# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10 Proceedings of the twenty-second convention

Christ has earned for them, as the Antinomians babble, but also through the putting away, sweeping out and killing of sins, from which they are called a holy people. And so the holy Christian Church is as much as a people that is Christian and holy, or, as one also commonly says, the holy Christendom, item, the whole Christendom." (XVI, 2778.)

In the Large Catechism Luther describes the Christian Church thus: "I believe that there is a holy little flock and congregation on earth, of nothing but saints, under one Head, Christ, called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith, mind and understanding, with manifold gifts, yet in harmony in love, without sects and division." (Müller, 457, § 51.)

Again Luther says in the Large Catechism of all people who do not believe in Christ: "Whatever is outside of Christendom, be they heathen, Turks, Jews or false Christians and hypocrites, even though they believe in and worship only one true God, yet they do not know what His disposition toward them is, nor can they expect any love or good from Him, therefore they remain in eternal wrath and damnation. For they do not have the Lord Christ, and moreover are not illumined and endowed with any gifts by the Holy Spirit." (460, § 66.)

On the nature of faith Luther explains (St. L. IX, 19 f.) that we must grasp (apprehendere) and embrace (amplecti) the passiva justitia. He calls Christian righteousness justitia passiva because we do not do or produce it (efficere), but receive it. The passiva justitia is Christ, or the righteousness offered in the Gospel. The passiva justitia is the justitia of faith, insofar as it is obtained not through works but through faith. "The two cannot stand together, but are directly opposed: to believe that grace and eternal life are given to us solely for Christ's sake, and yet at the same time to seek and pretend to have a merit of our own for it." (St. L. XI, 978.)

Apology: "The adversaries (Papists) would have it that faith is this, that I know and have heard the histories of Christ; therefore they teach that I can well believe even though I am in mortal sins. Of the right Christian faith, of which Paul speaks so often everywhere, that we become righteous before God by faith (justificari), they know or say nothing at all. For those who are esteemed holy and righteous before God are surely not in mortal sins. Therefore the faith that makes righteous and just before God is not only this, that I know the histories, how Christ was born, suffered, etc. (the devils know that too), but is the certainty, or the sure, strong confidence in the heart, in which I hold with my whole heart the promise of God for certain and true, by which forgiveness of sin, grace and all salvation are offered to me without my merit through the Mediator