Saturday, October 10, 2020

OJ and SJ Are Calvinism - From the Upcoming Book



Objective and Subjective Justification Are Calvinism

 

One advocate of Objective Justification wrote to inform everyone that John Bunyan was a Calvinist because he used a comparison in The Pilgrim’s Progress, the hen and the chicks. The common call from the King gives nothing. In the special call He has something to give. “Therefore,” the writer said, “Bunyan was a Calvinist.” However, I never wrote in Understanding Pilgrim’s Progress that Bunyan was a Lutheran, only that his most read book after the Bible was Luther’s Galatians Commentary. Few in the “conservative” Lutheran churches would dare to claim the same love for Luther’s classic work – or anything by Luther, apart from some quips each October.

When Woods, the Calvinist translator of Knapp’s Halle theology lectures, wanted to explain the professor’s difficult language, he used terms familiar to his Reformed faith.

Translator's note• [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.][1]

If the hen and chicks comparison makes Bunyan a Calvinist, then the general and particular call make Walther a member of the same confession. The Synodical Conference adopted these terms with delight and have filled the WELS Essay Files with 60 or more essays praising Objective Justification, a term not found in the Bible or the Book of Concord.

The Spirit, the Word, the Means of Grace – The Map Room

Most people find that tracing the routes of Christian theology is exhausting, frustrating, and unedifying. My mother read me a book about Sir Archibald where they went through all the maps in a large room until they found the right one. Sir Archibald asks, “Why did we go through all these to find one?” The mentor said, “To teach you patience.” That is a good description of doctoral work in theology, reading hundreds of books, going over the most important ones, passing exams, and starting over with a thesis demanding hundreds more books being read. Exams in Hebrew, Greek, French, and German are included for entertainment and distraction.

Benjamin Milner argued that Calvin’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit is the unifying element in all his writings. Luther argued the same thing, notably in the Smalcald Articles in the Book of Concord, which is universally ignored today. Starting with the right map, Luther’s directions are clear, compelling, and Biblical. The Holy Spirit never works apart from the Word, and the Word never lacks the efficacy of Spirit. When someone, whether the Pope, or Calvin, or the Synod President declares doctrine not found in the Scriptures, he is an Enthusiast, Luther’s word for those who define Christianity without the teaching of the Scriptures alone. This separation of Word and Spirit is the source of all false doctrine, all pagan world religion.

The Biblical Gospel is preached and taught through the invisible Word, and this Word creates and nurtures faith in those who listen honestly and sincerely. Faith, as Paul teaches in Romans, is the meeting place between the Savior and the individual. Through faith in Christ the listener is declared righteous, forgiven, and saved.

The Sacraments are the visible Word, freely offered to show us God’s grace and to impart that grace. For that reason, preaching and teaching and the Sacraments are called Means or Instruments of Grace. God does not work apart from the Word, whether invisible or invisible.

Calvin’s map is dominated by the issue of double-predestination, but that is secondary to his separation of the Spirit from the Word. Some would say that Calvinism - even all non-Lutheran Protestants - are defined by making the Sacraments mere symbols, ordinances to be obeyed.

Benjamin Milner’s Harvard dissertation became a classic, showing Calvin’s unifying principle in all his works as the operation of the Spirit separate from the Word.

Quotations About Calvin and By Calvin

 

"When intent upon establishing their peculiar tenets, Calvin and Zwingli likewise preferred rational argumentation to the plain proofs of Holy Writ. Their interpretation of the words of the Sacrament is but one glaring instance; but there are many more. The schools and the denominations which they founded became infected with this same disease of theology."

Martin S. Sommer, Concordia Pulpit for 1932, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1931, p. iii.[2] 

J-722

John Calvin, Commentaries, Amos 8:11-12: "...we are touched with some desire for strong doctrine, it evidently appears that there is some piety in us; we are not destitute of the Spirit of God, although destitute of the outward means."

            Benjamin Milner, Calvin's Doctrine of the Church, Heicko A.Oberman, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970, p. 109. CO, XLIII, 153. 

