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October 23, 2012
Pastor
Suspended for False Doctrine by WELS but Honored in LCMS
In an era of
declining Lutheranism we see a spark of vitality in the Wisconsin Synod
suspending Pastor Paul Rydecki from its clergy roster for the nearly extinct
charge of false doctrine. While two-thirds of Lutherans in American are
accepting homosexual clergy (ELCA) and Christian News publishes reports of open
false doctrine in the LCMS in nearly every issue, suspension for false doctrine
in the WELS has a medieval tone. The WELS has not issued any official public
charges but there has been a lot of writing on the subject.
Rydecki’s
defenders tend to ignore the importance of correct doctrine and define love as
permissiveness. The medical profession would like to have surgical patients cut
them as much slack as laity give pastors who are still coming to grips with
doctrinal terms?
[GJ - Jack has a rich fantasy life. There is no relationship between the truth and the description above.]
Christian News Published the
Story
The October 15
issue of Christian News reports Rydecki wrote: “only those who believe in Jesus
are justified before God.” This statement needs more explanation. Rydecki
leaves the door open for the false doctrine that faith causes salvation rather
than divine grace. Faith doesn’t cause salvation any more than soil around seed
makes the rain fall. “My faith looks up to Thee Thou lamb of Calvary” only
takes place after conversion.
The Wisconsin
Synod California-Arizona district president Jon Buchholz recently suspended
Pastor Rydecki from the WELS clergy roster because he refuses to teach the
doctrine of Objective Justification. The average layperson has no idea what
that is. Rydecki could clear up the entire controversy by simply agreeing that
the world is declared righteous in Christ.
[GJ - There you have it, the Walther-Pieper-Rambach-Webber absolution of the world. David Becker reported the story sympathetically, because many people think UOJ is hogwash.]
What is
Objective Justification?
The layperson who doesn’t know what
justification means has not been reading the Bible nor (sic) understands what happened
at the Reformation. The words justify, justification, and
justified appear in the KJV New Testament 40 times. Being justified
means being declared righteous before God through faith by the merits of Christ
on the cross. Objective Justification means the world is justified by Christ’s
payment on the cross for all its sins. It does not mean the world has faith and
everyone is going to heaven. The term Subjective Justification applies to those
who believe and trust that Christ paid for their sins.
[GJ - In other words, to justify means to be declared righteous, and that is never, ever applied to unbelievers. If you have Attention Deficit Disorder, the paragraph above makes sense.]
What Did
Luther Say About This?
Without using the terms objective or
subjective justification Luther describes the distinction between these two
doctrines as follows:
“Even he who
does not believe that he is free and his sins forgiven shall also learn, in due
time, how assuredly his sins were forgiven, even though he did not believe it…
He who does not accept what the keys give receives, of course, nothing. But
that is not the key’s fault. Many do not believe the gospel, but this does not
mean that the gospel is not true or effective. A king gives you a castle. If
you do not accept it, then it is not the king’s fault, nor is he guilty of a
lie. But you have deceived yourself and the fault is yours. The king certainly
gave it.” (LW 40, 366ff)
Luther’s point
here is that divine grace is resistible. There are untold numbers of p eople
going to eternal damnation because they reject God’s saving grace in Jesus
Christ. On the other hand, no one has the power to make a decision to believe
in Jesus Christ. The question of why some are saved and not others, according
to the Lutheran Confessions, cannot be answered and is only in God’s secret
counsel. The Gospel is God’s gracious offer of salvation through faith in
Christ.
[GJ - UOJ Stormtroopers have a quia subscription to this Luther quotation about the objective truth of the atonement. He is not saying that unbelievers are forgiven. He explicitly denies that in countless places well known to any literate Lutheran (i.e.- not Cascione, not McCain, not Rolf Preus, not John Moldstad, not Jon Buchholz, not SP Mark Schroeder).They never quote the Large Catechism, where Luther clearly opposes their dogma.]
What Does the
Bible Say?
Anyone who sees a contradiction between,
“Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” (John
1:29) and “by grace are you saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8) does
not have a correct understanding of the Gospel. The Bible says in numerous
verses that God has forgiven the sins
of the world:
John 3:16 For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John
3:16
2 Corinthians
5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto
us the word of reconciliation. 2Co5:19
1Peter 3:18 For
Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order
that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made
alive in the spirit;
1John 2:2 and He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but
also for those of the whole world.
John 4:42,
2Peter 2:20, and 1John 4:14 all declared that Christ is the savior of the
world. Rydecki makes us doubt if Christ succeeded. Rydecki places a wedge
between God’s forgiveness, love, reconciliation, death in Christ, propitiation
for the sins of the world and God declaring the world righteous in Christ. How
can the world be forgiven, reconciled, loved, and benefit from Christ’s
propitiation for its sins, and not be justified by God? Or does God only love
the believers?
[GJ - Only Jack could take the Little Gospel, John 3:16, and turn it inside-out into UOJ. The rest of his special pleading is equally inane. Has he read the book that Rydecki translated? I doubt it.]
What do the
Lutheran Confessions say?
"That through
Christ the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God, who, by
His faultless obedience, suffering, and death, has merited for us the
righteousness which avails before God, and eternal life." FC, SD, Election. Par.
