Loy Quote - Glorifying human organization [church growth]
Christians who
know what an unspeakable gift God has bestowed upon them in
the truth in Jesus, having by its gracious power believed in
Him, and found peace in believing, cannot treat these things
lightly. If the kingdom of God cannot be promoted by our
Church work, what is the use of working? Why should we labor
and pray and make sacrifices ostensibly to promote the kingdom
of God for the salvation of men, when we know that all our
efforts are directed to the mere temporal purpose of
glorifying human organization? Even the Lutheran Church, as a
visible organization, is not worth preserving, if its members
consent to reduce it to a mere sect which can live and thrive
only by accommodating itself to the reason and feeling and
whim of people who do not love the truth and who accept the
Augsburg Confession only because of its historical renown,
without a care for the saving Gospel which it proclaims or a
concern for the kingdom of God in which alone there is
salvation. When church work is done in disregard of the truth
unto salvation by which souls are rescued from sin and death,
and the glory of our Redeemer is promoted, the whole becomes a
solemn farce, in which no Lutheran loyal to the Augsburg
Confession can consent to engage. Such sham work would be even
more disgraceful to Lutherans than to sectarians, because they
certainly know better.
From Loy, Matthias.
The Augsburg confession: An Introduction To Its Study And An
Exposition Of Its Contents Columbus, Ohio: Lutheran Book
Concern, 1908.
