# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

Everyone sees that this doctrine presupposes a dark chapter, namely that of sin
and its power. People so often speak of sin as a trifle, laugh and scoff at it;
even among Christians one finds here and there the habit of making a joke of
sin. That is not fitting at all. Everything that is reported in Scripture of
Christ's work of reconciliation presupposes that sin, yes every sin, is a crime
of lese-majesty, as has rightly been said, which divine justice cannot let go
unpunished, but which, in accordance with divine holiness, it must rather lay
under the curse. Yes, in this doctrine, to speak with Philippi, is contained the
immeasurable greatness of the divine wrath that imposes eternal death. Luther's
Large Catechism is right when it describes the situation thus: "For when we were
created and had received all manner of good from God the Father, the devil came
and brought us into disobedience, sin, death and all misfortune, so that we lay
in his wrath and disfavor, condemned to eternal damnation, which we had
forfeited and deserved. There was no counsel, help or comfort, until this one
and eternal Son of God, out of groundless goodness, took pity on our misery and
wretchedness and came from heaven to help us." If one wants to understand
Jesus' reconciliation, one must first of all come to know God's wrath over sin.
When one has seriously occupied oneself with that, then let one hold before
oneself the word of comfort in Scripture that teaches us that Jesus has stilled
and satisfied this wrath of God, so that it no longer burns down upon us but has
given place to divine good will toward us.

Against this doctrine, that Jesus as our High Priest has reconciled us with God,
people storm violently. Already in the Middle Ages opposition to it arose, and
with the years the enmity has grown. People do not want to admit that Jesus'
work had influence on God, on God's attitude toward us. The death of Christ,
they say, was and is indeed meant to make a deep impression on men, but not on
God. God does not need to be reconciled (he was always our friend), but we had
to be brought to regard him as our friend and dear Father, and that is why
Christ worked here on earth, suffered and died. Thus truth and falsehood are
mixed. The death of Christ is indeed to make a deep impression on us, but it is
to do so because it was a death of reconciliation and restored the right
relationship between God and us. At this point the ways of the theologians
part. One part accepts the doctrine of Scripture set forth above, the other
goes the opposite way and rejects it. While in the Middle Ages Anselm of
Canterbury, in his famous little book "Cur Deus Homo?" ("Why did God become
man?"), quite rightly showed that a reconciliation of God was necessary if the
human race was to be saved, his contemporary Abélard of Paris denied this in
bitter words. In the latter's opinion it was only necessary that men be
reconciled with God or, put differently, that our enmity against the exalted
Creator be removed. Christ's suffering, which bears witness to his love, would
awaken love in return in us, and therein lies its redeeming power. That was
Abélard's view. With that he rejected the doctrine of reconciliation of Holy
Scripture. The whole swarm of rationalistic theologians since his time follows
him. They all deny that Christ's high-priestly work stilled God's wrath, even
if they do not agree among themselves in their own view of the significance
of Jesus' work. After, soon after Luther's death, the Socinians, the Unitarians of the