# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S512
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

512 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

on these teachings, giving us a simple, clear, unambiguous, and
unequivocal reply.

1. On Inspiration. We believe, confess, and teach that inspira-
tion includes the Bible, in its canonical books, as a whole (plenary
inspiration) and its every word (verbal inspiration), the Holy
Spirit having supplied both content and fitting word, so that there
is neither contradiction nor error in Holy Scripture. We em-
phasize the operation of the Spirit in producing the Holy Scripture
by or through the writers employed by Him over against the idea
of a co-operation between the Holy Spirit and the human writers
and insist on the Scriptural explanation: “Holy men of God wrote
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 2 Pet. 1:21. Cp. 2 Tim.
3:16; Rom. 15:4; 1 Thess, 2:13; 2 Tim, 1:13; 1 Cor. 2:13.

We therefore condemn and reject any teaching which would
limit the process of inspiration to the truths concerning Christ and
the Atonement, or which would rule out the geographical, historical,
archaeological, and other sections of the Bible, or which would
make the proof of inspiration dependent on the faith of man,
whereas the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is an objective fact
before faith and apart from faith. Is. 34:16; Titus 2:1, 7; Is. 50:16;
John 17:14; Prov. 30:5, 6; Gal. 5:9.

2. On Conversion. We believe, confess, and teach that man,
being by nature dead in sins and a persistent enemy of God, is
brought to faith in the Gospel by the sole operation of the Holy
Ghost, according to the working of His almighty grace, by which
the natural, willful resistance of man is changed to a joyful ac-
ceptance of the salvation wrought by Christ. Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 8:7;
Eph. 1:19; 1 Pet. 1:5.

We therefore reject and condemn any and every attempt to
distinguish between natural and willful resistance and to ascribe
to any “noble souls” the ability to condition themselves for the ac-
ceptance of the grace of God. Ezek. 36:26; Phil. 2:18; Acts 7:51;
Matt. 23:37,

3. On Objective Justification. We believe, confess, and teach
that, by virtue of Christ’s substitutionary death on the Cross, a full
justification was gained with reference to all sins of the world until
the end of time, and that this justification is now ready for all men,
even for those who deny the Lord that bought thent. Rom. 5:19;
2 Cor. 5:18-21; Rom. 4:25; 2 Pet. 2:1; Rom. 3:23, 24, 28.

We therefore reject and condemn the teaching that justification
has been provided only for those who would grasp and apply it to
themselves by faith, the emphasis on subjective justification thus
eliminating or at least weakening the fact of the objective justifi-
cation, for faith does not make justification effective, but merely
applies it to the believer. God’s foreknowledge of man’s reaction