Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Omitting the Means of Grace - A Serious Error":
"narrow-minded:" -
Your comment is well stated:
>>>>>>> .......The cross and empty tomb don't mean a hill of beans if one doesn't believe it. Even Satan believes in the historicity of those events. Walther is the true synergist, witness his decision theology Easter Sermon.
This is your brain on the Scripture/BOC: JBFA. This is your brain on Mary's breast milk: UOJ. <<<<<<<< [Your words]
The more I think of it; the more I witness the universal objective justification crowd relying on decision thinking. They drum it through, to their own heads and those who follow them, that Christ's Atonement for human sin is universal in its application to every sinner. It is no wonder why they eschew being justified by God's grace, through faith alone. This is the reason that you will hear very little from them about the Holy Spirit and his work of the new birth (conversion) - John 3:1-21 in context
A sorry lot they are who dis the Holy Spirit and His whole activity in making a human soul right with God. I still return to my cookie jar illustration:
Just because there is a cookie jar on one of the kitchen shelves; its presence does not portend that cookies are contained within that jar. And, in like manner; just because Christ's Atonement sacrifice and subsequent Resurrection was the action of the Triune God to do away with the curse of the first Adam; that all encompassing sin cleansing work does not portend that all men will come to the knowledge of the truth and be born from above by the Holy Spirit's working:
John 3:5 - Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
John 3:6 - That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
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GJ - I am glad you brought this up, Pastor Bickel. UOJ is a philosophy that hides itself by using Scriptural words (without their meaning) to adorn and hide the tree of secular wisdom. Anything divorced from the revealed truth of Scripture is secular, even when wearing the glamorous robes of the high church priest-wannabees.
UOJ claims justification by faith for itself but has declared war on that doctrine, repudiating justification and faith in their constant repetition of the same talking points.
That is exactly why the SynCons feel so comfortable at Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek. They are comfortable working with the feminist-gay clergy alliance in ELCA and with gay advocate Andy Stanley. Everyone is forgiven, so it is just a matter of gathering those anonymous Christians (Rahner, Roman Catholic liberal) into the Church Catholic (LCMS-AELC-Romanist Neuhaus' favorite term before he poped).
Anonymous Christian is an important term to learn and identify, because it is often implied but not used by the apostates. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, the ELS-WELS expert on Church Growth, adopted by Jay Webber, used to say this:
"All we have to do is make them members now and turn them into Lutherans later."
Floyd has no knowledge of Lutheran doctrine and clearly rejects the basics of the Bible. He is an Antinomian
who imagines that he is above and beyond the Law. WELS and the ELS fell at his feet to listen to his wisdom, to learn how doctrinal and marital infidelity could lead them to a higher plain.
So the Synodical Confidence men do not even think about the Scriptures or Luther to consider how they might lead their organizations. They simply adopt whatever philosophy is popular at the moment, especially when made dog-eared by the more obviously Leftist denominations they love to emulate.
