with it, is not only to be read, but to be preached and heard. This is God's own arrangement. From the days of Enoch, Noah, the patriarchs and prophets, down to Jesus and the apostles, and from them to the end of the Gospel dispensation, He has had and will have His preachers of righteousness.
Our Lord preached His own Gospel, the words of spirit and life. He commissioned His apostles to preach the same Gospel. They "went everywhere preaching the Word." The Church called and sent others, whose life-work it was to "preach the Word, to be instant in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking, exhorting." And this divine arrangement is to continue. Rom. x. 13-15: "For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved; how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?" 1 Cor. i. 21: "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe;" Rom. x. 17: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Therefore, according to Rom. x. 6-8, let no one say, "Who shall ascend into heaven (i.e., to bring Christ down from above), or who shall descend into the deep?" (i.e., to bring Christ up again from the dead) for "the
Word is nigh thee ... that is the Word of faith which we preach." This then is evidently God's order of the application of divine Grace.
And yet, notwithstanding these plain declarations, men try all sorts of measures and methods to bring Christ near, because they cannot understand that when they have the Word, they have the Spirit, and when they have the Spirit, they have Christ. In Luke xi. 27, we read how a woman called down a blessing on the mother of our Lord because she was privileged to have borne Him. But Jesus answered, "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it." Because that Word carries the Spirit to the hearer, and through it converts the sinner and sanctifies the saint. In the Acts of the Apostles also we read how again and again the Spirit was given through and in connection with the Word. The Apostles depended on nothing but Word and Sacrament.
The Lutheran doctrine, then, that the Word of God is the great effectual means of Grace; that it is the vehicle and instrument of the Holy Spirit; that through it, the Spirit renews the soul, applies forgiveness, and sanctifies the hearer or reader more and more—is the pure truth of Christ. Hence, wherever the Lutheran Church is true to her name and faith, she preaches the whole counsel of God, and relies on that
for ingathering and upbuilding. A true Lutheran pulpit cannot be a sensational pulpit, for discoursing wordly wisdom, philosophy, poetry, or politics. It must expound the Word, and never gets done preaching repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a beautiful and harmonious system of God's methods of saving men is thus brought into view! How helpful to the sinner desiring salvation! Instead of waiting and hoping and dreaming of something wonderful to happen to bring him into the kingdom, he needs only to go to the divine Word and let that Word do its work in his heart.
"Though devils all the world should fill,
All watching to devour us,
We tremble not, we fear no ill,
They cannot overpower us.
This world's prince may still
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none,
He's judged, the deed is done,
One little Word o'erthrows him.
"The Word they still should let remain.
And not a thank have for it,
He's by our side upon the plain,
With His good gifts and Spirit;
Take they then our life,
Goods, fame, child and wife;
When their worst is done,
They yet have nothing won,
The Kingdom ours remaineth."