The Lutheran conception is centered upon the person of the sinner, rather than on his sins. It is the person who is forgiven his sins. Where the person is forgiven but one sin, all his sins are forgiven; where the least sin is retained, all sins are retained, and none forgiven, for "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). The value of the confession lies not in the confession itself, but in that, through this confession, we turn to Christ and the word of His promise.[6] In Luther's opinion, there are three species of confession.[7] One to God, in one's own heart, which is of absolute necessity, and which the true believer is always making; a second to our neighbor, when we have done him a wrong, which is also of divine command; and, a third to a "brother," "wherein we receive from the mouth of that brother the word of consolation sent from God." [8] This last species, the verbum solatii ex ore fratris, while not commanded in Holy Scripture, is commended because of the great value which it has for those who fed the need of consolation, and the instruction for which it affords the opportunity. It is only by the individualizing of the confession that the comfort to be derived by the individualizing of the promise can be obtained. Hence, as the Augsburg Confession declares (Article XI.): "Private" [i. e., personal] "confession is retained because of the absolution."[9] Not that, without the absolution, there is not forgiveness, but that, through it, the one absolved rejoices all the more in the possession of that which he possessed even before the absolution, and goes forth from it strengthened to meet temptation because of the new assurance that he has of God's love. This form of confession, therefore, instead of being a condition of forgiveness, as is our inner confession to God, is a privilege of the justified man, who, before he has made such confession, has been forgiven, and whose sins that lie still concealed from his knowledge are just as truly forgiven as those over which he grieves.