Part Three - Repudiation of the Webber OJ Essay at the Emmaus Conference

Book cover designed by Norma Boeckler

C. Law and Gospel Section p. 6



Webber’s fundamental mistake starts with assuming that the Gospel is the universal absolution of the world – without faith. Walther has some good statements in the copied (not written) Law and Gospel lectures, but those insights are from Luther. Like all those suffering from rationalistic Pietism, Walther contradicted himself without fail. So does Webber and the entire, small group of Lutherans who think they are orthodox because they agree with Halle Pietism and ELCA rationalism.

Because the OJ crowd does not comprehend the Atonement, they confuse it with the man-made dogma of universal forgiveness/absolution without faith. They imagine that every mention, every praise of the Atonement is another example of their precious OJ concept. Examples are:

• The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world – but this does not mean absolving the world, Hindus and atheists without faith.
• He died for the ungodly – but Christ did not die for the godly.
• He was raised for our justification – but they ignore the preceding words – if they believe…
• Justified in the Spirit – since Jesus was declared righteous to the world, the world became righteous at the moment of resurrection, the dogma of Pietism – not the doctrine of Chemnitz.
• It is finished – Jesus was not speaking of His death, but UOJ. 

This universal absolution cannot be reconciled with any part of Scripture, though they may find a few sentence here and there, among the theologians, that elicit a gasp of awe as they declare “We have found the OJ core,” but that is irrelevant – even if true. The Scriptures are the ruling norm, not Luther or Ambrose or the early Robert Preus or the elderly JP Meyer.

Webber’s meandering prose about Law and Gospel is simply incomprehensible. That is the problem with someone pretending to be confessional without identifying what he condemns. He appears to be against justification by faith, but he cloaks this opposition, which would fall harshly on unwaxed ears. There is no confession, only another monologue from the Amen Corner of mainline Protestantism. His fellowship with mainline apostasy is revealed in his anxiety to commune ELCA members, meaning they believe the same things.

Do I need to mention that Webber quotes the ESV, the Calvinist edition of the National Council of Churches’ Revised Standard Version? Here is a discussion of the odious RSV, and its update, the ESV –

http://www.av1611.org/vance/nrsv_esv.html



Webber solemnly declares on page 8, “Do not try too hard to understand this,” and then quotes from the classic efficacy passage of Old Testament – Isaiah 55. Like Darwin, he can observe and study something for years and miss the entire story while publishing minute and largely irrelevant details. The efficacy of the Word, the work of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel Word – that is entirely missing in this botch.

After using up some of his notes from Old Testament class, Webber renews his attack on justification by faith on page 10.

A conditional message about a potential justification is not the Christian Gospel. It is no Gospel at all. It cannot calm the fears of a troubled conscience. It cannot grant comfort or elicit faith. Quite simply, a conditional message about a potential justification cannot forgive sins.

Compounding the stupidity of this straw man is one even worse, from Ken Schurb, whose only distinction is an alliance with Al Barry and Paul McCain. The verbiage is even more foolish – [Note the “in Christ” which is another fundamental error of Webber. The New Testament term applies only to believers, but that is conveniently ignored.]

A crushed unbeliever must be told that God is no longer angry with him in Christ, that all his sins are forgiven, that God has declared him “not guilty” (i.e. justified him) – or he will not believe…In other words, he must know objective justification.

Clearly, these two beginners have no grasp of justification by faith, so they distort both sides of the issue, calling their hogwash The Gospel and erecting a straw man instead of fairly and honestly describing justification by faith.

Some points of clarification were never taught them or the points were untaught them in seminary. Many never progress beyond required readings in school, especially when they keep an eye on how to get ahead in sects taken over by apostates. As the promulgator of the Kokomo controversy admitted, he never heard of UOJ before seminary at Mequon.

1. The Gospel Word has the divine, efficacious power of the Spirit to create and sustain faith, and this faith receives the promises and blessings from Christ’s atoning death and triumphant resurrection.
2.  Justification in the New Testament, Luther, and the Book of Concord only means justification by faith. Justification is always individual and always a matter of faith rather than works. If justification by faith is denied, the only alternative is justification by works. 
3. The entire work of the Christian Church is based upon justification by faith, preaching and teaching, Sacraments, pastoral visitation and counseling, marriage and burial of the dead. To say that the Gospel is teaching Universalism is an abomination.

