Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

The Modern Parent And The Teaching Church, Arthur C. Piepkorn

Concordia Theological Monthly

"It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years, not in fact in the lifetime of most men who are here, has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In France, the political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs, as usual, a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon of Europe; while all the energies, resources, and the influences of the British Empire are sorely tried and are yet to be tried more sorely. It is a solemn moment, and no man can feel …

Barth's Conception Of The Authority Of The Bible, Thomas Coates

Concordia Theological Monthly

The Barthian theology has often been defined as a "theology of the Word of God." The Word of God is indeed central in Barth's theological system, and to understand his conception of the Word of God is to hold the key which opens the door to all his theological thinking. Is this conception something new in the realm of Christian thought, or is it merely a rcpristination of the Reformation doctrine? Does the Barthian doctrine remain within the mainstream of the Christian tradition, or does it meander off into the slough of a new and disguised rationalism and empty itself …

A Ransom For Many, Martin H. Franzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

In the ransom saying Jesus tells how the Church, the new people of God, is to be built by His death. Here, too, it becomes clear that the way which Jesus is going is diametrically opposed to the thinking and planning of the heart of man, that it brings with it an inversion of all accepted values. The Church is not a fruit upon the tree of history"; it is wholly and exclusively the creation of the Christ; it is God's deed.

Theological Issues At Evanston, F. E. Mayer

Concordia Theological Monthly

The second assembly of the World Council of Churches will be held at Evanston, Ill., August 15-31, 1954. The 161 member churches will be represented by 600 official delegates, 600 accredited visitors, 150 theological consultants, 120 youth consultants, fraternal delegates, and official observers from nonmember churches. The Christian world is vitally interested in the Evanston assembly, because the chief concern of this gathering will be to agree on the "Christian message" which the member churches of the W. C. C. will proclaim to the world. This message comprises a main theme and six subthemes, which will receive intensive study in …

Some Scriptural Aspects Of Processes In Nature, August C. Rehwaldt

Concordia Theological Monthly

Nature is like a veil. It both reveals and conceals the truth. What William Taylor says of the parable may also be applied to nature: " ... a cloud luminous to some, yet dark to others; the enveilment, but also the unveiling, of the truth to men." If nature appeals only to our intellect, we shall see only that which lies on the surface.

The Doctrine Of The Call Into The Holy Ministry, William F. Arndt

Concordia Theological Monthly

In discussing the doctrine of the call, as we all know, we are not traveling on an uncharted sea, but the subject has been discussed in innumerable books, brochures, essays, lectures, and articles. A person would think that since so many navigators have been at work, surely the proper ocean lanes leading to the desired ports have been discovered. Sad to say, there is no unanimity here. Affirmations are hotly pursued by denials.

Jesus The Judge Of The World, Heinrich Willkomm

Concordia Theological Monthly

I dem Chistus palam rediturus est, ut iudicet vivos et mortuos. Thus our fathers confess in the third article of the Augsburg Confession. They repeat therewith the words of the Apostles' Creed. Except for corresponding sentences in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds and brief, withal plain and forceful statements in the discussions of the Large Catechism on the Second and the Third Article of the Creed and the explanation of the Seventh Petition, there is in the whole Book of Concord only one single article which expressly deals with eschatology. This is Article XVII of the Augsburg Confession and its …

The Proper Distinction Between Law And Gospel And The Terminology Visible And Invisible Church, F. E. Mayer

Concordia Theological Monthly

Ecclesiastical, or dogmatical, terminology has proved to be a convenient tool to convey Scriptural truths succinctly and precisely and to reject erroneous views. However, ecclesiastical terminology may also become a barrier to a common understanding and may actually be the cause that two partners in a conversation talk past each other. The usus loquendi also in ecclesiastical terminology is never constant. The terminology adopted in the Chalcedonian Creed is a case in point. The English theologian unfamiliar with Greek thought patterns may encounter some difficulty in understanding the terms after they have been transferred from Greek to Latin, thence to …

The Covenant Of Blood, Paul M. Bretscher

Concordia Theological Monthly

The ceremonial and spiritual climax of the Old Testament religion was the Feast of the Passover; in the New Testament it is the Lord's Supper. In these two feasts, especially as the one merges into the other, the covenant of blood is revealed in its fullest clarity and beauty. The words that Jesus spoke that Passover night in the Upper Room, ''This is My blood of the new Testament," are the simple key which confirms and summarizes the unity of the testaments in the covenant of blood. If this cup is the blood of Jesus Christ in the new testament, …

The Covenant Of Blood, Paul M. Bretscher

Concordia Theological Monthly

In both the Old Testament and the New the idea of redemption is closely related to that of atonement. Redemption is simply another picture of salvation, another facet in the diamond of God's gracious covenant with fallen man.

