4. Membership in the Christian Church and Its Privileges.
with it. No relationship among people or with people (nationality, natural descent, external communion with members of the Church, etc.) makes a member of the Christian Church (Gal. 3:28: od évt Tovdaioc
"mobilizes the slumbering forces of sin and puts them into action". obdé EAAny kta, Joh. 8:30-45: of Abrahamic descent), but rather the entry into the Christian church happens in every case through faith in the Christ, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, namely the forgiveness of sins", Eph. 1:7. therefore it is called Acts 4:4: Many of them which heard the word believed (€xiotevoav); and the number of the men" (of the Church at Jerusalem) "was about five thousand. Acts 5:14: "They were added" (namely to the church) miotevovtec to Kvpio. Scripture also stresses the sola fide here. Whoever still wants to reconcile God through works is extra ecclesiam. Just as the assertion of works for justification removes the connection with Christ (KkatnpynOnte a0 Xptotod oitivec év VOLO duxa1odo8s, Gal. 5:4), so also the connection with the Christian church, Gal. 4:30: Cast out the bondwoman and her son! One always becomes a member of the Christian Church only by "juridical" means, that is, by faith in the objective reconciliation, never by the "religious-moral" means of the newer theologians. Also the privileges of the members of the Church, that as members of the Church they have everything (1évta yop Dua EottV, Cor. 3:21), that they especially possess the means of grace, word and sacrament, and thus the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven without the mediation of human beings ("principaliter et immediate") and are not subject to any human being but only to Christ (Matt. 23:8), and also have to appoint and supervise the public preaching office: Scripture attributes all this to faith in Christ and thus to justification by faith without the works of the Law, Matt, 16:16-19; 18:18. This must be explained in more detail in the face of the manifold errors in the Doctrine of the Church and the Preaching Office.