Night of the Lepus is more than a movie.
Caution - if you click on the link for Lepus -
the screen will fill with plump, slo-mo attack rabbits. Shudder.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Ojective Justification Question":
UOJ begs the question: Did the believers in the promise who died before Christ died for their sins go to heaven with their righteousness counted to them by grace through faith, or did they remain in some sort of way-station until they were forgiven with the whole world?
Seems to me that if forgiveness comes to us apart from the means of grace, all of the folks who died had to wait outside the gates of heaven until Christ died.
***
GJ - UOJ offers a host of Biblical contradictions, all ignored by its advocates.
You brought up a good question. Abraham is rightly called the father of faith, because he believed in the promised Savior, and it was reckoned as righteousness (justification by faith). God's Promises made Abraham a believer, but in trusting God's Word the patriarch received the blessing of forgiveness.
KJV Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
KJV Romans 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. 3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
UOJ claims everyone was declared forgiven the moment Christ died (one version) or the moment He rose from the dead (another version). They cannot agree on the timing of their idiosyncratic heresy. So - how was Abraham objectively or universally justified? Or when?
Instead of allowing the Atonement to be a mystery revealed in God's Word, the advocates try to improve on it with wild, distorting, and absurd claims. "All the people in Hell are guilt-free saints." They must wonder why they are suffering, since they are guilt-free saints. Although the word-group faith is the most frequent by far in the New Testament, the Stormtroopers delight in attacking faith.
Brenner explained, "Faith is not a virtue..." So who said it was?
One extremist signed his Internet post, "An unbeliever."
Sig Becker seemed eager to outdo the Kokomo Statements, even though he had trouble with them.
If UOJ is such a glorious comfort, why does it cause such discomfort? Why does WELS lie about Kokomo?
The true Gospel is a source of comfort, unless someone has mangled it.
---
Anonymous wrote earlier on this post -
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2009/07/not-every-wels-member-agrees-with-ski.html
The issue of objective or universal justification has been bothering me for some time. I've always been taught and used the term objective (not universal) justification. I've seen the term condemned here, but it seemed that what I believed about justification, faith, and the means of grace also agreed with what I've seen here.
I've just read the Justification chapter of "Thy Strong Word," (as suggested by another poster here), and doing so really did help me understand the issue. I think the following passage describes my use of the term, which I will avoid in the future:
"However, in this muddle caused by false teachers, we must allow for those who use the term Objective Justification as a synonym for the atoning sacrifice of Christ. That is how I used the term in Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant. Those who use Objective Justification innocently have responded to early drafts of this chapter. These men do not believe that God grants forgiveness without the Means of Grace and without faith. They want to emphasize the universal and non-conditional nature of the atonement of Christ, that is, to emphasize that Jesus died for all sins and remains the source of comfort for all contrite sinners. The atonement remains true whether anyone believes in the cross or not. Nevertheless, God bestows His forgiveness only through the Word and Sacraments and never apart from the Means of Grace."
I learned the term, basically as another word for atonement from WELS pastors, and I've encountered it in C.F.W. Koehler's "Summary of Christian Doctrine" and a number of other books. I never understood objective justification as anything other than the atonement as you describe it above, but I see now where the terms can lead and why they should be avoided. I have not, thankfully, ever been in a classroom or church where anything resembling the Kokomo version was taught.
July 20, 2009 7:55 PM
