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| Eduard Preuss wrote a similar statement. See what Peterson said about that essay below. |
Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "What is a Lutheran? | Evangelical Lutheran Synod. ...":
Can someone explain the difference between this ELS confession of Justification and Universalism?
“In our ELS Explanation of Luther’s Catechism under the chapter heading The Forgiveness of Sins we have this question and answer which sums it up well: How can God declare sinners righteous? God can declare sinners righteous because, on the basis of the redemptive work of Christ, he has acquitted all men of the guilt and punishment of their sins, and has imputed to them the righteousness of Christ; He therefore regards them in Christ as though they had never sinned (general or objective justification). (ELS Catechism p. 154) “Through faith” designates faith as the empty hand that reaches out and accepts the forgiveness of sins.” Page 8-9
Quoted directly from the ELS essay files, The Birth that gave Rebirth to the Doctrine of Justification by W.W. Peterson :
http://www.blts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/WWP-Rebirth.pdf
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| Did everyone catch that? The "orthodox" Synodical Conference position is not even found in the Book of Concord. |
GJ - Peterson's long essay is a laborious rehash of all the UOJ talking points. UOJ Enthusiasts are so dishonest that they deny the very things they claim in writing. After denying justification by faith, they creep back and claim it as their own, but only after arguing the opposite. As someone said about one style of Synodical Conference sermon, "You are all a bunch of worthless slugs (20 minutes), but (conclusion) thanks be to God, Jesus forgave your sins. Amen. The peac..."
Just below the statement quoted by Brett Meyer, Peterson referred to E. Preuss' work as "a monumental treatise." Everyone is supposed to gasp with awe when they think about Preuss' monumental work, a small booklet, but not think about how he afterwards joined the Church of Rome as a theologian. That is never mentioned when preaching Preuss into Who's Who in Lutheran Theology.
Quoting me, quoting Cascione, since the incriminating page has been removed from Cascione's websty:
GJ:
Let me turn back the time machine for the Lutheran Orthodoxy of "The Fort." Here is a quotation from Robert Preus, which Jack Cascione and others have reproduced to show how orthodox UOJ the president of the seminary was (1981):
Robert Preus:
All this is put beautifully by an old Lutheran theologian of our church, "We are redeemed from the guilt of sin; the wrath of God is appeased; all creation is again under the bright rays of mercy, as in the beginning; yea, in Christ we were justified before we were even born. For do not the Scriptures say: ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them?'’ This is not the justification which we receive by faith...That is the great absolution which took place in the resurrection of Christ. It was the Father, for our sake, who condemned His dear Son as the greatest of all sinners causing Him to suffer the greatest punishment of the transgressors, even so did He publicly absolve Him from the sins of the world when He raised Him up from the dead." (Eduard Preuss, "The Justification of a Sinner Before God," pp. 14-15) [GJ - Eduard Preuss turned Roman Catholic, so he was not exactly an old Lutheran theologian!] Source - Reclaiming Knapp.
I sympathize with Cascione in removing this quotation. Read by itself, cold sober, without experiencing a UOJ high, the statement by E. Preuss is utter nonsense. To quote it with approval shows a decided lack of discernment.
But Cascione reproduced the essay to prove that Preus did teach UOJ, a fact I have never denied. Cascione mistakenly offered evidence that Preus changed his position over the years. No matter what people argue, the essay cited and Justification and Rome have two opposing positions.
The UOJ gurus will not deal seriously with Justification and Rome. I doubt whether they have the spiritual discernment.
Once the UOJ philosophy is adopted, everything sticks to it, like gold and silver adhering to mercury. Every article of faith is poisoned by the UOJ slant. Besides that, the Synodical Conference (tm) leaders cannot admit that a single essay might be wrong.
Isn't it odd, to have the Book of Concord develop over a 34-year period (Luther's death, 1546, to publication in 1580), and then to have an essay by a propagandist raised to canonical status? Every UOJ essay trumps the Bible and the Book of Concord.
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| Jungkuntz became ELCA. E. Preuss Roman Catholic. They are still worthy of being quoted because they spouted UOJ. |
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LPC has left a new comment on your post "The ELS Cannot Grasp Justification by Faith, The C...":
No matter what people argue, the essay cited and Justification and Rome have two opposing positions.
According to Jack Cascione, R. Preus said this Nor is objective justification "merely" a "Lutheran term" to denote that justification is available to all as a recent "Lutheran Witness" article puts it – although it is certainly true that forgiveness is available to all. Nor is objective justification a Missouri Synod construct, a "theologoumenon" (a theological peculiarity), devised cleverly to ward off synergism (that man cooperates in his conversion) and Calvinistic double predestination, as Dr. Robert Schultz puts it in "Missouri in Perspective" (February 23, 1981, p. 5) – although the doctrine does indeed serve to stave off these two aberrations. No, objective justification is a clear teaching of Scripture, it is an article of faith which no Lutheran has any right to deny or pervert any more than the article of the Trinity or of the vicarious atonement.
I would say that Preus at the very least, contradicted his past assertions in the Justification and Rome book, I will go for that assertion at a minimum. One would expect in Chapter 11 of that book objective justification discussed but in fact, it is not there as a phrase or the term. In UOJ the object is the justification that has already occurred on or for you. Preus' exposition of this chapter contradicts that and shows he contradicts himself's earlier pronouncements.
LPC
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "The ELS Cannot Grasp Justification by Faith, The C...":
(W)ELS continues to preach UOJ - faithless forgiveness of sins.
http://www.elctempe.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180038237&sec_id=180001623
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GJ - Dr. Cruz, if people cannot tell the difference between the earlier Preus work and Justification and Rome, they should go back to school, as long as it is not a Synodical Conference (tm) school.
Brett, that sermon is an abomination. I think he made it up while he was getting his robe on. There is no effort to deal with the text, a common problem today. There is also a major effort to make every feel superior because they are not suffering from liberalism - even though the sermon is aimed at destroying Lutheran doctrine. His weapon is a pea-shooter, but even a child's weapon can do damage in time.
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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "The ELS Cannot Grasp Justification by Faith, The C...":
Ichabod -
According to Robert Preus - before his last book:
<<<<<<<< All this is put beautifully by an old Lutheran theologian of our church, "We are redeemed from the guilt of sin; the wrath of God is appeased; all creation is again under the bright rays of mercy, as in the beginning; yea, in Christ we were justified before we were even born. For do not the Scriptures say: ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them?'’ This is not the justification which we receive by faith...That is the great absolution which took place in the resurrection of Christ. >>>>>>>
With all due respect for Dr. Preus, I believe that he gets into trouble when he talks about justification "before we were even born" and then he goes on to talk about the "great absolution." It seems that he trips himself up attempting to enjoin the two, while talking about God in Christ, "reconciling the world unto Himself."
I don't care how great a theologian, someone is, as I contend that it is both preposterous and presumptuous to know the time frame of when a person is justified. What did Christ say to Nichodemus in the Gospel of John, chapter 3:?
John 3:8 - "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." [KJV]
Call "it" the "new birth," "regeneration," "coming into the Faith," "conversion," "begotton of God," "born of the Spirit," etc. - however, when the Holy Spirit does His thing in the individual, there is genuine belief in Christ. That's the blessed, bottom line.
Nathan M. Bickel - pastor emeritus
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
