# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 03 19_S114
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

114

peculiar to her and not to be found outside of the Church.*) But lest the dear disciples should think that, through the unfaithfulness which they had shown at Christ's last sufferings, they had lost the power entrusted to them, Christ repeated that commission to them once more after His resurrection, and said unto them: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (John 20, 23.)

*) It is therefore a doctrine wholly contrary to God's Word, according to which the office of the keys, though indeed by divine order it is publicly administered by the preachers, is represented as a power residing not in the Church, but in the preaching office, as in a special estate. According to God's Word the Church has rather all things: "All things are yours," Paul cries to the Corinthians. (I. 3, 21.) All power which the preacher has is therefore taken from the common treasure of the Church, and has been conferred upon him first by God through the Church. The papistical doctrine, that the office of the keys is a peculiar power of preachers or priests, our Church has therefore always decidedly rejected. With this the objection also falls to nothing, that the doctrine of absolution was devised by the Lutheran preachers for the increase of their prestige, and is held so firmly.

Herewith, then, the Church and her servants are so clearly and plainly granted the power to forgive and to retain sins on earth that no further proof is required. Those who nevertheless deny this power to the Church therefore commit a great outrage. They contradict the Son of God to His face and declare His word a lie. They commit once more the sin to which Satan once sought to seduce the first men, when he cried to them: "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (1 Mos. 3, 1.)

The words of the Son are so bright and mighty that therefore even the fanatics often seek to give themselves the appearance as if they also believed that the office of the keys has not died out.**) But, dear reader, do not let yourself be deceived by such deceitful concessions. For it is said that by this Christ gave to the Apostles only the power to reveal the conditions under which a man should obtain forgiveness of sins or be excluded from it. But who ever heard that he forgives a man his sins who sets before him the conditions under which he may obtain forgiveness? That is an interpretation of Scripture such as is current only among the commonest, most spiritless Rationalists, who also say that Christ has redeemed us only in so far as He has taught us the conditions under which we could be redeemed from our sins; that by His blood He has redeemed us, for example, in this sense, that by His patient bleeding, suffering, and dying He showed us how one must practice the virtue of love and patience and thereby redeem oneself. But that is not to expound the Word of God, but to read into it and to refute it; not to explain, but to pervert; not to unlock its sweet kernel of comfort, but to take it out and lock it up; in a word, to hold it for mockery and jest and to trample it under foot.

**) Among others, the German Methodists here put on this sheep's clothing, in order thereby to deceive the Lutherans and to lure them to themselves. They have published a tract on the question: "Has the office of the keys died out or not?" In this miserable scrawl the writer goes so far in the lying distortion of the Lutheran doctrine of absolution as to assert that we Lutherans teach that for a salutary receiving of absolution not faith, but only the confession: "I am sorry for my sins and will amend," is necessary. We Lutherans can only rejoice when we see how the fanatics must resort to lies when they wish to attack our doctrine with even some semblance.

But, it is said, where did the Apostles absolve, as the preachers of the Lutheran Church do? — We answer: It is indeed true that in the time of the Apostles they had no pulpits from which the form of absolution was read at the close of the sermon, as now in the Lutheran churches; it is indeed true that they then had no confessionals furnished with lattices, from which the hand was laid upon the head of him who wished to commune, and upon the private confession made by him the forgiveness of his sins was spoken: but although we do not find in the apostolic Church this form, this manner and fashion, these ceremonies of the administration of the keys, yet we find the same thing. Consider first, dear reader, when the holy Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" —: what is that other than a manifest absolution, which Paul here speaks to the fallen but penitent Corinthians? (1 Cor. 6, 9—11.) Yea, as often as the holy Apostles assure Christians: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus — By grace are ye saved — Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy" — (Gal. 3, 26.; Ephes. 2, 8.; 1 Pet. 2, 10.): what is that other than when the Lord said to the man sick of the palsy: "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee"? (Matth. 9, 2.) Consider further, when Ananias said to Saul: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins" (Acts 22, 16.), what is that other than if Ananias had said: Let me absolve thee? Was it not a fortunate thing that there were then as yet no Methodists? Would they not have said to Ananias: Ah, thou carnal, blind, and unconverted man, how canst thou say that by water baptism a man is absolved and his sins washed away! The Spirit, the Spirit must do that! — But the dear Apostles also expressly ascribe to themselves the power to forgive and to retain sins, and they have also often exercised it with express words and in the most proper form. In the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, in the 2nd chapter, one reads that once an incestuous man, upon the admonition of the Apostle Paul in his first Epistle (ch. 5, 1—5), was put under the ban by the whole congregation and was so severely punished "of many" in their assembly that this sinner not only came to himself, but also stood on the brink of despair. What does the holy Apostle now do? He writes, among other things, the following words: "Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many; so that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ." 2 Cor. 2, 6—10. Can it be more plainly declared that the holy Apostle did in truth forgive sins in Christ's stead and in the name of the congregation? —

This testimony is so clear that even many enemies of absolution do not dare to deny that the holy Apostles really had and exercised the power to forgive and to retain sins. But, it is said, how will you prove that the present preachers of the Gospel also possess this power? Does not St. Paul himself cry out in another place: "Are all apostles?" (1 Cor. 12, 29.) To this let the answer be: It is true, there is a great difference between an Apostle and a present servant of the Church: the Apostles were infallible in doctrine, the present servants of the Church are not; the Apostles had the power to work miracles and to prophesy, the present servants of the Church have not; the Apostles were called immediately by Christ, the Son of God, the present servants of the Church mediately through men; the Apostles had the calling to go into all the world, the present servants of the Church are confined to the field of the "flock of Christ which is committed to them." But as concerns the office of preaching the Gospel, and what is connected therewith, there is no difference. Or does the word of the Lord: "Preach the Gospel," apply only to the Apostles? Does His command: "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," apply only to the Twelve? Does His ordinance: "This do in remembrance of me," apply only to the chosen disciples? — No, Christ says expressly to them concerning those to whom they should preach: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matth. 28, 20. As certainly, therefore, as those commands, to teach, to baptize, and to keep the holy Supper, concern Christians or the Church of all times, and as certainly as she is to keep all that was commanded to the disciples, so certainly does the command also apply to the Church of all times, unto the end of the world,