# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1892. 27

it is the old, accursed nature of man, which was there from the beginning and was damnable from the beginning. God indeed mourns the death of the sinner whom he finds. Those who come to faith were also unbelieving, guilty, damnable. Through faith they receive forgiveness of all their sins, the guilt is remitted to them. The unbelievers, however, remain in sin, under God's wrath and judgment; on account of their unbelief the guilt they already have is not taken from them, as Scripture says: "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God," and: "He that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." The wrath of God is already there beforehand and abides because of unbelief. So, despite his inability to give himself faith, man is to blame for his unbelief just as for his corruption by original sin. He is guilty from his birth, as long as he stands in unbelief and under all circumstances. Unbelief is again the cause that all his guilt remains, is imputed to him on the day of judgment and brings him into damnation, because unbelief rejects God's grace and Christ's merit.

That those who are lost are to blame for their damnation follows further from the fact that God himself wills to overcome this natural inability and through his means of grace to work faith in them, which rescues them from damnation; for the means of grace hold within them the power to work repentance, faith, conversion. God does indeed in his Word call on us human beings to repent, to believe, to be converted, to wake up and rise. Thus it says: "Repent and believe the Gospel," Mark 1:15, "Turn yourselves, and you shall live," Ezek. 18:23 [as printed], "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light," Eph. 5:14. But not in the sense that they themselves could do this; no, in order to impress upon them the necessity of repentance, of faith, of conversion, of regeneration, of resurrection; indeed, by such expressions as the last, to make clear to them precisely their inability to do it, as he also expressly testifies, John 6:44: "No man can come to me, except the Father who has sent me draw him." 1 Cor. 13:3 [as printed]: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit." In which sayings he testifies that faith is his work alone, as it also says expressly, John 6:29: "This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent." — God also says in his Word that he himself wills to work faith, conversion, regeneration: "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart," etc., Deut. 30:6, "I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh," Ezek. 36:26. Christ says of Jerusalem, which on the whole