I don't know much of Federal Vision. This is a movement inside confessional Presbyterianism and my light reading tells me that they are making strong attempts to bring more value and take more comfort from the Sacraments.
I am a very simplistic thinker, and the way I see it is that they are like people in a race track. They are running towards the finish line that has the label Lutheran on it, but just a few meters before reaching the finish line, they fumble and fall. They do not quite make it. The reason being their ankles are chained to a post labeled TULIP. It can not be done without mangling severely Covenant Theology.
It seems to me that once you become Lutheran thinking in your Sacraments, you will have to go and put your stress on objective universal justification because it is the center of the wheel that gives life to other parts of its theology, it is the heart and foundation of Lutheran approach to Christian faith. It is like a magnet that will pull you in its orbit, unless you are careful to resist it.
I am sorry for being reductionistic of course but that is the general drift of my impression. I am willing to be educated though.
4 comments:
Mr. Cruz,
Could you define "objective universal justification" and especially the "universal" part?
Thanks,
Andy
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the question.
First we must distinguish between the above and universalism. The latter is the teaching that all eventually get to heaven anyway, for example Karl Barth is said to have held this view.
Objective Universal Justification (OUJ) on the otherhand teaches that the death of Jesus Christ is atonement for the sins of the world , he paid for their sins before they could repent or believe or do anything good or any movement towards God. The benefit of this atonement is effective through faith however. This is nothing more or nothing less but the Gospel.
For a discussion please look here
http://www.wlsessays.net/authors/B/BeckerUniversal/BeckerUniversal.PDF
Also look here
http://www.confessionallutherans.org/papers/little10.html
Let me know if this does not help. I will try and answer the best I know how.
God bless you as you study,
Lito
I also meant to add Rom 5:8-9, 3:24-25
Andy:
Another way to understand universal salvation can be found in John 3:16 where Christ states that God the Father loved the whole world that he sent Christ. However, only those who believe in Christ will have eternal life.
A limited view of salvation is that God sent Christ only die for the forgiveness sin of those who believe.
A universalism view is that God saved everyone by that sending Christ.
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