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| Martin Chemnitz |
LPC has left a new comment on your post "From the Formula of Concord - Election":
I find paragraph 14 crucial it says namely, that the entire doctrine concerning the purpose, counsel, will, and ordination of God pertaining to our redemption, call, justification, and salvation should be taken together; as Paul treats and has explained this article Rom. 8:29f ; Eph. 1:4f , as also Christ in the parable, Matt. 22:1ff , namely, that God in His purpose and counsel ordained
In my Tappert version it says This means that we must always take as one unit the entire doctrine of God's purpose, counsel, will and ordinance ...
This is exactly what Walther and his disciples did not do, to take the entire 8 articles as ONE UNIT, not shredded nor compartmentalised. Consequently, their belief is tantamount to Unconditional Election.
The authors of Errors of Missouri are not mere amateurs on this issue. Like the Wittenberg Faculty which drove off Huber knew, once Unconditional Election is accepted, one now goes down the devil's territory of also accepting the other letter of TULIP, the I, which stands for Irresistible Grace.
TULIP is an interlocking chain, once you add U to T, and by virtue of it, you must then add I, then L then P.
Clearly the BoC denies that God's grace is irresistible, it is resistible indeed. Acts 7:51
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye
In Calvinism, if we be honest, faith is just an after thought of God. Faith is not the real issue, the real issue is that God is Sovereign, which is also the Islamic theme.
Calvinism does not have the 8 Axioms of Election found in the BoC. It has only one Axiom, the Sovereignty of God.
Election was never a problem in Lutheranism. It only became an issue when Huber and Walther came on the scene.
LPC
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| F. A. Schmidt is the SynConference whipping boy, but they do not mention that Stellhorn was a respected Missouri professor before he jumped off the anti-faith bandwagon. |
GJ - The SynConference boys still attack Schmidt, as if the professor created a big stir and caused a split because he did not get a job at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Setting aside the obvious ad hominem logical fallacy, it does not make sense that so many people would question the Great Kidnapper (Walther) over a long period of time.
We should stop and ask why a mere college graduate, with four years of higher education, should be the final judge of all Lutheran teaching. Sadly, that is the perspective of the SynConference, when it suits their purpose. Walther spent four years at a rationalistic university, guided by two Pietistic gurus. The first one was too harsh, the second one too hedonistic. Walther's Pietistic disciples decided he was just right.
Walther's Easter absolution scheme was clearly anti-Christian from the start. Its appeal to the Pietistic circle is obvious. Their first leader forced a morbid, legalistic system of penance upon everyone. When he moved away and died, they gravitated to another Pietistic leader, Stephan, who comforted them with the news that everyone in the world was forgiven the moment Christ rose from the dead. For a man like Walther, who saw no forgiveness in Pietism, this was the Gospel.
For Pietism, the cell group or conventicle is the only Means of Grace. The cell group leader is the guru in the Indian (Hindu) sense of the word, where a guru has total control and mastery over his disciples. No one could question Stephan and remain in the group. Although Walther organized the mob, not one of the clergy could stand up to Stephan, face to face. They had an outsider, a real estate agent read the charges against the bishop.
When the dominant Pietism of the Perryville group began to fade, and various people began to study Luther and the Confessions with diligence, the fallacy of Walther's Easter absolution began to emerge. Walther could not appeal to the Book of Concord or any controversy following the 1580 publication. Instead of pounding justification without faith, he insisted on election without faith.
Dr. Lito Cruz has put his finger on the Waltherian flaw. Election is not as difficult as some pretend, but it has literature more voluminous than the Assumption of Mary, thanks to Calvinists being at war over their founder's double predestination (that before or after The Fall of Man, God decreed everyone predestined to eternal life or to eternal damnation).
Walther found a loophole he could exploit - declaring election without faith. Anyone against that pearl was a dangerous heretic, in spite of the Kidnapper's obvious pixelation of Article XI. in the Formula of Concord. Like the Easter absolution, election without faith was portrayed as pure grace when it is pure bunk instead.
The Book of Concord, Chemnitz, and Luther always treat these matters in relation to the Holy Spirit working exclusively through the Means of Grace - the invisible Word of teaching and preaching, the visible Word of the Sacraments.
However, Walther addressed the issue with his theses, an ideal way to divide and conquer. Valleskey did the same when selling his Church Growth theses. Why bother with Scripture and doctrine when one can simply make statements while daring anyone to question them?
The modern Pietists think they are not Pietists because they are hedonists, but that never bothered Bishop Stephan, STD. He controlled everyone and owned his disciples, body and soul. That appeals to the cell group Enthusiasts of today.
One Church Growth victim said their WELS pastor ordered them to study certain anti-Lutheran books of false doctrine. Like charismatics, the loyalty is to the agenda.
Walther's SynConference can only be understood as an extension of the Bishop Stephan cell group ministry. They began with a completely flawed concept of the Christian congregation and the pastor's role. Walther coveted the role of Big Cheese and made sure everyone genuflected to his ideas. His Easter absolution of the entire world, central to all his thought (and unchanging, like Calvin's double predestination), eviscerated any teaching of the Means of Grace.
UOJ is the lens through which the SynConference sees everything, so they shout "Halleluia!" to everyone being born forgiven, but baptize babies anyway. Why? They tell people in private confession, "You were forgiven before you came in here."
They claim that Holy Communion is the act of showing people they were already forgiven.
Their Law is Guru Law, not the Ten Commandments. Gurus can sleep with the wives of their members and get promoted by the synod rather than tossed in jail. Gurus can absolve the unrepentant like Hochmuth while condemning the innocent who question Holy Mother Synod.
The UOJ Gospel is Universal Absolution and Universal Salvation. Rather than step away from such nonsense, the SynConference boys are now emphasizing and proclaiming those errors.
