Address at the Cornerstone Laying

of the New Luther Theological Seminary Building

Minneapolis, Minnesota

July 15, 1888

Dear fellow redeemed and people transformed by God! Grace and peace from God our Father and his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ!

We meet here praising and glorifying God because his blessings upon us are more than can be num-bered. We came here a small group of people; he has made us a large people. His loving kindness has been new to us daily and he has blessed us bountifully in physical and spiritual things. He chastised us. We called upon him in our distress and he delivered us. He preserved his Word among us. Therefore we praise him and say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits!" (Ps. 103:1.2.)

Our people brought an excellent heritage with them from the fatherland to their new homeland in this country, the  word of God, worth more than all the world's gold and silver. God be praised, a large portion of our people have lived in this heritage! We had already learned at home to treasure it, or we learned it here under trials sent us by God. What the fertile soil, what the country's many excellent institutions could not give, the heritage contained: the true food which stills the hunger of the soul and preserves it unto eternal life.

We have sought to defend this precious heritage and to preserve it pure and unadulterated. The many battles through which our church body has had to fight incessantly, have especially been for the preserva-tion of doctrine, for the Word of God. And God be praised, by his grace the Lord has let us succeed so that though not without many scars after the battle and many sorrowful losses, we have, however, kept it and can leave it to posterity unadulterated, as we have received it from our fathers! In meager circumstances we have also sought to make the most of this heritage of ours. Not just our parochial schools but also our institutions of higher learning, especially our Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and our Luther Seminary in Madison, Wisconsin, bear witness of that fact.

A new home for this seminary is now going to be built here. It isn't from a vain desire for getting more imposing buildings or in some way to excel, that the synod has decided to make this move. The deciding factor has been that it believed that it could make better use of its heritage here, and that a seminary in this center of the Norwegian population could better expand its work and in a wider circle exercise its influence for the spread of the Lutheran Church and the preservation of God's Word among our country-men who have immigrated to here, than in its former, in other respects so beautifully situated location in Madison.

Now we have assembled here solemnly to lay the cornerstone of the building. This act, three strokes of a hammer in the name of the Triune God, certainly has its own significance as a symbolic act. It is then really not the act itself which has brought us together in this place, but what it signifies and of what it is to remind us. This visible cornerstone, which actually is of little value, is to remind us of the Invisible Cornerstone on whom the spiritual work of building which shall be conducted here must be grounded and rest if it is to prosper and be permanent. We have also wanted to indicate this through the writings which shall now be placed in the cornerstone. They are: the Bible and the Book of Concord, the Synod's hymnbook, the Explanation and Illustrated Bible History, the Report of the synod convention for 1887, an issue of Evangelisk luthersk Kirketidende containing "An Accounting," and The Independent Church.8  (In addition are deposited an issue of "Amerika," "Foedrelandet og Emigranten," together with "Boerne-bladet," a summary of the report which was placed in the cornerstone at Luther College, and a brief account of the later development of the synod and its institutions of learning). The writings mentioned first here are to be a testimony for coming generations of Who the Cornerstone is upon whom we confess that our spiritual work of building in these halls is to be founded.

It is of course important for every earthly building which men's hands build, that it be laid on a solid foundation with firm cornerstones on which the weight can rest so that the first strong gust of wind does not blow it down or a rainstorm undermine it and cause it to fall. That will surely be the case if it is built on a wobbly foundation of sand. Without such a firm foundation all the cost and effort, even the best workmanship, is wasted. Even more must it be the case with a spiritual building, that if it is going to be permanent it must have a firm, immovable  foundation which can defy all the storms and changes of time. That is also what the Lord wants to teach us in his Word when he says: "Whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock: and rain des-cended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock" (Mt. 7:25).

For the foundation of the spiritual work of building which this new building is to serve, we do not want to lay this world's highly touted wisdom and philosophical systems, or the constantly changing trends and opinions of the time, or our own reason's often vacillating and erroneous judgments, even though we will regard reason as a gift of God and use it within the sphere God has assigned it in his Word. Nor do we want to build on any human authority, be it called pope or synod or church fathers or the majority, all of which together are more or less exposed to errors. A spiritual building erected on such loose, shifting, sandy soil must always be wavering and subject to perishing. No, we will not lay any foundation of our own making, but will stay with the one which is laid, which the Holy Ghost discusses in our text, namely Jesus Christ. Because thus has the same Spirit testified already through the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: he that believes shall not make haste." (28:16.) It is the same cornerstone to whom the apostle Peter admonishes us to come when he says, "Come to him the living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious." (1 Pe. 2:4.)

