 “God be merciful to me, the sinful one,” must 
 ever be our cry. Every day we are in touch 
 with a hostile world, surrounded by foes, en- 
 dangered by temptations. Every day we are 
 stained with sin, and our thoughts, words, 
 
248 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 and deeds are more or less defiled. We leave 
 undone what we ought to do. We do what 
 we should not do. The world, the flesh, and 
 the devil get in their work on us. How weak 
 we are! How far from perfection! How 
 much our growth in holiness is hindered! 
 How slow our progress in the way of sanctifi- 
 cation! How infrequent and imperfect our 
 praying! 
 
 Second: We must learn more and more, by 
 self-discipline, by watching self, by studying 
 the Word, to know God’s will and submit to 
 that Will. More and more we must realize 
 that the good is conformity to God’s will. 
 More and more we must realize that our sanc- 
 tification is God’s will concerning us, that He 
 desires us to be holy. He desires that we seek 
 His kingdom first. An old saint has said that 
 to lay ones own broken will at the feet of the 
 Lord is the hardest lesson for the human heart 
 to learn. What saint has not experienced the 
 truth of this? In Bible language the word 
 heart includes the will. A broken heart im- 
 plies a broken will. A contrite heart is a con- 
 trite will. Heart contains will. Heart is feel- 
 ing and will. A true heart contains a submis- 
 sive will—a will that cheerfully bows to God’s 
 will. Such a submissive heart and will can 
 
PRAYER 249 
 
 offer the fervent, effectual prayer of the right- 
 eous man, the man who is advancing in sanc- 
 tification. | 
 
 Third: Such prayer will be offered in the 
 name of Jesus Christ. But it must be the true 
 Christ, the whole Christ, the God-man who 
 offered for me a full, vicarious atonement, 
 my vicar, my substitute, my ransom from sin. 
 Through this Christ—the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life—I come to the Father. He has 
 promised: ‘‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the 
 Father in my name, he will give it you.” 
 Jnrel6. 423) 
 
 A lodge prayer offered to a “Supreme Be- 
 ing” an “Architect of the Universe” without 
 even a mention of Jesus, without penitence 
 for, and confession of, sin, without flying to 
 the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, refuge, and 
 help, is a mocking idolatry. 
 
 What 1s it to pray in the name of Jesus? 
 The common, off-hand answer generally is 
 that to pray in His name means to ask for and 
 expect an answer “for His sake.” As far as 
 it goes, this answer isnot wrong. If I havea 
 realizing sense of who and what I am; if I 
 am mindful of who and what God is, I cer- 
 tainly cannot expect Him to answer me for 
 my own sake. I certainly have no merit. I 
 
250 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 have not earned God’s favor. He owes noth- 
 ing to me. I cannot plead that He should 
 hear me for my sake. 
 
 But Jesus is righteous. He has merit in 
 the Father’s sight. By faith I have laid hold 
 of His righteous merit. My trust, my plea 
 is He and He alone. For His sake I pray the 
 Father to hear and answer my prayer. This 
 is truth, but it is not the whole truth. It 
 belongs to praying in Jesus’ name, but it 
 comes short of the fulness and preciousness 
 included in praying in His name. Many 
 Christians never get beyond this partial mean- 
 ing and have only a partial blessing. They 
 live on a low plane of Christian experience 
 and privilege. ‘They can and should mount 
 higher. 
 
 Their faith is mingled with fear. They 
 are afraid of God, but timidly hope that for 
 Jesus’ sake He will turn aside His anger. 
 They use the name of Jesus as a sort of a light- 
 ning-rod to turn aside the just wrath of God. 
 Theirs is a weak faith, but a merciful Father 
 accepts it and gives heed to their prayer. 
 
 Dhere: is wa‘ dlarger, a<fuller meaning in 
 praying in the name of Jesus. When we come 
 to apprehend and appropriate this deeper, 
 richer meaning, then we can come with full 
 
PRAYER 251 
 
 assurance of faith, with faith that worketh 
 by love, with love that casteth out fear. Then 
 we come “with all confidence and cheerful- 
 ness, even as dear children come to a kind and 
 loving parent.” 
 
 When I appropriate the full meaning of 
 praying in His name, then I consciously real- 
 ize that my sin-bearer has become my advo- 
 cate with the Father; that He pleads for me; 
 that He makes my prayer His own prayer; 
 that when the Father hears Him, He hears 
 me; that my prayer is His; that to refuse me, 
 the Father must refuse His own well-beloved 
 Son. And so I come, sprinkled with the blood 
 of the New Covenant, that speaketh better 
 things than that of Abel, to Jesus, my one Me- 
 diator, who is always interceding for me. And 
 therefore my fervent prayers avail much. 
 What a privilege! What a heritage is mine! 
 
 Such prayers in Jesus’ name are also the 
 prayers of the Holy Spirit. Eph. 2. 18. “For 
 through him [Christ] we both have access 
 by one Spirit unto the Father.” Gal. 4. 6, 
 ‘“And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth 
 the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 
 Abbas sPather!’ +: Roms 8:26 ‘And in sike 
 manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; 
 for we know not how to pray as we ought; 
 
252 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for 
 us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” 
 
 Here, then, is my further confidence and 
 comfort: when I truly pray in the name of 
 Jesus, my prayers, though weak and imper- 
 fect on my side, are the prayers of the Holy 
 Spirit. With Christ He bears them to the 
 Throne of Grace. They cannot fail. 
 
 It goes without saying that when I thus 
 pray in Jesus’ name and in the Holy Spirit, I 
 cannot utter a selfish prayer. My prayer must 
 then bear all the aforenamed characteristics 
 of true, Scriptural worship. And as I grow in 
 holiness my prayers in Jesus’ name will come 
 more and more into harmony with the same 
 mind that was also in Christ Jesus. His will 
 becomes more and more my will. I am being 
 transtormed more and more into His image. 
 I follow more and more in His footsteps, and 
 as His earthly life was so largely a life of 
 prayer, as He ever had the upward look, as He 
 ever sought the things that are above, so my 
 eyes will be more and more toward heaven, 
 His home and my home. I will cultivate, live 
 and find joy in, the prayer-life. Though in the 
 world, my truest, inner self will not be of the 
 world. Diligent in, and true to, my earthly 
 calling, even though it be lowly, menial, la- 
 
PRAYER 253 
 
 borious, and wearisome, I will carry the 
 Spirit of Christ into it, and while I am serv- 
 ing my fellow man I will be serving the Lord. 
 Even in my working hours my soul will have 
 the upward look and will live in the spirit of 
 prayer. With the eyes of my soul ever toward 
 the Lord, I will be so in the spirit of prayer 
 that I can at any moment send up a silent pe- 
 tition, confession, or thanksgiving. Ready for 
 prayer, having the spirit of prayer, sending 
 up frequent, momentary prayers, I will be 
 living up to the not impossible injunctions of 
 Paul to “continue instant in prayer,” to “pray 
 without ceasing.” This is the prayer life. 
 This should be the ideal, the aim, the effort 
 of every Christian. This is growth in holi- 
 ness or sanctification. This prayer-life every 
 saint should be pressing forward to and striv- 
 ing after, day by day. ‘Thus can he more and 
 more let the same mind be in him that was 
 also in Christ Jesus. ‘Thus will he be leading 
 a life in which sin will be more and more 
 overcome and in which every Christian grace 
 and virtue will flourish. Thus will he be 
 learning day by day to serve his fellow men 
 and to serve the Lord with gladness. 
 Prayer-life is a blessed life. Great and 
 good men have always realized the need 
 
254 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 and the blessing of the practice of prayer. 
 Statesmen like Gustavus Adolphus, Glad- 
 stone, Washington, Lincoln, and others were 
 men of prayer. Soldiers like Havelock, 
 Stonewall Jackson, Howard, and Gordon 
 prayed during campaign and battle. Jacob, 
 David, Daniel, Peter and Paul knew the 
 blessing of prayer. Luther fought out the 
 battles of the Reformation first on his knees. 
 Wesley and Whitefield, Knox, Francke, 
 Muhlenberg, Moody, Passavant, and a host 
 of missionaries of whom the world was not 
 worthy lived the prayer-life. Why the pover- 
 ty of great leaders in the Church to-day? 
 May it not be because of the paucity of men 
 who are instant and mighty in prayer. What’s 
 wrong with our Christian colleges and semi- 
 naries? Why the deplorable lack of spiritu- 
 ality, consecration, and readiness to sacrifice 
 and to suffer for the cause of Christ? Is the 
 spirit of prayer fostered, appreciated, and ex- 
 perienced in the study rooms, the closets, and 
 class rooms, so that the students are made to 
 feel it and are moved to imitation? Oh the 
 blight of professionalism, dead orthodoxism, 
 and formalism in our churches and schools! 
 The lack of heart-power in pulpit and in 
 personal work! Our own Lutheran Church 
 
PRAYER 255 
 
 needs a revival of sound Pietism in heart, in 
 home, in church, and in school. In all of 
 these we need a reviving of the prayer-life. 
 God help us. 
 
 Again the question recurs: Are prayers 
 answered? And again we say: Not all 
 prayers, so called, are answered. Prayers 
 pressed out of impenitent and unbelieving 
 hearts are not answered. Cries of anguish in 
 moments of peril from unrenewed hearts are 
 not answered. Unbelievers cannot truly pray; 
 “How then shall they call on him in whom 
 they have not believed?” Rom. 10. 14. To 
 this we have referred heretofore. Mistaken 
 prayers, prayers based on unscriptural views, 
 are not heard. Selfish prayers have no 
 promise, some so-called prayers are an abom- 
 ination to the Lord. Wrong prayers raise 
 doubts and make skeptics. All this has been 
 shown above. 
 
 Right prayers, true prayers, prayers in har- 
 mony with God’s revealed will are always an- 
 swered. When I thus pray, God hears, God 
 heeds, God answers. 
 
