# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S303
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Conversionism and Free Will

Conversionism and Free Will

• “Making a decision for Jesus” – What do you think of it?

• What does the fact that we are “by nature sinful and unclean” mean for our ability
to choose?

• “Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I
open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank
You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the
throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.”
(https://crustore.org/fourlawseng.htm)
• Read Revelation 3:20.
• Faith and confession go together, but does that mean that a decision
makes me a Christian?

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• Read Ephesians 2:1–5. Spiritual death means: you cannot do anything in spiritual
matters.
• Read Revelation 3:20. How can a spiritually dead person “open the door?”
• “The words of Christ ‘Repent, and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:15) do not prove
that people are able to do this by their own powers. Lazarus could not raise
himself from the dead. Christ commanded Lazarus to come out of the grave (John
11:43-44). In the same way unconverted people who are dead in sins cannot raise
themselves spiritually. They are raised and converted by the power of God through
the Word (Psalm 19:7) Jesus says, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father who
sent Me draws him’ (John 6:44).” (Edward W.A. Koehler, A Summary of Christian
Doctrine, 3rd rev. ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 180.

Conversionism and Free Will
• God’s grace + our decision = Becoming a
Christian=Justification (Wrong!)
• God’s grace in the Gospel (Word and Sacrament) +
God’s gift of faith = Becoming a Christian (Right!)
• Arminianism teaches free will in matters of salvation.
• Synergism teaches that man cooperates in salvation.
• Lutheranism teaches that we are by nature dead in sin
and that God revives us. Therefore, God alone saves us.

2019 Convention Workbook