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Whistling Past the Graveyard of Seminary Education

Loehe started Concordia in Ft. Wayne and Wartburg Seminary in Iowa,
but the Walther myth-makers consider him a problem.
Walther alienated and divided Lutherdom.
A true Pietist, Walther shunned everyone outside his own Missouri franchise,
unless they bowed to him.

bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "LCMS Seminary Cost Scandal: Fabulous Costs To Supp...":

SMP vs. M.Div., and Ft. Wayne vs. St. Louis:
http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=16670

....There was a critical exchange at the Ft. Wayne Symposia yesterday afternoon...a pastor went to the microphone and asked President Rast to “prophecy.” What do you see for the future of the Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program?” President Rast did not hesitate but boldly asserted two things. First, this is a question for the LCMS to answer for herself. Secondly, President Rast proclaimed that Concordia Theological Seminary – Fort Wayne will do all that it can to convince the LCMS that its pastoral formation ought to be done in the traditional resident manner. This is a good thing for the LCMS and we are pleased that President Rast has taken this stance since the SMP program produces men who may be personally committed to the Lord’s Ministry but can never stack up theologically since they receive only half the training of the traditional approach and nearly none of that on campus.

Even though Rast supported the traditional residential approach there is nothing traditional about the new pastoral formation curriculum that he, Dr. Scaer, and the other faculty members have developed over the last few years. It is another blessing for the LCMS....It also places them into small study and mentoring groups led by professors and focusing on the translation of the Bible. This is a fitting way to do “small groups” at the seminary, as opposed to the trendy, pop-culture small group program at St. Louis. According to Rast, it can also bring to a close the last generation’s seemingly endless and foolish multiplication of felt-need seminary classes in counseling, administration, stewardship and evangelism....

***

GJ - I thought, "Bruce, have you lost your bearings?" Then I saw it was from the cheerleading section - Steadfast UOJers.

The Garasenes have already run over the cliff. It is too late to fit them with floaties.

Another Part of Broadcasting the Gospel

By Norma Boeckler,
who is completing her own book of art.

The original meaning of broadcasting was to scatter seed in all directions. That is the point of the Parable of the Sower and the Seed in Matthew 13, Mark 4.

The pathetic Fullerites think the point of the parable is to "judge the soil" and begin their non-missions where they can scoop up members from other churches. Tim Glende's The CORE (not a church, just an evening service) is one such mockery, started almost next door to another WELS congregation. Fox Valley really needed one more WELS congregation! No wonder God removed his favor from the official football team of the Wisconsin Sect - the Fox Valley Packers.

The point of the Sower parable is to broadcast without anxiety about the results, proving that not one Lutheran leader comprehends its simple lesson.

All the Martin Chemnitz Press books are made available free for downloading. Many print copies are also given away. I just saw that Thy Strong Word has been downloaded from Lulu.com 24 times. The original printing was shunned completely. No Lutheran source would mention it, except for Christian News publishing a negative review (refusing to print a word in favor of it).

The download activity of one book may not seem impressive, but that figure is only one source of the free downloads.

To make free downloads easier in the future, I am going to set up free PDF links from Dropbox. No one needs to own the software to use the links. The public folder allows me to create links to files within it. I will set that up soon and link it on the left column.

Christian News sells Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant and so does Northwestern Publishing House. Professor Tipple's evil CLC cousin used to go Medieval on me every time I published something about WELS, but the Wisconsin Synod has often been quite gracious with me, especially at NPH and Martin Luther College.

The WELS DPs actually mentioned the efficacy of the Word
during their vacation in paradise.
If they cannot teach it, they should resign and find honest jobs.

---

LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "Justification Book and Other Plans - God Willing":

"Sad to say, Lutherans have lost their nerve. In fear they imagine that the Roman Catholics or the Fullerites have all the answers. Afraid to compose their own sermons, they steal from others they consider successful, so the same sermon and text and graphics appear on the Net in 10 denominations at once. But somehow these copy-and-paste Lutherans do not wish to post their sermons on their own websites, because it is too easy to send them through a plagiarism checker and find out their source."