The Finite-Infinite God Of Edgar Sheffield Brightman, Arthur Carl Piepkorn

Concordia Theological Monthly

Among the noteworthy deaths of last year was that of Edgar Sheffield Brightman, from 1919 to his death Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University, who died at the age of 68 on February 25, 1953. Born in 1884 and educated at Brown, Boston, Berlin, and Marburg Universities, he exerted great influence both on American Protestant theology and on American philosophy. As a philosopher he was one of the most articulate exponents of Personalism. In the field of religion, he will be remembered for having popularized among American Protestant theologians and clergymen the concept of a finite God, …

The Covenant Of Blood, Paul M. Bretscher

Concordia Theological Monthly

To many the Bible appears to contain two different religions. One is the religion of Judaism in the Old Testament; the other, the religion of Christianity in the New. The differences appear to be so great that the two "religions" seem worlds apart. The Old Testament is a religion of Law; the New Testament, of the Gospel. The Old Testament religion is characterized by a complex scheme of sacrifices, by circumcision, by detailed Sabbath regulations; in the New Testament all this is rejected. The Old Testament religion is the religion of a nation; the New Testament religion is to be …

The Faculty At Bethel On The "Demythologizing" Championed By Professor Dr. Bultmann, A. Adam

Concordia Theological Monthly

The intention is not to pass judgment on the theology of R. Bultmann in general. To do that, a far more detailed discussion would be required, for which we do not have the space here. In concerning ourselves specifically with demythologizing as understood by Bultmann, we had to curtail to some extent the study of the problem and thus simplify some of the implications.

Brief Studies, Walter H. Koenig

Concordia Theological Monthly

Luther As a Student of Hebrew

Textual-Critical Methods Of R.S.V. Revision Committee ( With Special Reference To The Pauline Epistles), R. George Krause

Concordia Theological Monthly

It is a well-known fact that the autographs of the writings constituting Scripture have been lost. The study of the copies of these autographs, made by a great variety of scribal bands in widely scattered areas of the ancient world, is involved and intriguing. Biblical scholarship has attempted to ascertain as closely as is humanly possible the form of those "God-breathed" autographs. This is a Herculean task, in addition to a painstaking and often tedious one, since the scribes who copied the inspired autographs or translations of the inspired originals allowed various alternative and sometimes widely divergent readings to enter …

Human Relations According To Ephesians, Martin H. Scharlemann

Concordia Theological Monthly

About ten years ago a high school girl from the South took first place in a radio contest with her answer to the question, "How should Hitler be punished for his crimes against humanity?" She won a prize for the answer: "He ought to be made to wear a black face and to live in a community where racial discrimination is practiced." This girl had observed, if not experienced, the horrors of prejudice, of man's most cruel inhumanity to man. It is something of a tragic commentary on human affairs that the worst punishment this student could imagine had to …

Brief Studies, Walter E. Buszin

Concordia Theological Monthly

The Chorale - Through Four Hundred Years.

The Mature Christian, Richard R. Caemmerer

Concordia Theological Monthly

The Authorized Version does not use the term "mature." But the idea is completely Biblical. It assumes that a Christian, as a Christian, is not a statistical, either-or being, but that he is the product of a birth, a growth, and an expanding life. To speak of a Christian as mature suggests that he has arrived at the peak of that growth, that he has arrived at the climax of the development of his faith and his life with God.

The Incarnation And The Lord's Supper In Luther, Norman Nagel

Concordia Theological Monthly

The ways of God to men are one. Despite the paradox of Law and Gospel, despite His myriad providence, despite our wondering and paltry understanding, we may yet discern a unity in the way in which the holy God deals with us. It is the way of His grace, of which Christ is the archetype and the Lord's Supper the consequent and continuing form.

It will be the attempt of this paper to set forth some of the aspects of the parallel between God's dealing with us in Christ and Christ's dealing with us in His Supper as grasped and …

The Formal And Material Principles Of Lutheran Confessional Theology, F. E. Mayer

Concordia Theological Monthly

The source of doctrine, or the formal principle, of Lutheran theology is sola Scriptura, the Scriptures alone. It does seem strange that with its avowed emphasis on the sole authority of the Scriptures the Lutheran Church nowhere has a specific article setting forth its attitude toward the Holy Scriptures. By contrast the early Reformed Confessions have an elaborate statement concerning the place and the scope of Scriptures, including even a list of all the books which are considered canonical. The Lutheran Confessions have no specific article dealing with the Holy Scriptures for three reasons.

