The arguments in favor of universal absolution are being tossed about like the buildings and ships caught in that storm with the disarming name - Sandy. Let's look at each one.
Romans 4:25 - Pietists like Rambach and Webber enjoy turning the resurrection of Christ into justification without faith, but the slogan Raised for Our Justification! has a tinny sound when the entire chapter is examined, especially in light of Genesis 15 and Galatians 3.
John 1:29 - Luther treats Behold, the Lamb of God in great detail in his Galatians Commentary. The UOJ Hive should study that commentary some day, perhaps place it in the WELS Essays Files for contrast. Luther treats the verses extensively as an atonement passage, because it concerns the atonement and not world absolution without faith.
Ambrose - Poor Ambrose. He was not the world's greatest theologian, but he wrote a fine passage about justification by faith. The UOJ Keystone Kops love to quote one part of that paragraph, but not the entire paragraph in context. No one with any reading comprehension can mine UOJ from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.Stop slandering Ambrose: he should not be associated with Bishop Stephan's pimp.
Samuel Huber versus Hunnius and Leyser - The first UOJ stylist in the Lutheran realm was Samuel Huber, who changed from Calvinism to Luther's doctrine, joining the Wittenberg faculty when the ink was barely dry on the Book of Concord. Huber began teaching the universal righteousness of mankind, getting all Buchholzy and attacking the Lutherans. Hunnius and Leyser, with impeccable orthodox credentials, crushed the false doctrine of Huber and sent him empty away. To this day Huber sounds hauntingly like Walther, Pieper, JP Meyer, Sig Becker, and David Valleskey.
Robert Preus - The UOJ Stormtroopers stopped mentioning Robert Preus when I repeatedly quoted their authority in his last book. Preus wrote perfectly dreadful stuff in favor of UOJ earlier, in the 1980s, and he also supported the Church Growth Movement at Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne. But his last book, even when edited by his sons, contains many excellent passages overturning UOJ, and they come from the orthodox theologians, not from the UOJ Pietists.
Now these pitiful false teachers of UOJ cling to their New NIV paraphrases and hope they can fool the sheep into buying Murdoch's latest pornographic offering.
The Church and Changers are hotter than Georgia asphalt for the New NIV.
