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| I asked Heiser why he wanted to associate with Rolf, well known for his UOJ fanaticism. Heiser said, "Oh, we'll get rid of him." |
If you wonder why the LCMS is so badly led, check out the Rolf Preus Justification essay from the Steadfast Lutherans conference. They are the lobby organized to keep Matt the Fatt in office as the Synod President.
Rolf writes the same nonsense each time, so I cannot understand why he ever writes another essay.
For those who have never heard David Scaer's rambling, illogical declarations, delivered as pearls of wisdom, study this essay. Scaer could have ghosted it for Rolf, and CFW Walther, BA, could have ghosted it for both of them.
The title is "Justification" but the topic is "Objective Justification," or candidly "Justification without Faith."
Rolf began by quoting the Augsburg Confession
Our churches also teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven on account of Christ, who by his death made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in his sight (Rom. 3-4).
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| WELS does the same thing as Rolf, using the topic Justification to promote their idiosyncratic Universal Objective Justification. See the Bivens' plagiarism of the Zarling paper. They claim that Universal Forgiveness is the Chief Article of the Christian Faith. |
One would never know from the disorganized, haphazard string of declarations that Luther taught Justification by Faith and that Article III is named - The Righteousness of Faith.
Lacking the courage to say "the entire world has been pronounced forgiven," Rolf sets up an army of straw men. His arguments assume everyone is already in the UOJ camp, already nodding their heads in agreement. The Steadfast crowd is not very bright or studious. Therefore, in Rolf's little LCMS-ELS-ELDONA-LCMS world, faith is faith in Universal Absolution without faith.
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| This is Rolf's argument, though he cloaks its nonsense with various evasions and little rabbit punches. The LCMS does not officially teach UOJ. |
In a word, enthusiasm inheres in Adam and his children from the beginning [from the first fall] to the end of the world, [its poison] having been implanted and infused into them by the old dragon, and is the origin, power [life], and 441 strength of all heresy, especially of that of the Papacy and Mahomet. Therefore we ought and must constantly maintain this point, that God does not wish to deal with us otherwise than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. It is the devil himself whatsoever is extolled as Spirit without the Word and Sacraments. For God wished to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word; and no prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments [or spoken Word]. Neither was John the Baptist conceived without the preceding word of Gabriel, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without the voice of Mary.
Smalcald Articles, VIII. Confession, #9-10 Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 497. Tappert, p. 313.
Rolf, Pope John the Malefactor, Jay Webber, Jon-Boy Buchholz, and Walther agree with this Enthusiasm, that something happened - at an uncertain time, the Atonement?, the Resurrection?, the angelic message to the shepherds? - and the entire world was absolved of its sin, all people declared forgiven and therefore saved.
And in those things which concern the spoken, outward Word, we must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one, except through or with the preceding outward Word, in order that we may [thus] be protected against the enthusiasts, i.e., spirits who boast that they have the Spirit without and before the Word, and accordingly judge Scripture or the spoken Word, and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Muenzer did, and many still do at the present day, who wish to be acute judges between the Spirit and the letter, and yet know not what they say or declare. For [indeed] the Papacy also is nothing but sheer enthusiasm, by which the Pope boasts that all rights exist in the shrine of his heart, and whatever he decides and commands with [in] his church is spirit and right, even though it is above and contrary to Scripture and the spoken Word.
Smalcald Articles, VIII., Confession, #3-4, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 495. Tappert, p. 312.
Rolf, like his counterparts, has no grasp of Biblical principles, especially God's binding of the Spirit to the Word. Walther had a poor grasp of the Scriptures, and he borrowed his false Justification position from Bishop Martin Stephan, who never graduated from any university (like Moldstad when he was hired as NT professor at Bethany Seminary).
Stephan only became pastor due to the special permissions given the Dresden congregation to serve the Bohemian Pietists, which he was.
Turning away from Dr. Luther, Rolf gives us another does of Martin Stephan, STD, proving that UOJ - like the bishop's venereal disease - is highly contagious.
Missing from Rolf's tirade is any appreciation for Romans 4, Galatians, the faith of Jesus, and the work we are commended by the Concordists to read - Luther's Galatians Lectures.
Throw Away the High-Priced Butter and
Buy Our Low-Cost Margarine
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| No matter how hard he tries, Rolf cannot make UOJ into Justification by Faith. |