Martin Chemnitz died in 1586, a fact worth noting because of his work as the senior editor of the Book of Concord. That was his last great effort as a theologian.
Chemnitz studied under Melanchthon and Luther. He is best known for his Examination of the Council of Trent, where he studied all the issues of Trent versus orthodox Christian (Lutheran) doctrine. His extensive knowledge of the patristic fathers allowed him to take away the weapons of the papacy (Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose) and defeat their false doctrine.
His Two Natures of Christ is a masterpiece of theological scholarship. Two Natures is a work to be read slowly, to appreciate and comprehend the Gospel and those who oppose it.
Chemnitz also argued against the Calvinists, who were the chief opponents of Lutheran doctrine on the Protestant side. The Lord's Supper is written against those who doubt the Real Presence of Christ, the sacramental nature of Holy Communion.
The extensive knowledge of Chemnitz and his mastery of theology made the Second Martin the ideal person to lead the Book of Concord effort. Chemnitz blended the elegant precision of Melanchthon with the pugnacious humor and insights of Luther.
Chemnitz is talked about more than read, I am sorry to say. He must be too deep or too faithful for someone like WELS District President Jon Buchholz.
Shamefully, Buchholz openly sided with the Halle Pietist Rambach to buttress his fallacious argument that Christ absolved the entire world of sin when He rose from the dead. That error comes from the Pietistic spin on 1 Timothy 3:15.
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| This is a fairly good summary on Pietism. Mentioned is Sebastian Schmidt, whom Robert Preus quoted favorably on UOJ, when Preus was still a UOJ Enthusiast. |
Buchholz:
“But even some pietists were able to articulate the universal and objective nature of justification correctly. Johann Jakob Rambach (1693-1735)42 is sometimes flamed in the blogosphere today as one of the supposed inventors of universal objective justification, but in fact he taught in accord with the orthodox Johann Gerhard on the matter of vicarious justification in Christ, and he wrote nothing different than what Luther himself had written against the heavenly prophets in 1525 regarding justification acquired and justification appropriated. Rambach writes:
Christ was in His resurrection first of all justified for His own Person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued Him as it were a receipt thereof, and that happened in His resurrection, when He was released from His Debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified" (Ausführliche Erklärung der Epistel an die Römer, p. 322). The same to Rom. 5:19: "The justification of the human race indeed also occurred, in respect to the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day" (Ibid., p. 386) [italics and references in the original].43 Page 17
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| ELS Pastor Jay Webber, UOJ advocate |
Doug Lindee, Intrepid Lutherans, made this point against Jay Webber, which is good to read in its entirety. I am going to post the link and copy the quotation verbatim, below -
http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/2011/09/fraternal-dialogue-on-topic-of.html
O.K., one more post, and then I will try to honor Paul's wishes and not post anything else beyond his topical restriction...
I can understand why Chemnitz would read 1 Timothy 3:16 in this way. But his reading does not rule out what I would consider to be a necessary corrolary to such a "personal" justification of Jesus. The 18th-century Lutheran theologian Johann Jacob Rambach makes the following observation in his Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der Epistel an die Roemer (p. 322), regarding the Lord's payment and satisfaction of sinful humanity's "debt" to God:
"Christ was in his resurrection first of all justified for his own person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued him as it were a receipt thereof; and that happened in his resurrection, when he was released from his debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified."
Later in that commentary Rambach also writes (in a way that shows that he has 1 Tim. 3:16 in mind):
"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred, in respect of the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day."
Rambach is here echoing the teaching of the 17th-century Lutheran theologian Johannes Quistorp, who had said:
"The word justification and reconciliation is used in a twofold manner: 1) in respect of the acquired merit, 2) in respect of the appropriated merit. Thus all are justified and some are justified. All, in respect of the acquired merit; some, in respect of the appropriated merit."
All of this is from F. A. Schmidt, Justification: Subjective and Objective (1872) (translated by Kurt Marquart) (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1982), p. 21. This essay was, by the way, read at the inaugural meeting of the Synodical Conference. F. A. Schmidt (of the Norwegian Synod) had not yet had his falling out with Preus, Koren, Ottesen, and Walther over election. He was in this essay articulating the public doctrine of the Norwegian Synod, as that doctrine had been hammered out in its controversy over absolution with some synergistic Swedes and others. This way of understanding and explaining justification in all its aspects became the public doctrine of the whole Synodical Conference.
Some theologians outside the Synodical Conference, such as C. H. Little of the United Lutheran Church in America, also later embraced this comprehensive manner of teaching justification. Little said in this respect:
"If personal or subjective Justification is the acceptance by faith of objective Justification, it is manifest that it does not take place 'in view of faith.' Thus a synergistic view of Justification is avoided. This is the chief advantage in treating the subject under these two forms."
I can understand why Chemnitz would read 1 Timothy 3:16 in this way. But his reading does not rule out what I would consider to be a necessary corrolary to such a "personal" justification of Jesus. The 18th-century Lutheran theologian Johann Jacob Rambach makes the following observation in his Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der Epistel an die Roemer (p. 322), regarding the Lord's payment and satisfaction of sinful humanity's "debt" to God:
"Christ was in his resurrection first of all justified for his own person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued him as it were a receipt thereof; and that happened in his resurrection, when he was released from his debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified."
