Rolf Preus on LaughQuest:
I don’t know Rev. Rydecki. I do know most of the men associated with the Sabre of Boldness Award and they are orthodox Lutherans. I went to the Steadfast Lutherans website to find Rev. Rydecki’s comments. David Schumacher has correctly quoted him. It’s quite disappointing to read Rev. Rydecki’s comments. I certainly hope that the men who gave him this award will hasten to distance themselves from what he has said on this topic. The denial that God for Christ sake has forgiven the sins of the whole world is a very serious error. Friends don’t let friends deny objective justification without setting them straight!
Reading through the debate on the Steadfast Lutherans website brings to mind the many times I have participated in a debate on this topic over the years and I think of the French proverb, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!”
What it really comes down to is the meaning of the gospel itself. To assert a universal redemption while denying a universal justification is to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the very nature of the gospel. I used to think that it was just that they didn’t understand words and did not understand that redemption entailed setting free and not merely paying the price to set free, that atonement entailed reconciliation, that reconciliation meant the cessation of God’s wrath, etc. But their problem is not primarily with misunderstanding the meaning of the specific soteriological terms – though it may begin there. It runs much deeper. They don’t understand the gospel. In their mind, the work of Christ hasn’t really achieved anything. Not really. Not so really that you can tell someone, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you.” But that's what Jesus said, and St. Matthew points out that God had given such power to men (plural) and not to Jesus alone.
Justification is for faith. That’s where the rubber hits the road. Objective justification is the assertion that faith has something real to grasp. To assert justification through faith alone while denying objective justification is to twist justification through faith into justification because of faith and once faith becomes the catalyst by which sins are forgiven fideism is given sanction and approval when it really ought to be exposed and rejected as the source of uncertainty.
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GJ -
1. Read your father's book with discernment, Rolf.
2. Read P. Leyser's rebuke of Samuel Huber.
3. Take a deep, cleansing breath. Repent and retract.
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| Rolf Preus just condemned this repudiation of Samuel Huber. He also imagines that Romans 4:24-25 absolves the world of sin. |
KJV Romans 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
PS - About the pro-abortion forces. They are going crazy over the fact that the Susan B. Komen Foundation is no longer funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of $700,000 a year. This charity bills itself as a fight against breast cancer, and abortion increases the risk of breast cancer.
Now the pro-abortion forces are attacking the Komen charity for no longer funding them, and all the pro-abortion people are chiming in. That only alerts people to fact of Planned Parenthood's abortion business and advocacy. I seldom write much about it on this blog because the readers are pro-life.
On Facebook I post many pro-life messages because babies need advocates too.
The UOJ Stormtroopers remind me of the pro-abortion lobbies because they pounce on every mention of justification by faith and vow to straighten out anyone who allows someone to voice what Luther taught, what the Book of Concord confessed, what the Scriptures clearly reveal.
Debate is good because the hidden agenda comes out into the daylight. Rolf Preus has stated on LaughQuest repeated that Romans 4:25 is the absolution of the world's sin. Nothing like that is revealed, and his weak argument collapses completely with the inclusion of Romans 4:24 and the context of the two verses as the end of Romans 4, the transition to Romans 5 - justification by faith.
The Stormtroopers are like the abortionists because they use the logical fallacy of special pleading as their only method. There is only one side, theirs, and only one set of authorities to quote, theirs. Anyone else is a heretic.
On this blog and in my books I have no trouble quoting all their authorities and many more they have never read. I do this to let people study the sources and see for themselves. As soon as the Stormtroopers realize they are out-gunned and out-numbered, they turn incredibly nasty.
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LPC has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Stormtroopers Remind Me of the Pro-Abortion Fo...":
Pr. Greg,
The perversion of this Preus descendant is astounding.
Here is what the test said
Matthew 9:2
And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
This Preus wants to declare to everyone be they have faith or not, "Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you".
This is universalism, and a perversion of the Sacred Text, a twisting of the Words of Jesus.
LPC
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Stormtroopers Remind Me of the Pro-Abortion Fo...":
Rolf Preus states, "They don’t understand the gospel. In their mind, the work of Christ hasn’t really achieved anything. Not really. Not so really that you can tell someone, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you." ...YOU ARE JUSTIFIED, RIGHTEOUS IN CHRIST AND ABSOLVED OF ALL SIN - AND YOU ARE CONDEMNED TO HELL FOR NOT BELIEVING IT.
I added the bolded parts as they fully express the teaching of UOJ.
That was a good discussion if only to allow them more rope. They certainly confessed all manner of false teachings which anyone willing to compare with the Lutheran Confessions and the Scripture passages presented can see for themselves. Even the rational thought used to subject Scripture to human reason was clearly shown.
3 comments:
No one at Steadfast Lutherans or LutherQuest evaluated the ramifications of the UOJ WELS Siegbert Becker taught, a UOJ that denied the efficacy of the means of grace, a UOJ that got the Krohn's disciplined in their WELS church. WELS pastors ought to review what they were taught by Becker. According to Steadfast Lutherans, the LC-MS rejects his formulation of UOJ. Below is the Becker UOJ as critiqued by the Swedes. For the complete reference see footnote 75 in the Hardt paper.
2) Absolution and the means of grace are downgraded to means of communication and deprived of their efficacy. S. Becker. op. cit., p. 55, interprets John 20:23: “they are remitted unto them” as a reference to what has already happened at Calvary, p. 56: “The meaning is this: ‘They have been forgiven completely in the past, and they still are forgiven now. This means that when we preach the message of the Gospel, we do not effect the remission of sins through our sermon.’” (tr. from Swedish).
3) Universal justification is said to be the contents of the sermon to be delivered to the heathen without any previous reference to the Law. This striking similarity to Huber’s pastoral advice to the Wittenberg theologians, quoted above in our article, is found in Becker, op. cit., p. 56 f. (tr. from Swedish): “In America it is very common that Reformed missionaries tell a man whom they try to gain: ‘Are you saved?’ … It is, however, not likely that a Lutheran missionary would ask: ‘Are you saved?’, as the experience of conversion is not so important from his theological point of view. As he believes in universal redemption and in universal justification it is more likely that he changes the order of the words and says: ‘You are saved,’ ‘Your sins are forgiven unto you.’ He can say so to everyone, as he knows that it is true about everyone.” Through the centuries Huber’s missionary sermon: “Habetis gratiam Dei” resounds in the 20th century.
Undoubtedly Söderlund’s fears concerning the theology introduced through Becker into Sweden seem reasonably justified.
Pr. Greg,
The perversion of this Preus descendant is astounding.
Here is what the test said
Matthew 9:2
And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
This Preus wants to declare to everyone be they have faith or not, "Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you".
This is universalism, and a perversion of the Sacred Text, a twisting of the Words of Jesus.
LPC
Rolf Preus states, "They don’t understand the gospel. In their mind, the work of Christ hasn’t really achieved anything. Not really. Not so really that you can tell someone, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you." ...YOU ARE JUSTIFIED, RIGHTEOUS IN CHRIST AND ABSOLVED OF ALL SIN - AND YOU ARE CONDEMNED TO HELL FOR NOT BELIEVING IT.
I added the bolded parts as they fully express the teaching of UOJ.
That was a good discussion if only to allow them more rope. They certainly confessed all manner of false teachings which anyone willing to compare with the Lutheran Confessions and the Scripture passages presented can see for themselves. Even the rational thought used to subject Scripture to human reason was clearly shown.
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