Various hot-spots bubble and heave with Objective Justification wrath:
ELCA
LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic)
Christian News
Lutherquest (sic)
Steadfast Lutherans (sic)
I saw that LCMS Pastor Charles Hendrickson was attempting - on LutherQuest (sic) - the new/old hat trick of reaching in for Justification by Faith and pulling out Objective Justification.
The trick is old in F. Pieper using the terms Objective Justification, Subjective Justification, and Justification by Faith. Given the intended confusion, anything could be concluded.
I and others thought of OJ as the Atonement, but Robert Preus, faithful to his Norwegian Pietism, insisted that OJ is not the Atonement. Objective Justification is the dogma that somewhere, some time, somehow, God declared the entire world absolved of all sin, all the way back to Adam.
So what did sneaky little Hendrickson do to repeat the Pieper hat trick?
Citing Romans 5:1-8! - Hendrickson states, with a straight face and forked tongue (to match his cloven hooves) -
"“Being justified”: That means you have been pronounced righteous before God, your sins have been forgiven, on account of Christ. St. Paul has told us about that in chapters 3 and 4 of Romans. Now in chapter 5, he tells us some of the results, the effects, of our being justified, and what that means for our life. For your life. And it’s a whole new ballgame."
But the opening of Romans 5 is the summary of Romans 4, which uses Abraham as the example of Justification by Faith -
Romans 5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
The only way we have God's grace is through faith in Christ, a matter overlooked in this awkward magic act.
Thirty years after graduating from seminary, Hendrickson boasts that he has not finished the dissertation for his PhD, which means he does not have a PhD. Is it from the St. Louis seminary, recently re-possessed by the Seminex crowd? They were big on Objective Justification too. WELS still quotes Richard Jungkunz (an actual PhD) on the glories of OJ. LCMS still loves him.
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| Seminex was also the official seminary of the Metropolitan Community Church, and Jungkuntz chaired the Seminex board. Missouri, WELS, and the ELS love every doctrine but Luther's. |