 Not always in my way. He often knows 
 a better way. Like a good father who loves 
 his child and because of his deep love often 
 withholds what the child craves, so my all- 
 
256 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 wise, all-good, and loving heavenly Father 
 often withholds an earthly good that I crave 
 and cry for. But He hears my cry. He an- 
 swers me by giving me something better. 
 Recall Paul’s thorn in the flesh already re- 
 ferred 4to: 
 
 Not always in my time. An earthly father 
 often withholds what a son wants and pleads 
 to have now. But the father knows that it will 
 be better for the son to wait, perhaps many 
 years. He refuses not, but delays. God is 
 patient. He often delays. In His own good 
 time the answer comes. “The Lord is not 
 slack concerning His promise, as some men 
 count slackness.” 1 Pet. 3.9. Monica prayed 
 and waited for thirty years for the conver- 
 sion of Augustine, but while she prayed and 
 waited she labored with her wayward son in 
 God’s way and used God’s Means, and in 
 God’s time the answer came. Some true 
 prayers will be answered after the petitioner 
 has gone to heaven. Every true saint who 
 has learned to offer true prayer has experi- 
 enced remarkable answers to his prayers. 
 “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous 
 man availeth much.” “Lord, teach us to 
 
 pray.” 
 
PRAYER 257 
 
 We close this chapter on private, personal 
 prayer with a reproduction of 
 
 CHRISTIAN RULES OF PRAYER 
 Laid down by Matthesius: 
 
 “To true, Christian, and salutary prayer it 
 is requisite: 
 
 1. That a man lift up holy hands, accord- 
 ing to 2 Tim. 2, and offer his devotions with 
 a good conscience. God heareth not impeni- 
 tent sinners, John 9. 
 
 2. That a man pray in every time of trial 
 and need. The greater the need, the stronger 
 is our prayer. God encourages us to call 
 upon Him in the day of trouble. Psalm 50. 
 
 3. That a man pray, cry, and sigh from 
 out of the depths of his heart, without hypo- 
 crisy, anger, complaint, or doubt, even as 
 Moses prayed on the shores of the Red Sea. 
 Lip service, in which the heart participates 
 not, is a vain service. Mt. 15. 
 
 4. ‘That a man call upon the One true and 
 only God, as Christ teaches in John 16 and in 
 the Lord’s Prayer. 
 
 5. That a man plead the name, merit, 
 blood, death, and intercession of Christ for 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 17. 
 
258 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 help and the support of the Holy Ghost. 
 John 14. 
 
 6. That a man pray with all boldness as 
 Abraham prayed, Gen. 18; with a strong faith 
 like the centurion; without murmuring or 
 impatience, continuing instant in prayer, as 
 did the woman of Canaan; and with humili- 
 ty, as did Daniel, Chapter 9. 
 
 7. He that will thus pray needs first of 
 all to believe that he is reconciled to God 
 through His Son and must base his plea on 
 his baptism and on the blood of Christ, as 
 well as on God’s command and promise. He 
 must appropriate the promise of Christ, as 
 did all the praying saints; and how frequent- 
 ly God heard and helped them! 
 
 If prayer is to be rightly offered all these 
 things must be well observed and kept: 
 
 1. Holy hands and a good conscience. 
 A realizing sense of need. 
 
 A heart free from all hypocrisy. 
 
 Call upon the one, only, and true God. 
 Pray in the name of Jesus Christ. 
 Pray boldly. 
 
 Pray perseveringly. 
 
 ee eg ee 
 
 Always pray in faith. 
 
PRAYER 259 
 
 Such prayer makes our joy full; gives help, 
 comfort, and a sure defense against all devils 
 and evil men.” 
 
 “Lord, teach us how to pray aright, 
 With reverence and with fear: 
 Though dust and ashes in Thy sight, 
 We may, we must draw near. 
 
 Burdened with guilt, convinced of sin, 
 In weakness, want and woe, 
 
 Fightings without and fears within, 
 Lord, wither shall we go? 
 
 God of all Grace, we come to Thee 
 With broken, contrite hearts; 
 
 Give, what Thine eye delights to see, 
 Truth in the inward parts. 
 
 Give deep humility; the sense 
 Of goodly sorrow give; 
 
 A strong desire, with confidence, 
 To hear Thy voice and live. 
 
 Faith in the only Sacrifice 
 
 That can for sin atone; 
 
 To cast our hopes, to fix our eyes, 
 On Christ, on Christ alone: 
 
 Give these, and then thy will be done. 
 Thus strengthened with all might 
 We through Thy Spirit and Thy Son 
 Shall pray, and pray aright.” 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Public Worship in God’s House, and 
 Good Works As Aids in Sanctification 
 
 D URING six days in every week the average 
 ordinary man is breathing the atmos- 
 phere of an unfriendly world. In shop, in 
 store, in office, in field or factory, in section 
 gang, in yards, in boat or train crew, he is ina 
 more or less godless environment. His con- 
 tacts, his companions, his fellows, his bcsses, 
 his customers are mainly of the earth, earthy. 
 What he hears and sees is rarely uplifting. 
 Sin, selfishness, sordidness, vileness, and pro- 
 fanity touch him at every turn. The tendency 
 of all this is to defile him, to harden him, to 
 drag him down. The influence, the tendency, 
 the temptation is to live as if there were no 
 God and no hereafter and as if he had no soul. 
 He is in constant danger of becoming low, sor- 
 did, brutish. His soul inclines to become dis- 
 contented, restless, rebellious. He feels that 
 he needs change, diversion, stimulant, excite- 
 
 260 
 
AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 261 
 
 ment, anything to make him forget himself, 
 his lot, his unsatisfied soul. The door is open 
 for divers temptations. The world, the flesh, 
 and the devil combine to destroy him. The 
 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
 pride of life are ready to allure and ensnare 
 him. Evil comrades tempt him. They know 
 the power of evil lust. They know how and 
 where to get momentary gratification. They 
 offer the Lethean draft of oblivion to sorrow. 
 Who can measure the temptations of the 
 ordinary, every-day man? Does he not need 
 our sympathy and help? Yet in it all the 
 true Christian can remain true. 
 
 The domestic, home woman is not exposed 
 to these temptations as much as is the man. 
 Perhaps this accounts, in part, for the fact 
 that woman is less inclined to be irreligious. 
 But the working woman, especially if she 
 works in a group, will encounter much of 
 man’s environment and its temptations. 
 
 God knows all this. God is compassionate 
 and full of mercy. He knows man’s frame. 
 He remembers that he is dust. He provides 
 alleviations, comforts, and helps for those 
 whose life would otherwise be so drab, so sad, 
 s0 monotonous, and so lonely. 
 
 He rescued and preserved for man two 
 
262 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 blessed institutions from Paradise. One is the 
 family. Where the family, the home, is what 
 God wants it to be, where there is a church 
 in the house, it is a blessed refuge, a rest, a 
 comfort, a social joy to the weary worker. It 
 is a safeguard against temptation, a divine 
 agency to promote sanctification. 
 
 The other remnant from Eden is the Lord’s 
 Day. What would the world be without it? 
 Think of the grinding monotony of life, un- 
 varied, unbroken, one continuous treadmill of 
 toil, from sun to sun, from moon to moon, 
 from birth till death, without God and with- 
 out hope. We shudder to think of it! 
 
 But God is good. From man’s creation, be- 
 fore and after the Fall, He provided a blessed 
 break and change. He made it frequent. He 
 ordained that one day out of every seven 
 should be for every man’s bodily rest and spir- 
 itual refreshment. On one day a week toil 
 should cease, the tools be laid by, the plow 
 stand still, the factory be silent, store and of- 
 fice, bank and school be closed, so that all 
 might have a change, a blessed break, a re- 
 freshing rest. Once a week, clean clothes on 
 a clean body for a day cleaned of the world’s 
 worry and work. 
 
AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 263 
 
 For this blessed day God has provided spe- 
 cial joys, higher joys for man’s higher nature. 
 While man’s body rests, his soul is to have fel- 
 lowship and communion with God, with His 
 saints and angels. 
 
 From the beginning men who were true to 
 their own higher nature and true to their God 
 had their altars for worship and sacrifice. 
 Before God brought His people into their 
 own land He showed them how to build a 
 tabernacle, which afterwards became a tem- 
 ple, a permanent place to worship God and 
 to be lifted up and blest. God provided forms 
 and times for worship. Special convocations 
 and services were provided for their Sab- 
 baths, which were high days for the great con- 
 gregations. 
 
 Altar and tabernacle and temple forshad- 
 owed and typified the Church of Christ. 
 From the first Easter forward the followers 
 of Christ met together for worship on the first 
 day of the week. At first they met in syna- 
 gogues, in private houses, and often out of 
 doors. Later, on account of persecution, they 
 met in secret places, often in the dead of night. 
 Always they were in the spirit on the Lord’s 
 Day. Always mindful of the divine injunc- 
 tion, ‘Not forsaking the assembling of your- 
 
264 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 selves together, as the manner of some is.” 
 Always “speaking one to another in psalms 
 and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and 
 making melody with their heart to the Lord.” 
 Eph. 5. 19. Always “teaching and admon- 
 ishing one another in psalms and hymns and 
 spiritual songs, singing with grace in their 
 hearts to the Lord.” Always, when a con- 
 gregation was assembled, the apostles fol- 
 lowed the example of Christ, preached to the 
 people and prayed with them. For two cen- 
 turies after the apostles groups of Christians 
 met and worshiped together in secret places. 
 Not until persecution ceased and Constantine 
 proclaimed tolerance for Christians, were 
 Churches built and worship made free to all. 
 But throughout the apostolic days and the 
 centuries of persecution, congregational wor- 
 ship was regarded as a blessed privilege, pro- 
 motive of growth in grace and in the knowl- 
 edge of Jesus Christ. 
 
