# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S29
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1892. 29

namely the holy Gospel, which alone saves, of his eternal Son, our only Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ, be publicly preached, whereby he gathers to himself an eternal church out of the human race, and works in people's hearts true repentance and knowledge of sins, true faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and God wills, through this means and not otherwise, namely through his holy Word, when one hears it preached or reads it, and uses the sacraments according to his Word, to call people to eternal salvation, draw them to himself, convert, regenerate and sanctify them. 1 Cor. 1: Since the world through its wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Acts 10: Peter will tell you the word by which you and all your house shall be saved. Rom. 10: Faith comes from preaching, and preaching through God's Word. John 17: Sanctify them, Father, in your truth; your word is truth. But I pray for all who through their word shall believe on me. Therefore the eternal Father from heaven above cries concerning his dear Son and all who in his name preach repentance and forgiveness of sins: Him you shall hear. Matt. 17.

"This preaching all are to hear who wish to be saved. For the preaching of God's Word and the hearing of it are the instrument of the Holy Spirit, in, with and through which he wills to work effectively and to convert people to God and to work in them both the willing and the doing."

Although human beings themselves are wholly unable to bring themselves to faith, God himself wills to do what they cannot, and indeed in all, wills to do it through his means of grace, which contain within them all the necessary power, to the use of which he earnestly exhorts and against the contempt of which he earnestly warns; therefore the guilt that people do not come to faith, despite their inability to give themselves faith, must lie with them themselves, and the guilt is to be sought in their conduct toward the means of grace through which God wills to work faith in them.

To the conduct of those who are lost toward the means of grace, naturally their perverse, evil, reprehensible conduct, Scripture traces back their damnation and, since this is the punishment of unbelief, their unbelief. In Acts 3:22 f. we read: "For Moses said to the fathers: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren, like me; him you shall hear in all things whatever he shall say to you. And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." Here Scripture clearly makes faith and salvation dependent on the hearing of Christ, on the hearing of his Gospel. Of course not merely on outward hearing with bodily ears, but this too included. Paul says to the Jews at Antioch, who what Paul