Maybe so in certain cases...but I am coming to the realization that much of this (by the reactions of synod leaders) is of another spirit and agenda. As you have said in the past, 'one must erase synod lines' and search out individual truthful churches and pastors'. I believe the beast has infiltrated the visible body with his minions... 

Pietism, Holiness and Pentecostalism « Churchmouse Campanologist

Pietism, Holiness and Pentecostalism « Churchmouse Campanologist:


My last post on pietism and the Wesleyan holiness movement briefly discussed the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, created in 1895, now known as the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.

This entry will examine how the holiness movement viewed the term ‘pentecostal’, why today’s holiness churches consider themselves separate from Pentecostalism and how Pentecostalism later developed.

Members of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church sometimes spoke in tongues — glossolalia, theologically speaking. However, at the end of the 19th century, no one held it to be evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit.


'via Blog this'

A Public Apology to Norman Teigen | CyberBrethren - A Lutheran Blog

A Public Apology to Norman Teigen | CyberBrethren - A Lutheran Blog:

GJ - That's a good beginning, Paul.

'via Blog this'

***

GJ - I wonder why McCain turned off the comments on his apology post.

Justification Book and Other Plans - God Willing

Imagine a rock band scarring this beautiful church!

I will be wrapping up the current version of Luther versus the UOJ Pietists on Friday and ordering the printing. Some improvements are going to be made immediately afterwards, but there are deadlines to meet. One is the conference. The other is the special sale which really chops down the net cost.

One researcher told me this morning that even more material will be coming out! That will be the ultimate explanation for UOJ. I am using that factoid to add that I am grateful for all the help I get, often from anonymous sources. It is handy to have people with more energy and better eyesight searching the documents.

More titles are planned for the immediate future. I asked for permission for one to be reprinted. Another one is in the public domain, I am pretty sure. My next project involves justification by faith and will be done fairly soon. I figure that the new title will be a useful supplement to what is being done now and revised as more research comes in.

Various Lutherans are helping out in many ways. That is interesting by itself, because I am teaching adults online about the new way of working, across the world, using the Net, with teams using various personalities and talents to accomplish a goal.

Sad to say, Lutherans have lost their nerve. In fear they imagine that the Roman Catholics or the Fullerites have all the answers. Afraid to compose their own sermons, they steal from others they consider successful, so the same sermon and text and graphics appear on the Net in 10 denominations at once. But somehow these copy-and-paste Lutherans do not wish to post their sermons on their own websites, because it is too easy to send them through a plagiarism checker and find out their source.

This is our humble chapel at Bethany Lutheran Church.
No Thrivent funds, no Schwan grants, no consultants trained by Fuller.
The treasure of the Gospel does not need marble and gold.

Rough Draft of Chapter on Samuel Huber. Luther versus the UOJ Pietists

This chapter needs some more organization,
but this draft contains the quoted material needed to understand Walther, Pietism, and UOJ.

---

Samuel Huber, Post-Concord Universalist

            Universalism is the teaching that all people have been forgiven and saved because of the grace of God. That simple definition lacks any mention of the Means of Grace, which is appropriate. Enthusiasm—the platform for all false doctrine—divorces the Holy Spirit from the Word. When God’s actions are separated from His Word, any error can be justified. These errors have a certain harmony, one with another, although they may not agree in all details.  Universalism and Unitarianism in America are different in details and even in their culture, but they are close enough to have merged in the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. Samuel Huber, the first Lutheran Universalist, is claimed as a pioneer in the history of Universalism. Although he was removed for false doctrine from Wittenberg University and his opinions repudiated, they emerged in the Missouri Synod in teaching of Bishop Martin Stephan and his disciple C. F. W. Walther.

