Universal Objective Justification is the reason for Lutherans lining up to study at Fuller Seminary and being promoted for their doctrinal waywardness. If UOJ is correct, then one must explain why the Fuller fanatics are also UOJ fanatics.
The double-justification scheme of UOJ comes directly from Professor Knapp of Halle University, a Pietist professor at the center of Pietism in Europe, established to promote Pietism. Halle quickly became the center of rationalism, eventually absorbing Wittenberg University, which no longer exists as a separate entity.
There can only be one justification, and UOJ Enthusiasts know that. They use justification by faith as veneer to hide the cheapness of their precious opinion. If the entire world has already been justified, absolved, forgiven, and saved, then justification by faith is no more than an afterthought. Reading a favorite UOJ essay will prove that the author cannot even deal with Biblical, Lutheran concepts. He is like Alice in Wonderland, lost in a land of make-believe, where declaring a truth makes it genuine.
Likewise, if we follow the justification by faith taught throughout the Scriptures, the Book of Concord, and Lutheran orthodoxy, UOJ appears as it is - a farce, an illusion, a cosmic joke played upon the gullible and practiced by the devious.
The ankle-biters complain that I am trying to collect followers. I am far more ambitious than that. I am trying to create readers of the Book of Concord and students of Luther's sermons. Once that good yeast begins to leaven the lump, the opinions of the Enthusiasts will be tossed aside.
The bottom-feeders think they can win by scaring people away from this blog. WELS pays its CEO about $250,000 a year (pay and benefits) to find out who is posting on Ichabod, so he can order that person to stop. The effect is just the opposite. The scent of illegality makes furtive blogging and intelligence sharing more appealing. Midnight instant-messaging. Secret signs and passwords.
An overpaid ELCA pastor sniffs that I am running the WELS Witness Protection Program. I like that
I was busy creating a title recently when I left out one letter in justification - the a. The mistake was not easy to spot, so I was happy to find it before the Hooters crowd began railing at me. The change is symbolic. It should remind us what some mixing can do to the chief article of the Christian faith, justification by faith becomes just-a-fiction.
Justification by faith is a simple, plain concept - profound in all its implications. The pulpit steers the world, as Melville says. The preached Gospel creates and sustains faith through the power of the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace. Faith in the crucified Messiah receives His forgiveness and strengthens us against temptation.
Contrariwise, UOJ is a profound concept - so deep and mysterious that its own adherents cannot fathom its meaning or explain it properly. This great enigma was revealed by Knapp in the fulness of time and interpreted through his Pythian prophetess CFW Walther. The implications of UOJ are simple - everyone is forgiven. Yup. Born forgiven. Already forgiven. No thought is required to determine this, because all the beetle-worshipers and tree-huggers are forgiven and saved. The atheists are absolved, too. UOJ turns all of Christian doctrine and worship into adiaphora - it is that simple.
UOJ is a doctrine for simpletons and charlatans. The simpletons believe it and the charlatans find ever-more complex formulations to state the same thing.
