E2: Antichrist = "collective person", all individual Popes (Comparing LC-MS vs Old Missouri)

      This continues from Part E1 (Table of Contents in Part E1) presenting the 1870 Eastern District convention essay on "The Antichrist". Walther was in attendance, so the essay's content would be his as well. — In this post, we dig into the portion that is in direct opposition to what is taught in the LC–MS today: 

1) Has the “Missouri Synod” never taught that individual Popes were the Antichrist?

the LC–MS's Theological Commission states:	1870 Eastern District essay (w/ Walther): (emphasis mine)
“The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod does not teach, nor has it ever taught, that any individual Pope as a person, is to be identified with the Antichrist.”	“The present pope is considered by many to be too pious to be the Antichrist… But do not be deceived, the devil disguises himself as an angel of light.  Pius IX is rather the greatest hypocrite, the most shameful, most wicked man that the earth bears at present”

The Eastern District convention, along with Walther who is considered the father of the Missouri Synod, explicitly taught that an individual Pope was “the Antichrist”. Walther’s word to the LC–MS: “do not be deceived”.

2) Again, not “any individual Pope as a person”?

the LC–MS's Theological Commission states:	1870 Eastern District essay (w/ Walther): (emphasis mine)
“…the Scriptures also teach that there is one climactic "Anti-Christ" ... Concerning the historical identity of the Antichrist, we affirm the Lutheran Confessions' identification of the Antichrist with the office of the papacy…” [excluding any individual Pope]	“…according to the Scriptures, we should rather think of a collective person (consisting of several individuals).” Luther: "One should by no means obey those who understand this (Dan. 8:23-25) and similar passages of the prophets to refer to one person alone… [Luther refers to “person” here, not just an office. The Antichrist is not “one person” but a series of persons holding that office.] Paul would have understood the whole body and the whole swarm of the ungodly and all their descendants to be the same end-Christ [or Antichrist]. Gerhard: “…Against the Papists we urge that in Matt. 16:18 the singular with the definite article and the demonstrative pronoun “ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ” [“on this rock”] is found, and yet they [papists] refer that word no less to every pontiff. We also urge this, that canon law, when it names the "Pope," does not understand one [einen] man, but every Pope who is present at the time, or the whole succession of Popes." Hülsemann: "There is absolutely no reason why one should think more favorably of the present Roman bishop, Urban VIII [an individual man], as if he were either not the Antichrist, or that he has not defiled himself with all the marks of the Antichrist.

Now the LC–MS may think that their identification of only the “office of the papacy” as the Antichrist agrees with the essay’s statement of a “collective person”, but the Eastern essay then clarifies this with the term “several individuals”. Now the LC–MS theologians will surely fault the Eastern District essayist, saying that this is not what the Scriptures teach, not what the Confessions teach. But the LC–MS’s teaching essentially says that the Confessions are ambiguous when it is written that “the Pope is the very Antichrist”. But the writings of Luther, Gerhard, and  Hülsemann know nothing of the peculiar LC–MS doctrine. Luther does not speak of just the “office of the papacy”, he used the word “person”. He is not excluding the “office of the papacy”, he is reinforcing it by referring to the “person” or “persons”. And while Gerhard does not specifically speak of “individual men”, yet his terms “every pontiff” and “every Pope” point to individual men as Popes. — He also understands the word “Pope”, in the confessional phrase “the Pope is the very Antichrist”, in the same way that the papists do. The papists do not distinguish the word “Pope” from the “individual men who fill that office”. 

      The Lutheran Confessions state “the Pope is the very Antichrist”. Nowhere do they exclude the individual Popes as the Antichrist, as the LC–MS theologians do. Yet these theologians boldly claim “we affirm the Lutheran Confessions'…”.

      There is another aspect of the Old Missouri Synod teaching that "flies in the face of" today's LC–MS, the duration of the period of time of the Pope as the Antichrist. We cover that in the next Part E3.

E1 Eastern District's “Theses on the Antichrist”, Walther present (in 1870)

      In a previous blog post, I covered the topic of how the LC–MS deviates from the Lutheran Confessions on the doctrine of the Antichrist. This was part of a series that covered Walther's sharp essay in the 1874 Der Lutheraner defending against the error of Wilhelm Loehe and the Iowa Synod on this doctrine. I had thought that that post was sufficient to establish that the Lutheran Church–"Missouri Synod" was not truly "confessional", and so I was done with this doctrine. 

