# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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world, that he gave his only-begotten Son." Accordingly God did two things: he was angry over the sinners, and at the same time he loved them so ardently that he gave his only-begotten Son for them. If he loved the world already from eternity, how certainly will he love it still, now that satisfaction has been made to him! If God now looks at the world as one for which satisfaction has been made and whose guilt has been paid through his Son, then he looks at it as a reconciled world. But now the individual comes and thrusts this reconciliation from himself: him he cannot look at otherwise, since he is without Christ, than with eternal burning wrath. Speaking of the acquisition of salvation, he is angry with no man any more; but speaking of the appropriation, he is angry with everyone who is not in Christ. One can therefore say: Insofar as the man is a part of the whole redeemed humanity, God is not angry with him; but insofar as he is, in his own person, an unbeliever, God is angry with him. Yet here lies an inexpressible and unfathomable mystery. In God there are no movements, as in us men, who are now of one mind, now of another, now have these feelings, now those. Of him it is written: "You remain what you are." With his being everything that God thinks and wills is one. Precisely this unity and unchangeableness of God in respect of what Holy Scripture ascribes to him against the sinner when he does not believe, and then when he believes, is an impenetrable mystery to us, for which reason we are also unable to form a clear concept of how God can love the whole world and yet at the same time be angry with the individual unbeliever; but Holy Scripture teaches both clearly. Now it is the Lutheran way: if we find two things in God's Word that we cannot reconcile, we simply let both stand and believe both as it reads. A contradiction, however, is not in the fact that Holy Scripture teaches both: God loves the world and hates the unbelievers; one must simply add in thought: in a different respect. It is similar to when we say: man is mortal and he is also not mortal. He is mortal in regard to his bodily constitution, and he is not mortal in regard to his spiritual constitution. Christ has put himself in the place of the whole world and made satisfaction for it. So the great God now also represents the world to himself, and insofar as he does this, his fatherly heart is inclined toward all; but of course not apart from Christ; when he considers the unbelieving world apart from him, then the fire of his wrath flames over it in eternity. Indeed, if it were possible, his wrath would now have to be still greater than when it was kindled by the transgression of the law. If one now asks whether one can say the whole body is indeed absolved, but not the individuals? the answer is: God is reconciled through Christ with all and with each individual. Yet a judgment must go forth upon every single person, either of absolution or of condemnation. Luther says on this: "The dearest and most comforting doctrine of the Gospel speaks quite