Saturday, January 29, 2011

How UOJ Was Lenski?



Michael has left a new comment on your post "Mequon Student Stopped and Searched. TriglottaDisc...":

Doesn't this quote from Lenski seem to teach "objective" justification? It is from his commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:30. "The aorist passive ἐγενήθη “became,” “was made,” has the force and the meaning of the middle ἐγένετο; the Koine coined many such passive forms and loved to use them. The sense is, of course, not passive. The tense is historical. No stress at all rests on ἡμῖν, “us.” Paul now joyfully includes himself and, in fact, all his fellow Christians. That means that we should not refer “became” to the moment when the Corinthians were joined to Christ, i.e., when he subjectively became theirs by faith; but to the moment when Christ wrought out our redemption on the cross, then for the Corinthians, for Paul, and for all of us he “became” objectively what Paul now states. And the phrase “from God,” like “of him” (God), once more stresses the divine source over against anything that comes from “the world.” The preposition ἀπό has the thought of transition from God to us."

Lenski, R. C. H. (1963). The Interpretation of St. Paul's First and Second Epistle to the Corinthians (81–82). Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Publishing House.

The above quote is how I understand objective justification: objectively, Christ became our righteousness, holiness and redemption when He announced, "it is finished" and died on the the cross. He is, objectively, the righteousness, holiness and redemption for every single person in the world, but, even-though this is who He objectively is for all, it does us no good unless His work is received by faith (subjectively).

Would you agree with Lenski's quote above and my understanding of the objective nature of Christ's work?

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GJ - Do not let Tim Glende know you are reading Lenski! He will go Medieval on you. Not that he has ever read Lenski.

You need to switch to Groeschel, the way Glende and Ski have. That will keep you ganz WELS.

I have said before that some portions of Lenski lend themselves to the double-justification scheme, because he tried to bridge the gap in some places. That is why I find it odd that WELS spits out that "Lenski is not good on justification" when they could make so much of certain passages.

However, Lenski himself makes it very clear that justification is never spoken of in the New Testament where faith is omitted.

The turning point is the merging of justification and atonement. They are not the same, a fact abundantly clear to everyone except MDivs of the Syn Conference (and a few fragments thereof - CLCs and who knows what else).

You are simply trying to quote Lenski to pound the OJ/SJ theme again. There is only one justification - justification by faith.

There is no absolution of the entire world. You can find that error in writings of Charlotte Kirschbaum and her sugar daddy, Karl Barth. Your OJ is Calvinism, as Sig Becker admitted in print.

Even if Lenski did double back-flips for UOJ, no one who is serious about the Scriptures and the Confessions would accept it.

I suggest removing the farce of a quia subscription when Syn Conference pastors actively oppose the little they have read of the Confessions.