      But now, once again, I find that I have been too mild, for I have come across even stronger evidence of just how far the LC–MS is non-confessional. In that old post I included a link to the 1870 essay to the Eastern District, "Theses on the Antichrist" (English translated). Walther was in attendance, so the essay's content would be his as well. My old translation was not polished, so I have taken several days to polish it and study the material in more depth. What I discovered was how important this doctrine of the Lutheran Confessions really is, even if it is a non-fundamental article of the Christian faith. 

      What is unique about this District convention essay is perhaps the extent of the details on why this article is important: it was one of the defining articles, after "grace alone — faith alone", of the Lutheran Reformation. Walther knew very well how this doctrine was despised even in his day. That unpopularity did not sway him, it only made him more earnest in educating his Synod in exactly what the Lutheran doctrine is. And oh! did this essay lay it out before the Eastern District convention, surely the least sympathetic district to this Lutheran doctrine. The essay is more instructive than the shorter Der Lutheraner essay of 4 years later. It is 54 pages long so I will not be presenting it in a lengthy blog series (but see the later Part E3 for download). But I would highlight some of its major points in the following list of quotes:

Notable Quotes (tl;dr):

p. 20: "According to Scripture, the discovery of the Antichrist is also to be connected with the reformation of the Church." [The Reformation was Luther's Reformation.]

21: "this doctrine is important because it is clearly stated in the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church (especially the Smalcald Articles)" [To deny it is to deny one is Lutheran.]

21: "Although the Iowans say that everything here depends on history, the Jews could have said to the apostles in exactly the same way: we first want to see how it goes with your Christ, for it is indeed written in the Bible that a Christ is to come, but not expressly that it is precisely this Jesus of Nazareth.… the characteristics of the Antichrist are also clearly laid down in Scripture" [To deny doctrine of Antichrist uses same reasoning as the Jews did with Christ.]

22: "if they find that these people [Romanists] even surpass others in outward, worshipful exercises [i.e. Liturgy, ceremonies] … they wonder what kind of Christianity must be hidden there." [error of Pres. Matthew Harrison and "Gottesdienst"]

25: "In the old days of the Christian church, an Antichrist was expected in the sense that he would not be a collective but an individual.… many Christians were inclined to believe that he [Mohammad] was the Antichrist."

28: "because of the words: 'the true, right one', i.e. in the actual, narrowest, strictest sense of the word the Pope is the Antichrist."

29: "This failure of the Iowans on the symbols proves again that Iowa is not sincere about the symbols." [now also the LC–MS]

30-36: Theses VI & VII: "a collective person" section —> see the next Part 2 (70E2).

38: "For when someone departs so far from the rule of faith that he can no longer stand in justifying faith, Scripture calls this apostasy. This great apostasy took place in the Roman sect."

38: "We Lutherans write Pabst [Pope] with a "b" at the end, like our fathers, while the Romans write it with a "p" [Papst]. The latter thus indicate that they consider the Pope to be the true Papa…"

40: "This requires art and deceit, to defile everything under the best pretense"

43: "as great as the corruption of the sects is, it is nevertheless infinitely surpassed by the papacy."

48: "The Roman theologians say that the images are only signs of remembrance, but the common people use them quite differently…in the crucifix they do not worship Him whom it depicts, but the crucifix itself."

48-49: "one should not be surprised that the Roman people look up to the so-called saints as their gods and pray to them." [It is the same today. Just Google it.]

50: "Do they not worship it [bread in the monstrance] by genuflection, kisses, prostration on the ground…"

53: "The time in which the Antichrist began to reveal himself… around the year 607."

54: "The preacher has no more authority over a Christian than a baby in the cradle, and Peter had no more."

54: The papacy "has recovered from the severe wound inflicted on it by the Reformation and is now spreading all the more, the less attention is paid to it and the less it is feared."

55: "The papal religion is a totally new, shameful and diabolical invention; not a syllable, not an iota of it is confirmed in Scripture."

