From: "Pastor Seiltz"
To:
Cc: "ELHS Board"
Subject: RE: FW: Letter to ELHS Board and Association
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 20:38:02
Brett,
The Evergreen Board of Directors addressed your doctrinal concerns at our last board meeting on October 26th. Our number one priority as a Lutheran High School is teaching and proclaiming the Word of God in its truth and purity. We appreciate your desire in this area as a parent of two of our students.
We studied the doctrines which you cited and determined that the WELS/ELS statements on them are Scripturally correct. A motion was made and passed unanimously. The motion below was excerpted from the official meeting minutes and reads as follows:
MOTION: Having studied the Holy Scriptures and the WELS and ELS statements of faith, including This We Believe and This We Believe, Teach, and Confess, the Evergreen Lutheran High School Board reaffirms its commitment to true Christian doctrine, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures, and affirms that our responses to questions regarding our teachings are answered in light of our agreement with the Holy Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions, and the doctrinal statements of the WELS and ELS.
MOTION PASSED, unanimously, no abstentions.
Evergreen Lutheran High School is not going to change from teaching what is in the Scriptures, nor will we apologize for it. All students that come to ELHS will receive this Scriptural instruction. We appreciate the fact that your two daughters have not brought your objections up in class or have been detrimental to the teaching of the Scriptures in our classrooms. Pastor Humann, Mr. Steph Rodmyre, and Mr. Greg Thiesfeldt have responded to your concerns with correct Biblical answers. I have attached a file that we used for study in the board meeting. One final note is that we as a board consider this matter completed and final. The resolution that passed is a clear statement. If you wish to continue your dialogue, we recommend that you contact the ELS and WELS directly.
In the name of Christ Jesus,
Signed,
Pastor Nathan Seiltz, Pastor Evergreen Lutheran High School, and Gary Ide, Board Chairman Evergreen Lutheran High School On behalf of the Evergreen Lutheran High School Board of Directors
ATTACHED FILE:
A. Objective justification is universal. Scripture teaches that God has reconciled the world to himself. This includes all people, believers and unbelievers. All, believers and unbelievers, have deserved death and damnation. Jesus came as the substitute for all. He obeyed the law for all. He died in the place of everyone. When Jesus rose, he rose as the substitute for every sinner. By his resurrection God declared sinners, all of them, forgiven. This is the good news Scripture reveals. This is the good news we proclaim to contrite sinners: “God has reconciled you to himself. Your sins are already forgiven. Calvary and the empty tomb are the proof of it.”
B. It is suggested, if not argued, that such an interpretation of Scripture and the teaching of objective justification we defend is something relatively new in Lutheranism. It is true that the terms objective and subjective justification are relatively recent. They are not found in the Confessions. It is also true that most of the time when the Scriptures speak of justification they do so in connection with believing. They speak of subjective justification. Yet the fact remains that terms objective justification and subjective justification do convey thoughts which the Scriptures teach, as all orthodox theologians have confessed.
C. When objective justification is denied, faith becomes a condition of salvation instead of the means through which we receive salvation. When speaking of salvation, we don’t want to turn a person’s attention inward to his faith, but outward to the grace of God. Preaching about faith will not produce faith, but proclaiming God’s love and mercy and forgiveness will produce believing hearts.
D. To justify in the Bible always has the meaning “to declare righteous.” Never do the terms denote a qualitative change in man, a physical or medicinal thing. The change which is meant is not a change in one’s person, but a change in one’s status before God. In the matter of salvation it is God’s pronouncing a sinner righteous—an act which takes place apart from man. God declares sinners righteous not because of anything he foresaw in man, but for the sake of Christ, the sinner’s substitute.
E. A quick look at the terms ought to be sufficient to remind ourselves of the Lutheran doctrine of objective or universal justification–that God at the resurrection of Christ declared sinners justified, universally, excluding none, and objectively, whether they believe it or not.
F. Romans 5:18, 19: “Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Historically, this reference in Romans is ranked as the principal sedes doctrinae for objective justification. Verse 18 informs us that because of Adam’s sin a verdict of condemnation was pronounced on all men; because of the one act of righteousness by Christ a verdict of acquittal was pronounced on all men. There can be no question that verse 18 teaches universal and therefore objective justification.
G. 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” The passage does not contain the word righteousness, but it ranks as strong support for the doctrine of objective justification because of the manner in which it speaks of the synonymous term reconciliation. In Christ God has reconciled the world to himself. A change has taken place. The change was not in man.Man remained unchanged, by nature sinful, hostile to God. Orthodox theologians for the most part have spoken of the change as a change in man’s status before God. Previously God viewed the world apart from Christ—and it stood condemned. Now God views the world in the light of Christ’s work of redemption and has declared the world righteous, forgiven.
