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| WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect have proven Schmauk right. |
Justin Laymen has left a new comment on your post "Three UOJs or Just One?They Have the Same Mother, ...":
Here is a pertinant quote from pastor rydeckis paper from the intrepids lutheran conference:
"If we want to be Dresden Lutherans, then we will teach justification by faith alone as the chief article of the Christian faith. The justification of the poor sinner before God is presented explicitly and quite exhaustively in the Lutheran Confessions (and by other 16th Century Lutheran theologians) as including four key components, without any of which the poor sinner is not, in any sense, justified before God: 1) the grace of God, 2) the merit of Christ, 3) the means of grace, and 4) faith in Christ. The Confessions do not speak of a sense in which all sinners have already been justified before God whether they believe in Christ or not, nor do I believe the Scriptures to teach such a thing, yet such is commonly heralded among Lutherans today as the “central teaching of the Bible.” I contend that our Dresden forefathers did not miss anything or take anything for granted in this chief article of the Christian faith. Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation were, indeed, won for all people by Christ on the cross, through His merit alone. But no one is forgiven, justified, made alive or saved apart from the means of grace and apart from faith in Christ, which is graciously worked by the Holy Spirit. Dresden Lutherans would never think of qualifying Luther’s battle cry, “Faith alone justifies!”, with “Yes, but, only in a subjective sense, since we know that all people are already justified without faith!”"
