# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 38 —

holy Gospel by the Holy Spirit, and faith alone is the sole means by which we grasp them, accept them, and apply and appropriate them to ourselves, which is a gift of God, by which we rightly recognize Christ our Redeemer in the Word of the Gospel and trust in him, so that we have forgiveness of sins solely for the sake of his obedience out of grace, are held righteous and just before God the Father, and become eternally saved. Accordingly it is held and taken as one and the same when Paul says that we are made righteous through faith, Rom. 3, or that faith is reckoned to us for righteousness, Rom. 4. And when he says that we are made righteous through the obedience of the one Mediator, Christ, or that through one man's righteousness justification of life has come upon all men, Rom. 5. For faith justifies not on this account and for this reason, that it is such a good work and fine virtue, but because it grasps and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us through faith if we are to be made righteous by it, so that the righteousness that is reckoned out of pure grace before God to faith or to believers is the obedience, suffering and resurrection of Christ, by which he made satisfaction to the law for us and paid for our sin. For since Christ is not man alone but God and man in one undivided person, he was just as little under the law, because he is a Lord of the law, as that he should suffer and die for his own person. Therefore his obedience is reckoned to us for righteousness not only in his suffering and death but also in that he voluntarily put himself under the law in our place and fulfilled it with such obedience, so that God, for the sake of such whole obedience, which he rendered for us to his heavenly Father in doing and suffering, in life and death, forgives sin, holds us righteous and just, and makes us eternally saved. Such righteousness is set before us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and in the Sacraments and is applied, appropriated and accepted through faith, whence believers have reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, God's grace, the sonship and inheritance of eternal life." (p. 612. 613.) Further: "Since the obedience (of Christ) is that of the whole person, it is a perfect satisfaction and reconciliation of the human race, by which the eternal, unchangeable righteousness of God, as revealed in the law, was satisfied; and so our righteousness that avails before God, which is revealed in the Gospel, on which faith before God relies, which God reckons to faith, as it is written in Rom. 5: As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous, and 1 John 1: The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,