L11–IV. 2, 3. Proper distinction of Law from Gospel

      This concludes from Part L10 (Table of Contents in Part L01) in a series on the instruction of the Law by C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther. — In this segment, Walther addresses two more points on the relationship of the preaching of the law to that of justification through faith. It is a wonderful sight to see these two speak on this all important subject. — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 7 (Dec. 1861), p. 374 ff.:

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IV. What is the relationship between the preaching of the law and the preaching of justification through faith?

      2. Justification itself may be taught from the gospel alone, and therefore the preaching of the law is to be entirely excluded from it.

What Luther says on the preaching of the law in relation to justification:

• “The law is not only unnecessary for man to be justified by it, but quite useless and impossible in all things. But those who hold the law in the opinion that they want to be justified by it, to them the law also becomes a poison and pestilence to righteousness.”
• “In sum, as high as heaven is above the earth, so far should the law be separated from justification; and nothing should be taught, said, or remembered in the article concerning justification, but only the word of grace.”

Walther concludes with a caution on the limits of the Law:

      3. The law must not be preached to the justified as such in order to make them pious and fruitful in good works, and it must therefore not be imposed on the new man, but only on the old man; just as the holy apostle Paul calls out to the Galatians, who had again placed themselves under the yoke of the law: "I want to learn this from you alone: Did you receive the Spirit through the works of the law, or through the preaching of faith?" (Gal 3:2)

What Luther says on the limits of the Law:

• “The Gospel, where it is right in the heart, should make such a person who does not wait so long for the law to come, but is so full of joy in Christ, has a desire and love for good, that he gladly helps and benefits everyone where he can, out of a free heart, before he even thinks of the law, dares to risk his body and life, not asking anything about what it suffers, and thus becomes full of good works that flow from himself.”
• “So Moses [the Lawgiver] is to do his work apart from Christ, that he may drive those who are not Christians or who are ever the old man. For he does not thereby make Christians pious or righteous; but he does so by showing them what their office is, that they may gladly do according to the Spirit”

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      It is this last Section IV that sets Walther's theology above modern LC–MS theologians and pastors, ones who think they can judge Walther, like Prof. Henry Eggold (see Parts L09a, L10). It was Walther who brought Luther's counsel on the "Misuse and Proper Use of the Law" (see the sermons in Am. Ed. vol. 56, pp. 92 ff.) to America, in his book The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (or Law & Gospel). May this series presenting his instruction and counsel aid the reader as it has me. Amen!

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      In the following English translation, all Luther quotes have been linked directly to their source in the St. Louis Edition, American Edition (where possible), and, in the case of Church Postils, to Lenker's edition. Of course all St. Louis and Lenker edition materials are available without restriction for immediate viewing. Many weeks, days, and hours have been spent looking up and providing these links so that readers, like me, may be able to study Luther's writings further. One can never learn too much on this subject, and one cannot have better teachers than C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther:

Web version here; download file here; German version here.

L10–IV. 1. Law precedes justification through faith; Eggold's 2nd criticism of Walther

[2025-08-18: added note at bottom in red.]

      This continues from Part L09a (Table of Contents in Part L01) in a series on the instruction of the Law by C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther. — In this segment, Walther gets to the heart of the matter that makes him, and Luther, stand out: how to properly use the Law in relation to the Gospel.  — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 7 (Dec. 1861), p. 370 ff.: 

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IV. What is the relationship between the preaching of the law and the preaching of justification through faith?

      1. The preaching of justification through faith must be preceded by the preaching of repentance from the law, as it is written: "Thus it is written, and thus Christ must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and cause repentance and remission of sins to be preached in his name among all nations, and be raised up in Jerusalem." Luke 24:47.

