Good morning Greg,
Another amazing Ichabod! Loved all the Luther quotes. Great work.
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GJ - The "Party in the Fire Island Pines" fans seem to disagree. Is WELS divided? Yes. The Church and Changers have polarized the synod. But I hear that many young brains have not turned to mush. According to sources, the hot stuff for aging Boomers is not going over well with many college students.
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DK has left a new comment on your post "Atonement versus Justification Without Faith - The...":
Awesome post Professor! Thank you: Very enlightening.
You started by saying:
"Someone asked about the difference between the Atonement and Universal Objective Justification."
Were you referring to my question? I understand the difference between Atonement vs. Justification and completely agree with you about UOJ, but speaking to the nitty gritty semantics:
Are you suggesting that the statement "Justification by Grace, through Faith" isn't accurate or evidence of a misunderstanding about Atonement? Is "Justification by Faith" more accurate?".
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GJ - Various people ask about this and you were one of several who wanted more information.
Emphasizing grace is perfectly fine, and so is an emphasis upon faith. The UOJ Stormtroopers rail against faith, even though the Word of God is revealed to us so that we might believe in the Gospel as the revealed will of God. Luther encountered opposition because he said by faith alone, apart from the works of Law. The alone is understandable because of efforts to slide some form of works into the Word.
Let me try an analogy about the UOJ confusion. The Holy Spirit always works with the Word and never apart from the Word. However, we never claim that the Holy Spirit is the Word, that the Word is the Holy Spirit. The UOJ Stormtroopers identify, in a confusing way, the Atonement with justification/absolution. The Atonement is directly related to justification by faith, but they are not identical. I hope that helps.
