# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 47 —

sins that exists outside of or alongside the Gospel, but rather it is
nothing other than the preaching of the Gospel to the individual
sinner.

Since this second thesis follows necessarily from the first, and
was already discussed together with it, it was adopted without
further discussion.

Third Thesis: The administrators and dispensers of absolution
in the public office are the preachers of the Gospel;
otherwise, however, all Christians, because the whole Church
is the original holder of the keys; but He who forgives sin
through their service is the triune God.

On this thesis it was first observed: that God forgives sin is
believed by all denominations; that He forgives sin through human
beings is believed, next to the Lutherans, by none except the Roman
[Catholics] — and they quite wrongly. Many Lutherans indeed believe
that God forgives sins through preachers, but not through
ordinary Christians. We ought all to become quite clear that
there is, properly speaking, no pronouncing of forgiveness of
sins on earth except through human beings. — It was further
recalled that experience teaches that even those among the so-called
Lutherans who still hold the doctrine that preachers can forgive
sins, and that God forgives sin only through human beings, and
through human beings alone, frequently do not really believe it even
so. A great many seek forgiveness in the notion that something takes
place within a person's heart, on the basis of which occurrences the
person at last hears the voice of the Holy Spirit in his heart:
"your sins are forgiven you, you are a child of God!" Such
experiences, however, are not the way to the forgiveness of sins;
rather, conversely, it is along the way of forgiveness that one comes
to have such experiences. How does it come about that a person has
forgiveness of sins and is certain of it? — By building on such
occurrences, experiences, and feelings, one builds on slippery
ground, even when these are worked by the Holy Spirit; for one may
have them today and perhaps not tomorrow. Whoever builds the
certainty of forgiveness on such inner occurrences, and comes into
mortal distress where he perhaps no longer senses anything of them,
departs in anguish and woe. Therefore we ought to know: forgiveness
is always there; Christ has earned it and entrusted it as a treasure
to His Church, and He wills to distribute it in no other way than
through the means of grace. If, then, I believe that it is there for
me too, because I know I am baptized, I believe the promises of the
Gospel, I have gone to the holy Supper and comfort myself with the
precious promise, "this is my body, given for you," "this is my
blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins" — if I stand thus, I
stand rightly. Everything else on which one builds is a foundation
alongside the true foundation, if one even still has that foundation
at all; and how many may have abandoned the true foundation
altogether! It remains eternally true: the forgiveness of sin is
earned solely through Christ, distributed solely through the Gospel,
and received solely through faith