60: "In the struggle against the authorities, the Pope is one with the revolutionaries…" [Cp. Dr. Christian Preus' essay "Roman Catholicism and Liberalism"]

61: "…the papacy, which always offers its mediation to states in distress in order to gain influence on the politics of these states…"

66: "The pope pretends to be God by teaching and preaching without the foundation of Scripture"

68: "Rudelbach: 'Sixtus IV (1471 to 1484) practiced even the most outrageous usury" [Rudelbach names an individual Pope]

Pages 30-36 concern matters that are explicitly denied by the theologians of the LC–MS. We compare the two "Missouri Synods", Old and New, in the next Part E2…

- - - - - - - - - - - -  Table of Contents  - - - - - - - - - - -

E1: This introduction, with "Notable Quotes"

E2: Antichrist = "collective person", all individual Popes (Comparing LC-MS & Old Missouri)

E3: Will another, beside the Pope, be Antichrist?; full translated text

John Gerhard, Prof. Mayes defend "grace alone" (vs Harrison)

        While researching some writings of John Gerhard, I had occasion to glance through the 2020 CPH book On Good Works - Theological Commonplaces. What impressed me was how thoroughly Gerhard defended against the Roman Catholic theologian Robert Bellarmine, who doggedly defended his Church's doctrine of "grace and works" for salvation.

      The editor of this volume is Prof. Benjamin T. G. Mayes, a theologian who has been shown to hold questionable theology in other blog posts here and here. So it came as a surprise to me that he spoke well about Gerhard's strong defense against the Roman mixing of grace and works. What was perhaps most helpful was his quote from Catholic sources of their "Response" to the 1997 Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification. On page xii, Prof. Mayes quotes this Roman "Response":

“We can therefore say that eternal life is, at one and the same time, grace and the reward given by God for good works and merits” — (Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) (see archived copy here.)

That is an official statement of the Roman Catholic Church in 1998 under Pope John Paul II. Prof. Mayes' republishing of this statement was most helpful for Lutherans today in order to see that there remains a major difference between Lutherans and Catholics. The Roman Catholic Church is the same church today as it was in the days of the Council of Trent. Now Prof. Mayes goes on to make the following statement of "Applications to Modern Theology": 

“Gerhard’s response [to Catholic theology] will thus be applicable to modern ecumenical discussions…”

That is a very appropriate statement! But our professor does not go into detail of what these "modern ecumenical discussions" might or should be. Perhaps that was not the place to do it. But he should have "discussions" within his own church body, particularly with President Matthew Harrison, who in his presentation of Walther's Church and Office said this (p. xiv, emphasis mine):

“As I perused the Catechism of the Catholic Church for contemporary documentation of positions of the Roman Catholic Church which Walther addresses and which are the object of Lutheran polemic, I noted numerous points of remarkable convergence of Lutheran and Roman Catholic doctrine on the Office of the Ministry. While we must reject what is false, we can also joyously note what is right—no matter who says it.”

Now if Prof. Mayes actually believes what John Gerhard defended, then he would recognize the fallacy in Harrison's statement. Because when the Roman Catholic Church condemns "grace alone" and "faith alone", it has struck at the heart of the Christian faith. And so there can be no "convergence of Lutheran and Roman Catholic doctrine", no matter what doctrine the papists teach.

==>> Prof. Mayes: Do you really believe what John Gerhard defended? It seems that your spiritual leader causes one to question "grace alone".

Walther's hermeneutics essay: 1867 Northern District; Fuerbringer compared

      While reviewing the convention essays of the old Missouri Synod, I ran across the essay that the Director of Concordia Historical Institute, August Suelflow, had overlooked as being delivered by C. F. W. Walther. As called out on my "Convention Essays" blog, Franz Pieper identified Walther as the uncredited essayist for the 1867 Northern District convention: "Principles of the Lutheran Church on the Interpretation of Scripture". I had originally labeled this essay as addressing the subject of "exegesis", but after researching the terminologies of this field, I discovered that it may be more appropriately labeled as dealing with Biblical Hermeneutics. After realizing that this was one of the essays on my "Convention Essays" blog which did not offer an English translation, I decided to put the effort into getting it properly translated. 

 

    C. F. W. Walther                                L. Fuerbringer
       orthodox                                        mediating?