Links - Repudiation of Jay Webber's OJ Paper at the Emmaus Conference, 2015

Copied from Robert Preus, Justification and Rome.

Complete review of the Emmaus Essay, Rough Draft

Links To Each Part

Part One

Part Two 

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven - Sloppy, One-Sided References

Part Eight - Gross Errors about Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Calov

Part Nine - The Pietists are Orthodox?

Emmaus Papers Below

Jay Webber PDF - Dropbox Link

DP Buchholz PDF - Dropbox Link

DP Mueller PDF - Dropbox Link

Additional

Apology of the Augsburg Confession

Cascione's Reprint of the early Robert Preus UOJ Essay

Martin Teigen book on Consecration - Free.

Thy Strong Word - Against Church Growth and UOJ

The Significant History of the Doctrine of Objective Justification - Rick Curia - This really exposes the inanity of Objective Justification. Judas Iscariot is forgiven, too!

Veterans Honor Roses for Mrs. Gardener - Pure Red and Fragrant. Double Delight for a Bonus

Veterans Honor bloomed all at once.

Double Delight added to the bouquet.
The granddaughter said, "Disney roses!"

Mrs. Gardener really enjoys red roses, so I planted Mr Lincoln along the fence and Veterans Honor in the main rose garden. The corner rose burst into bloom in the front, so I cut the best ones and put them in a vase. The Double Delight were fully bloomed, so I added them.

Family was there when I delivered the vase (and got two back). The kids wanted to smell the fragrant roses. The little girl said, "Just like Disney roses!" In one production, the roses are painted, and Double Delight roses do look painted.

I like cutting buds ready to open, because they unfold and last longer. Most people like the rose fully bloomed for show. The Double Delights were especially large and well formed.

The chewing and sucking insects seemed to have become food for the beneficial insects. I help by spraying the blooms and buds with a healthy, strong stream from the garden hose. Aphids cannot climb back if they are knocked loose.

Our Avon girl came by with an order, two vases, and went back with some roses for her mother.

No, I did not neglect Mrs. I. She admired the vase of roses the first half of the day. When I delivered the roses, I cut a new vase with Pink Peace and our first two John Paul II white, fragrant roses. John Paul II was attacked severely by rabid Lutheran insects, but now they are almost damage free.

I thought of spraying the buds and blooms with something stronger than water, but if it came to that, I would use a garlic spray instead.

Our helper mowed today. He is very impressed with the wild garden. Many flowers and plants are taking shape there - Cow Vetch, Butterfly Bush, Queen Ann's Lace, clover, and buckwheat.

John Paul II,
since he also has a degree from Notre Dame.

Night Drama - When the Second Shift Takes Over the Garden. Creation with a Purpose

The Chaste Tree alleviates PMS.
 

Another world opens up in the garden at night. For example, the slugs come out to do their work. An insect that hides from bright light will also feel comfortable at night.

Flowers that pollinate at night need no colors, because white flowers show up best.

I have gone outside late at night with my little LED flashlight, to see what is happening to various plants. I found slugs in the mulch, on the walls, and around young plants. When I set out the beer bowls, I saw this -

1. Crawling into the bowl and dying, night one.
2. Another bunch crawling into the beer trap, night two.
3. Slugs and leftover beer completely consumed by some creature - night three.

A dog or a raccoon could have had slugs and beer. That bowl was clean at the end. I stocked up on cheap beer and will try some more slug hunting. I thought they were under control, but as the woman says on TV, "I was living in a fool's paradise." They were chomping my newly purchased plants.

Now I have copper tape, which stops slugs by taking advantage of their electrical charge, an electricla fence of their own undoing.

I have looked at the white and yellow roses at night. One beetle likes to sit and chew vigorously on the flowers. I also have some aphids, but not on all the roses.