 To us the Lord’s Day always comes with 
 the open church door, the Means of Grace 
 and the hope of glory. In the congregation in 
 which the whole, full Gospel is preached in 
 its truth and purity, and in which the sacra- 
 ments are administered in conformity to 
 Christ’s institution, where God is worshiped 
 
AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 265 
 
 in spirit and in truth, there Christ meets with 
 those who trust and love Him. There the 
 world, with its distractions, its sin and its 
 selfishness, its worry and its work, is shut out. 
 There we are gathered in His name. There 
 we sit together in heavenly places. There our 
 windows are open toward the new Jerusalem, 
 and we are at the gate of heaven. There we 
 unload our sins on our Sinbearer. There we 
 are in the Communion of Saints, offer the 
 prayers of the saints, sing the songs of Zion, 
 hear anew the wonderful words of life, and 
 partake of the sacraments of Christ. We real- 
 ize that it is good to be there. From the heart 
 we say, “A day in thy courts is better than a 
 thousand.” 
 
 From every such service we go home edi- 
 fied, lifted up, refreshed, and strengthened. 
 After such a service we can go forth again 
 on Monday, rested and refreshed in body, 
 with a song in the soul, with new heart and 
 new hope, to take up anew the daily burden, 
 to face afresh the old foe, to meet again the 
 old temptations, and to say, “None of these 
 things move me.” ‘Nay in all these things 
 we are more than conquerors through him 
 that loved us.” Going to God’s House has 
 made us better, stronger, and happier. It has 
 
266 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 furthered our growth in holiness. We are ad- 
 vancing in the way of sanctification. 
 
 We close this long discussion on sanctifica- 
 tion with a few matter-of-fact and self-evi- 
 dent suggestions on good works or personal 
 service as related to growth in holiness. 
 
 The Christian who is such by conviction 
 and experience, who is daily tasting and see- 
 ing that the Lord is good, will want to serve 
 Him by serving those whom his Lord re- 
 deemed. He will serve the Lord with glad- 
 ness. He will be happy in proportion as he can 
 imitate his Master in going about and doing 
 good. He will want to help to make the world 
 better and happier. Wherever he can find 
 need, sorrow, suffering, there he will minister 
 in His Name. Neglected childhood, endan- 
 gered youth, lonely shut-ins, and solitary old 
 age will all enlist loving sympathy and kind- 
 ly Christlike ministration. He will be soli- 
 citous and active in community betterment 
 and social uplift. Not like that doubtful 
 character, that worldly, selfish, unmoral, 
 heathenish woman who wanted to uplift 
 “Main Street.” Not like a sour-faced, joy- 
 killing Puritan, repelling humans in endeav- 
 oring to make men righteous by law. Rather, 
 
AIDS IN SANCTIFICATION 267 
 
 like Christ, fairer than the sons of men, His 
 face radiating love, with blessing in His 
 heart, blessing on His lips, and blessing in 
 His hands. So will the Christian social service 
 worker do good unto all men, “Especially un- 
 to them who are of the household of faith.” 
 All such blessed service is true Inner Mission 
 Work. Its motive always is: ‘The love of 
 Christ constraineth us.” 2 Cor. 5. 14. Such 
 good works, done not that by doing them I 
 may merit salvation, but as expressions of 
 gratitude because I have been saved; done 
 not because I must, but because I want to, be- 
 cause I love to do them, am happiest when 
 I am doing them. Such works are well pleas- 
 ing to God. God notes them, God owns them, 
 God rewards them; but His rewards are not 
 rewards of merit, but of Grace. 
 
 By doing such good works—‘not by con- 
 straint, but willingly” — the Christian gives 
 expression to the impressions made on his soul 
 by the Holy Spirit. As bodily exercise pro- 
 motes the body’s health, so these good works 
 are spiritual exercises that promote soul- 
 health. The Christian grows stronger by do- 
 ing such works of love. They have an im- 
 portant place in the way of sanctification. 
 
268 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 O Thou best Gift of Heaven! 
 Thou who Thyself hast given, 
 For Thou hast died! 
 This hast Thou done for me: 
 What have I done for Thee, 
 
 Thou Crucified? 
 
 I long to serve Thee more; 
 
 Reveal an open door, 
 Saviour, to me. 
 
 Then counting all but loss, 
 
 I'll glory in Thy cross 
 And follow Thee. 
 
 Do Thou but point the way 
 And give me strength to obey; 
 Thy will be mine. 
 Then can I count it joy 
 To suffer or to die 
 Since Thou are mine. 
 
Ae eV 
 THE PAST THINGS 
 

 
CHAPTER XVI 
 The Last Things—Death 
 
 HE Christian’s bodily life is limited by 
 
 his short and uncertain earthly ex- 
 istence. The teachings and beliefs of his re- 
 ligion, however, are not for this life only. 
 Dogmatics does not end when it has set forth, 
 in systematic order, what the child of God 
 ought to know, what he ought to believe, and 
 what he ought to be during his earthly pil- 
 grimage. Death does not end all. The grave 
 is not life’s goal. ‘‘‘Dust thou art, to dust re- 
 turnest’, was not spoken of the soul.” The 
 Christian religion has the larger vision. It 
 looks beyond the grave. It throws back the 
 curtain that hides the future life from the 
 natural eye. There are realities on the other 
 side. 
 
 As we have seen, the poor heathen has a 
 dim consciousness of some kind of an exis- 
 tence beyond the grave. The “law written 
 in their hearts” tells him that the life that he 
 now lives conditions the life in the world to 
 
 271 
 
272 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 come. But his intimations and premonitions 
 are, at best, vague, dark, and gloomy. 
 
 God’s Word is not so. It is positive and 
 clear on the great facts of the future. We 
 may not be able to understand, much less to 
 dogmatize on, all the details of unfulfilled 
 prophecy. Many have tried and are trying 
 to do so. In their futile attempts they often 
 darken counsel with words, lose themselves, 
 and confuse their hearers and readers with 
 vain speculations. 
 
 The writer of this is writing for the com- 
 mon man. He is not going to enter into doubt- 
 ful details or confusing speculations. He does 
 not claim to be a specialist on the Last Things. 
 He desires only to set forth what he believes 
 to be the clearly revealed and outstanding 
 facts and truths that the ordinary, every-day, 
 Bible Christian ought to know for his own 
 comfort and hope. At the end of this life 
 comes 
 
 Death. 
 
 We all know what death is. For thousands 
 of years men, women, and children have been 
 dying. There are vastly more human bodies 
 under the earth than on its surface. In spite 
 of all this age-long experience of the human 
 
LAST THINGS 273 
 
 race, we somehow never get used to death. 
 The news of the passing of a neighbor, of a 
 friend, or some noted one, always startles us. 
 We do not like death. The very thought of 
 giving up this life is unwelcome, “Skin for 
 skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for 
 his life.’ Job. 2. 4. Every one who is not 
 a new creature in Christ Jesus, through fear 
 of death, is all his lifetime subject to bondage. 
 Heb. 2. 15. To him death is the king of ter- 
 rors. 
 
 Even the Christian realizes that death is a 
 discord. It does not belong to perfect human 
 existence. As long as Adam was sinless he 
 was deathless. If he had never sinned, he 
 would never have died. By sin came death. 
 It is the wages of sin. Sin is its sting. It is 
 an enemy. ‘The last enemy that shall be de- 
 stroyed is death.” In the new Jerusalem there 
 will be no sin and therefore “there shall be 
 no more death.” 
 
 The normal Christian wants to live as long 
 as it is God’s will and as long as he can serve 
 God and his neighbor here. But he is ready 
 to depart whenever God may call. He may 
 pray for longer life, but he says, “Thy will 
 be done.” In a remarkably human passage, 
 Paul, after having expressed a desire to 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 18, 
 
274 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 depart and to be with Christ, says, Phil. 1. 
 24-26, “Nevertheless to abide in the flesh 
 is more needful for you. And having this 
 confidence, I know that I shall abide and con- 
 tinue with you all for your furtherance and 
 joy of faith.” 
 
 This passage also clearly shows that Paul 
 believed in the immortality of the soul. To 
 depart was to be with Christ which is far bet- 
 ter, verse 23. The soul is by nature immortal. 
 The original soul was inbreathed by God. 
 “The breath of the Almighty hath given me 
 life.” As imparted by God, in a mysterious 
 sense, a part of God, the soul cannot die. The 
 soul cannot fully develop all its capacities and 
 powers in this short, sin-cramped life. It 
 needs an eternity in that home of the soul. 
 Here it is often stung and hurt and misrep- 
 resented and made to suffer. It needs a life 
 where its wrongs will be righted and its high- 
 est peace enjoyed. Doubtless for some such 
 reasons the thoughtful heathen have an intui- 
 tive belief that the soul cannot die. 
 
 The whole Bible teaches the immortality of 
 the soul. The teaching is not so clear in the 
 Old Testament; but there are intimations, 
 longings, and expressions that become more 
 
LAST THINGS 275 
 
 and more clear. Jesus quotes the passage, 
 “J am the God of Jacob,” as proving that 
 these patriarchs were still living, Mt. 22. 32. 
 In Lk. 20. 35, 36 Jesus says of those who “shall 
 be accounted worthy to obtain that world to 
 come and the resurrection from the dead,” 
 that they can not “die any more, for they are 
 equal unto the angels.” In John 3. 16 He says 
 believers “have everlasting life”; in Jn. 6. 58, 
 “He that eateth of this bread shall live for- 
 ever”: and in Jn. 11. 25, “He that believeth in 
 me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” 
 Heb. 12. 23, refers to “the spirits of just men 
 made perfect.” So the poor Lazarus died and 
 was “carried by the angels into Abraham’s 
 bosom.” The soul of Dives was “in torments,” 
 but could see, hear, taste, and remember. To 
 the dying thief Jesus said: ‘To-day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise.” In addition 
 to what we quoted from Paul in Philippians, 
 we note his expression in 2 Cor. 5. 8, “We are 
 confident, I say, and willing rather to be ab- 
 sent from the body, and to be present with 
 the Lord.” We might quote many more pas- 
 sages, but these will suffice. Russellites, who 
 call themselves “Bible students,” but really 
 are Bible perverters, denying the very Lord 
 who bought them, and other heretics may lec- 
 
276 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 ture and tell you that the soul is not immortal, 
 or that the soul is unconscious in sleep after 
 death. They are among the false prophets 
 that Christ predicted and against whom Paul 
 warned. Belief in immortality is clearly 
 Scriptural and therefore fundamental. 
 
