Lutheran Doctrine of Justification-LDJ—1859-Part 1 -- Introduction (w/ German text, Table of Contents)

I am interrupting my series on the 1872 Synodical Conference Report (SCR 1872).  I plan to return to this to comment especially on the aspects relating to the Wisconsin Synod (WELS).  Although there have been recent events among American Lutherans that relate to the subject of this essay (ACLC, Rolf  and Daniel Preus - the sons of Robert Preus, etc.), one can be swept up with the news events themselves and lose sight of the biblical doctrine.

And so although C.F.W. Walther wrote the SCR essay in 1872, it was certainly not the only time that he wrote an essay for the Church dealing with the Doctrine of Justification.  Franz Pieper gathered and highlighted the crown jewels of Walther's essays in his series C.F.W. Walther as Theologian.  In that series, Pieper highlighted not only the SCR 1872 essay, but also several others.  And Prof. J.T. Mueller performed a wonderful service to the Church when he translated a portion of Pieper's essay and had it published in the Concordia Theological Monthly.  In it, he referred to Walther's greatest essays with the following acronyms (see here for Mueller's translation):

1. 1859 - LDJ (or LDR in German) - Western District, The Lutheran Doctrine of Justification
2. 1868 - RWD - Report to the Western District (in Essays for the Church, WorldCat, Amazon)
3. 1872 - SCR  - Synodical Conference Report (CTSP 1982, BTL 2013)
4. 1874 - RWD - Report to the Western District (in Convention Essays, WorldCat, Amazon)
5. 1875 - RWD - Report to the Western District (in Convention Essays, WorldCat, Amazon)

This series of blog posts will present my (BTL) translation of LDJ 1859.  I should not have to do this because it has already been translated and published previously.  So why am I doing this?  It is because Concordia Publishing House stopped offering its 2 volumes of Essays for the Church by Walther, as I pointed out in my blog post 2 years ago.  And to this day, even though Publisher Paul T. McCain promised they would return, they are still unavailable.  This continues to stand as a testimony against not only CPH, but the LC-MS and their false honoring of C.F.W. Walther.  And so I will offer an alternative translation of LDJ 1859 to that of Everette W. Meier used by CPH so that the reader may be fully versed in the heart of C.F.W. Walther.

I will have to be careful not to offend Concordia Publishing so that they don't send me another copyright warning letter like they did before.  I am not doing this to harm CPH and their potential financial gain with any future publishing.  Rather I am doing it because today's readers of Christian teaching are sorely lacking in resources for pure doctrine.  Especially in view of today's news in church events surrounding the doctrine of UOJ (Universal, Objective Justification), Christians (like me!) need to be firmly grounded against Satan's attacks.

Even President Matthew Harrison attempts to draw the reader away from Walther's intended message in these essays.  How?  As I blogged earlier, Harrison (and Todd Peperkorn) attempts to draw the reader's attention away from President Wyneken's emphasis on Walther's 1859 essay on... The Lutheran Doctrine of Justification.  Why does Harrison do this?  Because Harrison is weak on the message of the Gospel, and so he (along with many others) attempts to substitute for the Gospel the sciences of today's "Mental Health" as offering the ultimate comfort for the troubled conscience (Psychology, Psychiatry, Philosophy).

The lutherische Lehre von der Rechtfertigung

But the LDJ 1859 essay was not overlooked by the old (German) Missouri Synod.  In 1880, Concordia Publishing reprinted the original essay from the 1859 Western District convention.  They did this in a book named Die lutherische Lehre von der Rechtfertigung or The Lutheran Doctrine of Justification (LDJ - Google Books here).  I believe this is the only convention essay by Walther that was ever put into a book form by itself.  The original convention essay occupied 55 pages, the 1880 book occupied 94 pages.  This book is not now in (yet?) Google Books so this download is not necessary but available:  (Modified March 25, 2014)
Download 1880 scanned book here --> PDF file (5MB)

Before I begin publishing my translation, I will publish the digitized German text from this book so the reader may research or follow along with the German language.  The red font markings sprinkled throughout reference page synchronization of the 1880 book with the 1859 original (pgs 11-65) and the Everette Meier translation (CPH) in Essays for the Church, volume 1 (pgs 30-63).  Underlining follows the emphasis of the original text.  This document will be slightly modified and corrected during this project.  Completed version dated: July 12, 2014


So follow the next blog posts as I begin publishing in English another of the greatest essays of C.F.W. Walther – the greatest Christian theologian since the Reformation century...  The American Luther!

May this be to the reader's "mental health" and spiritual well-being...  for all time and eternity.  May it be so, God Grant It... for Jesus sake.  Amen!
- - - - - - - - - -  Table of Contents – LDJ (page #s in 1880 book) - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Part 1 - Introduction; German text
Part 1b - cont'd Introduction with reference to upcoming meeting of LC-MS, WELS, ELS
Part 2 - Section A, pages 3-5 of 1880 book
Part 3 - Section B, pages 6-8 of 1880 book
Part 4 - Section C, pages 9-11
Part 5 - Section D, pages 12-14
Part 6 - Section E, pages 15-17
Part 7 - pages 18-20;      Part 8 - pages 21-23;      Part 9 - pages 24-26;    Part 10 - pages 27-29;  
Part 11 - pages 30-32;    Part 12 - pages 33-35;    Part 13 - pages 36-38;   Part 14 - pages 39-41;  
Part 15 - pages 42-44;    Part 16 - pages 45-47;    Part 17 - pages 48-50;   Part 18 - pages 51-53;
Part 19 - pages 54-56;    Part 20 - pages 57-59;    Part 21 - pages 60-62;   Part 22 - pages 63-65;
Part 23 - pages 66-68;    Part 24 - pages 69-71;    Part 25 - pages 72-74;   Part 26 - pages 75-77;
Part 27 - pages 78-80;    Part 28 - pages 81-83;    Part 29 - pages 84-86;   Part 30 - pages 87-89;
Part 31 - pages 90-92;    Part 32 - pages 93-96;    Part 33 - Concluding remarks

Complete LDJ essay published July 17, 2014==>> here<<==.