    Judging by the popularity of my upload of Prof. Ludwig Fuerbringer's Theological Hermeneutics, it would seem that Walther's essay will have great interest for anyone interested in what was taught by the old Missouri Synod, especially by Walther himself. Of course Walther dealt with this subject in other writings, e.g. his True Visible Church book, his edited Baier-Walther Compendium, and his many writings in the publications Der Lutheraner and Lehre und Wehre.

      A casual comparison between Walther's essay and Fuerbringer's booklet seems to indicate that the latter is more technical, and even relied on unorthodox German theologians: Schleiermacher, Cremer, and Zezschwitz. Walther uses no Greek or Hebrew words. Also while Fuerbringer mentions the errors of the "Romanists" and the "Reformed", Walther calls out these fellowships, the "Papists", "Reformed" and "enthusiasts", nearly 10 times as often. Walther's essay includes many quotes from the Confessions, Luther, Gerhard, Pfeiffer, Baier, etc. Fuerbringer only references his sources but does not quote them. He includes no references to the great John Gerhard. — Overall, while Fuerbringer does make good use of Luther's writings and the Lutheran Confessions, yet his technical treatment and weak statements leaves one wondering if he was inclined to take a mediating position. He used statements that opened the door for later "Walkout" sympathizing LC-MS theologians like Profs. Robert H. Smith and Norman Habel. 

      Not so with C. F. W. Walther:

Page 9: "For the papacy is also a vain enthusiasm." 

10: "The enthusiasts falsely refer to the passage: 'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.' (2 Cor. 3:6)"

13: "The papists' theology teaches that we must doubt grace…"

25: "diabolical doctrines of the pope and the papists"

Other notable quotes from this essay:

8: "Everyone must have divine certainty from Holy Scripture itself, not standing on the light of nature, but on the light of the Holy Spirit."

9: "…the Holy Spirit has placed the words in such a way that the meaning intended by Him can be recognized from them. — It is on such certainty of the Holy Spirit that a Christian bases his consolation in mortal distress."

11: "No man has the right to interpret Scripture, but only the Holy Spirit."

12: "The Lutheran Church has confessed that the Pope [not just the Papacy] of Rome is the Antichrist. Anyone who does not believe this is not a Lutheran." [Can we not conclude that some theologians in the LC-MS are not Lutheran?]

17-18: "God has never directed us to tradition, but to the Scriptures alone." [Against Prof. Joel Biermann's teaching on the place of "tradition" in theology.]

19: "The inner light of which the enthusiasts, especially the Quakers, boast is the devil's light."

20: "What follows from the Scriptures is what it says. The Bible does not contain the word "triune", nor does it say "three persons", and yet Christians believe and confess it… Almost all doctrines of Christianity are the result of such conclusions." [Against the revered LC-MS theologian Martin Franzmann who said that there are no scripture passages clearly establishing the inerrancy of Holy Scripture.]

22: "…not to doubtful passages, e.g. … to John 6, for there is no trace of Holy Communion."  [Against Prof. David Scaer]

25: Luther: "But if any of them should challenge you, saying, 'We must have the interpretation of the Fathers, that the Scriptures are dark,' you should answer that it is not true.… They speak such things only to lead us out of the Scriptures and exalt themselves as masters over us, that we should believe their dream sermons." [Against Prof. Joel Biermann of CSL.]

28: Luther: "the Scriptures are their own light. This is how it is when Scripture interprets itself."

30: "the newer theologians… have invented a completely new doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which they base on John 6, but which does not speak of the Lord's Supper." [Against Prof. David Scaer]

34: "Even those who do not know the basic languages can be divinely certain that their German Bible is the Word of God, because they receive the testimony of the Holy Spirit through it." [Not spoken of by Fuerbringer.]

39: Gerhard: "Allegories, tropologies, and anagogies are not different senses, but different inferences from that one sense" and Pfeiffer: "for not to mean merely one thing is to mean nothing certain".

40: "A signpost must show so clearly that only one way can be understood. The newer theologians claim that the Scriptures have a multiple meaning… But no Christian can comfort himself with this, because he must be continually in fear as to what is the meaning intended by the Holy Spirit."

41: "There is no second sense of the word in Scripture, only of things."

