The terms vary:
- Objective Justification.
- General Justification.
- Universal Objective Justification.
But they have one thing in common, even if their famous salesmen try to distinguish subtle differences - "God has declared the entire world righteous, forgiven, without sin."
"Scripture teaches that God has already declared the whole world to be righteous in Christ, Rom. 5:19; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Rom. 4:25..." LCMS Brief Statement, 1932
That is why they kidnap expressions about the Atonement, apply them to the "justification of the world," and devote themselves to the utter nonsense of UOJ.
Assumption One:
If an assumption is true, then everything based upon that assumption is also true.
One assumption is that Holy Mother LCMS is never wrong, especially when voting on a political statement at a convention. True loyalists to the LCMS do not need to go any farther than this. UOJ is true and the Scriptures listed must teach that. Otherwise one would have to say the Missouri Synod is a sect promoting falsehoods, one that rejects the Chief Article of the Christian Religion.
Likewise, WELS and the Little Sect are also infallible. Thus anyone agreeing with UOJ is necessarily infallible ex cathedra. Anyone disagreeing with UOJ is automatically a heretic, an evil-doer, worthy of shunning and worlse.
Assumption Two:
The Atonement teaches the justification - or absolution - of the entire world. Any passage about Jesus dying for the sins of the world means that the everyone in the world is already forgiven, for all time. Like all Enthusiasm, contradictions surface. Did Mary die before she was assumed into heaven - or was she assumed into heaven without dying? Rome has not decided on that, so it is not yet settled doctrine, to echo the phraseology of Jon-Boy Buchholz. (Reference - The Music Man. "Watch your phraseology!" - the mayor said, more than once.)
Therefore, the forgiveness of the entire world came about either:
A. When Jesus died on the cross, or
B. When Jesus rose from the dead - the Halle-Stephan-Walther option.
C. Another point in time is declared.
Option A is taught on the basis of Jesus saying, "It is finished," which is a far cry from "The entire world is forgiven.
Option B is supported, they imagine, because of 1 Timothy 3:16 - "Jesus was justified in the Spirit." Once again, the words they need are absent, but Enthusiasm does not need the Word of God, resting instead upon the declaration of man. Rambach, at Halle, taught this Easter absolution. Chemnitz did not.
Option C is growing. That is where the Enthusiasts move this universal absolution back to the angelic message to the shepherds - "Peace on earth, good will toward men."
"I Was Saved 2,000 Years Ago"
The three options are confusing and contradictory, but even worse is the necessary conclusion - the entire world is saved, without the Word of God, without the Means of Grace, without faith.
In the Synodical Conference, it is popular to say, "I was saved 2000 years ago!" That is consistent with Walther and JP Meyer, leading lights of the LCMS and WELS.
Both of them distort faith to mean - making a decision in favor of universal absolution - dogma that both men (Walther and JP Meyer) clearly teach. Therefore, their notion of evangelism is telling people "You are already forgiven." Long ago, Robert Preus endorsed Edward Preuss writing - "You were born forgiven."
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| For this, Samuel Huber was driven out of Wittenberg University by P. Leyser and others. |
Off the Rails and Already Wrecked
No one can salvage these versions of UOJ, which are clearly false doctrine. The UOJ advocates are so rattled now by objections to their rubbish that they no longer pounce on Justification by Faith to utter their Waltherian banalities, their witty denunciations of faith.
