Sunday, August 7, 2011
Latest Update on Membership/Fellowship
We received our formal certified letter from the Elders and Council of Holy Word regarding our membership. In their initial email of May 21, 2011, they inferred as to the uncertainty of our salvation when they stated, "Our highest goal is to see you in heaven some day." By saying such a thing, one could only deduce that they were readying us for excommunication; further compounded by the suspension of membership privileges including the Lord's Table. The reader must understand that we were correct in our assumptions to this point. Excommunication is punishment for manifest impenitence for breaking God's Law; the Ten Commandments. In essence the church is carrying out the Ministry of the Keys and damning someone to Hell. I was relieved to find that Holy Word has backed away from this posture since we have broken no law and in their letter to us are now referring to our situation as a "Termination of Fellowship". We were never bearing false witness.
I understand there is a Bible Study going on at HW on the subject of Objective Justification. I pray that it is a truthful study of God's Word and not a consensus forming session for the upcoming Voter's Meeting. Public error deserves public rebuke...and I did go to my brothers in private first; so there is no error against Matthew 18.
I'm in the process of a response to their letter. Both letters will be forthcoming in a future blog.
Regarding Objective Justification, here is some food for thought:
"We contend that to define justification as Meyer and most of the proponents of an alleged universal justification do is to use the term in a strange, unusual way, and it certainly is not the justification presented in Scripture and our Lutheran Confessions. That which took place prior to and apart from faith is the Vicarious Satisfaction of Christ, the Redemption. Justification, according to Scriptures and our Confessions, is by grace through faith. Truly Objective Justification is the forensic activity of God by which He through the Gospel creates faith in Christ’s redemptive work, clothes the sinner in Christ’s righteousness and so makes the sinner righteous in His sight and in His forum accounts this righteousness of Christ to faith as He did with Abraham. God declares His believers to be what He Himself has made them to be in His sight -- righteous and holy for Christ’s sake. These are the ones He has given “the status of saints.” Justification belongs where our Lutheran Catechism has it in the Third Article of the Creed."
- Vernon H. Harley
511 Tilden
Fairmont, MN 56031
January, 1986
And:
"...So to say that God justifies the ungodly does not mean that he has justified all people. The tense of the very (sic - verb) also speaks to that. Those who teach the extreme of UOJ want to say that God already justified all people. Past tense. This is a misunderstanding. Christ already died for all people. Christ already redeemed all people. Yes, true. Christ has offered a pure offering to the Father that has satisfied his wrath against sin. Yes, also that. Forgiveness has already been acquired by Christ for the world. Yes, but that forgiveness is in Christ and should not be spoken of with respect to those who are not in Christ. Christ is the Savior of the world in the same way that the bronze serpent was the Savior of the whole Israelites community. All who looked up at it were saved from the snake bites. All who look to Christ in faith are saved (forgiven, justified, etc.)...
...We ought not speak of people as being already justified before they are born. The Confessions equate Justification with Regeneration. Period. And the Scriptures do the same. Justification/The forgiveness of sins are Third Article doctrines, not Second Article doctrines. The confusion is this, that when some people say "God has justified the world," they mean, "Christ died for the sins of the world." But our sloppy use of the word "justify" has caused all sorts of problems. The latter is "redemption," not "justification." Some go so far as to say that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to all people. This directly contradicts the passage you quoted above that says that "to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited (imputed) as righteousness."
-A WELS pastor who has asked for anonymity
