Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Brett Meyer - On the Word of God and the Confessio...":
Bored, I agree with most of what you have written here, in the way it is written.
The one point I disagree with would be, "but it's (UOJ) not evil in such a direct way in and of itself" I would contend that it is a new and different gospel than the Gospel of Christ. The apostle Paul condemned any competing gospel, any perversion of Christ's Gospel of His righteousness imputed by grace, through faith alone. It is evil in and of itself for it teaches a new way to being righteous in God's sight and it's not through faith. Anything not of faith is sin, it then is directly evil.
Otherwise I agree. I think there's a bigger issue of what constitutes a Christian denomination and it's tied solely to faithfulness to God's Word primarily in the central article of Justification within their official doctrinal statements, and not to the confession of individuals within the denomination as it's made up of orthodox and hypocrites.
It's important to publicly discuss this issue since those who do not test the spirits will remember that the church of the Antichrist is considered by their current denomination to be Christian and that's the extent of their litmus test. How many Lutheran's from ELS, WELS, LCMS have transferred membership to the Roman Catholic Church? I say 'transferred' because there is little that separates them anymore.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this.
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GJ - Bored offered the opinion that UOJ is not that dangerous. Bad - but not dangerous. That may be his opinion, but it is contrary to Lutheran doctrine, Luther, and the Book of Concord.
UOJ is fraudulent and anti-Gospel. One proof of its bitter fruit is the unmerciful and dishonest nature of its adherents. Bored gave an example - men who teach justification by faith in public but defend UOJ in private. Are they lying in public or in private? That is not a confession one's faith but weaseling.
The UOJ advocates, who are also stuck on Church Growth, cannot tolerate anyone questioning their precious opinion. They must get rid of, excommunication, silence, ridicule, and shun anyone who offers an objection to their preposterous notion. They excuse their rudeness and devious nature as fighting for the Gospel when they are really murdering souls for their Father Below.
Now that a well-informed public can trounce any UOJ Enthusiast who begins to chant the talking points, they have withdrawn from the fight, muttering about such things as Inuitu Fidei (sic - their spelling).
Can anyone teach the Means of Grace (as Buchholz has attempted) and tell people the entire world has been saved without Means, without the Word, without the Holy Spirit, without faith?
The only discipline Buchholz has handed Jeff Gunn (CrossWalk) is electing him to the Board of Willowcreek's Liberal College.
Meanwhile, faithful members are excommunicated for questioning UOJ, something Buchholz pretended to do with his convention essay.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Which Doctrinal Errors Are Insignificant?":
Pastor Jarrold Dalke, (w)ELS was my pastor for many, many years. In my recollection I never heard him preach one sermon that included the doctrinal points of UOJ.
He came up to me at the 2011 Emmaus Conference while I was handing out the UOJ/Justification By Faith Alone books and material. He said, "I've read what you have written on the internet about Universal Justification and I disagree with you." "You destroy the gospel when you reject Universal Justification." We briefly exchanged opinions about what UOJ teaches in comparision to Scripture concerning God's declaration of righteousness to the individual. He was adamant that the whole unbelieving world has been declared righteous in Christ by God and thereby forgiven of all sin.
UOJ is just that - it is another gospel. It is the sum total of their gospel. Without it there is no gospel. Justification by faith is an addendum, an add on. For UOJ, Justification by faith has to be insignificant in regards to the gospel of Universal Justification because UOJ teaches that it is only the statement, "Your sins are already forgiven, you are already justified and righteous in God's sight" that creates faith. It's man's reason, contending against Christ and His Word, which says faith can't hold onto anything that isn't already a reality. Their false man made faith - yes, I agree. Christ's faith which the Holy Spirit works, by grace, through the Means of Grace, the Word and Baptism, no. Christ's faith, of which He is the Author and Finisher of, is His Righteousness which is created through the Gospel promises in His Word, that believing on Jesus Christ, that He paid for all sin, and specifically that He paid for all of my sin, and that believing in Him for the forgiveness of sins, I die to sin, am adopted into sonship with the Father, Christ is my Savior and Brother who rescues me from sin, death and the power of the Devil unto Life eternal.
