# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1861_S53
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Referat on the Right Preaching of the Doctrine of Justification. 53

the believer, according to Luther's words, may say to Christ: "Lord Jesus, I am your sin, but you are my righteousness; my guilt is yours, but your merit is mine."

Eighth, in this doctrine of faith there must unconditionally be excluded both all preceding works of the Law and all subsequent works of the new obedience, likewise all sufferings, penances, self-chosen devotions and forms of worship, pious feelings, and anything of that sort — as though they, even in the smallest part, contributed toward meriting the forgiveness of sins and acquiring the righteousness that avails before God. For "to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness," Romans 4:5.

It is therefore falsely preached when, for instance, it is said: faith, when it becomes active through love, makes righteous and blessed; rather, it is to be preached thus: faith, which out of the Gospel lays hold of Christ as the sinner's righteousness, afterward becomes active through love.

Ninth, it is to be especially emphasized that faith — be it that of a seven-year-old child or that of a seasoned and mature Christian of seventy years — clings and holds purely and simply to the divine Word, and draws from it alone its power and nourishment, even apart from any feeling of God's grace and Christ's love, indeed against every feeling of the guilt of sin, of disfavor, and of God's wrath, and against all stirrings and thoughts of unbelief.

Tenth, mention must also be made that the forgiveness of sin in no way depends upon or is conditioned by the strength of faith, but rather that everything depends solely on the purity of faith — namely, that there be no hypocrisy and no falsehood in the spirit of the man; for even the weakest child can hold the very same pearl in its hand as the strong man.

Eleventh, in the handling of this doctrine it would finally also have to be testified how, over against the Gospel — as the proclamation and announcement of the justification of Adam and all his children already in fact accomplished by God in the raising of Christ, so that all might believe, and thereby the forgiveness of sins be imparted and appropriated to each individual — there is no other sin than man's unbelief. For the unbeliever, precisely in the face of this gracious Gospel, this sweetest and most comforting of all preaching, declares God to be a liar, and willfully casts from himself the absolution already in fact accomplished for him too in the raising of Christ, just as Christ says: "they will not believe on me, that they might have life."

This, then, would be, according to its chief parts, the doctrine, rich in grace and comfort, of the justification of the sinner before God; and if we, as ministers of the Word, thus set it forth, we have at least done our part, so that through the divine seed of this Gospel, by the power of grace, we might beget children for God, who, being justified and reborn through the