Lay Reader Reflects on the Facebook "Confessional" Lutheran Forum UOJ Group-Hug. Did They Kilcrease It?

Funny how people erase (kilcrease) what they have written.

My second post on the "Confessional" Lutheran Forum's UOJ.

First Post on the "Confusional" Lutheran Forum's UOJ

And...it seems to be gone. Laity posting and refuting the UOJ perps made the false teachers look silly, confused, and dishonest.

The laity know the Scriptures better than the self-appointed UOJ hucksters. Non-clergy are trained by the Word, not brained by the bullies of Universalism, so they ask for Justification by Faith posts.

Dr. Jackson,

Good post.  This has been pretty much my assessment, except maybe there might be a realignment across synod lines --maybe, won't hold my breath on that one.

"As I wrote before, the strength of Missouri is its lack of unity."

I think back with some irony that a couple of decades ago that the strength of the WELS was its unity, but now it is clear that it's a stumbling block.....and a serious one.  And, even the well meaning pastors in the WELS are too timid to stand up for the faith, rather they stand up for the synod.  They are a very tight bunch.  There are a few mavericks, but they are older men.

This UOJ thing really seemed OK on the surface when it was presented to me years ago as the OJ/SJ package, but after reading your posts I've taken another look at it, and I have to ask myself why???  Why do they need to defend this thing so badly?

They'll tell you that without it somehow the work of Christ is diminished, but I submit the effect is quite the opposite because it cheapens the Gospel.  Why?  Because by declaring the world justified it becomes impersonal, since SJ (or more properly, justification by faith) is left as a footnote.  Indeed, UOJ depersonalizes the Gospel as it lumps people together.  It's all the same.  Certainly all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but I believe that passage isn't a corporate application -- no real help to the guy with a burdened conscience.  He may be making comparisons to others, and the groupthink is no help to him.  He needs to know that his sins are forgiven.....even his sins are forgiven. This is the beauty of the Gospel as it justifies by faith.  He knows that we are not judged corporately, so why would he buy corporate justification or forgiveness.  We're not talking about pronouncing forgiveness in a church service; we're talking about UOJ.

I believe this UOJ belittles a man's sins in a destructive way when it lumps them all together.  Sin is personal -- not corporate.  Simply stating that Jesus made atonement for the whole world doesn't in any way belittle.  2 Corinthians 5:21 really gets overworked, and if it were to fit UOJ it might read:  "For the world's sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that the world might become the righteousness of God" -- which is preposterous, but how else can anyone come to the conclusion that the world is justified.  After all, a man is either justified or not.  Does a man have to be double justified to be justified?!?

Again, I don't see why we need UOJ, and I certainly don't see this fear of fideism.  Faith in Christ isn't faith in faith.  And, faith isn't a work -- it can't be.  A man either trusts God or not.  He can't just arbitrarily decide to believe.  The Word does the work.  Period.

Should I Have Defended Austin in the UOJ Discussion?

 Here is the recent discussion from Facebook.

Reader - "I was waiting for you or someone to come onto the thread to Austin’s defense. I do respect his strong desire to (a) bring clarity to everyone involved and (b) defend his belief that the differences are terminological (a word?) and not essential or actual. It does seem to be true that many people (including my old WELS pastor) equate “Objective Justification” in the UOJ scheme with the atonement and argue from this perspective."

Was Abraham already justified in advance, then by faith,
using the dense, dunce language of UOJ?

GJ - I was never exactly clear about what Austin was writing - not his fault. I had a truncated list of comments and did not want to pursue every detail.

The normal UOJ crew showed up to defend rationalistic Pietism, so poorly that they probably caused several people to repent of ever venerating such a ridiculous bucket of lies, distortions, and misinterpretations.

Objective Justification is not the Atonement. Robert Preus said so, and the wording above is obvious, apart from that factoid from Robert.

All these terms - below - mean the same thing - that God has already declared the entire world forgiven and saved:

1. General Justification
2. The Justification of the World
3. Objective Justification
4. Universal Objective Justification
5. Absolution of the world when Christ rose (or perhaps when Christ died - no one is sure).

The word in common with four of the five terms is the word Justification - which truly means God's declaration. That is where they start contradicting themselves, beyond the false foundation of their lies, that one event (the cross) or the other (resurrection) equates with God declaring the entire world forgiven, regardless of faith.

If God has already declared the world forgiven, why does anyone need repentance, baptism, forgiveness, Holy Communion?