            Lutherans bewitched by UOJ do not want to associate Huber with their opinions or Universalism with their doctrine, but many can see the parallels, especially since those parallels have created such comfortable relationships with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.[1]  Samuel Huber is part of the history of Universalism, a pioneer worthy of note in many different sources. A history of Universalism mentions Samuel Huber as a representative in the 16^th Century.[2]

Huber was born in 1547 and died in 1624. He was originally a Calvinist. His name is associated with discussions of UOJ. Marquart named him in one essay.[3] The Wisconsin Synod mentioned him in its journal. Tom Hardt discussed him at some length in an essay, which was included in a Festschrift volume published in honor of Robert Preues.[4] The essay is “Justification and Easter, A Study in Subjective and Objective Justification in Lutheran Theology.” The title gives away the double-justification terminology of George Christian Knapp, Halle University. While the librarians of theology like to classify each variation in doctrine according to the Library of Congress system, with extremely fine distinctions made for each sub-category, the agreements should be examined foremost.[5]

Hardt is pivotal in the Synodical Conference—a favorite among certain LCMS professors and ELS leaders—an object of scorn for WELS. The conflict involves the consecration of the elements of Holy Communion, with Hardt representing the consecration of the Word, WELS on the side of receptionism. This may seem to be an annoying digression, but it is not. The issue of consecration versus receptionism is directly related to the efficacy of the Word, just as justification is. Many readers might wonder how Lutheran leaders can comprehend the importance of the Word in consecration but not in justification. The same leaders supposedly hate Pietism and the Church Growth Movement but embrace the Pietism and Enthusiasm of UOJ. The reason is their slighting of the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace. Hardt is quite comfortable with this contradiction, as his essay shows.

Hardt wrote about the first Lutheran Universalist, although he denies the title “Universalist” for Huber:

The first doctrinal controversy within the Lutheran church concerning the relationship between Christ’s universal righteousness and its bestowal on the believer is connected with the name of Samuel Huber (c. 1547-1624), a Swiss convert from Calvinism to Lutheranism, who got into conflict with leading Lutheran theologians on the universality of predestination and justification.[6]

The statements of Huber are eerily familiar to anyone who has studied the arguments in favor of UOJ, especially since they erupted during the WELS Kokomo episode. The benefit of that conflict was to unearth many more quotations in favor of that odd amalgamation of universal absolution without faith and making a decision for Christ.[7] The shock of reading what UOJ really taught has brought some to their senses but has hardened the rest in their folly.

            Hardt wrote this about Huber’s opponents:

Huber’s attempt to argue for the notion of a universal justification with reference to certain Scripture passages and to God’s universal will to save all men was met by firm opposition from men such as Egidius Hunnius, Polycarp Leyser and Samuel Gesner. They referred to the fact that the Lutheran confessions did not know of any such concept.[8]

The best way to judge the UOJ-Huber-Walther parallels is to quote the Calvinist turned Lutheran, Samuel Huber. The following quotations are from the Hardt essay:

His opponents charged this, which is right out of the UOJ playbook:

1) He affirms a universal justification, whereby all men are equally justified by God because of Christ’s merit, regardless of faith.

2) He denies faith’s or the believer’s individual justification to be by God or a special action of God, whereby He justifies only believers.

3) He states faith’s individual justification to be only men’s action, whereby they apply to themselves by faith the righteousness of Christ.[9]

This charge against Huber is identical to what Walther affirmed, and the ELS lovingly quoted, in the famous Easter absolution sermon.

