Misusing the Empty Tomb to Prop Up Halle Pietism and the Spectre of Walther's Errors

 "He is not here. He is risen." That is the Spirit at work in the Word, filling their hearts with faith, replacing dread and sorrow with courage and hope. Jesus repeatedly berated His disciples for their little-faith, but we are supposed to think the world is absolved with no faith.

Jay Webber's Errors

Justification Before and Without Faith



KJV 1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was 

• manifest in the flesh, 
• justified in the Spirit, εδικαιωθη εν πνευματι
• seen of angels, 
• preached unto the Gentiles, 
• believed on in the world,
• received up into glory.

"What they [ELDONA] deny is that God the Father, as a consequence of his Son's death and resurrection for the whole world, absolved and justified his Son on the whole world's behalf, and in and through that vicarious absolution and justification of Christ, absolved and justified the whole world for which he had died." 

(Jay Webber, Facebook, WELS Discussions)

Gentle reader, I ask you, "Does the second point in 1 Timothy 3:16 say anything like Webber's claim?"

No, instead, he has imposed the Rambach Halle formula (not much different from Samuel Huber's) upon the resurrection of Christ - that it caused God to absolve the unbelieving world of all sin. 

What does Chemnitz - taught by Luther and Melanchthon - write about this verse?

This is the forensic or legal meaning of this word. But just as is the case in all languages, words are transferred from the specific to the general. Thus “justify” is sometimes used to approve, testify to, recognize, acknowledge, confess, and celebrate the fact that someone is righteous—granting, conferring, and attributing praise to his righteousness. Luke 7:29: “The people and the publicans justified God, but the Pharisees spurned the counsel of God.” Luke 16:15: “You justify yourselves before men.” Luke 10:29: “The scribe, wanting to justify himself …” Jer. 3:11 and Ezek. 16:51: “You have justified your sisters.” 1 Tim. 3:16: “He was manifested in the flesh and justified in the Spirit,” that is, the humility of His flesh offended many, and He was crucified as a misleader and a seditious man; but because of His divine works and the sending of the Spirit, He was declared and approved as the Son of God and the Messiah. (Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, p.478). Cited here.

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GJ - Starting with the plain meaning of the verse, the resurrection of Christ was and remains the clearest proof of the divinity and righteousness of Christ.  As Lenski points out in Mark's account, the enormous stone lid of the tomb was thrown down by the angels to show the world the tomb was already empty. Moreover, the slab was so heavy that the tomb had to remain open for everyone to see. 

The Father did not "forgive the Son and therefore absolve the unbelieving world." The opponents of the Chief Article seem to imagine that Jesus was burdened with the sins of the world and had to be absolved by the Father. Thus they find Jesus unburdened and the world absolved at the same moment. How ridiculous. Jesus is the Righteous One.

Isaiah 53:11 - He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My Righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.

The Son was and remains without sin, but this resurrection declared that truth to the world. That is the Spirit/Word combination so often ignored by our Calvin-saturated modern world, where the Spirit is "sovereign" and may or may not accompany the Word and Sacraments. Calvin liked to play with the Scriptures, his own little sandbox, and that attitude came into play with Pietism and rationalism, both debtors to the Geneva prophet.

The resurrection accounts in the Four Gospels and St. Paul are the Spirit declaring Jesus the risen Son of God. They are not the Savior absolved of sin but approved as the victor, the Hero - as Luther often wrote.

David Jay Webber Defends Justification Before Faith and Defames the Chief Article

Webber, Phil Hale, and Heiser looked up to Scaer as a genius professor of dogmatics. Imagine.

 McCain and Cascione repeated this delirious nonsense quoted by Robert Preus. Everyone is born forgiven, babies forgiven before infant baptism? 

 This power team dazzled the scattered crowd at Emmaus.

WELS Discussions

Like · 1m David Jay Webber

ELDoNA confesses that Jesus died and rose again for the sins of the whole world, that he propitiated God for the sins of the whole world, that he atoned for the sins of the whole world, and that he acquired righteousness and forgiveness for the whole world. What they deny is that God the Father, as a consequence of his Son's death and resurrection for the whole world, absolved and justified his Son on the whole world's behalf [GJ - Halle Pietism Error], and in and through that vicarious absolution and justification of Christ, absolved and justified the whole world for which he had died. [GJ - Halle Pietism Error] 

A part of what triggered the ELDoNA pastors against objective justification / objective forgiveness, is the sloppy way in which that doctrine was sometimes explained in the 20th century. One particularly clumsy statement was that in objective justification God looked into hell and gave everyone there the status of a saint. That is nonsensical and is not a correct reflection of what objective justification really means. In objective justification, God did not look into hell; God looked upon his Son, who had carried the sins of the world to the cross and whose atonement for those sins was successful, so that God as a consequence justified Jesus [GJ - Halle Pietism Error] - and in, with, and under that justification of Jesus, God thereby justified the world for which Jesus had died. [GJ - Halle Pietism Error. On the Intrepid Lutherans, Webber quoted Pietist Rambach against Chemnitz.] 

