 |
| This single quotation about the Spirit has 103,000 views far more than any other. |
This Sunday's Epistle lesson (historic, not Vatican A-B-C) concerns 1 Corinthians 12, just as the quotation above and the Small Catechism quotation on the template do.
As one reader commented years ago, the battle for Universal Objective Justification Without Faith is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
But first, let's consider how Roman Catholic UOJ is.
- The priestly class is infallible, as long as they agree with the Pope in Rome (or Milwaukee, or Mankato, or St. Louis).
- These priests are "sons of the Church" as long as they remain in good standing with the Boss. They will be protected, transferred, and promoted - not in spite of their crimes, but because of their felonies. Tis a mutual admiration society - Satan's Handmaiden for Satan's spawn.
- They are the Keepers of the Secret, the Deposit of Faith, handed down by word of mouth, from bishop to bishop. If some dogma seems newly invented - do not be alarmed - it was known long ago but only recently revealed by the Bishop of Rome, Milwaukee, St. Louis, or Mankato.
- Us rubes, us hicks, us hillbillies will never understand the profundities they know, which they do not need to explain. They declare what is given to them, infallibly, and pass it on through their stooges, inerrantly.
- The priests talk about the Scriptures all day long and quote their favorite dynamic paraphrase of the Bible, so dynamic that most people say, "Whaaaaaa?" when they read it.
Here is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in a few words.
The Holy Spirit teaches us directly through the Word and only works through the Word. Any explanation of God working without the Word is simply an attack on His revelation in the Word.
Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
- it shall not return unto me void,
- but it shall accomplish that which I please,
- and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
This passage is not alone, but it is the central explanation of the Spirit at work in the Word and always accomplishing God's purpose.
The unbelievers cannot grasp this. If they promote one of their false teaching pals, they think they have won another fight. They do not imagine that God is punishing their sect with another evildoer.
When they kick out or hate out another pastor, they high-five each other at headquarters, but they do not see they have dug the rotting corpse of a sect even deeper into the soil.
That is why they blabber about the entire world being forgiven - without faith, without the Word, without the Means of Grace. They have no comprehension of the Spirit/Word connection. This connection is so close that many Biblical references to the Spirit can be replaced with the Word, and vice versa. So the Spirit goes out from God, or the Word. They are bound together and never separate.
Jesus described this connection in John 3, teaching Nicodemus.
John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
This means - literally - unless a man is water/Spirit born..., based on Greek grammar. Yes, Jesus knew Greek and taught in Greek. Otherwise, the pun on born from above, born again is lost.
In one verse, Jesus described Holy Baptism - water plus the Word. Water is the physical symbol, the Word is the energy of God, the Spirit at work.
But lo - the UOJ Stormtroopers teach the entire world was forgiven by God without the Spirit, without the briefest Biblical mention of this astounding event. They know because Walther said so. Never forget - Walther. Studied. Luther. Ponder that. No one says, "Walther overlooked his bishop's flagrant adultery and the bishop's abandonment of his sick wife and children."
Walther never asked, "Holy and Venerable Bishop, why did you book your mistress next door to you on the ship and leave your sick wife and kids in Dresden?" Nor did the obedient clergy ask that question. They urged divorce upon any couple where one or the other did not want to leave Europe.
That attitude - hidden from the Lutheran masses - is the evil fruit from a corrupt tree, the evil tree of unbelief (Matthew 7:17). Walther spent his career promoting this dogma. He picked Pieper to canonize it, but justification by faith remained and was taught in the midst of this metastatic UOJ cancer.
Do Missouri loyalists even wonder why Paul McCain, nominal editor at Concordia Publishing House, chose to promote Roman Catholic essays from The Catholic Encyclopedia as his own?
Or ask why the Chaplain to the Court of Matt Harrison is smitten with Mary and Romanism, so much he was ready to pope and run at one point?
Or consider why the LCMS leaders are far more comfortable with ELCA leaders than they are with their faithful pastors?
The favorite word in WELS, Missouri, and the Little Vatican on the Prairie is - control. They have to control everything. Weeds are dominant, my city-slicker friends. Leave them alone and they will take over. Weeds grab the water the sunshine, and the turf. Weed for hours and two weeks later - they are back and sowing or planting themselves as never before.
The Lutheran Church today is an untended, unweeded garden. Some good plants remain and bear fruit, but they are mostly overtaken by the dominant, remorseless false teachers, who proudly say,
"Now, where is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
By right or might we shall prevail;
What we determine cannot fail;
We own no lord and master."
Nothing can be done until the Lutherans return to the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit exclusively at work through the Word. Until then, the palaver about readings, seasons, elections and re-elections will remain cover for the continue decay of sound doctrine.
