No one can miss the angry, hectoring tone of the UOJ Storm-Brownies as they salivate about their two talking points:
- Grammar
- Philosophy.
Their talking points are their weaknesses - not their strengths. In fact, they destroy themselves as they carefully lay the foundation for universal salivation. They deny their devotion to universal salivation, but they always salivate when chewing on their favorite victims - Luther, truth, the Gospel, and common sense.
Grammar
I am not at all opposed to grammar. I teach it and use it daily. But the glorious grammar rules the UOJ experts cite are derivative. One example from Mequon still makes me laugh, because it reveals their confused thinking. I was asked in class whether a genitive phrase was an objective genitive or subjective genitive. The "correct answer" determined the meaning.
Later I asked the seminarians if Paul paused and said, "Should I make this a subjective or objective genitive?" There is no difference in spelling. The distinction is applied after the fact, so it is a tautology (A = A) to say that the phrase means X because it is an
objective genitive. To question this grammatical gnosticism is blasphemy, because it threatens the high priesthood of Universal Salivation.
The deep, dark - and often imaginary - secrets of Greek grammar are used to cloud the issue and represent the Roman Catholic view of the Scriptures. The papists claim the Word of God is so difficult to understand that only the priesthood, headed by the Antichrist Hisself, can tell us what it means. No one dare read the Scriptures and claim to know what the Word of God says.
The Word of God is so clear that anyone can learn all he needs to know and grasp from the Scriptures. He does not need to know Hebrew and Greek. A faithful translation certainly helps, but a believer can see through the defects of a phony paraphrase, like the NNIV, which adds an "all" to Romans 3 to make one verse sound like the Universal Salivation that makes Wendland drool. I tried the NNIV on a class of believers. The smartest student at the college, a doctor's son, said, "The chapter still teaches justification by faith, even with that added word."
Here is the UOJ diamon, their Precious - "all have sinned and are justified in Christ Jesus" is changed by the NNIV to "all have sinned and
all are justified in Christ Jesus."
But that is not what the Greek text says, and it is not honest English. Paul often used concise language, with key words left out but easily understood.
One reason for that - emphasis. I just wrote the previous incomplete sentence to prove my case.
My paraphrased version, to make it clearer, as I would in a sermon, reads
- "All people have sinned and are justified only in Christ."
Contrary to Jay Webber's confused thinking, "in Christ" only applies to believers. To argue that the entire world is "in Christ" is another tautology. Please offer one example in the entire Bible where the whole world is "in Christ."
That paraphrase is derived from context. As I pointed out in our Romans class at Bethany Lutheran Church, Paul's opening argument eviscerates every form of righteousness except the righteousness of faith. Civic righteousness is removed by his powerful argumentation. So is righteousness through the Jewish Law. All have sinned. All deserve death. Men try but fail to justify themselves through the Law or through man-made laws. Justification - the forgiveness of sins - can only come from faith in Jesus Christ.
Grammar can certainly be used to untangle the twisted argumentation of the Universal Salivationists. The UOJ Hive remains immune to this because their imagined power comes from confusing people and ending, "But you did not study Greek, as I did, so you could not possibly understand the Bible." That is the feeble argument used by Tim Glende to evade and deny his plagiarism of Craig Groeschel and his lies about that fraud.
Philosophy
Notre Dame taught me about Roman Catholic leaders being imbued with philosophy and philosophical maxims. Protestants are used to basing their claims on Biblical texts, but Catholics have a philosophical framework that determines their dogma.
Here are some:
"The Holy Spirit will not allow the pope to err." No Catholic priest or brother ever said that in class, but is is a common claim in WELS about their inebriated leaders.
"The pope is like the Supreme Court, determining what the Bible actually teaches."
"That is necessary but not sufficient." Almost any discussion could be ended that way.
The Universal Salivationists are completely divorced from Biblical language and meaning, unless they choose to abuse a word to make a point. One must always start with their philosophical assumptions, which remind me of an ocean, vast in size but only three inches deep.
- Walther is the greatest theologian of the Christian Church, and all who dissent are anathema.
- Pieper is the second greatest theologian, because he was trained by Walther and maneuvered into Walther's job as seminary president and infallible pope. Those who doubt? - anathema sit!
- Justification without faith is the Chief Article, the Master and Prince of Christian doctrine, the article that judges all other articles, even though Luther never mentioned it.
- The Brief Statement of 1932 is the Rosetta Stone of the Scriptures, Luther, the Book of Concord, and the Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Those who question this are anathema.
- Those who agree with the infallible Walther and Pieper are infallible by virtue of their agreement. Those who disagree are anathema.
- If false teachers--like the Halle Pietists, the German rationalists, the mainline liberals, and ELCA--agree with UOJ and oppose justification by faith, change the subject.
Wooden Stakes for the UOJ Vampire
UOJ, which became dominant after Gausewitz died and the Brief Confession of 1932 was foisted upon Missouri, has sucked the lifeblood out of the Synodical Conference. As Bram Stoker's classic tale describes, the ensnarement of victims is slow but inexorable. As long as the Walther myth is told and sold, UOJ will draw in all pestilences of false doctrine:
- Entertainment evangelism.
- Despising the Means of Grace.
- Chrislam - the fusion of Islam and Christianity.
- Unionism - or - any circuit meeting today.
- Clergy life-coaches who cannot keep their own Dreck together.
- Management by deceit - the synodical style today.
- Altars replaced by stages, Confessions displaced by plagiarism.
But there are two wooden stakes available, to drive through the heart of this vampire.
One is the efficacy of the Word, as taught by Isaiah 55 in its clearest form, and ratified throughout the Scriptures. God's will is accomplished only through His Word and never apart from His Word.
The second weapon - the Means of Grace, is directly related to the efficacy of the Word.
The Means are the Word and Sacraments. They are the only instruments of God's grace. No one receives God's grace apart from the Means. One description is easy to remember and use - they are the invisible Word of teaching and preaching, the visible Word of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
