Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 47

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Ey. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 47

=i. From this it is certainly evident that when the Common Con-
fession says, “By His redemptive work Christ is the Propitiation
“for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2), it is making use
ofa Scriptural phrase and a Scriptural term which in and by itself
embraces justification and which in this connection clearly and
fully confesses universal objective justification. To deny this would
challenge the juridical concept embraced also in this Biblical term
and would constitute a whittling away at one of the many Scriptural
pillars on which the doctrine of Objective Justification rests.

The last word in this category employed by the Common
Confession is the term “redemption.” Dr. A. L. Graebner’s state-
ment concerning this word has confused some. He said: “The
objective justification of the world” is by no means identical with
the work of redemption. The redemption of the world was a sacri-
ficial work; the justification of the world is a judicial act.... The
payment of a debt is one thing, the giving credit to the debtor is
another thing. And to confound the latter with the former is to
disregard the nature of both.” (Theological Quarterly, V, 196.)
However, this statement need not confuse, for while one must
not use these terms as being strictly identical, yet, on the other
hand, neither dare one treat them as mutually exclusive. The term
“objective justification” stresses the forensic act of God, but it
never excludes the basis thereof, or the sacrificial offering of
Christ. And the term “redemption” emphasizes the sacrificial
offering of Christ, but it never excludes God’s acceptance of this
offering as satisfactory and His acting upon it to the point of
releasing the sinner by an actus forensis.

This is clear from the meaning of the word itself and from
its use in Sacred Scripture. The Hebrew for “redemption” and
“to redeem” is geullah, “the right or price of freedom,” and gaal,
meaning “‘to free or liberate by avenging or repaying”; also peduth,
meaning “separation,” and padah, “to liberate.” The Greek words
for “redemption” are lytrdosis, a “loosing,” or apolytrosis, a “loos-
ing away.” Both words come from the verb lytroo, “to loose by
means of a price, or on receipt of a ransom.” (Thayer.) It is evi-
dent from the accepted usage of the words cited that while they
emphasize the payment involved in an act of liberation, the decision
or verdict to accept the payment as satisfactory for such a libera-
tion is not excluded.

It is in this sense that the Scriptures employ the term apoly-
trdsis, for example, in Eph. 1:7, where we read, “In whom [Christ]
we have redemption [Greek: apolytrésis] through His blood, even
the forgiveness of sins.” Concerning this text even the Expositor’s
Greek Testament says, “That the apolytrésis here is redemption
not from the power or pollution of sins, but from its guilt, its
condemnation, its penalty, is made plain by the defining clause
which follows, identifying it with forgiveness of sins” (emphasis
mine).

The Confessions, Dr. Luther, our fathers, and the Common
Confession, therefore, while using the word “redemption” to stress
the sacrificial character of what Christ did, at the same time rightly
used this term as embracing also the juridical action of God in the
act of justifying the sinner and the world.

Dr. Luther does this in his explanation to the Second Article
of the Creed when he says of Jesus: “He redeemed me, a lost and