# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

they do not believe in Jesus Christ as their High Priest! But how comforting,
on the other hand, that for obtaining the blessing that Jesus' work has
prepared nothing is necessary but only the accepting, the clinging to him, the
believing! No performance, no work is required, but only this, that one gladly
reaches out, as our High Priest holds out to us the good purchased by him with
his blood.

To the unbelieving generation of our day it seems, to be sure, something very
slight that is decisive here, the believing acceptance of Jesus' forgiveness.
But how little these people understand what believing in Jesus Christ really
means! The Epistle to the Hebrews says of the blood of Christ, which he offers
as our High Priest and in which the believing Christian takes comfort: "How
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God?" It is said there that Christ purges our conscience from dead
works. That means first of all that he gives us the certainty that we possess
forgiveness of sins, so that we can have a good, joyful conscience before God.
But it means further that he breaks the chains of sin that hold us captive, so
that we are no longer slaves of sin but can serve the living God. On
justification follows sanctification. The appropriation of forgiveness of sins
is followed by a pious life. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,"
Paul exclaims, expressing the same truth. Accept Jesus as your High Priest and
you are free, free not only from guilt and punishment but also from the
dominion of sin. That is the power of the so often derided faith.

Only faith, and yet also really faith, is necessary if one is to become partaker
of reconciliation with God for one's own person, we say. We know well that the
Romanists and all others who teach righteousness by works reject the truth that
only faith is required if one wants to obtain forgiveness of sins. We know
further that the whole host of the rationalists, of the Quakers, of the
Universalists and of many others has gone into battle against the second point,
namely that faith also really is required if one wants to become a blessed
child of God for one's own person. They demand rather that God, without regard
to faith or unbelief, take men into heaven. Over against them all we want to
stay with the simple, plain truth of Scripture: "He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life," whether our reason declares for it or not.

VIII.

We have seen that Christ's work as that of our High Priest lies in large part in
the past, in that it consisted in the reconciliation between God and the world.
This work of reconciliation is accomplished. It need not be repeated. The Roman
doctrine that Jesus is still continually offered for us in the Mass, even if
only in an unbloody way, contradicts straightway what Scripture, and
especially the Epistle to the Hebrews, says on this point. Heb. 10:27, 28 is as
clear as if the author had had the papistic doctrine precisely before his eyes.

But even though we now emphatically stress that Jesus' sacrifice of
reconciliation has been offered once for all and needs no supplement or
repetition, we must on the other hand take note,