Friday, April 12, 2019

The Path To Understanding Justification - Second Installment



Creation in Genesis Relates to Efficacy in Isaiah


The Christian abandonment of Creation, among most Protestant and Catholic leaders, undermines God’s purpose but even more, empties God’s Word of its power and efficacy.

Genesis 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
John 1 is a commentary on Genesis 1, clarifying what was implied. The Logos – the Son of God – is the Creating Word. When God the Father commanded, God the Son executed the command.
John 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.
The opening verses of the Fourth Gospel not only invoke the Trinity, and pre-existence of the Son, but also Creation through the Logos, the Son. Therefore, separating the Son from the Six-Day Creation is also an attack upon the majesty and power of the Word. No wonder the professors have so little to say about the wonders of God’s universe and the efficacy of the Word. Many worry about whether this program or that method works, searching anxiously everywhere for effectiveness except its source – the Word of God.
Although the Bible is filled with references to the efficacy of the Word, no passage is clearer than this one:
Isaiah 55 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
This passage establishes beyond a doubt the permanent union between the Word and the Holy Spirit. Do the members and pastor worry that the Scriptures are not adequate for their ministry, that something must be added to make it interesting, appealing, relevant?[1] The Word is never without the divine power of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is never separated from the Word, as if it wanders from place to place, fickle in making something happen on its own.
The passage is especially clear to those who garden and farm, so it is obscure and dark to those who limit their Creation experiences to buying potted plants already in bloom. Snow and rain are the planter’s dream and fixation. Flowers and crops may survive with watering and irrigation, but that only keeps them alive, as a Minnesota farmer told me. Rain makes them grow. Yellow lawns green up during a rainstorm, and plants germinate, bud, grow, and fruit. The effect of snow melt and rain is impossible to deny.
Our problem with God’s Word is that our thoughts are not His, and our plans are not orders given to Him. But that too is revealed in this passage.
Like Creation, all activities of God happen only through His Word. Just as evolution is excluded by the plain meaning of the Scriptures, so are the other alleged improvements, such as sugar-coating the Gospel, watering down the Word, compromising with today’s culture, and using a bait (like entertainment) to make people come to church.





Justification in Genesis


To understand the impact of the Old Testament in the centuries before Christ, one must consider the reach of the Greek Septuagint (LXX), named for the 70 scholars who translated the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek, from 200 to 300 years before the public ministry of Jesus. Because Alexander the Great conquered the civilized world of his time, Greek rapidly became the universal language of trade and literature. The Baby Boomers were still taught Latin in public school, but the educated Romans we studied were fluent in Greek, the culture and achievements they admired and copied.[2] “The Romans had the drains, but the Greeks had the brains.”
More people would have known and understood the term Justification in Greek rather than in Hebrew. That would include those educated people who sought wisdom from the Jewish Old Testament, which they could read in their cosmopolitan language.

Genesis 15 And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. 5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

           Γένεσις 15:6 καὶ ἐπίστευσεν ῞Αβραμ τῷ Θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην.[3]


This verse in Greek is even more important when it is quoted in Romans 4. All the proofs for the Messiah were already embedded in the Hebrew Scriptures, and they became even more significant when they could be read or heard by anyone interested in this monotheism which was so different in the face of tired, bawdy, and polytheistic pagan religions.
Abraham was promised more than a son. God promised him a kingdom that would be everlasting and ever-growing. No earthly kingdom has ever lasted; the world powers of the Renaissance are pygmy states now – Portugal, Italy, Spain. God promised that the Messiah would come from Abraham’s line, so the patriarch believed the Gospel Promise and it was counted as righteousness, the righteousness of faith.
Moreover, Abraham rather than Moses became the chief Old Testament figure in the New Testament.
Abraham’s faith in offering Isaac, Genesis 22
His faith and works Isaiah 41:8, 51:2;
Matthew 1:17
Faithful Jews sons or daughters of 13:16; 19:9
Luke 16:23 Father Abraham in heaven
John 8:33
Acts 7:2
Romans 4
Galatians 3:6 and Gal 4
Hebrews 11:8 and 19
James 2:21[4]



[1] Donald McGavran, “God wants His Church to grow!” This little slogan has been powerful in fixing attention on material success rather than fidelity to the Word, failing both at the same time. Few realize McGavran was a sociologist, a numbers man with a PhD in sociology from the left-wing Columbia University.
[2] Our Western Civilization owes Athens and Ancient Greece for these foundational disciplines: democracy, the law, literature, sculpture, poetry, drama, comedy, architecture, engineering, and mathematics. By spreading the influence of Greece, Alexander made Greek the world’s language. All our New Testament documents are in Greek, not in Aramaic.
[4] Oxford Cyclopedic Concordance, as recommended by Alec Satin.

 Going to see Father Abraham
I ran into some trivia on the Smurfs, loved by our daughter Erin Joy. When I saw Father Abraham singing with a bowler hat, I thought, "He has to be Jewish." That was correct.