Later in that commentary Rambach also writes (in a way that shows that he has 1 Tim. 3:16 in mind):
"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred, in respect of the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day."
Rambach is here echoing the teaching of the 17th-century Lutheran theologian Johannes Quistorp, who had said:
"The word justification and reconciliation is used in a twofold manner: 1) in respect of the acquired merit, 2) in respect of the appropriated merit. Thus all are justified and some are justified. All, in respect of the acquired merit; some, in respect of the appropriated merit."
All of this is from F. A. Schmidt, Justification: Subjective and Objective (1872) (translated by Kurt Marquart) (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1982), p. 21. This essay was, by the way, read at the inaugural meeting of the Synodical Conference. F. A. Schmidt (of the Norwegian Synod) had not yet had his falling out with Preus, Koren, Ottesen, and Walther over election. He was in this essay articulating the public doctrine of the Norwegian Synod, as that doctrine had been hammered out in its controversy over absolution with some synergistic Swedes and others. This way of understanding and explaining justification in all its aspects became the public doctrine of the whole Synodical Conference.
Some theologians outside the Synodical Conference, such as C. H. Little of the United Lutheran Church in America, also later embraced this comprehensive manner of teaching justification. Little said in this respect:
"If personal or subjective Justification is the acceptance by faith of objective Justification, it is manifest that it does not take place 'in view of faith.' Thus a synergistic view of Justification is avoided. This is the chief advantage in treating the subject under these two forms."
[on the same thread]
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| Doug Lindee, WELS Layman |
Rev. Webber,
I've been away from my desk for several hours now, and I notice that I have been addressed in several posts, above, but your last post is foremost on my mind at the moment. I am disappointed. Of course, none of us have ever heard of this theologian you quote with distinction, Johann Jacob Rambach, and use to discredit the orthodox theologian Martin Chemnitz in his exegesis of 1 Tim. 3:16. One of us Intrepids -- not me, not Rev's Rydecki or Spencer, but one of us who does a lot of work behind the scenes -- began feverishly researching this theologian, to find out who he is. You quote Rambach from Schmidt/Marquart, so perhaps you don't really know who he is, either. I assume, in all charity, that you don't.
What our fellow Intrepid found is that Rambach was a confessing Pietist. In fact, several essays from the WELS essay file identify and criticize him as such:
Pietism’s Teaching on Church and Ministry: As Evidenced in its Pastoral Practice
After Three Centuries - The Legacy of Pietism
Agreement on the Correct View of the Authority of Scripture as the Source of Doctrine: The Way to Unity in the Church
A Historical Survey and Brief Examination of the Hymnbooks Used Within the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
The Confessional Lutheran Emigrations From Prussia And Saxony Around 1839
When I found out about this, I immediately pulled my copy of Loescher's Timotheus Verinus off the shelf, only to discover that Loescher really had nothing to say about the man. But when I pulled Schmid's History of Pietism down, and search for Rambach, I discovered that he was no ordinary Pietist. He was a Halle Pietist, and a close associate of Hermann August Franke. Schmid, on page 319, identifies Rambach as a Halle Pietist and compatriot of Franke, and credits Rambach for his accomplishments in the area of hermeneutics -- which is, no doubt, how it is that we find him prominently mentioned in F.S Schmidt's work. However, on page 320 Schmid qualifies his praise of such pietists, stating that their accomplishments are low compared to the harm caused by them: thee use of such accomplishments was for the purpose of discrediting orthodoxy. And here we are now, treated to the authoritative work of a German exeget of whom we were happily ignorant, who is marshaled for the purpose of discrediting Chemnitz and elevating UOJ, only to discover that this man was a bona fide Halle Pietist, and that he engaged his work, alongside that of Franke and other radical Pietists, to serve the design of toppling Lutheran orthodoxy.
Continued in next comment...
I've been away from my desk for several hours now, and I notice that I have been addressed in several posts, above, but your last post is foremost on my mind at the moment. I am disappointed. Of course, none of us have ever heard of this theologian you quote with distinction, Johann Jacob Rambach, and use to discredit the orthodox theologian Martin Chemnitz in his exegesis of 1 Tim. 3:16. One of us Intrepids -- not me, not Rev's Rydecki or Spencer, but one of us who does a lot of work behind the scenes -- began feverishly researching this theologian, to find out who he is. You quote Rambach from Schmidt/Marquart, so perhaps you don't really know who he is, either. I assume, in all charity, that you don't.
