Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Another Hoo-Hah from UOJ":
Justification is not difficult.
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and [all] are justified freely by the redemption that came through Christ Jesus."
All sinned... all justified.
The passage cannot mean: "All have sinned.... and some with faith are justified." Or "when they have faith they are justified." Such renderings just plain change the clear Word.
Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that there is a confusion of dogmatic loci (spheres). UOJ belongs in the locus on "Basis of Salvation" and JBF belongs in the locus on "Order of Salvation."
It is the Pietists who would love the emphasis on faith. Historically, that's all they wanted to talk about. Pietists find their comfort and security in their faith. Read Timothy Verinus Vol. 1 Ch. 5 (and note that the "double justification" mentioned there is NOT a reference to UOJ.)
Also, the Greek word for preach is "khrusso" - "to proclaim." Preaching is a proclamation, an announcement of what God has done. In order for a proclamation to be made, there must be an objective truth to proclaim. The Gospel is an announcement of what God has done for the world in Christ. What has he done? Forgiven all their sins. That is why the risen Lord Jesus said (Luke 24) that "repentance for the forgiveness of sins" be proclaimed in his name.
Both sides here are talking past each other. True, UOJ could be wrongly used to support some idea of universalism, but JBF could also wrongly be used to promote the idea that some condition must be met in man before God forgives him. (Then we're back to the intuitu fidei controversy...)
Just because some people (apparently) misuse the phrase doesn't mean that the phrase is inherently wrong. UOJ is properly taught to emphasize the truth that our salvation is entirely God's own work -- "extra hominum", as our Lutheran forefathers put it -- and is emphasized to guard against man taking any tiny bit of credit for his salvation. (read Koberle, Ch. 3, on this)
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GJ - I am glad our Zinzendorf posted this, so people could see how the UOJ Pietists operate. The posturing reminds me of several people, but I will not venture to guess which one it is. Zinzendorf came to America, using a false name. All...all the Shrinkers and Pietists use the same name - Anonymous.
He wants to build his castle on all, without citing the actual passage. Let me quote one of their favorite UOJ passages:
KJV Romans 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
This means that judgment came to all men, through Adam, so also the free gift of salvation comes to all men for justification. Of course, the Gospel of salvation comes to all men, because the Atonement is universal. However, the UOJ magic is lost in the next verse - "shall many be made righteous." No one can turn many into all. Our Zinzendorf is a false teacher, an Enthusiast, a liar who uses the Word of God to overturn the Scriptures - maladroitly, of course.
Zinzie has to reword verse 19 to refute it - a lame Straw Man fallacy. The plain meaning of the passage trumps the faux-intellectual version of Z.
"It is the Pietists who would love the emphasis on faith. Historically, that's all they wanted to talk about."
Guilt by association! Faith talk - why that be Pietistic. "Historically..." - more unwarranted assumptions from a gasbag. The Pietists were obsessed with visible results - Shrinkers of their day, just as divisive and destructive as the Shrinkers of our day.
"What has he done? Forgiven all their sins."
Begging the question! The Scriptures clearly say - He has paid for their sins, quite different from pronouncing absolution on Hottentots and Hindoos (I like the old spellings, like Eskimaux.)
"Both sides here are talking past each other."
Reu correctly identified the marks of a unionist as including the desire to erase doctrinal differences. La-dee-dah. There are no real differences here, not in substance. A few more Latin references, from me, and vague citations of deep books read, by me, and a blueprint of Toad Hall, by me, and all questions will be resolved.
Lenski wrote in his Romans commentary:
If a world justification were intended, the word employed would have to be dikaioma. Paul even adds zoe, for this justifying action admits "to life" everlasting, which only those receive who "receive the gift of the righteousness" by faith although Christ won it for all men. Romans, 5:18, p. 379.
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L P has left a new comment on your post "Our Zinzendorf":
Why is it that UOJers love to chop off Scripture?
Here is the actual quote in context:
Romans 3:
23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
The often leave out verse 25.
LPC
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GJ - The UOJ Stormtroopers do not comprehend the Means of Grace, so they cannot harmonize their Enthusiasm with hundreds of Scriptural passages. Why do they chop verses? They are Antinomians who imagine the Law is obsolete, so whatever they do to advance their cause is meet, right, and salutary, at all times and places.
9 comments:
Around and around we go yet again. What can religious leaders get right when they have so much trouble with this key concept?
One does not need an MLC/Mequon education to produce confusion. That education comes to nothing after all the talk and big build up.
Why is it that UOJers love to chop off Scripture?
Here is the actual quote in context:
Romans 3:
23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
The often leave out verse 25.
LPC
UOJ does not leave out the Means of Grace. What you are forgetting is the teaching of SUBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION, which is also the work of God. Personal faith only comes by the Holy Spirit, through the Word and Sacraments. You cannot leave one off without the other. Otherwise you have either universalism or some form of Arminianism.
"The only essential and necessary elements of justification are the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and faith which accepts these in the promise of the Gospel." (Tappert, p. 543, compare Apology IV:53, p. 114)
There are four parts to justification. Parts 1, 2, and 4 (ordering of above quote) are what we know of as universal objective justification. Part 3 (faith) is known as subjective justification.
"No one can turn many into all."
Never sweat the details. That is the motto of party school graduates.
Okay, so how can anyone really be sure that they are part of the many? Is their faith strong enough? If they had doubts are they unbelievers not part of the many?
UOJ is the end result of rational men who rejected the Holy Spirit's faith and rejecting the forgiveness of sins that is only ours through faith in Christ they went about to establish their justification and righteousness apart from faith. That's why Universalists such as yourself will convulse at the Scriptural and Confessional demand that faith in Christ's atonement is required for a person to be forgiven, justified and righteous in God's sight.
