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| This is the crown jewel of UOJ in the Book of Concord? No, it is a repudiation of UOJ. |
And on this account let no one boast of works, because no one is justified by his deeds. But he who is righteous has it given him because he was justified after the laver [of Baptism]. Faith, therefore, is that which frees through the blood of Christ, because he is blessed "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered," Ps. 32:1,104] These are the words of Ambrose, which clearly favor our doctrine; he denies justification to works, and ascribes to faith that it sets us free through the blood of Christ. Let all the Sententiarists, who are adorned with magnificent titles, be collected into one heap. For some are called angelic; others, subtile, and others irrefragable [that is, doctors who cannot err.] When all these have been read and reread, they will not be of as much aid for understanding Paul as is this one passage of
Ambrose.
Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV: That We Obtain Remission of Sins by Faith Alone in Christ,
#104ff.
***
GJ - When the UOJ Enthusiasts crack open the Book of Concord, it only opens to one spot, right here. And they only quote the first part of the paragraph, which suits their perverted Gospel - a Gospel which is not Gospel to fit a faith which is no faith.
Melanchthon was contending against justification by works, proving justification by faith from Ambrose, one of the Doctors of the Church for the papal party. This entire article on justification is a defense of justification by faith, and the title of this section makes that even clearer (for those who graduated from Mequon) -
That We Obtain Remission of Sins by Faith Alone in Christ.
In the craft of writing, one does not simply make a point and let it hang. Melanchthon was a gifted theological writer and a scholar of Greek and Latin. He wrote paragraphs, not verses. A paragraph has a beginning, middle, and an end. This one builds to a climax focusing on Ambrose as a Doctor of the Church, a Doctor of Justification by Faith. Jay Webber and his vicar, Jon Buchholz, take that justification by faith away through subterfuge, since the plain words of the paragraph condemn both MDivs as Sententiarists.
I have pity for Buchholz and Webber, because they have so little research and writing behind them. They are like children sent to Piggly-Wiggly with a credit card to buy groceries for the family. They come home with bags of marshmallows, candied apples, Fruit Loop cereal, orange juice, chocolate milk, Fritos, and hot dogs. They have all the food groups, but selected with such ignorance that the results are junk. Their selective arguments are junk, too.
Webber and Buchholz are the new Sententiarists. They gather their self-serving quotations, to keep everyone in the dark. After a period of time, enough names and quotations can be collected and used selectively to prove anything.
Eduard Preuss, the Bo Derek of aging UOJ champions, knew how to do this. First he worked on Lutheran orthodoxy. Then he taught Walther's UOJ at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Finally, he taught papal falsehoods for the Church of Rome. Asked about his change, he said, "Give me the quotations and I can prove anything."
I have gathered as much UOJ material as possible, with the help of others, to show what has been taught and where it started. The UOJ Enthusiasts deceptively drill through the Pietism base to discover UOJ in the Book of Concord and in the NNIV. But their layer of proof is from Halle Pietism and the graduates of Halle Pietism. This can be clearly shown in the arguments in favor of universal forgiveness without faith: Rambach, Knapp, Tholuck, Schleiermacher, and Barth.
In other words, I want everyone to read UOJ statements.
But the UOJ Stormtroopers want justification by faith attacked, silenced, and metaphorically burned at the stake. The difference should be telling.