            Former WELS Synod President Carl Mischke liked to defend the double-justification of Knapp (Objective Justification and Subjective Justification) as “two sides of the same coin,” an argument repeated recently by ELS Pastor Jay Webber. Both of them channeled Huber:

Huber does not conceal his disagreement with the Wittenberg theologians. Huber himself does not uphold his own difference between general and special justification: “Answer: they are not two.”[10]

Although the Synodical Conference is hotter than Georgia asphalt for Huber’s strange opinions, Hardt admitted the defects:

Although Huber repeatedly refers to Luther for support of his theology, it is much too evident that he distorts what Luther says. It is also striking that Christ’s resurrection is not even mentioned. Certainly Huber presupposes Christ’s atonement as the necessary condition of the universal justification, but faith is directed toward God “in Himself,” not toward the deed of the Father in raising His Son.[11]

Hardt expressed some wonder that Huber ignored Easter and did not use Easter as part of his justification innovations. However, that is also modeled in the current Synodical Conference presentations. Many of them stipulate world absolution taking place at the moment of Christ’s death, because He said, “It is finished.” Since the entire world was absolved from that moment on, without the Word, without the Means of Grace, without faith, not much can be said about the resurrection of Christ and justification. However, others follow Walther and declare the moment of universal absolution to have been the moment Christ rose from the dead, since He was “raised for our justification, Romans 4:25,” studiously ignoring Romans 4:24.[12] For some it is too obvious that having one Moment of Absolution on Friday and another Moment of Absolution on Sunday is pure chaos when affirming the purity of UOJ. If this opinion were so clear, so Biblical, and so much in harmony with the Book of Concord, it would not contradict itself so easily.

Walther and Huberism

            Hardt observed this about C. F. W. Walther’s unchanging doctrinal perspective, showing that Martin Stephan’s understudy did not deviate from the Lutheran Pietism he brought over from the Dresden cell groups, the Halle philobiblicum:

In the 19th century C. F. W. Walther (1811-1887), founder of the Missouri Synod, is especially connected with the theological issue under treatment in this article. Our investigation of Walther will be based on his Easter sermons (sermons on Easter Day, 2nd and 3rd Easter Day, 1st Sunday after Easter) and also on pertinent material in Walther’s theological periodical, Lehre und Wehre, as well as other documents of relevance to our topic. As a first observation it should be said that Walther’s homiletic treatment of the relationship between Easter and justification shows no sign of a gradual development. Our material covers the period 1840-1886, and all the sermons seem to possess the same degree of dogmatic clarity. If there ever was a “young Walther” like the “young Luther” in his pre-Reformation time, he has left no traces.[13] 

This lack of development is not complimentary when considering that Walther gladly followed a known adulterer to America, pledging his obedience to Stephan as a bishop for life. Walther was no more than a university graduate from Leipzig, a rationalistic school, a cell group follower in a Pietistic cult, not the greatest and most orthodox Lutheran theologian in America.

The dates of his early life are instructive, because he was the youngest of the clergy to come over with Stephan.

Born October 25, 1811.

Graduated from Leipzig University, 1833.

Ordained and called, January 15, 1837.

Resigned call to go to America, September 30, 1838.

Kidnapped his niece and nephew, with the help of his brother.

Pledged obedience to Bishop Stephan, January 14, 1839.

Led the mob action against Stephan, May, 1839.

Altenburg debates, April, 1841.

Accepted call to Trinity, St. Louis, after the death of his brother, late April, 1841.

Walther was ordained at the age of 26 and served a congregation for only 20 months. He resigned from that call to come to America, yet he still described himself as the pastor of that congregation. Nevertheless, he seized control of the Perry County settlement, leading a mob to threaten, rob, and kidnap Martin Stephan. At the age of 30 he was the leader of the Stephanite group and the pastor of Trinity in St. Louis. Walther exerted the same kind of control as Stephan, but without the title of bishop. More disturbing is the imprint of his doctrine and practice upon the Synodical Conference, which grew around his energy, hard work, and domineering spirit.