Webber backs Pietist Rambach

What this objective justification of the world's Redeemer did was basically establish the objective truth and the objective content of the means of grace, that is now announced and distributed to penitent sinners. What the objective justification of the world's Redeemer means is that there is a finished and complete gospel of justification and forgiveness in Christ, to be proclaimed and applied to individual human beings, not merely a potential justification or a potential forgiveness that much be completed by the act of faith. [GJ - Straw Man Fallacy, contradicted in the next sentence.] Faith receives God's justification in Christ. Faith does not complete or help to bring about justification, and faith does not prompt God to create a separate and individual justification for each individual who believes in the message of his potential justification, in that moment of believing.

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s there was a controversy over this in the LCMS, focusing on the Ft. Wayne seminary, involving Robert Preus and Kurt Marquart on the pro-objective justification side, and Walter Maier on the anti-objective justification [<-GJ - Justification by Faith, aka The Chief Article!] side. This controversy was settled through a carefully-written statement that explains what objective justification really is (clarifying some misunderstandings), which Walter Maier could and did sign. [GJ - According to D. Scaer, R. Preus consulted with Calvinists to support Justification Before Faith.] So, it was settled in the Fort Wayne seminary at that time. And it can and should be settled by everyone else today, on the same basis. It is one of the most useless and confusing controversies going on today, [GJ - But you and others are showing how thoroughly Calvinistic WELS-ELS-LCMS are! Thank you.] and also one of easiest to settle, because all the heavy lifting on settling it has already been done. Here is the statement that Walter Maier submitted to the Fort Wayne Board of Control on January 30, 1981, which expressed his agreement with the doctrine of justification as correctly explained in a balanced and careful manner:

<<When the Lord Jesus was “justified” (I Timothy 3:16) in His resurrection and exaltation, God acquitted Him not of sins of His own, but of all the sins of mankind, which as the Lamb of God He had been bearing (John 1:29), and by the imputation of which He had been “made...to be sin for us” (II Corinthians 5:21), indeed, “made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). In this sense, the justification of Jesus was the justification of those whose sins He bore. The treasure of justification or forgiveness gained by Christ for all mankind is truly offered, given, and distributed in and through the Gospel and sacraments of Christ. Faith alone can receive this treasure offered in the Gospel, and this faith itself is entirely a gracious gift and creation of God through the means of grace. Faith adds nothing to God’s forgiveness in Christ offered in the Gospel, but only receives it. Thus, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him” (John 3:30).>>
[GJ - David Scaer was still peeved and not happy with the Maier family, as he admitted in his wacky book. The Preus Crime Family used this topic as a political club to bruise Maier as a presidential candidate and to elevate Robert Preus. However, Robert's last book clearly repudiates Justification Before and Without Faith, so Rolf does not mention it anymore.]

David Jay Webber For reference, and so as to avoid unnecessary repetition, about 15 weeks ago there was a HUGE discussion of objective justification in this thread: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WELSDiscussions/permalink/2929918767232564/
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Best New Term for Objective Justification aka General Justification aka Justification of the Sinner aka Justification of the World aka Universal Objective Justification aka Universalism

Fake joy is the natural state of Justification Before Faith.

The best new name for everyone's favorite, Midwestern heresy is Justification Before Faith. The term has much to commend it. Perhaps the designation might help wake up the repeat-after-me learning associated with the Holy Mother Sect attitude.

No, I did not come up with Justification Before Faith. Someone else did. I will not even hint at the name, lest innocent people be grilled or waterboarded to find its origin.

Look at how clearly Justification Before Faith describes the error. Their only point is always - "God has declared the entire world righteous, free of sin, saved." Justification is first, without the Atonement, without the Means of Grace. These evil servants of Calvin and Satan obsess about righteousness declared first and have no interest in anything else.

To elaborate the beauty of their dogma, they love to describe Judas, Hitler, Stalin, and those who died in the Flood as "guilt-free saints."

1. Dost thou wonder why they have killed off all the classical Christian hymns? 
2. Dost thou marvel at the promiscuous printing of wildly distorted "Bibles"?
3. Dost thou ask why SynCon synagogues of Satan need to provide candy, popcorn, and soft drinks at their entertainment, seeker, seduction services?