Marquart Argues Using the Mormons' Method - and Gets Hosannas from the LCMS.

When conflicting teachings compete for the loyalty of Christians in the name of Scripture, one cannot simply "stick with the Bible itself" and ignore all these pesky "interpretations." The whole point is to recognize what is the correct understanding of the Bible, and to assert it against counter-claims. Failure to do so gives equal rights to all views and effectively robs Scripture of any and all sense of meaning. --- from the excellent new first volume of the Collected Works of Kurt Marquart--- http://www.icontact-archive.com/uHblR2dI7Fi7_HXIWX0D74OfvAz…

When this was quoted on Facebook, I countered -

Marquart does not agree with Luther or Chemnitz, and he rejected justification by faith. Check out this Luther quotation. The Marquart quotation is actually parallel to what the Mormon missionaries say, that there must be a second source, theirs, to nail down the Word of God.

 http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post.html

The Marquart quotation sounded exactly like the Mormon missionaries, who have this script. "I nailed down a piece of wood, but it still moved around. That is the Bible. So I put another nail in and that kept it in place. That is the Book of Mormon."

Luther, on the other hand, makes the opposite argument - that the Word of God is above and and better than all books.

"The Holy Spirit teaches man better than all the books; He teaches him to understand the Scriptures better than he can understand them from the teaching of any other; and of his own accord he does everything God wills he should, so the Law dare make no demands upon him."

Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 280. Pentecost Sunday John 14:23-31.     

Here is the problem - the Synodical Confererence has made Walther, not the Word of God, the last word on doctrine. Therefore, anyone who might be a teacher in the LCMS dare not criticize CFW Walther, BA, or his disciple Francis Pieper.

Marquart declares something and the Walther disciples say "Amen!" when Brother Kurt is dead wrong. The Bible itself has the clarity and power to settle all arguments.

Chemnitz made the point in Examination, which nobody reads, that the early church conferences paraded the Scriptures before the beginning to show that those Scriptures were the source to settle all disputes. This took me all of two minutes to find, searching the PDF with the word ancient.

 J-017 

"And Cusanus writes that the custom of the ancient ecumenical synods was to place the holy Gospels in their midst." Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, I, p. 154. 

 J-018 

"For the book of the evangelist and apostles and the oracles of the ancient prophets plainly teach us what we are to think concerning divine matters. Therefore let us cease our hostile discord and take the solutions of the questions out of the divinely inspired sayings." [Constantine at Nicea] 

 Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, I, p. 154. 

J-019

"If anything is said without Scripture, the thinking of the hearers limps. But where the testimony proceeds from the divinely given Scripture, it confirms both the speech of the preacher and the soul of the hearer." [Chrysostom, commenting on Psalm 95] 

 Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, I, p. 156. 

J-020 

"Whatever is required for salvation is already completely fulfilled in the Scriptures." [Chrysostom, commenting on Matthew 22] 

 Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, I, p. 157. 

 J-021 

"There is a short way for pious minds both to dethrone error and to find and bring out the truth. For when we return to the source and origin of the divine tradition, human error ceases." [Cyprian, Ad Pompejum] 

Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971, I, p. 158.