Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Robert Preus - Justification and Rome":
(W)ELS Pastor James Humann also provided this quote in defense of his teaching of UOJ:
(W)ELS Our Great Heritage, "Finally, "If forgiveness were dependent on faith in the sense that God does not forgive until we believe, we would always have to be sure that we are believers before we would be sure that we are forgiven." (p.60)
September, 2008
This is directly opposed to Christ when He declares in Mark 4:12, "That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."
For those who still do not believe that UOJ replaces the faithful Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone Pastor Humann also quotes Our Great Heritage here, "God forever remains the God who punishes all sin, and at the same time he is forever the God who forgives every sin. And only the person who by God's grace has in the vicarious atonement of Christ found a way to believe both truths worships the God of the Bible." (p.53)
There are many other (W)ELS quotes that declare if Objective Justification as taught by the (W)ELS is denied then the Gospel is destroyed. Therefore they admit, and confirm with Pres. Robert Preus, that UOJ is not synonymous with the Atonement and is the once and for all divine verdict of acquittal for the entire unbelieving world. This leads into UOJ's perversion of the unforgivable sin which they call "Unbelief" but that can be the subject of another post.
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GJ - I believe Eduard Preuss--who joined the Church of Rome, after teaching UOJ at St. Louis--invented this argument.
Theology professors and MDivs stick to the same talking points without examining them closely.
Some important questions are:
1. Is this argument Biblical, with some anchor in the Scriptures?
2. Has the Book of Concord uncovered this insight?
3. Is this a logical fallacy, arguing in a circle? The author is saying, "This has to be true, because if universal absolution were not true, I would not have any certainty that it is true."
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Garrett has left a new comment on your post "L. P. Cruz Could Go To Town with This Fallacy":
This leads into UOJ's perversion of the unforgivable sin which they call "Unbelief" but that can be the subject of another post.
Please elaborate. I can remember my grade school teachers trying to pound this doctrine into my head: "The only unforgivable sin is unbelief". By Confirmation time, I started getting confused. "But didn't Jesus atone for all sins?"
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GJ - Jesus said there is no forgiveness for the sin against the Holy Spirit. For non-Lutherans, the verse is a trip into fantasy land. Faithful Lutherans realize that the Holy Spirit and the Word are used for each other in the Scriptures, although they are not the same. One is used for the other because God has bound His Spirit to the Word.
Therefore the sin against the Holy Spirit is dying without faith in Christ alone as our Savior.
KJV Matthew 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
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LPC has left a new comment on your post "L. P. Cruz Could Go To Town with This Fallacy":
Pr. Greg.
we would always have to be sure that we are believers before we would be sure that we are forgiven.
Yes, Pastor, this is an absolute fallacy, it contains a false assumption about faith, an assumption that is not defined by Scripture. Yet NT in Heb 11:1 says faith is the assurance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
I know of the same thing that happened to E Preuss happened here recently. A Reverend Doctor of LCAus, who articulated UOJ, is now an RC parishioner and lecturing at an RC college here.
UOJ and Poping are connected, specially with Vatican II.
LPC
This is just a quick answer. If I can add more later, I will.
3 comments:
This leads into UOJ's perversion of the unforgivable sin which they call "Unbelief" but that can be the subject of another post.
Please elaborate. I can remember my grade school teachers trying to pound this doctrine into my head: "The only unforgivable sin is unbelief". By Confirmation time, I started getting confused. "But didn't Jesus atone for all sins?"
Pr. Greg.
we would always have to be sure that we are believers before we would be sure that we are forgiven.
Yes, Pastor, this is an absolute fallacy, it contains a false assumption about faith, an assumption that is not defined by Scripture. Yet NT in Heb 11:1 says faith is the assurance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
I know of the same thing that happened to E Preuss happened here recently. A Reverend Doctor of LCAus, who articulated UOJ, is now an RC parishoner and lecturing at an RC college here.
UOJ and Poping are connected, specially with Vatican II.
LPC
Garrett, what your teachers were establishing is a critical teaching of UOJ. UOJ teaches that Christ died and paid for the sins of the whole world and that since God the Father placed the worlds sin on Christ, He must have lifted all sin off of the world. Therefore when Christ paid for the worlds sins God forgave the world of those sins so that they stand forgiven, justified and righteous by the body and blood of Christ in His sight - all before and without the Means of Grace working faith. Now if the whole unbelieving world stands forgiven by God why does anyone go to Hell? In other words, if the whole unbelieving world has Christ's body and blood for the forgiveness of sins how could anyone be condemned to Hell? UOJ teaches that unbelievers are condemned to Hell because they didn't believe that they were declared forgiven and justified (money in the bank analogy). UOJ teaches that it's the proclamation that "your sins are already forgiven" that creates faith. So not believing they are forgiven and justified by Christ constitutes unbelief and so UOJ teaches that they go to Hell for the sin of unbelief.
(W)ELS David J. Beckman teaches, "The position that all men’s sins have been forgiven, even the sins of those in hell, has always been held to
by orthodox Lutheran theologians. Koehler writes, “There is not a soul in all the world which God has not already absolved from all sin. This is called objective or universal justification.”22
Schaller says, Salvation is just as perfect and complete for those who are finally lost. This is the only reason, but a sufficient one, why he that believeth not is damned. Unbelief is the rejection of life and salvation achieved and personally intended for every unbeliever.23
Orthodox Lutherans therefore, on the basis of the scriptural doctrine of universal and objective justification, teach, believe and confess that all people who have lived, are living or will ever live on earth have been declared righteous by God and have thus been forgiven of all their sins. Page 8/9 http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckmanUniversal.PDF
(W)ELS MLC President Mark Zarling teaches, "We need not concern ourselves in preaching about faith. Simply present Law and Gospel. Warn sinners that unbelief damns, and rejection of Christ will bring eternal torment. Then comfort them with the glorious objective reality that all sins are already forgiven in Christ." Page 7 http://www.wlsessays.net/files/ZarlingJustification.pdf
My contention is this:
Since UOJ teaches that the whole unbelieving world was declared forgiven of all sin and guiltless by God's divine verdict when Christ paid for all sins - why is anyone condemned to Hell? UOJ teaches that they were forgiven, but if they don't believe it they are condemned to Hell for the sin of unbelief. So then Christ didn't pay for the sin of unbelief? Or He did pay for the sin of unbelief, but God doesn't forgive that one sin and that one sin is still charged to our account?
Wasn't every human being born with the sin of unbelief? Yes, Romans 11:32, "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." So if UOJ is to be consistent, everyone will be condemned to Hell for committing the sin of unbelief which Christ either did or didn't pay for and God doesn't forgive.
Is unbelief really the unforgivable sin that UOJ teaches. No, Romans, "11:23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again."
Since God does forgive unbelief as confirmed by Romans 11:23, and Christ did pay for all sins including unbelief, UOJ is a pure Universalist teaching with a contradictory caveat which is made moot by the core teaching of UOJ.
UOJ is the most perverse doctrine that man's reason has created and as such it is contradictory throughout and wars against all pure Scriptural teaching.
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