Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed: 10/09/15

Friday, October 9, 2015

Basic Refutations of Justification without Faith - UOJ

Here are some refutations in a short list.

UOJ -

Rejects the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit always working with the Word, since adherents claim, without a Word of Scripture, that God has forgiven the entire world - without faith.
Rejects the efficacy of the Word - Isaiah 55, Mark 4, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, etc), which is how God always works His will.
Implies the Bible contradicts itself by teaching justification by faith and UOJ in Romans 3, Romans 4, and Romans 5.
Omits the Means of Grace chapter in Romans 10, which explains how the hearing the preached Word causes faith so that people believe and confess the truth of the Gospel.
Deceives people by quoting Romans 4:25, as if the resurrection of Jesus by itself absolved everyone in the world, atheists, polytheists, Hottentotts, and Hindus - without the Gospel, without faith: omitting Romans 4:24, if we believe in Him who raised Jesus from the dead.
Hungers for the New NIV , where an invented "all" creates their dogma in Romans 3, as if all have sinned (true) and all are justified (false), as if Romans 3 is schizophrenic in teaching both justification by faith and justification without faith.
Forgets that Romans 4 is a justification by faith chapter, with Abraham as an example, climaxing in Romans 5:1-2 summarizing Romans 4 - Therefore since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God, access to grace through faith.
Attacks the Invisible Word (teaching, preaching) and the Visible Word (the sacraments) by claiming falsely that the entire world receives grace without the Means of Grace.
Finds people announcing UOJ - "behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" in John's Gospel, whose theme is teaching faith that people may be saved. John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Twists every Atonement passage by inventing a universal forgiveness and salvation, far beyond the plain meaning of the Word. Examples are in Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 5.
Assumes a Roman Catholic view of doctrine, as if an elite class of clergy can infallibly declare what no one else can find in the Bible or church history - except among the false teachers.
Glorifies Walther, a poorly educated Pietist, for what he learned and repeated from another poorly educated Pietist, the syphilitic bishop Martin Stephan.
Ignores the teaching of Martin Luther, Chytraeus, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Andrae, the post-Concordists, and Gerhard.
Embraces the false doctrine of Pietists like Rambach and Quistorp, Knapp and his Pietistic translator Leonard Woods Junior, not to mention modernists like Schleiermacher and Barth.
Condescends to laity and talks down to them, as if the truth of God's Word is only available to certain clergy who agree with selected synod leaders.
Forgets that WELS taught justification by faith in the original Gausewitz catechism (now flushed down the memory hole), Missouri still teaches justification by faith in the CPH KJV catechism, and he Book of Concord only teaches justification by faith.

Chess and UOJ

UOJ Pastor Steve Flo is offended by my definition of the Gospel,

Romans 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Walther swore allegiance to his adulterous bishop, Martin Stephan,
then organized a mob to rob him and kidnap him at gunpoint,
dumping the sick man in Illinois.

One chess move is to move forces to protect one piece and make that so well guarded that the opponent would rather not capture that pawn and lose a series pieces from counter-moves. A pawn can be convenient for that advance, because it has limited power and points at the moment. Lose a bishop just after taking the pawn? A knight is sitting there, after taking the bishop. The knight is nimble and handy in the early game, but that bishop is golden in the late game.

The LCMS-ELS-WELS-CLC(sic) line up behind their advance man - Walther, to push Universal Justification without Faith (UOJ, OJ, General Justification - all the same).

As a chess player and fan of Nimzowitsch, I admire his theories, since chess is related to war. This is certainly a battle - justification - where only one side is fighting.

According to Missouri, WELS, and the ELS,
Walther never committed an actual sin, so he was assumed into heaven.
The State of Missouri contains three (3) shrines or markers for CFW.
One is called The Great Walther.

Walther is their man, their pope, their theologian, their pawn. If anyone questions the Great Walther, the Enthusiasts jump on him like hobos on a hotdog. To question UOJ is to attack Walther and his dutiful disciple F. Pieper.

Fine. Let us concentrate on Walther and compare him to Martin Luther. The main problem is that most clergy do not know Luther or Pietism, only their UOJ talking points, filed under Cute Classroom Quips and Putdowns.

Walther earned a bachelor's from Leipzig University, where most of the faculty members were not believers. Walther's clergyman father was also a rationalist, like the Leipzig faculty. The state church was run by rationalists and controlled certifications and calls. One must wonder how Walther wiggled his way through that, but we do not know.

We do know that CFW Walther was in a Pietistic Bible study group with his brother and other clergy candidates. That is what men did when they did not agree with rationalism. They took their direction from Candidate Kuehn, a very severe Pietist who finally got a call. After that, the same group followed Pastor Martin Stephan, a Pietist (with no college degree) who was called to be the minister of a Bohemian Pietist congregation because he was a Bohemian Pietist. The land for the church was donated by the Pietist Zinzendorf and had special permission to continue Pietist cell groups on the church property.

Therefore, the Walther group was definitely influenced by rationalism (rejecting the divine and the miraculous in the Bible) and deeply immersed in Pietism - by their choice.

Lutheran Pietism is an amalgamation of Lutheranism and Calvinism, with the Calvinistic side winning. Pietism always promotes cell groups but is allergic to the sacraments, the Real Presence, and baptismal regeneration. Pietists love cooperation with other confessions of faith, which is why they ignore and have little knowledge of the Book of Concord.

The Swedish Augustana Synod was born in Pietism and never hid that. They struggled with the weakness of Pietism when they came to America and took on a Confessional identity when revivals and false doctrine showed them the weakness of the movement. Augustana (Latin) stands for the Augsburg Confession - Confessio Augustana.

Luther and the Concordists considered themselves "theologians of the Augsburg Confession." Therefore, to consider ourselves Lutherans, we should study Luther and the Concordists. The so-called quia subscription to the Book of Concord is a joke among Lutherans today, but it is worth remembering there is no subscription to the Walther corpus or the Brief Confession.

Luther and his allies earned doctorates in theology. They knew all the theological fads of the age and rejected them. They were true scholars of the Bible and learned the Biblical languages to refute false doctrine.

Missouri, like WELS, is full of mini-popes,
infallible because they agree with Pope Walther.

Walther and his followers were poorly trained, but Walther became their seminary president (not allowed today) with his in-bred faculty trained by him. The Saxons married each other and taught each other. Walther was also the synod president and editor, so he controlled the information and buried the history as much as possible. As one reader said, the ships landed in New Orleans, carrying one bishop and one pope.

Pope Walther became their theologian, displacing Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz. Missouri spawned the Wauwatosa Seminary, where the academic and familial in-breeding continued. Like the early Concordia Seminaries, one only needed a semnary degree and political clout to become an infallible professor.

He extended the Left Foot of Fellowship to congregations and pastors,
but the passive, ovine sect re-elected Him anyway.

The Little Sect on the Prairie is a hoot. They made John Moldstad professor of New Testament without him having a college degree - harking back to Walther's mentor, Stephan, with no degree. But they did not make Stephan a seminary professor! The ELS was threatened with some dissent so they made Moldstad VP and he became Pope by right of succession. Thus an addled adherent to UOJ trumps a genuine Lutheran with academic training. How far Lutherans have fallen to re-elect a non-Lutheran dolt like him.

Working is a key word here, because
Pietism emphasized works rather than believing and sound doctrine.

So UOJ advances behind Walther, but justification by faith has St. Paul, Augustine, Luther, the Concordists, and Gerhard behind it.

I have some brief refutations of UOJ, which I will list later.