Citations - June 11 Lecture on the Errors of Objective Justification. The Video Is Near the Bottom of This Post.

Dr. Robert Preus' Justification and Rome repudiates Objective Justification, but the Walther Four - LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) - will not admit it.

Herman Otten wrote and published his book on Walter Maier. On this book's back cover, the Harvard PhD in Semitics was quoted in the clearest words about Justification by Faith. The current  CN editor is a crybaby sycophant who lives on Objective Justification.

Robert Preus copied this nonsense into his 1987 essay, 10 years earlier than Justification and Rome, 1997.

 

Jack Cascione and Paul McCain quoted this passage to their followers to prove that Robert Preus really did teach Objective Justification. The Preuss booklet is really absurd, even worse than the above quote in the graphic. I exposed Edward Preuss in Thy Strong Word in 2000, with editions following. 

I have the quotation from an ELS book where Walther wrote universal absolution about 1800 years years ago (for him). I expect to have that detailed by tomorrow.

The Stephan book should be read and studied. Preus' Festshrift contains the statement about Walther getting the letter from Stephan.

Romans 5:1-2. Faith in Jesus gives us access to God's grace.

Romans 4 Abraham is the example of Justification by Faith.

In 1996, Pastor X named August Suelflow as the source – that Stephan had syphilis. My researcher wrote this,

It [Stephan’s syphilis] was common knowledge among pastors around St. Louis and those involved in the Concordia Historical Institute, and of course down in the settlement south of St. Louis made famous by the book Zion on the Mississippi. However, there's nothing in print, all word of mouth, so he and a small group confronted Sueflow about it. Sueflow confirmed it, saying there were historical documents in CHI that never sees the light of day and is in a secure location of CHI.[1]

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[1] Written communication, September 10, 2020. G. Jackson, Walther, The American Calvin.

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Not surprisingly, dogmatics textbooks flourished in the period where Calvinist scholastics were attacking the Lutherans, who were then pulled into the same kind of scholastic games using Latin terms to categorize doctrine.

Schleiermacher exploited the subjective slant of Zwingli and Calvin, so theologians emerged who would argue not for Biblical doctrine or their denomination’s doctrine, but for “my theology.” Look at the influence of Pietism and the Easter absolution of the world. A short history of this distortion and false proclamation follows:

1.    Samuel Huber (1547-1624) was a former Calvinist who joined the faculty of Wittenberg University, but turned against the Biblical doctrine of the Reformation to claim this should be said to someone who has no knowledge of Christ:

“You have the grace of God, you have the righteousness of Christ, you have salvation.” Concilia Theologica Witenbergensia, 1664, p. 654.[1]

2.    J. J. Rambach (1693-1795) was a well-known, prominent figure in Halle, at the height of Pietism. He wrote:

“In His Person, all mankind was justified and absolved from all sin and curse.” Tom Hardt, Robert Preus Festschrift, “Easter and Absolution.”

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[1] This is roughly what Rev. Wayne Mueller said to the Columbus WELS Youth Rally, showing them how easy evangelism is. Pastor Paul Rydecki (formerly WELS) has translated Hunnius, who with P. Leyser, refuted Huber’s early form of Objective Justification, which explains its Calvinist DNA from Huber. Calvinism also entered the Lutheran Church through the unionistic style of Spener and the Pietism that grew from his efforts.

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1.    Schleiermacher’s Christian Dogmatics - “According to Schleiermacher, the decree of redemption already means that human beings are agreeable to God in his Son; an individual act of justification in time is not first needed in each individual person. It is only necessary that each individual person become aware that in God’s decree of redemption in Christ he is already justified and made agreeable to God.”

Hoenecke, Dogmatics, III, p. 339.

 

2.   C.F.W. Walther - "For God has already forgiven you your sins 1800 years ago when He in Christ absolved all men by raising Him after He first had gone into bitter death for them. Only one thing remains on your part so that you also possess the gift. This one thing is--faith. And this brings me to the second part of today's Easter message, in which I now would show you that every man who wants to be saved must accept by faith the general absolution, pronounced 1800 years ago, as an absolution spoken individually to him."

The Word of His Grace, Sermon Selections, "Christ's Resurrection--The World's Absolution" Lake Mills: Graphic Publishing Company, 1978 p. 233. Brosamen, p. 138. Mark 16:1-8.  

 

3.    Barth and Kirschbaum’s Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, p. 638

“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

 

4.    Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics, II, Concordia Publishing House, 1951, p. 321.

