LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 298

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II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

by believing the message, the Gospel is received to one’s
benefit.

7. Why Is Objective Justification
Important?

Maybe you have never heard the term “objective justification” before. If so, you might wonder if this teaching is all
that important for the ordinary Christian. After all, if it
were important, you would have heard of it! But even if you
have never heard the term “objective justification,” you have
almost certainly heard and learned about what it means —
in confirmation instruction, in sermons and Bible classes.
The Gospel without “if.”
When the Good News is spoken, does it sound like, “God
is ready and willing to forgive you — if you believe?” Or
perhaps, “Forgiveness of sins is now a possibility!”
Hopefully, this is not what you remember hearing. The
Gospel is not the Good News with an “if ” (God forgives
you all your sins, if ...). No, it is a declaration, a factual
announcement, and sheer good news, PERIOD: “God
forgives you all your sins.” No “ifs.”
For when one says that a person is forgiven IF …, then
the question is: What do I have to do? If I still have to do
something to be forgiven, then faith becomes my half of the
bargain or my contribution to forgiveness. Faith becomes
something I have to bring to the table to receive God’s gift.
But faith is not my part in accomplishing the forgiveness
of sins. Faith is God’s gift created by the Gospel itself. “So
faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of
Christ” (Rom. 10:17).
“As far as the sins of men are concerned, the Gospel does
not tell us that God is ready and willing to forgive them
if and when a man believes; it does not offer a potential
forgiveness of sins; it does not tell us that the actual
forgiving on the part of God takes place, but not before the
believing takes place on the part of man; but the Gospel
tells us that when God in Christ reconciled the world
unto Himself, he then did not impute the trespasses unto
men, He then forgave all their sins to all of them. The act
of forgiving is not held in abeyance, but it is finished, it is
accomplished, the sins are forgiven to all men. Therefore,
we do not preach of and about forgiveness of sins, but we
preach forgiveness itself; we offer to men a finished product,
not a future possibility.”5

8. Preaching and Absolution

Because God has forgiven the sins of all the world, therefore
a preacher of the Gospel can say: “God has forgiven all
your sins.”
A preacher of the Gospel can say: “In the stead and by the
command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your
sins in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.” For God has already said that, and the preacher
is simply repeating the Word of God. Without objective
justification, there is no objective Gospel.
If there were no objective justification, how would one
speak the Gospel? One could only say: “God will forgive
your sins, once you believe.” With such a “gospel,” faith is
no longer trusting in what Christ has already accomplished.
Would the following still be an absolution in any real
sense of the word? “To those who believe, I pronounce the
forgiveness of sins; but to those who do not believe, God
has no forgiveness to offer you.” How could such a “gospel”
bring anyone to faith? Without objective justification,
subjective justification is impossible to imagine.
The Lutheran Confessions speak this way about
justification:
“The only essential and necessary elements of justification
are the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the faith
that receives this grace and merit in the gospel’s promise,
through which Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us” (FC
SD III, 25).6 Thus, the Confessions speak about that which
is universal and objective — the grace of God, the merit of
Christ, the promise of the Gospel, and how this comes to be
ours personally (subjectively), namely through faith.
The teaching of objective justification, therefore, thus does
not neglect faith; rather, it puts faith in its proper place.
Faith believes in the reconciliation and forgiveness of sins
that God has proclaimed in the death and resurrection of
Christ. Faith does not reconcile God to us, it believes in
the God who has forgiven us and reconciled Himself to us.
Faith does not cause God to forgive us our sins, but rather
faith receives the forgiveness that Christ has gained, the
forgiveness delivered to us through the Gospel.

9. Objections to Objective Justification

Depending on how the discussion has gone to this point,
the instructor may want to select or focus on specific
6

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Koehler, 226.

Kolb/Wengert, 566.

