Both the Gospel that is preached and the Gospel that occurs in the Sacrament contain one and the same gift, though in different forms: the forgiveness of sins. This is not some doctrine about the possibility of a forgiveness of sins, not an illustration of such a possibility, but it is the actual forgiveness itself, this unfathomable miracle of God's mercy, that blots out our guilt and gives us everything that comes with forgiveness: life and salvation, redemption of the whole person, both soul and body. Both the Gospel and the Sacrament bring this forgiveness, for in both the Lamb of God who died for the sin of the world is present. -- Hermann Sasse, *We Confess: the Sacraments* p. 26.
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