certain visible elements, as the water in Baptism
and the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. Hence these two Christian
ordinances--the only two for which a divine word of command and promise,
hence, a divine institution can be shown--also become related to faith,
to its origin and preservation. For of Baptism our Lord says: "Except a
man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God" (John 3, 5). To be "born again," or to become a child of God,
according to John 1, 12, is the same as "to believe." Accordingly, Paul
says: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as
many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal.
3, 26. 27). Of the Sacrament our Lord says: "This is the blood of the
covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26,
28); and His apostle declares that communicants, "as often as they eat
of this bread and drink of this cup, do show the Lord's death till He
come" (1 Cor. 11, 26).

The Gospel and the Sacraments, now, become the marks of the Church, the
unfailing criteria of its existence in any place. For, according to the
declaration of God, they are never entirely without result, though many
to whom they are brought resist the gracious operation of the Spirit
through these means. By Isaiah God has said: "As the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the
earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the
sower and bread to the eater: so shall My Word be that goeth forth out
of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent
it" (Is. 55, 10. 11).

Among the people who in a given locality rally around the Word and the
Sacraments and profess allegiance to them, there is the Church, because
there is the power of God unto salvation, the faith-producing and
faith-sustaining Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who embrace what the
Gospel offers with a lively faith, and in the power of their faith
proceed to lead holy lives in accordance with the teaching of God's
Word, are the members of the true Church of God, the kingdom of Christ.
Those who adhere only externally to these institutions are merely
nominal members. They may at heart be hypocrites and secret blasphemers.

Catholic writers charge Luther with having set up this teaching, partly
to spite the Pope whom he hated, p