# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 46 —

piece of the Gospel — such as, for example, the piece about the
resurrection of the dead — surely one could not say that this is
absolution. — To this the answer was given: It makes no difference
whether a part or the whole of the Gospel is preached; it is
always absolution. If one preaches about the resurrection of the
dead in general terms, one is not preaching Gospel at all, for such
preaching produces terror and horror among the ungodly; but if one
preaches that believers will rise again, and indeed rise to eternal
life, this is a truly glorious and comforting Gospel. To confirm that
absolution is present even in the smallest fragment of the Gospel,
the example was given of a person under spiritual attack who, through
the verse "God helps both man and beast" [Psalm 36:6], was at once
torn out of all his fear and distress and mightily comforted.

Finally the following was further stated concerning the first
thesis: one must not confuse what Christ did with what happened to
Christ. His suffering, dying, and rising were not themselves
absolution — but His being raised from the dead was. Our preaching
and absolution is, in its moral effect, nothing other than what God
did to Christ; the only difference is that God, through the raising
of His Son, absolved the whole world, whereas we absolve only
individuals — preachers, for instance, absolve only their own
congregations. Christ was our substitute; He was punished, condemned,
and cursed in our place — in Him, we [were too]. He was finally cast,
in our stead, into death's debtors' prison, but on the third day God
let Him out again and made Him glorious. Just as little as Christ was
punished on the cross for His own person — since He Himself was no
sinner — so little was it for His own sake; rather, we were punished
in Him, and in Him we are also justified. Through Christ's
resurrection, God declared the whole world righteous. If we all knew
this, it would be enough; but since we do not know it, the treasure
would remain unused if we did not come to learn of it. So God says:
What I have done shall be proclaimed. Just as surely as Christ's
resurrection is a true absolution, just as surely is my absolution
no mere narration but a real conveyance of forgiveness. Absolution is
an act of God, valid until the end of the world. Our absolution is
nothing other than a repetition of God's act in the raising of
Christ. The Reformed, by contrast, regard the Gospel as nothing more
than an account of redemption, which has the moral power to put a
person into a different frame of mind, and through that different
frame of mind into a condition pleasing to God. For our salvation two
things had to happen: 1., the forgiveness of sin had to be earned —
this Christ did; 2., as a consequence of the perfection and full
validity of Christ's merit, the triune God had to forgive — this God
has done, and continues to do again and again until the Last Day, but
no longer in the way of the Son's one-time resurrection, but through
the proclamation of the Gospel.

Second Thesis: Private absolution is accordingly not a power
to forgive sins existing outside of or alongside the