# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 Proceedings of the fourteenth convention

that, when Adam sinned, all human beings sinned, and that when he fell under death, all fell under death in and with him. For to the words "for that all have sinned" one must, according to recognized exegetes, supply "in Adam": "for that they all have sinned in Adam." The sense is thus the same as when, as others have done, the word "for that" is rendered "in whom," namely in Adam. — The same follows also from verse 16: "For the judgment came from one sin to damnation"; further from verse 17: "For if by one man's sin death reigned through that one"; and finally from verse 18: "As by one man's sin damnation came upon all human beings." On account of original sin, on account of the first sin of origin committed in Adam, all human beings have fallen under damnation.

This is also the doctrine of our Confession. In the Augsburg Confession, Art. 2, it says, in immediate connection with the words just cited: "That this same innate disease and original sin is truly sin," and further, "and condemns all those under the eternal wrath of God who are not born anew through baptism and the Holy Spirit." And in the Formula of Concord, p. 576 (9), our Church confesses that this hereditary damage is "the guilt, that we all together, because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, are in God's disfavor and by nature children of wrath, as the apostle testifies to the Romans in the 5th chapter." And p. 577 (13): "The punishment and penalty of original sin, which God has laid upon Adam's children and upon original sin, is death, eternal damnation," etc.

Also in this point, the damnableness of the corruption of original sin, it is a matter of proving obedience of faith over against the many, not only outside but even inside the Christian church, who deny the guilt and damnableness of original sin. That God can impute Adam's sin to us, or, in the other manner of speaking, that we sinned in and with Adam himself, that his punishment is rightly also our punishment, this will not make sense to reason, despite all explanations. But God's Word testifies to the fact; it also testifies to God's righteousness. So both must be accepted in faith. The doctrine of original sin is precisely a mysterious doctrine. All faithful Lutherans follow the example of their Confessions, of which Philippi rightly writes, Cap. C, p. 70: "How this can be reconciled with divine righteousness is not investigated further; rather, after establishing the fact as attested by Scripture and experience, one simply rests in the believing statement that it exists by the righteous judgment of God." And p. 71: "The Church thus rests in its Confession at the mystery of original sin. It wants the fact of the corruption of original sin descending from Adam, which is subject to the righteous judgment of God, on the basis of Scripture