# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1861_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

46 Referat on the Right Preaching of the Doctrine of Justification.

For as surely as the justified and reborn person possesses both of these already, in seed, through faith, according to Christ's words, just as surely does justifying faith, if it perseveres, unfold into this blessed fruit, as Luther also says: "Where there is forgiveness of sin, there is also life and salvation."

III.

From what has just been said it is evident that all the articles of Christian doctrine converge in the doctrine of justification. For what would it profit us poor sinners, for instance, to have the doctrine of the triune God according to his essence and will, the doctrine of Christ's Person and work, the doctrine of the means of grace, if we could not grasp and appropriate to ourselves, through faith, in the Gospel and the Sacrament, the grace of the Father, the merit of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit, unto the forgiveness of sins?

Again, without this — that is, without justification before God — the new birth, renewal and sanctification, the joyful and blessed resurrection, and eternal life are altogether impossible. So all the ways and leadings of God with sinful men, according to both his goodness and his earnestness, aim at this: that man may attain to justifying faith and be kept therein; for if he has this, he has everything — the triune God and eternal life; if he does not have this faith, he has nothing but God's wrath and eternal damnation.

Therefore the doctrine of justification is indeed the noblest and foremost article; it is the most precious jewel, the apple of the eye and the heart's blood of the evangelical, that is, Lutheran, doctrine and Church. It is the medicine of the sick, the comfort of the afflicted, the strength of the weak, the light of those who err, the support of the wavering, the milk of little children, the strong food of the mature, the refreshment of the dying, the life of the dead, the gate of heaven, the joy of the angels, the terror of the devils.

All the preparatory work of the Law — which brings the secure and self-righteous man to the knowledge of sin, and by its demanding, threatening, cursing, killing, and condemning casts him under God's wrath and down toward hell — is meant, according to God's gracious and salutary ordering, to serve only this end: that the sweet, comforting evangelical doctrine of the justification of the poor sinner before God may kindle in his heart true, living faith in the Lord Christ, whereby he lays hold of Christ as his righteousness, and thereby obtains by grace what God in his Law demands by right; and thereby he is spiritually blessed, made alive and holy, and set into the heavenly state of being.

But just as the Law itself becomes a schoolmaster unto Christ, that we may be made righteous through faith, so likewise all the doing and keeping of the Ten Commandments — even where, as with the reborn, it happens only in its beginnings — proceeds from justifying faith; for