Points about the Robert Preus Essay on UOJ

 WELS Seminary professor John Brenner made similar points in his Marquette University dissertation.

The Robert Preus essay promoting UOJ can be found here.

I am just going to provide some summary statements about the Preus UOJ claims, then finish with graphics made from his last book, Justification and Rome.

1. Jack Cascione presented the material dishonestly, as if I denied Robert Preus had been a UOJ salesman. In fact, I often made that point to show how Preus changed in his last book, Justification and Rome.
2. Robert Preus was following a Preus family tradition in promoting UOJ, a divisive issue in the Synodical Conference in the 19th century. Pastor Herman Preus was kicked out of his congregation on Good Friday for sticking to UOJ.
3. Preus clearly stated in Paragraph #1 that UOJ is a declaration by God - "declared the entire world of sinners for whom Christ died to be righteous." He cited Romans 5, a blatant error used by UOJists.
4. Robert Preus distinguished Objective Justification from the Atonement - "Objective justification which is God’s verdict of acquittal over the whole world is not identical with the atonement..." Paragraph #2 - The President's Message. Many people mistakenly believe OJ is just another term for the Atonement (as I did in the very first edition of Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant).
5. The LCMS seminaries currently teach UOJ and wonder why some of their graduates become Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox priests soon after graduation. 
6. In paragraph #3, Preus promoted the Easter absolution of the world exegesis from 1 Timothy 3:16, taught by Rambach (a Halle Pietist) but not by Martin Chemnitz. Please check this account of Rambach versus Chemnitz. Walther learned this Easter absolution of the entire world from Bishop Martin Stephan, who studied at Halle, never graduated from any school, and was known as a Pietist managing cell groups.
7. In paragraph #4, Robert Preus dishonestly offered Edward Preuss as an authority on UOJ - "an old Lutheran." But Robert's distant relative left his teaching post at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, becoming Roman Catholic, baptized a Roman Catholic, and serving as their great scholar. Notre Dame gave Preuss a medal for his efforts in Mariology. Ludwig Fuerbringer also referenced the Preuss papal conversion - it was never a secret.
8. Here is a detailed account of UOJ at work in WELS.
9. Paragraph #5 is Preus' effort to insert UOJ into Luther's doctrine, where the terms cannot be found, where the UOJ claims are constantly refuted with faithful teaching from the Scriptures.
10. Paragraph #5 also names Stoeckhardt as a great expert (UOJ) on Romans but fails to mention Luther's Galatians Lectures as recommended by the Book of Concord itself. Preus might have defined the Chief Article - as Melanchthon, Luther, and the Concordists did - as Justification by Faith. All citations in this essay are from the UOJ mob - certainly not an example of scholarship.
11. Paragraph #6 is nothing but confusion, claims without any evidence to support them. "No, objective justification is a clear teaching of Scripture, it is an article of faith which no Lutheran has any right to deny or pervert any more than the article of the Trinity or of the vicarious atonement." The first time UOJ came up among Lutherans, Samuel Huber ("former" Calvinist) was teaching it at Wittenberg University. He was examined carefully about his doctrine and expelled from the school. The next time UOJ hid its fangs behind fleece, it came from Halle Pietists like Rambach, Stephan, and Walther.
12. Paragraph #7 proves that Walther was a bonafide Enthusiast who got high on his own supply of babble: "No, when His Son had accomplished all that He had to do and suffer in order to earn and acquire grace and life and blessedness for us, then God, in His burning love to speak to us sinners, could not wait until we would come to Him and request His grace in Christ, but no sooner had His Son fulfilled everything than He immediately hastened to confer to men the grace which had been acquired through the resurrection of His Son, to declare openly, really and solemnly to all men that they were acquitted of all their sins, and to declare before heaven and earth that they are redeemed, reconciled, pure, innocent and righteous in Christ." So orthodoxy is grace without the Means of Grace, without the Word, and yet somehow received without faith!
13. The shameful public execution of Walther Maier began with Paragraph #8. The carefully chosen words are painful to read, even today. UOJ is not in the Bible, just as Maier said. UOJ is not in Luther or the Book of Concord. Most importantly, because the LCMS is the expert on everything, UOJ has never been found in the catechisms of the sect. One Missouri DP said as much when he received a "UOJ-denier" into the ministerium.

PS - Need I say it? The UOJ clowns treat Justification and Rome as a nuclear waste dump, staying so far away from it that one suspects they cannot grasp the truth of his clear and compelling final words.

 Should we follow Stephan into syphilitic insanity
or Luther to eternal life?