 There has been. much unprofitable and con- 
 fusing speculation as to the place and condi- 
 tion of souls between death and the resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 We shall not here enter into a discussion of 
 the Intermediate State. From the passages 
 quoted above we know that the departed souls 
 of the righteous are with Christ, in His “many 
 mansions,’ “in Paradise,” and are blessed. 
 More will be said when we come to discuss 
 Eternal Life, or Heaven. 
 
 For the present also it is enough to know 
 that the souls of the wicked are separated, 
 shut out from God and the good, are in tor- 
 ment, in anguish of mind and soul. More of 
 this under the topic Eternal Death, or Hell. 
 
 Just an assuring word here to help quiet 
 the perplexed minds that trouble themselves 
 unnecessarily with that old question that will 
 not down: What will become of the heathen 
 who never had an opportunity to hear the 
 Gospel? 
 
LAST THINGS By 
 
 Before we attempt an answer let us affirm 
 and reaffirm our unshaken conviction: 
 
 1. That no soul ever was, or ever can be, 
 saved without reference to, and relation 
 with, the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 2. That no one ever did, or ever can, go to 
 heaven who has not been born again by 
 the Holy Spirit. These fundamental 
 convictions must abide. 
 
 3. It is our present conviction that there is 
 no sure, clear Scriptural ground for a 
 belief in probation after death. On this 
 basis the heathen also, if saved, must be 
 saved before they die. 
 
 4. Now, if those heathen who “do by na- 
 ture the things contained in the law” are 
 thus “a law unto themselves,” ‘which 
 show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing wit- 
 ness, and their thoughts one with an- 
 other accusing or else excusing them”; 
 if they are thus “feeling after God if hap- 
 ly they might find him” (see Rom. 2. 
 14-16 and Acts 17. 27) ; if by the bloody 
 sacrifices they offer, they are seeking an 
 atonement for sin; may not God, on the 
 
278 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 basis of this, reveal to them some sav- 
 ing glimpse of the atonement of Christ? 
 And when they realize that in them- 
 selves they are not well-pleasing to God, 
 may not the Holy Spirit, on the basis 
 of such a feeling of need and guilt, such 
 a longing for an acceptable righteous- 
 ness, reveal to them enough of the way 
 of life from above and thus “save them 
 as by fire.” 
 
 We do know that it is not God’s will that 
 anyone should perish, but that all should 
 come to life; and to that good and gracious 
 will of God we leave the salvation of the 
 heathen. The Judge of all the earth will do 
 right. Our greater concern is whether we 
 are doing what God expects of us in sending 
 the precious Gospel to those who are still liv- 
 ing in the dark places of the earth, that are 
 full of the habitation of cruelty. 
 
 While the Christian who dies in the Lord 
 is saved, and enters at once into a state and 
 condition of bliss with Christ in heaven, and 
 while his happiness is the perfect happiness 
 of a disembodied spirit, he is still waiting for 
 the resurrection of his body and the final 
 Judgment. These great events will be brought 
 in by Christ at His Second Advent. 
 
LAST THINGS 279 
 
 Before we consider that Second Advent or 
 Coming of Christ we need to study and ex- 
 amine what the Word teaches as to the times 
 preceding that final coming. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The Last Times 
 
 HERE are those who believe that the 
 
 world will grow better and ever better; 
 that civilization, education, culture, discovery, 
 invention, science, and art will all advance 
 and will have such a humanizing and ame- 
 liorating influence that humanity will ever 
 grow broader, better, and happier. Physical 
 evils, like poverty, disease, and suffering will 
 be gradually eliminated. Violence and crime 
 will become more and more rare. Good laws 
 will make good rulers and good subjects. 
 Nations and their peoples will learn that un- 
 selfishness is the best policy and that national 
 altruism, community altruism, and individual 
 altruism will pay the highest dividends. Then 
 nations will no more make war on each other, 
 and individuals will no longer exploit and 
 wrong one another. ‘This will be the millen- 
 nium of human achievement. Recognition 
 of the fatherhood of God and of the brother- 
 hood of man will make all men and all con- 
 ditions new. The Kingdom of God will be 
 
 280 
 
LAST TIMES 281 
 
 here. Earth will be heaven. Man will 
 neither believe in nor want any other heaven. 
 
 These are the ideas of modern, idealistic 
 evolutionists and sociologists. They leave 
 God and Revelation out of the question and 
 spin their theories out of their own brains. 
 They unsettle many weak Christians. They 
 cannot be classed among the good and sincere 
 students of God’s Word. ‘They need no word 
 but their own. How they harmonize the 
 course of humanity thus far, especially its 
 brutish conduct, by no means confined to one 
 side, in the late, great, disgraceful war, with 
 their ethereal theories, they have not yet told 
 us. Either the vaunted kingdom of man has 
 not yet come, or history brands it as an in- 
 creasing abomination of desolation! 
 
 Other students and teachers, who do not 
 want to leave God out of their calculations, 
 try to make themselves believe that the work 
 and influence of the Church in teaching and 
 preaching the Gospel, in pushing her great 
 missionary work at home and abroad, will 
 gradually make the world so good that when 
 Christ comes the world will be as fit and ready 
 to welcome Him, as a bride adorned wel- 
 comes her husband. This would certainly be 
 a consummation devoutly to be wished— 
 
282 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 if only it were true. The course of the world 
 thus far certainly does not favor such pleasant 
 optimism. Less than one-third of humanity 
 has been even evangelized, much less con- 
 verted. In our own favored land, which we 
 like to call a Christian land, two adults are 
 outside of the Church for every one who is 
 at least professedly inside. And who will 
 count the tares among the wheat? 
 
 What saith the Scripturer “To the law 
 and to the testimony: if they speak not accord- 
 ing to this word there is no light in them,” 
 Is. 8. 20. At the first Christian Council or 
 Synod ever held, when the apostles and elders 
 met together in Jerusalem, James, “the broth- 
 er of our Lord,” the head of the Church of 
 Jerusalem, who, it seems, presided over that 
 Council, after others had spoken, said: 
 ‘Brethren, hearken unto me: Simon hath de- 
 clared how God at the first did visit the Gen- 
 tiles, to take out of them a people for his 
 name.” Acts 15. 13, 14. For what purpose 
 did God visit the Gentiles? Was it to win 
 all for Christ, to convert them all? James 
 does not say so. ‘“I’o take out of them a peo- 
 ple for his name.” What James said, includ- 
 ing these words, pleased the apostles and el- 
 ders. No one questioned or corrected his 
 
LAST TIMES 283 
 
 words. That Council, so shortly after 
 Christ’s ascension and Pentecost, a more 
 nearly inspired Council than any that has 
 been held since, accepted the saying that 
 God visited the Gentiles in order to take 
 out a people for Himself. ‘True, salvation 
 was to be offered to all, but many would 
 reject “the counsel of God against them- 
 selves.” Others would accept. These latter 
 were to be the people taken out for Christ. 
 So it was then; so has it been ever since; so 
 will it be till Christ comes again. Where is 
 the promise that the world will gradually 
 be converted to Christ? What is the consen- 
 sus of the predictions that clearly refer to the 
 last times? 
 
 To say nothing of the wars and rumors of 
 wars, of the famines, the pestilence, the per- 
 secutions of the righteous, the arising of false 
 prophets, the increasing skepticism, the fall- 
 ing away and the waxing cold of the love of 
 many, the unwillingness to endure sound doc- 
 trine, the clamor of itching ears that want 
 teachers after their own lusts, who will turn 
 away their ears from the truth and will turn 
 aside unto fables — do these Scripture expres- 
 sions point to a millennium of righteousness 
 preceding Christ’s coming? And what shall 
 
284 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 we say of the present-day credulity, the strange 
 infatuations for such damnable heresies as 
 Dowieism, Spiritualism, Russellism, Eddy- 
 ism, Adventism, Mormonism, and what not? 
 Their false prophets are preparing the world 
 for the terrible times that shall come. We 
 are shocked with the frightful increase of vice 
 and crime. Every lewd person, every selfish 
 grafter, profiteer, cheat, and oppressor of the 
 poor, can banish fear and draw comfort from 
 Russellism and of other modern isms. The 
 world is ripening for Judgment. To us, who 
 believe, all this means the approaching of the 
 end. To us Christ says: ‘But when these 
 things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift 
 up your heads; because your redemption 
 draweth nigh.” Lk. 21. 28. 
 
 We must not close this section without at 
 least a brief reference to Antichrist, or rather 
 to Antichristianity. It is a difficult subject. 
 The writer of this acknowledges that he is not 
 ready to dogmatize on it. Christ prophesied 
 that false Christs and false prophets would 
 arise. In Mt. 24. 23, 24 He says: “Then if 
 any shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or 
 there; believe it not. For there shall arise 
 false Christs, and false prophets, and shall 
 show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, 
 
LAST TIMES 285 
 
 if it were possible, they shall deceive the very 
 elect.” Of the coming of the “lawless one” 
 Paul says, 2 Th. 2. 9, “Whose coming is ac- 
 cording to the working of Satan with all pow- 
 er and signs and lying wonders.” In verses 
 3, 7, and 8 of the same chapter he says: “Let 
 no man deceive you by any means; for that 
 day shall not come, except there come a fall- 
 ing away first, and that man of sin be revealed, 
 the son of perdition . . . For the mystery of 
 iniquity doth already work; only there is one 
 that restraineth now, until he be taken out 
 of the way. And then that wicked one shall 
 be revealed, the lawless one, whom the Lord 
 Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, 
 and shall bring to nought by the manifesta- 
 tion of his coming.” Read all the twelve 
 verses of chapter two. John says in his first 
 Epistle, chapter 2, verses 18 and 22: “And 
 as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even 
 now have there arisen many antichrists; 
 whereby we know that it is the last hour... 
 This is the antichrist, even he that denieth 
 the Father and the Son.” Also chapter 4. 3, 
 “Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is 
 not of God; and this is the spirit of the 
 antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it 
 cometh; and now it is in the world already.” 
 
