Rev. David R. Boisclair (Drboisclair) Advanced Member Username: Drboisclair Post Number: 517 Registered: 1-2002 |
Brett Meyer, count yourself blessed that you are surrounded here by a great cloud of faithful witnesses, who care about the state of your soul, mired as it is with false doctrine. I want you to know that I am going to pray for you that God would give you repentance to life. | ||
     Franz Linden (Franz_mann) Senior Member Username: Franz_mann Post Number: 1906 Registered: 12-2004 |
Brett Meyer writes: Franz - so there is only one direction of reconciliation which is the world needing to be reconciled to God. Yes, that is correct. Note, the righteousness of faith is...reconciliation with God...on account of the obedience of Christ, which through faith alone, out of pure grace, is imputed for righteousness to all true believers. This is also is correct, as far as it goes. The problem is where you go from here. More precisely, the problem is what you do with the reconciliation which God obtained in Christ. You say that Christ died for the sins of the world, but that the world is not reconciled to God because God hasn't forgiven, or justified, the world. This is the great error on your part, because faith believes that God has forgiven, does forgive, and will keep on forgiving all sins for Christ's sake. Faith doesn't believe in a forgiveness that can only occur once a person believes, because such a faith has nothing to cling to except itself. The object of faith has to come before faith can have something to which to cling. Your response to that, as I understand it, is that faith clings to the promise of forgiveness. That doesn't answer the question though. We affirm the very same thing. The difference is that we understand, on the basis of God's Word, that God didn't merely place all the sins of the world on His Son, put Him to grief, kill Him, and then raise Him from the dead so that He could promise to forgive sins. He did all that so that He could justify the ungodly, as the Scriptures say. Your beef is not with us, Mr. Meyer. Your beef is with the Word of God and thus with God Himself. He's not on your side in this debate. Franz | ||
| Brett Meyer (Brett_meyer) Member Username: Brett_meyer Post Number: 185 Registered: 1-2008 |
Dave, well said. Pastor Holzer, allow me to respond. That you deny that all are justified puts us in a position of uncertainty in the Gospel. That must be so. No, that’s a false conclusion based on a false premise. The false premise is that the Gospel message that is to be believed is the supposed declaration by God that the unbelievers sins were already forgiven and absolved by God because God had imputed to the unbeliever Christ’s righteousness – note Koehler’s imputation quote above. It’s false because God decreed that His gracious gift of faith in Christ alone is the only way to apprehend Christ’s righteousness for the forgiveness of sins – justification. The false conclusion is that rejecting the false claim that God absolved the unbelieving world makes that claim uncertain – well we should hope so. It was never made – Buchholz even admitted that “God has forgiven the world” and he excommunicated Pastor Rydecki for saying that God never made that statement. The Truth is that the Gospel proclaims faith in Christ. Not faith in some false declaration. Faith in Christ, which is Christ’s righteousness, worked graciously by the Holy Ghost is grounded in Christ and Him crucified – there is nothing uncertain about that. The act of believing must have an object; Heb 11:1. That object must exist outside of itself or by definition it’s not “objective”. That you split hairs over words and attempt to distinguish between “justify” and “reconcile” or any other synonym does you no good. People are being excommunicated because of opposing confessions of the Word of God which you describe as splitting hairs. The objective object of faith is Christ. John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Christ, not some false declaration that is contrary to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. In the end, if the whole world is not, then you cannot be sure that such truth, whatever it may be, applies to you as an individual. It does you no good to appeal to a predestination or the “mind of God” because you cannot see either of these being a human bound by time and space. None of us can. This is just more rationalistic UOJ babble. The unbelieving world has not been imputed Christ’s righteousness as Koehler says when he channel’s the spirit of UOJ. The righteousness of Christ, faith in Christ, and the Holy Spirit which reveals the truth of Scripture to Christians and Christ Himself who is in them through faith alone affirms the truth of the Gospel promises. It is foolishness to those who reject the Holy Spirit’s faith in Christ alone – those who are perishing. I believe Galatians 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” John 20:29, “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Then your problem is that you are forced to make faith a work that you do that distinguishes you from the unbeliever. No appeal to Eph. 2:8-9 will do you any good, because you deny the very thing that Paul is asserting by rejecting his appeal to the objective nature of the truth (v.10). No, faith in Christ alone, although anathema to the doctrine of UOJ, is not a work of man but a gracious gift of God. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: You say appealing to God’s Word will do me no good, but it is directly applicable for those who believe it. And the objective nature of the truth is that Christ, the Righteous One, paid for the sins of the whole world – every individual. By faith in Christ as True God and True Man, who paid for the sins of the whole world, every individual, every believer is redeemed from under the Law, dies to sin and is raised to Life under God’s grace, receives the adoption of sons, Christ’s righteousness, justification and eternal life. It makes no difference if you purport to argue that only “believers” are saved (even though no one who asserts the doctrine of UOJ claims that any are saved apart from faith) because you must rest your trust in the subjective nature of faith and not the objective truth that Jesus “takes away the sin of the world”. The means of grace that is the instrument of grace. It is the UOJists who argue that only “believers” are saved because the doctrine of UOJ teaches the whole world of unbelievers are saved – just not heaven saved. It’s the false doctrine of UOJ which teaches the unbelieving world has been imputed Christ’s righteousness such that God declares them justified and righteous just as He declared Christ justified and righteous and yet it doesn’t save them. Scripture teaches justification is eternal life. It’s UOJ that has shouldered the impossible burden of proving their false doctrine to not be a form of Universalism but one where all those who are justified and righteous by God’s divine verdict are not saved. Show us your faith in the objective truth. No one can who rejects that they can rest that faith on a universal reconciliation/ justification/ forgiveness. You must fall back on something you did. Even the Calvinist who rejects a universal reconciliation/ justification/ forgiveness is forced to become a Lutheran in the test of fire. They are forced to realize that certainty cannot rest in the flesh even though they may have spent a lifetime relying on their “good works” as the testimony that they have saving faith and not a sham faith masquerading as genuine faith. I believe that Christ is my Substitute and Mediator, that He lived, suffered, died and paid for my sins. That is my faith in the objective truth and I reject UOJ’s false proclamation. It is the reprobates in the church who will not and therefore cannot examine themselves to see that they have faith in Christ alone. 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? We need not examine the synergist, he already believes that his “faith” is a work done to save him. Simply another admission that UOJ teaches faith being a work attributable to man. Another volley of fire aimed at the righteousness of Christ and work of the Holy Ghost. In Christ, Brett Meyer | ||
| Brett Meyer (Brett_meyer) Member Username: Brett_meyer Post Number: 186 Registered: 1-2008 |
Joe Krohn allow me to respond: "No, Brett Meyer. Scripture does not speak this way (referring to my statement, "It is God who choses[sic] who has faith in Christ alone."). 2 Thessalonians 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world,but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. If God chooses who has faith, then it follows He chooses who doesn't. Pure UOJ rationalism. Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! This makes God guilty of lying against His will for all to be saved. 1 Timothy 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; The elect are based in God's foreknowledge and that's it. The curtain is drawn and the council of God is secret. The only 'choosing' concerning the elect is what God chooses to do concerning His elect after His foreknowledge. Your insistence that faith saves and not grace shows your 'in view of faith' view of election. It is of faith so that it might be by grace - they are never separate as UOJ teaches that the whole world was justified by grace alone and later they are saved by faith alone. Romans 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, UOJ is a false and blasphemous doctrine. In Christ, Brett Meyer |
