The Flight of an Arrow / The Faith of the Lutheran Church

RELIGIOUS FAITHS/ VIII. THE FAITH OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. BY PROF. F. A. SCHMIDT, D. D. Religious truth to us Lutherans is not a matter of barren abstract speculation, but rather one of vital practical interest. Our foremost motive in setting a high price on the purity of gospel faith is our conviction that such purity of faith is of vital importance in regard to all questions that more or less closely refer to the salvation of sinners. How can I please God and be accepted of him at death? This question, above all others, merits investigation. So central and overmaster- ing is this doctrine concerning God's plan of saving sinners, in the gospel of Jesus, that all other doctrines manifestly occupy a place subservient to it. Our Lutheran theology follows closely the same train of thought. All parts of our faith and confession, even the more intricate questions of our *As stated in an editoral note accompanying the first article under this general title, we ' 'extended an invitation to prominent ministers of the churches represented in Utah to contribute statements of their doctrine and claims to the Era, in order that each of the prominent churches, at least, might pre- sent its doctrine from its own standpoint and by its own representative." Five prominent ministers responded, but the representatives of three very important divisions of Christendom have failed to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the Era to present statements of their faith to our readers. These were the representatives of the Lutheran, the Congregational and Baptist Churches. It is important, however, that these churches be represented in this symposium, and that, too, by sympathetic writers; and we have, therefore, selected statements of the faith and doctrine of these churches from papers presented by representative ministers of those re- pective faiths at the World's Parliament of Religions, held at Chicago, 1893, in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition.

RELIGIOUS FAITHS. 551 systematic theology, have positive reference to the chief gospel doctrine of salvation alone by faith in Christ Jesus as the Savior of sinners. Our Lutheran Church has ever maintained the principle that the article of justification by faith in Christ is the central doctrine of gospel truth. If God's granting unto us the eternal gospel is the result of a practical motive, to wit, the salvation of lost sinners, and if the Church of God, in proclaiming and de- fending that gospel, is actuated by the same practical motive, the desire of saving sinners, then most assuredly the article of our justification must be recognized as the pivotal article of the gospel. The fate of a sinner is determined in the sight of God by his either being accounted righteous before God or his not being so accounted. Righteousness in the judgment of God is the immediate condition of a man's being accepted as an object of pleasure and an heir to life eternal. That sen- tence of God by which his previous accounting a sinner as a sinner is changed to an opposite accounting of a sinner as not a sinner, but as righteous, that justifying sentence of God is the decisive point that turns the scale in the eternal fate of sinners. Whatever blessings and experiences of grace may lead up to that decisive point of our justification before God, they have their great importance in the fact of their being means to this end. And whatever blessings and experiences may follow afterwards, they are the fruits of our justification. There are two ways of explaining the idea of God's justi- fying a sinner, both of which admit that the basis of God's justification is righteousness, or the fulfillment of the law. God will not justify or absolve any sinner without the inter- vention of a sufficiently perfect righteousness. The question is: Wherein does this necessary righteousness consist? Both the law and the gospel testify that God will not be satisfied with our being merely as holy as we are able to be by our own powers. Neither does Jesus heal our nature so that we ourselves, being born again by his grace and renewed into his holy image, can work out our own righteousness and merit an approving and justifying sentence from God. But are we to come as sinful beings, admitting our lost and condemned con- dition, bringing nothing of our own holiness or worthiness on