Ichabod – I’ve had it! I demand an apology!
Are you still on this faith and belief kick? Don't you know by now that since Christians have Christian baptism and Christ's Holy Supper to offer, that there is no need (anymore) of personal faith and belief? How dare you trumpet these Scriptures (and Confessions) which speak about faith and belief? Don't you know that all those Scriptures are mere window dressing? Haven't you figured out by now that the only thing churches need to teach their youth is that Jesus loves them and that he has saved them?
These growing children don't need to be burdened with any guilt for continued lying to their parents and bully behavior on the playground. No! Instead they need to be continually taught that Jesus has acquitted them from all this and that He is nothing but absolution for them! How do you expect them to grow up and be respectable church members who gamble, gossip and vote their pocketbooks for ungodly political leaders if you stain their consciences with this Law teaching that God hates sin and is angry with the sinner everyday? [1]
How dare you talk about all of this anti “universal ‘objective’ justification?” Do you really want these children and adults to develop guilt complexes over their sins against God, His Commandments and their fellowman? How dare you burden these souls who are eternally saved and secured by Christ's Atonement? How dare you prey upon these innocent souls and suggest that they do not have God’s gracious sovereign immunity from all their continued sins?
Ichabod - What is it with you, anyway that you must feel the need to assert that these isolated things such as “faith” and “belief” have anything to do with a Christian's right standing with God? Don't you know by now that faith and personal belief are impediments to genuine growth in churches? Haven’t you moved on from that 1500’s Luther personality who narrowly insisted that a soul is justified by God’s grace through faith alone? How in the world do you expect churches to grow with some of their older church members still insisting on some of these Neanderthal Scriptures and doctrines that expect Christians to fight the good fight of faith and to lay hold of eternal life? [2] Shame on you for expecting anything of church members other than to sit passively in their church pew inhaling the sweet declaration of universal objective justification mercies!
Ichabod - But, most of all, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for even mentioning the Holy Spirit - and going ape over allowing your reading audience to even become more familiar with His unseen presence! Don't you know that Christ promising His disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit was only to make them feel better about his soon departure? Don't you know that Christ never desired after His death and resurrection that the Holy Spirit receive any attention? Don't you know that the Holy Spirit is only a vestigial spiritual organ which is unneeded in today's modern culture and that he is replaced by the objective universal absolution, forgiveness and sanctification that was concluded at Golgotha’s Cross?
Finally, shame on you again, - Ichabod. I demand an online posted apology from you! And, don’t you dare confuse your reading audience by quoting from Scripture or that “apology” stuff from that Confessional Book of Concord!
[1] Psalm 7:11 ; Psalm 37:13 ; Galatians 5:19-21 - KJV
[2] 1 Timothy 6:12 ; 2 Timothy 4:7 - KJV
Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
P.S. Lest anyone think that I believe the aforementioned, it was intended to highlight a false form of universalism.