286 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 We leave out the many and more difficult 
 passages often quoted from Daniel and from 
 Revelation. From what we have quoted it 
 seems to be clear that from the days of the 
 apostles there have been many Antichrists. It 
 also seems probable that as the end approaches 
 they will become ever more bold in their soul- 
 destroying heresies and blasphemies. They 
 will not confess the God-man, Christ Jesus, 
 incarnate and sacrificed for the sin of the 
 world. 
 
 In this light examine again Russellism, 
 which makes a mere creature out of Christ 
 and denies His literal rising from the dead; 
 Christian Science, which denies the reality of 
 the incarnation, will not confess that God was 
 manifested in Christ and died for sin-laden 
 humanity; Mormonism with its gross, repul- 
 sive, and blasphemous caricature of the per- 
 son of Christ; Spiritualism and all the other 
 isms that deny the sinfulness and damnableness 
 of sin and the need of a vicarious atonement 
 by one who is God and man in one person. 
 All such are antichristian. All such are soul- 
 destroying, damnable heresies, delusions of the 
 devil. Many sincere searchers of the Scrip- 
 tures believe that all such dangerous and 
 devilish systems will finally merge or unite 
 
LAST TIMES 287 
 
 under the personal leader and head, and that 
 this head will be the Beast, the final and su- 
 preme False Prophet, the personal Antichrist. 
 On this also we cannot dogmatize. 
 
 Surely, in these perilous days of the Last 
 Times an indifferent, careless, convictionless, 
 and creedless Church will never be able to 
 stand against the destructive forces of the wiles 
 of the devil. Neither will a Church that may 
 be sound, orthodox, and Biblical in belief and 
 teaching, but that is cold, worldly, careless, 
 and prayerless in heart and life be able to 
 survive the times when the very elect will 
 be in danger of becoming castaways. Only 
 the Churches whose ministers and members 
 are on fire with the love of Christ and of souls, 
 who are ready to dare, to do, to serve, to sac- 
 rifice, to suffer and to die for Him who loved 
 them and gave Himself for them, can be fit, 
 able, efficient and sufficient to take out a 
 people for the Lord, a people who will be 
 saved as by fire. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 The Second Coming of Christ 
 
 HE last dark days will end. For the 
 
 elects’ sake they will be shortened. The 
 perilous times, with their sorrows and calami- 
 ties, their apostasies and persecutions and 
 great tribulations, will come to a close. When 
 calamity and cruelty, gayety and carousing, 
 bitterness and persecution against Christ and 
 His faithful ones are at their height, when 
 Antichrist will be sounding out his great, 
 swelling words of defiance against the Lord 
 and His Anointed, then, suddenly, Christ will 
 come again. Assurely as every promise 
 of His first coming was literally fulfilled, so 
 surely will every prophecy of His Second 
 Coming be literally fulfilled. As surely and 
 as really as He came the first time for salva- 
 tion, so surely will He come the second time 
 for judgment. If there is to be no real, literal, 
 and visible coming again of our Lord and 
 Saviour, then our Bible is a book of confusion, 
 a tangle of uncertainties, a labyrinth, a blind 
 
 288 
 
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 289 
 
 alley, leading nowhere. Then there is no 
 world-plan, no world-consummation. But 
 we are persuaded that there is “one sure 
 divine event to which the whole creation 
 moves.” | 
 
 One-thirtieth part of our New Testament 
 relates to the final consummation. 
 
 The last great Mount Olive address, 
 delivered by Christ to His disciples, after 
 Palm Sunday and before His suffering, is 
 full of expressions that the destruction of 
 Jerusalem can never and did never fulfill. 
 No one during that tragic event saw the 
 Son of Man “coming in a cloud with power 
 and great glory.” ‘That graphic picture of 
 the judgment scene in Mt. 25. 31-46 certainly 
 has no reference to Jerusalem’s destruction. 
 When Jesus was on the witness stand, on 
 trial for His life, when the high priest 
 “adjured” Him, 1. e., made Him take the oath 
 and swear that He would tell the truth, He 
 said: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man 
 sitting on the right hand of power, and coming 
 in the clouds of heaven.” 
 
 At His ascension, when He had disappeared 
 in a cloud, “while they looked stedfastly to- 
 ward heaven as he went up, behold, two men 
 
 stood by them in white apparel; which also 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 19. 
 
290 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing 
 up into heavenr this same Jesus, which is 
 taken up from you into heaven, shall so come 
 in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
 heaven,” Acts 1.10, 11> see alsovle [his aks: 
 ‘‘At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with 
 all his saints”; and 1 Th. 4. 16, “For the Lord 
 himself shall descend from heaven with a 
 shout, with the voice of the archangel and 
 with the trump of God.” We might quote 
 many more passages to prove the certainty, 
 the visibility, and the majesty of His coming, 
 but for every sincere believer in the Word 
 these will suffice. 
 
 The two events that will take place when 
 He thus comes again are, first, the resurrec- 
 tion of those who had died in Christ; and 
 second, the transformation and translating of 
 the living saints. Of the former event we 
 shall speak more fully when we come to treat 
 of the Resurrection. 
 
 Millions will be living when He comes: 
 “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We all shall 
 not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
 last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and 
 the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
 we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15.51, 52. Also 
 
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 291 
 
 1 Th. 4. 15, “For this we say unto you by the 
 word of the Lord, that we which are alive and 
 remain unto the coming of the Lord shall 
 not precede them which are asleep.” In 2 
 Cor. 5. 1, 2, and 3, this change that takes place 
 in those who are thus translated is called being 
 “clothed upon.” Our body is called “our 
 earthly house of this tabernacle.”’ ‘The risen 
 or translated body is called: ‘“‘a building of 
 God, a house not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens.” ‘he Corinthian Christians were 
 said to groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
 upon with their house, which is from heaven, 
 1. €., with their new, transformed or changed 
 bodies. 
 
 At that coming of the Lord, when living 
 saints shall be caught up to meet the Lord in 
 the air, shall be fulfilled what the Lord said 
 in Lk. 17. 34-36, ‘““There shall be two men in 
 one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other 
 shall be left. ‘Iwo women shall be grinding 
 together; the one shall be taken, and the other 
 left. Two men shall be in the field, the one 
 shall be taken, and the other left.” See also 
 { Th. 4. 17, “Then we which are alive and 
 remain shall be caught up together with them 
 in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” 
 And so millions of saints then living will never 
 
292 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 die, but all will be changed, all will be clothed 
 upon with new, immortal bodies like unto 
 Christ’s own glorious body. 
 
 We cannot close this brief discussion of the 
 Second Coming of Christ without some ref- 
 erence to the much disputed and variously in- 
 terpreted subject of the Millennium. The 
 very fact that so much has been written on 
 it and that it has been so widely discussed 
 certainly seems to show that it occupies a real 
 and an important place in the teaching and 
 study of the Last Things. 
 
 Theologians and writers who have treated 
 on the Millennium may be divided into two 
 general classes. Adherents of one class are 
 / called postmillenarians. They believe and 
 teach that, through the wide-spread use of the 
 present day means and agencies, the world 
 will become ever better and better so that be- 
 fore Christ comes again there will be a mil- 
 lennial period in which godliness shall so 
 prosper that righteousness shall cover the 
 earth even as the waters cover the sea. Then, 
 after this blessed period, Christ shall come and 
 find a world prepared to welcome Him. 
 These are the postmillenarians. “‘Post” means 
 after. Christ will come after this dreamed 
 of and imagined millennium is in progress. 
 
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 293 
 
 Adherents of the second class are called 
 premillenarians. They believe and _ teach 
 that there will be no millennium of righteous- 
 ness before Christ comes, but that by His com- 
 ing and its attending acts He will usher in 
 a new dispensation which we call a millen- 
 nium, or a triumphant reign of Christ. 
 
 Believers in a millennium have also been 
 called chiliasts. Some of these have been 
 called gross chiliasts, because they conceive 
 a millennium so gross in its charcter that it 
 would seem to be a carnal, earthly kingdom 
 suited to men in the flesh. Such gross chili- 
 asts were the Anabaptists in the days of the 
 Reformation. Melanchthon informs us that 
 it was against these that the seventeenth Ar- 
 ticle of the Augsburg Confession was directed. 
 That Article reads: “They also condemn 
 others who spread Jewish opinions, that, be- 
 fore the resurrection of the dead, the godly 
 shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the 
 wicked being everywhere suppressed.” Let 
 it be carefully noted, this Article does not con- 
 demn all chiliasm. It does condemn a certain 
 gross kind. It condemns those who spread 
 Jewish opinions; who teach that the godly 
 shall occupy the kingdom of the world before 
 the resurrection of the dead, 1. e., before 
 
294 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 Christ comes again. It is directed not against 
 premillenarians, but against postmillenarians. 
 Will there be a millennium after Christ 
 comes? What is the consensus of the teach- 
 ing of the Word? The writer of this does 
 not claim to be a specialist in the interpreta- 
 tion of prophecy. He believes that now we 
 can only see “as ‘through a glass, darkly, but 
 then face to face”; that “now I know in part; 
 but then shall I know even as also I am 
 known.” The writer will not dogmatize. 
 Some time we'll understand. Will the in- 
 terested reader kindly look up and read these 
 passages. They would require too much space 
 to copy here. Is. 33. 20-24, and 62. 1-7, and 
 65. 19-25. Dan. 7. 13, 14,27. Zech. 8. 20-23 
 andil4°-20 421% AlsosMte26im29 iki 22 as 
 30; Acts 3: 20, 21 and especially Revela- 
 tions, chapter 20, which is the most direct and 
 graphic of all. These prophecies certainly 
 have not yet been fulfilled. They will be. 
 According to Lutheran rules of interpreta- 
 tion, what do they mean? Let him that read- 
 eth understand. 
 We close with these reflections: 
 1. The view of Luther and of the older 
 Lutheran dogmaticians that the millen- 
 
SECOND COMING OF CHRIST 295 
 
 nium is past is untenable. There has 
 been no millennial period. 
 