Walther wrote this bizarre statement: “As we were co-punished in Christ’s death, we are again co-absolved from our sins in His resurrection.”[14]

Hardt observed:

In a sermon from 1843 on Romans 4:25 (“Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification”) he makes this text the basis for the interpretation of Christ’s resurrection as our absolution, a quotation that frequently recurs in succeeding sermons.[15]

Walther has many statements like the following, treating the resurrection of Christ as the absolution for the entire world:

Whereas the passion and death of Jesus Christ was the penitence and confession of the Son of God for the entire apostate humanity, His resurrection was, on the contrary, the heavenly Father’s absolution, subsequently solemnly and factually delivered in Christ to all men, publicly before heaven and earth.[16]

This is often offered as pastoral counseling in the Synodical Conference today:

For now man should not first do something in order that his sins may be forgiven, but he is only to believe that it has already happened, that in the resurrection of Christ his sins have been forgiven unto him, that the grace of God and salvation have been assured to him. As often now as the Gospel is preached, baptism, absolution and the Lord’s Supper are administered and the benediction pronounced over him in church, so often the preacher only repeats what God has already done to all men through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.[17]

Hardt noted: “During the discussions a reference was made to the fact that within the Missouri Synod it had always been preached that:”

Through the resurrection from the dead God has absolved all the world, i.e., set it free from sin; if now the world already is absolved and set free from sin, what is then the absolution or preaching of the Gospel in the church? Is it, too, a setting free, or merely a proclamation of the setting free that has already occurred? Answer: … precisely through the Gospel occurs the conveying of what is in God’s heart... a proclamation that really brings and gives the forgiveness… The absolution in the Gospel is nothing else than a repetition of the factual absolution which has already happened through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.[18]

The Missouri Synod material was translated into Norwegian, which led to conflict between the Norwegian and Swedish Lutherans. Thus the Augustana Synod’s rebuke of the Norwegians became the fourth of the Kokomo Statements, the other three coming from J. P. Meyer.[19]

            Hardt found significant differences between Huber and Walther, but really served to highlight their similarities.

A second point of divergence is the fact that to Huber justification of the world is connected merely with a change within the Godhead, effected by the atonement, but to Walther with an external act of God, the Father raising His Son, turning it toward the world. To Huber atonement and universal justification are one; to Walther they are two different acts.[20]

The merging of atonement and justification are the features of Calvinism that Pietism borrowed without attribution. However, the evidence has to erupt, even when the obvious is denied. UOJ comes from the influence of Calvinism, transformed through Pietism. Huber, Spener, Knapp, and Stephan are the immediate influences upon Walther, with Luther being a minor and secondary influence. Walther never grasped the theology of Luther because he never developed past the rationalist and Pietistic training he received in Europe. Hardt, so clever in playing to his American sponsors, gave it away when he connected Rambach the Halle Pietist to UOJ:

Johann Jakob Rambach: “that in His person all mankind was justified and absolved from sin and curse.”[21]

When the Intrepid Lutherans were discussing whether UOJ came from Pietism, ELS Pastor Jay Webber stepped in defend Rambach’s exegesis rather Martin Chemnitz’ work, knowingly preferring a Pietist to the senior editor of the Book of Concord.

Book of Concord Aftermath

            Given the long-standing Norwegian investment in Pietism and the Missouri Synod, Robert Preus’ support of UOJ was not surprising. That is why his final book, Justification and Rome, left behind a mystery to be solved. Two of his sons, Rolf and Daniel, were listed as the editors, and they have been UOJ advocates. However, the book clearly repudiated the old UOJ boilerplate, with quotations coming from the field Preus knew better than any contemporary – the post-Concord era. The statements he quoted seemed to be answering a conflict of today, but it had to be one of that era. The answer is clear now. The quotations were aimed at Samuel Huber’s peculiar Calvinistic ideas, which emerged again during the 19^th century from the unionism, rationalism, Calvinism, and Pietism of Germany and Prussia. All of the quotations answer this question: If Christ died for the sins of the world, is every single person now declared forgiven of his sins by God?

