This is a transitional Lords day as it ties together all the things discussed before in the previous catechism questions and answers. That faith, being vital, will determine a lot of things. This Lords day is also historically motivated as faith was the righteousness of Christ that was infused into one based on merits in the church. It also caused a divide in the Reformed Church in Lutherism in regards to the Lord's supper. The main question is where does faith come from? The Gospel preaching works faith and the sacraments CONFIRM it. Today we talk about subjective and vibrant faith. The living faith that is the knowledge and confidence whereby we are saved!

We have the means and the grace. God uses a vehicle to impart the knowledge to us whereby we know we are saved. (The way God imparts to us is in a subjective way.) Grace in scripture literally means beauty. By grace we are made beautiful in God's sight. God's unmerited favor which He imparts unto us! (Something had already happened to Nicodemus to make him inquisitive and come to Christ...regeneration!) The regenerated person made inquisitive whereby they hear the preaching of the Gospel so there is an affect. Dead corpses will not hear the gospel if preached to them because they are dead. First this is the work of God in the believer that makes them apt to her the Gospel and bring them to fruition in faith through the preaching and by the sacraments. God works living faith through the very preaching of the Gospel. This does not occur apart from sin consciousness.

How they work: Romans 10. Christ preaches His Gospel through means that is the power of God through the preacher. God binds Himself to the Word which the Holy Spirit binds upon us and the sacraments strengthen that conviction that Christ has made alive! God brings us to the KNOWLEDGE of our salvation and continues to confirm us in it. Ministers take a side note that if this preaching of the Gospel is God's means you may not preach anything else as God uses it to bring to conscious faith! And the grace of God are not in the elements but are signs and seals that show us experientially what we believe! Faith is strengthened when it contemplates what are signified in those elements.

What they accomplish: The fruit. God calls through the preaching of the Gospel HIS children that works itself out whereby we and our children say "I believe!" And the sacraments confirm and re-confirm what we believe. God will do His will in and through us and we have the assurance with God's indisputable seal that what we see is true!