# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1954_S44
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

is far more than a bare, cold nonimputation of sin.’ Well, be that
as it may. True, John speaks of life. But he also speaks of the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’; and I would
like to find that exegete who would determine the relationship
of the world’s sin to the Lamb other than by imputation.” He con-
cludes this section by saying: “One simply had better not construct
any kind of artificial contradictions between the several Apostolic
concepts of doctrine” (zwischen den verschiedenen apostolischen
Lehrbegriffen; Lehre und Wehre, XXXIX, [1893], 83, 84).

Surely it should be self-evident to every Lutheran that the
term “forgiveness of sins” is a forensic term, a “juridical concept,”
or that it has within itself the verdict, the decision, and the dec-
laration of God as Judge. It is difficult, therefore, to understand
how in the face of this fact the Common Confession can be charged
with a failure to teach objective justification when it says, “For-
giveness of sins has been secured and provided for all men”; or
how one can insist that this phrase is not sufficiently clear for the
purpose of this controversy; or that the expression cannot rightly
stand under the heading of justification.

The fact is, as far as we are able to ascertain, that even the
American Lutheran, Church fathers never challenged the forensic
nature of this term. Indeed it was because of the strong “juridical
concept” contained in this phrase that some of them in 1905 refused
to accept the statement made by our fathers that “Reconciliation
and forgiveness of. sins are one and the same [sind ein Ding]”
(Lehre und Wehre, LI [1905], 390, note). And it was because he
regarded the term “forgiveness of sin” as too iorensic that a writer
in the Kirchenzeitung of the Ohio Synod on June 17, 1905, called
the expression used by our fathers: “All the world has forgiveness
of sins, the entire world is justified,” simply a “plain lie” (eine
helle Luege); ibid., p,450, note 1). For that reason the fathers of
the American Lutheran Church also at that time said, “We believe
and confess that the reconciliation effected in Christ is one thing,
and the forgiveness of sins, or justification, is another thing.” In
all fairness we must state, however, that in that very year 1905,
the Kirchenzeitung moditied its stand somewhat (Lehre und Wehre,
LI, 465, note). And it must also be conceded that some of this
opposition to our expressions was due to the fact that it was
feared that we were denying the forensic nature of subjective
justification, which we were not. And even Dr. Lenski of the
American Lutheran Church, while willing to use the expressions
“world atonement,” “universal reconciliation,” “world redemption,”
and “universal justification,” consistently refused to consider the
terms “justification,” or “forgiveness of. sins,” as proper biblical or
Confessional terms for these concepts, See his Commentary on
Ephesians, pp. 366, 367; and on St. Luke, 1:77, pp. 110, 111.

When therefore, despite this position of its fathers and of
Dr. Lenski, the American Lutheran Church in 1950 agreed to accept
the Common Confession with its use of the term “forgiveness of
sins” as proper for expressing world redemption and universal
justification, it took a step forward, different from, and in opposi-
tion to, the Kirchenzeitung of 1905 and Dr. Lenski’s commentary.
This indicates a change and a willingness fully to accept the actus
forensis. with respect to “universal justification,” or universal
reconciliation.