Intro: I just learned on-line that on this day, October 25th, in 1811 C.F.W. Walther was born. Who was he? He was the founder of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Here is a short article on Pastor Walther in St. Louis Today: C.F.W. Walther Turns 200 Today.
Concordia Seminary St. Louis
“Thesis VI: In the second place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Law is not preached in its full sternness and the Gospel not in its full sweetness, when, on the contrary, Gospel elements are mingled with the Law and Law elements with the Gospel.”
“All other religious say to man: “You must become just so and so and do such and such works if you wish to go to heaven.” Over against this the Christian religion says: “You are a lost and condemned sinner; you cannot be your own Savior. But do not despair on that count. There is One who has acquired salvation for you. Christ has opened the portals of heaven to you and say to you: Come, for all things are ready. Come to the marriage of the Lamb.”
“…grace is not something for which I must look in my heart. It is in the heart of God.”
“…the sects neither believe nor teach a real and complete reconciliation of man with God because they regard our heavenly Father as being a God very hard to deal with, whose heart must be softened by passionate cries and bitter tears. That amounts to a denial of Jesus Christ, who has long ago turned the heart of God to men by reconciling the entire world with Him. God does nothing by halves. In Christ He loves all sinners without exception. The sins of every sinner are canceled. Every debt has been liquidated. There is no longer anything that a poor sinner has to fear when he approaches his heavenly Father, with whom he has been reconciled by Christ.”
“It is…an awful mistake to claim that men can be saved only in the Lutheran Church. No one must be induced to join the Lutheran Church because he thinks that only in that way he can get into the Church of God. There are still Christians in the Reformed Church, among the Methodists, yea, among the papists. We have this precious promise in Is. 55, 11: ‘My Word shall not return unto Me void.” Wherever the Word of God is proclaimed and confessed or even recited during the service, the Lord is gathering a people for Himself. The Roman Church, for instance, still confesses that Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross to redeem the world. That is truth sufficient to bring a man to the knowledge of salvation. Whoever denies this fact is forced to deny also that there are Christians in some Lutheran communities in which errors have cropped out. But there are always some children of God in these communities because they have the Word of God, which is always bearing fruit in converting some souls to God.
The false doctrine concerning the Church which we are studying involves a fatal confounding of Law and Gospel. While the Gospel requires faith in Jesus Christ, the Law makes all sorts of demands upon men. Setting up a demand of some kind as necessary to salvation in addition to faith, the acceptance of the Gospel promises, means to commingle Law and Gospel. I belong to theLutheranChurchfor the sole reason that I want to side with the truth. I quit the Church to which I belong when I find that it harbors errors with which I do not wish to be contaminated. I do not wish to become a partaker of other men’s sins, and by quitting a heretical community I confess the pure and unadulterated truth. For Christ says: Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 10, 32. 33. Again, Paul writes distinctly to Timothy: “Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of me, his prisoner.” 2 Tim. 1, 8.
…if I perceive the error of my heretical community and do not forsake it, I shall be lost because, though seeing the error, I would not abandon it. I can still remember the time when I became a believer. Then I also joined the unionists. Some persons approached me with the intention of bringing me into the LutheranChurch. But I told them that I was a believer and did not choose to belong to a Church that claimed to be the alone-saving Church. Afterwards I found some good writings, which showed me that the Lutheran Church claims to be the only Church that has the pure doctrine, but does not claim to be the alone-saving Church, and admits that men can be saved in the sects if they are not aware of their error. As soon as I learned this, I quit the unionistic community and joined the Lutherans. I had long known that theLutheranChurch has the truth, but I refused to endorse the aforementioned papistic principle. Then I understood that one does not have to condemn any one who is in error regarding some article of the Creed, but only those who have seen their error and still want to abide in it.”
“My heart, now make thy choice:
On Him stake thy reliance,
Or thou’lt not come to rest
Renounce the world and all
That does thy flesh enthrall;
With Jesus take thy stand
And thus the matter end.
Blessed are you, my dear friends, if you make the poet’s words: “With Jesus take thy stand And thus the matter end,” the sighing of your heart. Not until you do this, will you “end the matter.””
Concordia and Koinonia 
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