Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 45

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Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 45

The stand taken by those who insist that in order to effect
a settlement of the past controversies on the doctrine of Justifica-
tion, it is necessary to state “that God has declared all mankind
to be righteous in Christ,” amounts either to a denial of the forensic
nature of the term “forgiveness of sins” qr to an insufferable in-
sistence on the permissible use of but one form of expression for
this doctrine. Our fathers in 1905 did not take such a position.
Listen to Dr. Bente. In 1905 he wrote as follows:

“We do not insist that in order to obtain an accurate and cor-
rect expression concerning Christ’s satisfaction for the sins of the
whole world, and that in order to present the salvation and re-
demption of all men (in Christ), we must necessarily and always
use the expression “the world is justified (or declared righteous)
in Christ”; for we know full well that this article of faith can also
be expressed and presented adequately and correctly by means of
other terms. Nor do we assert that in making use of these terms
which we have defended one is precluded from understanding them
in a false sense contrary to Scripture; for it can happen that in
making use of them a person may want to express therewith the
idea that by the mere fact of Christ’s redemption all men already
have come into the personal possession of righteousness and its
benefits. The Methodists, for example, teach that children are saved
already without faith, merely through the redemption in Christ.
(Note: We, too, reject this error as a false conclusion.) However,
what we do insist upon is this, that the expression “the justification
of the world in Christ” can be used in an orthodox sense, and that
because even Scripture itself employs it, one must be at liberty
to use it.” (Lehre und Wehre, ibid., p. 394.)

You will note that our fathers did not insist upon this expres-
sion as absolutely necessary for expressing objective justification.
They demanded merely that its proper use be not forbidden nor
denied. They tell us that there are many and varied ways of
expressing the concept of objective justification and that any one
of these can be adequate and correct. Such expressions are:
“universal reconciliation, or atonement”; “the nonimputation of the
world’s sins”; “the world’s sins are covered in Christ”; “Christ is
the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world”; “the universal
redemption in Christ”; “forgiveness of sins has been obtained, has
been gained, has been secured and provided for all men”; “grace
is universal”; etc. All these expressions have been used and are
being used by our church as embracing world justification, and
therefore also as expressing and confessing it. To deny this is to
deny that the actus forensis is contained in them.

Let us take, for instance, the terms “reconciliation” and “atone-
ment.” They are translated from the Hebrew kaphar, meaning
“covering”; or from the Greek, apokatallatté, or katallasso, meaning
“to change thoroughly.” Concerning these our fathers said: “The
atonement of Christ consists in this, that He effected in God a
change from wrath to grace and so moved Him to absolve or justify
the world” (Lehre und Wehre, ibid. p.344). Accordingly, for
Dr. Bente this term embraced the actus forensis. In another in-
stance Dr. Bente says: “Reconciliation and forgiveness of sins,
which through Christ and in Christ embraced the world (ueber
die Welt gekommen sind) are one and the same [sind ein Ding]”;