# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1861_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

can become a partaker of the jewel. And likewise God has, as special signs and testimonies of his gracious and fatherly will toward us poor sinners — considered also as individuals — appended and affixed the two holy Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, like a seal of grace to the charter of grace of his Gospel, so that no one might doubt that Christ, comprehended in the Gospel, crucified and risen for all, and in him the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, belongs to each individual expressly and particularly.

For after God, in Christ, reconciled the world to himself (so that nothing through human doing and suffering can be added to this accomplished reconciliation), he thereafter set up the word of reconciliation, the preaching of the Gospel, which reads: "be reconciled to God" — that is, now lay hold, by the power of this word, with the believing confidence of the heart, of the reconciliation already perfectly accomplished for you through and in Christ, so that you thereby are now also reconciled to God, and hold him, in Christ, to be your dear Father, just as he is already reconciled to you in and through Christ.

However certainly, of course, such preaching is meant to work faith in the penitent hearers through a forceful and sweet portrayal and setting forth, especially of Christ crucified and risen for us all — just as certainly is the essence and the power of this Gospel altogether independent of man's faith.

For as surely as the sun illumines the whole world even if all men were to close their eyes, and as surely as bread has nourishing power in itself even if no one were to eat it, just as surely is the whole world in fact absolved through the preached Gospel, even if no one believed.

"For as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life," Romans 5:18.

Nevertheless, it is to be taught, seventhly, that only the faith which, in the ordinary way, is kindled by the Holy Spirit solely through the preaching of the Gospel in the heart of the penitent hearer, lays hold of, appropriates, and holds fast the content of this Gospel, namely Christ and his merit, and therein the forgiveness of sins, or the declaration of righteousness before God — against all feeling of God's wrath, against the accusation of conscience, against the curse of the Law, against the fear of death, and against the terrors of the devil and of hell. For it is through such faith alone that it comes to pass that, just as upon Christ, the Holy, Innocent, and Righteous One, the guilt of all sins was reckoned in God's judgment, as though he had committed every sin, indeed as though he himself were sin — so likewise upon man, the unholy, guilty, and unrighteous one, Christ's merit is in God's judgment so reckoned as though he had never committed a sin, never borne a guilt, and never incurred a penalty. And accordingly