# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 06 13_S83
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

a bare office, either to proclaim the Gospel, or to declare that sins are forgiven, but it is like a judicial act, whereby, by him (the priest) as by the judge, the sentence is pronounced." (Ib. Cap. V.)

The Roman Catholics teach, 3.) that absolution is founded upon, and dependent on, whether the contrition, the confession of sins, and the satisfactory works of the one who comes to confession are, according to the priest's decision, sufficient. For thus further speaks the aforementioned papal confession: "If anyone denies that three acts are required in the penitent for the complete forgiveness of sins (as the matter of the sacrament of penance), namely contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of penance; or if anyone says that there are only two parts of penance, namely the terrors of conscience aroused by recognition of sin, and the faith received from the Gospel or from absolution, by which someone believes that his sins are forgiven him through Christ — let him be accursed." (Ib. Cap. III, Can. 4.) Indeed, in the Roman Ritual the formula of absolution reads, among other things, thus: "May the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the holy Virgin Mary and of all the saints, and whatever good you have done and evil you have suffered, avail you for the forgiveness of sins, the increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life." (Ed. Pariss., p. 72.)

Finally, the Roman Catholics teach, 4.) that through the priest's absolution only the eternal penalties are remitted, but that the temporal penalties and the pain of purgatory are by no means thereby abolished; hence the priest must still prescribe for his penitents all sorts of penances, by which one may earn the shortening of those torments, or deliverance from them. Thus it reads, namely, in the confession already cited: "If anyone says that to every penitent sinner, after receiving the grace of justification, the guilt of sin is so forgiven and the liability (reatus) to eternal punishment so blotted out that no liability to temporal punishment remains for him to discharge, either in this world or in the world to come in purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can stand open to him — let him be accursed." (Sess. VI, De justif., Can. 30.)

From these doctrines the Evangelical Lutheran Church is far, far removed. The Lutherans by no means teach that the power to forgive and to retain sins is a power peculiar to the preachers, whose exercise derives its force and validity from their office, their call, their ordination, etc. We teach, rather, that the power of the keys is a treasure which Christ gave, in the apostles, to the whole Church or congregation; it is, as our Catechism says, "a peculiar (proper) power of the Church, which Christ has given to his Church (not to the preachers)." The Church is the bride, with whom he has betrothed himself, and who has now received the keys to his whole house and its treasures; she is the housewife, or mistress of the house; Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the preaching office, absolution, etc., are her goods. Hence Paul calls out to the Corinthian church and congregation: "Let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world — all are yours." 1 Cor. 3:21-22. When, therefore, Christ, according to Matthew 18, had shown how one is to proceed with a person who has sinned, and how that person, if he will not hear even the church or congregation, is to be held by it as a heathen and a publican, Christ immediately adds: "Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall..." etc. By this the great power of opening heaven and hell is unmistakably given over to the church or congregation, that is, to all baptized Christians. In the New Testament there is no longer any special priesthood mediating between God and men; the high priest of the Old Testament was a type of Christ, but the priests and Levites were types of the whole of Christendom; it is not the anointed and humanly ordained so-called clergy, but all true Christians, who are now the chosen generation, the royal priesthood. 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Revelation 1:6. Accordingly the Lutheran Church teaches that, in a case of necessity, a layman too may give absolution, and that then his absolution is just as valid, "as powerful and as certain, even in heaven, as if our dear Lord Christ himself were dealing with us." Yet, to be sure, only in a case of necessity, for God, being a God of order, has instituted the holy preaching office, through which the offices and goods common to all Christians are to be administered and distributed. From this it will, we hope, be clear to every reader what a wicked slander it is when the Methodists assert that Luther and those who follow his faith have insisted, and still insist, so firmly on the doctrine of the power of the keys in order to enlarge their own authority and to set themselves up as necessary mediators between God and the laity — indeed, to be stared at as though they were gods. According to Lutheran doctrine, the preachers administer the office of the keys not as lords, but as servants of the Church.

The Lutherans further teach, 2., not that the preacher acts as judge in confession, but rather that he is only God's instrument, only a steward and dispenser of the treasures of grace which Christ has given to his whole Church; that it therefore does not depend on the judicial decision of the preacher whether someone has forgiveness of sins, but on the faith of those who desire the comforting absolution.

We teach further, 3., by no means that absolution is founded on the perfection of our contrition, our confession, and our works of penance, but that it is given out of pure grace and without any regard to worthiness, by virtue of the perfect merit of Jesus Christ.

We teach finally, 4., by no means that a preacher, once he has absolved a sinner, may still impose something upon him by which he must atone for the temporal punishments still remaining, or for the pain of an expected purgatory; we teach, rather, that absolution, when it is believed, takes away not only all guilt, but therefore necessarily also all punishment for time and eternity, and that the cross which even pardoned sinners must still always bear is no longer a punishment, but a fatherly chastisement, by which the pardoned one is warned against falling away, and his faith and his love are tried and exercised.

Who does not see from this that the Lutheran and the papist confession and absolution are, in every point, something wholly different, and that it therefore rests either on appalling ignorance or on malice, when the administration of the office of the keys in the Lutheran Church is called a papist remnant?

We come now to an objection against our Church's doctrine of absolution which, though not made by the Methodists, is nowadays not seldom raised by precisely those who still believe with all their heart that the Bible is God's Word; we mean the objection that the apostles could indeed forgive sins, but that one may not, on that account, now attribute this power to an ordinary minister of the church. We sought to show the groundlessness of this objection two years ago, in a sermon for Quasimodogeniti Sunday. We hope our readers will forgive us if, in order to save ourselves time, we here insert the relevant passage from that sermon. Here it is:

"That Christ gave the holy apostles the power to forgive and to retain sins can be doubted by no one who believes the Bible; it is expressed in plain words both in today's Gospel (John 20:19-31) and in other passages of the Gospels. A question can be raised only as to whether this power still holds today, or whether it expired with the death of the apostles.

It is, however, certainly not enough merely to assert, by a bare say-so without any proof, that that power was solely an apostolic privilege. A Christian to whom the truth is no jest, but lies close to the heart, demands irrefutable grounds for this, and will, on the contrary, ask: Why should precisely the power to forgive and retain sins concern the apostles alone? Christ, after all, said to the apostles alone: "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Christ likewise said to the apostles alone, at the institution of the Holy Supper: "This do in remembrance of me." By what power, then, is the Gospel still preached today, is Baptism administered, is the Holy Supper celebrated? Does it happen