Walliser wrote, in her book on beneficial insects, that she became so enchanted by the dynamics of the insect world that she lost most of her interest in flowers - too static. I can understand that feeling, although plants are still my favorite part of Creation.

We divide Creation into parts, although they really constitute a living unity, balanced or achieving a new balance when something is over or under produced.

• The soil itself is an ocean of life, with the foundation of all plant, animal, and human health managed by fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and nematodes first and the larger creatures like earthworms second. 
• The surface is alive with the interplay of flowers, fruits, insects, spiders, toads,slugs, and ground-feeding birds, to name just a few. The birds count on certain seeds, fruits, worms, and insects, while the flowers  depend on bees, other pollinators, and each other for health. Garlic is the all-purpose medicine, insect repellent, and fixer in the garden.
• In the air, insects and birds do their work, day and night. The food controls the population of food eaters, so an explosion of bugs in the spring is met by a baby boom among the birds.

This little outline is so simple, compared to Creation, that it is more like the Cliff Notes of a Golden Book on Creation, and yet these lessons are lost on many.

Not one living thing listed above is capable of thinking about its role in life, its purpose, or its relationship to anything else, and yet we can observe and commend on this infinity of dependencies and marvel at their steadfast work. That shows the Hand of the Creator and His gracious purpose. Medicine is still being squeezed from the soil and the plants.

After I planted the Chaste Tree, I looked up more information about it. In ancient times it was thought to suppress the libido, but now an extract has been proven to help women with PMS. Scientists know that the natural world around them is full of medicines yet to be discovered. Since antibiotics can be counterproductive, fostering superbugs that eat the antibiotic for lunch, people are turning to Creation cures. A combination of garlic and onion has been used successfully on resistant infections. -

Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow's stomach.

They were "astonished" to find it almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.

Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference.

The remedy was found in Bald's Leechbook - an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library

If you do not know someone who has battle MRSA, you do not get out very much.

Veterans Honor - I dug a hole and got an armload of these.

Roses for Health

Rose hips are still used for Vitamin C, because the seed pod (hip) is packed with that vitamin. Some people enjoy rose hip tea, and others chew on tablets made from rose hips. Birds love rose hips, too. 

I see another side of roses - emotional health. "A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine." Nothing is quite so cheering as a bouquet of roses. We currently have seven families enjoying roses.

I reached the number five at first, but added some more as I thought about it. People love the sight and fragrance of roses, which last days in a vase and showboat their beauty outdoors. When we open our front door or approach the house, we get a rush of rose fragrance each time.

I have to prune roses to get more flowers. The plant goes through a hormonal change when the flowers are left on. They change from wanting to flower to setting seed and not needing to flower. Virtually all harvests are based on flowers, seeds, and fruit of plants. Some harvests are roots and tubers.

When I prune roses, they have to go somewhere. Spent flowers become mulch. Some flowers come indoors. The rest go to neighbors and family. Big smiles follow, especially when the roses are fragrant besides - a new trend.

Most of us have emotional memories about certain plants or flowers. I liked one weed-like plant because we had one growing next to our house while I was growing up. My paternal grandfather grew roses and citrus in Florida. A family story insists that he invented a seedless tomato and that my uncle lost the plant. The story is so dark that I was told never to bring it up, and I only learned it relatively late in life. If that story is true and my uncle had been more careful, I would be in the Bahamas now on a yacht or in court defending and pursuing various legal matters.

So here I am, reliving the sight of my grandfather's garden in Florida. Team Jackson often participates in gardening, when we have a grilling event. "Welcome to Jurassic Grill." We prune roses or pick edible pod peas. 

In Bella Vista I set up a corn cob feeder for the squirrels and blue jays - for our grandson, of course. He loved it as much as I did. Seeing a squirrel sitting on a little chair eating corn is great fun.

Birds splashing in the extra large bath, squirrels swinging from ripe sunflowers, roses blooming - all lend a great feeling of cheerfulness and make each morning an event. That may be God's plan.

"I shall not be moved."
Try to scare a squirrel from a window sill. He knows better.

I stopped at a bird feed store -
and bought squirrel food.