# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 02_S72
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

often loose precisely those whom they ought to bind! In that case, does absolution not become an empty sham? For an impenitent person surely may not even believe it. We answer: the impenitent person, so long as he remains impenitent, cannot believe it; but nevertheless he too ought to believe it, just as surely as Christ has also blotted out his sin, has also reconciled him with God, and has also opened heaven to him.

Absolution is always certain, always powerful, always valid, for it is grounded not on the condition of the one who receives it, but on Christ's universal redemption, and on his command and his promise. Wherever, therefore, it resounds in the name of Christ, there the gates and bolts of the infernal prison are surely thrown open to the sinner, and he could escape; there God truly lays the treasures of his grace into the sinner's hands, and he might well take them; there God unquestionably stretches out the hands of his mercy toward him, and he might grasp them; there God sincerely offers him reconciliation, forgiveness, and salvation, and he might make them his own.

But whoever does not receive it in faith — indeed, cannot receive it because of the carnal security in which he lives — upon that person God has indeed knocked, but he has not opened to him; that person God has greeted, "Peace be with you!" but he has not thanked him for it; that person has refused the forgiveness offered him, has himself torn up the divine receipt he had received, and has wickedly written into the account-book of his own conscience a fresh debt: the contempt of grace. Woe, therefore, to him who does not believe it; he makes God a liar. But blessed is he who believes it; for whoever accepts this testimony of the Son of God "has set his seal to this, that God is true." John 3:33.

Therefore Luther writes: "But if you say, as the factious spirits and sophists also do: many indeed hear the keys binding and loosing, yet pay no heed to it and remain unbound and unloosed; therefore there must be something else at work besides the Word and the keys — it must be the Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit that does it! — But do you suppose that the one who does not believe the key of binding is thereby not bound? He will indeed learn in due time that, because of his unbelief, the binding was not in vain, nor did it fail. So too, whoever does not believe that he is loosed and his sin forgiven will in time surely learn how truly certain it was that his sins were forgiven him then, and he simply would not believe it. St. Paul says in Romans 3:3: 'Because of our unbelief, God will not fail.' So here too we are not speaking of who believes the keys or who does not; we know well enough that few believe. Rather, we are speaking of what the keys do and give. Whoever does not accept it indeed has nothing; but the key is not thereby at fault. Many do not believe the Gospel; but the Gospel does not thereby fail or lie. A king gives you a castle; if you do not accept it, the king has not thereby lied or erred, but you have deceived yourself, and the fault is yours; the king has certainly given it. — Absolution is God's command and Word, which the one speaks and the other hears; both are obligated, on pain of their soul's salvation, to believe this as certainly and firmly as every other article of the faith." (See Luther's excellent "Treatise on the Keys," from the year 1530. Luther's Works, Halle edition, XIX, 1175ff.)

But let us go on to answer a third objection, which Mr. Nast raises in the article referred to, in the following words: "It (absolution) strikes at the root of the sole grace-bringing work of the Holy Spirit, in that the preacher arrogates to himself the high office of the Holy Spirit, to give the sinner a testimony of the forgiveness of his sins and to pronounce peace through his own spirit." If Mr. Nast has ever clearly revealed what an arch-fanatical religion Methodism is, he has done so with this objection. By this, Mr. Nast asserts that the preached Word of Christ is no testimony of the Holy Spirit, but an empty, dead, powerless sound, and that it is therefore presumption to rely on the dead letter and sound of the written or preached Word of Christ, to hold fast to it, and to build upon it the certainty of one's own pardon.

Against this, however, it should be well noted that, to be sure, it is the Holy Spirit alone who applies the grace of Christ to us sinners, for "no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit." 1 Corinthians 12:3. But of what, then, does the Holy Spirit himself make use, in order to testify and seal Christ's grace in the hearts of men? Is it not precisely the written and preached Word? Does not Christ say: "The words that I speak are spirit and life"? John 6:63. Does he not say to the apostles: "It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks through you"? Matthew 10:20. Does not St. Paul say: "We are God's fellow workers"? 1 Corinthians 3:9. "God exhorts through us"? 2 Corinthians 5:20. "We hold the office not of the letter, but of the Spirit, which gives the Spirit"? Chapter 3:6, 8. "You are a letter of Christ, prepared by our ministry, and written by us, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God"? Chapter 3:3.

* The same objection was raised three hundred years ago by the well-known fanatic Schwenkfeld of Silesia. He writes: "We regard the ministers of this (the Lutheran) ministry as preachers of Holy Scripture, insofar as God has given them to understand it; but we hold that they do great wrong in this, that they represent their ministry as the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and do not distinguish the instruction of Holy Scripture from what properly belongs to the office and working of the Holy Spirit, but rather confound the one office with the other." (Book on Church Ceremonies, p. 58.) The fanatic Weigel writes similarly in his Dialogue on Christianity. There it says, on p. 70: "I have the absolver within myself, and need not be absolved by another's hand or mouth." On these words the godly Arndt remarks: "This fantast supposes that absolution resides in a man's mouth, when in fact it is Christ's Word and comfort: We are ambassadors in God's stead, etc. Behold, I put my words in your mouth, etc."

Does not John write: "There are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit (the Word inspired by the Holy Spirit), the water (holy Baptism), and the blood (the holy Supper)"? 1 John 5:8.

It is, therefore, manifest blasphemy to set the testimony of the written and preached Word of God against the testimony of the Holy Spirit, when in fact the Holy Spirit testifies and comes into the heart solely by means of the Word, and testifies inwardly in the heart to nothing other than what he has previously testified outwardly through the Word read or heard. If, according to Mr. Nast, the preacher of the Gospel may give the sinner no testimony of the forgiveness of his sins, and if this, according to him, is an encroachment on the office of the Holy Spirit, what sort of notion must Mr. Nast then have of the Word of God and of the preaching office? He must accordingly also regard it as a crime when a preacher wishes to comfort, teach, or rebuke a sinner, since all these too are offices of the Holy Spirit alone. Oh, the blind fanaticism! Let us hear Luther. He writes: "In the church, preachers and pastors are ordained: when you hear them, you hear God himself. Therefore it is Satan's device and masterstroke, which he pursues, to bring such external offices into contempt. It is indeed true that the Holy Spirit alone enlightens hearts and kindles faith; but he does not do this apart from the external office and apart from the external use of the holy sacraments. That is why Paul, at Damascus, is commanded to listen to Ananias. Acts 9:6. If you depart from the regular office and follow your own fancy and opinion, you will thereby accomplish nothing; rather, you will take hold of and accept Satan in place of God, and you will be altogether uncertain in your own mind whether your thoughts come from God or from the devil." (On Genesis 21:21.)

In another place Luther writes: "Do not let yourself be misled by the Pharisaical chatter with which some make fools of themselves, saying, How can a man forgive sin, since he can give neither grace nor the Holy Spirit? Hold fast to the words of Christ, and be certain that God has no other way of forgiving sin than through the spoken Word which he has commanded us men to use. If you do not seek forgiveness in the Word, you will gaze up at heaven in vain for grace, or, as they say, for 'inward forgiveness.'" See Luther's excellent book mentioned above, "On the Keys."

(To be continued.)

Paid:
Vol. 1 and 2, Mr. P. Romanowsky.
Vol. 2, Messrs. Kauz, Schumm.

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