Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Glad You Asked - Simpleman.Errors of Knapp Magnifi...":
If a person claims that faith is synergistic (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/synergism?s=t) if sins are forgiven solely by faith in Christ alone, precluding any forgiveness declared before and without faith, than they are teaching faith is a work of man. And since false teaching Lutheran UOJists believe faith is a work of man they declare that faith is nothing but an empty hand doing nothing but receiving what was already declared to be true before they believed.
Further proof that UOJists are teaching decision theology in their doctrine of Universal forgiveness and by their attack on the Holy Spirit's faith:
WELS MLC President Mark Zarling, "Faith does nothing more than receive the forgiveness which is offered in the Gospel. It is not a condition we fulfill nor is it a cause of forgiveness. We are already forgiven. God's message of justification in Christ is there whether we believe it or not. Faith then receives the blessings." And, "Faith that accepts the good news of universal justification is the work of God the Holy Ghost." Page 7
http://www.wlsessays.net/files/ZarlingJustification.pdf
WELS Our Great Heritage states, "And yet many Lutherans still labor under the delusion that God does not forgive us unless we believe. Instead of seeing faith as nothing more than the spiritual hand with which we make the forgiveness of God our own, they see it as a reason why God forgives us. They believe that Christ has indeed provided forgiveness for all men, that God is willing to forgive them, but before he really forgives he first of all demands that we should be sorry for our sins and that we should have faith. Just have faith they say, and then God will forgive you. All the right words are there. The only thing wrong is that the words are in the wrong order. God does not forgive us IF we have faith. He has forgiven us long ago when he raised his Son from the dead." (p. 59)"
WELS Siegbert W. Becker
"Faith does nothing more than accept the forgiveness proclaimed in the Gospel. It is not a condition we must fulfill before we can be forgiven. It is not a cause of forgiveness on account of which God forgives us. The forgiveness comes first. Faith is merely the response to the message. God says to us, “Your sins are forgiven.” This is objective justification, and God’s message to us is true whether we believe it or not. Faith makes God’s message its own and says, “My sins are forgiven.” This is subjective justification. The whole doctrine is just as simple as that." Page 12, The Place of Faith
http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckerJustification.PDF
WELS AZ/CA DP Pastor Jon Buchholz
"Faith doesn’t bring anything into existence that doesn’t already exist. Faith doesn’t cause something to happen. Faith simply grasps— trusts—something that already is in place." Page 14
http://archive.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=1161&contentID=76707&shortcutID=26388
August Pieper (as quoted by Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and School and Evergreen Lutheran High School in defense of their teaching of UOJ), third volume of the Quartalschrift , "But whoever molests the doctrine of justification stabs the gospel in the heart ...even if he ever so much emphasizes justification by faith."
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| I believe he was a key factor in the Protest'ant split. Here is an easy to remember WELS formula: Not WELS, then damned. That applies to the ELS (but not to Sweet, Stetzer, Stanley, Driscoll, Hybels, et al.) If you question this, you are obviously not WELS or soon to be ejected. |
GJ - My Icha-widow wants me to hurry up. Luther warned that foul errors creep in when the Means of Grace are denied.
The SynConference is a perfect example. Once F. Pieper got his 1932 Brief Statement turned into canon law, above and beyond the Scriptures and the Confessions, Missouri began to tank.
The ONE dogma uniting the SynConference is justification without faith.
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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Is Mark Jeske a Descendant of Augie Pieper?":
Ichabod -
UOJ (universal objective justification) enthusiasts diminish Scripture's teaching about "justification by faith" with their all encompassing declarations of humanity's blanket forgiveness based upon Christ's sacrifice for human sin. They are so myopic in their view that they fail to give the Holy Spirit his divine due. Hence, they ignore the importance of personal faith and belief. I quote from my [this] week's "The Christian Message" topical message:
.........Sinner – Do not think that you will escape God’s just judgment upon your sorry soul. In your unrepentant state without saving faith, you, in your damning unbelief, are like the faithless wealthy church goers, who will share your same eternal everlasting torment death fate. Your eternal death doom will be exacted upon you for the same reason it will be for those whose church going did not make a difference to the Triune God who expects personal faith to be present with the hearing of His Scripture Word. The Scripture teaches that God’s Word can be present, - and, even “heard” by those in Christian worship circles, - but if it isn’t met with faith, it is useless for one’s eternal welfare:
"For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." - Hebrews 4:2
May I add here, that American churches are plenteous with false preaching and teaching about Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. As one person commented, on a Christian website, that false gospel is, a "Universal Forgiveness before and without faith."............
"Why Reliance Upon Human Wealth Is So Spiritually Damning"
http://www.thechristianmessage.org/2012/06/why-reliance-upon-human-wealth-is-so.html
I think that it was Brett Meyer who coined those six words of "Universal Forgiveness before and without faith," on this very own Ichabod website.
Nathan M. Bickel - emeritus pastor
http://www.thechristianmessage.org/
