"If you even fall into despair and depression, your conscience accusing you (with the help of Old Scratch), there is but one remedy. Do you believe Christ died to pay for your sins? If so, then your sins are all forgiven, forgotten, and absolved."
vs.
"If forgiveness were dependent on faith in the same 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. We may not see how dangerous that is until one of those moments of temptation and doubt comes to us in which we no longer know that we are believers. In such a time we will have no place to go unless we can say, 'God has told me that in Christ he has forgiven the sins of the world. My faith or my unbelief will neither make God's word true or untrue. He does not lie. He justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). Even if I am the most ungodly, the most wicked man on earth, I know that he has justified and forgiven me. To that promise I will cling, even if my heart tells me that I am without faith, without love, without hope. I know that God is greater than my heart and knows all things (1 John 3:20).' Only the doctrine of universal justification makes it possible for a believing child of God to have such a sure foundation for his faith." (Siegbert Becker, "Universal Justification," Our Great Heritage, p. 60, emphasis mine)
Why is it necessary for me to trust in Christ's universal forgiveness, when I can just trust in Christ who died to pay for my sins?
If I deny that God has forgiven my unbelieving neighbor, but that one is only forgiven and justified by faith, a Lutheran pastor will tell me that I am not teaching God's Word correctly?
Why are people being excommunicated for telling pastors that unbelievers are going to go to hell, and that no amount of "universal forgiveness" is going to do them any good?
With faith, with Christ's righteousness covering him, now God sees perfection. Without faith, without Christ's righteousness, God still sees sin.
That's a problem, because whoever does not believe will be condemned. So although God sees perfection in the unbeliever, off to eternal condemnation he goes. So much for being universally justified and forgiven.
GJ -UOJ is terribly convenient for those who passionately believe nothing. They can denounce faith in the name of orthodoxy, even though they contradict themselves at every turn.
The Christian Faith is one harmonious truth, but UOJ is a clever amalgamation of deceptions, accusations, and denials.
To paraphrase Paul Calvin Kelm, the oldest living college chaplain, UOJ starts with the (pseudo) Gospel and ends with the Law. First they announce all the snake-charmers, cannibals, and tree-worshipers are forgiven, absolved, and saved, via Universal Objective Justification. Next they lay down their law unmercifully, denouncing and condemning and excommunicating. WELS has just attained a new record - more invented laws than actual members.
Missouri has just reprinted Harrison's At Home in the Deceptions about My Fathers.Walther and his chosen disciple, F. Pieper, laid down a Halle University smokescreen over the doctrine of justification by faith. Both came from German Pietistic unionism, which they forced upon Loehe's original group, excommunicating Loehe and anyone else who disagreed with their sect.
The current situation of the Synodical Conference reminds me of three drunks trying to stagger down the road together, using one another for mutual unsteady support.
I asked one WELS member, "Do you realize your synod writes checks to ELCA?"
"No."
I suggested, "Look in the back of your hymnal for credits to Lutheran Book of Worship, owned by ELCA. Everything from ELCA is licensed and paid for, because of copyrights. Like Missouri, WELS is paying for all those portions of their hymnals and liturgies borrowed from ELCA."
The holier-than-WELS Little Sect on the Prairie has done the same thing. So, while excommunicating me by thought, word, and deed for telling the truth, the Syn Conference embraces ELCA and enriches it with cash, still pretending they look down upon the organization they work with so well.
