Means of Grace; Conversion

1876 Western District Essay

Means of Grace; Conversion

Proceedings of the Synod.

According to the resolution of the previous year, the Synod continued its discussion of the theses on the following subject:

"That only through the doctrine of the Lutheran Church is all glory given to God alone, an incontrovertible proof that it is the only true one."

Ps 26:8, Rev 14:6-7, John 5:44.

The convention went on to

Thesis III, point 8.

This reads:

"Only through the doctrine of the Lutheran Church is all glory given to God alone; this is evident, among other things, from its doctrine

Of the foundation, validity, power and immutability of the means of grace."

It was noted:

Whoever wants to be honored in the world, especially for the sake of his religion, should not become a Lutheran! For the Lutheran religion brings no honor before the world; it gives all honor to God alone, but nothing but shame to man. It has the gospel, of which Paul says in Romans 1:16: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes in it." But why does the apostle say: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ"? No doubt because, according to reason, one would have every reason to be ashamed of it, namely because it takes away all honor from man and gives him nothing but shame, but gives honor only to the great God. In another passage Paul says of this doctrine that it is foolishness to the wise world and an offense to the self-righteous, so that it makes the one who accepts it a fool in the eyes of the world and especially an offense to the self-righteous.

But praise be to God that we have no reason to fall away from our church because of this! On the contrary, the fact that its teaching gives glory to God alone, and leaves us men nothing but shame, disgrace and contempt, is precisely the surest sign that it is the right doctrine. For what is religion but a relationship of man to God, by virtue of which he regards himself as nothing, indeed as less than nothing, as a cursed and damned sinner, and recognizes him as the Most High in every respect, to whom alone all glory and honor is due? Scripture tells us that when God had laid the cornerstone of the earth, the morning stars praised him one after the other and all the children of God shouted for Him, Job 38:6-7; and when the Lord Christ came to restore the fallen world, the angels again shouted: "Glory to God in the highest"; that was their first thought. Yes, if we ask the Holy Scriptures what kind of song will be heard when the Church is perfected, when it will stand before the throne of God and triumph, does it perhaps answer that it will then give itself honor and praise? Will the elect perhaps then say: O well for us that we have been so pious, so holy on earth, but now we are also here in heaven? Oh no! The new song, which will resound before Christ's

throne, is quite different. It says: "The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and praise" (Revelation 5:12). But we need not go that far. What is the first commandment other than the proclamation that God alone wants to be honored? For when he calls down from Sinai: "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me", he obviously means to say: Recognize, man, you are only my creature; you are clay, I am the potter, and just as the potter can do with the clay what he wants, so I can do with you what I want; you are nothing, and I am everything; everything you have is in my hand; all that is due to you is to throw yourself down on your face and say: “do with me, Lord, what you will!

When we get there, we have returned to God; but as long as a man still seeks his own honor, he does not yet have true religion. This is what the Lord says when he says: "He who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple", Luke 14:33; we are to throw all our own honor, all our own benefit under our feet. Of course, we wretched sinners will never get to the point here on earth where we can completely rid ourselves of our own cursed honor; but it must at least come to that point that everyone hates himself for that very reason. This must be the great burden he carries around with him every day, that he sees: this wretched honoring of self always wants to arise in him, he always wants to rob God of his honor and give it to himself, in a word, he does not want to let God be God.

Therefore there can be no doubt that if it is certain that our Lutheran Church with all its doctrines gives glory to God, then its doctrine is the right one, and it itself the right church; there can be nothing more certain in the world. It is impossible that a doctrine which gives glory to God should be false; for then all piety would have to be false, whose very nature is to give all glory to God; indeed, then there would be no religion at all, but only superstition. This is a very sure touchstone, but therefore also an extremely precious truth. Our poor reason so easily goes astray in its understanding of the divine Word; it asks again and again: have you interpreted this or that passage of Scripture correctly? If I now know that the interpretation honors God alone, then I have a summary proof that it is right, for it is impossible that what honors God can come from the devil. But the reverse is also true, that the doctrine which takes the glory from God is certainly false and from the devil, for that is the devil's work, that is his reign in the world: he wants to take the glory from God and give it to himself. It is true that He often gives people a small part of the glory, but He does so only in order to catch them with it; after all, He then has more than the glory, namely the whole person with body and soul.

All false churches also prove that they are false by

the fact that their main aim is to give glory to man. The Methodists, for example, place the glory and excellence of their religion above all in the fact that they are the holiest and most pious people there are in the world. But what else do they prove by this but that they are the most miserable sect there can be? For by this they evidently renounce the great God and his sole reign in heaven and on earth. In the same way, the papacy makes the Church its god in the form of the pope. Just as the papacy is nothing other than an imitation of the divine government, the pope in particular makes himself God. He demands the same obedience, even in conscience, that the great God demands of all men. But this is precisely the surest proof that the pope is the Antichrist, that he gives himself all the glory, and not merely as a haughty man usually does, but in a truly satanic way, in that he wants to bind the consciences, even the salvation of men, to his sayings. Hence our symbolic books say: “As little as one can worship the devils, so little can one submit to the Pope, for he makes himself God.

That the Lutheran Church can really stand the test that its doctrine proves it to be the only true one, namely by giving all glory to God alone, we have already seen in seven of its main doctrines, but we can also see this

In this doctrine, too, she gives all glory to God alone, and she alone does this, no other church in the world apart from her. For she says not only that we are all saved by grace alone, not only that this grace is acquired for us through Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, not only that we receive this grace by faith alone, but also this: that the dear God has ordained certain means in which he has placed this grace and through which He gives it to us, and these means are the Word of God, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In them is the grace which God has carried in his heart from eternity towards us poor sinners, which Christ has acquired for us; they are the hands with which God presents it to us, so that he may be all in all, and be nothing of which we can boast. This also includes absolution, which is nothing other than the preaching of the Gospel to an individual sinner. We should therefore hold it in high esteem, for in it is the whole Christ, the whole grace of God, the whole righteousness, the whole heaven.

Now the enthusiasts know of no means of grace at all. Likewise, the entire Reformed Church knows nothing of them. Even if it uses the

words "means of grace" [See this blog post on Dr. Albert Mohler, a Southern Baptist.], it understands something quite different from what God's Word and our church understand by it, namely that by which something is worked in the heart of man. However, this is not a means of grace, but a means to initiate the effects of the Holy Spirit in a person, whereas a means of grace is that which brings me the grace of God. For grace is that which is in God's heart, the good pleasure which God bears in His heart for the poor sinner; now the great question is: by what means do I obtain it? Our Church says: I obtain this grace because God has placed it in the means of grace. With these hands he offers us what His dear Son purchased for us on the cross, and if we grasp these hands with the hand of our faith, we have grace. If, on the other hand, we hear that Christ has acquired it for us and we look for it somewhere else, for example by kneeling down in a corner and sighing: oh dear God, send grace down to me from heaven, then we are going the way of enthusiasts and we can never be sure that we have it. Such a person may think he hears the voice of God calling out to him for mercy, but it is the voice of the devil or of his own flesh. How we must therefore thank God for the precious doctrine of the "means of grace"! It shows us most clearly how faithfully God has made sure that we can be absolutely certain that we have grace. For because he has placed it in the means of grace, that is, that it is really in them, the one who grasps the means of grace in faith certainly has grace.

The Savior expresses this clearly and distinctly when he says to his disciples: "You are now clean because of the Word that I have spoken to you." John 15:3. For when the Word of God comes to us, God himself speaks to us. So when it proclaims grace to us, it is as if God himself came from heaven and said to me: "Don't worry, I am gracious to you, you have my grace. Likewise Paul says that the gospel is the power of God to save — he does not say: to sanctify, to renew, although this is what it is, but: to save — all who believe in it, so that as soon as one believes in the Word, he is also saved; and only by saving us does it also give us the power of new life, not the other way round. Furthermore, the Lord says of Holy Baptism that it saves us when He says: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved", and of Holy Communion that it gives us forgiveness of sins when He says of it: "This is my body which is given for you, this is my blood which is shed for you for the remission of sins." Yes, John says that there are three witnesses of grace in heaven, the Father, the Word (i.e. the Son) and the Holy Spirit [1 John 5:7], but there

are also three witnesses of grace on earth, namely the Spirit (the Word of God), the water (Baptism) and the blood (Holy Communion), and these three are together, or, as the original text says, directed to one thing, namely to bear witness on earth in exactly the same way as the three witnesses in heaven to whom they correspond. By this he means: If anyone would say, yes, if the Holy Trinity itself were to come down from heaven and tell me that I should have grace, I would be at ease; let him know that these three witnesses of grace are and remain in heaven, and yet he can be quite certain and confident of them; for God has also given three witnesses on earth, and these are just as certain, as sure, as comforting as if the triune God himself were to come down from heaven and testify to us of his grace. Indeed, John says beforehand that Jesus himself comes with these three means of grace, 1 John 5:6-8. Thus they are, as it were, the channel that goes out from heaven and reaches down to earth, through which the refreshing water of God's grace flows to us, which we are to collect confidently and cheerfully with the mouth of faith.

Our symbolic books also testify to this; thus the Smalcald Articles teach: "In these matters concerning the outward oral word, it is to be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace without, through, and with the preceding outward Word...." (....) Therefore we should and must insist that God will not deal with us men except through his outward Word and sacrament; but everything that is attributed to the Spirit without such Word and Sacrament is the devil." (Part III, 8, par. 3, 10-11; Triglotta p. 495)

Note well what our Church says here! What man wants to have obtained by grace without the Word and the sacraments, that is of the devil, who has inspired it. He therefore has a false God, a false Christ, a false grace. Therefore, if the enthusiasts remained true to their principles until their death, none of them would be saved, for they always teach: if you want grace, you must pray until you feel that it is within you. But because God also has His own among these people, the elect among them, especially in the hour of temptation, even if it is only in the hour of death, throw such self-made things overboard, bring this and that beautiful little saying, and clinging to this rock reef they are still saved in the hour of death. But this is also the only way in which they can be saved; anyone who wants to find grace elsewhere than in the Word and Sacrament will only find a ghost of it, not grace itself.

The Apology writes: "Now it is not possible to deal with God; God cannot be known, sought, or grasped, but only in the Word and through the Word, as Paul says: The gospel is the power of God to all who believe in it." (Art. IV, par. 67; [Triglotta p. 139])

God cannot be grasped except through the Word. Whoever therefore believes that he has grasped

the dear God without the Word, as it were, embraced him with his feelings, has embraced only a cloud and is terribly deceived; indeed, he makes himself God, because he makes for himself a means of grace that God has not made. But only God can make the means of grace, because He alone can give grace.

The Formula of Concord says: "Such righteousness is presented to us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and in the sacraments (offertur) and is applied, appropriated and accepted by faith." (FC SD 3, 16; [Triglotta p. 921])

If we are to take hold of righteousness, it must be somewhere. The enthusiasts now go about in the air seeking it, and yet cannot find it — because they do not seek it where God has placed it, namely in Word and Sacrament.

Furthermore, Luther writes: "If God were to make you pick up a straw or pluck a feather with such a command, order and promise that you should thereby have forgiveness of all sin, his grace and eternal life, should you not accept, love and praise this with all joy and gratitude and therefore hold the same straw and feather higher in holiness and let it be dearer to you than heaven and earth? For however small the straw or feather may be, you will still obtain such good through it that neither heaven nor earth, nor indeed all the angels, can give you. Why are we such shameful people that we do not hold baptismal water, bread and wine, i.e. Christ's body and blood, the oral word, the laying on of a man's hands for forgiveness, as sacred as we would hold the straw or feather? for in them, as we hear and know, God himself wants to work and is to be his water, word, hand, bread and wine, through which he wants to sanctify and save you in Christ, who has acquired such things and given the Holy Spirit from the Father for such a work! Again, if you had gone to St. Jacob's in the same way, or if you had allowed yourself to be murdered by Carthusians, barefoot preachers, preachers (preacher monks) through such austere lives, so that you might be saved, — and God would not have called and ordained such things, what good would it do you? He knows nothing about it, but the devil and you have devised it as special sacraments or priesthoods. And even if you could carry heaven and earth so that you could be saved, all is still lost, and the one who holds up the straw (where it is commanded) would do more than you, even if you could carry ten worlds. Why is that? God wants us to obey His Word, to use His Sacraments, to honor His Church, so He wants to be gracious and gentle enough and more gracious, even more gentle, than we could desire. For it is said in Exodus 2:3: I am your God, you shall have no other gods." (Of the Councils and Churches. 1539. XVI, 2813. f. [St. L. 16, 2297; AE 41, 172-173])

How true Luther speaks here! If the good God spoke to us

from heaven, we would believe it; but if he speaks to us through the Bible, we do not believe it, because we do not seriously and truly regard it as the Word of God.

What has been said so far shows that our church does not speak merely of signs of grace, but of means of grace. But because there are also those besides us who speak in this way, we must ask further how our church teaches about the means of grace, and whether it also gives all glory to God alone in this. The answer to this is given to us in the 8th point mentioned above.

Let us first consider the teaching of our church on the

Foundation of the Means of Grace.

On this she teaches that only God can make means of grace, only he can endow them. Thus it says, for example, in the

Apology of the Augsburg Confession: "Men without a command cannot promise God's grace. Therefore, signs instituted without God's command are not signs of grace." (Ap 13, 3: Of the Sacraments and their proper use. [Triglotta 309])

Of course, the word "sign of grace" is not taken here in the Reformed sense, but in the sense that God gives me a sign that He is gracious to me, which is why no man can invent such signs, but rather God must ordain them, while the Reformed call "signs of grace" that by which man shows that he has grace.

The Smalcald Articles teach: "The Word of God shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel." (SA II, 2, 15 [].)

For since God alone can establish articles of faith, He alone can establish those acts to which our faith can and should adhere. Therefore writes

John Gerard: "The papists further overthrow Christ's honor in regard to his prophetic office by inventing new sacraments unknown to Christ and the apostles. God and the Mediator Christ alone are responsible for the foundation of sacraments. For just as it is in no man's power to make new articles of faith, so also in no man rests the power by virtue of which he could institute new sacraments. Moreover, it is for him to institute the means of grace whose business it is to give grace. But God alone gives the grace of justification. Therefore it is also his business alone to institute means of grace or sacraments, as Thomas Aquinas correctly concludes. But now the Papists introduce five other sacraments besides the two instituted by Christ in the New Testament: Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, Ordination of Priests, and

Extreme Unction, of which they have not yet been able to prove from Holy Scripture that they are counted among the number of sacraments by divine institution; so that it remains for them to hold that they were instituted by the Church, that is, by the Roman Pontiff, the head of the Church." (Disputation, theol. Jenae.1655. I, 52. sq.)

This distinguishes our church from the papal church. For the latter accepts seven sacraments, and declares its five self-made ones also to be means of grace. These are: 1. Confirmation, which was not instituted by God, but by the Church. 2. extreme unction, which God has not instituted either, namely, not as a means of grace; for although James speaks of ordination, he expressly says that the prayer of faith will help the sick person, James 5:14-15. 3. ordination, which again is not instituted by God. 4. repentance, which is indeed instituted by God, but not as a means by which God gives us his grace, and is therefore not a means of grace; it is rather something that the Holy Spirit must work in us through the means of grace. Finally, 5. even marriage.

But the enthusiasts also make new means of grace. All Methodists declare prayer to be such a means. But how can there be grace in something we do? Prayer is rather an effect, a fruit of the means of grace. As long as these have not given me grace, I cannot yet pray at all, for I do not yet know that God has mercy on me; so long my prayer is only empty chatter, that babbling of which the Savior says that it is proper to the Gentiles. This error of the Methodists is much more atrocious than one can imagine. For because they get sweet religious feelings in answer to their prayer, they think that prayer is a means of grace; they therefore take these sweet feelings for grace. But they confuse grace with the gift of grace, theχάριςwith theχάρισμα, an important difference that Luther explains in more detail in his preface to the Epistle to the Romans. When we Missourians reject this pernicious error in all seriousness, we do so because it is completely unbiblical and therefore also un-Lutheran. But because it is this, we also call it un-Missourian; for we Missourians want to be nothing other than poor Lutherans who have nothing other than the old, which our fathers dug out of the rubble of papism at the time of the Reformation. We do not want to have as many new things as we can scrape off our fingernails. If you do not like this, know that the door is open in all Missourian churches; for we do not want to have anything to do with those who do not give all the glory to God alone; they do not belong to us, and we do not belong to them. But the Methodists go even further: like prayer, they also make their penitential bench, even their prayer meetings and camp meetings, into means of grace. For if someone complains to one of them: oh, I am certainly not yet converted, and says, for example: I have been to the Lutherans,

there I could not be converted, then I went to the United, even to the Jesuits, who could not bring it about either, then he says to him: Come to our prayer-meetings, to our bench of repentance, there it will be all right; we want to pray in such a way that the good Lord will be pleased. Why then do the Methodists do such things other than as means of grace?

Luther speaks about how the pope makes new means of grace as follows:

"When the devil saw that God was building such a holy church, he did not celebrate, and built his chapel there, larger than God's Church is, and did so: He saw that God took external things, such as Baptism, Word, Sacrament, Keys, etc., by which he sanctified his church (as he is always God's monkey and wants to imitate God in all things and make them better), he also took external things before him, which should also sanctify.... So he had the popes and papists consecrate or sanctify water, salt, candles, herbs, bells, images, Agnus Dei, pallia, altar, tablets, plates, fingers, hands (who wants to tell it all!), finally sanctifying the monks' caps in such a way that many people died and were buried in them, as if they wanted to be saved by them.... There was no need so small, the devil has founded a sacrament or sanctuary on it, through which one finds advice and help." (Of Councils and Churches. 1539. XVI, 2807. f. [AE 41, 167-169])

Luther further writes: "The pope approaches, enchants the water with loose, mere, empty letters, pretends that it is holy water, which washes away sin, chases away the devil and has much virtue; wants to imitate God, like a monkey....That he needs the good words of Scripture and God's name to do this is all the worse; God has not commanded him to do it, but has rather harshly forbidden it; it says: You should not abuse God's name; therefore his power is not involved, but are empty, mere, powerless letters. But if sometimes something happens through it, it is not God's work, but the devil's, to strengthen his lies and sorcery (through God's imposition) and to seduce the unbelievers, but to tempt and warn the believers with it." (On Shem Hamphoras. 1543. XX, 2546. f. [St. L. 20, 2043-4, AE 61, 448])

Unfortunately, things are much worse now than they were in Luther's time. Every good Catholic now has his holy water in the house, which shows how widespread the pope's sorcery is. Just as he wants to imitate God in everything, so he also thinks here: if God has instituted Baptism, then I have enough water in the world; I can therefore also perform such miracles, and so he enchants water, which is now considered holy water. And this is real sorcery; his servants often produce quite miraculous effects through it. Where the doctor can no longer help, the priest comes and often helps with a few drops of his holy water. But don't be deceived here! Such a supposed

miracle worker does nothing other than what, for example, the miracle worker does in Germany when he promises the rose through all kinds of signs. This is all cursed devil’s magic.

Many false Lutherans also teach today that ordination is a sacramental act, especially the orthodox Romanist enthusiast A. F. C. Vilmar, who is regarded in Germany as a great instrument in the hand of God, because he knew how to present his errors with great boldness. Among other things, he trumpeted such foolishness to the world as: if someone is ordained, he can split the devil's head with his eyes, and hell must tremble before him; if, on the other hand, someone does not have the office of ordination, then the Word of God that he brings is an empty shell, there is no spirit, no grace in it.

Let us listen to a few more passages from Zwingli to see how he speaks of the means of grace.

It is true that the Reformed do not like to cite him, because he has come into disrepute; they prefer to refer to Calvin, who knew how to conceal the lie more cleverly; but the latter taught nothing else than the former, and the Reformed do the same to this hour. Among all the Reformed with their sects, the Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, the spirit of Zwingli still prevails today; this is the actual source, the way of practicing religion, as the Reformed still have it today.

In 1530 Zwingli had also drawn up a confession, like the Evangelicals, and wanted to present it to the emperor, but the emperor did not accept it because he did not want to have anything to do with the sacramentalists. In this writing he says:

"I believe, yea, I know, that all sacraments, far removed from conferring grace, do not even bring or administer (dispensent) the same. In this I may seem to you, most powerful emperor, perhaps too bold. But it remains so. For just as grace is given by the divine Spirit, so this gift is given by the Spirit alone. But the Spirit needs no vehicle, for he himself is the power and bearer through which everything is brought, and does not need to be brought. Nor have we ever read in Holy Scripture that sensual things, such as the sacraments are, certainly bring the Spirit with them.... The grace of the Spirit is therefore not brought by this immersion, not by this drink, not by this anointing.... The sacraments are given as a public testimony of the grace that each one has beforehand.... Baptism therefore does not bring grace, but testifies to the church that the one to whom it is given has already received grace... To speak according to the rule, we see that among all peoples the outward preaching of the apostles and evangelists or bishops has preceded faith, which we owe to the

Spirit alone. For unfortunately we see that many hear the outward preaching of the Gospel but do not believe, which is due to a lack of the Spirit." (Ad Carolum Fidei ratio. Lessons, etc., by S. Cyprian. App. p. 19 ff.)

In what an atheistic manner does this man here ridicule the Christian religion; indeed, how does he at the same time turn Baptism into a devil's comedy! since it is of no further use to him than that he who has come to faith should now show this to the Church.

Zwingli expressed himself in a similar way in his treatise "On True and False Religion", which only appeared after his death. It was praised for being the true outgrowth of all Zwingli's writings. Luther was horrified to see that it was indeed so, but full of lies and malice; in it that lying spirit wrote, among other things, that he was looking forward to seeing Theseus and Hercules and Socrates and Numa Pompilius and Christ in heaven. That was the company he was expecting. A Danish court councillor rightly remarked that he did not want to go to heaven because he would have to fear Hercules with the big club. In this writing Zwingli says of absolution:

"It is an impertinence that it has been taught that a man is made certain by the keys, who is only made certain inwardly by faith. You will speak in vain: You are free: for you can no more make him certain by your word than you can make an elephant out of a fly by saying: You are an elephant." (De vera religione.)

Here, too, the same mockery of religion as before. At the same time, he here perversely opposes faith to the means of grace, whereas faith must have the means of grace in order to make us certain of grace. It would be like saying: I will not be satisfied by food, but by eating it, whereas without food I can neither eat nor be satisfied. The enthusiasts still speak just as foolishly. They ask how Baptism can save us, since Christ saves us; but they do not consider that Christ saves us through baptism.

Let us now consider further the teaching of our church

On the Validity of the Means of Grace.

Now that we have seen that God has provided the means of grace, the next question arises: Does something now also depend on man that we really have these means of grace? Can anyone say that what God has decreed with regard to the administration of the means of grace has indeed happened, but because the person who administers them is such and such, we do not have them? Never! For if the nature of the one who administers the means of grace could destroy them, God would be dependent on men. If we were to teach, for example:

God has indeed said, take water, pour it on a man and say: I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and he shall be saved, but the man who does this is not of the nature that is desirable, and therefore it is not Baptism — if we were to teach in this way, we would again take away the glory of the dear God in a very terrible way. God's counsel and deed would then again be thwarted, because ultimately everything would be up to man. But this is not the case, which is why our Church does not teach it.

On the contrary, it teaches that if the one who administers a means of grace does only what God has appointed with it, he may be as he wishes, it makes no difference whatsoever with regard to the validity of his action; he is nothing more than God's instrument. However unworthy he may be, however unconverted, however godless, however living in sin, if he does what God instituted at baptism, at the preaching office, at the Lord's Supper, then it is also the true Lord's Supper, the true Gospel, the true absolution, the true baptism. The piety of man does not make the action good, and the godlessness of man does not make the action bad. If we do what God has commanded, He will do what He has promised. He does not allow His work to be thwarted. What is His work is and remains His work. The less is it necessary that one should have the right calling for it, or even that they be ordained for it with great solemnity, or that they combine the right intention, as the papists say, with the administration. None of this is part of the essence of the minister of grace. If we take water and pour it on a person in the name of the triune God, then what God has commanded has been done; then nothing more is needed than that the baptized person believes in Baptism, and he will be saved, and that through Baptism. We take bread and wine and bless it as Christ blessed it, divide it, eat and drink it, and so we do what Christ commanded at the institution of Holy Communion, and so his body and blood are there, and if we believe it, we also receive the fruit of it: forgiveness of sin, participation in the redemption of Jesus Christ. If a preacher is completely dead in sins, and he absolves someone of all his sins, not with the addition: if you are pious, but in the name of Christ by virtue of the ministry of the gospel, then true absolution is there. For what Christ has commanded is done; therefore the one who is absolved also receives forgiveness of sins, as surely as there is a God in heaven. Even if the preacher is up to his ears in sin, even if he is a wretch, God will not allow this to destroy what he has instituted. It is just the same here as in the realm of nature. If a man (Luther gives this example) fishes in another man's pond, he is a thief; but if he fishes well,

this rascal catches fish just as well as the honest man. So it is in all relationships in the realm of nature. If what God has ordered happens, then what God has allowed to follow such orders also follows; for God remains God, he does not allow his things to be destroyed by any creature. Of course, if we do it differently from what God has ordered, then it is nothing; then it is our own doing, and we should not be surprised if what God has promised does not happen; for he has not promised grace to our own action, but to the action he has instituted. For example, if I take oil and baptize someone with it, it is not baptism, because I am not doing what Christ commanded. However, if I take bread and wine and bless it according to Christ's institution, but do it thoughtlessly, without any devotion, this does not change the matter at all. What Christ commanded is done, and what Christ promised is done.

If it were the case, as the papists say, that the validity of the means of grace depended on the intention of the one who administers them, we would be miserable people. Imagine for a moment that absolution only really takes place, that baptism, the Lord's Supper and the preaching of the Gospel are only valid if the preacher is converted: who among us would then know whether he had been baptized, whether he had ever received the body and blood of the Lord in his life, whether he had ever been absolved, whether he had ever heard the true Word of God that works faith? No one would know. For who among us will swear that a pastor is converted? Can we see into his heart? Even if Peter were to come and absolve us, we could not swear to it, for the devil could then say to us: but that time he fell, and all our comfort would be gone. If the enthusiasts mock us, because we believe that even an ungodly preacher can absolve us, we are happy; but it is precisely those miserable people who build the consolation of conscience on nothing but sand and wind, by making the listener's own conversion dependent on the converted state of the preacher; for they have enough men among them who were at first considered the greatest saints, and afterwards became manifestly the greatest scoundrels, as recently that Methodist preacher Pearsall Smith, who was praised far and wide in Germany, that he himself could boast that all Europe lay at his feet, proved to be a gross sinner against the sixth commandment. In their opinion, they must conclude in such cases: that man was unconverted when I came to conversion, so I must still be unconverted.

The modern Lutherans also abolish the validity of the means of grace with their doctrine of ordination. They do not deny it, even if the preacher is unconverted, but they say that he must be properly called. But how can I know this in most cases? A preacher must know it for the salvation of his soul: but I can

never know whether he has not come into the ministry by all sorts of crooked ways. Especially when they say that he must be properly ordained, especially according to their doctrine of ordination, they nullify all validity of the means of grace. For these papistic [papenzenden] Lutherans teach that ordination is an act which only a preacher can perform, no other man in the world, and only such a preacher who has himself received this ordination. It would therefore follow that the apostles must have received ordination from Christ, and they must have been the first to ordain. From them, ordination has then been passed down through the centuries to the present day. If someone has not been ordained by a preacher whose own ordination reaches back in its origin to the apostles, then any ordination that he has performed is invalid. But according to this doctrine, who among us could know whether he has received ordination? for who can date it back to the apostles? Who, then, could prove that, as it were, the electric matter flowed from the hand of the ordinator into his head through the laying on of hands? Just as a telegraph wire does not propagate the electric current as soon as it is cut, and all its other parts receive nothing of the current from the moment of the cut, so, according to that doctrine, all those who have been ordained from the point where the ordination current has not been carried away by breaking the chain receive no ordination. Truly a shameful, abominable doctrine, this doctrine of ordination, for by it the means of grace are made quite uncertain. No one who has this doctrine and goes to church can know whether the preacher is really speaking God's Word, is properly ordained, is baptizing properly, is giving Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper; he does not know whether the preacher is properly ordained. That is why the Episcopal Church is such a dangerous sect, because it says that if the preacher is not ordained by the bishop, then he has no authority, all his work is the work of men, he does not offer the means of grace. In happy inconsistency, however, they teach that a peasant can also administer baptism. Oh, how terribly God's honor is attacked by this doctrine of ordination, for God must say: "It is true that what I have commanded is done, but because men have not helped me with their holiness and worthiness, I have no means of grace; it depends on men, not on me, whether they are there. Let us therefore praise God that by His grace we are in a church that does not want to know anything about this blasphemous teaching, but rather teaches the full validity of the means of grace. Thus it says in

Large Catechism: "Although a man takes or gives the sacrament, he takes the true sacrament, that is, Christ's body and blood, just as much as he does it in the most worthy manner. For it is not founded on human holiness, but on God's

Word; and as no saint on earth, nay, no angel in heaven, can make the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood, so neither can anyone else, though it be abused. For it is not because of the person or unbelief that the Word is false, in that it is a sacrament and instituted; for he does not say: If you believe or are worthy, you have my body and blood, but: Take, eat and drink, this is my body and blood; again: Do these things (namely, that I now do, institute, give to you and call to take); that is to say, God grant that you are unworthy or worthy, you have here his body and blood by virtue of these words that come with the bread and wine. Only remember and keep this well, for on these words stands all our foundation, protection and defense against all errors and deceptions that have ever come or may yet come." (“The Sacrament of the Altar,” par. 16-19 [Triglotta p. 757])

As little as even an angel in heaven can make the body and blood of Christ, so little can he make Christ's body and blood not be in the Lord's Supper, because Christ instituted it. The validity of the means of grace is not based on the holiness of men or angels, but on God's Word. But how comforting this is! For thus the precious children of God are not abandoned to shameful, false prophets and ungodly knaves. God Himself has faithfully ensured that they are not deceived by basing the means of grace on the Word. Thus they have a clear testimony as to whether the preacher brings them the means of grace or not: namely, the words of institution, and now they pay attention to whether the preacher follows it exactly. If they see that he does what Christ has commanded, they are satisfied, for then they know that they also receive the means of grace. After all, they do not actually receive Baptism, Absolution and Holy Communion from him, but from their Lord Jesus, only through the preacher as the Lord's instrument. Even if he is a hypocrite, a knave, they do not care in this respect; he cannot change the means of grace through his hypocrisy and villainy, he cannot take out the core, and therefore they do not need to look into his heart, they only look at his hand and keep to the Lord's saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do; but do not do according to their works" Matt. 23:2-3. This passage shows that the validity of the means of grace is not at all dependent on the worthiness or unworthiness of the one who administers them, while those who deny this will be judged by the Word of the Lord: "Cursed is the man who trusts in men and takes flesh for his arm.” Jer. 17:5.

Furthermore, the Formula of Concord states: "The erroneous articles of the

Schwenkfeldians:... 8. that the minister of the churches can teach other people nothing useful or administer right, true sacraments, who is not also for his own person truly regenerated, born again, righteous and pious." (FC Ep 12, 27; Triglotta p. 843)

What the Methodists and sects now teach on this point is therefore nothing other than the renewed doctrine of the Schwenkfeldians and has already been rejected by our Church.

As the papists make the validity of the means of grace dependent on the intention of the one who administers them, the Council of Trent teaches in the following words: "If anyone says that when the sacraments are administered and communicated, the intention to do at least what the Church does is not required, let him be accursed." (Session 7. Can. 11.)

By this doctrine the papists rob their own of all consolation by drawing them away from God's Word and towards human sanctity. From this we see again what we have already seen in all the previous points! A doctrine that gives all glory to God also gives all comfort to men, and vice versa: a doctrine that takes glory away from God also robs men of all comfort. Therefore, let us continue to give all glory to God alone in all our teachings; we ourselves have only the richest blessing from it.

If, by the way, we teach that the validity of the means of grace is quite independent of the holiness or unholiness of the one who administers them, this is not to say, of course, that it makes no difference to the congregation whether it has a pious or an ungodly preacher; for of course a preacher can prevent many from accepting the faith through ungodly behavior. It would be a great impertinence for a congregation to choose a preacher whom it does not firmly believe to be a converted Christian. For if the preacher is not a true Christian, how can the congregation believe that he will always do what God has commanded? Especially when temptation comes, he will soon prove to be a hireling; also, even if he does not bring forward any obvious heresies, he will certainly pervert God's Word in such a way that no one can take anything right from his sermons, for how can a blind man show the way to a blind man? An unconverted preacher will never administer his ministry properly. It is true that the ministry of the gospel remains valid in those things where he does it rightly; but he will certainly not rightly divide Law and Gospel, since he himself does not recognize temptation from experience, nor will he give right comfort to those who are troubled, and the like.

Furthermore, Luther writes: "If I wanted to plow into the water and sow grain, or see fish in the air..., nothing would come of it, of course; for God has not ordered it that way and does not want it that way. But if

I sow, with wickedness, in another man's field, or fish in another man's pond, though such sowing and fishing be unlawful, yet corn would grow in the field, and yet I would catch fish in the pond. Therefore I have said that papists, if they keep the order of Christ, truly have in the sacrament the real and true body and blood of Christ. If it is one, it is the body of Christ; if it is both, it is both body and blood, according to the words and order of Christ. But if they sell it (without violating the order of Christ), give it, abuse it or give and take it unworthily, this neither adds nor takes anything away from the sacrament. God remains God, even in hell; Christ remains pious, even under his crucifiers; a coin remains a coin even in the hands of thieves and robbers, if it is only a true coin, struck according to the coin of the king or prince. But if it is a false coin, struck against the king's order, it will never become a true coin, even if the king himself or the angel Gabriel wanted to buy it. Therefore in my booklet I have not challenged the sin against the sacrament or abuse, but the wrong order of the Mass against the order of Christ." (XIX, 1547. f. [sic XIX 1574 f.; St. L. 19, 1291; AE 38, 225-226])

Even if one commits the most shameful abuse of Holy Communion, for example, if one sells it for high prices, as the Roman clergy do, this does not invalidate Holy Communion. God remains God even in hell, Christ remains pious even under his crucifiers. Or if a despiser of the preaching ministry administers baptism, even administers the Lord's Supper, and he is not called, he sins terribly against the sanctuary of the Lord; but Baptism and the Lord's Supper still are.

Luther also writes: "The holy place or church teaches that neither priests nor Christians make a single sacrament, nor does the holy Christian church itself.... For it is not called a Baptism because I baptize or do the work, even if I were holier than St. John or an angel. Rather, my baptism is called a Baptism because Christ's Word, command and institution have so ordered it that water and His Word should be one Baptism. Such His ordinance (I say) and not our doing or opus operatummakes Baptism; but our doing alone suffices and gives such baptism, ordained and made by Christ's command and institution. Therefore He is and remains the only true eternal baptizer. … So also that bread and wine become Christ's body and blood is not the fault of our doing, speaking and working, much less of Christ or consecration, but it is the fault of Christ's order, command and institution; the same has commanded, as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 11:23: When we come together and speak his words concerning bread and wine, it shall be his body and blood;

that we do no more here than pass and give bread and wine with his words, according to his command and institution. And such his command and institution enables and creates that we do not offer and receive bread and wine badly, but his body and blood, as his words are: 'This is my body, this is my blood'; that not our work or speech, but the command and order of Christ makes the bread the body and the wine the blood, from the beginning of the first supper to the end of the world, and is given daily through our service or ministry. For we hear these words: 'This is my body', not as spoken in the person of the minister or servant, but as from Christ's own mouth, who is present and says to us: 'Take and eat, this is my body'.... For this we must believe and be sure, that Baptism is not ours, but Christ's; that the ministry of preaching is not ours, but Christ's; that the sacrament is not ours, but Christ's; that the keys or remission and retention of sins is not ours, but Christ's. — But if we change and improve it, it is nothing, and Christ is no longer there, nor his order; and I will not say, as the papists do, that no angel nor Mary can walk, etc., but I say: Even if the devil himself were to come (if he were so pious that he would or could do so), but I presume that I would find out afterwards that the devil had crept into the office in this way, or had allowed himself to be called to the pastoral office in the form of a man and publicly preached the Gospel in the church, baptized, said Mass, absolved, and exercised and administered such office and sacrament as a pastor according to the command and order of Christ: we must nevertheless confess that the sacraments were right, that we received the right baptism, heard the right gospel, received the right absolution, and took the right sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. For our faith and sacrament must not stand on the person, whether he be pious or wicked, consecrated or unconsecrated, called or insinuated, the devil or his mother; but on Christ, on his word, on his office, on his command and order. Where these go, there it must go and stand right, the person be who or how he will or can.... It is the case in creatures that our actions and works accomplish nothing, but only God's command and order. As when we plow, sow, and plant, we do our work which is commanded us, Gen. 3:19; but such our work does not bring forth a little grain, but the command and order of God, when he says to the earth, Gen. 1:11: Let the earth bring forth grass, herbs, and all kinds of trees; as also St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 3:7: 'He who plants is nothing, he who plants is nothing, but God who gives the increase. Now if a devil or a man, a rogue or a pious man, does such a work; if he plants, sows, or waters, the order and command of God still prevails,

and the earth bears fruit.... So it is here with the sacraments. We do water and the word together, as he commands us; but such our doing does not make it baptism, but Christ's command and order. We take bread and wine according to his commandment at the word of Christ, but our doing so does not make it Christ's order. Now if the devil or his member kept the order of Christ and acted according to it, it would still be the right Baptism and sacrament.. And that I answer once to the question which I did above, namely, how one should" (in his judgment) "hold oneself against the pastor in the papacy, because they are not ordained otherwise than by angular bishops to the angular mass. Here thou shalt do so: thou shalt neither respect nor regard his chrism and angular consecration, which is certainly nothing to the churches, nor is it of any use or service to thee; but look to the fact that he has the parish office within, which is not his, but Christ's office. Do not be mistaken, either, whether he has been duly called, or has bought his way in, or has forced his way in; how he came in, over the head or over the foot, whether he is Judas or St. Peter: let nothing lie with you; separate the office from the person, and the sanctity from the abomination. Well, he is a pastor, and Christ has thus received his holy, dear pastorate in the papacy under the abomination. If he now preaches the text of the Gospel purely, then say: This is the sanctity of Christ. If he preaches other doctrine contrary to the gospel, then say: This is the abomination of the devil, which destroys the word. If he baptizes and keeps the ordinance of Christ (even if he does not have the right mind for baptism), then say: Baptism is right for the sake of Christ's ordinance, not for the sake of the pastor or his work. If he absolves you in confession or in public, or forgives sin, though there is not a papist in the world who would rightly understand what forgiveness of sins is; they do not know (as all their books show) whether they are forgiving guilt or chastisement, do not touch yourself. If he keeps the word and the way, and absolves you in Christ's name, then say: "My Lord Christ himself gives me this holy, comforting absolution through his keys, which he has given to the church. If he imposes penance on you besides, as if you should do enough for your sin, then think: Behold, this is the abomination that wants to destroy my absolution, as if Christ should sell me his grace for my merit.. When he says Mass, diligently note this difference: as far as he keeps the order and institution of Christ, and also administers and gives the sacrament to others, know that Christ's body and blood are certainly there for the sake of Christ's order and not for the sake of the pastor's work and holiness. But if he does not keep the order and mind of Christ, but changes and perverts it, it is not necessary for you to believe that it is Christ's body and blood; indeed, you should not believe, just as it is said above about other private masses." (XIX, 1547-56; St. L. 19, 1269-1276; AE 38, 198-205)

John 4:1-2 says that Christ made more disciples and baptized more than John, even though Jesus did not baptize, but his disciples did. Thus the Holy Spirit testifies that the baptism was not the disciples' baptism, but Christ's Baptism. Jesus alone is therefore the Baptizer. From this we see again that the preachers do nothing at all to make the means of grace valid, but the Lord alone makes them valid through the Word. Therefore, if even the devil himself preached in a pulpit, and he preached God's word, the word he preached would still be true and powerful; and whoever hears this word in faith also receives God's power that is in it. If, for example, the whole world wanted to work itself to death to extract an ear of corn from a grain and did not want to keep God's order and not put the grain in the ground, then all the chemists, who have researched the laws of nature quite thoroughly, would not bring forth a single grain with all their skills. On the other hand, if you put it in the ground, the stalk will come out, even if it is the biggest rascal who sows it. It is the same here. If one follows God's order with regard to the means of grace, they are there; whoever wants to do the deed may do it. If one does not, then they are not there; again, whoever wishes may perform the act. If, for example, to speak literally, in the Old Testament someone had spoken the words of institution of Holy Communion over bread and wine, it would still not have been Communion, because it was not yet ordained at that time; if, on the other hand, a Roman priest absolved me, I should know that if he absolved me not on my good works or on the merits of the saints, but as we do in the Lutheran Church, it would be a good, comforting absolution. Pastor Grabau teaches about ordination in exactly the same way as the modern Lutherans described above. Nevertheless, one of our pastors [Walther] once took heart from the divine word of absolution he received from him during a sermon he heard, embracing it with joyful faith, while at the same time, also following the Word of God, he did not accept the accompanying rejection [by Grabau].

However, it should be borne in mind that the means of grace only exist where God's Word is real. For if the so-called free Protestants also use the formula at their baptism: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", this is not the Word of God, for they do not have it at all, since they do not believe in the triune God. For the essence of the word is not the sound, but the concept that I want to designate with the sound. For example, it doesn't matter whether I write or speak a word, the word is there in both cases. Thus the sound does not make the word a word, but the meaning that I give the word. We Germans, for example, say "skin", and thus understand what is on our fletsche; the Latin says "haud" and thus negates a thing. The German

says "Laus", and understands by it something very unappetizing; the Latin says "laus" and understands by it something very pleasant, namely praise. So the sound does not do it, but it depends on what is expressed by the sound among a certain people. Indeed, even the different dialects of one and the same language often denote very different things with one and the same sound. In High German, for example, the word "Dirne" is used to describe a lascivious woman, whereas in Low German, all brave girls are Dirnen according to the sound of the word. If you call a man a "Kerl" in High German, he takes this term very badly; in Low German, a "Kerl" is a very respectable person. It follows from this: If I come to a Reformed man, especially to a Zwinglian, he also says, Christ speaks: This is my body, this is my blood; but he immediately adds, that is: This means my body, my blood. Thus they also have the sound, but they attach to it an entirely different meaning than is usually connected with it; thus they do not have the thing, namely the body and blood of Christ, for they do not have the word which makes the element a sacrament. Or I come to a "free man", as these people like to call themselves, who has a free congregation. I say to him, 'You have no baptism at all,' and he replies, 'Oh, I do just as you do. If I say to him, 'So you believe in the triune God?' he replies, 'That doesn't occur to us. By "Father" we mean the Great Spirit, by "Son" the famous Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, by "Holy Spirit" the spirit of the age, and we baptize our children in these three. So you see, for them the words Father, Son and Holy Spirit have taken on a completely different meaning. They have retained the sound, but they have given it a completely different meaning, and this has become valid among them.

If, on the other hand, I were now to enter the Missouri Synod, and I had a child to baptize, I would quite calmly have it baptized by one of their pastors, and be quite sure that the child would be properly baptized, notwithstanding that the preacher might be a hypocrite and secret Arian — for such people might also be secretly among us, like Judas among the apostles. But if I did not know it, and such a person had never betrayed the fact that he believed nothing, it would be all the same to me with regard to the baptism of my child. I hold to the fact that the Missouri Synod professes faith in the triune God; therefore the words: Father, Son, Holy Spirit also have this meaning with them, so I also know that my child has been baptized correctly. But if a godless clergyman does not believe in the triune God, but in his big beard and the dollar, for example, and baptizes children for money, as people want it, but uses our baptismal formula in order to keep even those who are superstitious in his eyes, who have the Christian faith, he confesses every

Sunday that he does not believe in the triune God, but calls such a belief an error of the dark ages, such a one does not baptize the children, but performs an act which has nothing in common with Baptism, only that he gives it the appearance of baptism. So what a church fellowship teaches and publicly confesses, that is what it gives; and likewise its preacher can give nothing but what it has.

Therefore, if an orthodox believer were to say: I can also take Holy Communion with the Reformed, because the Word does it, and they also have it, he would be very much mistaken. Rather, because they deny the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, they take the actual meaning out of the word of Christ, so they have the sound, but not the word: thus they do not have Christ's body and blood, but only bread and wine. Provided that the preacher publicly declares the word "this is" as "this means" — for that is what matters — he gives only bread and wine and nothing more. Indeed, even if a preacher of the Missouri Synod were now, God forbid, to fall away and publicly teach that the body and blood of Christ are not in the Lord's Supper, and the congregation were to accept this, he would not give the body and blood of Christ, even if some orthodox believers were there, because they should separate themselves from the false prophets. At the time of rationalism, many pastors did not believe in the triune God, but they concealed their unbelief, and the congregations held fast to the true faith, which is why they also had baptism, because the word of the triune God was with them. If, on the other hand, the pastors preached that they did not believe in the triune God and the congregations agreed with this unbelief, there was no baptism. If such a baptized person believed that he was baptized, he was very much mistaken, he was not baptized. But praise God that we have three means of grace, namely, in addition to Baptism, the Word and the Lord's Supper! These two means of grace give us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation just as much as Baptism; thus the lack of baptism does not prevent the true believer from his salvation, as the Church always teaches on the basis of divine word that it is not the lack of baptism but the contempt of baptism that condemns. The Lord expressly says: he who does not believe will be condemned, not: he who does not believe and is not baptized. For example, if I cannot go to Holy Communion because there is no orthodox preacher, and I believe, it is just as good as if I had received it, as Augustine also says: crede, et manducasti. [Believe, and you have eaten.”] It is true that I have not partaken of Christ's body and blood; but the good of grace that is in the Lord's Supper can be given to me by the good Lord even without the Lord's Supper, and I have this good of grace in the Word just as well as in the Lord's Supper. It is therefore not for nothing that Paul says that Christ cleansed his Church through the water bath by the Word, Ephesians 5:26, by which he means

that the Lord Jesus cleansed his Church through Baptism. Now someone might ask: how can Christians be cleansed in their souls by water? Then he says: Baptism can do this for the sake of the Word. The Word of the living God is the cause that water Baptism cleanses me, sanctifies me, makes me blessed, as the original text also shows.

Note also that the Zwinglians have, if not the Lord's Supper, at least Baptism. It is true that they also teach wrongly about Baptism, but not with regard to its essence, but with regard to its effects. If they were to teach falsely about baptism with regard to its essence, Baptism would certainly not be with them; but because they do not do this, they also have Baptism. For Baptism is not merely the sprinkling of water with all kinds of holy words in a certain solemnity, but the Savior commands us to sprinkle water in the name, i.e. on behalf of, invoking and at the command of the triune God. Whoever says publicly that he does not believe in the triune God is not doing what Christ commanded. He not only denies that Baptism saves, but he denies what it consists of. For Baptism consists in applying the water in such a way that it is done in the name of the triune God. The Zwinglian does not deny that this happens, so he does not deny the essence of Baptism, he only denies its fruit. He therefore also baptizes in the name of the triune God and therefore also has Baptism. It is different with the Lord's Supper. The Lord Jesus said that it is a meal in which his body and blood are distributed with bread and wine. But the Zwinglian does not want to hold such a meal at all; he calls it superstition. He therefore denies not only the fruit of it, that we receive forgiveness of sins through it, but the essence of it, and this with such full awareness that he even says that it is quite impossible that Christ's body and blood could be in the Lord's Supper, for He is seated at the right hand of God, and according to their doctrine is as it were shut up until the last day. O fools! According to their doctrine, the almighty God cannot leave heaven, and yet they think that poor man can swing himself into heaven by faith! So it is evident: they do not have Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper. Whoever sought this from the Reformed would be like a person who is invited by another as a guest, but sees nothing before him but a laid table, no bread, no meat, no wine, not even a glass of water, and who, when asked where the food was, receives the answer: yes, the laid table should only remind him of bread and meat and wine and the like. This is precisely how the Zwinglians teach that the bread and wine offered are merely symbols that should only remind us of Christ's body and blood. Therefore, just as little as that guest received something to eat, so little do the guests at such a communion receive something of Christ's body and blood.

Let us now go on to consider the teaching of our church on the

Power of the Means of Grace.

This raises the further question: Does the power of the means of grace perhaps depend on man? Not so either. For he who teaches this again takes away God's honor in the doctrine of the means of grace, because it would follow that it is actually man, his constitution, which makes the means of grace such; it is therefore man for whose sake the means of grace are contained. But this is not what our Church teaches; here too it gives all the glory to God alone, while all other communions do the opposite.

For the Reformed do not merely say of the Lord's Supper that it signifies the body and blood of Christ, nor merely of Baptism that it signifies only regeneration, but they also make the word of the gospel a mere significance. They say that when the gospel is brought, it is really nothing more than that: God reveals to man what he [man] must do if he wants to attain to grace. For the Reformed, the Gospel is nothing more than an instruction, a lesson. It proclaims that Christ died for mankind, that he fulfilled the law for us, but, they say, if you want to obtain this grace, see how you get it! In the end it depends on you to be saved. But that is a godless teaching. The matter is rather like this:

When a mob of rebels is condemned to death and the king stands, that they were all deceived, decides to pardon them, and even draws up a document with his seal and signature, which says: all the rebels are to be pardoned, and he sends someone to the city where the rebels are, with the order that he should announce this to them, they can be quite happy, their rebellion should have no consequences for them at all; the king has pardoned them, here is the document—: must the rebels now first do anything for this to be a document of pardon? No, it is already present; they should not first make grace to be present by their behavior, it is already present; they should only believe what has been preached to them so that they may enjoy grace. Likewise, every preaching of the Gospel is an absolution that God Himself gives to everyone who hears the preaching of the Gospel. Nothing is demanded of man in order for it to be a pardon; it is already there. Unbelief is not merely the impediment that man cannot regard it as a pardon, but it is a refusal to regard the gospel for what it already is. That is why there is no more comforting teaching than this. Whoever grasps this doctrine correctly can never, in any trial, not even in mortal distress, be without consolation; it is such an exceedingly great consolation that even in the greatest distress all poor

sinners are helped by God. It is only so terrible that it is presented so little because the preachers believe and confess it so little, and not only the Reformed, but also many Lutherans; for even in the Lutheran Church there are very many preachers who are basically Reformed.

For this is the main difference between the Reformed and the Lutherans, that the former, according to their confession, do not believe in a perfect salvation that has taken place, so that man has nothing else to do but to accept the message of it in cheerful faith. The Lutheran Church, on the other hand, teaches that man should do nothing at all to be redeemed, for he is already redeemed, he already has forgiveness of sins, God is already gracious to him, and now man should accept all these things: God's grace, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, which are already present. So no matter how unbelieving a listener may be or how godless he may live, if the preacher absolves him, he really hands him the forgiveness of sin, he gives it to him, and if he goes away without forgiveness of sin, it is not because it was not given to him, but because the preacher gave it to him, but he did not accept it. The fact that I am a believer and go to confession does not mean that the forgiveness of sin is now there, but only that the forgiveness of sin, which is already there, now also benefits me. The good of grace is not produced by this, but only by the fact that the good of grace is not offered to me in vain. For there is that which Christ already acquired for us eighteen hundred years ago with his bloody sweat and shedding of all his blood. Grace is already in the Word, in Absolution, in Baptism, in the Lord's Supper; faith does not bring it in, but faith takes it out. But this is precisely what is lacking, as Luther says among other things:

"Surely the two pieces must come together, as Christ hangs them one on the other, saying, 'He that believeth shall be saved.' Of course there is no lack or defect in the one thing: 'He shall be saved'; for this is given and bestowed in the Word or Gospel." [St. L. 11, 968; not in AE.]

Here Luther confirms what he has just said. So it is not only taught in the Gospel: you must do this and that in order to be saved, but grace is given to everyone with the Gospel. This is also in the nature of things. Since man is to be saved by faith, it follows that he must believe what is true, not that it may become true. For that would be a very strange thing: if you believe it, it is true, but if you do not believe it, it is not true; that would be sheer foolishness. Indeed, if I wanted to take it in faith without it being given to me, I would be a thief; then the good Lord would say to me: How can you be so impudent as to

steal my grace, this great good that opens heaven and saves me from hell and eternal damnation? But there is not a single sinner in the world to whom forgiveness of sin has not already been given through the gospel; it was also given to Judas, Ahithophel, Cain, Manasseh, even before he repented.

Luther continues: "which is God's unchanging truth;" —

Consider this carefully! For many think they believe the gospel to be the truth, and yet they do not. Indeed, we must all accuse ourselves of believing the gospel to be nothing but a lie every day. For taking the gospel for truth means nothing other than believing that this message is not a lie, which says: Man, you are redeemed, you have received salvation from God, righteousness has been given to you. But then a person, even a Christian in temptation, says: I cannot believe this. But what are we doing other than making a lie of the gospel? To every man, whoever he may be, even to the most wicked mocker of religion, I can say: all the gates of heaven have long been opened to you, all grace and forgiveness have long been given to you. That is the gospel. But who believes it?

That is why Luther adds: "but there is still much lacking in our faith that we cannot grasp and hold this firmly enough." (Walch XI, 1311.)

And further down he writes: "Of course there is no doubt or lack about these words: 'He that believeth shall be saved,' etc., that hell is already closed, heaven open, eternal life and joy; but there is still a lack in the first part: that you are not yet the man who is called: Qui credit, a believer, or that you are still weak." (Ibid. 1327; St. L. 11, 980)

So you need not even look to see if you are going to heaven; it has long since been opened wide for all the fallen, you just haven't gone in yet. Yes, if you had eyes, you would see the opposite with regard to hell. You would say: It is locked so tightly that I cannot enter. That, yes, that is what Christ has done; you must force your way into hell. If, of course, you say, well, I do want to go in, then go to hell! No sin condemns, but only unbelief, for there is no sin, however terrible, that is not balanced by the precious ransom of the blood of Christ. God has already paid for all our sins, down to the last penny. But we shameful people do not believe it. God sends twelve apostles into the world, and they must cry out everywhere: The Son of God has blotted out sin, has unlocked heaven, has purchased eternal life for us, now believe it! but no one wants to believe it, but they say: yes, if I were pious, if I were such and such, if my repentance were right, if I had first reformed, I would believe it. But, you wretched man, you will never receive it! If you

want to become better, you must first accept grace, for that alone gives the Holy Spirit, who makes us better. Unfortunately, righteous faith is seldom such that one completely disregards his works, his repentance, his contrition, and thinks, I have the gospel and I believe it, so no devil can rob my soul, for God has asked nothing of me, the message of the twelve apostles has also reached me, I accept it, I take comfort in it in life and in death. O blessed is he who has come to this realization! But only the Holy Spirit can work this, without Him we think it is nothing but a fable. It would be far too comforting, our blind reason thinks, if the way to salvation were made so easy for us; I must first become more pious, whereas true conversion only takes place after a person has begun to believe this most comforting, sweetest, truly heavenly message of grace.

Therefore Luther says: "Absolution is truly certain and eternal, even if you do not believe in it, just as the sun truly shines and shines in the sky and is the true sun, even if you are not standing in it or if you are crowned in a cellar so that you cannot see it; which is not the sun's fault, but yours... So... absolution is quite certain. If you do not believe in absolution, it is not its fault, but yours. Why do you not accept it?" (Erlanger A. Vol. XLIV, 167. f.)

Most Lutherans are true papists in this respect, namely as far as absolution is concerned; and this is true even among the best Lutherans. They think that the preacher sits in confession as a judge; he examines the penitents and inquires how they actually stand; and according to his judgment he either gives them forgiveness of sin or does not give it to them. But this is a very shameful opinion. It is true that the preacher should not give the sanctuary to the dogs, nor cast pearls before swine; but this does not mean that his office in confession actually consists in examining people to see whether they are worthy or unworthy of absolution; rather, he sits in the confessional like a letter carrier. Such a person simply brings the letter he has to order and does nothing about it. Whatever the contents of the letter may be, it is all the same to him; he is only concerned, if he is a righteous man, that the letter reaches my hands correctly. Preachers should be just such righteous letter carriers. For they bring the letter of God, which proclaims grace to us, and now they are only concerned that we receive the letter correctly, namely that we accept grace in faith. But a preacher does not have the confessor before him to examine whether he can grant him forgiveness of sins or not. If this were taught, every penitent would think: "Why do I need to go to confession? The pastor cannot look into my heart. I must know better myself whether I can comfort myself with

absolution or not. But that is not true. The preacher does not need to look into your heart at all; he absolves you, and thus, as often as he does so, he gives you every time the whole treasure of God's grace, as sure as God is in heaven, and you should not think: yes, may I also take comfort in this? may I also accept grace, since my improvement is still so bad, since my repentance is so small, since even my confession is not as pure as it should be? Oh, my dear, you must not only accept it, you should accept it. Cursed are you if you do not accept it, for then you make God's Word and the gospel nothing but a lie. God has not said: if you are such and such, then you shall have absolution, oh no! he gives forgiveness of sin without any conditions. No one may say, I have come out of confession without comfort, for I am too wretched a person; when you are in confession, you should rather feel as if the good Lord himself were standing there and telling you that your sins are forgiven, you should not doubt at all that you have mercy. If, for example, I have seriously offended someone, and he says to me, I will forgive you, I am reconciled with you, I will never think of the offense again, and I say, I do not believe that you honestly mean it, would that not be a new, gross offense? Such a new and terrible offense is committed against God by those who go to confession and do not believe that they have been forgiven of their sins. They cannot excuse themselves by saying: "My repentance is too bad." Who can call them to rely on their repentance, on their confession, on their amendment for the forgiveness of sins? They should rely on the gospel. If you do not accept it, then you are simply rejecting it and making God a liar, just as John says that whoever does not believe the gospel makes God a liar.

While so many Lutherans now teach falsely about the power of the means of grace, especially about absolution, how can we thank God enough that He has given us the jewel of the pure doctrine just explained? Yes, how God has blessed us Lutherans above all other churches on earth, for where else can this doctrine be found? And it is precisely this doctrine that wins the hearts of the people; it is also the doctrine that has spread our Synod so widely, therefore let us watch over it anxiously, for it makes the Christian a Christian, it gathers our congregations, it preserves our youth, which is in such great danger. Truly, it is worth a thousand synodal journeys to hear such glorious things among us. Just think: according to God's Word, absolution is not merely an announcement, but the granting of forgiveness of sins. Whoever believes this becomes a pardoned child of God. The moment he accepts absolution, all his sins are taken away from him. As comforting as this teaching is, it is also important. If we had all other doctrines pure,

and not this one, we would soon lose all doctrines again, for it shows most clearly that we are justified and saved by faith alone, without any merit. That is why Satan rages against this very truth — for all sects and enthusiasts rage against it, and most of all against this doctrine — because he knows full well what comfort he is robbing us of with it, and especially how he is thereby taking away the glory of God. For how could God be more dishonored than by saying: God has a happy message proclaimed to the world, but the vast majority are not allowed to believe it? Isn't that terrible? But it is just the opposite: everyone should believe it, and the vast majority cannot believe it because they want to remain stuck in the dung and filth of sin; for what do the worldlings, the servants of sin, ask for the forgiveness of sin? If I had money, they say, what do I ask about what the priests are telling me! One cannot believe until one knows that I am a lost and damned sinner, I need grace. But when the gospel comes, then I should not only believe, then I can also believe, because the gospel works faith in all who do not willfully resist it. But of course, that is no doubt why it often happens that the gospel is preached seemingly correctly and yet people do not come to believe because we do not preach the power of the means of grace correctly. We should speak to people like this: When I tell you that God is reconciled to you, you should not shake your heads and think: I am a good-for-nothing; no, you should say: Amen, that is certainly true. Nothing needs to be done by you, nothing needs to be suffered by you, it is all ready; only one thing is missing: you must believe it. Now you should not think: yes, may I believe? no! you should believe, God wants it that way. Paul says that he preaches to establish the obedience of faith. [Romans 1:5; 16:26] This is an unspeakably comforting word, for he says that God has commanded the whole world to believe. Therefore he who does not believe does not do what God has commanded him. This is why the Savior says of the Holy Spirit that he punishes the world for sin, and not for the sin of killing one another, stealing from one another, fornicating, etc., but for not believing in him. This is the great and terrible sin that closes heaven and opens hell. It is a great difference whether I say: not all men may believe, or whether I say: not all men can believe; the latter is true, the former is not. All men must be allowed to believe, but all men naturally lack the ability. Consider also the words of Paul, where he says: "We pray therefore in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." [2 Corinthians 5:20] He does not say: Reconcile God with yourselves, for Christ has already done that, but: "Be reconciled to God." Thus he testifies: God is reconciled, but you wicked

knaves are not yet reconciled, God is no longer your enemy, but you are still His enemies, God thinks of you in all graces, but you still think of Him in all enmity. Let these hostile thoughts go, do not look at the dear God as if He were not yet reconciled with you; ah! in Christ He looks down on you with the greatest pleasure, and yet you still have such dark thoughts of your God. An unspeakably comforting passage. And how abundantly is this consolation given to us in Holy Scripture! Scripture always speaks of Christ as a gift, of eternal life as a gift; why? it wants to say: everything has been given to you that makes you blessed. Likewise, it speaks of baptism as a covenant that God has established; why? so that we may know: nothing, nothing shall rob me of God's grace. I am only to hold on to it confidently in faith. No sin, no former ungodly walk may rob me of it, for God remains faithful even if we become unfaithful. Thus our holy baptism is also a strong rock against all temptations of the devil and of conscience; unfortunately, it is so rare to find Christians who take comfort in their baptism from the heart.

Let us also listen to what the Pope says about his false key. He says: "I have the key to heaven, but of course it does not always work; I get into the wrong keyhole and turn and turn, but the door to heaven will not open, that is the wrong key. But of course, even for the wrong key he lets himself be paid, for it is the money that matters to him; therefore, even if his key is missing, he does not pay out the money again; paid is paid. About this false key Luther writes

Luther: "See what fruit the doctrine of the false key has produced. First of all, God must be a liar. For God has firmly and certainly promised through Christ in Matthew 18:18: 'What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven'; these are clear, bright, plain words; they suffer no false key." [St. L. 19, 924; AE 40, 346]

But who believes these clear, bright, plain words, namely that every time we are absolved, heaven is opened before us, every time the forgiveness of sins is brought to us? Consider this: Christ did not say to the apostles that if you begin with caution, examine people properly, proceed with great care, and are quite sure that you have good people, repentant people before you in confession, then you should forgive their sins — but he says: "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them", that must remain firm. Therefore let no one think: yes, if, if, if — no! Christ has not added an if, He speaks absolutely, not conditionally. But who believes that? If, for example, two come to confession, and one thinks the other is no good, he thinks that if the other also receives absolution,

the pastor now has the wrong conclusion in his hand. Yes, where does the Savior add to those words: “but if the penitents are no good, then not”? It does not help me that my sin is forgiven through absolution if I do not accept it but reject it through unbelief, but the absolution I receive remains true and valid, just as God's Word remains true despite my unbelief. If I have offended someone, it does not help me that he forgives me if I retain the old enmity, but he does not become a liar as a result. So also here. Of course, if the forgiveness of sin were not included in absolution, our unbelief would be quite right, indeed, quite a good thing; for then God would not give it to us either. But because it is in it, God does not thereby become a liar if absolution does not help us because we reject it through unbelief; rather, the pope with his false key and all those who do not accept absolution make God a liar, and that plunges them into the abyss of hell.

Luther continues: "He says, let it be certain and not lacking: What they bind and loose shall be bound and loose. But what does Master Pope say about this? I truly do not know (he says), I will certainly loose on earth, but whether it will also be loose in heaven, I will let you take care of that..." [AE40, 346]

Truly! a beautiful consolation. Is this not an accursed doctrine, a shameful, godless comedy? Does it not mean that poor sinners are being led by a fool's rope?

Luther goes on to say: "They do just such honor to our Lord Christ with the same, as he has acquired no more with his blood than false keys and uncertain loosing...." (....) For they are not based on God's Word, but on human deeds and things. [AE40, 346]

They think like this: "Where does it say in God's Word that Hans and Kunz have forgiveness of sins? My name is not in the Bible, so I can boldly deny that I have forgiveness of sins. But by this you do nothing less than deny the whole Bible, for all its promises are for you. The Bible is a document of pardon given by God from heaven for all men, and you should accept it. But then they say: alas, a strange doctrine, a dangerous doctrine, which makes people safe, and thus only provides new proof that we all naturally resent the Gospel; we are ashamed of this blessed doctrine, we consider it foolishness.

Luther goes on to write: "If men are pious, then the key unlocks; if they are not pious, then it does not unlocks; according to what men are, according to what is, the key also applies and creates, and nothing else.... If they thought it to be God's order and office, it would be impossible for them to make

a false key out of it. For God's ordinances are sure and cannot fail, any more than His Word can lie and deceive; just as Baptism and Sacrament and preaching are also God's ordinances, and do not err or fail, and it is not to be suffered that one would make two kinds of Baptism, one true baptism and false baptism, or two kinds of gospel, one true gospel and false gospel, or two sacraments, one false sacrament and true sacrament; for all that God speaks and does is pure truth.... On the other hand, the fruit of such teaching is also that it destroys Christianity and the faith. For where a Christian hears and is told that the keys may err and be missing, it is not possible for him to rely on them and believe what the key tells him. For what one is to believe, one must be certain or ever be certain that it is God's Word and the truth without all doubt; otherwise there remains nothing, for an uncertain delusion and wavering faith, indeed a real unbelief, cannot be lacking..."

We must regard every church, every confessional, as something that the good Lord has built, where he has placed the preacher like a tax collector, not like someone who takes in money, but like someone who has an awful lot of money and spends it. Then someone comes in and says to him, "How much do you owe God? He answers: ten thousand pounds, and the preacher gives him the sum with the words: there you have it. Then someone comes, but thinks: oh, I won't receive such a sum, I'm far too bad a person! and goes away again. Who is to blame for the fact that he goes away empty-handed? Certainly not the one whom God has placed in the heavenly tax office, but the ungodly man who does not want to believe that what Christ has earned is deposited in the treasury of the Church, and that it is only for distribution. But of course in many cases the preachers are also to blame for the fact that people, even the holy children of God, often leave confession without really knowing whether they have absolution or not, and therefore say: Am I really absolved, or am I still coming out with my sins? Preachers do not do enough teaching. They should say again and again: Come as you will, you will be truly absolved. If you come out of confession with the burden of your sin, it is not because your sin has not been taken away, but because of your unbelief. Consider, to return to the simile given before, if even a simple-minded boy were to learn that the king had signed that document of pardon, nay, if he were to read it, and he were now to run and say to the rebels: be happy, you are free, I have read the king's letter myself, there was also a great seal on it! would not the lad speak the truth? So we should also say to our confessors: you are pardoned, we have read the letter of pardon ourselves, we have also seen the

seal. The document is the Bible, the seal on it are the Holy Sacraments. Whoever therefore does not believe the word of absolution does not believe the Word of God.

Luther continues: "From this you must understand that the keys of the pope are not keys, but the sleeves or shells of the right keys, or, as he shows by the fact and bears them in his coat of arms, they are truly painted, empty keys, which may fill the eyes, but give nothing to the soul; for you hear here that they themselves confess that the keys do not give grace, nor is there any grace of God in them, but man must first acquire grace through himself without the keys. If, then, the keys are so empty that they do not bring grace but demand it, they need not be true keys, for true keys are full of grace and bring and give grace (as we shall hear) even to the unworthy and undeserving.... Let not the Pharisaic babble here deceive you, so that some may fool themselves as to how a man can forgive sin when he cannot give grace, nor the Holy Spirit."

Truly a true Turkish religion is what the pope teaches here, that man must first acquire grace for himself before he can receive it through the keys. Note also what Luther here calls Pharisaical babble, namely precisely what is so often said today, as the Methodists also always say: “how can a person forgive sin?” We do not forgive sin in our name, but in God's name, as messengers of God, as ambassadors, as Paul calls us. Just as a king can send an envoy to make peace with another potentate, and the envoy makes peace even though he is not a king, so the King of heaven can make peace with men through an envoy, and this envoy is the preacher, appointed by God himself. Just as the messenger does not become a king by making peace, so the preacher is not made God by the authority to give absolution. But just as, for example, an American envoy represents the sovereignty of the entire United States, one of the greatest riches in the world, and his actions are just as valid as if they were done by the entire American people, so it is with absolution. With those words: "Whose sins ye remit" etc., Christ only wants to say: what you do in my stead, on my behalf, shall be just as valid as if I had done it personally.

Luther goes on to say: "Stick to the words of Christ, and be sure that God has no other way of forgiving sin than through the verbal word which he has commanded us men. If you do not seek forgiveness in the Word, you will look to heaven in vain for grace or (as they say) inward forgiveness." [ibid., p. 366]

This is also a powerful passage against the Methodists. True inward forgiveness is only there when you have found it outside yourself,

in words. But if you think that the feelings you have received from a Methodist preacher are grace, you are greatly mistaken. If I want to reconcile someone with me, I must tell him that I have nothing against him. This is exactly how the good Lord does it. As soon as He has told us that He is reconciled with us, it is done. This is how absolution comes about. However, God does not want to come to us personally and visibly, but has appointed the preaching ministry for this purpose. We preachers are employed to say: my dear redeemed fellow human being! you are reconciled, God has nothing more against you. That is actually our ministry; everything else we do is merely auxiliary; but the core, the soul, the heart of our ministry is that we seek to bring every single sinner to the realization that he is redeemed, reconciled with God.

Luther goes on to write: "But if you say, as the factious spirits do, that many hear the keys of binding and loosing, and yet do not turn to them and remain unbound and unloosed, then there must be something else than the Word and the keys: the Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit must do it! But do you think that he is not bound who does not believe the binding key? He shall know in his time that because of his unbelief the binding was not in vain, nor did it fail. In the same way, he who does not believe that he is loosed and his sin forgiven will also learn in time how surely his sins have now been forgiven and that he did not want to believe. St. Paul says in Romans 3:3: "God will not be lacking because of our unbelief. So we are not talking about who believes the keys or not; we know almost certainly that few believe, but we are talking about what the keys do and give. He who does not accept it, of course, has nothing; therefore the key is not missing. Many do not believe the gospel, but the gospel is missing and therefore does not lie. A king gives you a castle; if you do not accept it, the king has not lied about it, nor has he erred, but you have deceived yourself and it is your fault; the king has certainly given it.... The Pope's false key is so taught, understood and held that it itself, the key, may err in itself, even if a man would like to believe and accept it; for it is a conditionalisclavis(a conditional key), an inconstant key... and cannot itself rest on it and say: I know for certain that I have redeemed you before God, you believe or do not believe, as St. Peter's key can say.... It is God's command and word, which the one speaks and the other hears; both owe it for the salvation of their souls to believe this as surely and firmly as other articles of faith." (Writings on the Keys of 1530. XIX, 1148-1151, 1153, 1175-1177.) [(St. L. 19, 946 ff.; AE 40, 366–368]

Many a man will one day in eternity wonder how countless

his sins have been forgiven him, and he has not believed it, how often the castle of heaven has been given to him, and he would not accept it. Such a person usually says: I am not in such a state that I can believe the word of absolution, but in doing so he only sets his state above God's Word.

Important testimonies of our symbolic books of the doctrine of our Church concerning the power of the means of grace include the following:

Article VIII of the Augsburg Confession. It reads: "Although the Christian Church is nothing other than the assembly of all believers and saints, yet because in this life there are many false Christians and hypocrites, and public sinners remain among the pious, the sacraments are nevertheless powerful, even though the priests through whom they are administered are not pious, as Christ himself indicates (Matt. 23:2): 'The Pharisees sit on the throne of Moses', etc. For this reason the Donatists and all others are condemned who hold otherwise."

For the Donatists taught that if a preacher is in mortal sin, indeed if he has ever denied, then his whole ministry has no power; his Baptism is nothing, his communion is nothing, his absolution is nothing. Indeed, they went even further and said: if not all believers in a community are holy, then there is no church. The Novatians had a related doctrine. They said: if someone falls into mortal sin again after Baptism, Absolution can no longer be pronounced, because it is uncertain whether it will help; they did not want to deny the fallen person all grace, but they referred him to God's mercy. It was therefore strictly forbidden for a preacher to absolve such a person. When the Novatian Acesius once argued with the Emperor Constantine about this matter, he said: we are not of the opinion that if someone falls into mortal sin after Baptism and conversion, he absolutely cannot be saved, for who can measure the riches of divine mercy? but we can do nothing other than commit him to the mercy of God. Constantine replied: my dear Acesius, then first get a ladder and climb it to heaven, if you don't want to know anything about the oral ministry. By this he meant: do you not know, you blind man, that God has made the ministry of the gospel a ladder to heaven? how else will you climb up to heaven?

But consider this: when we speak of the ministry of the gospel, we do not mean a pastor or minister or clergyman, as is customary to say, but nothing more than the divine order, according to which man is to come to the grace of God by being told the Word of the gospel, whether he reads it or hears it or only thinks of it; and again, whether he hears it from a preacher

or from another man, whether he himself be a boy or a little girl or an old mother. When they tell him God's Word, that is the preaching ministry. A strict distinction must be made between the preaching office and the pastoral office. The ministry is not absolutely necessary for a person to go to heaven; but the preaching ministry is absolutely necessary. Whoever does not come to God's grace and heaven through the preaching ministry will not get there. Apart from the Word, God does not want to give His grace to anyone. This is what our old theologians mean when they say that no one can be saved without the ministry of preaching. It is often much better not to have a pastor (Pfarrer) if one has a shameful clergyman (Pfaffen); but without the preaching office, i.e. without the Gospel, one cannot be saved; this is the ladder to heaven; he who does not use this ladder does not enter heaven, and after death he does not open his eyes in heaven, but in hell.

Furthermore, the Smalcald Articles teach: "Let us now return to the Gospel, which gives not one way, counsel and help against sin, for God is abundant in His grace. Firstly, through the oral Word, in which the forgiveness of sin is preached to the whole world, which is the true office of the Gospel. Secondly, through Baptism. Thirdly, through the holy Sacrament of the altar. Fourthly, by the power of the keys, and also per mutuum colloquium et consolationemfratrum, Matt. 18: Ubi duo fuerintcongregati. (Part III, Art. IV; Triglotta p. 491)

The Large Catechism speaks of the Gospel: "Therefore here again is great need to ask and cry: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not that he does not forgive sin even without and before our asking (for he has given us the gospel, in which is pure forgiveness, before we have asked for it or ever thought of it). But it is necessary that we recognize and accept such forgiveness." (5th Petition, par. 88; Triglotta p. 723)

Likewise, the Augsburg Confession says of absolution: "The people are diligently taught how comforting the word of absolution is, how highly and precious absolution is to be esteemed; for it is not the present voice or word of man, but the word of God that forgives sin. For it is spoken in God's stead and by God's command. Of this command and power of the keys, how comforting, how necessary it is to the terrified consciences, is taught with great diligence; and how God requires us to believe this absolution, no less than if God's voice were heard from heaven, and to rejoice in it and know that by such faith we obtain forgiveness of sins." (Art. 25. par. 2-4; Triglotta p. 69)

The Large Catechism teaches of Baptism: "Now there is not only the commandment and order, but also the promise, therefore it is even

more glorious than what God has otherwise commanded and ordered, so full of comfort and grace that heaven and earth cannot comprehend. But it takes art to believe such things, for there is no lack of treasure, but there is a lack of grasping and holding on to it.

"Therefore, every Christian has enough to learn and practice Baptism throughout his life, for he must always work to firmly believe what it promises and brings, the overcoming of the devil and death, the forgiveness of sin, God's grace, the whole Christ and the Holy Spirit with his gifts. In sum, it is so exuberant that if stupid nature could consider it, it would doubt whether it could be true. For consider this: if there were a physician somewhere who understood the art of preventing people from dying, or, though they die, they would soon come to life again and live forever afterward, how the world would snow and rain with money, so that no one could come to the rich man! Now here in Baptism such a treasure and medicine is brought to everyone's door for free, which devours death and keeps all men alive." (Of Baptism, par. 39-43; Triglotta p. 741)

Similarly, the Large Catechism speaks of the Lord's Supper: "But here our clever minds, with their great art and wisdom, twist themselves, shouting and rumbling: how can bread and wine forgive sin or strengthen faith? When they hear and know that we do not say this about bread and wine, as in Himself bread is bread, but about such bread and wine as is Christ's body and blood, and has the words with Him. This, we say, is the treasure and no other by which such forgiveness is obtained. Now it is brought and given to us in no other way than in the words (given and poured out for you); for therein you have both that it is Christ's body and blood, and that it is yours as a treasure and gift. Now Christ's body cannot be a fruitless thing in vain, creating and profiting nothing. But as great as the treasure is in itself, so it must be put into the Word and given to us; otherwise we would not be able to know or seek it.

"For this reason it is no reason for them to say that Christ's body and blood were not given or shed for us in the Lord's Supper, so that we cannot have forgiveness of sin in the sacrament. For although the work was done on the cross and the forgiveness of sin was acquired, it cannot come to us in any other way than through the Word. For what else would we know that this has happened or should be given to us if it were not presented to us through the sermon or the word of mouth? How do they know it, or how can they take hold of forgiveness and bring it to themselves if they do not keep and believe in the Scriptures and the gospel? Now the whole gospel and articles of faith: I believe in a holy Christian church, forgiveness of sin, etc., are put into this sacrament through the Word and presented to us. Why

should we then allow such a treasure to be torn from the Sacrament, when they must confess that these are the very words which we hear everywhere in the Gospel, and indeed, as little as we can say that these words in the Sacrament are of no use, so little may we say that the whole Gospel or Word of God is of no use apart from the Sacraments.

"So now we have the whole Sacrament, both what it is in itself, and what it brings and benefits. Now we must also see who the person is who receives such power and benefit. This is in a nutshell what is often said above about baptism and other things: whoever believes these things has what the words say and what they bring. For they are not spoken or preached in stone or wood, but to those who hear them, to whom he says, Take and eat, etc. And because he offers and promises forgiveness of sin, it cannot be received in any other way than through faith. He himself demands such faith in the word when he says, "Given for you and poured out for you," as if to say, "Therefore I give, and command you to eat and drink, that you may receive and enjoy it. Whoever therefore accepts this saying and believes that it is true, has it; but whoever does not believe has nothing, as he who accepts it in vain and does not want to enjoy such salvation. The treasure has been opened and laid at everyone's door, even on the table; but it belongs to it that you also accept it and hold on to it as the words give you." (Of the Sacrament. par. 28-35; Triglotta p. 759)

Let us now proceed to the consideration of the doctrine of our [Lutheran] Church

On the Immutability of the Means of Grace.

In this, too, she gives all glory to God alone, for she teaches that no man, no creature at all, can change the means of grace as God has ordained them, so that they remain what they should be according to God's will. It is, of course, strange that this has yet to be said in Christendom; it is self-evident that if God decrees something, the creature cannot change it; rather, if it does change it, then the thing that God has ordained no longer exists, and that the creature thereby elevates itself above the great God. But this is what the papacy has actually done. No other ecclesiastical fellowships have dared to do this; all other fellowships except the Lutheran Church are in serious error, but not a single party has ever said: I can depart from God's Word, I can change God's ordinances. Only the papacy has said this, and thus it has put the stamp of the Antichrist on itself; by this the pope has shown that he is the Antichrist, who sits in the temple of God as a god, and pretends that he is God, and “exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped”, 2 Thess. 2:4, thus proving himself to be the adversary, the arch-enemy of Christ within the kingdom of Christ. Yes, he is the real "governor of Christ",

i.e. he has, as far as he is concerned, thrown the Lord Christ out of the church, and where Christ sat before, there this firstborn of Satan has seated himself. Who could have imagined that within the Church of Christ a man would be so bold as to open his mouth with the words: what Christ has appointed, I can change, and thereby it does not cease to be a means of grace, but only the matter is made much wiser than it was by Christ? — Admittedly, it took a long time before the Antichrist dared to say this; he only did so 100 years before Luther, and this happened at the Council of Constance. On June 15, 1415, the council literally decided the following, among other things:

"Although Christ instituted and administered this venerable sacrament to his apostles under both forms, under the bread and the wine, and administered it to his apostles, notwithstanding this the authority of the holy church laws has kept and still keeps the laudable and approved custom of the church that such sacrament shall not be administered after the Lord's Supper.... And as this custom was reasonably introduced to avoid certain dangers and offenses, so for similar or more important reasons the other custom could be introduced and reasonably observed, that although in the ancient Church this Sacrament was received by the faithful under both forms, it is now received only by the officiating priest under both forms, and by the laity only under the form of bread." *) (Rerum Concil. Constantiensis Tom. III, fol. 646. sq.)

*) Quod, licet Christus post coenaminstituerit et suis apostolisministraverit sub utraque specie panis et vini hoc venerabile sacramentum, tamen, hoc non obstante, sacrorumcanonumautoritas, laudabilis et approbata consuetudo ecclesiae servavit et servat, quodhujusmodi sacramentum non debetconfici post coenam.... Et sicut haec consuetudo ad evitandumpericulaaliqua et scandala rationabiliterintroducta est, sic potuitsimili vel majore ratione introduci et rationabiliterobservari, quod licet in primitivaecclesia reciperetur hoc sacramentum a fidelibus sub utraque specie, tamenpostea a conficientibus sub utraque specie et a laicistantummodo sub specie panissuscipiatur.

The thoughts here are, of course, so interwoven that the reader does not immediately realize what satanic blasphemy lies in them. But note especially the first word "although" and the later "notwithstanding", in Latin "hoc non obstante". Here, then, this synagogue of the devil admits that Christ certainly instituted Holy Communion under both forms; it further admits that the ancient Church therefore always administered it under both forms; but here, it continues, the authority of the holy Church is to be considered. It must be borne in mind that it is a laudable and approved custom of the Church not to do it in this way; indeed, there are certain dangers and annoyances here, for the sake of which it must be changed; it is great wisdom that they have

begun to do it differently. So here they declare: in spite of the fact that Christ wills otherwise and although it is written otherwise in the Bible, and although the old church was obedient to the Lord in this, we do not give the cup for the sake of certain dangers and offenses. These wicked hypocrites want to say the following: when the chalice is handed out, some of its contents could easily be spilled; but then the blood of Christ would fall to the ground and could not be picked up again like, for example, a piece of bread from the ground; rather, it seeps right into it and because of this terrible danger the laity should not be given the chalice. But this is the same hypocrisy as when the Pharisees wanted Christ to be crucified, but declared that they would not go into the judgment house because they would become unclean there. That the blood of the Son of God should be shed, they thought quite right; but that they should go into the judgment house, their tender consciences would not suffer, although in this they were only following their own man-made commandment. The papists also have such tender consciences, for they do not violate what they have ordained, but what the Lord Christ has ordained they think they may change. Truly, whoever knows that the papacy departs from the ordinances of Christ with full awareness, that it admits this itself and yet says: nevertheless, we as the holy synod declare that we do it better and more wisely than Christ has ordained, whoever knows that the papacy has decreed thus, and he does not believe that the pope is the Antichrist, cannot be helped. For if a godless atheist says that the Bible is a book of fables, that is a small thing compared with what the pope is doing here. He cannot say otherwise, because he does not believe that the Bible is God's Word, which is why he speaks so blasphemously about it. But such a man can become a different person and be saved in a few minutes if the Holy Spirit knocks on his door and God forgives his blasphemy. But what will a pope say when he appears before God's judgment seat and God says to him: "You child of the devil, what have you done? You have admitted before the whole Church, indeed before the whole world, that it is my order, but you have taught that you have the power to depart from it and do otherwise! Your blasphemous mouth has said that you do so because of the great dangers and offences connected with it, that it is wise to avoid them, so you wretched knave have spoken more abominably in public than the devil, for you have said that you are wiser than I am, and have deceived millions into accepting these blasphemies as a great revelation of the Holy Church! Truly, whoever does not realize that the pope is the Antichrist is struck with blindness, for man can go no further. That the pope teaches in this way is much worse than when someone says: there is no God. For he says: yes, of course, there is a supreme being, an all-powerful, most powerful God, but I can correct God; he sometimes does wrong things,

but that is what I am there for with my councils, we do things differently, and that puts things right. Truly, what a terrible antichristian sin is going on in the papacy, and now it is called a Missourian quirk that we teach that the pope is the Antichrist. Isn't that terrible? Three and a half hundred years ago God, by great grace, made manifest the mystery of wickedness; we accept this with thanksgiving to God, and are vividly convinced from God's Word: it is so; and for this we are considered to be people who have certain quirks, that is, who put something into their heads which their imagination fools them into believing. Well, let them do it!

The words of our Savior in Matthew 5:18 and 19 also apply here: "Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter will pass away," etc., a very terrible judgment of the Lord. But consider this: the Savior does not say that whoever neglects one of these least commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, for we all do that; how often has someone preached or spoken something false, dissolving one of God's commandments. Rather, the Savior adds: and teaches people thus, he is the least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, he is excluded from the kingdom of heaven. The fact that one does not believe quite correctly in things that do not belong to the foundation of salvation should not condemn us; but to say: this is certainly a commandment of God, but it is only a small commandment, it need not be held so strictly, it condemns absolutely, it plunges into the infernal abyss. And that is what the Pope is doing with his change to Holy Communion. When the Augsburg Confession was delivered in 1530, the papists "issued" a counter-confession. In it they reproached the Lutherans, among other things, with the injustice that they held it so highly that they only served Holy Communion in one form, for this had been introduced by the Church at the instigation of the Holy Spirit; and when the Emperor issued an edict threatening the Lutherans with death, the clergy took care that this reproach was also blackened in it. In general, Luther publicly declared that he did not believe that this writing came from the emperor; rather, he considered the papists to be the authors, because he did not want to trust the emperor to utter such blasphemies as were contained in the writing. He wrote a special pamphlet against it, entitled: "Glosses on the supposed imperial edict", in which he speaks thus, among other things:

"The other lie is that they…say: the Christian Church, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and for good reasons, has salutarily ordered and commanded that only one form should be served (outside of Mass).... These lies blaspheme both the Holy Spirit and the Christian Church."

With these words the papists blasphemed the Christian Church,

in that this wicked society claimed to be the Church of God, and yet consciously departed from the commands of God.

Luther writes further: "This is by no means to be suffered. For Christ says John 16:13-14: 'The Holy Spirit shall come and glorify him'; he does not say that he shall change or darken him. Again John 14:26: 'The Holy Spirit shall bring to your remembrance all things,' He says, 'what I have said to you; do not say that He shall cancel or change what I have said. Since, then, it is clear and evident that Christ teaches both of these things in the gospel, the Holy Spirit must glorify and bring to remembrance the same doctrine; if he does not do this, but changes or abolishes it, it cannot be the Holy Spirit; or Christ would have to lie, since he calls the Holy Spirit his glorifier or praiser and reminder of His words."

Christ does not say of the Holy Spirit that he would teach the disciples better what the truth is, but that he would teach them what he had told them, because at that time they were still so blinded that they did not yet understand Christ's words. The Lord expressly says that the Holy Spirit would not teach them anything new, so those words of the papists were also a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Luther continues: "From this it follows that the 'speaking in', which changes or defiles both forms (although in the Gospel Christ has ordered them through his word), is not of the Holy Spirit, but of the wicked devil from hell.... Whoever may say that the church changes or does not keep Christ's word and order is doing as much as if he were calling the holy church a debauched harlot of the devil."

Holy Scripture calls the Church the bride of Christ, Christ's spouse, Christ's household honor, but that would be a beautiful bride who despises her bridegroom's words in the same way as the papists, who claim to be Christ's Church, do with the Lord's words about the Lord's Supper.

Luther continues: "Therefore we Christians should condemn this edict with all our hearts as blasphemy and say: Cursed are both the edict and its authors, Amen!"

What powerful words! And why did he write this? Because he did not want to suffer the honor of God to be taken away from Him with regard to the immutability of the means of grace. But this is how faith speaks in the midst of the greatest need. Just think what heroism it took to speak like that in those days. The emperor had just reconciled with the pope, and the pope urged him to carry out the edict with bloody force. So the emperor's sword hung over the head of every Lutheran. Many of them must have thought: now is the time to speak out quietly; and what does Luther do? He let it go out into all the world: cursed are both Edict and its authors, Amen! He was certainly convinced that the emperor had not made the same; but he had

signed it, and therefore these words applied to him also. Where it was necessary to give God the glory, Luther did not remain silent, nor did he fear the emperor and his sword. But of course, where God raises up such heroes who fight for his honor, he also gives his enemies a despondent heart, so that they are afraid of a rustling leaf. Thus the emperor dared not take any action against Luther, who had undoubtedly been informed of these "glosses" by the clergy. He knew only too well that Luther had the whole nation behind him; if he attacked him, he would have the revolution in the empire: that is why he was afraid.

Luther continues: "Against such blasphemy we set these thunderbolts, since Christ says: 'These things do in remembrance of me. Which words he speaks to his church, and calls them to do it, and not to change or abolish it. Again, Matthew in the last chapter [28:19-20]: 'Go ye therefore, and teach all nations to observe the things which I have commanded you.’... Truly, these and similar sayings leave the churches no power to change or abolish Christ's Word, but cast them under Christ's Word and call them to keep and do it as a serious commandment of God, which He wants to punish where it is not kept; how much more will he punish those who still abolish and change it!"

It is bad enough if someone does not do what Christ has commanded; hell already belongs to such a person. But where is there a hell for the rascal who speaks so blasphemously of the Lord of glory that he pretends to have the power to make something wiser and better than Christ?

Finally Luther writes: "And—God forbid!—where the Christian church would have power to change and abolish God's Word, we would no longer have a certain Word of God. For this is clear: where it can change one Word of God, it can also change all other words of God, including the one so that it itself can be founded and confirmed as a Christian church. For here there remains no reason nor distinction why it should change one and not the other, because it has power over them. Thus she would like to change and abolish the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and even herself, so that she would have to be nothing but the devil's whore; just as the pope's church is the one that seizes such power over God's Word and robs it of it with blasphemous iniquity." (Glosses on the alleged imperial edict 1531. XVI, 2023-2026.)

Yes, the pope's church not only wants to change all of God's commandments, but it has actually done so, which would be worthy of a detailed discussion; the pope has dispensed with all ten commandments. Such a pope's church is obviously not the true church, but the devil's whore. There are also children of God in the Roman Church, which of course Luther does not mean here; but those who hold with the pope, the bishops and cardinals, even the priests, who see through the matter, these knaves who rob God of glory in all things, are truly not the Church of God,

but the devil's synagogue. It is therefore an incomprehensible blindness, an apostasy from an extremely important truth, if today one no longer wants to believe the doctrine that the pope is the Antichrist, even blasphemes it, and yet knows how the pope changes the sacraments. Truly, whoever does this also robs God of his honor.

But an anti-Christian spirit is also revealed in the fact that the modern theologians make God's Word uncertain, deny the Lutheran doctrine of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, leave the decision of doctrinal disputes not to the Word of God but to the pronouncement of the Church, and turn the teachings of Scripture into open questions. But note the difference between "anti-Christian" and "pertaining to the Antichrist". The modern theologians always change God's Word; but where does this come from? Because they do not believe that the Bible is God's Word. For as soon as one examines them closely, one realizes that they would never dream of believing that the Bible is the Word of God. None of them believe that every word of Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit. As soon as they deny that one must be strictly bound to the Bible, this is anti-Christian, but does not pertain to the Antichrist. For the Antichrist says: of course the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit from the first to the last letter. The Council of Trent says so, and every orthodox papist admits it; but that is the terrible thing, that they admit it, and yet ascribe to themselves the power to depart from it. In this way they elevate themselves above everything that is called God or is worshiped, and show the nature of the Antichrist. For this consists in the fact that the pope is involved in certain abominations in which no one but he finds himself. This is the pope's desire to persecute the Gospel and to put his teaching in its place. His whole government goes against the truth that man is justified and saved by grace through faith for the sake of Christ. This is the core of popery, let us hold fast to it! The popes have indeed fallen away from God's Word, but so have other people; they have also lived like the Sodomites in the most abominable vices, but so have others. This, then, is not the antichristianity of the pope. Whoever has the right knowledge of the Gospel will also recognize the pope as the Antichrist. That the modern theologians do not want to and cannot recognize this is due to the fact that they have fallen away from the Gospel and thus also from the Reformation, as for example Consistorial Councilor Münchmeyer, who already in 1853 at the Leipzig Conference openly declared in a speech there: “Sentences such as: ‘the Pope is the Antichrist’... we consider to be factual blasphemy”. (Lutheraner, Vol. 10, No. 12 [p. 91, col. 2]) How shamefully the Pope perverts the means of grace of the Word of God is also shown by the fact that he equates the Apocrypha with the canonical writings and the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, with the original text. How the papists deal with God's Word

in general is shown by the rascal who declared that if the pope decrees to take Paul's epistles out of Holy Scripture and put Aesop's fables in their place, then these too must be regarded as God's Word.

Other people also change Holy Communion, such as the half-mad Abstentionists, who teach that one should not take wine because it is a dangerous element and contains poison. Even the famous Beza says that at Baptism and the Lord's Supper one may take any other material than that prescribed by Christ; it need not be water, or bread, or wine. As much as these people show that they are blinded by the devil, they do not, like the pope, want to change the means of grace by virtue of an assumed authority, while the pope says: because I am Pope, I can change the means of grace. He means: for this purpose I am Christ's governor, that I can change the household in the house of God, just as, for example, a steward, when the master of the house is away, can also change this and that in the house. So he himself reveals that he thinks that Christ no longer reigns in his Church, whereas he will reign in his kingdom until the last day, indeed until eternity. What He orders is praiseworthy and glorious, everything else is rebellion and revolution, pure warfare against Him.

Let us now go on to consider the

9th Point of the Third Thesis,

which speaks

Of Conversion,

we will see how in this doctrine, too, our Church gives all glory to God alone.

She says: It is God alone who converts man; no man does the slightest thing. When a person is converted, it is a great miracle performed by God. Holy Scripture expressly says: "Convert me, Lord, and I shall be converted"; and again: "With fear and trembling work out your salvation, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do, according to his good pleasure." Now, of course, it is true that our reason cannot agree that God should do everything all by Himself and that man should not cooperate in the slightest. It will immediately raise the objection that if this is so, then God must be to blame if so many are not converted; if He does everything alone, and therefore must also take away the resistance in us, if man is not the cause at all that he does not reluct to be converted, then God must be the cause that so many are not converted and saved. So says our reason, and indeed, this is a completely incomprehensible mystery. But however incomprehensible it may be, however contradictory it may seem, we Lutherans ask nothing about it. We do not wish to see God's honor impugned in this doctrine either, but maintain that

God converts man all by Himself, and if man wants to do anything for his conversion, it is all in vain, indeed, only an obstacle to it. For man can certainly hinder his conversion, but he cannot bring it about. Luther wrote to Prior Bercken in 1517: "It is no miracle if a man falls; but it is a miracle if a man gets up again and remains standing afterwards." (XXI, 534 [St. L. 21a, 24; not in Am. Ed.]) He meant this in all seriousness, as all converted children of God know. They cannot understand where it comes from that they have come to knowledge and others have not. They are perhaps from a large family, and they alone have found Christ; the other members of the family have heard the same Word of God, but those have rejected it with their feet; it has only provoked them to ridicule. But these soon realized it, they experienced what Lydia experienced, whose heart was opened by the Lord when the apostle preached to her. In the same way, Peter's sermon pierced the hearts of some, so that they asked: "Dear brothers, what shall we do to be saved?" while others thought it was a mockery. Where did this come from? We do not know, it is up to God alone.

