A. Berean has left a new comment on your post "Another Jack - Not Kilcrease - Suffers from Delusi...":
"Does God give people faith through His word before He forgives them, or does God forgive the world before He gives people faith through His word?"
This is a false dilemma. Trying to set forgiveness before faith or faith before forgiveness is not what Scripture does or the Confessions. Remember what the Formula of Concord says in Article III:
"the righteousness of faith IS the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and our adoption as God's children only on account of the obedience of Christ, which through faith alone, out of pure grace, is imputed for righteousness to all true believers, and on account of it they are absolved from all their unrighteousness."
These two things (Faith and Forgiveness) do not exist without each other. The atonement stands independent of faith (faith does not effect the atonement). But faith and forgiveness are intimately connected.
