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| CFW and his brother kidnapped their niece and nephew from their father's parsonage. The Saxon migration was proud of the minors who came along with them on their merry adventure. CFW let his future mother-in-law go to jail while he escaped to America with the rest of the criminals. Pastor Martin Stephan took his main mistress - there were others - on the same ship he sailed. |
CFW Walther and his brother grew up in the parsonage of a rationalist. They were also trained in rationalism when they were obtaining their credentials to be pastors. The men who examined them were rationalists because the state church was controlled by rationalists. Anyone else was considered a Pietist.
Needless to say, since Walther chose to associate with Pietistic circles, he must have been quite clever to give the accepted answers when examined for graduation and ordination.
Clearly, the entire Walther circle was trained in rationalism and drawn closer in cell group Pietism, led by two different abusive mentors. The first one died, so they gravitated to Pastor Martin Stephan, Bohemian Pietist pastor called to the Dresden congregation of Bohemian Pietists.
Pastor Martin Stephan was known early for promoting the Scriptures and the Book of Concord, but he also became known for corruption, spending a lot of late night hours with young women, and violating the state rules that allowed him to be called without a degree and serve cell groups as long as they practiced at their church property. He was often caught conducting his cell group work at other locations.
Calvinism is the primary source of rationalism in the state churches of Europe, and Lutheran Pietism served as a blend of Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrine.
Therefore, Walther's dogma is all the more suspect if we look at its origins and his unfettered devotion to a criminal that he helped to become a bishop-for-life. Rather than start with Walther and his infallible life, why not consider two important terms - justification and forensic.
Justification
The word Justification is used only in connection with a declaration, so its use as an addition to the Atonement is entirely suspect.
Robert Preus correctly declared that the Atonement is not Justification. That is because:
- Objective Justification
- The Justification of the World, and
- General Justification
are expressions that "God's pronounced the entire world forgiven and saved."
Forensic
However, Melanchthon was the pioneer in expressing forgiveness as Forensic Justification. As many realize, forensic is a term commonly used today in crime - forensic expert, etc. Melanchthon's use of the term means that when the Gospel treasure is conveyed by the Word to someone, creating faith by the work of the Holy Spirit, that individual is declared forgiven by God.
Note how clever the false teachers are, using Calvinistic concepts (Enthusiasm) to improve upon the teaching of the Bible and Book of Concord by merging the Atonement and Forensic Justification.
I have read quite a few WELS treatments of their favorite dogma, their only dogma. They kidnap the term forensic to say that God held a trial and declared the whole world forgiven. As a veternal reader of Roman Catholic Enthusiasm, I have been struck by the parallel between papal inventions (the scapular) and UOJ - the "startling decree." Yes, we are startled and alarmed that so much foolishness is attributed to God, Who will judge those false teachers.
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| Read this out loud to a Christian believer. What????? |
The Atonement/Justification Merger
When the UOJ Stormtroopers are done with their deceit, the individual is no longer declared forgiven (justified) through faith in Christ (forensic, as in a judicial proceeding). Instead, the entire world is declared by God to be forgiven and saved - apart from faith, without hearing the Word of the Gospel, without the Spirit at work in the Means of Grace.
Enthusiasm is defined in the Book of Concord as the foundation for all false doctrine, including the pagan religions of the world and the pope's creative and imaginative inventions. Let us move on to the second part, largely ignored, of OJ/SJ - Subjective Justification.
Subjective Justification
This term was used by the Calvinist Woods to explain how one is forgiven-forgiven, because the entire world has already been forgiven. This is really a snipe hunt, because hardly anyone deals with the nonsense of Subjective Justification. Even though Lutherans supposedly are devoted to Subjective Justification, 99% of their effluence is devoted to Objective Justification.
The Lutheran Enthusiasts define their Subjective Justification as accepting or agreeing with the absolution of the world (OJ). So every single individual is born forgiven but not really forgiven until he accepts or decides that he is already forgiven. Asking someone to elaborate on such a contradiction is cruel and unusual punishment. That is why virtually all of mainline, liberal or apostate theology is Objective Justification. To talk about faith - these wise men say - is to deny God's grace. They are very skilled, like cows playing the harp.
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| This confession of false doctrine is in Valleskey's Church Growth textbook, which Herman Otten adores. Webber cannot find a connection between UOJ and Church Growth. But, he cannot find Luther's Galatians Lectures either. |
UOJ
The excessive term Universal Objective Justification is an example of mission creep. If the entire world has already been forgiven and saved, why add Universal to Objective? WELS likes to be different, so they use UOJ while their partners in doctrinal crime commonly use OJ. The exception is John Sparky Brenner, who writes Justification of the World, more words to say the same thing - God has declared the entire world forgiven and saved. General Justification is the old German term, which does not mean the Atonement, but "every and every one" is forgiven and saved.
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| "Ach, vas dat dein Fuss, Liebchen, er Charlotte?" Barth/Kirchbaum taught UOJ and passed on their cathedral of false doctrine to the grandees of Fuller Seminary. |