 2. The view that there will be a millen- 
 nium before Christ comes again is un- 
 tenable. As we have seen in our study 
 of the times preceding His coming, the 
 plain teaching of Scripture is against it. 
 So is the Augsburg Confession. 
 
 3. Those who believe in the canonicity 
 and inspiration of the Book of Revela- 
 tion dare not wipe out or belittle Chap- 
 fer XX) 
 
 4. Those who are prejudiced against Pre- 
 millenarianism need to guard against 
 doing violence to the Lutheran prin- 
 ciples of Hermeneutics or interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
 5. Many recognized, sound Lutheran 
 theologians have believed and taught 
 that there will be a millennium brought 
 in by Christ at His coming. 
 
 Remembering that with the Lord one day 
 
 is as a thousand years and a thousand years 
 as one day, these theologians do not insist that 
 the millennium will endure for exactly a 
 thousand natural years. A thousand years 
 may mean an indefinite period. Neither 
 
296 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 do they deem it necessary to explain every 
 detail of the character of that period. 
 
 Among theologians who are premillena- 
 rians, we name: Bengel, Auberlen, Frank, 
 Von Hofmann, Luthardt, Bring, Fijellstedt, 
 Weidner, Lindberg and the late sainted Dr. J. 
 N. Kildahl. We like the view of Grttan Guin- 
 ness, who is not a Lutheran yet a devout stu- 
 dent of prophecy. Dr. Lindberg quotes him as 
 saying: “He who had previously come for 
 His people, now comes with them; not that 
 there are two future comings of Christ, but 
 only one. That coming, however, has not 
 only two aspects but two stages ... While 
 therefore we see no authority for making 
 chronological distinctions between separate 
 stages of the one Advent, we see, on the other 
 hand, abundant reason in Scripture to believe 
 that the millennial reign of Christ will not 
 be fully established ina day ora year. It must 
 be remembered that He comes not peacefully 
 to ascend a vacant and waiting throne, wel- 
 comed by a willing people, but to dispossess a 
 mighty usurper and to overthrow a great re- 
 bellion, to right the accumulated wrongs of 
 ages.” 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Resurrection 
 
 ¢¢ 
 
 HE wages of sin is death.” Sin had 
 been abroad from Adam to Moses, and 
 Moses’ law had exposed and held up to man 
 the exceeding sinfulness of sin. From Moses 
 to Christ, sin had been cursing and biting and 
 blighting and stinging humanity. Christ had 
 come, had taken the curse and the sting into 
 His own body, and His vicarious atonement 
 had made possible deliverance from the guilt 
 and the power of sin. Nevertheless man, even 
 justified man, still had the “law of sin” in his 
 members and still “sinned oft.” And so the 
 wages of sin still followed and plagued him. 
 The dread of physical death, the dread of the 
 rupture between the body and the soul, the 
 shrinking from being unclothed, still kept him 
 more or less in bondage. And so even after 
 the first Advent, death reigned. And death 
 will reign till He who is the Life comes to 
 destroy this last enemy. 
 
 Even now death is still abroad. From our 
 
 297 
 
298 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 home town to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
 death reigns. The earth is a great mausoleum. 
 Everywhere and everywhen its sod is ripped 
 open to receive the dead into its bosom. Every- 
 where the white stones of the cities of the dead 
 stare us in the face. The heaving mounds 
 mourn. Millions of humans are under the 
 seas. Death reigns. 
 
 But, behold! We see One mightier than 
 death. He comes from Edom, with dyed 
 garments from Bozrah, traveling in the great- 
 ness of His strength, mighty to save. Is. 63. 1. 
 He comes to conquer man’s last enemy. 
 
 For man, for every man, He himself had 
 tasted death. So bitter and convulsing had 
 been the cup that inanimate nature, the nature 
 that had been blighted, marred and distressed 
 and disturbed and cursed on account of man’s 
 sin, had mourned and trembled. The sun had 
 been darkened and the earth had quaked. 
 The Conqueror of death had been shrouded, 
 embalmed, and laid away in a dark grave. 
 But death and the grave had not held Him. 
 He had risen. Earth again had felt it, had 
 rocked, and had shaken open many graves of 
 dead saints. He had risen. He had become 
 the firstfruits. After Him come the saints 
 from the opened graves. They were the ear- 
 
THE RESURRECTION 299 
 
 nest, the visible prophecy, the types of the fu- 
 ture rising from the dead of all saints. 
 This brings us to a consideration of 
 
 The Resurrection. 
 
 As sure as Christ rose again from the 
 dead, so sure will there be a _ resurrection 
 of all the dead. For those that are Christ’s 
 this will be the great Easter morning. Then 
 Christianity will be justified as the one, true, 
 and final religion. All its promises and hopes 
 will be realized. 
 
 All the dead will be raised, the wicked as 
 well as the righteous. If all are to be judged, 
 as is so clearly shown in Matt. 25. 31 ff., then 
 all the dead must have been previously raised 
 up. In His masterly defense before the Jew- 
 ish Council and the Roman governor, Paul 
 makes this clear statement: ‘There shall be 
 a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and 
 the unjust.” Acts 24. 15. Jesus speaks very 
 clearly in John 5. 28, 29, “The hour is com- 
 ing, in the which all that are in the graves 
 shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; 
 they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
 tion of life; and they that have done evil, un- 
 to the resurrection of judgment.” See also 
 
 Rev. 20. 13, “And the sea gave up the dead 
 
300 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 that were in it; and death and Hades gave 
 up the dead that were in them; and they were 
 judged every man according to their works.” 
 The heretics who teach that the wicked dead 
 are annihilated and will never rise, and that 
 the final resurrection is for the righteous only 
 cannot wipe out these plain declarations of 
 Holy Writ. If they desire to make them out 
 untrue, the fearful responsibility is theirs. 
 The dead will not all be raised up promis- 
 cuously or simultaneously. There is to be an 
 order in the great act. There is a distinction 
 between the rising of the righteous and that of 
 the wicked. Of the former Jesus says, Luke 
 20.35: “But they that are accounted worthy 
 to attain to that world and the resurrection 
 from the dead.” Literally translated, the last 
 words would read, “‘the resurrection from 
 among the dead.” In Phil. 3. 11 Paul says: 
 “Tf by any means I may attain unto the resur- 
 rection from the dead.” The Greek is the 
 same as in the former passage. The margin 
 has it “the out-resurrection, out from among 
 the dead ones.” ‘This resurrection, out from 
 among the dead, is special and separate: 
 “each in his own order: Christ the first- 
 fruits; then they that are Christ’s at his com- 
 ing,” 1 Cor. 15.23. ‘The dead in Christ shall 
 
THE RESURRECTION 301 
 
 rise first,” | Thess. 4. 16. “Blessed and holy 
 is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” 
 These passages are clear. The Lutheran rules 
 of interpretation will have to be thrown over- 
 board before they can be spiritualized or ex- 
 plained away. 
 
 As to the interval between the first and the 
 general resurrection we cannot dogmatize. 
 What we said above as to the Lord’s one day 
 and a thousand years applies here. 
 
 The general resurrection will call forth 
 those who were not included in the first one, 
 which was a selection from among the dead. 
 It will embrace all those who will find them- 
 selves on the left hand of the Judge. 
 
 ‘But some man will say: How are the dead 
 raised up and with what body do they comer” 
 Will it be the identical body, just as it was laid 
 in the grave? “That which thou sowest, thou 
 sowest not that body that shall be, but bare 
 grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other 
 grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath 
 pleased him, and to every seed his own body.” 
 “Tt is sown a natural body. It is raised a spir- 
 itual body. There is a natural body and there 
 is a spiritual body.” Read again and read 
 often that wonderful Resurrection Epic of 
 
 Baulaln@or 5° 
 
302 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 The analogy between a seed-corn and the 
 human body on the one hand, and between the 
 plant that grows out of the seed and the resur- 
 rection body on the other hand, is pregnant 
 with meaning. It tells us all we need to know. 
 The embryo of the new body is in the old 
 body. The new body will be of the essence of 
 the old body, will come out of the old body. 
 All imperfection, all corruptibility that in- 
 hered in the old body will be left behind. 
 Our house, not made with hands, 1. e., our new 
 body, will be eternal. It will be fashioned 
 “like unto Christ’s own glorious body.” The 
 wonderful after Easter forty days show us that 
 other-worldly body. 
 
 ‘So when this corruptible shall have put 
 on incorruption, and this mortal shall have 
 put on immortality, then shall be brought to 
 pass the saying that is written, Death 1s swal- 
 lowed up in victory. O death, where is thy 
 stinge O grave, where is thy victory? ‘The 
 sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin 
 is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth 
 us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye sted- 
 fast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
 work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
 your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 The Final Judgment 
 
 N THESE sad days when unbelief, rational- 
 
 ism, modernism, and liberalism are so 
 rife, and when these modes of thought are 
 held up as marks of intelligence and cul- 
 ture; when those who still believe in a di- 
 vinely inspired Bible are pitied as dupes 
 of outworn traditions and superstitions, the 
 very idea of a Judgment to come is held 
 to be absurd. In fact, in the eyes of many 
 advanced modernists, practically everything 
 that claims to be supernatural is absurd. 
 In them is fulfilled what the aged Paul fore- 
 saw and predicted: 2 Tim. 4. 3, “For the time 
 will come when they will not endure the 
 sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will 
 heap to themselves teachers after their own 
 lustsee AS Peter saysi'Z'Peti3.13; 4“ here 
 shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 
 after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the 
 promise of his coming? for since the fathers 
 fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
 
 393 
 
304 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 from the beginning of the creation.” Also 
 verses 9 and 10: “The Lord is not slack con- 
 cerning his promise, as some men count slack- 
 ness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not will- 
 ing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance. But the Day of the Lord 
 will come as a thief in the night; in the which 
 the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, 
 and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
 the earth also and a works that are therein 
 shall be burned up,” or, as some old authori- 
 ties translate, “shall be diselocenl " 
 
 Yes, the Day of the Lord, that Great Day, 
 the ipndksioan Day, is coming. Whether it 
 will be a day in our sense, or a period, as with 
 the Lord one day is as a thousand years, need 
 not worry us. He is coming; coming “to 
 judge the world in righteousness.” 
 
