# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S479
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 479

all of the first man, as described Gen. 3. By this Fall not only he
Aimself, but also all his natural offspring have lost the original
wledge, righteousness, and holiness, and thus all men are
1ers already by birth, dead in sins, inclined to all evil, and sub-
ject to the wrath of God, Rom. 5, 12. 18; Eph. 2, 1—3. We teach
_ also that men are unable, through any efforts of their own or by
the aid of “culture and science,” to reconcile themselves to God
and thus to conquer death and damnation.

Of Redemption.

8..We teach that in the fulness of time the eternal Son of God
was made man by assuming, from the Virgin Mary through the
. operation of the Holy Ghost, a human nature like unto ours, yet
without sin, and receiving it into His divine person. Jesus Christ
_ is therefore “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and
nie also true man, born of the Virgin Mary,” true God and true man
“7 in one undivided and indivisible person. The purpose of this
< miraculous incarnation of the Son of God was that He might become
the Mediator between God and men, both fulfilling the divine
ee Law and suffering and dying in the place of mankind. In this
manner God has reconciled the whole sinful world unto Himself,

Gal. 4, 4.5; 3,13; 2 Cor. 5, 18. 19.

Of Faith in Christ.

9. Since God has reconciled the whole world unto Himself
through the vicarious life and death of His Son and has com-
manded that the reconciliation effected by Christ be proclaimed
to men in the Gospel, to the end that they may believe it, 2 Cor.
5, 18. 19; Rom. 1, 5, therefore faith in Christ is the only way for
men to obtain personal reconciliation with God, that is, forgive-
ness of sins, as both the Old and the New Testament Scriptures
testify, Acts 10, 43; John 3, 16—18. 36. By this faith in Christ,
through which men obtain the forgiveness of sins, is not meant any
human effort to fulfil the Law of God after the example of Christ,
but faith in the Gospel, that is, in the forgiveness of sins, of justi-
fication, which was fully earned for us by Christ and is offered
in the Gospel. This faith justifies, not inasmuch as it is a work
of man, but inasmuch as it lays hold of the grace offered, the for-
giveness of sins, Rom. 4, 16.

Of Conversion.

10. We teach that conversion consists in this, that a man, having
learned from the Law of God that he is a lost and condemned
sinner, is brought to faith in the Gospel, which offers him forgive-
ness of sins and eternal salvation for the sake of Christ’s vicarious
satisfaction, Acts 11, 21; Luke 24, 46. 47; Acts 26:18.