# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 39 —

cleanses us from all sins. Item: The righteous shall live by his faith, Gal. 2."

Is not Christ's teaching called Gospel, in German: a glad message? But why is it called so? Because, when I preach the Gospel, I preach nothing more than what has already been earned and given to men, and what they are therefore to accept and be glad of from the heart. The Gospel is the glad message that Christ has done the work which we should have done and yet could not do, and that the heavenly Father, through the raising of our Reconciler, has given a sign from heaven that he is thereby completely satisfied. Whoever is now astonished that God has people told over and over: Be glad, for your debt is wiped out and fully paid, why do you still trouble yourselves? — whoever takes offense at this takes offense at Christ and at his Gospel; and whoever thinks that he is thereby preaching too much comfort to people and making them secure thereby reveals that he himself has not yet tasted of this manna. Whoever has himself experienced the comfort of the Gospel will have to say: This is it, that I came as the prodigal son, torn and full of pain and sickness, that I said to my God: here I am, deal with me now according to your grace. Then he received me and kissed me with the kiss of his mouth and clothed me with the garments of salvation and put a ring on my hand and called together the neighbors and friends and prepared a feast of joy. Whoever does not want to preach the Gospel so may preach the Koran or the Talmud or the pope's law or whatever else he wants; but if he wants to make joyful Christians, then let him preach this glad message. There are anyway enough particular matters that must be preached. The Law must indeed be used first, and it must be preached in such a way that the hearers tremble and quake, that they think: Oh, he is throwing us all into hell; there is no counsel, no rescue, we are lost; but then one shows from the Gospel the very opposite. Whoever preaches so sets the people on a firm ground, so that they do not want to go back into the Law. The enthusiasts [Schwärmer] have these thoughts of redemption: By Christ's having become man, lived and suffered, he has made it possible for men that they themselves now can do and live what and as is necessary for their salvation. Even if they therefore talk much about faith, that is what lurks in them, and even faith then becomes with them a meritorious human work. That is also the true papal doctrine, for even if the Romanists say that Christ died for the sins of the world, they do not believe that through Christ's death guilt and punishment have been done away, but teach that man must achieve salvation through his repenting, doing penance and other good works, that Christ makes this meritorious first, and God helps afterward. So the enthusiasts mix man's work into