[Articles in the Summed Up series are intended to be summaries of chapters of selected theological books. The author(s) will be quoted verbatim for the purposes of ensuring accurate representation]

A) About the author of the book:

“George H. Gerberding was born in Pittsburgh in 1847. He served as a missionary and pastor in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Fargo, North Dakota, and as president of the Lutheran Synod of the Northwest and of the Chicago Synod. He was a professor at the Chicago Lutheran Seminary and Northwestern Lutheran Seminary.” [1]

The following are his educational qualification: “Graduate Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania, 1873. Bachelor of Arts, A.M., Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania, 1873. Doctor of Divinity, Muhlenberg, 1894. Doctor of Laws, Lenoir College, 1915.” [2]

[1] https://www.lutheranlibrary.org/108tc-gerberding-lutheran-church-in-the-country/

[2] https://prabook.com/web/george_henry.gerberding/1098467

Chapter IV: Baptism, A Divinely Appointed Means of Grace

(pp.45-52)

“Our Catechism here also teaches nothing but the pure truth of the Word, when it asserts that baptism “worketh forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and confers everlasting life and salvation on all who believe, as the Word and promise of God declare.” Our solid and impregnable Augsburg Confession, also, when in Article II. it confesses that the new birth by baptism and the Holy Spirit delivers from the power and penalty of original sin. Also in Article IX., “of baptism they teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that by baptism the Grace of God is offered, and that children are to be baptized, who by baptism being offered to God, are received into God’s favor.””[1]

“Is baptism so absolutely essential to salvation, that unbaptized children are lost? To this we would briefly reply, that the very men who drew up our Confessions deny emphatically that it is thus absolutely necessary. Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and others, repudiate the idea that an unbaptized infant is lost. No single acknowledged theologian of the Lutheran Church ever taught this repulsive doctrine.

Why then does our Confession say baptism is necessary to salvation? It is necessary in the same sense in which it is necessary to use all Christ’s ordinances. The necessity is ordinary, notabsolute. Ordinarily Christ bestows His Grace on the child through baptism, as the means or channel through which the Holy Spirit is conferred. But when, through no fault of its own, this is not applied, He can reach it in some other way.”[2]

Chapter V: The Baptismal Covenant can be kept unbroken—Aim and Responsibility of Parents

(pp.53-59)

“Our Church does not teach with Rome that “sin (original) is destroyed in baptism, so that it no longer exists.” Hollazius says: “The guilt and dominion of sin is taken away by baptism, but not the root or tinder of sin.” Luther also writes that “Baptism takes away the guilt of sin, although the material, called concupiscence, remains.””[3]

Chapter XVIII: Conversion, It’s Nature and Necessity

(pp.151-157)

“The original and simple meaning of the word convert is to turn—to turn about. This is also the meaning of the Latin word from which the English comes. The Greek word, which in the New Testament is translated “convert” or “conversion,” also refers to the act of turning.”[4]

“Applying this word now to a moral or religious use,it means a turning  from sin to righteousness, from Satan to God. The transgressor who had been walking in the way of disobedience and enmity against God, and towards eternal death, is turned about into the way of righteousness, towards eternal life. This is a change of direction, but it is also something more. It is a change of state—from a state of sin to a state of Grace. It is still more. It is a change of nature—from a sinner unto a saint. It is finally a change of relation—from an outcast and stranger unto a child and heir. Thus there is an outward and an inward turning, a complete change.”[5]

“If we now inquire more particularly into the nature, or process of this change which is called “conversion,” we find in it two constituent elements. The one is penitence or contrition, the other is faith. Taken together, they make up conversion. In passing, we may briefly notice that sometimes the Scriptures use the word “repentance” as embracing both penitence and faith, thus making it synonymous with conversion.

Penitence or contrition, as the first part of conversion, is sorrow for sin. It is a realizing sense of the nature and guilt of sin; of its heinousness and damnable character. True penitence is indeed a painful experience. A penitent heart is, therefore, called “a broken and a contrite heart.” It takes from the sinner his self-satisfaction and false peace. It makes him restless, dissatisfied and troubled. Instead of loving and delighting in sin, it makes him hate sin and turn from it with aversion. It brings the sinner low in the dust. He cries out, “I am vile;” “I loathe myself;” “God be merciful to me a sinner” …

But penitence must not stop with hating and bemoaning sin, and longing for deliverance. The penitent sinner must resolutely turn from sin towards Jesus Christ the Saviour. He must believe that he took upon Himself the punishment due to his sins, and by His death atoned for them; that he satisfied a violated law, and an offended Law-giver; that thus he has become his Substitute and Redeemer, and has taken away all his sins. This the penitent must believe. Thus must he cast himself upon Christ, and trust in Him with a childlike confidence, knowing that there is now, therefore, no condemnation. Having this faith, he is justified, and “being justified by faith, he has peace with God.””[6]

Continue reading “The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church (1887) [Selected Chapters]”