This continues from Part AG4b (Table of Contents in Part AG1a) in a series presenting Walther's essays to the Western District that supported his theme "That Only Through the Doctrine of the Lutheran Church is All Glory Given to God Alone". — The Western District conventions were where Walther delivered some of his most notable convention essays. One could almost say this series provides the basics for a dogmatics text book, much like his Baier-Walther Compendium series, (which I am working on now). — This blog covers point 4. on the Means of Grace, then a short section on Conversion (pp. 63-71):
- Foundation (pp. 25-29)
- Validity (pp. 29-41)
- Power (pp. 42-56)
- Immutability (pp. 56-63)
On pp. 56-63, Walther "calls a spade a spade", i.e. "the Pope is the Antichrist", just as the Lutheran symbolic books do:
Notable Quotes:
Immutability (& Antichrist):
56: "no man…can change the means of grace as God has ordained them"
56: "it is self-evident that if God decrees something, the creature cannot change it…But this is what the papacy has actually done.…has put the stamp of the Antichrist on itself…this happened at the Council of Constance."
58: "The papists…do not violate what they have ordained [one form], but what the Lord Christ has ordained [both forms, bread and wine] they think they may change."
58: The Pope "cannot say otherwise, because he does not believe that the Bible is God's Word"
59: "it is called a Missourian quirk that we teach that the pope is the Antichrist"
60: Papists: "claimed to be the Church of God, and yet consciously departed from the commands of God."
60: "The Lord expressly says that the Holy Spirit would not teach them anything new, so those words of the papists were also a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit."
60: Luther "did not want to suffer the honor of God to be taken away from Him with regard to the immutability of the means of grace."
61: "Where it was necessary to give God the glory, Luther did not remain silent"
61: "Where is there a hell for the rascal [the Pope] who…pretends to have the power to make something wiser and better than Christ?"
62: "But an anti-Christian spirit is also revealed in the fact that the modern theologians
- make God's Word uncertain,
- deny the Lutheran doctrine of the inspiration of Holy Scripture,
- leave the decision of doctrinal disputes not to the Word of God but to the pronouncement of the Church, and
- turn the teachings of Scripture into open questions."
62: Modern theologians "do not believe that the Bible is God's Word". [See p. 58 above on the Pope]
62: "that is the terrible thing, that they [papists] admit it [inspired Word], and yet ascribe to themselves the power to depart from it. In this way they elevate themselves above everything that is called God"
Conversion:
63: "Lutherans "maintain that God converts man all by Himself."
63: "God must be the cause that so many are not converted and saved. So says our reason…"
64: "If man wants to do anything for his conversion, it is all in vain, indeed, only an obstacle to it"
64: "this much we know: they willfully resisted, for if they had not willfully resisted, they would certainly have been converted"
65: A Christian: "I have not acquired it [my salvation] by my own doing, I have not prayed for it, I have not fought for it, it has come upon me in this way!"
65: "Just as a fish is caught with a hook, so people are caught by the Word of God"
65: "This is biblical doctrine, this is also Lutheran doctrine, which gives all glory to God alone"
65: Lutheran doctrine, "an abomination and an annoyance to all Pharisees in the world, even to those who rail against the Pharisees" [I. e., the "enemy of my enemy is [not necessarily] my friend".]
66: "Baptists and Methodists, talk so much about grace…but that is nothing but empty talk, it is not true…they may say so with their mouths, but basically they attribute everything to themselves"
67: "Many people imagine conversion to be like being placed at a crossroads…now man is given the choice"
68: "as soon as man is so far advanced that he can use the divine powers of grace, he is also converted"
68: "there is no middle ground [of the Pietists] between death and life. Either a person is still dead in sin, or he is awakened from his death of sin"
68-69: "God stands before the heart of man, as it were, like a general standing before a castle he wants to conquer…[the man] always lets God's bullets hit his inner being, and he resists, until finally God conquers the castle of his heart, then he cannot help it, he must surrender to the victor; that is conversion."
69: "Holy Scripture compares conversion with creation"
69: "All those who ascribe to man a part in conversion therefore overturn the whole teaching of Scripture on conversion"
70: "It is indeed God's work alone if a person is converted; but it is only man's work if he remains unconverted."
70: "Even passages such as: 'choose whom you will serve' [Joshua 24:15]…do not contain any synergism. They are to be taken in the same way as when the Savior says: 'Lazarus, come forth.'"
Reading Walther's characterization of God's action against a stony heart can drive a Christian to plead with Him in prayer for those in his family who are unconverted. —
Now I present my English translation of the full complete essay, with missing portions restored , all emphasized wording retained, and with hyperlinks for reference and navigation:
In his "Postscript", editor Suelflow stated at the end of the 1981 translations book:
"The entire series of essays which Walther delivered between 1873 and 1886 on the topic: The Doctrine of the Lutheran Church Alone Gives All Glory to God, an Irrefutable Proof That Its Doctrine Alone Is True, would constitute several volumes."
In the next Part AG5a…, we pick up where that 1981 CPH book ended, at the 1877 convention, beginning Walther's 3-year series of essays on the Doctrine of the Election of Grace, or Predestination.
