Christ wants this forgiveness to be offered and conveyed to all men through the Gospel and the Sacraments (Mat. In other words, there is forgiveness for all through Christ’s active and passive obedience. There are means of grace because there is, 1st, Christ’s objective justification or reconciliation (2 Cor. Prayer is not a means of grace, but faith in action. It is the very opposite of a means of grace, namely a “ministration of death,” 2 Cor. The Law, though also a divine Word and used by the Holy Spirit in a preparatory way to work contrition, without which there can be no saving faith, is not, properly speaking, a means of grace. 1:16–17) but since in the Sacraments the Gospel appears as the verbum visibile (visible Word) in distinction from the verbum audibile (audible Word), it is rightly said that the means of grace are the Gospel and the Sacraments.
Properly speaking, there is but 1 means of grace: the Gospel of Christ (Rom.
The term “means of grace” denotes the divinely instituted means by which God offers, bestows, and seals to men forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The following article is quoted in full from the Christian Cyclopedia provided by The LCMS.
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