You admit that without faith the doctrine is pure Universalism. The truth is that UOJ's faith is not the faith of Scripture. It is not the faith of the Holy Spirit. UOJ's faith is nothing but a open and empty hand receiving what was already declared by UOJ to be true - that the whole world was already declared to be forgiven of all sin, justified and righteous by the blood of Christ. That is your gospel. By your false and blasphemous depiction of faith and the gospel you brand yourself a Universalist. This is easily shown by quoting UOJ's theologians perversion of faith:
WELS AZ/CA DP Pastor Jon Buchholz
"Faith doesn’t bring anything into existence that doesn’t already exist. Faith doesn’t cause something to happen. Faith simply grasps— trusts—something that already is in place." Page 14
http://archive.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=1161&contentID=76707&shortcutID=26388
August Pieper, third volume of the Quartalschrift , "But whoever molests the doctrine of justification stabs the gospel in the heart ...even if he ever so much emphasizes justification by faith."
WELS Siegbert W. Becker
"Faith does nothing more than accept the forgiveness proclaimed in the Gospel. It is not a condition we must fulfill before we can be forgiven. It is not a cause of forgiveness on account of which God forgives us. The forgiveness comes first. Faith is merely the response to the message. God says to us, “Your sins are forgiven.” This is objective justification, and God’s message to us is true whether we believe it or not. Faith makes God’s message its own and says, “My sins are forgiven.” This is subjective justification. The whole doctrine is just as simple as that." Page 12, The Place of Faith
http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckerJustification.PDF
WELS Our Great Heritage states, "And yet many Lutherans still labor under the delusion that God does not forgive us unless we believe. Instead of seeing faith as nothing more than the spiritual hand with which we make the forgiveness of God our own, they see it as a reason why God forgives us. They believe that Christ has indeed provided forgiveness for all men, that God is willing to forgive them, but before he really forgives he first of all demands that we should be sorry for our sins and that we should have faith. Just have faith they say, and then God will forgive you. All the right words are there. The only thing wrong is that the words are in the wrong order. God does not forgive us IF we have faith. He has forgiven us long ago when he raised his Son from the dead." (p. 59)"
WELS MLC President Mark Zarling, "Faith does nothing more than receive the forgiveness which is offered in the Gospel. It is not a condition we fulfill nor is it a cause of forgiveness. We are already forgiven. God's message of justification in Christ is there whether we believe it or not. Faith then receives the blessings." And, "Faith that accepts the good news of universal justification is the work of God the Holy Ghost." Page 7
http://www.wlsessays.net/files/ZarlingJustification.pdf
Cont...
Cont...
BOC
Defense of the Augsburg Confession, Article IV Of Justification
67] "Faith cometh by hearing. And proof can be derived even from this that faith justifies, because, if justification occurs only through the Word, and the Word is apprehended only by faith, it follows that faith justifies."
71] "but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because "to be justified" means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term "to be justified" is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous. Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i.e., receives remission of sins".
http://www.bookofconcord.org/defense_4_justification.php
Contradictions from WELS UOJ gods:
WELS AZ/CA DP Pastor Jon Buchholz (essay linked above)
"God has forgiven the whole world. God has forgiven everyone his sins." This statement is absolutely
true! This is the heart of the gospel, and it must be preached and taught as the foundation of our
faith. But here’s where the caveat comes in: In Scripture, the word "forgive" is used almost
exclusively in a personal, not a universal sense. The Bible doesn’t make the statement, "God
has forgiven the world." Page 15
"God has forgiven all sins, but the unbeliever rejects God’s forgiveness." Again, this statement is
true—and Luther employed similar terminology to press the point of Christ’s completed work of
salvation.16 But we must also recognize that Scripture doesn’t speak this way." Page 16
"God has declared the entire world righteous." This statement is true, as we understand it to mean
that God has rendered a verdict of "not-guilty" toward the entire world. It is also true—and must be
taught—that the righteousness of Christ now stands in place of the world’s sin; this is the whole point
of what Jesus did for us at Calvary. However, once again we’re wresting a term out of its usual
context. In Scripture the term "righteous" usually refers to believers. " Page 17
Also Siegbert W. Becker on the first Kokomo Statement, 1) Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner’s attitude toward Christ’s sacrifice, purely on the basis of God’s verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint.
Becker, "One really becomes a guilt-free saint only through faith, if we limit ourselves to the biblical usage of the word. However, since our holiness, as Augustine says, consists in sin’s remission rather than in life’s perfection, we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint. The fact that unbelievers do not consider themselves to be forgiven does not change the truth of God’s Word that tells us that God does not impute the sins of all men to them, or that through one man justification has come upon all men." Page 14
Wow ! I can just about hear little cherubims (the angels), grinning, and smiling with one another, in their happiness at all this plain, sound, wonderfully God glorifying FAITH, so evident by so many contributors to this Ichabod site.
The evil UOJ is being seen for what it is ! A FALSE and soul destroying GOSPEL ! (Prayers are being answered.)
LUTHERANS,are being set free to ponder and appreciate our TRUE
heritage. May God in Christ, bless all such efforts.
Praise God that Pastor Jackson began this site, and for all those it is now blessing, and not least of all, good sound Lutheran men like you Brett.
(Hope you wife is altogether well Brett, as noticed on BETHANY some while back there were prayers for her, plus Mrs. Ichabod...hope both are really well again now. )
One day we will meet.
Anonymous confessing Lutheran
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