15, Tappert 619
“Our
righteousness rests n either upon his [Christ’s] divine nature nor upon his
human nature but upon the entire person of Christ, who as God and man in his
sole, total, as perfect obedience is
our righteousness.” FC, SD, Righteousness, Par. 549, Tappert
549
If Christ is not
the righteousness of unbelievers, it is not possible to become a
believer.
Evidence
against Rydecki
Consider some of
the evidence that Pastor Rydecki is confused on the doctrine of justific
ation.
1. “The
Confessions do not speak of a sense in which all sinners have already been
justified before God whether they believe in Christ or not, nor do I believe the
Scriptures to teach such a thing, yet such is commonly heralded among Lutherans
today as the ‘central teaching of the Bible.’” (Rev. Paul Rydecki, "Do We Want
To Be Dresden Lutherans?" P.10)
2. From "The
Biblical Doctrine of Justification on One Page:" by Paul Rydecki
“God credits the
righteousness of Christ only to those who believe in Jesus, and thus
justifies only those w ho believe in Jesus. (John 3:16-18, 36; Luke 18:14; Acts
13:39; Rom. 3:26; 4:5; 10:10; Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:8-9)”
3. Pastor
Rydecki preached a sermon titled: "Faith is the difference between those who are
justified and those who are not."
4. The Wisconsin
California Arizona District President asked Pastor Rydecki to answer two
questions and Rydecki refused to give direct answers.
1) “Did God
forgive the sins of the world when Jesus died on the cross?”
Rydecki’s
Answer: Yes. "He forgave to all people the sin, which no one could avoid." AP,
IV, 103
2) “Has God
justified all sinners for the sake of Christ?”
Rydecki’s
Answer: Yes. "The human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God through
Christ." FC, SD, Election, 15
5. Pastor Rydecki is the translator (from
the original Latin) of a 16th century, recently published book available
from Amazon: “Theses Opposed to Huberianism: A Defense of the Luther an Doctrine
of Justification” [Paperback] Aegidius
Hunnius (Author). In this translation Rydecki
shows that Hunnius, a follower of Luther, rejected the teachings of objective
justification. However, in the opinion of many, including this author, Rydecki
has misrepresented Hunnius’ position.
[GJ - Cascione does not understand the Scriptures, the Means of Grace, the efficacy of the Word, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Book of Concord, or the post-Concord era. QED, he is equally expert on Hunnius and Huber.]
Ryd ecki
Courted by LCMS Sacerdotalists
Rydecki, an exceptional parish scholar,
wants to be a Dresden Lutheran. This is his term for the Lutherans who migrated
from Dresden Germany to the United States beginning in the late 1830’s. The
Dresden Lutherans were also practicing extreme Sacerdotalism, meaning that if
the pastor didn’t have the sacrament of ordination, the Gospel, Baptism, and
Lord’s Supper would not be effective. LCMS sacerdotalists (also known as
Hyper-Euro-Lutherans who want to revive pre-Walther European Sacerdotalism)
publish Gottesdienst. They recently honored Rydecki with “The Saber of
Boldness” for his stance against the Church Growth Movement. Depending on
which LCMS or WELS church one visits today, the pastor may appear in a polo
shirt and conduct the service like a YMCA camp counselor with a backup praise
band and/or vocalist. Rydecki’s bold stand against church growth has drawn him
to the LCMS sacerdotal movement that views the clergy as the 4th means of grace. Martin Stephan used to call
himself the chief mediator of the means of grace. The LCMS sacerdotalists’
mantra is “Where the bishop is, there the church is also.”
[GJ - Papal promoter Paul McCain was a frequent posted on LQ until recently. He was also on Tim Gende's Emergent Church blog. Pope Paul Without a Call gets around, and gets banned.]
The LCMS Went
Through This in 1981
Christ's
words from the cross, “Father forgive them” mean Jesus prayed that God forgive
the whole world. However, I once heard Walter Maier II, back in January of
1981, tell an audience that “Father forgive them” means only those who have
faith, such as the one thief on the cross and the centurion. Rydeki has placed
himself in the same corner. Either Rydecki is going to agree that when God
forgives people they are also justified or that when Jesus spoke the words
“Father forgiven them” He was only speaking about the thief on the cross and the
centurion.
LCMS President
J. A. O. Preus published his opposition to Maier’s teaching in the “Lutheran
Witness Reporter” which led to the election of Ralph Bohlmann as LCMS President
instead of Maier. The LCMS Council of District Presiden ts has long since
decided to avoid doctrinal issues and turn LCMS congregations into hymnbook free
zones and entertainment venues.
In general,
church bodies today who indulge in doctrinal discipline are viewed as arcane
anachronists, hardly the stuff of praise bands and hootenanny worship. In other
words, doctrinal discipline is bad for business. But then, what about truth?
Ten of the Apostles were executed. If a church body is called to pick up its
cross and follow after Christ, defense of the doctrine of justification is the
highest ground they can walk.
[GJ - The UOJ always forces their argument through false paradoxes. Either they must agree with Jack or they are obvious heretics. Jack earned an A in talking point repetition for this little essay, an F in Biblical exegesis, and a LOL for logic.]
---
A. Berean has
left a new comment on your post "Jack
Cascione Dusts Off the Iron Maiden and Polish...":
Under what Luther
says: Luther's Works American Edition, Vol. 25, Lectures on Romans - "God
imputes to none but the believer."
So, that's something to consider...
Indeed.
Comments
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3, 4 ESV)