# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1928. 31

forgiveness of sins obtained by Christ, were defective. It lies rather in this,
that so many men are unwilling to cling in faith to Jesus, our High Priest. God
is reconciled, he holds out the hand of reconciliation to men. "So we pray you
in Christ's stead," Paul cries out, "be ye reconciled to God!" But the sad thing
happens: most men do not want to grasp the hand held out to them, they push it
away, turn their backs on God and prefer to remain his enemies rather than
accept the forgiveness offered to them by him. So they remain in their hearts
unreconciled with God and are lost. The fault does not lie with God, it lies
entirely with themselves.

Holy Scripture teaches us that the grasping of God's hand of reconciliation
takes place through faith in Jesus Christ. For when one trusts in him and his
work, acknowledges him as High Priest and seeks refuge with him from God's
wrath, one takes what he has earned for us: God's forgiveness and loving favor.
Therefore the Epistle to the Hebrews, in portraying Jesus as the High Priest,
so often exhorts to faith in him and praises the glory of faith in one of the
most beautiful chapters of the New Testament, the great 11th chapter. Therefore
the sacred writer of this letter also tells us that the way to the Most Holy
Place, the way into God's immediate presence, now stands open to us through
Christ's work, and calls on us to go this way with a true heart in full
assurance of faith. That we become partakers of reconciliation with God for our
own person through faith, Paul attests so often, for example in the well-known
words Rom. 5:1, 2: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this
grace wherein we stand." Righteousness or forgiveness of sins, in other words
the reconciliation of God, is a ready-made good. It is held out to us. If we
grasp it in faith, then it becomes our personal possession, so that we can
exclaim: I have what my soul needs: reconciliation, forgiveness.

Yes, only believers become partakers of the blessing of Jesus' work. For we see
from Scripture that God compels no one to grasp his hand of grace or, what is
the same, to accept his forgiveness. Jesus had taken pains to bring God's grace
to the citizens of Jerusalem. They did not receive it. Why not? "Ye would not,"
is his lament. He did not use force to move them to accept his message of
reconciliation. They would not, and they remained in their unwillingness in
spite of his repeated invitation. So they did not receive forgiveness for their
own person. Preuss writes rightly in his well-known work "Die Rechtfertigung des
Sünders vor Gott" [The Justification of the Sinner before God]: "The gates of
the prison are shattered; God's messengers stand at the threshold and say:
Come out! Is it God's fault if some remain in it because they like their
dungeon? To all the Jews captive at Babylon freedom was granted; but those who
wanted to stay there did not obtain it." The unwillingness keeps so many from
taking part in the marriage supper of the Lamb. That, to be sure, the willing
is not man's own work, that it must rather be given him from above, is likewise
a great truth, to which we shall pay brief attention in the last thesis.

How sad that, in spite of the presence of reconciliation for all, so many do not
lay hold of it for their own person, because