H. There are many other passages of Scripture that support the doctrine of objective justification: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2). Any reference that announces that Christ has paid for sin, offered himself as a sacrifice, paid the ransom, shed his blood, finally teaches objective justification. Men’s sins are paid for whether they believe it or not.
I. To illustrate the history of universal and therefore objective justification in Lutheran doctrine we go back to Luther. Anyone who has read Luther’s “Treatise Concerning the Keys” of 1530 can hardly deny that Luther believed in objective justification. The following paragraph sums up Luther’s thoughts quite well: Even he who does not believe that he is free and his sins forgiven shall also learn, in due time, how assuredly his sins were forgiven, even though he did not believe it. St. Paul says in Ro 3(3): “Their faithlessness nullifies the faithfulness of God.” We are not talking here either about people’s belief or disbelief regarding the efficacy of the keys. We realize that few believe. We are speaking of what the keys accomplish and give. He who does not accept what the keys give receives, of course, nothing. But this is not the keys’ fault. Many do not believe the gospel, but this does not mean that the gospel is not true or effective. A king gives you a castle. If you do not accept it, then it is not the king’s fault, nor is he guilty of a lie. But you have deceived yourself and the fault is yours. The king certainly gave it. LW 40 363-369
J. The Confessions also speak frequently of universal and therefore objective justification: 1) But the Gospel is properly such a doctrine as teaches what man who has not observed the Law, and therefore is condemned by it, it to believe, namely, that Christ has expiated and made satisfaction for all sins, and has obtained and acquired for him, without any merit of his, forgiveness of sins, righteousness that avails before God, and eternal life. Formula of Concord V, 4; Trig., p 801 2) (God in His purpose and counsel ordained:) That the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ, who, by His faultless obedience, suffering, and death, has merited for us the righteousness which avails before God, and eternal life. Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration XI, 15, Trig., p 1069
K. While the election controversy was in its second stage in the first years of the 20th Century, a somewhat related controversy over objective justification erupted. This development prompted August Pieper to write for the third volume of the Quartalschrift his unforgettable article. The conclusion reads: One cannot oppose any doctrine of God’s Word with impunity; this increases sin and guilt, damages consciences and blinds the heart. One error begets another, as in the election controversy the insistence on intuitu fidei soon brought with itself the synergistic doctrine of conversion. But whoever molests the doctrine of justification stabs the gospel in the heart and is on the way of losing entirely Christian doctrine and personal faith and of falling into the arms of heathenism, even if he ever so much emphasizes justification by faith.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "WELS at Work Opposing Justification by Faith":
(W)ELS Pastor James Humann openly exposes the essence of (W)ELS UOJ in this reply to me:
Brett,
This is the last correspondence from me to you on this subject. It is my impression that you are trying to convince me that what I and others are teaching about OJ is wrong and that you yourself are not willing to be taught the truth. What I teach is the truth and I'm telling you that it is the truth. Evergreen is a WELS/ELS school and what is taught in the religion department is taught accordingly. Your concerns are much bigger than Evergreen or Holy Trinity. You stated that the ELS/WELS and LCMS are wrong on the doctrine of OJ. You should address your remarks to the leaders of those synods, the seminary president, the District President, the head of the religion department at MLC. The error you espouse is an old heresy going back to the Garden of Eden and Satan's question, "Did God really say?" It goes back to the time of the Reformation and the Ohio and Iowa Synods. It's interesting that you didn't mention ELCA. Do they have it right in your opinion? Also, just because the Lutheran Confessions do not say a lot about OJ doesn't mean it's not true. The controversy at the time was about salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, by Scripture alone, which would naturally bring the focus on subjective justification.
I'd encourage you to look at Romans 3:23-24, Romans 5:9-11, Romans 5:18-19, Romans 4:25, II Corinthians 5:19. I'd recommend that you read pages 22-60 in "Our Great Heritage,"
Volume 3. I'd like to leave you with just a couple of quotes from the above referenced pages: "Martin Luther once said that those who do not believe God's message of forgiveness will someday find out how surely their sins were forgiven even though they did not believe it." (Luther's Works 40:366f)
"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)
"But, sad to say, there are some Lutherans who want to be conservative and orthodox and yet find it very difficult to say with equal fervor and vigor that God has forgiven the sins of all men in Christ." (p.53)
"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)
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)
In your last comment to Mr. Rodmyre you said, "God says that those who pervert the gospel of Christ by preaching another gospel are accursed. Objective Justification is another gospel."
God will judge who is preaching another gospel!
In Christ, on whose account God has justified, declared righteous, or acquitted, the whole world of sinners,
Pastor James Humann
