Pastor Rolf David Preus (Rolf) Senior Member Username: Rolf Post Number: 7298 Registered: 5-2001 |
Speaking of Robert Preus, ELDoNA falsely claims that he changed his position on objective justification before he died. The ACLC included responses from my brother Daniel and me to this false accusation against our father in appendix four of their official response to ELDoNA. Here is what I wrote: The Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America – comprised of pastors who received their theological instruction in either the LCMS or the WELS – has now formally rejected the pure gospel they received from their teachers in these synods, attacking the doctrine of objective justification. Living in the land of the sects, we are accustomed to witnessing the formation of heterodox church bodies devoted to their pet heterodoxies. ELDoNA’s slide into formal heterodoxy might go unmentioned were it not for a specific calumny they are promoting in an effort to obtain credibility for their false doctrine. I am referring to their claim that my father, Robert Preus, changed his position on objective justification and rejected this teaching before he died. I do not boast when I say that no man alive is more familiar with my father’s teaching on this topic than I. He was not only my father; he was my teacher. I studied under him both formally and informally. I have read everything he wrote on the topic of justification. I took his class on justification and have his class notes, which I have studied thoroughly. He and I discussed theology with each other every time we talked and we talked often. We spent many hours talking about objective justification. I hereby state categorically and without any reservation that my father did not change his position on objective justification. He affirmed and confessed objective justification until the day he died. I have neither the time nor the inclination to respond to every error ELDoNA promotes in its formal statement on justification. Suffice it to say that they think they have discovered in the Lutheran dogmatic tradition a refutation of the doctrine of objective justification as taught by the Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Synod, and the Norwegian Synod. Since Robert Preus was an authority on Lutheran orthodoxy, ELDoNA seeks credibility by claiming him for their cause. Their “proof” that Robert Preus rejected objective justification before he died was his essay, “Justification and Rome,” in which he faithfully and meticulously set forth the classical Lutheran doctrine according to the historic language of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Since the men of ELDoNA imagine a conflict between this language and that used by the Synodical Conference of nineteenth century America, they leap from this alleged conflict to the conclusion that Robert Preus had to reject the latter in order to affirm the former. This illustrates their own ignorance of Robert Preus’s lifelong teaching on the subject. As a matter of fact, he had always relied more on the classical language of the orthodox Lutherans than he did on the terminology that arose out of the nineteenth century controversies in America. But he saw no conflict at all in the substance of what they taught. ELDoNA insists that there is a difference between the acquisition of forgiveness and the pronouncement of forgiveness. Robert Preus was the chief author of the CTCR document of 1983 (approved by the 1986 convention of the LCMS) in which we read: “God has acquired the forgiveness of sins for all people by declaring that the world for Christ’s sake has been forgiven. The acquiring of forgiveness is the pronouncement of forgiveness.” These words from my father’s class notes on Justification help explain his position on this matter. The notes read: “Our Confessions are teaching universal justification whenever they say that remission of sins and justification are apprehended by faith.” He quotes Martin Franzmann to make the point that objective justification and subjective justification go together: “Though we distinguish between objective and subjective justification, it does not occur to us to separate them . . . We do not speak of two justifications; objective and subjective justification refer to the same act of God . . .” My father would frequently illustrate the importance of the doctrine of objective justification by asking the question: “Should I believe that if I believe my sins will be forgiven? Or should I believe that my sins are forgiven?” For him it was a vital, personal, and pastoral concern. Perhaps those who did not know my father might assume that he affirmed objective justification simply because it was the thing to do and that he hadn’t really given it sufficient thought until the end of his life and then rejected it when he examined the teaching of the sixteenth and seventeenth century dogmaticians. No one familiar with my father and his theology could come to such a conclusion. Dad’s devotion to objective justification was never merely academic. It was deeply personal. It never wavered. The notion that my father’s last written work on justification, “Justification and Rome,” differs in substance from his earlier writings is without foundation. Those who claim that my father changed his teaching on objective justification before he died simply display their own ignorance of what my father taught and how the Synodical Conference tradition is thoroughly grounded in the tradition of the orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians, and, more importantly, in the clear Scriptures that teach that God, for the sake of the vicarious satisfaction of his dear Son Jesus, has declare the entire world of sinners to be justified. To deny this is to deny the universal redemption, atonement, propitiation, and reconciliation – indeed, the very idea of universal grace is lost if God did not justify all those whose sins Jesus bore on the cross. To deny objective justification is to turn faith into itself. Such a pietistic fideism is a necessary byproduct of a truncated atonement that doesn’t atone and a redemption that doesn’t redeem. My father was a lifelong enemy of pietistic fideism! Those who claim that my father changed his teaching on objective justification before he died bear false witness against him. As his son and student who received his best instruction from him and who continues to teach the pure gospel he taught, I call on these men to cease with their deceptions and distortions of a faithful teacher’s teaching. Claim their error for themselves, if they must – and bear the consequences – but don’t pretend that my father shared it. Rev. Rolf David Preus January 17, 2014 Pastor Rolf David Preus |