When does the imputation of Christ’s righteousness take place? It did not take place when Christ, by doing and suffering, finished the work of atonement and reconciled the world to God. Then and there, when the sins of the world were imputed to Him and He took them, Christ became our righteousness and procured for us remission of sin, justification, and eternal life. “By thus making satisfaction He procured and merited (acquisivit et promeruit) for each and every man remission of all sins, exemption from all punishments of sin, grace and peace with God, eternal righteousness and salvation.”[22] [Quenstedt]

Preus:

But the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the sinner takes place when the Holy Spirit brings him to faith through Baptism and the Word of the Gospel. Our sins were imputed to Christ at His suffering and death, imputed objectively after He, by His active and passive obedience, fulfilled and procured all righteousness for us. But the imputation of His righteousness to us takes place when we are brought to faith.[23] 

Quenstedt: It is not the same thing to say, “Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us” and to say “Christ is our righteousness.” For the imputation did not take place when Christ became our righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is the effect of His office. The imputation is the application of the effect of His office. The one, however, does not do away with the other.  Christ is our righteousness effectively when He justifies us. His righteousness is ours objectively because our faith rests in Him. His righteousness is ours formally in that His righteousness is imputed to us.[24]

In the Synodical Conference literature, Calov is often mentioned as an advocate of UOJ – perhaps an oral tradition. Preus quoted Calov with approval:

Although Christ has acquired for us the remission of sins, justification, and sonship, God just the same does not justify us prior to our faith. Nor do we become God's children in Christ in such a way that justification in the mind of God takes place before we believe.[25]

These theologians, including Johann Gerhard, were post-Concord leaders.

            Polycarp Leyser lived and worked among the Concordists. Although overshadowed by Martin Chemnitz, Leyser was also an editor of the Book of Concord and the biographer of Chemnitz. As the nephew of Andreae and the student of Chemnitz, he understood justification by faith. Huber still defines Leyser’s work today, because the two names are linked together.

And to make his opinion plain enough to us, he then asked us, how we would deal with people, if we came to a place, where nothing had been taught about Christ before. Then we answered him that we would start with the Law; make it clear to them that they were poor sinners and under the wrath of God, which they should recognize with penitent hearts. If they now were sorry for their sins, God offers through the Gospel His grace and remission of sins in Christ, wishing to make them righteous and saved, as far as they would accept it in true faith. To this Dr. Huber responded: No, this would not be the true way to preach to the unbelievers, but he would begin by saying this: You have the grace of God, you have the righteousness of Christ, you have salvation.[26]

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[1] There were no significant doctrinal differences between The American Lutheran Church and The Lutheran Church in America, which merged with the Seminex AELC to form the ELCA in 1987. The most important unifying force was the Universalism of all three groups, best represented by Richard Jungkuntz, former WELS professor at Northwestern College in Watertown, UOJ advocate, chairman of the first Lutheran seminary to ordain homosexual pastors – Seminex, or Christ Seminary in St. Louis, official training center for the Metropolitan Community Church.

[2] http://www.ovrlnd.com/Universalism/Universalism_Cyclopedia.html

[3] http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/djw/lutherantheology.marquartjustification.html

[4] http://luk.se/Justification-Easter.htm Festschrift essays are especially valued in theology because they represent the best effort of that theologian. This study was first published in A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus. Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana 1985.

[5] Two fields promote atheism. One is church history, which tends to emphasize the folly of mankind in pursuing the most obnoxious causes in the name of religion. The other is the history of dogma, where all the philosophical differences in various theologians are examined and debated in verbose, tedious, and tendentious volumes. Innocents who pick up these histories are like the man robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the road to Damascus. Additional volumes are no more helpful than additional beatings. He needs the comfort of the clear, plain Word of God, and the teaching of the Lutheran Confessions.

[6] “Justification and Easter A Study in Subjective and Objective Justification in Lutheran Theology, ” part II.

[7] J. P. Meyer’s language in Ministers of Christ has been retained in the new edition of the book from Northwestern Publishing House.

[8] Hardt, part II. #24. Controversiae inter theologos wittenbergenses de regeneratione et electione dilucida explicatio D.D. Egidii Hunnii, Polycarpi Leyseri, Salomonis Gesneri…, s.1. 1594, fol. E 4 a.