Some participants clearly define the error of the UOJ Stormtroopers. Others blow smoke with their prissy, fussy attempts at justification via the history of doctrine. These Pharisees love to parade with the footnotes, hemming and hawing, but they never have the energy to teach from the Word or the Book of Concord, from Luther or Melanchthon, Chemnitz or Gerhard.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/252399584853848/#

Chris Black If we are saved by universal justification why be baptized, why go to church, why receive the Lords supper if everything is just so automatic.

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David Jay Webber Another example of a false alternative would be to ask, If we are justified by faith, then why did Jesus need to be born, die, and rise again? Obviously this question is wrongly put. So too is the question, If we are justified by faith, why did God need to declare the world of sinners for which Christ died and rose again to be righteous and acceptable in Christ?

Objective justification as such is not about individual sinners, but it is about Jesus and the world of sinners for which he died and rose again. When God's justification of humanity in Christ starts to get individuated, that is the stuff of subjective justification. Objective justification is the justification that is true for everyone in and because of Christ (but not outside of Christ), and that is offered to everyone in the means of grace, so that individuals who repent of their sin under the judgment of the law, and believe in the gospel, are (subjectively) justified by faith.

To be justified by faith is to receive justification by means of faith. God does not create a separate justification for every believer in the moment of the believer's act of faith. Faith receives a justification that already exists for everyone in Christ. This is why we are justified by faith, and not only in faith. The Lutheran distinction is that we are justified by faith and not by works. The Lutheran distinction is not that we are justified by faith and not by Christ. Objective justification does not contradict the true meaning of justification by faith, but it explicates the true meaning of justification by Christ.

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Walter Raffel This is double talk.

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Guillaume Williams I think we saw the problem earlier when I asked the other gentleman to define forgiven sinners in hell. What he meant by that is sinners in hell who had received the forgiveness of sins, which of course an impossibility and not to what we mean by UOJ.

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David Jay Webber Not only is this not double talk, but this is the objective fullness of the gospel that is delivered to and bestowed upon penitent sinners in the means of grace. In the gospel God is not making a proposal that sins will or might be forgiven under certain conditions. In the gospel God is delivering and bestowing forgiveness to those who repent of their sins.

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Matthew LushGroup Admin Chris your statements are false, no one claims we are saved subjectively, your misunderstanding shouldn’t lead to further false accusations. Rather than talk at the group maybe ask for clarification.

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 This is a howling lie from Sig Becker.
The early Missouri Synod taught Justification by Faith and the LCMS still has no official position endorsing UOJ. CPH sells a Small Catechism entirely lacking the "precious doctrine of objective justification."

Guillaume Williams We are not saved by objective justification, non-subjective justification or universal justification. We are saved by Christ who is our justification.

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David Charles Ok, slow down a little please :-) does this doctrine teach that all are declared righteous in the righteousness of Christ?

That Hitler and Luther alike are righteous before God?

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Guillaume Williams When?

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David Charles at their baptism

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Guillaume Williams I think it depends on your perspective.

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David Charles *your* perspective. you clearly know more about this than me, so, I am your student :-)

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Guillaume Williams Or their perspective.

Faith alone (which is a gift of God given through the Word and Sacraments) receives forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation.

Oh, if you are my student, first go read everything listed above and then come back with a 3 page report or at least a "oh" or "yeah, no."

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David Charles will do - well, not all. one link wants me to download something. I don't ever do that :-)

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Guillaume Williams It's safe.

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Guillaume Williams It's a paper.

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Marvin Nelson David Charles there is objective justification, and Christ died for both Luther and Hitler, it is not universalism but general atonement to which it leads because there is also subjective justification which needs to be taught in conjunction with objective justification.

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Jason Harris Hitler and Luther were both declared just, but Hitler apparently rejected it and was condemned as far as we can guess.

Jesus: Father forgive them...
Hitler: Screw you, buddy. I don't need your forgiveness.

Sue Koehler Meredith "We treat of the forgiveness of sins in two ways. First, how it is achieved and won. Second, how it is distributed and given to us. Christ has achieved it on the cross, it is true. But he has not distributed or given it on the cross. He has not won it in the supper or sacrament. There he has distributed and given it through the Word, as also in the gospel, where it is preached. He has won it once and for all on the cross. But the distribution takes place continuously, before and after, from the beginning to the end of the world" (Luther’s Works, vol. 40, pp. 213-214)

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Jim Hearn Ichabod comment in 3....2....1.....

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Jeffery Clark LOL

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David Charles i don't get it - but, I want too

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Jim Schulz David Charles It's called "poisoning the well."

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David Charles the comment by Jim or the one he is expecting?

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Jim Schulz David Charles Both.

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David Charles Man, and I thought us Calvinist were complicated :-) :-)

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David Charles BTW thanks

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Jim Hearn Meh. (*Eyes glazing*) Let the pastors haggle over the UOJ topic.