What our fellow Intrepid found is that Rambach was a confessing Pietist. In fact, several essays from the WELS essay file identify and criticize him as such:
Pietism’s Teaching on Church and Ministry: As Evidenced in its Pastoral Practice
After Three Centuries - The Legacy of Pietism
Agreement on the Correct View of the Authority of Scripture as the Source of Doctrine: The Way to Unity in the Church
A Historical Survey and Brief Examination of the Hymnbooks Used Within the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
The Confessional Lutheran Emigrations From Prussia And Saxony Around 1839
When I found out about this, I immediately pulled my copy of Loescher's Timotheus Verinus off the shelf, only to discover that Loescher really had nothing to say about the man. But when I pulled Schmid's History of Pietism down, and search for Rambach, I discovered that he was no ordinary Pietist. He was a Halle Pietist, and a close associate of Hermann August Franke. Schmid, on page 319, identifies Rambach as a Halle Pietist and compatriot of Franke, and credits Rambach for his accomplishments in the area of hermeneutics -- which is, no doubt, how it is that we find him prominently mentioned in F.S Schmidt's work. However, on page 320 Schmid qualifies his praise of such pietists, stating that their accomplishments are low compared to the harm caused by them: thee use of such accomplishments was for the purpose of discrediting orthodoxy. And here we are now, treated to the authoritative work of a German exeget of whom we were happily ignorant, who is marshaled for the purpose of discrediting Chemnitz and elevating UOJ, only to discover that this man was a bona fide Halle Pietist, and that he engaged his work, alongside that of Franke and other radical Pietists, to serve the design of toppling Lutheran orthodoxy.
Continued in next comment...
...Continued from previous comment.
You know, we at IL have been very careful, for the sake of fraternity, to avoid mention of his name or reference to his research on this subject. But the prominent use of a Halle Pietist, who produced his work at the pinnacle of the period of radical German Pietism, to discredit an orthodox theologian like Chemnitz and instead supporting the teaching of Universal Objective Justification, only proves Dr. Jackson's thesis: UOJ did emerge from Halle Pietism. I myself, up to this point, have been skeptical of this thesis, as my own extended and personal contact with confessing Pietists has had me convinced that they are not guilty of distinguishing Objective from Subjective aspects of Justification -- certainly not to the elevation of the Objective! -- as everything for them is Subjective. But rather, I had thought, they are guilty of separating (subjective) Justification from Conversion. You yourself have read Iver Olson's Baptism and Spiritual Life, and know precisely what I am referring to. To me, if there was anything to Dr. Jackson's connection of Halle to UOJ, it was in later Halle Rationalism. But now there can be no doubt. Rambach, a bona fide Halle Pietist, supplied the foundation necessary to topple formerly orthodox teaching on the matter of Justification.
You know, we at IL have been very careful, for the sake of fraternity, to avoid mention of his name or reference to his research on this subject. But the prominent use of a Halle Pietist, who produced his work at the pinnacle of the period of radical German Pietism, to discredit an orthodox theologian like Chemnitz and instead supporting the teaching of Universal Objective Justification, only proves Dr. Jackson's thesis: UOJ did emerge from Halle Pietism. I myself, up to this point, have been skeptical of this thesis, as my own extended and personal contact with confessing Pietists has had me convinced that they are not guilty of distinguishing Objective from Subjective aspects of Justification -- certainly not to the elevation of the Objective! -- as everything for them is Subjective. But rather, I had thought, they are guilty of separating (subjective) Justification from Conversion. You yourself have read Iver Olson's Baptism and Spiritual Life, and know precisely what I am referring to. To me, if there was anything to Dr. Jackson's connection of Halle to UOJ, it was in later Halle Rationalism. But now there can be no doubt. Rambach, a bona fide Halle Pietist, supplied the foundation necessary to topple formerly orthodox teaching on the matter of Justification.
I knew that Rambach was a pietist. I was not using his observations on this verse to discredit Chemnitz, but to supplement Chemnitz. His exegesis and reflections stand on their own, and should be evaluated on their own merits, regardless of what he might have said on other topics on other occasions. And it is also clear that on this topic in particular, he was not inventing a new pietist notion, but was recapitulating the orthodox teaching of the orthodox theologian Quistorp. Theologians with pietist leanings were not wrong in everything they said, especially when they were repeating the sound teaching of orthodox theologians of earlier times.
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| Leyser was the nephew of Andreae, who began the Book of Concord, the biographer of Chemnitz, an editor of the Book of Concord, and an expert on justification by faith at an early age. |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgwGiF0-mlE
- I’d rather have Rambach with silver and gold;
I’d rather be Pietist with riches untold;
I’d rather have Rambach with houses and lands;
I’d rather be led by the Halle U. band.- Refrain:
And to be the king of a vast domain
And be held in sin’s dread sway;
I’d rather have Rambach than anything
The Gospel affords today.
- Refrain:
- I’d rather have Spener with men’s applause;
I’d rather be faithful to UOJ's cause;
I’d rather have Rambach and worldwide fame;
I’d rather be true to Halle U's name. - They're fairer than roses or sauerkraut;
They're sweeter than Thrivent grants without doubt;
They're all that my Old Adam needs;
I’d rather have Rambach and let him lead.
One line of thinking about justification by faith includes Paul the Apostle, Ambrose, Augustine, Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Andreae, Leyser, and many more.
UOJ has a family tree that begins with Samuel Huber and Rambach, various Pietists, Halle University, Georg Christian Knapp and his Calvinist translator, Schleiermacher, Bishop Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, Karl Barth, No Call Paul McCain, Jay Webber, Jon Buchholz, and mainline Protestants.
