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| Readers - do you find justification by faith or UOJ in these quotations? |
Justification and Easter
A Study in Subjective and Objective
Justification in Lutheran Theology
A Study in Subjective and Objective
Justification in Lutheran Theology
by Tom G. A. Hardt.
(This study was first published in “A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus” Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana 1985. Published here by Lutherska Konkordiekyrkan in Sweden with due permission.)
http://luk.se/Justification-Easter.htm
75 J. G. Baier: Compendium ... , p. 286. The question concerning Walther’s relation to Huber has been treated by R. Söderlund in his article “Läran om den universella rättfärdiggörelsen i teologihistorisk belysning” (“The doctrine of universal justification in the light of the history of theology”) in Svensk Teologisk Kvartalstidskrift, 1979, pp. 114-129. Söderlund differentiates between universal justification which leaves room for an individual justification as a real act of God and which is legitimate within orthodox Lutheran theology, and another type of universal justification which permits no such act and is accordingly illegitimate. According to Söderlund the latter type is found with Huber, Zinzendorff, the Swedish Moravian 18th century theologian Rutström and also in Missourian theology. Missourian theology has, according to Söderlund, succumbed to Herrnhutism on this point through two channels: one through Stephan, the other through Swedish neoevangelicalism, which is thought to have influenced Missourian theology, a statement based on Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie and Kirche, 3.Aufl., Leipzig 1896-1913, 3:328, entry ”Bornholmer, die.“ The former, acceptable type of universal justification is, according to Söderlund, found with the Swedish Pietistic 18th century court preacher A. Norborg, who taught that Christ is justified as the representative head of mankind and that insofar the world was justified in Him. Yet Norborg regards individual justification as a real act of God; Söderlund, op. cit., p. 126. The material presented in our article, however, has given full proof for stating that Walther rather sides with Norborg and that his theology cannot be regarded as the offspring of Moravianism. It should be pointed out that Norborg was not unknown to the Missourian tradition. As early as 1872, during the lifetime of Walther, the Synodical Conference, the joint representation of the synods of Missouri, Wisconsin, the Norwegians, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio, in its dealings about universal justification approvingly referred to Norborg (mistakenly called “Rohrberg”), quoting exactly the same passages as Söderlund, where Christ is regarded as the representative of mankind in His resurrection, and where “the right middleway” is proclaimed, leaving room for an individual justification as a real act of God; cfr.
Wikipedia article
Tom Gunnar Arvid Hardt, born 19 July 1934 in Oskar Parish, Stockholm, died 28 June 1998 in Öddö in Tjärnö parish, Stromstad (registered in the Kungsholmenparish, Stockholm) [1], was a Swedish theologian.
Hardt matriculated at the East area in Stockholm in 1953, became the Masters of Arts in Stockholm in 1956 and Theology. Laws in Uppsala. In 1971 he became a doctor of theology with a thesis on Luther's theology of communion, Venerable et adorabilis Eucharistia. It was highly acclaimed and translated into German. A popular summary was published in the book If the sacrament of the altar (1973, 2nd edition 2009). It was translated quickly to the German and Finnish. He won international recognition as a prominent connoisseur of Luther, theology and had a wide scientific network. In 1961 he resigned from the Swedish church and formed together with some like-minded standalone community Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sweden, in which he also was ordained. He was then, and until his death vicar of St Martin's church in Stockholm. He came early in contact with the famous German theologian Hermann Sasse and stood like this stranger for all allmänprotestantism and saw in the Sacrament Lutheran doctrine with its realism, a truth that he found negotiable. For the wider public, he became famous when his ward won a case before the European Court against the Swedish government concerning parental rights and denominational religious education for the parish children. The case, he has described in the book of St. Martin and the dragon. He translated a lot of Swedish literature from other languages, and some of his own production has been translated into other languages. His bibliography includes about 400 numbers.