4. Even in heterodox churches there are children of God.
As certain as it is that all local churches are to be faithful, and all fellowships that are heterodox exist as such only under God's permission and against God's gracious will, the fact must be noted that believing children of God are found in the heterodox fellowships as well. There are more Christians than orthodox Christians in all matters. Although Christ very clearly denies the Samaritans the right to exist as a separate church fellowship,1550) he repeatedly gives individual Samaritans the testimony of true sonship with God,1551) Luther, too, was far from limiting the una sancta to the orthodox Lutheran church. As vehemently as he fights the papacy and expressly calls it a foundation of the devil, he does not doubt that God has at all times preserved a Christianity, even the "elite" of Christianity, even under the Papacy.1552) Furthermore: As seriously as Luther fights Carlstadt, Zwingli and comrades because of their deviation from the Word of God, he nevertheless admits that
1550) Joh. 4:22.<w:t>1551) Luke 17:16; 10:33.
1552) St. L. XVII, 1019 ff. Furthermore V, 468: "Under the papacy there have always been some believers, and there still are, whom we do not know, whom God sustains by the Word and the sacraments, although the devil and the pope do not like to see it."
489 > The Christian Church. [English ed. ~ 424-425]
children of God have made fellowship with these pseudo-reformers without knowing about the evil thing.1553) Likewise, the old Lutheran teachers "zealous for orthodoxy" firmly reject identifying the una sancta with the orthodox Lutheran Church.1554) The Fathers of the Missouri Synod call it a slander to the Lutheran Church to ascribe to itself the doctrine that it limits the Church of God to the boundaries of the Lutheran Church.1555) Positively, they taught: If a person holds fast in his heart to the central article of Christian doctrine, that is, if he believes that God is gracious to him for the sake of Christ's satisfactio vicaria, he is a member of the Christian church, no matter in what ecclesiastical camp he may be outwardly. The doctrine to the contrary overturns the central article of Christianity, the doctrine of justification. Walther:1556) According to Rom. 3:28; Acts 4:12 "fellowship with Christ through faith is absolutely and solely necessary for salvation. The principle: 'Apart from the church there is no salvation' — 'Whoever does not have the church on earth for a mother, does not have God in heaven for a father' is therefore only true in the sense that apart from the invisible church there is no salvation and no divine childship of grace; for this means nothing else than: For he who does not stand in inward fellowship with the believers and saints does not stand in fellowship with Christ; but he who stands in fellowship with Christ through faith stands in fellowship with all those in whom Christ dwells, that is, with the invisible church. Whoever therefore binds salvation to fellowship with any visible church, thereby overthrows the article of the justification of a poor sinner before God by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone."