# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 08 19_S202
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

202

tification itself. For the chief question and the chief point in this controversy is this:

"Namely, what that is, for the sake of which God receives the sinner into grace; what one must and can set against the judgment of God, that one be not condemned by the strict sentence of the Law; what faith must lay hold of and bring forward; upon what it must lean, when it would deal with God, that it may obtain forgiveness of sins; what must intervene and mediate, that God for its sake may be reconciled and gracious to the sinner, who has deserved wrath and eternal damnation; whereof the conscience must firmly and certainly believe that for its sake sonship is given to us; whereon one can safely and surely rest the confidence that we for its sake shall be received unto eternal life, etc. Whether it be the satisfaction, obedience and merit of our Mediator, the Son of God; or else the new life begun in us, love, and the other virtues in us.

This is the real chief point of that controversy over doctrine, which is so designedly and so craftily covered and hidden in the Tridentine Decrees; and that I have explained it simply and plainly in many words, and set it forth, I have done for this reason, that the reader may see that it is no mere strife over words, but a very weighty matter, wholly necessary for the consciences, which is in controversy in this article. And if all the treatises in this article be referred to this one chief point as their sole aim, then everything will become much plainer.

Since the questions set forth above are most closely joined and entangled with the word to justify, the true sense and the right doctrine of justification can best be explained from the proper and true meaning of that word.

On the Word Justification.

The questions set forth above are so closely joined with the word to justify, indeed, as it were, wrapped up in this word, that to whatever thing the justification of faith be ascribed, or it be said of it that it justifies us: it follows at once of itself that this is the thing for the sake of which we are received of God into grace; that this thing faith must set against the judgment of God, that the person be not condemned; that for the sake of this thing God become gracious to us again, bestow sonship and receive us unto eternal life. And this is so certain and manifest in such a degree that even the Tridentine gentlemen say: "Justification is a translation from that state in which man is born a child of wrath, into the state of grace and sonship." and that they say further: the description of justification is given in that saying of Paul, Coloss. 1. He hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. The reader sees that they themselves allude not indistinctly to the true meaning of the word to justify; but soon afterward, where it comes to the matter itself, where it is to be explained what the justification of the sinner is, there to justify means nothing else to them than that a habit, or an inwardly cleaving quality of righteousness, is infused into man through the Spirit of renewal. And indeed, that a new life is begun in believers through the Holy Ghost, that we also teach: but we say that we are not justified before God by this new life; that is, that our new life is not that thing for the sake of which we are received into grace and obtain forgiveness of sins; nor is it that thing upon which faith should lean, when it deals with God, that we be received and taken up as children and unto eternal life. The Tridentine Decrees on justification are therefore composed of very much and manifold deceit, as we have shown thus far. But it is manifest from what we have thus far said and set forth, that the true sense of Scripture concerning justification cannot be more conveniently and fittingly explained, understood and preserved, nor can the opposing corruptions and falsifications be more rightly, plainly and pointedly refuted, than from the proper and true meaning of the word to justify (namely, in the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Scripture especially). The Papists also know this well; for where they do once make mention of the proper meaning of the word in the Hebrew, they touch upon it only very slightly, lightly and superficially. For it is more suited to their purpose and more serviceable, if they can abuse the analogy and likeness of the Latin word-formation and composition; that, as Sanctificare, that is, to sanctify, means as much as to make holy; so also justificare, to justify, shall mean as much as to make righteous. For in this way they can at once turn the concept of justification aside to inwardly cleaving and indwelling qualities. We shall therefore note a few things on this, as to what in this article the proper and true meaning of the word to justify is; and this shall be done in such a manner that it be shown at the same time that the Scripture takes away and denies justification before God, unto forgiveness of sins and eternal life, to our virtues, new qualities and works, and ascribes and assigns it rather to the satisfaction, obedience and merit of our Mediator, the Son of God. Afterward we shall show that the Tridentine Council condemns that doctrine which is precisely the proper and constant doctrine of all the prophets and apostles; and in its stead substitutes a wholly different and strange doctrine, which plainly conflicts with the Scripture.

But the Papists assert flatly and outright that the word to justify means such a change and passage from unrighteousness to righteousness as when, in physical movements, passages and alterations, one quality is driven out and effaced, and another introduced. For that, they say, is the meaning and import of the formation and composition of the Latin word justificare, to make righteous, as it is in the words sanctificare, to make holy, vivificare, to make alive, calefacere, to make warm, frigefacere, to make cold, and so forth. And indeed I know well that the Fathers often use the word justificare, to justify, in this meaning: but here the question is of the right usage and proper meaning of the word in the languages concerned. In the Latin language, then, among approved authors (who wrote pure and good Latin), I do not know whether a single example, in a single passage, is to be found, that the word justificare, (to justify) means either to instil into someone a habit, that is, a capacity and aptitude, together with an inclination to something, or to pour in the quality of righteousness. I formerly laid this before the Jesuits, and challenged them, since they rest upon the analogy of the Latin composition, to produce an example from those authors from whom the usage and meaning of the Latin language is proved. But their advocate Andradius, after anxiously collecting everything, can bring forward nothing of the kind.

In the common Greek language the word dikaioun, to justify, has two meanings: first, it means to hold or declare something to be righteous (here follow in Chemnitz a number of examples from Greek authors, which confirm the meaning given); secondly, it means to inflict the penalty of death upon one, supplicio afficere, (as one also says in German: to do a man his right) and especially when, after a public, judicial hearing, one is punished and put to death according to verdict and sentence, and so his right is done him. And of this meaning of the word examples are found everywhere in the Greek writers. In the heathen authors of the Greek language, therefore, the word dikaioun, (to justify) does not occur at all in the meaning for which the Papists contend. It remains, then, to consider the usage and meaning of this word in the holy language (Greek and Hebrew). There the judicial or juristic (as it is commonly called) usage and meaning of this word is so manifest and settled that even Andradius does not dare to deny it. Anxiously he seeks out examples, in order to prove that in many passages of Scripture the word to justify does not mean from sins