Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Is Not All Grace But All Works. Why WELS, ELS,...":
The universal objective justification diehards will pervert the grace of God. They have a big problem dealing with Ephesians 2:8-9. Part and parcel of their perversion is to accuse others of limiting the Atonement of Christ when they themselves limit the grace of God by not connecting His grace with the Holy Spirit's actions of creating and sustaining faith.
Instead, they desire a cheap grace that is all packaged up in the once for all sacrifice of Christ. They can't see God's grace in the Holy Spirit's action of bringing the soul to faith. [Titus 3:5 ; John 3:3-8 ; 1 Cor. 6:11]
These universalism enthusiasts don't want to admit that the Holy Spirit creates faith in whom He may. To them that is at odds with their brand of universalism teaching and preaching of forgiveness for all without being born from above by the Holy Spirit. [John 3:3-8]
When is the last time you talked with an objective justification universalist and heard him credit the Holy Spirit for His full work? It won’t happen, because they only ascribe grace with Christ and none to the Holy Spirit and His gracious work.
Nathan M. Bickel - Bay City, MI
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Is Not All Grace But All Works. Why WELS, ELS,...":
I further think that while universal objective justification enthusiasts falsely accuse their opponents of limiting the Atonement, they, at the same time don't want to admit that the Holy Spirit (working with the Word) would create faith in whom He may. They can't stand the thought of some souls not coming into their come one / come all, universalist heaven. By so doing so, these universalists deny the reality of God's free moral agency gift, which is exercised by human souls to their own (soul's) eternal destruction.
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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Is Not All Grace But All Works. Why WELS, ELS,...":
Pastor Bickel,
This is an accurate assessment of those who cannot accept the fact that the Holy Spirit works only through the Means of Grace. When you point out to them that all of their efforts and programs, by themselves, will not make one believer, their response is "yeah, but .....". Without even thinking about it, they have become small m methodists. They scratch their heads wondering why the pews are not full every Sunday when the Devil's tent next door (Luther's quote) is bursting at the seams.
Their improper use of the Law becomes a treadmill for them. They are blinded to the notion that all of their planning and effort is an exercise in futility. Yet they still clamor for Law based solutions as they attempt to grow the visible church.
