# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1858_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Euen Theses. 11

-faith no sacrament is of use, indeed it is even deadly and destructive." "There is no difference between old and new sacraments; neither the one nor the other gives the grace of God; but, as has been said, faith alone, based on God's Word and sign, gave grace both there and here."

2. The proper good of salvation is the "I" of the Lord in his whole God-manly and spiritual personhood (John 6), thus to be distinguished from the righteousness of faith, which is a gift of the Lord but is not He Himself.

Gloss on 2. Everything depends above all on what and for what Christ is to us. St. Paul: "Christ is made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."

3. The subjective redemption is accomplished in the communication of the essence and life of the God-man, and not in the establishment of a merely ethical relationship between sinful man and God. Salvation is of an essential, not merely an ethical, nature. Children of God are not merely adopted children, but children "born of God." The good of salvation is bestowed in the self-communication of Christ, but not in the righteousness of faith alone.

Gloss on 3. Luther: "Faith transforms the hearts and secretly makes a child out of an enemy. Therefore faith brings with it the whole inheritance and chief good of righteousness and salvation."

4. Faith, as an ethical-spiritual disposition of man, is by itself incapable of grasping the full gift of salvation in its essentiality, and there is need, for its bestowal on the part of the Lord, as well as for its reception on the part of man, of the God-ordained sacramental mediation.

Gloss on 4. Luther: "In sum, through the Word we are incorporated into Christ, so that all that He has is ours, and we can take His to ourselves as of our own body." "As bodily food is transformed into man's own substance, so that it loses its form and becomes flesh and blood: so too, when the soul grasps and takes to itself God's Word concerning Christ with the heart, faith does not remain idle, but works through and transforms the man, so that he is wholly incorporated into Christ and Christ into him." "One should teach rightly concerning faith, namely thus: that through it you are bound and united with Christ, so that of you and Him there becomes, as it were, one person, which cannot at all be parted or separated from one another, but clings to Christ forever, and may say with all boldness: I am Christ — not personally, but Christ's righteousness, way, life, and all that He has is my own," etc.

5. Faith is the condition for the blessing-giving effect of the essential gift of salvation, but not the exclusive organ for receiving it. The full essential gift of salvation unto blessedness is received not sola fide, but through believing participation in the sacrament.

Gloss on 5. Is, then, "believing participation in the sacrament" an "organ for receiving"? Or is it not rather the faith within the participation — hence still sola fides?

6. The doctrine of justification and the doctrine of the sacrament