 If we did not believe in a final, righteous 
 judgment, we might often be tempted to doubt 
 the righteousness of God’s government. There 
 has been and there is so much wrong in our 
 old world. Job felt it and was tempted to 
 curse God and die. The whole Book of Job 
 is a theodicy, 1. e., a justification of the ways 
 of God with men. So is psalm 73. So is the 
 latter half of Romans 8. So is the first part 
 of Hebrews 12. God is still good, and it is 
 
FINAL JUDGMENT 305 
 
 part of His great plan that some day He will 
 right earth’s wrongs. Because I believe this, 
 I need not fall into despair over the treacher- 
 ies, the robberies, the heartless crimes against 
 childhood and womanhood, the brutal wrongs 
 against the weak and defenseless, the black 
 blots that stain the pages of history. Some day 
 the wrongs will all be righted. Even the star- 
 tling headlines in nearly every morning paper 
 that tell of foulness and fiendishness need not 
 make a gloomy pessimist out of me. ‘“Some- 
 time we'll understand.” I am an optimist 
 because I am a Christian and accept the Bible 
 as God’s Word. 
 
 There will be a great, public, final Judg- 
 ment. This Judgment will embrace the whole 
 human race from Adam to the last man then 
 living. All the dead will be summoned. 
 Every grave will give up its human dust. 
 Those who were never buried will come, and 
 the sea will give up its dead. At that great 
 assize all nations and all individuals will as- 
 semble. ‘The great white throne will be set up. 
 The books will be opened. Everyone’s spirit- 
 ual estate will be disclosed and made manifest. 
 The deeds done in the body, the works per- 
 formed, will be held up to public gaze. The 
 
 hidden springs and motives of the deeds and 
 Luth. Fundamentals. 20. 
 
306 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 works will be scrutinized. Did they spring 
 from faith? Did the faith work by lover 
 Were works done in Jesus’ name? ‘The sins of 
 omission will be noted. The habitual neglect 
 of salvation will condemn. The refusal to 
 show mercy in Jesus’ name will be held up as 
 a refusal to minister to Him. Then will it be 
 made clear that “whatsoever is not of faith is 
 sin,” and that “the soul of charity is charity 
 for the soul.” ‘There it will be seen that all 
 mere humanitarian social service, all service 
 that does not flow out of love to Christ, profits 
 nothing in His sight. Many will say: ‘Lord, 
 Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? 
 and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy 
 name done many wonderful works?” But be- 
 cause these works did not spring out of a heart 
 that was united to Christ by faith, Christ will 
 say: “I never knew you; depart from me, ye 
 that work iniquity.” See Matt. 7. 22, 23. 
 Those resurrected dead who had died in the 
 faith and those still living in the faith will not 
 be judged in the same sense as the unbelievers. 
 John 5. 24. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
 He that heareth my word, and believeth on 
 Him that sent me, hath eternal life and com- 
 eth not into judgment, but hath passed out of 
 death into life.” To them the final judgment 
 
FINAL JUDGMENT 307 
 
 will bring a public recognition and confirma- 
 tion that they have been accepted to God. 
 
 The Judge will be the Son of Man. He 
 paints the picture for us and tells the story in 
 Matt. 25. 31-46. There will be no deception 
 there. He knows what is in man. He will © 
 bring every secret thought and deed into judg- 
 ment. Before an astonished world the mask 
 will be torn from every hypocrite, from every 
 one who had led the double life, even though 
 he had been a leader in the Church and had 
 deceived the very elect. ‘They may then cry 
 for the mountains to fall on them and for the 
 hills to cover them, but it will not avail. He 
 who has eyes like flames of fire will see 
 through them. Their false hearts, their dark 
 lives, their secret sins will all be laid bare. All 
 will see that the Judge of all the world doeth 
 right. 
 
 The norm or standard by which all will be 
 judged will be their former attitude to Christ. 
 Did they receive Him or did they reject Him? 
 Did they come with penitent hearts and be- 
 lieve in Him, or did they harden their hearts 
 in unbelief. Unbelief is the root-sin, the sin 
 that will condemn in the judgment. Faith, 
 faith that out of a penitent heart reaches up, 
 lays hold of, grips and clings to, Christ, and 
 
308 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 trusts in Him alone for salvation. Such a 
 faith will save. Such a faith always works. It 
 wants to work. From an inner constraint, it 
 must work. It works by love. Its love em- 
 braces Christ and all for whom He died. For 
 His sake, in His name, out of love to Him, 
 such a faith moves to and lives in grateful, 
 serving love. Undriven, almost unconscious- 
 ly, the possessor of such a faith seeks out the 
 needy, feeds, gives drink to, clothes, comforts 
 and cares for all that it finds. Faith is in the 
 heart. It cannot be observed and seen by men, 
 But its fruits, its work of love, can be seen; 
 and for that reason works will be held up be- 
 fore a gazing world, as the grounds of acquit- 
 tal. 7 
 
 And so the judgment will prove that God is 
 good, that His government was wise, and that 
 He judges in righteousness. 
 
 Glory and power belong to our God; for 
 true and righteous are His judgments. Rev. 
 
 19. 1, 2. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 The End of the World 
 WY Wii the Judgment period the present 
 
 world order comes to an end. This 
 poor old earth of ours suffered with the in- 
 coming of sin. The ground was cursed. Its 
 products were changed. ‘Thorns and thistles 
 and noxious weeds began to spring up without 
 being planted. No doubt atmosphere and 
 climate felt a change. Before sin came it had 
 all been very good. Man’s dwelling was a 
 garden, a paradise, “fit haunt of gods.” Je- 
 hovah came down and walked and talked with 
 man in the garden. Angels rejoiced at the 
 new creation. “The morning stars sang to- 
 gether, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 joy.” As far as we know, there were no ter- 
 rific storms, no destructive earthquakes, no 
 killing frosts, no burning heat, no pestilence- 
 breeding, poison-bearing swamps or insects, 
 no upas-blights; no sin, no sickness, no suffer- 
 ing, no death. All was good, very good. Sin 
 changed all. Sin became the great disturb- 
 ing, destroying, disaster-breeding element in 
 
 309 
 
310 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 God’s creation. Creation began to groan. It 
 “sroaneth until now.” It “waiteth for re- 
 demption”’, the redemption of man’s body, the 
 resurrection and judgment. 
 
 Jesus Christ was the second Adam. He 
 came to make good all the ruin wrought by 
 the sin of the first Adam. His redemption 
 must be as wide as sin’s ruin. The curse that 
 came by sin must be lifted. Earth, poor 
 earth, must feel the throes of redemption. Its 
 groanings must cease. There must be a new, 
 a renewed earth. An earth purified by the 
 fires of the last days. 
 
 Heaven and earth, as to their present form 
 and order, will pass away. They will not be 
 annihilated, but they will be changed, trans- 
 formed. Peter, speaking of the flood, says: 
 “The world that then was, being overflowed 
 with water, perished.” 2 Pet. 3.6. But the 
 world was not annihilated. And so, when in 
 verse 10 he says: “The heavens shall pass 
 away with a great noise, and the elements shall 
 be dissolved with fervent heat and the earth 
 and the works that are therein shall be burned 
 up,” it cannot mean that heaven and earth 
 shall be destroyed, or annihilated. 
 
 We must compare Scripture with Scripture. 
 “The earth abideth forever.” It will be a 
 
END OF THE WORLD SUT 
 
 new earth. There will be “nothing to hurt in 
 all God’s holy mountain.” ‘The inhabitant 
 shall not say: I am sick.” Then “instead of 
 the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and in- 
 stead of the briar shall come up the myrtle 
 tree.” Then “the wolf and the lamb shall 
 feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like 
 the bullock.” 
 
 Then shall there be “‘no more death, neither 
 sorrow, nor crying.” From the purified earth 
 every vestige of sin and sorrow shall be ab- 
 sent. It will be anew earth. The nations will 
 learn war no more, “swords will be beaten in- 
 to plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks.” 
 It will be “a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness.” The redeemed shall walk 
 there. The new Jerusalem shall descend out 
 of heaven from God. That new Jerusalem will 
 be in some kind of a heavenly but real connec- 
 tion (a connection not yet fully understood) 
 with the new earth. Earth will be an outer 
 court of heaven. The tabernacle of God will 
 be with men. His Kingdom shall have come. 
 From the throne of God and of the Lamb “He 
 shall reign forever and ever.” The kingdoms 
 of the world shall have become “the kingdom 
 of our Lord and of his Christ.” 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 Eternal Death or Hell 
 
 | DISCUSSING the Last Things we cannot 
 omit this most unwelcome subject of all 
 Dogmatics. 
 
 In every consideration and discussion of 
 this dreadful topic we must always bear in 
 mind these facts: 
 
 1. God is “not wishing that any should 
 perish, but that all should come to repent- 
 ANCE. id bebe eis OC OU LOAVION Ta ae 
 would have all men to be saved and come to 
 the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Tim. 2.4. “As 
 I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure 
 in the death of the wicked; but that the 
 wicked turn from his way and live.” Ez. 
 eee 
 
 Russellites and other believers who repre- 
 sent the evangelical churches as teaching that 
 God takes pleasure in the sufferings of the lost, 
 slander the churches and insult and blaspheme 
 God. 
 
