Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed: 09/21/12

Friday, September 21, 2012

Hereof it followeth that the blessing and faith of Abraham is the same that ours is; that Abraham’s Christ is our Christ; that died as well for the sins of Abraham, as for us.

Hereof it followeth that the blessing and faith of Abraham is the same that ours is; that Abraham’s Christ is our Christ; that died as well for the sins of Abraham, as for us. “Abraham saw My day and was glad.” (St. John 8:56) Therefore all found one and the same thing.

Martin Luther, Kregel, Galatians 3:8, p. 139.

KJV John 8:52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

54 Jesus answered, If I honour Myself, My honour is nothing: it is My Father that honoureth Me; of whom ye say, that He is your God: 55 Yet ye have not known Him; but I know Him: and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him, and keep His saying.

56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.

57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM.

KJV Exodus 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. 2 And the Angel of the LORD [GJ - pre-Incarnation Son of God] appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. 6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; 8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

11 And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? 12 And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

***

GJ - Notice that the Angel of the Lord is God, identifying Himself as I AM. The orthodox Lutherans saw the Burning Bush as representing the Two Natures of Christ, since the bush had two natures, seen together, yet one was distinct from the other, neither mixed nor blended together, but unified as the Two Natures are.

Jesus' response to the opponents is unique to His position as the eternal Son of God. Only God could say, "Before Abraham was, I AM." The I AM is not self-identification so much as it is the Name of God, from the Burning Bush.

So there is one Savior, one justification (by faith), one righteousness in the Old and New Testaments - the righteousness of faith.

Coming Soon - The Abraham Graphics from Galatians

I am working my way through Luther's Galatians Commentary for the adult class I am teaching.

I will soon place all the Galatians Abraham statements in one post, for good reason. One of the main arguments promoting UOJ is Romans 4:25, by omitting Romans 4:24, and by ignoring Romans 4 altogether. The Enthusiasts act as if part of one sentence, misinterpreted, can stand as the linchpin of their dogma.

But, say the opponents, what does Romans 4 have to do with Galatians?

Answer - The Bible is God's revelation of one unified truth, without error or contradiction. What the Holy Spirit teaches in Galatians is no different from the divinely inspired words of Romans. One way to test exegesis is to match up meanings in parallel passages.

No one is free to adopt a peculiar reading--contradicting the Word of God--even if it is several decades old and endorsed by one's blood relatives.

No entity and no author can establish dogma. That attitude is pure papalism - that a seminary professor or District President can establish doctrine from the shrine of his heart.

Romans 4:25 is connected with 1 Timothy 3:15 to advocate the universal absolution and salvation of mankind, through the exegesis of Rambach, the Halle Pietist and hymn writer. Jay Webber and his catechumen, Jon Buchholz, favor the Rambach spin, which contradicts what Martin Chemnitz wrote about 1 Timothy 3:15.

The Brief Statement of 1932, which was the beginning of the end for the LCMS, cites Romans 4:25 in its promulgation of Objective Justification.

If the Romans 4:25 is fully exposed, the entire SynConference fraud is also revealed as a smoke-filled hall of mirrors. Walther grabbed the Zinzendorf-Pietist cult from Bishop Stephan and made himself the new Pope of Perryville.

Not everyone followed the RePietisten* Movement of Walther. The newly arriving German immigrants, who found a denomination waiting for them, were conversant in Luther's German - and not so prone to fall for UOJ. Gausewitz and many others managed to produce catechisms without UOJ mentioned or taught.

The current attitude about UOJ (Rolf Preus, Jay Webber, Paul McCain, John Moldstad, Jack Cascione, WELS Conference of Popes)-- to pursue, silence or hunt down justification by faith ministers--would never have worked in earlier days, because most people knew that they were justified by faith alone.

Facing the false and Satanic approach to Romans 4 would mean accepting the bad leadership of CFW Walther and the obstinate apostasy of the WELS, ELS, and LCMS.

Here is a little test of their precious UOJ, which they think is the primary sign of the purity and orthodoxy of the SynConference - to wit:

They need one more "all" in Romans 3 to make their case that all have sinned and "all" are justified. Naturally, the Greek text does not have that second "all" because the Scriptures do not teach Universalism or UOJ or demi-semi-crypto-Unniversalism. So who provides that precious "all," the one word they need for their dogma?

The New NIV does - in Romans 3. But is the New NIV the product of WELS and Missouri? No. It is the product of the ecumenical, mainline feminist denominations.They all worked together to produce the New NIV, a bobble so bad the Southern Babtists do not want its demonic cover to show up in the bobble department of their stores.

WELS woke up, floating on a mattress on a sea of UOJ iniquity...And. They. Were. Thirsty!

*The Walther approach is called Repristination, as if he brought Luther to American Lutherans. Har-dee-har-har. Walther never taught justification by faith and had to be Top Dog in everything, as the self-appointed supervisor of all Lutherans. I prefer my own term - RePietisten - because the Pietisten (The Pietist) was the favored magazine of the Augustana Swedish Lutherans. The Swedes were honest about their amalgamation of orthodoxy and Pietism. Walther was not, and admitted that maybe Stephan had some Pietistic leanings. And Benedict has some Catholic leanings, I noticed.

PS - the final blue sentence is a riff on a famous Voss sermon.