Oceans 1 Suggested This - A Quotation List of Objective Justification, Included in The Path to Understanding Justification

Look at the influence of Pietism and the Easter absolution of the world. A short history of this distortion and false proclamation follows:

1.     Samuel Huber (1547-1624) was a former Calvinist who joined the faculty of Wittenberg University, but turned against the Biblical doctrine of the Reformation to claim this should be said to someone who has no knowledge of Christ:

“You have the grace of God, you have the righteousness of Christ, you have salvation.” Concilia Theologica Witenbergensia, 1664, p. 654.[1]

2.     J. J. Rambach (1693-1795) was a well-known, prominent figure in Halle, at the height of Pietism. He wrote:

“In His Person, all mankind was justified and absolved from all sin and curse.” Tom Hardt, Robert Preus Festschrift, “Easter and Absolution.”

3.     The Pietistic, rationalistic theology of Halle’s Georg Christian Knapp (1753-1825) became a major doctrinal book in German and also in English, the translation found in every American theological library in the 19^th century. It remains in print. The Calvinist translator, explained Knapp’s theology this way, and those italicized justification terms became normative within the Synodical Conference:

“This is very conveniently expressed by the terms objective and subjective justification. Objective justification is the act of God, by which he proffers pardon to all through Christ; subjective, is the act of man, by which he accepts the pardon freely offered in the Gospel. The former is universal, the latter not.” (Italics in the original)

Lectures on Christian Theology, by Georg Christian Knapp, Professor of Theology in the University of Halle. Translated by Leonard Woods, Jr., D.D., President of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, later at Andover Seminary, which later became Andover-Newton, which merged into Yale Divinity School in 2018.[2]

4.     Schleiermacher’s Christian Dogmatics - “According to Schleiermacher, the decree of redemption already means that human beings are agreeable to God in his Son; an individual act of justification in time is not first needed in each individual person. It is only necessary that each individual person become aware that in God’s decree of redemption in Christ he is already justified and made agreeable to God.”

Hoenecke, Dogmatics, III, p. 339.

5.     C.F.W. Walther - "For God has already forgiven you your sins 1800 years ago when He in Christ absolved all men by raising Him after He first had gone into bitter death for them. Only one thing remains on your part so that you also possess the gift. This one thing is--faith. And this brings me to the second part of today's Easter message, in which I now would show you that every man who wants to be saved must accept by faith the general absolution, pronounced 1800 years ago, as an absolution spoken individually to him."

The Word of His Grace, Sermon Selections, "Christ's Resurrection--The World's Absolution" Lake Mills: Graphic Publishing Company, 1978 p. 233. Brosamen, p. 138. Mark 16:1-8.  

6.     Barth and Kirschbaum’s Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, p. 638

“There is not one for whose sin and death he did not die, whose sin and death he did not remove and obliterate on the cross...There is not one who is not adequately and perfectly and finally justified in Him. There is not one whose sin is not forgiven sin in Him, whose death is not a death which has been put to death in Him...There is not one for whom he has not done everything in His death and received everything in His resurrection from the dead.” Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, 638

7.     Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics, II, Concordia Publishing House, 1951, p. 321.

"Now, then, if the Father raised Christ from the dead, He, by this glorious resurrection act, declared that the sins of the whole world are fully expiated, or atoned for, and that all mankind is now regarded as righteous before His divine tribunal. This gracious reconciliation and justification is clearly taught in Romans 4:25: 'Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.' The term dikaiosis here means the act of divine justification executed through God's act of raising Christ from the dead, and it is for this reason called the objective justification of all mankind. This truth Dr. Walther stressed anew in America. He taught that the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the actual absolution pronounced upon all sinners. (Evangelienpostille, p. 160ff.)…

8.     LCA Professor Carl Braaten, who felt ELCA was too radical for him –

“We cannot hold a universalism of the unitarian kind. People are not too good to be damned. There is no necessity for God to save everybody nor to reject anyone. God is not bound by anything outside of himself. He is not bound to give the devil his due. If we take into account God's love, he would have all to be saved. If we reckon with his freedom, he has the power to save whomsoever he pleases. This does not lead to a dogmatic universalism. But it does mean that we leave open the possibility that within the power of God's freedom and love, all people may indeed be saved in the end. This follows as a possibility from the fact that God is free from all external factors in making up his mind.”

