# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S48
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 48 —

it takes hold. Whatever I feel in my heart through the working of the
Holy Spirit are fruits of forgiveness; even if I do not find them in
myself, but believe the Gospel, I nevertheless have forgiveness of
sins.

The question: If I pray the Lord's Prayer and believe, do I then
also have forgiveness of sins through human beings? — was answered
as follows: Yes, quite certainly! For every word of God, including
the Lord's Prayer, is conveyed to us through human beings. Had the
apostles not received the command to preach, we would have no word
of God either. The point of contrast in "only through human beings"
is simply this: that I should not seek to become certain of
forgiveness through secret voices and extraordinary inner
feelings. God will have nothing to do with that; rather He says:
Open the Bible, read, hear the Gospel and believe — that is the way;
if you walk that way and believe the Word, you too will, as soon as
it pleases Me, feel the testimony of the Spirit; for this is a fruit
that follows upon faith and forgiveness.

The reason why many take offense at the doctrine that sins are
forgiven through human beings is that they think we believe the
preacher has received, through ordination, some special quality, so
that, merely by speaking the words, he conveys forgiveness by a
secret power and, as it were, conjures the sin away. But this
opinion rests on a gross misunderstanding; for that is not the
teaching of our Church. Our Church teaches, rather: forgiveness is
present and is to be proclaimed throughout the world; the word of
grace given to the Church is God's own word; where it sounds forth,
there God's own voice sounds forth; just as surely as it stands
written in the Bible, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," and
"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," just
as surely does God speak to us when He has these promises proclaimed
to us; the power to forgive sin lies not in the preacher's own
quality, but in the Word — not because the preacher says it, but
because it is God's Word — so that even if a child said it, I would
have forgiveness of sins. In such a doctrine there is not a trace of
wretched preacherly pride to be found. — Many say: Yes, the Lutheran
Church is beautiful, that cannot be denied; but its doctrine of
absolution is a leftover appendage from popery. But God forbid! The
Lutheran Church curses the papist false doctrine of absolution; its
absolution is the sweet Gospel itself, without which a true assurance
of grace and forgiveness of sin is not possible at all. — When we say
that we receive forgiveness only through human beings, we mean the
very same thing Luther means when he so often says that we receive it
through the bodily, spoken Word. The point, then, is that it is the
bodily, spoken Word through which I wish to obtain forgiveness of
sins; if that is what it is, then it makes no difference whether I
read it myself, or call it to mind in my thoughts, or hear it from a
preacher, or even from a child — it always proclaims and brings me
forgiveness. — We ground our doctrine, among other things, also on
the precious word of last Sunday's Gospel (the 19th Sunday after
Trinity): "He who gave such power