2138 has left a new comment on your post "Justification in Klemet Preus' The Fire and the St...":
I skimmed and took notes on the first couple chapters of this book a year ago. Here are select quotes that stood out to me then, some of which you allude to in your review. My notes are in [brackets].
[Another multiple choice question:]
Page 62— “7. A. Justification happened 2,000 years ago and is received by faith. B. Justification depends on faith and did not happen 2,000 years ago. …The correct [answer is]…7. A.”
[He then goes on to discuss OJ and SJ.]
Page 65—“They are just two ways of looking at the same thing. But you have to be objectively absolved in order to be subjectively absolved.”
[Regarding a mid-nineteenth century controversy over who is absolved (all people or only believers), Preus wrote:]
Page 65—“The first side talked of absolution in objective terms. That way it could be spoken of with certainty. The second side refused to speak in objective terms and had great difficulty speaking with certainty. The first side was correct theologically. The second was condemned.”
[On pages 71-72, Preus compares faith to…a trick-or-treating bag. He then writes:]
Page 72—“When you don’t have [faith], you are lost. When you do have it, all you think about is what’s in it. When a person does not have faith, we say, ‘They are lost. You can’t get to heaven without faith. Faith is necessary.’ But when a person believes, you stop talking about faith and talk only about Jesus. The way to get a person to believe is not to discuss the importance of faith. Instead, you have to talk about Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
Page 72—“I once heard a sermon where the preacher proclaimed, ‘God has done His part. He has sent His Son to die for you. Now you have to do your part. You have to believe in Jesus.’ That is bad theology.”
[Was he talking about Walther’s Easter absolution sermon, I wonder?]
Page 74—“Then what makes faith so important? Walther quotes Adam Osiander: ‘Faith does not justify in so far as it is obedience in compliance with a command,--for thus viewed, it is an action, a work, and something required by Law,--but only in so far as it receives and is attached to justification after the manner of a passive instrument.’”
[Who is Adam Osiander, and what makes him an authority on justification and faith?]
***
GJ - The previous post was too crowded with photos to add more. Google stamped its servers on that one.