Some Word Studies In The Apology, Jaroslav Pelikan

Concordia Theological Monthly

"When I use a word," said Humpty-Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." In the history of Christian theology the tendency to do this has become almost an occupational disease, often making it difficult to understand theologians of the present and almost impossible to understand theologians of the past. Nor does this apply only to thinkers like Berdyaev, who found it necessary to coin his vocabulary as he went along, or to groups like the Gnostics, who sometimes seem deliberately to have chosen nonsense syllables to …

Some Observations On Current Cosmological Theories, Paul A. Zimmerman

Concordia Theological Monthly

It has been rightly said that there are fashions in science as in all other fields. This fact has been demonstrated lately by the large number of articles dealing with cosmological problems that have appeared in the last two years in both popular and scientific journals. There has been striking evidence of increased interest in cosmology, the study of the universe, and in cosmogony, the study of the origin of the universe and the world. One of the most popular programs of the British Broadcasting System in 1950 was a series of lectures on the origin of the world and …

The Doctrine Of Marriage In The Theologians Of Lutheran Orthodoxy, Arthur Carl Piepkorn

Concordia Theological Monthly

The purpose of this article is to survey the teaching of the orthodox Lutheran theologians on marriage from the end of the sixteenth into the first third of the eighteenth century, with particular reference to the influence of these theologians on the traditional doctrine of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.

We Conquer Death, Eduard Ellwein

Concordia Theological Monthly

When the golden sun emerges out of the ocean, he casts a shaft of his glorious light across the expanse of the water. The glorious reflection of an unspeakably greater light rests upon the Gospel of St. John: the certainty of our victory over death, the believer's assurance that he has conquered death and possesses eternal life as a present reality. To believe on the Son means to have eternal life.

Some Phases Of "After His Kind" In The Light Of Modem Science, August C. Rehwaldt

Concordia Theological Monthly

Some would estimate the number of species of animals to be about 1,073,000. Others say that there are about 3,000,000 species of animals. The wide range of difference between these two estimates is due to the diversity of opinion as to the concept "species." Since evolution is the background of modern biology, the term species is accordingly defined as an evolving group and net as an aggregation with set bounds and limits. Darwin's Origin of Species takes this view. Opposed to this view is that of the Bible, which speaks of natural groups of plants and animals and calls such …

Thinking Clearly On The Rsv, Arthur Katt

Concordia Theological Monthly

Every new translation of the Holy Bible has met with opposition. "Whenever a translation is made, the question of its authority as over against the authority of the original or of earlier translations naturally arises." This was the experience of St. Jerome back in the 4th and 5th centuries, when he produced the Vulgate. "At first his translation was met with antagonism, and it was even declared to be heretical." This was true particularly also of our beloved, time-honored King James Version. It took nearly half a century for it to find general acceptance, and quite a bit of the …

The Marks Of The Theologian, Martin H. Franzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

A stewardess on a plane once asked me what I was. I answered, not quite without malice I am afraid, that I was a theologian. She didn't commit herself too strongly on that, merely opining that I was probably the first theologian that she had ever "carried"; but she seemed impressed. I have since wondered whether she should have been; by the standards that govern the creation of airlines and all the other streamlined paraphernalia, physical and spiritual, of our civilization, she shouldn't have been. For the theologian is by Biblical definition a fool, a child, and a slave; and …

The Grace Of God Gives Us Christ For Justification, Gerhard Schulze-Kadelbach

Concordia Theological Monthly

Our theme is a confessional statement. The statement as a whole as well as each of its terms makes sense only as a confession. We must consider this for a moment at the very outset. In doing so, our thoughts tend in two directions. The realization that we are dealing with a confessional statement implies above all that the assertion of our theme is possible only within the Church. The little word "us" points unmistakably to this fact: "The grace of God gives us Christ for justification."

Luther On Creation, Henry W. Reimann

Concordia Theological Monthly

Although he was bred in a Church and society in which men tried with their works to appease the God whom theologians and philosophers had carefully thought out, Martin Luther returned to the Gospel. Here God took the initiative to rescue and redeem His sinful creatures through His Son. This has rightly been called a Copernican revolution in the realm of religion. Just as Copernicus started with a geocentric, but reached a heliocentric conception of the physical world, Luther began with an anthropocentric or egocentric conception of religion, but came to a theocentric conception. In this sense, Luther is a …

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, George V. Schick

Concordia Theological Monthly

In the fall of 1952 Thomas Nelson and Sons placed on the market the Revised Standard Version of the complete Holy Bible. The New Testament section remains substantially the same as the one which already appeared in 1946, but a few changes of a lesser import were given room when this text was issued in combination with the Old Testament translation. The latter, however, is new and represents the results of years of intensive research by the Revision Committee.