Of course, this much we know: they willfully resisted, for if they had not willfully resisted, they would certainly have been converted. But why the good Lord did not convert them by force — that was also in his power — we do not know. In short, the conversion of man is a great mystery. Whoever thinks: “It is easy to say where it comes from that some are converted and others not, that some are just willing, accept everything nicely, and so they are converted, but others are malicious, they do not accept it, and so they are not converted”, is very much mistaken. Indeed, if this were as clear as it is made out to be, the whole of Christianity would be no mystery at all. Then it would be just such a doctrine as all other doctrines, which say: if you are good, if you are pious, if you improve yourself, you shall go to heaven; but if you are wicked, ungodly, if you do not improve yourself, you shall go to hell. This is the teaching of the whole world and of the old Adam, with which we come into the world immediately. But God's Word says the opposite; it says: if you are to be saved, God must have mercy on you; therefore, when He comes with His grace, do not resist Him freely! Hence the apostle also says, "Work for your salvation with fear and trembling," and does not add, "For it depends above all on your cooperation, as is expected," but, lest anyone should think this for God's sake, he continues, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do, according to His good pleasure." With this he wants to say: Man, you cannot convert yourself; therefore, when God knocks at your door, do not resist, when God calls you, answer him quickly,

when God's Holy Spirit comes to your heart, do not resist! You must not think: yes, now I have no time, now I have no desire, I must first participate in this pleasure, I must first gain the advantage, I am now in a position that I cannot be so concerned about being saved; I want to postpone it. Oh, the apostle wants to say, "work for your salvation with fear and trembling!" That does not mean all kinds of self-doing, all kinds of self-wrestling and fighting to persuade the dear God to give us grace, Paul is not even thinking about that, because you can do nothing, God has to do everything. Therefore, when He comes, lie down at his feet and say, "If you want to have mercy on me, you have my heart, my soul! — Who among us, if he is a righteous Christian, would not have to confess: I truly would not have sought the dear God if He had not sought me out; I would never have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ if the Holy Spirit had not placed this precious good of faith in my heart; I have not acquired it by my own doing, I have not prayed for it, I have not fought for it, it has come upon me in this way!? I have a brother who is unconverted, I was worse than him, the gospel came to him too, and he blasphemed and mocked it, and I could not resist him, I had to say: oh yes, this is the kind of teaching I need, I had to lie down before my Savior and say: there you have me, you are the only one who can take away my burden of sin. I don't know how that happened; I only know one thing: for so long I didn't want to, for so long I resisted, for so long I let myself be held back, but finally he became too powerful for me and overcame me, he persuaded me, and so I was converted. Anyone who is truly converted will have to speak like this, and anyone who thinks that he did it so beautifully himself, that he was so willing, that he helped himself, but that it also cost him a lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of prayer, is a miserable hypocrite blinded by the devil; he can do nothing, nothing, God has to do everything. David also knew this when he prayed: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." [Psalm 51:10] God alone is the creator of the new man and he who has made his own heart does not have this heart, but has a false, lying, pharisaical heart. Thus the Lord says through the mouth of Isaiah 65:1: "I am found of them that sought Me not", and Paul says: "God, who called the light to shine out of darkness, has given a bright light into our hearts." Yes, just as a fish is caught with a hook, so people are caught by the Word of God; just as God is the creator of light in general, so he is also the creator of the light of faith. This is biblical doctrine, this is also Lutheran doctrine, which gives all glory to God alone, but which is of course also an abomination and an annoyance to all Pharisees in the world, even to those who rail against the Pharisees, for there cannot be a worse Pharisee

than the one who ascribes the honor of conversion to himself, while he owes it to God. So also [Johann] Arndt says: “Adam would not have been found if God had not called him.” So say all our orthodox fathers.

Dr. Heinrich Müller writes: "As much as we appropriate to ourselves in the work of salvation, so much do we take from God, denying His honor and the power of Christ's death." (Himml. Liebeskuß. Chap. 7. § 7. p. 70.)

How we must also rejoice here that we are children of the Lutheran Church. What a terrible deception the Methodists, for example, live in! They just say that they have "done away" with conversion, with salvation, as they express it; they say: I know I am converted, but it has cost me something. How much I have wept, how many a night have I spent lying on my knees and struggling! Yes, poor man, you have fought, but not with the dear God, but with a cloud, you have only played an outward game, and if you had sweated blood, all would have been lost; for you can only get a different heart if God gives it to you, and what you have done is all lost work. Christ says: "I tread the winepress alone."

Balthasar Meisner writes: "Everything that is attributed to free will in the conversion of man is subtracted from divine grace." (Ανθρωπολογίας sacrae disp. 21. p. 3..)

Thus everything that is attributed to oneself in the work of conversion is taken away from God, for God has said that he wants to do everything on his own. Therefore it is also possible for a true Christian to know that he is converted and yet not become proud. He can confidently say: I am a precious child of God, a saint, and if I do not go to heaven, who can go there? because he knows that he has done nothing at all towards conversion. That is why he speaks so purely in praise and glory of God's eternal mercy, while the one who thinks he has contributed himself cannot possibly boast of his conversion without being proud.

Kromayer writes: "In the article on free will we give the honor to God's grace, that He alone gives both the willing and the accomplishing in the conversion of man." (Scrutiniumreligionum, p. 334.) [The following paragraph was omitted in the 1983 CPH translation.]

All sects, such as the Baptists and Methodists, talk so much about grace that one thinks that they are not proud at all, that they attribute everything to grace. But that is nothing but empty talk, it is not true; they may say so with their mouths, but basically they attribute everything to themselves. Because they fought, because they did this and that, because they went here and there and did this and that, that's why they are converted. Be as faithful as I am, do as I do, then you will be converted, they say. No, if God does not convert us, we will remain in our sins for all eternity, He must

do everything. He must come before us, He must first bring us the Word, we do not seek it ourselves; and when He has brought it, then He must come with it to our hearts, He must enlighten our minds, move our wills, dispel our prejudices, take away our blindness and darkness, our reluctance; And when He has made the beginning, we should not think that we can now convert ourselves with the newly given powers; no, God must also continue, at every stage up to conversion God must do everything all by Himself. Only when we are converted do we begin to work ourselves; the new man must first be born, then he begins to move, to speak, to do; before that he does nothing, just as a child does nothing to be born; but as soon as it is born, it begins to make sounds and to move.

So man cannot decide for himself. Many people imagine conversion to be like being placed at a crossroads where the paths to heaven and hell diverge; now man is given the choice of which path he wants to take; if he takes the right path, he will be converted, if he takes the wrong path, he will be lost. But this likewise robs God of all honor, for if a person can decide for himself to do good, there must be something good in him, and the decision itself would be a good work that he does before conversion. So what do the Iowans do with their false doctrine of decision but rob God of his glory? Therefore, when they fight against our Lutheran doctrine, they are fighting against God's honor. So also writes

Calov writes: "God has committed Himself by the most certain and most holy promises, that He Himself will decide (determinare) for conversion the man who is in the workshop of the Holy Spirit and does not maliciously resist the means of salvation." (Cited from a responsum by Dörscheus and Dannhauer against Latermann. System. X, 54.)

Those who hold the false doctrine of decision, of course, say: “Our doctrine does not take the glory from God at all, for we do not say that man decides by his own natural powers, but we say that he does it with the powers of grace that are given to him, so nothing is attributed to man at all”. But they do not consider that powers can only be possessed and used by those who are already alive. Now take a stick or a stone and imagine that powers are blown into it — the stone would not care about the powers at all, and everything would remain the same. Forces presuppose a thing which uses the forces; therefore man must already be converted in order to be converted; he must already be awakened in order to be awakened; he must already be renewed in order to be renewed. That is

obviously pure nonsense. No, as soon as man is so far advanced that he can use the divine powers of grace, he is also converted, then the good God has already decided or determined him, then He has already given him a new heart, then He has already born him again through his Holy Spirit, then He is already awakened in the biblical sense. We say: in the biblical sense, because the word "awakening" is often misunderstood. The Pietists understand awakening to be such an undecided state that a person is no longer completely spiritually dead, but not yet fully alive; but this is also nonsense, because there is no middle ground between death and life. Either a person is still dead in sin, or he is awakened from his death of sin. If the latter is the case, he is alive; if he is alive, he is a new man, a spiritual and converted man. Scripture therefore makes no distinction at all between conversion, awakening and being born again. Sometimes this great, mysterious work of grace is described in one way, sometimes in another.

Now someone might say: yes, but you will admit that someone can hear God's Word, and it makes an impression on him, and this can happen for a long time, and yet he is not converted; what will you call this then? To this we must reply: if the impression made on him by God's Word has really produced a new state of awakening, he is converted, however weak this conversion may be; but if the impression consists merely in the fact that for the time God's Word comes to him he feels something of it, this merely proves that God's Word has worked on his soul from without, but it has not yet taken up residence in him, it has not yet produced a new state in him. God stands before the heart of man, as it were, like a general standing before a castle he wants to conquer. He fires at it, cannonballs and bombs fly into the castle, there is a fire here, there is a fire there, a tower collapses here, a breach is made there, but the one who wants to conquer the castle is still outside, not yet inside. The inhabitants of the castle do nothing of the sort to surrender the castle, on the contrary, they defend it with all their might; they plug up the breach, where there is a fire they quickly extinguish it, and at night they rebuild the tower. It is the same when the good Lord converts a person. God bombs the castle of his heart, man feels the bullets, and the thought arises in him: you must become a different person; if you stay like this, you will be lost; if you die today, you will go to hell. But that is still nothing other than the fire of the cannons or the breach that has been made. But those who are in the fortress do nothing more than try to repair the damage that the besieger has inflicted on them; man does the same with conversion, he always resists. Every resistance is as it were a rebuilding of the breach,

every rejection of the divine power of grace is as it were a dousing of the flames with water that are already burning in the heart. Do the inhabitants of the castle, if they love their fortress, do anything to let the enemy in? No, they do everything they can to prevent the besiegers from doing so. He brings out the heaviest artillery and does everything he can to conquer the castle. Everywhere is ablaze, the defenders are losing their ammunition, their food is running out, they are facing starvation. Now they say: well, we must surrender the castle; in their hearts, of course, they are thinking: we would rather put a bullet in the enemy's body than see them enter our castle with the sound of music. And so we do. When the preacher stands in the pulpit and says to the listener: you must be converted, then the listener becomes angry and thinks: I won't go back to church, I don't know how it makes me feel, it makes me melancholy. But behold, Sunday comes, and there it knocks on his heart again: you should go after all, it will probably not be so dangerous, — and he cannot stay at home, he goes again; and this can probably last for months, even years, he always lets God's bullets hit his inner being, and he resists, until finally God conquers the castle of his heart, then he cannot help it, he must surrender to the victor; that is conversion. But now the time begins when the inhabitants of the castle submit to the victor, now the cooperation begins, which previously consisted of nothing more than resistance.

Holy Scripture compares conversion with creation, for we are called new creatures. But what can the thing that is to be created do to be created? what did the world do to be created? it was not even there yet, so it could do nothing. What did Lazarus do to be made alive again? For conversion is called in the Scriptures a making alive — for he was dead; therefore he could do nothing. Christ did it; he said: "Lazarus, come out!" and now he came out. Or what have we done for our birth? Nothing, because it all happened without us. Only when we have been created, born, made alive, only then does our cooperation begin, not before. All those who ascribe to man a part in conversion therefore overturn the whole teaching of Scripture on conversion, take the glory from God and ascribe it to man. For, firstly, we are completely dead in sin, so that we can do nothing at all towards conversion, and secondly, the apostle says that "God works in us both to will and to do", and he adds: "according to his good pleasure". So we should not think: God saves us through the means of grace, now there is no need; as soon as I use them, I will be saved; no, it is God who converts us according to His good pleasure, i.e. if He wants to convert you today,

do not resist and do not think: I want to wait until tomorrow. God certainly wants to save everyone; but He did not say that He would wait for us every hour; if He wanted to save you today and you did not want to, he may say: I don't want to bother with such a rascal anymore. That is why it is so terrible when even Christians are so lazy and sluggish in listening to the divine Word, when they allow themselves to be kept away from church so easily. Perhaps it's just Examination Day, or someone is preaching who they don't expect much from, they quickly stay at home and think: oh, that won't do you much good. O you unhappy person, perhaps that was the hour in which God wanted to convert you, and if you are already converted, perhaps it was the hour in which God wanted to give you a real blessing so that you would not fall away. It is not the bell that calls us, but the good Lord, and where there is no bell and time calls us, we should think that time is the mouth of God calling to us: go to your church!

That is why

Article V of the Augsburg Confession says: "To obtain such fa, God has instituted the ministry of preaching, has given the gospel and the sacrament, by which he gives, as a means, the Holy Spirit, who, where and when he wills, works faith in those who hear the gospel, teaching that through Christ's merit, not through our own, we have a gracious God, if we believe this."

Note the words "where and when He wills", it does not mean: whom He wills, that would be Calvinism, because God wants to work faith for salvation in every person, no one is absolutely rejected by God. But God does not allow the place and time of conversion to be prescribed to Him, rather He wants to prescribe it: if God calls me today to be saved, I should not willfully resist. I cannot say: I am dead in sins, how can I believe? As soon as God calls you powerfully through His Word, the natural resistance is taken away, and if you willfully resist, then you will not be converted. It is indeed God's work alone if a person is converted; but it is only man's work if he remains unconverted. It is a terrible sin when God calls us and we say: I have no time today, come back tomorrow, or when I am old, or in the time of trouble, I will do as the thief did; God will not allow himself to be mocked.

Even passages such as: "choose whom you will serve", or "come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden", do not contain any synergism. They are to be taken in the same way as when the Savior says: "Lazarus, come forth." Someone else could have said of Christ: does he not know that Lazarus is dead? Fools could well have spoken thus; but the disciples did not mock in this way, nor did Mary and Martha

when the Savior said this. Why, they knew that when the Lord Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth," He would give him leave to come forth. It is quite a different thing when the Lord Jesus says: "Come out", than when we say it. We can call into a grave in the churchyard as often as we like: Man, come out! the dead will not come; but when the Lord will call out on the Last Day: "Come out", then the dead will come quickly, for it is easier for the Lord to give life and wake up the dead than for us to lift a little finger. When He speaks, it happens, when He gives, it is written. So when it says in Holy Scripture: "Repent and be converted", we should not think that this means that man himself can repent and be converted. Some, of course, think that because the prophets speak in this way, it must be a real mockery that the prophets make of people if they cannot convert themselves; but only unintelligent people speak in this way. Those words are God's words, they enter the heart and bring the power to repent and be converted; that is why someone can be converted on these words, because God converts him with these words. We say that man is converted, but we do not mean that man himself does something to be converted, but just as we say of a ship, for example, that it has turned around while the helmsman has turned it around, so God does the same with man. If the Holy Spirit, the helmsman of our soul, has turned us around, then we have turned ourselves around. The ship's heaviness only prevents it from turning around quickly, and it is the same with us; we give God so much trouble that He can only turn us around with difficulty, indeed He cannot convert most of us at all.

All this shows that our Church also speaks in this doctrine, and that we must speak with her:

To God Be the Glory!

It was resolved to begin with point 12 of thesis III (doctrine of the Election of Grace) at the next Synod Assembly.