[9] Hardt, #29. Actorum … posterior, p. 10: “I.Iustificationem universalem asserit, qua Omnes homines ex aequo sint a Deo propter meritum Christi iustificati, absque respectu fidei. II. Negat, particularem Iustificationem fidei, seu credentium, ex Deo, Seu Dei actionem specialem esse, qua tantum credentes iustificet. III. Particularem Iustificationem fidei, statuit esse actum non nisi hominum, applicantium sibi per fidem Iustitiam Christi.”

[10] Hardt, part  II, #41. Samuel Huber: Antwortt auff die Heydelbergische Artickel, s.1.,1595, fol. E 2 b: “Antwort. Es sind nicht zwo.“

[11] Hardt, part II, #47.  Samuel Huberus: Confutatio brevis ... p. 50; Aegidius Hunnius: Articulus de Providentia ... fol. i 4 b: Actorum ... posterior, p. 121 f.

[12] KJV Romans 4:22 “And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” The Easter absolution advocates ignore Romans 4 as a chapter on faith, Abraham as a model of man justified by faith, and Romans 4:25 being clarified and expanded by Romans 5:1ff – “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

[13] Hardt, part III. Walther’s Pietistic group at Leipzig was supplemented by a Halle contact who led their philobiblicum, Bible study group. Walther moved from the severe Pietism of the Leipzig circle, where he almost starved himself to death in atoning for sins, to the milder Dresden ministry of Stephan. See the Suelflow biography.

[14] Hardt, part III, #48. C. F. W. Walther: Festklänge, Saint Louis 1892, p. 219 (Easterday 1840): ”wie wir in Christi Tod mit gestraft wurde, so sind wir in seiner Auferstehung von unseren Sünden auch wieder mit losgesprochen.“

[15] Part III, #50. Festklänge, p. 225.

[16] Hardt, part III. #57. Id., p. 255 f.: 

[17] Hardt, part III. #59.

[18] Hardt, part III. #62-63.  ”UEber den innigen Zusammenhang der Lehre von der Absolution mit der von der Rechtfertigung“ in ”Zehnter Synodal-Bericht der Allgemeinen Deutschen Evang.-Luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio u.a. Staaten vom Jahre 1860,” St. Louis, Mo., 1861, p. 34 ff. The author of the theses is said to have been Rev. Th. J. Brohm; cfr. Grace for Grace. A Brief History of the Norwegian Synod, Mankato, Minn., 1943, p. 156.

63 Id., p. 42:

[19] "At the time of the resurrection of Christ, God looked down in hell and declared Judas, the people destroyed in the flood, and all the ungodly, innocent, not guilty, and forgiven of all sin and gave unto them the status of saints." Kokomo Statement, IV.

[20] Hardt, part III.

[21] Hardt, part III. #66. Joh. Jac. Rambach ... dass in seiner Person auch das ganze menschliche Geschlecht gerechfertigt und von der Sünde und dem Fluch absolvirt wurde.“

[22] R. Preus footnote: Systema, Par. II, Cap.3, Memb. 2 S. 1, Th. 44 (II, 363). Cf. Abraham Calov, Apodixis Articulorum Fidei (Lueneburg, 1684), 249: “Although Christ has acquired for us the remission of sins, justification, and sonship, God just the same does not justify us prior to our faith. Nor do we become God’s children in Christ in such a way that justification in the mind of God takes place before we believe.” Justification and Rome, footnote 74, p. 131.

[23] Robert D. Preus Justification and Rome, St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press 1997, p. 72.

[24] Systema, Par. III, Cap. 8, S. 2, q. 5, Observatio 19 (II, 787). R. Preus footnote #76, Justification and Rome, p. 132.

[25] Apodixis Articulorum Fidei, Lueneburg, 1684. Cited in Robert D. Preus, Justification and Rome, St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press 1997, p. 131n.                                                                                                              

[26] Hardt, part II. #44. Concilia Theologica Witebergensia, Frankfurt an Mayn 1664, p. 554.