41: "Even if Luther almost always gives a secret interpretation of the Gospel in his Church Postils, he was too fond of the weakness of his time, and no one is entitled to follow him in this. The listeners demanded it; but since Luther spoke of nothing more than faith and love in these secret interpretations, the listeners themselves finally grew tired of it, which is why we find nothing more of the secret interpretations in the House Postils, which were written later." [That Walther is a Lutheran theologian of the first rank is exhibited here as he calls out Luther's use of "secret interpretations", but shows these came from the early Luther's Church Postils, which the later, stronger Luther outgrew with his House Postils. (Ref. Klug, House Postils, "Preface", p. 13) An analogy to this is when Luther outgrew his respect for the Pope, and later identified him as the very Antichrist.]

49: "A Christian has to do only with those things that are so certain that he can live and die on them."

      The following is the English translated file that utilized the DeepL Translator as its basis, and was somewhat polished. It includes numerous hyperlinks for navigation and to its references for immediate access, especially for the Lutheran Confession (Triglotta), and Luther's Works (St. Louis Edition and American Edition):

A file without highlights may be directly accessed >> here <<; the German text >> here <<.

      May this uncovered essay of Walther provide readers with the defense and comfort they need for their faith, so that the the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures are so certain for them that they "can live and die on them". Amen!

Sacraments: Secondary to Word of Gospel; Piepkorn vs Pieper

[2024-11-30: see also this blog post on this subject]

    What is the primary fundamental article of Christianity? "The Word in the form of the Gospel". — 

      Philip James Secker († 2024) is perhaps the best known spokesman today for Prof. Arthur Carl Piepkorn († 1973).  His essay delivered to the The 32nd Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions, at Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana in January, 2009 may be downloaded here. It is entitled "Arthur Carl Piepkorn and The Schism of Authority in Lutheranism". The target of this essay is the teaching of Prof. Franz Pieper, this in spite of Pres. Harrison's claim that Pieper is "our greatest LCMS theologian". (Also in spite of Dr. Henry Allen's claim that "Pieper’s multi-volume Christian Dogmatics… remains a foundational text in LCMS seminary instruction".) As background for this matter, the following is from Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 86: 

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, important as they are, do not have the same importance and necessity as basis of faith as the Word in the form of the Gospel and are therefore called secondary fundamental articles.  

But Secker reports the following in his history of Prof. Arthur Carl Piepkorn, p. 12:

While reading the Symbols in the fall of 1928 and after, Piepkorn became convinced that according to them the Word and Sacraments are both constitutive of the Church. In 1937 he wrote that “Christianity is in its historic aspect essentially sacramental.”

Piepkorn testified to this [p. 6]:

I went up to the University with a habitual faith, but I found myself, very shortly, ill-equipped to meet either the problem of personal religion—I learned this in a personal religion group—or confrontation with other Christians. 

If Piepkorn had taken to heart the teaching of his "revered professor" Franz Pieper (p. 7), he would have had all that he needed to fend off those of the sects at the "University", for all he had to do to distinguish himself was tell them the true Gospel, i.e. Universal, Objective Justification.  But he did not... why?  Why would he shrug off the greatest teaching the world has, or ever will, hear, the teaching that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions?  Why would he either forget or leave this "Lutheran Doctrine of Justification" to fend for himself and claim that he "discovered" the Lutheran Confessions?

      As an antidote to the false teachings of both Profs. Piepkorn and David Scaer, I want to publish the full text and Christian teaching of Prof. Pieper from page 86 of Volume I [Christliche Dogmatik p. 95-96]:

In the controversies between the Lutheran and the Reformed Church, one of the disputed questions was whether Baptism and the Lord’s Supper belong to the foundation of the Christian faith.118 Scripture has decided this question. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper certainly do belong to the foundation of the Christian faith, together with the Word of the Gospel, for Baptism is given “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), and in the Lord’s Supper Christ’s body and blood are imparted as “given for you” and “shed for you for the remission of sins” (Luke 22:19 ff.; Matt. 26:26 ff.). The promise and offer of the forgiveness of sins, which is the foundation of faith, is contained also in the Sacraments.119 Hence the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are certainly fundamental doctrines. — But why do we call them articuli fundamentales secundarii? A man may, through ignorance of the nature and benefit of the Sacraments, lack that foundation of his faith which the Sacraments supply, but still have the true faith in the forgiveness of sins if he trusts in the Word of the Gospel, as heard or read. The reason is that the Gospel Word gives the full remission of sins gained by Christ, and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper give the same grace only in another and in a particularly consoling way (verbum visibile — applicatio individualis). The Christian who does not make the right use of the Sacraments, but trusts in the Gospel, has the true saving faith though he lacks the additional support for his faith which God has provided in the Sacraments.120 Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, important as they are, do not have the same importance and necessity as basis of faith as the Word in the form of the Gospel and are therefore appropriately called secondary fundamental articles. The one is essential to faith, the other is intended to support faith. What is absolutely necessary is the hearing of the Word. The articuli fundamentales secundarii are, in the words of Quenstedt, those qui non simpliciter fundamentales seu causa salutis sunt, ad fundamentum tamen pertinent (Systema I, 355).

—————————

118. Nikolaus Hunnius’ Διάσκεψις Theologica de Fundamentali Dissensu (1626) and Joh. Huelsemann’s Calvinismus Irreconciliabüis (1646). Walch, Bibliotheca Theologica, II, 486 ff., discusses the complete bibliography, covering also the Reformed writings.
119. This is fully discussed in the section "Baptism a True Means of Grace,” in Vol. III.
120. This is the case with the children of God in the Reformed bodies, who, misled by their teachers, fail to use Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as divinely appointed means of justification. Believing the Gospel, they have the full forgiveness of their sins, full salvation. Both Luther (St. L. XVII: 2212) and the Preface to the Book of Concord (Trigl. 19 f.) call attention to this.

      Why would Piepkorn call Franz Pieper his "revered professor" when he expressly contradicts a major teaching of his?  Prof. David Scaer is in the same camp against Pieper, even when he seemingly praised him.  And make no mistake, they considered/consider themselves to be "Confessional Lutherans!"  Scaer even authored a book on "Confessional Lutheranism".  Yes indeed! they are to be considered CONFESSIONAL in capital letters, Pieper is out with his transient opinion.  And Piepkorn was one of the translators for Tappert's Book of Concord... doesn't that make him truly "Confessional"?

      Are we to listen to Piepkorn and Scaer when they proclaim that they hold to Confessional Theology more than Franz Pieper does?  Are we to distrust Pieper?

      Yet it was this very teaching of Franz Pieper, in his Christian Dogmatics, that jolted me back to my Christian faith, that caused me to not consider Holy Communion as a work of mine, but God's work.  It is Pieper's clear distinction of the Holy Scripture from the Sacraments that caused me to truly value them, not devalue them as Piepkorn and Scaer imply.  For the basis of the Sacraments is not their ex opere operato (the work itself), but the Word that gives them their divine power, that indeed they are God's work.  It was not today's LC-MS sacramental teaching that brought me back to my Christian faith, it was the old (German) Missouri's teaching on the Word of God, the true Word of the Gospel, i.e. Universal, Objective Justification – the teaching that is largely missing from Profs. Arthur Carl Piepkorn and David Scaer.

My gravestone is set, also my life verse

      I have recently made my funeral arrangements and pre-paid them. I also had a monument company prepare my gravestone. Unfortunately I was not able to use the gravesite that my father had pre-purchased several decades ago because a nearby tree had grown up so large that it blocked that plot of ground. So that gravesite had to be swapped for an open site about 50 feet south of my father's and mother's gravestones. 

      But the point of publicizing this gravestone is to highlight the Bible verse that I will take to my grave. It was the verse that I recall the old Missouri Synod Lutheran fathers used to prove that Justification was not for the few, but for all, everyone from the beginning of time until the end. It was the verse that no one could take away from me, even though I had turned away from God after having been instructed by a faithful LC-MS pastor in my youth. But when circumstances came about that caused me to retrace my path back to my upbringing, Walther and Pieper hammered home the fact that God was already reconciled to all, including me who had turned away from Him. I was translated into heaven. And I clung for dear life to a Bible verse that no one could take away from me: 

2 Corinthians 5:19

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, 

not imputing their trespasses unto them; 

and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

I am happy to now be permitted to set a reference to this verse in stone, my gravestone:

It is a simple message. May readers take it to heart, and to their grave.