What Luther says on the preaching of the law in relation to justification:

• “They have invented a new method for them, that grace should be preached first, then the revelation of wrath, so that the word "law" may not be heard or spoken.… But they do not see how St. Paul teaches in a contrary way, first showing the wrath of God from heaven and making all the world sinners and guilty before God; then, when they have become sinners, he teaches them how to obtain grace and become righteous… But they turn the shoe around and teach us the law according to the gospel and wrath according to grace.”
• “Those who are stubborn, stiff-necked and secure should be frightened with examples of God's wrath, so that, as is said here, they may learn to fear God. But now our hearts are inclined not to like to be chastened. We all accept the promises with joy and do not resent them. But the preaching of the law frightens people and makes them, as it were, fierce and angry.”
• “But the Antinomians would have it that the doctrine of repentance should begin badly with grace; but I did not follow this process. … [I] comforted no one except those who had previously repented and suffered for their sins and had themselves been tormented by them, whom the law had frightened”

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    In Prof. Henry Eggold's ThD dissertation "Walther, the Preacher", beyond his judgment that Walther exhibited Pietism in his preaching (Part L09a), he also disagreed with Walther's strong preaching of the Law. After he quotes Walther's statement that "Hypocrites even today still cling to every Christian congregation" (Licht des Lebens, p. 297), Eggold states:

"This is an extremely important assertion of Walther's because it reveals quite clearly the attitude Walther takes toward his own congregation. Only on the basis of the statement can one understand why he applies his sermons quite consistently to the unbelievers as well as to the believers in his audience. …. I feel that his statement is too broad. I would prefer to say that there are certainly hypocrites in every congregation where Law and Gospel are not preached properly and where church discipline is neglected. But I do not feel that there is warrant for categorically assum­ing that there are hypocrites in every congregation."

Now "Eggold, the Preacher" would surely consider that his sermons properly preached Law and Gospel, and that his church discipline was not neglected. But did it not occur to Prof. Eggold that he is in essence charging Walther with not properly preaching Law and Gospel and also with neglecting church discipline. Perhaps it did not occur to Prof. Eggold the lesson of the parable of the tares among the wheat (Matt. 13:24-30) Perhaps it did not occur to Prof. Eggold that even Jesus's own preaching did not convert all who listened to his preaching. All of Eggold's seeming praise of Walther's preaching elsewhere is tainted by his criticisms. Walther is Old Missouri, Eggold is New Missouri and was at one time the head of Concordia Theological Seminary. — In the concluding Part L11…

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2025-08-18: It should be noted that Pastor Klemet Preus († 2014) also criticized Eggold's homiletical style as driving a "wedge between fact and empowerment". This was done in Preus's essay "The Sermon As Absolution" in the book Propter Christum: Christ at the center: essays in honor of Daniel Preus, 2013 Luther Academy, p. 291. Preus also included Walkout Prof. Richard Caemmerer in his charge.

L09a–False charges by LCMS: Walther a Pietist? (Eggold–Piepkorn–Pelikan); Wohlrabe, McCain defend Walther

      This continues from Part L09 (Table of Contents in Part L01) in a series on the instruction of the Law by C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther. — A preposterous charge by LCMS theologians against Walther prompted this Excursus. A refreshing rebuttal was made by more recent LCMS men.

Jaroslav Pelikan     —     A. C. Piepkorn      —     Henry Eggold     
“Walther, a Pietist”

    The matter taken up in Walther's statement #3 in Part L09 causes many of today's LCMS theologians to stumble, for they are weak on both Law and Gospel preaching. They are weak on the proper distinction of these two doctrines. Concordia Seminary Doctoral candidate Henry Eggold Jr. († 1982), in his 1962 doctoral thesis [Internet Archive], said this about Walther's preaching of the Law, p. 178:

“One of the very strong accents in Walther's preaching is his rebuking of prevailing sins. As one reads a number of his sermons at one sitting, he finds that Walther spends almost as much time denouncing a false faith as he does pleading for a true faith. When he is rebuking sin, he is in dead earnest [as if God is not?]; he preaches the Law as though there were no Gospel and pictures God in the awesomeness of his justice and righteousness. His language is vigorous, blunt, and unsparing.”

Also in this essay, one discovers that Eggold references two of the leading lights of the 1974 Walkout: Drs. Jaroslav Pelikan and Arthur Carl Piepkorn. It was Pelikan who started the myth that Walther synthesized Orthodoxy with Pietism, in an article for a German theological journal in 1952 (see here, footnote #4; full text file). Then in 1961, Piepkorn referenced Pelikan's essay in an article for Concordia Theological Monthly, "Walther and the Lutheran Symbols" (see here, p. 609, footnote #17). A year later, in 1962, Eggold came out with his semi-famous doctoral thesis that referenced both of these "leading lights" as the marching orders for his work. But in reading all of Eggold's comments and judgments of Walther, it became apparent that he himself is weak on preaching the Law in comparison with Walther. Yet he proposes to judge Walther by stating (p. 255) that 

“A critical appraisal of Walther's sermons will not close one's eyes to the influence of Pietism which introduced faults into Walther's preaching, namely, his tinge of legalism and his occasional advice to the terrified sinner to prayer for grace without directing him to the Gospel.”

