# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 42 —

the spiritual hearing, faith, and thereby shares out the treasure of
forgiveness that it carries within itself.

To this there was now attached the following question that arose
in the Synod: We always state and confess the thesis: Through
the raising of Christ from the dead, God has absolved the
whole world, that is, freed it from sin; if, accordingly, the
world has already long since been absolved and freed from sin, what
then is absolution, or the preaching of the Gospel, in the Church?
Is it likewise a making-free, or merely a proclamation of a
freeing that has already taken place?

Answer: The absolution of the whole world took place in God's
heart at the moment when redemption was accomplished through the Lord
Christ; and because before God the redemption has stood accomplished
from eternity, one may say: in God's heart the absolution of the
world already existed from eternity. But we do not yet have it. What,
then, must happen for us to obtain it? God has tied the obtaining of
absolution to nothing that we would have to do in order to earn it
for ourselves; rather, out of free grace He wills to give and grant
it to us. There is now no other means of accepting the gift than
faith in Jesus Christ. But in order for absolution to be received by
us, God must bring it to us, and it is precisely through the Gospel
that the bringing of what is in God's heart takes place. The
preaching of the Gospel thus brings us the absolution that is in
God's heart, so that faith may receive it; this lies in the apostle's
words: "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?"
Wherever the preaching of the Gospel is proclaimed, there the dear
God Himself steps before the sinner and says: I am reconciled, and I
hereby declare to you that all your sins are forgiven you. Now just
as this would be no empty proclamation but a truly genuine conveyance
of forgiveness if God spoke thus directly to the sinner, so too the
preaching and absolution of the preacher is indeed nothing other than
a proclamation of forgiveness — but such a proclamation as actually
brings and gives the forgiveness. We can best make the matter clear
to ourselves through an image. We human beings all lie by nature
captive in a horrible prison; Christ has burst open the gates of this
prison; we do not, indeed, know, see, or feel it, but they are burst
open nonetheless. And even if we did see it, we would still not have
the heart to go out, because we would have to fear that, once
outside, we would be seized on the spot and thrown back in. But the
Gospel is God's blessed message to us: Go out, you are redeemed, you
are pardoned, you are free! The Gospel, then, is not a proclamation
that we are still to be redeemed and pardoned, but that we already
are redeemed and pardoned; and the absolution in the Gospel is
nothing other than a repetition of the actual absolution
that has already taken place through the raising of Jesus
Christ from the dead.

At this point it was asked again: If, through the raising of
Christ, the world is [already] absolved, is it then absolved a second
time through the Gospel? If one must say the world is already
absolved,