http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2013/08/luthers-sermons-on-twelfth-sunday-after.html
11. Now this I say, that you may know how far the faith of others may be of use to us, and how your own faith can help you. Other people’s merits will help you to attain a merit of your own, and nothing more. And though all the angels, yea, the mercy of God itself, were ready to stand for you, it would avail you nothing, unless you cleave unto it with a faith of your own. But it may effect this, that it will assist you to obtain a faith of your own, which will help you. Furthermore, even if Christ did die for us, and pledged and gave his body and life, blood and flesh for us, and became our advocate; yet it would avail nothing, unless we believe in him. But he can assist us in this way, that he appears before the Father and says: “O Father, this have I done for mankind; do thou give them faith, in order that they may enjoy it.” This then, will help us, if we feel assured that his works and merit are our own. In the same manner one should also speak of the other saints, that no saint’s intercession and merit avail unless we ourselves believe. You observe this also in our lesson. There lies the poor man, unable either to speak or to hear. They who bring him to the Lord can speak and hear. But they cannot make him speak by their hearing and speaking, and even though they all had come near him and said: “We will speak and hear for you”; yet he would, in spite of this, have remained speechless and deaf continually, and would never have been able to speak.
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18. This we see in our text. These people approach the Lord in strong confidence, praying for the poor man, and their prayer is also heard. In the same manner, when baptism is performed we see this take place in the children’s faith. There are the infants, bare and naked in body and soul, having neither faith nor works. Then the Christian Church comes forward and prays, that God would pour faith into the child; not that our faith should help the child, but that it may obtain a faith of its own. If it has faith, then after that whatever it does is well done, whether it suckle its mother’s breast, or whether it soil itself, or whatever it may please to do. But if it does not obtain faith, our faith is of no value to the child.
19. Therefore my faith can help you in no way except that it may assist you to obtain a faith of your own. Hence, to sum up all, everything depends upon personal faith, as strong as it is, so much does it need the faith and prayer of other people in order to increase in strength.
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| Oh my - how these sects avoid this topic. They preach their own holiness instead. |
GJ - The ELCA, LCMS, WELS, and ELS work together so well because they disbelieve the same things. There is a great show of rejecting other Lutheran groups, the very ones that routinely sit down to steal millions from the faithful, rejecting justification by faith.
Perhaps the LCMC and NALC will reclaim the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace, but nothing so far promotes optimism. They now adore the slightly less Leftist leaders (like Carl Braaten) who led ELCA into the wilderness via Bultmann, Tillich, and other phonies.
The sects above began with Stage Four Pietism, since all the groups were spawned by Halle University and the Zinzendorf style mission societies, where doctrinal differences were set aside for mutual cooperation.
Pietism began with a return to the Bible, but quickly became rationalistic from its rejection of doctrinal fidelity. St. Paul never wrote to the Galatians, "Why can't we just get along?"
Cell groups, under various names, are promoted in Pietism as good, spiritual, and essential for the Church, but these toxic conventicles reject Word and Sacrament, clinging to any wacko dogma that comes along. The cell group leader is more like the guru of Hinduism, who can demand anything of his or her subordinates and expect unquestioning obedience.
Thus the Pietistic founder of the LCMS, Martin Stephan, demanded abject submission from all his pastoral disciples (Walther, et al), and expected sexual services from his young female groupies. It was all fun and games until the unmarried girls caught syphilis from His Holiness. Then the lying pastoral associates, who ignored the obvious adultery, had to make up a new deception and proclaim, "Two women confessed adultery! Off with his head!" To sustain this myth, the Missouri Synod and its confederates have lied ever since.