That Walther was under "the influence of Pietism" is quite preposterous. Even Rev. Dr. John C. Wohlrabe Jr., LCMS Sixth Vice-President, admitted that Eggold's assertion of Walther's "Pietism" was questionable, stating: 

"Yet, when one carefully considers the doctrine of the church, as set forth in Walther’s other writings, as well as in his sermons, one can’t help but question this assertion. Did Walther’s addressing himself to unbelievers in his sermons come from a pietistic influence or from his doctrine of the church, which was soundly based on Scripture, the Lutheran Confessions, and such orthodox Lutheran theologians as John Gerhard?" ("The Preaching of C. F. W. Walther in View of the Doctrine of the Church", The Pieper Lectures - Preaching Through the Ages, Volume 8 (2004), p. 90)

Wohlrabe goes on to demonstrate how Eggold was wrong, that an apparent inconsistency in Walther's writings was only apparent. Even more, he asks the question (p. 91) "why has this practice [addressing unbelievers in a sermon] all but disappeared in modern preaching?" Finally, (p. 95) he states that Walther's preaching put the "stress on objectivity over subjectivity—or put another way, orthodoxy over against pietism." — 

    Also Paul McCain, in a 1998 essay, wrote about Pietism and stated that "The first leaders of the Missouri Synod had to struggle against Pietism in their own lives and it has been so ever since." In a footnote to this, without naming Eggold, Piepkorn or Pelikan, said this (p. 86):

“It is inaccurate to describe C. F. W. Walther as a Pietist. Anyone who makes this assertion knows little about Walther and even less about Pietism.” (The Pieper Lectures - Pietism and Lutheranism, Volume 3, p. 92)

      Eggold's charge is the same as what Franz Pieper reported of Missouri's opponents who charged them with, among other things, being "Pietists". As Pieper explains in his Christian Dogmatics, Pietism is the tendency to turn Lutheranism towards Reformed territory, and Walther is far from doing that. It seems that Prof. Eggold swallowed the false theology of Jaroslav Pelikan. — And we notice why Eggold was weak as a theologian and a preacher: He was advised by the likes of Profs. Richard Caemmerer, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Erwin L. Lueker, the Walkout sympathizers of 1974. His agenda in producing his thesis was prescribed by Prof. Pelikan (who later left Lutheranism), which was to prove that Walther's preaching was a "synthesis of Orthodoxy and Pietism". Eggold's own homiletical philosophy, "Preaching is Dialogue", was possibly influenced by Prof. Caemmerer's homiletics. Prof. Eggold never changed his judgment of Walther as he repeated these same charges of "Pietism" in his "Translators Preface" to the CPH book Selected Sermons of Walther published in 1981, the year before he died. Sad. 

      The latter charge above by Prof. Eggold, Walther's statement "to pray for grace", can be answered by the Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer, which petitions the Lord to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". Eggold could also charge our Lord Jesus with the same charge of "not directing the terrified sinner to the Gospel". Eggold should have studied Luther's explanation of the Fifth Petition. — He should also have listened to the Savior when He said Luke 13:3, 5: 

"I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

Eggold brings another charge against Walther that we report in the next Part L10…

L09–III. 2., 3. Law shows our sin, even for true Christians

      This continues from Part L08 (Table of Contents in Part L01) in a series on the instruction of the Law by C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther. — In this segment, Walther addresses two more reasons why the Law must be preached. — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 7 (Dec. 1861), p. 364 ff.:

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III. Why must the Law also be proclaimed in the New Testament and also to Christians?

      2. The second reason why the Law must also be preached in the New Testament is that only those who recognize their sins can come to faith in Christ and to knowledge of his reconciling and redeeming work and suffering; but knowledge of sin comes through the Law alone.