The Path To Understanding Justification - First Installment





The Path to Understanding Justification –
The Forgiveness of Sin: Biblical Exegesis




by

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson








Public Domain, Non-Profit
Illustrated by Norma A. Boeckler





Outline
Introduction – Doctrine, Not Dogmatics
Creation by the Word – Genesis
The First Gospel – Genesis 3:15
Eve’s Hope – Genesis 4
Abraham – Justified by Faith – Genesis 15:6
Isaiah 53
Psalm 22
The Gospel of John
Romans 1:16-17
Romans 3, 4, 5
Galatians
1 Timothy 3
2 Corinthians 5
Justified by Faith of Jesus



Introduction – The Path to Understanding Justification Is Biblical Doctrine, Not Dogmatics

Justification has been taught two contradictory ways. The traditional teaching has always been Justification by Faith. That is the well known phrase used by the Holy Spirit and Paul, repeated as the Chief Article by Luther, Melanchthon, and the Book of Concord editors. Various accolades have been given to Justification by Faith:
A.    “This article concerning justification by faith (as the Apology says) is the chief article in the entire Christian doctrine, without which no poor conscience can have any firm consolation, or can truly know the riches of the grace of Christ, as Dr. Luther also has written: If this only article remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian Church also remains pure, and in goodly harmony and without any sects; but if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit can be resisted.” (Tom. 5, Jena, p. 159.)[1]
B.    “The article of justification is the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness... The doctrine of justification must, as I frequently urge, be diligently learned; for in it all the other articles of our faith are comprehended. And when that is safe, the others are safe too.” [2]
C.    “The article on which the Church stands or falls.”[3]
However, the great and wise, the Pietists and Rationalists, ever since Halle University’s F. Schleiermacher, have defined Justification as God declaring the entire world forgiven and saved, apart from faith. These scholars and institutions include:
A.    F. Schleiermacher
B.    Halle University’s Knapp and Rambach
C.    Halle University’s Bishop Martin Stephan and his disciple C.F.W. Walther
D.    Francis Pieper and his acolytes
E.    Karl Barth and his co-author Charlotte Kirschbaum
F.     J.P. Meyer
G.   ELCA
H.    LCMS – Concordia Publishing House, Higher Things, both seminaries, Christian News
I.       All the mainline, apostate denominations
J.     The Evangelical Lutheran Synod
K.    WELS
Dogmatics works have paved the broad path toward understanding Justification as universal absolution without faith. That is not to condemn a dogmatics book – or set – as evil in itself, but to warn against a cathedral of erroneous dogma constructed by a man, an adulterous couple, or a team of academics. Mankind is cursed with a perverse loyalty to one author, one denomination, or one dogma, easily becoming blind to the One Book where everything is plainly and redundantly taught by the One, True, Triune God.
Many would like to trap us with one tarbaby or another:
·        This is how I was taught – or – how you were taught.
·        Our fathers (an earlier generation of clergy) taught this. Blood is thicker than doctrine in the small groups.
·        Will you abandon the teaching of your church?
·        Are you calling (fill in the blank) a false teacher?
·        Would you commune with (fill in the blank)?
Not surprisingly, dogmatics textbooks flourished in the period where Calvinist scholastics were attacking the Lutherans, who were then pulled into the same kind of games using Latin terms to categorize doctrine. Although this era has been hailed as the Age of Orthodoxy, Lutheran works degenerated into Pietism. Spener cleverly used Arndt as a springboard for his Pietism essay, his agenda, his attack from within.
Schleiermacher exploited the subjective slant of Zwingli and Calvin, so theologians emerged who would argue not for Biblical doctrine or their denomination’s doctrine, but “my theology.” Look at some of those disasters:
1.     Knapp’s theology – unreadable, even in English
2.     Schleiermacher’s Christian Dogmatics
3.     Barth and Kirschbaum’s Church Dogmatics
4.     Tillich Systematic Theology (three empty volumes)
5.     Pieper’s Dogmatics
6.     Braaten Jenson Dogmatics
7.     The LCMS Dogma-tanic, two volumes, $90.
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.

Catechisms

Someone must one day explain the vicious habit of promoting special Talmudic editions of Luther’s Small Catechism. Instead of relying on Luther’s plain words, they feel compelled to explain everything in their words, taking a pocket edition into the realm of one volume encyclopedia, damaging young minds with the drivel of Kuske’s edition or the latest LCMS and WELS efforts. I bought pocket editions with pocket change for my confirmands, and they loved Luther’s words. Gausewitz’ original edition, which can hardly be found, is merely Luther’s Small Catechism with the Scriptures added to back up those points.

The Path Is Biblical

Rather than fall into the hopeless meanderings of denominational or personal dogmas, we have to return to the original source, as Chemnitz noted in his Examination, a tradition started by the earliest conferences. They paraded the Scriptures to emphasize returning to the source rather than debating this or that creed.
Biblical exegesis sounds like a terrifying term used to intimidate seminary beginners and inspire members with awe, especially when coupled with “I studied Greek!” The word exegesis has a beautiful meaning from the Gospel of John.
18 θεον ουδεις εωρακεν πωποτε ο μονογενης υιος ο ων εις τον κολπον του πατρος εκεινος εξηγησατο
God – no one has ever seen. The only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He is the exegete (has made the Father known, or, has declared Him).
GJ translation
This is the method used by the Book of Concord, not starting with obscure Latin terms and slogans from the recent past, but deriving doctrine from the Scriptures. No wonder the Church Growthers call the Confessions “boring and irrelevant” and the Wisconsin sect fears a real study of the Book of Concord.
Therefore, the only correct way to reach an understanding about Justification is to declare – from the Word itself - the plain meaning of God’s unique and inerrant revelation, setting aside all human authorities.



[1] Book of Concord, Formula of Concord, Article 3, The Righteousness of Faith, #6.
[2] E. M. Plass, ed, What Luther Says: An Anthology, 3 volumes. (St. Louis: CPH, 1959), 2:703-704. Cited by M. Zarling, borrowed by F. Bivens.
[3] The origin of this statement is discussed in The Gospel Coalition, Justin Taylor, 2011 retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/luthers-saying/