objections that are most relevant to the particular context of
his hearers.
The teaching of God’s objective justification may seem to
some to deny that God hates sin and that sinners are by
nature “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). It is true that God hates
sin. The reconciliation in Christ does not mean that God no
longer hates sin, but rather that in Christ there is forgiveness.
Both are true. We are by nature sinful and unclean and
therefore under God’s punishment (God’s wrath). We are
also, because of Christ, reconciled to God. Those who believe
the Good News will live with God the Father as His dear
children, forgiven and reconciled in the relationship that
Christ has established. Those who reject Christ and do not
believe the message of reconciliation have chosen to reject
God’s absolution and will bear the punishment of their sins.
Thus, the Church preaches both: God’s Law and God’s
Gospel. The preeminent purpose of the Law is to make
sin known and to show God’s wrath over sin. This will be
preached until the last day. God’s wrath is on the sinner, and
it abides on him if he does not believe in the Gospel. The
preaching of the Gospel proclaims that God has forgiven all
people in Christ.
“These are the two chief works of God in men, to terrify
and to justify and quicken the terrified. One or the other
of these works is spoken of throughout Scripture” (Ap XII,
53). One is the Law, which proclaims God’s wrath against
sin, and the other is the Gospel, which imparts God’s mercy
and forgiveness. “Since the beginning of the world these two
proclamations have continually been set forth side by side in
the church of God with the proper distinction.” (FC SD V, 23).
It is true that Jesus died for all people; but (some may object)
is it not going too far to say that all people are justified? Here
again, we have to look at 2 Corinthians 5. If God does not
impute sins, then He forgives them and justifies sinners,
since justification and forgiveness of sins are the same. This
language is not going too far. It says what St. Paul says.
Does this mean that all people will go to heaven?
To answer that, let’s start with the basis of all talk about
justification: Christ’s work. Christ bore the sins of all men
on the cross. He paid for the sins of all men.
If He paid for the sins of all people, how can it be that there
are still people who will have to pay for their sins in hell?
We believe in the perfect, all-atoning sacrifice of Christ and
that those who reject Christ enjoy no benefit of this sacrifice.

We do not say that Christ’s sacrifice did not pay for all their
sins. We say that because of the sacrifice of Christ, all are
forgiven. Those who reject this sacrifice of Christ as it is
proclaimed to them as the forgiveness of all their sins will get
what they want. They do not want to be forgiven, and so God
will regard their sin as they want it to be regarded — as not
covered by Christ’s sacrifice. He who rejects God’s absolution
will be treated as one who has rejected God’s absolution and
will be judged according to the Law.
To help us understand this “hard teaching,” we can turn
to the words of our Lord in the Gospel according to John.
There, Jesus speaks of the one thing that the Father wants
us to do — to believe in the one He sent, that is, to believe
in His Son (John 6:29, 40). Later Jesus tells His disciples that
the Holy Spirit will show the world that it is all wrong about
sin, for sin is not believing in Jesus (John 16:9). To reject
God’s word of promise in Christ Jesus is to judge oneself
unworthy of eternal life (Acts 13:46).7

10. Conclusion

The terms “subjective” (“individual”) justification and
“objective” (“general”) justification are rather technical.
But they are used to express something that is not
merely technical, but essential — and very practical and
comforting! — for every Christian: God has forgiven the
sins of all people on account of Christ. The Gospel is the
announcement of this forgiveness. Faith does nothing more
than receive this forgiveness.

The doctrinal essay to the first meeting of the Synodical conference in 1872 put
it this way: “If it be asked how his is to be rhymed that on the one hand Scripture
teaches that through Christ’s resurrection the whole world is absolved, and that
on the other hand it testifies that the debt remains on the unbelievers, as long as
they continue in unbelief, it must be answered: One must distinguish two ways in
which God regards men. When God regards the world in Christ, His Son, He looks
at it with the most fervent love; but when He regards the world outside of Christ,
then He cannot look at it otherwise than with burning wrath. Whoever therefore
does not believe in Christ, yes rejects Christ, upon him the wrath of God remains,
despite the fact that when God regards him in His Son, and remembers how He
has made satisfaction also for him, the He looks upon him with eyes full of love;
as Scripture says in John 3:16: ‘God so loved the world that He gave His onlybegotten Son.’According to this God did two things, He was wroth towards sinners,
and at the same time He loved them so ardently that He gave His only-begotten Son
for them … When God now looks at the world in this respect, in which satisfaction
has been made for it and its debt paid by His Son, then he sees it as a reconciled
world. But *NOW* the individual comes along and rejects this reconciliation: him
God cannot regard otherwise than with eternal burning wrath, since he is without
Christ. Speaking according to the acquisition of salvation, He is wroth with no man
any longer, but speaking according to appropriation … He is wroth with everyone
who is not in Christ. One may say therefore: In so far as a man is a part of the
whole redeemed mankind, God is not wroth with him, but in so far as he is for his
o�n person an unbeliever, �od is �roth �ith him�� ��ustification � �b�ective and
Subjective: A Translation of the Doctrinal Essay Read at the First Convention of
the Synodical Conference in 1872, p. 10, available at: https://archive.org/details/
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4 | Subjective and Objective Justification | Session 2

Leader’s Guide |

Subjective and Objective Justification
Pa rti ci pa nt ’s

Session 2

2019 Convention Workbook

Gui de

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