What Luther says on the preaching of the Law to show our sins:

• “If a person is to become spiritual and come to faith, he must first be under the Law; therefore, without the Law no one recognizes himself for what he lacks; but he who does not know himself does not seek grace. But when the Law comes, it demands so much that man feels and must confess that he is not able to fulfill it; he must then despair of himself and, humbled, sigh for God's grace.”
• “For who can know what Christ suffered for us and why, if no one knows what sin or Law is? Therefore the Law must be preached where Christ is to be preached.”

Walther continues:

      3. Finally, the Law must also be preached to those who have already become true Christians, for the reason that even the believing, enlightened, born-again Christian, who is of course willing to do all good, is not yet completely enlightened and renewed, but has the old Adam, that is, flesh and blood, and therefore still needs the teaching of the Law, even terror and compulsion; as we see then that the law is also preached to Christians through the whole of Holy Scripture.

What Luther says about preaching the law to true Christians:

• “But the matter itself and experience testify that even the righteous or faithful are subjected and delivered to death daily. Therefore, as far as they are under death, they must also be under the Law and sin. It is especially coarse and inexperienced people and harmful deceivers of consciences who want to take the Law away from the church.”
• “Therefore the Law (as well as the gospel) must be preached without distinction, both to the righteous, or believers, and to the ungodly; … to the godly, that they may be reminded thereby to crucify and mortify their flesh, together with lusts and vices, so that they may not be secure, Gal. 5:24, for security takes away both faith and the fear of God, and makes the latter worse than the former was.”
• “But outwardly the flesh does not yet want to do so; all kinds of filth and evil lust, anxiety for food, fear of death, avarice, anger and hatred still cling to it: the filth always remains next to the faith that it may beat and fight with it.”
• “So divide a Christian into two parts: That he is both righteous and unrighteous. The Holy Spirit dwells in the heart, but not in the flesh, where the devil dwells with his seed”

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In the next Part L10, Walther addresses the point that makes him and Luther the perfect teachers to follow on the preaching of the Law. But first, in the next Part L09a, we call out past LCMS theologians who crassly criticized Walther… on his Pietism?

L08–III. 1. Law, the unchangeable will of God, indelibly written in the heart of every man

      This continues from Part L07 (Table of Contents in Part L01) in a series on the instruction of the Law by C. F. W. Walther and Martin Luther. — In this segment, Walther addresses the first of three reasons on why the preaching of the Law is also important in the New Testament. — Lehre und Wehre, vol. 7 (Dec. 1861), p. 362 ff.:

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III. Why must the Law also be proclaimed in the New Testament and also to Christians?

      1. Because the law contains the unchangeable will of God, indelibly written in the heart of every human being, as the eternal, irrevocable and unchanging guideline for all beings created for the knowledge and fellowship of God, as Christ expressly says: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17-19.

What Luther says about the law "as the eternal, irrevocable and unchanging guideline":

• “Whoever does away with the Law must also do away with sin. If he wants to let sin stand, he must rather let the Law stand. For (Romans 5:13) where there is no law, there is no sin: if there is no sin, Christ is nothing. For why, if there is neither law nor sin, does he die for it?”
• “But he [the devil] proceeds to make people secure, and teaches them to have no regard for either the law or sin, so that if they should suddenly be overtaken with death or an evil conscience, having previously been accustomed to sweet assurance, they might sink to hell without any counsel, as if they had been taught nothing but sweet assurance in Christ”

Walther comments: 

• “With the latter words Luther obviously wants to say that whoever knows what the law is and that it still proves its power will not despair even in the felt terror of conscience, for he will turn from the law to the Gospel, where he will find what the law demands. But if one thinks that the law has been taken away and yet is assailed by the terror of conscience, there is no help, counsel or consolation available.”

Furthermore, Luther says:

• “Whoever does away with the Law must also do away with sin.”
• “For Christ has freed us from the curse, not from the obedience of the law. … Therefore see to it that you rightly distinguish between the two words and do not give more to the law than is due to it; otherwise you will deny the gospel.”
• “Therefore the law will never be abolished in eternity, but remains either to be fulfilled in the damned or fulfilled in the saved.”

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These lessons on the Law were quite instructive for me, not only as a review of my past training, but also on what aspects still surprised me. — In the next Part L09…