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| Johann Jacob Rambach, Halle Pietist. |
From the Intrepid Lutherans, On UOJ:
Rev. Webber,
I've been away from my desk for several hours now, and I notice that I have been addressed in several posts, above, but your last post is foremost on my mind at the moment. I am disappointed. Of course, none of us have ever heard of this theologian you quote with distinction, Johann Jacob Rambach, and use to discredit the orthodox theologian Martin Chemnitz in his exegesis of 1 Tim. 3:16. One of us Intrepids -- not me, not Rev's Rydecki or Spencer, but one of us who does a lot of work behind the scenes -- began feverishly researching this theologian, to find out who he is. You quote Rambach from Schmidt/Marquart, so perhaps you don't really know who he is, either. I assume, in all charity, that you don't.
What our fellow Intrepid found is that Rambach was a confessing Pietist. In fact, several essays from the WELS essay file identify and criticize him as such:
Pietism’s Teaching on Church and Ministry: As Evidenced in its Pastoral Practice
After Three Centuries - The Legacy of Pietism
Agreement on the Correct View of the Authority of Scripture as the Source of Doctrine: The Way to Unity in the Church
A Historical Survey and Brief Examination of the Hymnbooks Used Within the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
The Confessional Lutheran Emigrations From Prussia And Saxony Around 1839
When I found out about this, I immediately pulled my copy of Loescher's Timotheus Verinus off the shelf, only to discover that Loescher really had nothing to say about the man. But when I pulled Schmid's History of Pietism down, and search for Rambach, I discovered that he was no ordinary Pietist. He was a Halle Pietist, and a close associate of Hermann August Franke. Schmid, on page 319, identifies Rambach as a Halle Pietist and compatriot of Franke, and credits Rambach for his accomplishments in the area of hermeneutics -- which is, no doubt, how it is that we find him prominently mentioned in F.S Schmidt's work. However, on page 320 Schmid qualifies his praise of such pietists, stating that their accomplishments are low compared to the harm caused by them: the use of such accomplishments was for the purpose of discrediting orthodoxy. And here we are now, treated to the authoritative work of a German exegete of whom we were happily ignorant, who is marshaled for the purpose of discrediting Chemnitz and elevating UOJ, only to discover that this man was a bona fide Halle Pietist, and that he engaged his work, alongside that of Franke and other radical Pietists, to serve the design of toppling Lutheran orthodoxy.
Continued in next comment...
You know, we at IL have been very careful, for the sake of fraternity, to avoid mention of his name or reference to his research on this subject. But the prominent use of a Halle Pietist, who produced his work at the pinnacle of the period of radical German Pietism, to discredit an orthodox theologian like Chemnitz and instead supporting the teaching of Universal Objective Justification, only proves Dr. Jackson's thesis: UOJ did emerge from Halle Pietism. I myself, up to this point, have been skeptical of this thesis, as my own extended and personal contact with confessing Pietists has had me convinced that they are not guilty of distinguishing Objective from Subjective aspects of Justification -- certainly not to the elevation of the Objective! -- as everything for them is Subjective. But rather, I had thought, they are guilty of separating (subjective) Justification from Conversion. You yourself have read Iver Olson's Baptism and Spiritual Life, and know precisely what I am referring to. To me, if there was anything to Dr. Jackson's connection of Halle to UOJ, it was in later Halle Rationalism. But now there can be no doubt. Rambach, a bona fide Halle Pietist, supplied the foundation necessary to topple formerly orthodox teaching on the matter of Justification.
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Jay Webber's post on Intrepid Lutherans:
O.K., one more post, and then I will try to honor Paul's wishes and not post anything else beyond his topical restriction...
I can understand why Chemnitz would read 1 Timothy 3:16 in this way. But his reading does not rule out what I would consider to be a necessary corrolary to such a "personal" justification of Jesus. The 18th-century Lutheran theologian Johann Jacob Rambach makes the following observation in his Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der Epistel an die Roemer (p. 322), regarding the Lord's payment and satisfaction of sinful humanity's "debt" to God:
"Christ was in his resurrection first of all justified for his own person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued him as it were a receipt thereof; and that happened in his resurrection, when he was released from his debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified."
Later in that commentary Rambach also writes (in a way that shows that he has 1 Tim. 3:16 in mind):
"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred, in respect of the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day."
GJ - I appreciate Jay Webber confirming my thesis and Doug Lindee acknowledging it. Many people have helped sort out the details and causes. The Knapp connection came from another researcher. The laity have been the most insightful and clear-minded about this. They started me on this research, kept after me to continue, and continued to encourage me.
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| Luther's greatest single book and Bunyan's favorite, next to the Bible. Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, once the best-selling English book after the KJV.
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Webber got the Rambach quote from volume III of Walther-Baier, pp. 271-3. Here is another translation of that quote:
J. J. Rambach: “Christ was in his resurrection first of all for his own person made righteous, Isa. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, then the righteousness of God declared that from this our surety may be paid out and we are fully freed, and he is like a receipt given, and this happens in his resurrection; there he leaves his shield-tower and is placed on free feet. There now the surety is justified, thus in him also all debtors will be made righteous.” (Ausführliche Erklärung der Ep. and die Römer, p. 322).
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Lindee Undercuts the Jay Webber Gambit: UOJ Is Ind...":
Did (W)ELS Pastor Jay Webber happen to remember the name of the Bus that just hit him?
By the grace and mercy of God he will repent of his error concerning the central and chief article of Scripture and turn in God given faith to Christ alone for forgiveness and life.
