# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S358
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

358 A Comparison of Luther with Arndt and August H. Francke in This Regard, etc.

is earned. Answer: It comes from this, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven and became man, suffered for our sin, and died.. For such a treasure does not come to us without means and merit. The Jews, Turks, false Christians, and self-righteous work-saints also boast that God is merciful, and there is no man on earth who does not know how to speak of God's grace; and yet they all fail to obtain grace and forgiveness of sin. The reason is that they do not know how one comes to it, that is, they do not have the treasure in which it lies and from which it flows; they proceed in their blindness and want to accomplish it by their own doing, their strict living, and their own holiness, whereby they only make God's wrath and disfavor heavier. For it is determined that without and outside of Christ no one can come before God, find grace, or obtain forgiveness for even the very least sin.. Behold, that is the second point that belongs to the preaching of this article. The third: how or by what means is such righteousness now brought home to us, so that we receive the treasure earned through Christ? .. God has placed this treasure in the spoken Word or the preaching office and does not wish to accomplish it in a corner or secretly in the heart, but rather to have it cried out and distributed publicly among the people, as Christ commands in Mark 16: Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, etc. He does this so that one may be certain how and where to seek and wait for such grace, so that it may proceed in Christendom in one and the same manner and order, and so that no one may undertake anything of his own or proceed according to his own notions, thereby deceiving himself and others — as would certainly otherwise follow... Thus this piece too belongs here, namely the outward Word or preaching in Christendom, in order that one may obtain forgiveness of sin or Christian righteousness, as a channel and a means by which Christ and his grace are revealed to us and brought before us, or laid into our lap, without which no one could ever become aware of the treasure."

Luther explains this still more clearly in his sermon on the same Gospel in the House Postil. He begins this sermon at once with the words: "From today's Gospel we should chiefly take note of the gracious preaching that God has given to men, that we here on earth may say to one another: Your sins are forgiven you; so that, together with the devout little folk here, we may marvel at this and thank God from the heart that he has given men such power. For it is truly a great power that one Christian can say to another: My brother, be undaunted, you have a gracious God; only believe the promise that I make to you in the name of Jesus, and it shall be just as certainly true as if God himself had said to you: Your sins are forgiven you."

Here Luther presents the Gospel as a message to all men concerning the forgiveness already earned for all men, that is, as the tidings that the sins of all men are now forgiven and that it is now only a matter of the person believing it — in short, as an