Justification, The Article by Which the Church Stands or Falls, Fortress Press, 2001.

9.     The LCMS new two-volume dogmatics set, $90.

“To understand the role of faith in the justification of the sinner, one must first recall the significance of objective justification or universal reconciliation, namely, the divine proclamation that God has accepted the sacrifice of his Son for the sins of the whole world, that his wrath has been appeased, that he is reconciled to the whole world, and that as a result he has issued a full pardon for all humanity. Since this pardon is unconditional, it is clear that faith cannot be a cause of one's justification.” Confessing the Gospel, volume 1, p. 573.

10. The LCMS 428 page Small Catechism[3]

“By ‘objective’ or ‘universal’ justification one means that God has declared the whole world to be righteous for Christ’s sake and that righteousness has thus been procured for all people. It is objective because this was God’s unilateral act prior to and in no way dependent upon man’s response to it, and universal because all human beings are embraced by this verdict. God has acquired the forgiveness of sins for all people by declaring that the world for Christ’s sake has been forgiven. The acquiring of forgiveness is the pronouncement of forgiveness.”

11. J. P. Meyer, a president of Mequon (WELS), wrote even more extreme statements, three of which became part of the Kokomo Statements - such as:

I. "Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner's attitude toward Christ's sacrifice, purely on the basis of God's verdict, every sinner, whether he knows about it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint. What will be his reaction when he is informed about this turn of events? Will he accept, or will he decline?"  J. P. Meyer, Ministers of Christ, A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1963, p. 103f. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.  

II. "Before Christ's intervention took place God regarded him as a guilt-laden, condemned culprit. After Christ's intervention and through Christ's intervention He regards him as a guilt-free saint." J. P. Meyer, Ministers of Christ, A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1963, p. 107. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.

III. "This applies to the whole world, to every individual sinner, whether he was living in the days of Christ, or had died centuries before His coming, or had not yet been born, perhaps has not been born to this day. It applies to the world as such, regardless of whether a particular sinner ever comes to faith or not."

J. P. Meyer, Ministers of Christ, A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1963, p. 109. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.

12. David Valleskey, “In Christ God has effected a universal justification a universal reconciliation, a universal ransom, a universal atonement. Different terms, but all conveying the same message: God in Christ has declared the whole world to be not guilty. We Believe, Therefore We Speak, Northwestern Publishing House, 1995, p. 71.[4]

At this, the beginning of the End Times, the LCMS has defined Justification as world absolution without faith, both in its new dogmatics and its prolix Small Catechism. Yet, no one is blushing. Praising Luther and Dr. Walter A. Maier in one breath, they promote Rambach and Knapp in another.

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[1] This is roughly what Rev. Wayne Mueller said to the Columbus WELS Youth Rally, showing them how easy evangelism is. Pastor Paul Rydecki (formerly WELS) has translated Hunnius, who with P. Leyser, refuted Huber’s early form of Objective Justification, which explains its Calvinist DNA from Huber. Calvinism also entered the Lutheran Church through the unionistic style of Spener and the Pietism that grew from his efforts.

[2] It is said, which is worthy of a dissertation, that the Objective and Subjective Justification terms were adopted in Germany and influenced Walther, who approved them. At first Knapp’s actual words seem to be Biblical, but he clearly speaks of universal justification, which combines the universal nature of the Atonement with Justification by Faith.

[3] Leaders Guide for the Small Catechism, reproduced here - http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2018/06/lcms-has-been-hatching-denial-of.html

[4] Valleskey has expressed fully the common error of Objective Justification – merging the Atonement with Justification by Faith, thus rejecting the Scriptural foundation of Luther’s Reformation, instead - embracing rationalistic Pietism and its bedmate, religious unionism.