OJ Found Guilty

Brett Meyer on Objective Justification:

It is my contention that Objective Justification as taught by the WELS is false doctrine. It's a doctrine spawned by men who rejected the Gospel, the promise of forgiveness of sins through faith alone in Christ, and went about to create a doctrine with which they could comfort themselves that they were indeed in the fold of Christ. They needed confirmation before faith that indeed their sins were forgiven, that they were already declared justified and righteous because they received no comfort from the Holy Spirit since they rejected His faith as being unable to do anything and simply view God's faith as a withered hand feebly accepting what must have already been declared. They are trying to get into the fold by climbing over the fence their own way instead of the through the narrow gate of faith, worked by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament alone.

It is a challenge to contend with any OJ adherent because by using Scripture and the Confessions they are pinned against a wall with a flood of Scriptural, and of course Confessional, contradictions and heresies that their doctrine produces (Kokomo was just the tip of the iceberg). And when they finally see the blasphemous results (one of which is a God who killed his own Son so that he could wash the whole world in His blood while they were in a condition of being dead and decaying with the stench of sin, make them righteous just like his Son, then not work the faith in their heart to believe it and then condemn them to hell for the sin of unbelief even though His Son paid for that sin too (we were all born with the sin of unbelief folks - it's not the unforgivable sin Romans 11:23). They declare that those are just the mysteries of God that we can't understand.

Would any OJ disciple agree to this portion of the Lutheran Confessions?

Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Justification, ""80] Christ's sake. Thus, therefore, we prove the minor proposition. The wrath of God cannot be appeased if we set against it our own works, because Christ has been set forth as a Propitiator, so that for His sake, the Father may become reconciled to us. But Christ is not apprehended as a Mediator except by faith. Therefore, by faith alone we obtain remission of sins, when we comfort our hearts with confidence in the mercy promised for 81] Christ's sake."

Before anyone states that this section only deals with the WELS definition of Subjective Justification note that it says, "The wrath of God cannot be appeased if we set against it our own works, because Christ has been set forth as a Propitiator.....But Christ is not apprehended as a Mediator except by faith." So the Confessions see that until Christ is apprehended as a Mediator the world is not reconciled to God but under God's wrath. This is most certainly in the realm of when the WELS' Objective Justification takes place.

In Christ,

Brett Meyer