Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Apologetic Books - In Defense of the Truth of the Scriptures



I was exposed to a lot of Biblical "scholarship" that was nothing more than rationalism. These rationalistic explanations have been repeated for over 200 years, because they came from the time when Halle University (established as a Biblical school) turned to rationalism.
Here are two books that all of you will want in your libraries. I always look for used copies first. A third one is an interesting option.

  1. Bible Difficulties and Seeming Contradictions - Arndt
  2. New Evidence That Demands a Verdict - McDowell
  3. The Genesis Flood - Rehwinkel

Another WELS Essay - Names SJ - But OJ OJ OJ




http://essays.wls.wels.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/3990/RhyneSubjective.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y


SUBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION: The Doctrine And Its Relationship To OBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION
[Presented to the South Atlantic District Pastor-Teacher Conference : January 27, 1983] by Robert Rhyne

“Men, what must I do to be saved?” the jailer at Philippi asked Paul and Silas. It’s the most important question anyone can ask. The answer is the teaching we call “subjective justification.” This doctrine tells us how a person comes to possess the salvation gained by Christ on the cross. In Paul’s words it is expressed simply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” In subjective justification, God applies to the individual sinner through faith the objective justification granted to the whole world in Christ. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son (objective justification) that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (subjective justification). Even though Paul expressed this doctrine in eleven words to the jailer, it requires all the words in the Bible to express to the Holy Spirit’s satisfaction the glory and grace of God in granting such justification, the spiritual depravity of man in necessitating such justification, the work of the incarnate Son in accomplishing such justification, the comfort and favor which belongs to those who appropriate such justification... As John wrote, the whole world would not contain the books that could be written about our salvation in Christ. 

In our discussion here we will narrow the topic to focus particularly on the relationship between subjective and objective justification. Such an emphasis is called for at the present time because of confusion about the validity of objective justification. We will be concerned primarily with the nature and function of saving faith, because faith is where objective and subjective justification meet. Faith is the relationship between the two. Specifically, objective justification provides a foundation which is indispensable if any individual sinner is to believe that Jesus died for him. We will consider the topic in the following parts: I. Faith is a “hand” in which the individual receives the objective justification won by Christ on the cross. II. Without objective justification, individual faith has nothing to receive. 


WELS Essay File Alert - Subjective Justification Spotted - Steven Valleskey!

Steve Valleskey is on the far right.


http://essays.wls.wels.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/1371/ValleskeyJustification.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y


"There is but one justification from sin, not two, though the single act may be conceived subjectively or objectively. The terms subjective and objective will pose a problem of understanding for those unfamiliar with their use. Yet it is common, in the churches that come out of the former Synodical Conference, at least, to speak of an objective and subjective justification. These terms are not so difficult as to be beyond our grasp. We distinguish in this way because there are passages of Scripture that speak of God’s declaration of justification occurring at the moment when Christ completed his redemptive work, such as Romans 4:25: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification,” which we call the “objective” or “general” justification. God declared the world just for Jesus’ sake. At the same time there are many (the majority of) passages on justification that speak of the declaration of justification occurring at the moment when a person is brought to faith in Christ, such as Galatians 2:16: “So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified,” which is the “subjective” or “individual” justification."

Name W. Held sent me the link and warned that OJ still reared its ugly head in the essay.

If you can drink enough coffee or sit on a bed of nails, you might get through all the contradictions in the essay. The essay - dishonoring the anniversary of the Reformation - spend a lot of time on Justification by Faith, but seeks a middle ground in saying that OJ and SJ are actually part of the same thing, He even dared to say that Justification can be discussed without using those later labels. Yea even, he gave historic examples.


I believe David Valleskey is Steven's brother. Poor David went to the far side of OJ error, as anyone can see from his confused and confusing output. Doubtless David's study at Fuller filled him with the wisdom of Karl Barth and Charlotte Kirschbaum, which is Universalism with a thin coating of Biblical language.


 CFW got this from Halle-trained Bishop Martin Stephan.
One can be in error without using the OJ/SJ combination. Knapp was apparently the cool Halle Pietist whose opaque lectures inspired the Calvinist to use OJ/SJ. See below.

For the ELS - these are the words of the Calvinist, American translator of Knapp. Walther later adopted the terminology, which made its way to Germany and came back to the old fox.



More Research Potential - The Precious WELS Essay File

Just like ELCA, OJ enables the Rainbow Coalition.


Can anyone find an SJ essay in the WELS Essay File? That Holey of Holeys* - with Biblical content ignored in favor of good ol' fashioned rationalism and man-made tradition?

They have about 60 OJ essays. That subject - OJ - seems to use up their mental energy. Nothing left for SJ?

*Holes in all their arguments.