 

J-723

“Wherefore, with regard to the increase and confirmation of faith, I would remind the reader (though I think I have already expressed it in unambiguous terms), that in assigning this office to the sacraments, it is not as if I thought that there is a kind of secret efficacy perpetually inherent in them, by which they can of themselves promote or strengthen faith, but because our Lord has instituted them for the express purpose of helping to establish and increase our faith. The sacraments duly perform their office only when accompanied by the Spirit, the internal Master, whose energy alone penetrates the heart, stirs up the affections, and procures access for the sacraments into our souls. If He is wanting, the sacraments can avail us no more than the sun shining on the eyeballs of the blind, or sounds uttered in the ears of the deaf. Wherefore, in distributing between the Spirit and the sacraments, I ascribe the whole energy to Him, and leave only a ministry to them; this ministry, without the agency of the Spirit, is empty and frivolous, but when He acts within, and exerts His power, it is replete with energy. ..then, it follows, both that the sacraments do not avail one iota without the energy of the Holy Spirit; and that yet in hearts previously taught by that preceptor, there is nothing to prevent the sacraments from strengthening and increasing faith.”

            John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 volumes, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, I, p. 497. Also cited in Benjamin Charles Milner, Jr., Calvin's Doctrine of the Church, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970, p. 119. Institutes. IV.xiv.9.

J-724

“We must not suppose that there is some latent virtue inherent in the sacraments by which they, in themselves, confer the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon us, in the same way in which wine is drunk out of a cup, since the only office divinely assigned them is to attest and ratify the benevolence of the Lord towards us; and they avail no farther than accompanied by the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts, and make us capable of receiving this testimony, in which various distinguished graces are clearly manifested…They [the sacraments] do not of themselves bestow any grace, but they announce and manifest it, and, like earnests and badges, give a ratification of the gifts which the divine liberality has bestowed upon us.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 volumes, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, I, p. 503. Institutes, IV, XIV, 17.    


J-725

“But assuming that the body and blood of Christ are attached to the bread and wine, then the one must necessarily be disservered from the other. For the bread is given separately from the cup, so the body, united to the bread, must be separated from the blood, included in the cup.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 volumes, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, I, p. 570. Institutes, IV, XVII, 18. 


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John Calvin, Institutes IV.xvii.19: "We must establish such a presence of Christ in the supper as may neither fasten Him to the element of bread, not enclose Him in bread, not circumscribe Him in any way (all of which clearly derogate from His heavenly glory)...."[3]

Benjamin Charles Milner, Jr., Calvin's Doctrine of the Church, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970, p. 128. 

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John Calvin, True Method of Reforming the Church: "The offspring of believers are born holy, because their children, while yet in the womb, before they breathe the vital air, have been adopted into the covenant of eternal life."

Benjamin Charles Milner, Jr., Calvin's Doctrine of the Church, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970, p. 123.

J-728

"To remain properly humble while firmly rejecting all erroneous teachings regarding the means of grace, we should remind ourselves how even Christians who teach and, as a rule, also believe, the correct doctrine of the means of grace, in their personal practice very often lose sight of the means of grace. This is done whenever they base the certainty of grace, or of the forgiveness of sin, on their feeling of grace or the gratia infusa, instead of on God's promise in the objective means of grace. All of us are by nature 'enthusiasts.'"

Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 131. 



[1] Georg Christian Knapp (Halle University), Lectures on Christian Theology, trans. Leonard Woods. Some have waxed angry that I emphasized the translator’s words, not Knapp’s, but that is the point. A Pietist has much in common with the Calvinist. This book was widely known in America while Walther was promoting Stephan’s dogma. http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2010/04/knapps-portrait-contributed-bysomeone.html

[2] Note Kelm's "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" argument which he copied from Josh McDowell.

[3] LCMS Lutherans especially should note the distinctive Calvin phrase – “to rob Him of His glory.” This is the language used by Walther in promoting his version of double-predestination – Election without Faith.