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| Advocates of UOJ are illiterate clowns who crave notoriety for being experts in Biblical doctrine, which they do not comprehend. Navigation for Articles on the LCMS-WELS Mythologies and Their Relationship to UOJ |
The fundamental claim of - Universal Objective Justification, General Justification, Objective Justification, or the Justification of the World - whatever the label - is the same:
"God has declared everyone in the world - past, present and future - absolved of all sin, and saved, regardless of faith."
It is true that some UOJ flavors may express this dogma with a little more subtlety, but the statement above is the main message. One ELS pastor wrote to me, "Your graphic makes it sound like Knapp used OJ and SJ, but the terms come from the [Calvinist] translator's explanation!" When a pastor is in the same bathtub with the UOJists, it is a bit late to cite the APA Manual or Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Eitiquette.
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| "This is the Bible's clear teaching." Where in the Bible? |
What Does the UOJ Dogma Really Say To People?
First of all, the main statement makes any mention of sin and repentance superfluous. Everyone is already forgiven, before birth, as Edward Preuss claimed. The stories of gross carnal sin in the Old Testament are turned into interesting narratives, because all those sins have been declared void by God. The horrors of pagan culture - which are far worse than anyone can imagine - are not sins at all. They are forgiven, and those people are saved as well. Some fanatics like JP Meyer have them in Hell, but they are guilt-free saints, or "declared righteous for Christ's sake by God," as the LutherQuest guru announced.
Secondly, the basic premise of UOJ makes a shambles out of confession, repentance, absolution (already done), hymns, preaching, and the Means of Grace.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, UOJ intentionally destroys Justification by Faith. As Walther wrote (and he loved the OJ/SJ labels) - Subjective Justification is merely accepting by faith (in what? not Jesus) the absolution of the world.
This is a strange set of jibber-jabbers. Making a decision to accept a proposition is not faith, it is agreeing to a closing statement. Some would call it Decision Theology, but that is too kind. Decision Theology assumes faith in Christ. This teaches faith in World Absolution.
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| This is the Panning edition of JP Meyer, meaning that Panning did not or could not read the New Testament in Greek. "Will he accept or will he decline?" |
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| Sparky Brenner's History of Mordor proves my case. |
I appreciate Sparky Brenner for being an Ichabod Unawares. In his dissertation he revealed what I always thought - the entire Election conflict was really about UOJ. Walther had already been promoting his Easter Absolution nonsense from Bishop Martin Stephan and Halle University. To shore up his dubious claims, he attacked others and promoted his Election without Faith notion, contrary to the Formula of Concord.
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| I should have drawn arrows from "Woods' translation" to the text. But this is the original OJ/SJ formulation available in English before Bishop Stephan and Pope Walther landed in New Orleans. They would have used the German original, which was very popular, but Walther is known to have loved the OJ/SJ formula concocted by Woods, a Calvinist. Just like Huber at Wittenberg? Yes, pretty close to Huber. |
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| Graduation from seminary! |
Wait - there's more. Sparky also wrote about Objective Justification in his Jars of Clay history of the Mequon Seminary. After quoting August Pieper about how wonderful OJ was - especially with the very persuasive CFW Walther teaching it, the topic was ended. Subjective Justification is not discussed. That is my main point - Justification by Faith is completely eliminated by UOJ dogma. Subjective Justification is the fig-leaf used to make people think Part II is Justification by Faith. But -
A. The second part is simply agreement with the dogmatic declaration.
B. The UOJists are frantic about the first part and indifferent about the second part. OJ consumes SJ, and SJ is a decoy.
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| He is often cited, but has anyone read him? Oh, but he is condemned by the UOJ Stormtroopers to this day. |
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| Barth/Kirschbaum cited by Braaten on Justification "There is not one for whose sin and death he did not die, whose sin and death he did not remove and obliterate on the cross...There is not one who is not adequately and perfectly and finally justified in Him. There is not one whose sin is not forgiven sin in Him, whose death is not a death which has been put to death in Him...There is not one for whom he has not done everything in His death and received everything in His resurrection from the dead." (Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, 638) |
By the way, as I mentioned to DP Robert Mueller, a shape-shifter of the worst sort, the original "in view of faith" statement was "in view of the merits of Christ apprehended by faith," which is perfectly good and Scriptural, from Gerhard, as I recall. He agreed. So it was obnoxious for Walther to run around attacking AN edition of the Small Catechism (Pontoppidan, in view of faith) when we do not teach doctrine from editors but from the Scriptures.
But conflict is good and God-pleasing, separating the wormy flour from the good flour. Unfortunately, the Justification by Faith Lutherans were lazy and prone to look at the European rationalists with covetous envy. The good old professors were replaced with cool guys with liberal degrees. Very hip. They did that with Lenski after working hard to silence him.
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| What did Schleiermacher teach about OJ/SJ? He simply taught OJ. |
European rationalists saw Schleiermacher, Halle University student and professor, as the turning point, their hero - faith without belief. Absolute dependence - whatever that means.
When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?
