Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Make This a Dialogue on UOJ":
I'm wading through the essay titled is Objective Justification Universalism. http://scdwels.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/schleicher-paper.pdf
(I'm a bit grumpy because I was so thoroughly enjoying "Luther vs. the Pietists" - outstanding!) This WELS essay is replete with the standard contradictions and "Repeat After Me" UOJ statements.
One specific section needs more attention.
Page 5, "14 Justification does not involve a change in our nature, for Scripture speaks of the nature of 15 those justified as still sinful. Paul speaks of “God who justifies the wicked'' (Ro 4:5). He states, 16 “Christ died for the ungodly. . . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us'' (Ro 5:6,8). 17 As our confessions state: “To be justified” here (James 2:24) does not mean for a
18 righteous person to be made out of an ungodly one, but to be pronounced righteous in a forensic sense'' (Ap IV:252)."
Questions: When is a man born again? When does a man die to sin and raised again to life in Christ? When does man, by the grace and work of the Holy Spirit, put off the old man and put on Christ? When does the carnal mind of man die and is given the Holy Spirit's spiritual mind? When does the Holy Spirit make of an unjust man a just man?
John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Colossians 3:9-10, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:"
2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
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
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GJ - Now Brett. You know what happens when someone asks a WELS guy a pointed question. They answer a question with a question.
"Who told you this?" and
"How do you know Greg Jackson?"
They even have WELS Facebook police, who want to know why someone is listed as my friend. Alone in the world, I have 960+ FB friends, including Waldo Werning and Ed Stetzer.
Alone in the world, I am in constant contact with Little I and his family, who live a few minutes away. Brett: Just between you, me, and 8,000 readers - I cannot comprehend how WELS Stormtroopers can maintain such a colossal display of ignorance. Nothing seems to dent the depravity of their malice.
Alone in the world, I hear from various clergy and laity on a daily basis. I could list the names and titles, but I won't. Many times they write just to fill me in, and I keep that information for background.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Freddy Asks a Question":
Mr. Finkelstein, this is the case.
It is in fact worse than that if such a distinction can be made considering the consequences of perverting the Gospel of Christ. UOJ teaches that although God has declared the whole unbelieving world to be righteous, forgiven of all sin (justified) and guiltless by His divine verdict, they are also at the same time condemned and under his wrath because they don't believe that they have already been declared at peace with him and righteous. Consider the implications of this. For a sinful man to be forgiven by God he must have Christ's righteousness. To have Christ's righteousness and considered by God to be sinless, justified and righteous but still be under God's wrath means that Christ's righteousness and the bestowal of it upon man is not effective in making that man a child of God and no longer under His wrath and an heir to eternal life. UOJ is an attack on the righteousness of Christ. Either Christ died for all sins and his righteousness removes all sin or it doesn't. UOJ teaches that unless the unbelieving world believes they are already forgiven of all sin they go to Hell for the sin of unbelief. Wait - so Christ didn't pay for the sin of unbelief? His righteousness doesn't remove the guilt of the sin of unbelief? The same unbelief we were all born with? Christ himself states that he died and paid for the sin of unbelief. Romans 11:23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
Just another horrible perversion of Scripture by the false man made doctrine of UOJ.
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GJ - That ball of yarn just won't unravel, Brett!