We all know the church growth movement and the corresponding march of mainline congregations toward non-denominationalism are far more interesting topics.

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Joe Jewell Jim Hearn I agree.

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Magnus Nørgaard Sørensen If we look in the Formula of Concord, the thing which allready exist and is received and imputed through faith is the righteousness of Christ. The term universal justification is of huberian and moravian origin. 
To be sure - I am willing to speak about universal objective justification as a forensic act, whereby the righteousness of Christ, which avails before God for the world, was declared by God in his resurrection on account of his active and passive obedience. This is the poasition of the old synodical conference, which corresponds doctrinally with the Lutheran Dogmaticians in spite of the fact that it does not agree with it in terminology. As one can see from the 1872-essay, they quoted the middle-position of swedish Anders Norhborg favorably. 
But we should be aware of the false moravian teaching, whereby that which Scripture and our confessions term justification is no longer seen as a real and distinct fporensic act bu reduced to the mere congitive act of recognizing something that is alreay a fact. This in my opnion is what was taught by Siegbert Becker and is also taught by leading by Seth Erlandsson in the swedish sisterchurch of the WELS.
The mere adherence to the term UOJ does not mean much. Neither does the rejection of the term. I think the biggest problem in the American discussion is that it is often assumed by both sides that the same thing is meant by the term.

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Joe Jewell This is an interesting take! I’m not that knowledgeable about Scandinavian theologians in general. Are any of them cited in either “side” of the UOJ debate among American Lutherans?

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Magnus Nørgaard Sørensen Joe Jewell If you are interested, you can read a paper, I wrote about it: https://www.academia.edu/.../The_Justification_of_Christ...
In Sweden, Tom Hardt, who taught UPJ, attacked BEcker and Erlandsson, and his critique was almost identical with Rune Söderlunds - who rejected the term, but accepted the version of Anders Nohrborg as. Tom Hardts essay is part of the Festschrift for Robert Preus (you can also find it here: http://luk.se/Justification-Easter.htm - the critique of Becker and Erlandsson is in note 75). One of the editors, Kurt Marquart, had issues with Hardts Critique but later - after Kokomo - he admitted that Tom Hardt was right, and Marquart himself attacked Becker. You can find Marquarts criticism of Becker here: http://www.patheos.com/.../rev-dr-kurt-marquart.../Manage

The Justification of Christ as the Efficient Cause of Our…

ACADEMIA.EDU

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Nick Haasch Thanks for the reading material Magnus. I've been trying to follow this all as well, reading essays and books from both sides.

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David Jay Webber Thanks for an interesting paper. It should also be noted that WELS District President Jon Buchholz, who is the most influential teacher and defender of objective Justification in the WELS of today, explicitly embraces the form of teaching found in Gerhard and Walther, explicitly repudiates the Kokomo Theses, and explicitly criticizes Siegbert Becker for his tolerance of the Kokomo Theses.
http://azcadistrict.com/.../papers/Buchholz_2012-10.pdf

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Magnus Nørgaard Sørensen Thank you. I will have to look into Buchhoz.

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Anders Nissen I should be noted that the Kokomo statement was drafted by persons that did not agree with the teaching of objective justification, in order to criticize the doctrine. It would therefore make no sense for Becker to say to the drafters about the theses, “Throw them out and start over!”, as Buchholz suggests he should have done. The drafters did not intend to give a fair presentation in the first place. 

Regarding Becker’s tolerance ot the statement, this is what he says:

”Every one of the statements can be understood correctly, even though one must swallow a little hard to accede to the fourth. However, because the statements were used to discredit the truth of universal justification and to cause other laymen to doubt this teaching it is especially necessary to point out that the statements do not contain false doctrine.” http://www.wlsessays.net/.../331/BeckerJustification.pdf... 

And at the end ot the paper:
”What shall we say of the four statements? It would have been better if the Kokomo laymen had simply been told, ’Since you refuse to accept the clear teaching of the Bible that God has for Christ’s sake already forgiven the sins of the world, and since you are not willing to be treated as weak Christians but persist in <doubtful disputations> (Ro 14:1), we can no longer tolerate your propaganda against the doctrine of our church or consider you to be in fellowship with us.’ 
Three of the four statements, because of their lack of clarity, tend to confuse the issue. But since the disciplined laymen used them to advance their false doctrine, it was understandable that the congregation should also use them in its rejection of the falsehood being advocated. I do not consider any of the four statements to be false doctrine, but I would rather not use the language used in the first, second, and fourth.”

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Matthias Leyrer Where's Ichabod when you need him?

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