Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Fake-o-Blog Stepping Up the Pace":
Anti-Ichabod is confirming that the denizens of Sodom and Gomorrah are by their central doctrine of Universal Objective Justification, declared by God to be sinless, justified and righteous. UOJ teaches that they are now sinless saints in Hell. (W)ELS' Siegbert W. Becker confirmed this in his foundational essay on Justification.
In response to Kokomo #1
1) Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner’s attitude toward Christ’s sacrifice, purely on the basis of God’s verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint.
S.W. Becker states, "The first statement can easily be misunderstood and has caused confusion. The Bible never uses the word saint, when applied to human beings, in any other sense than a converted Christian. Those who have read those words in the context of John Meyer’s Ministers of Christ know what Prof. Meyer wanted to say in that sentence. The key words are “objectively speaking” and “status.” Meyer simply wanted to say that the sins of all men are forgiven. “Status of a saint” to him meant “the legal state of a forgiven sinner.” While we may disagree with his use of English, we cannot as biblical theologians surrender what he wanted to say. Nevertheless it would have been better if he had not used the word saint in that connection, especially since the word “received” is also a word that is often used in describing the function of faith in justification. We receive the status of saint for ourselves or accept forgiveness through faith.
The same criticism can be directed against the second statement. One really becomes a guilt-free saint only through faith, if we limit ourselves to the biblical usage of the word. However, since our holiness, as Augustine says, consists in sin’s remission rather than in life’s perfection, we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint. The fact that 15 unbelievers do not consider themselves to be forgiven does not change the truth of God’s Word that tells us that God does not impute the sins of all men to them, or that through one man justification has come upon all men.
Even the fourth statement can be defended even though it leaves much to be desired. As we have said, the statement is not drawn from a WELS source. If it is true that God has forgiven the sins of the world then it is also true that he forgave the sin of Judas. When Jesus called Judas “friend” in the garden, he was in effect treating him as a forgiven sinner. If Jesus took away the sins of the world he also took away the sins of the people who died in the flood. It is surely no more difficult to believe that God forgave sins that were already being punished than to believe that at the time of the resurrection he forgave sins that had not yet been committed. How that is possible I do not know. It very likely finds its explanation in the divine attribute of eternity. But while the statement can be defended as expressing a biblical reality, yet it would be best not to speak in such terms. In Scandinavia it is customary on the part of some to ridicule universal justification with the remark, “The damned lie in hell with their forgiven sins.” So this fourth statement is a caricature which has a tendency to make universal justification look ridiculous.
Enjoy your central doctrine of UOJ Anti-Ichabod it is an abomination.
