Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1975 · 51st Convention › Page 474
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 474

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

474 THE MISSION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WORLD

counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to

us the message of reconciliation.

Sin was atoned for. God was reconciled to man through
the death of His Son.

When we were estranged from God, dead in tres-
passes and sins, and burdened with the weight of misery
and guilt, the Lord sought us out to involve us as indi-
viduals in His mission. When we were rebellious and
going astray, He changed our hearts. Through the means
of grace, the Word and the sacraments, the Holy Spirit
brought us personally into a saving relationship to Jesus
Christ by creating within us faith and trust in God’s
promises of grace and forgiveness. God declared us
righteous through the full and free forgiveness of sins
and by giving us the righteousness of His own Son.
(LC II, 28-31; Ap IV, 305 ff.)

To equip and prepare us as individuals for mission,
Christ has come to dwell within us. Though we are still
plagued by sin, we can now rise with Him to newness of
life. Through repentance and Baptism we also have the
gift of the Holy Spirit. By faith He lives in us with His
grace and blessing. We are now new creatures. He has
given a new direction to our lives, with new desires, new
attitudes toward our fellowmen, new strength to serve,
new willingness to labor in His kingdom. (LC II, 37-38;
Ap IV, 122 ff.)

Having redeemed us and having created us anew, our
Lord now exhorts us to employ our gifts and to use our
new strength in the furtherance of His mission. He
urges His church: ‘‘Be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8). But He
also promises: ‘“‘Lo, I am with you always, to the close
of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Thus, behind the mission of the
church stands God’s eternal plan of salvation. It is this
divine plan that gives Christians the will and the strength
to commit their lives to their living Lord and moves them
to become involved in His mission. And it is His continu-
ing presence that guarantees its success. (LC II, 19,
51-53, 62)

Finally, it is the opinion of the Commission on Theol-
ogy that two additional points be made for the purpose
of clarification:

1. When the Mission Affirmations assert that mission
is not an optional activity on the part of the church, this
is not intended to imply that mission, in the sense of min-
istering to the physical needs of the poor and under-
privileged, is a mark of the church, as has been claimed
by the World Council of Churches. According to the
Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, the only marks
of the.church are the Gospel and the sacraments. (AC
VII, 1; Ap VII-VIID

2. Furthermore, in stating that “the Father and the
Son together sent the Holy Spirit into the world as the
great Missionary until our Lord’s return” (The Mission
Affirmations, I), it is not the intent of this statement to
permit the view that the Holy Spirit works faith in the
hearts of men apart from the means of grace. In order
that the church may perform its function in the world,
the Lord has given it the Law and the Gospel, the Law

declaring all men to be sinners under the wrath and
condemnation of God, the Gospel promising that all who
repent and believe in Jesus as the Savior from sin are
delivered from its power and consequences and have the
assurance of life eternal.

II. The Church is Christ’s Mission
to the Whole World

In accord with the second part of the Mission Affirma-
tions, we Christians recognize and affirm that God has
commissioned His church to conduct its mission in all the
world. Having died for the sins of the whole world, Christ
now sends His followers out into the world to “make
disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). Thus, the object of
Christ’s love and of His redemptive work is all mankind.

We acknowledge also that God is active in the lives of
all men through His providential care, through the Law
written in their hearts, and through the revelation of
Himself in nature. In this respect Christians do have a
common humanity with all men. They also have a com-
mon sinfulness and rejoice over a universal redemption
won for all by Christ through His suffering and death on
the cross. Therefore we consecrate ourselves with every-
thing that we are and have to the task of witnessing to
the Lord Jesus Christ by proclaiming the Gospel of for-
giveness through His precious blood, and we determine
with the help of the Holy Spirit to support our message
also by acts of Christian love.

In the face of the great unfinished task of making
disciples of all nations, we rejoice when the Gospel,
as it is revealed in the Scriptures, is proclaimed also by
Christians of other denominations.

However, when we declare in these affirmations that
‘“‘a universal redemption” has been won for all in Jesus
Christ (The Mission Affirmations, II), this is not to be
understood as though all men by virtue of Christ's death
have in fact eternal life and are saved, irrespective of a
personal faith based upon a knowledge of the saving act
of Christ on the cross.

Furthermore, these affirmations are not intended to
proclaim a gospel which tells of God’s love but does not
root and ground that love in Christ who was delivered
for our offenses and raised for our justification (Romans
4:25). Such a gospel is unknown in Scripture and cannot
bring men salvation.

Finally, these affirmations are intended to reject all
forms of universalism, including the views which assume
that sinners, apart from the articulated message of the
Gospel, can encounter Christ and find salvation and that
the Savior is evident to the world also in historical
changes, in deeds of love, and even in acts of revolution.
(AC IV; XX, 23; Ap IV, 43-46; FC Ep II, 4-5; FC SD IT, 5)

III. The Church Is Christ’s Mission
to the Church

As the Mission Affirmations assert, ‘“‘every Christian
by virtue of the saving faith which the Holy Spirit creates
in his heart is bound to His Lord and enters into a real