s the underlying quest of his life as a monk and as a teacher in the
university, through monasticism to get to heaven. It was only when he
had found Christ, and realized that his sins had been taken away through
the atoning work of the Son of God, that he found peace. It is His
person and work upon which the doctrine of our Church primarily rests.*
*"Luther, when he said that justification by faith was the article
of a standing or falling Church, stated the exact truth. He meant to
say, in the terms of the New Testament, especially of Paul, that God in
Christ is the sole and sufficient Saviour. He affirmed what was in him
no abstract doctrine, but the most concrete of all realities, Incarnated
in the person and passion of Jesus Christ, drawing from Him its eternal
and universal significance."--Fairbairn, "The Place of Christ in Modern
Theology," page 159.

In the words of the Small Catechism, Luther still teaches our children
this foundation doctrine of our Church:

"I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from
eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who
has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, secured and delivered me
from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil; not with
silver and gold, but with His holy and precious blood, and with His
innocent sufferings and death, in order that I might be His, live under
Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness,
innocence and blessedness."

But while we thus find in the Son of God and in His atoning work the
foundation of the faith of our Church, many obstacles had been placed in
the way of securing this redemption. Legalistic conditions made it
impossible for the sinner to know that his sins had been taken away. It
was here that the Lutheran Reformation pointed the way to a return to
the simplicity of the Gospel by its Scriptural definition of
justification. _Sola fide_, by faith alone, was the keynote of the
Reformation. Be sure that you bring back _sola_ was Luther's admonition
to his friends, who went to Augsburg while he himself remained at
Coburg.

Thus justification by faith became the material principle of
Protestantism and a second foundation stone of Lutheranism. It is true
that Calvin and the Reformed churches also accepted this principle, but
they did not begin with it. Their system was based on the idea of the
absoluteness of God. The Lutheran system emphasizes the love