It is of this cornerstone that the apostle says in our text: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Yes, Jesus Christ is the ground and rock of our salvation, and apart from him there is no salvation. All the treasures of salvation are given us in him. Because he, God's and Mary's Son, true God and true man, has redeemed us through his holy life and with his innocent and undeserved death, and he is our righteousness before God, as it is written, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (1 Co. 1:30.) But just as Jesus Christ is the only ground of our salvation, so must and shall he also be the foundation of the spiritual work of building which is to be carried on here for the building up of the church and the spread of God's kingdom while young men animated by the Spirit of God are trained here as servants of the Word to go out and proclaim the counsel of God for the salvation of men. Because he who was the word from eternity has revealed himself to us in the Word of God proclaimed through the mouths of the prophets and apostles. Therefore the Lord himself also says about this Word, "My words are spirit and they are life," (Jo. 6:63) and again, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never pass away." (Mt. 24:35.) And the apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, "Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and pro-phets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone." (2:19.20.) Peter has grounded his faith upon this foundation about which he lays down the joyful confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," a confession whose truth the Lord confirms with his reply, "On this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Mt. 16:16.18.)

And now, brethren, from this solid rock of the Word of God the confession of faith which shall be laid down within these walls daily shall spring forth like a stream of water from a fountainhead. All the test-imony which shall be given here shall rest on this foundation. And when God gives his grace to this end, for which we now and always will implore him, then, brethren, we can also be comforted about the fact that no enemy, be he ever so crafty and mighty, shall be able to destroy the work and cause the spiritual building which is erected here, to fall! No, even if the cornerstone which we now lay in this building of wood and stone someday crumbles and the building itself sinks into the ground, the spiritual work built here which it alone is to serve, you see, that shall still exist and continue in the course of time, perhaps under other circumstances and in another language, but in the same Spirit. Because then the promise we heard the Lord speak about the foundation upon which it rests shall apply to the work, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Now, it is no doubt so, that all the material which we have to bring to bear upon and use for this spirit-ual work of building is not of equal importance and value or has the same importance for the building's progress and completion. Or to speak without metaphor: there are truths of the faith whose suppression or denial would involve the foundation itself being cracked and becoming a facade, while there are others of which a person can lack knowledge without straying away from the foundation which is laid. But by no means does a right to show apathy follow from this; for example, to be indifferent about such less impor-tant truths of the faith not being presented in their purity or even passed over completely as unessential. Such a way of thinking and dealing with the Word of God and the divine truths, which without fail must lead to a false unionism, is and remains however a violation of the divine majesty who reveals himself in his Word and who utters a curse upon everyone who takes something from or adds something to it or deals with it recklessly in another way and thus takes the Lord's name in vain. Just as a little defect in a watch completely ruins its sound and just as a little flaw in a single wheel in the watch's works can destroy its regular order and show us a wrong time, so will the incorrect interpretation and presentation of a single article of faith, for example, of God's grace, Christ's merit, man's free will, the power of the Means of Grace, etc., be able to displace the very foundation and put our salvation in jeopardy, in which we can-not be partakers through a false faith but only through the true. When Paul is to take his leave from the elders in Ephesus he lays it upon their hearts, saying, "Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." (Ac. 20:26.27.)

I want to remind you of one thing more, brethren, namely the excellent helps which the Lutheran Church offers in the Confessions, as well as in the writings of the fathers, especially Luther's, both for building on the proper foundation and giving each type of material the proper place in the building. If we do not lay them as the foundation or build upon them as such, yet we do, however, regard them as a blessed gift of grace from the Lord, whose proper use will help a great deal toward furthering the work which shall be carried on here. The name Luther Seminary is also to bear witness of that fact.

That they now, who shall be the workers in the spiritual work of building, both teachers and students, may receive grace thus to remain on the foundation which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, and to build on the gold and silver and precious stones, for that we will diligently call upon the Lord. We will also ask the Lord on behalf of this structure of wood and stone which shall be erected to the service of that spiritual work of building and in which the cornerstone shall now be laid, that it may be embraced by the congre-gations with good will and be supported through generous gifts, so that this building can soon stand here completed with its tower pointing upward as a symbol that just as the foundation for the spiritual work is laid deep upon the solid Rock so that it shall not be moved, so does the effort of the workers here always go upward and the purpose for all their work is heavenly, eternal and imperishable.

Now, Lord! we bow our hearts before you and ask you in Jesus' name: Let all the work here be very successful, both the external and the internal, both the physical and the spiritual! "Let your work appear unto your servants, and your glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands stablish thou it!" (Ps. 90:16.17.) Amen in Jesus' name.

Kirketidende, Aug. 3, 1888; pages 480-484