 2. God never builded a hell for man. In 
 
 312 
 
ETERNAL DEATH 313 
 
 Matt. 25. 41, Jesus says to those on His left: 
 “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
 fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” 
 For whom was the everlasting fire prepared? 
 Was it prepared for mane Did Jesus knowr 
 He says, “Prepared for the devil and his an- 
 gels.” Now turn to verse 34 of same chapter. 
 Jesus says to those on the right: “Come.... 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” For 
 whom was the Kingdom prepared? For an- 
 gelse No. For man; yes, for you. Could 
 Jesus make it clearer? Heaven was prepared 
 for man. Hell was not prepared for man but 
 for the devil and his angels. Those who pre- 
 fer to follow the devil, “the god of this world,” 
 rather than the God who is love, must follow 
 their god in eternity and share the fate of the 
 devil and his angels. 
 
 3. God has done all that He can do, in con- 
 sistency with His nature, character, and at- 
 tributes, to keep man out of hell. He so loved 
 the world, a world lying in wickedness, a de- 
 fiant, rebellious world, that for it He gave 
 His only begotten Son. Jn. 3. 16. That Son 
 “tasted death for every man,” and that vica- 
 rious death was the “propitiation for the sins 
 of the whole world.” On the ground of that 
 propitiation, that Son has sent out the univer- 
 
314 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 sal Call: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
 Matt. 11. 28. God has sent forth His Holy 
 Spirit to offer to man the purchased salvation 
 and to enable man to accept it. 
 
 “JT will pour out of my Spirit upon all 
 flesh.” Acts 2.17. This Holy Spirit, as we 
 have seen, operates through the Gospel, which 
 God wants preached to every creature. Yes, 
 God has done all that He could to keep man 
 out of hell. He will be able to challenge the 
 lost as He challenged Judah of old when He 
 said: ‘“‘What could have been done more to 
 my vineyard, that I have not done in ite 
 Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
 forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapesP” 
 Is. 5. 4. 
 
 There is a place of eternal punishment for 
 those who reject God, spurn the offers of 
 Grace, despise the Church and her Means of 
 Grace, and so neglect their salvation. 
 
 We may not understand fully the nature of 
 the punishment, but we know all that is good 
 for us to know. Certain elements of suffering 
 stand out clearly. 
 
 One supreme anguish will be the conscious- 
 ness of the lost that their fate is their own 
 fault; they brought themselves there. Abra- 
 
ETERNAL DEATH 315 
 
 ham said to the rich man in torment, “Son, 
 remember,” and reminded him that he had 
 prized this world’s pleasures as his “good 
 things” and had neglected to hear “Moses and 
 the prophets.” “Son, remember!” Oh how 
 that remembrance must have pierced him 
 through with perpetual agony! Memory will 
 never die. 
 
 The lost will be forever shut out from the 
 presence of God and the good. Their com- 
 panionship will be with the devil and his an- 
 gels, and with those lost souls who in their 
 earthly life were sensual and devilish. What 
 acompany! And the consciousness that there 
 can be no escape! It is too late! 
 
 The punishment will be eternal. The same 
 Greek word that is used to describe the dura- 
 tion of life in heaven is used to describe the 
 existence and suffering of the lost. In addi- 
 tion to the passages already quoted and to 
 many more that we might quote, we merely 
 quote a few telling expressions: ‘Everlast- 
 ing fire.” “Everlasting punishment.” “Guilty 
 of an eternal sin.” ‘Everlasting destruction.” 
 “Eternal judgment.” “The judgment of eter- 
 nal fire.” 
 
 Canon Liddon, as quoted by Doctor Jacobs 
 (Summary of Christian Faith, page 535) well 
 
316 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 says: “Modern skepticism has tampered with 
 the word ‘eternal’ just as it has emptied ‘sal- 
 vation,’ ‘atonement,’ ‘grace’ of their natural 
 meaning. But ‘everlasting’ means nothing 
 more nor less than that which lasts forever. 
 Where that word is applied to our home in 
 heaven, the hopes and longings of men glad- 
 ly do justice to the natural force of human 
 language. But it is noteworthy that no 
 stronger expressions are applied anywhere to 
 the eternal life of the blessed in heaven, with- 
 in the New Testament, than are here used to 
 describe the endlessness of the pains of hell.” 
 
 Whether the fire is what we call natural 
 and visible fire, or supernatural and invisible 
 we know not. “Our God is a consuming fire.” 
 That does not mean natural fire. Natural fire 
 and flame dispel! darkness. But the abode of 
 the wicked is “outer darkness.” ‘The “Son, 
 remember,” the consciousness of the past, the 
 gnawings of a guilty and self-convicted con- 
 science—these, even if nothing more, will be 
 hot enough and hell enough! More we do 
 not know. More we need not know. 
 
 Flee from the wrath to come! 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 Everlasting Life or Heaven 
 
 We have come to the last and best part of 
 our every-day Dogmatics. We have studied 
 and discussed what we believe God has re- 
 vealed as to Himself and His purposes, His 
 relations and dealings with man. His actual 
 relation with man began in Paradise. Through 
 sin, brought in from without, that Paradise 
 was lost. From that loss forward God has 
 been busy rescuing man from his own ruin and 
 saving him for a final, better, safer Paradise, 
 eternal in heaven. 
 
 We have anticipated much that we need to 
 know about heaven. We have seen that in the 
 final consummation heaven and earth will be 
 closely connected. We believe that the new 
 earth, purified, purged of sin and its baleful 
 effects, will be but an outer court of heaven. 
 Then, literally, heaven and earth will be full 
 of God’s glory. Human language fails to por- 
 tray its beauty, its felicity, its glory. Prophets 
 and poets have tried to picture its supernatur- 
 
 317 
 
318 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 al attractions. Even the pen of inspiration 
 seems to feel its insufficiency. Paul had been 
 caught up into the third heaven. For four- 
 teen years he had kept still about it. Then, 
 when his enemies tried to belittle him as un- 
 worthy of confidence and were out to ruin his 
 reputation and influence, they made a situa- 
 tion that “compelled” him to “glory” and to 
 speak of “visions and revelations of the Lord.” 
 Then, in hesitating and halting phrases, he 
 tells how he in Paradise had heard “unspeak- 
 able words which it is not lawful for a man 
 to. utter.” 2 Cor: 1224." Incl Cot Ze 92inis 
 same Paul had written, “Eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
 pared for them that love him.” Possibly the 
 Seer of Patmos saw even more clearly than 
 Paul and told more fully what he saw. In 
 one place he pictures the new Jerusalem as a 
 city whose walls are of jasper, whose gates 
 are of pearl, whose streets are of gold. Again 
 he speaks of a river of water, of trees on its 
 banks bearing luscious fruits and healing 
 leaves. There are the many mansions, the 
 everlasting habitations, the perfect, happy 
 heavenly homes. Read the last two chapters 
 of your Bible. 
 
EVERLASTING LIFE 319 
 
 In those holy habitations none but the pure 
 in heart can dwell; those who have ‘washed 
 ‘their robes and made them white in the blood 
 of the lamb.” “There shall in no wise enter 
 into it anything that defileth, neither whatso- 
 ever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.” 
 Rev. 21. 27. Some people imagine that God 
 could and should throw wide the doors and 
 admit every sin-polluted soul into heaven. 
 What kind of a God would that be? What 
 kind of a heaven would that bee Could 
 such souls be happy in such a place? Would 
 it not be torment to them? And, if they could 
 abide there, what kind of a place would heav- 
 en become? Could the pure in heart be happy 
 therer No, no. God knows best. In pro- 
 portion as our reason is enlightened by the 
 Holy Spirit through the Word, in that pro- 
 portion we see that all God’s judgments are 
 true and righteous altogether. 
 
 There all will be perfect. The spiritual 
 bodies will be free from sinful desire and lust, 
 pain and death. The mind will no longer be 
 clouded by sin. Instead of knowing “in part,” 
 we “shall know even as we are kown.” 1 Cor. 
 13. 12. Our judgments will be God’s judg- 
 ment, our will His will. 
 
 We do not conceive of heaven as a place of 
 
320 LUTHERAN FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 dreamy idleness. Music will be there. Wor- 
 ship will be there. Service will be there. 
 The study and contemplation of the ways of 
 God will occupy all minds. The things that 
 the ‘“‘angels desire to look into” will be the 
 things that we shall delight to study. Moses 
 had been in heaven for nearly a millenium 
 and a half; Elias about half as long. When 
 they visited the earth they talked about what 
 was about to take place in Jerusalem, that is, 
 the dying, or atonement of Jesus. The con- 
 templation and’ adoration of the Lamb slain 
 from before the foundations of the world will 
 fill up eternity. ‘‘We shall serve Him.” 
 Whatever all that may include we know not, 
 but it will be a service of joy. 
 
 But enough! At best we can now know 
 only in part, and prophecy or teach only in 
 part, but then shall we know even as we are 
 known. 
 
 But with other-worldly rapture we can 
 sing: | 
 
 “Jerusalem the Golden, 
 
 With milk and honey blest, 
 Beneath thy contemplation 
 Sink heart and voice opprest; 
 I know not, O I know not, 
 What social joys are there, 
 
 What radiancy of glory, 
 What lig’it beyond compare! 
 
EVERLASTING LIFE 321 
 
 And when I fain would sing them, 
 My spirit fails and faints; 
 
 And vainly would it image 
 The assembly of the saints. 
 
 They stand, those halls of Zion, 
 Conjubilant with song, 
 
 And bright with many an angel 
 And all the martyr throng. 
 
 There is the Throne of David; 
 And there, from care released, 
 The song of them that triumph, 
 The shout of them that feast. 
 And they who with their Leader 
 Have conquered in the fight 
 Forever and forever 
 
 Are clad in robes of white.” 
 
 AMEN. 
 
 Luth, Fundamentals. 21, 
 

 

 
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