THE LUTHERAN PASTOR. CHAPTER I. THE PASTOR'S OFFICE. IF sin had not come into the world there would have been no need of reconciliation between God and man. Before the fall there was the most perfect harmony between the two. There was the most intimate relation between heaven and earth. The first chapters of our Bible give us a beautiful picture of unrestrained, free, and filial relationship between the Heavenly Father and His earthly children. But with sin came the breach, the estrangement, the alienation. Man had become suspicious, distrustful, hostile, and impure. Had he been left to himself in this state of alienation and sin he would never have returned to fellowship with God, but would have wandered ever further, sunk ever deeper, until he would have become a very demon and a part of the kingdom of darkness. The first breach. God moved to remedy. Prophets. come. But God did not leave him to himself. When man hid himself, God sought him, called him, promised him redemption, and, at once, began that great redeeming and reconciling work which was finished in Christ when the fullness of the time had Thus God first came to fallen man, through His calling, enlightening, and saving Word. That Word of Reconciliation was first brought to man by God Himself. He Himself was the first shepherd or pastor to go out after the lost sheep. So we find Him dealing directly with Adam, Cain, Noah, and others. Afterward, in the patriarchal age, we meet with the various theophanies, or corporeal manifestations of God, which foreshadowed the incarnation of Christ. And so, all through the Old Testament, and sometimes even in the New, we find God dealing directly with man through theophanies, visions, dreams, and immediate revelations. In all this God is Himself carrying forward the great work of reconciliation and renewal. On the other hand, however, we find early indications that it was God's purpose to deal with man through man. Thus we find traces of the prophetic office even before the flood. A prophet (from πράφημι) is one who speaks or interprets for another. The prophet spoke for God, interpreted for God to the people. He was God's mouthpiece, preacher, ambassador. He was the Old Testament "minister of reconciliation," the forerunner of the "prophesied." was in the house. righteousness." In the patriarchal age the church The father of the house was its prophet and priest. He was to instruct and command his house, which often consisted of several generations of families, after him. When When the family becomes the nation Moses receives a distinct commission and becomes a prophet to publish God's Word, and be a shepherd unto God's people. When the work becomes too heavy for him, seventy elders are selected to assist him, and we read that "the spirit rested upon the seventy elders, so that they prophesied and did not cease." Afterward we find Samuel and all the prophets; we find the schools of the prophets, which seem to have been gathering places of pious and gifted young men, with noted teachers at their head, instructing them: in the religion and worship of Jehovah. They were the Theological Seminaries of the Old Testa- Their training. ment Church. In them were trained pastors for God's people. And so we find the line of God's ambassadors running down through the days of Israel's apostasy to the captivity, into the captivity, and after the captivity. The priestly office also had its pastoral side.. Its |