"Now, then, if the Father raised Christ from the dead, He, by this glorious resurrection act, declared that the sins of the whole world are fully expiated, or atoned for, and that all mankind is now regarded as righteous before His divine tribunal. This gracious reconciliation and justification is clearly taught in Romans 4:25: 'Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.' The term dikaiosis here means the act of divine justification executed through God's act of raising Christ from the dead, and it is for this reason called the objective justification of all mankind. This truth Dr. Walther stressed anew in America. He taught that the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the actual absolution pronounced upon all sinners. (Evangelienpostille, p. 160ff.)…

 

5.    LCA Professor Carl Braaten, who felt ELCA was too radical for him –

“We cannot hold a universalism of the unitarian kind. People are not too good to be damned. There is no necessity for God to save everybody nor to reject anyone. God is not bound by anything outside of himself. He is not bound to give the devil his due. If we take into account God's love, he would have all to be saved. If we reckon with his freedom, he has the power to save whomsoever he pleases. This does not lead to a dogmatic universalism. But it does mean that we leave open the possibility that within the power of God's freedom and love, all people may indeed be saved in the end. This follows as a possibility from the fact that God is free from all external factors in making up his mind.”

Justification, The Article by Which the Church Stands or Falls, Fortress Press, 2001.

 

Interested?

Encore - Short Greek NT Verses

 

YouTube

Stephanus John 3:16 -  ουτως γαρ ηγαπησεν ο θεος τον κοσμον ωστε τον υιον αυτου τον μονογενη εδωκεν ινα πας ο πιστευων εις αυτον μη αποληται αλλ εχη ζωην αιωνιον

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Matthew 28:19-20     πορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος

διδασκοντες αυτους τηρειν παντα οσα ενετειλαμην υμιν και ιδου εγω μεθ υμων ειμι πασας τας ημερας εως της συντελειας του αιωνος αμην

Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

1 John 1  ο ην απ αρχης ο ακηκοαμεν ο εωρακαμεν τοις οφθαλμοις ημων ο εθεασαμεθα και αι χειρες ημων εψηλαφησαν περι του λογου της ζωης

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Trinity 3 - "In the meantime, one resorts, in the name of the devil, to Saint James, another proceeds to build a church, a third provides for the saying of masses, — this one does this, the other does that, and no one thinks of praying for the sinner."

 

Third Sunday after Trinity , Luke 15:1-10. Christian Conduct Toward Sinners. The Parable of the Lost Sheep

7. A truly Christian work is it that we descend and get mixed up in the mire of the sinner as deeply as he sticks there himself, taking his sin upon ourselves and floundering out of it with him, not acting otherwise than as if his sin were our own. We should rebuke and deal with him in earnest; yet we are not to despise but sincerely to love him. If you are proud toward the sinner and despise him, you are utterly damned.

8. These, then, are great and good works in which we should exercise ourselves. But no man pays attention to them. Such works have entirely faded away and become extinct. In the meantime, one resorts, in the name of the devil, to Saint James, another proceeds to build a church, a third provides for the saying of masses, — this one does this, the other does that, and no one thinks of praying for the sinner. It is therefore to be feared that the holiest are in the deepest hell, and that the sinners are mostly in heaven. But it would be a truly Christian work, if you received sinners, if you entered into your closet and there said, in earnest prayer to the Lord: “Oh, my God! of such a person I hear so and so, he lieth in his sins, he hath fallen. Oh, Lord, help him to rise again,” etc. This is just the way in which to receive and serve the sinner.

9. Moses acted thus when the Israelites worshipped the molten calf. He mingled freely with the people in their sins. Yet he punished them severely, and caused three thousand men to be slain from gate to gate. Exodus 32. After that he went up and bowed down before God, and prayed that he would forgive the people their sin, or blot him out of the Book of Life. Behold, here we have a man who knew that God loved him and had written his name in the book of the blessed; and yet he says: “Lord, I would rather that thou shouldest damn me and save the people.”

10. Paul, too, acted thus. At times he rebuked the Jews severely, calling them dogs and other names. Yet he knelt down and said: “I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” Romans 9:3. It is as if he had said: “I would willingly be anathema, if only the mass of the people might be helped.” Such a course as this is much too lofty for reason, and passes beyond its conception. It is thus that we, too, must act, and thus that we must serve our neighbor.

11. Again, we have an incident in the first Book of Samuel. When the people demanded a king, and would not be ruled by God’s Word alone, but lost faith in the Lord, and said that they wanted a temporal king to go out before them and fight their battles, like all the nations, 1 Samuel 8:20. Then God came and punished them for the sin of having despised him, and spake thus to the prophet Samuel: “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” After that the people came to Samuel and besought him to pray for them, saying: “Pray for thy servants unto Jehovah thy God, that we die not; for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask a king.” Then Samuel, among other things, said unto them: “Far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear Jehovah, and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things he hath done for you.” 1 Samuel 12:19-24.

12. David also acted thus. When the Lord inflicted the plagues upon Israel he spake unto the Lord and said: “Lo, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thy hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house.”

13. Such should be your bearing toward sinners; inwardly the heart in service, outwardly the tongue in earnest. God requires this of us; and this is what Christ, our Captain, has manifested in himself, as Paul says to the Philippians 2:4-9: “Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.”