Teacher

 Teaching both local and international students allows me to learn a lot about culture. Unlike my Aussie students who simply call me by my first name, my Asian students never do that. They also do not address me Doctor so and so, neither do they call me Mister. Rather, they prefer to call me  "Teacher". I am somewhat struck by this.

Several places in the New Testament, I read the disciples called Jesus by the same title - "Teacher". Reading the way Jesus was addressed made me reflect on the way I am addressed by my Asian students. They seem to really give more weight to this title. The title to them has a relational aspect and with it carries an implied responsibility. They are the student, I am their teacher and as such I am expected to behave and care for them in a certain way. In that relationship, there is an aspect of their lives that they are putting in my hands.

This is very humbling. You would think that when my Aussie students, in their egalitarian spirit, call me by my first name, that strips me down and humbles me but it does not. Rather I am deeply humbled whenever my Asian students call me  - "Teacher". I am humbled because they call me to a higher ideal and it does put pressure on me (in a good way) to live up to the meaning they attach to that name.

Pr. Nathan says it well about UOJ

HT: @Ichabod here.(Updated)

UOJ enthusiasts err when they confuse Christ's all encompassing sacrifice for sin with blanket absolution which they (then) capriciously translate into universal forgiveness and justification for all, thus eliminating the Holy Spirit’s work and activity of creating individual personal faith in the individual (soul) which then justifies.


-- Nathan M. Bickel - emeritus pastor
www.thechristianmessage.org

www.moralmatters.org


Pr. Nathan says it well and gets UOJ right in a nutshell.

The insight of Bruce

The Antinomians are really the only ones who really "get" the doctrine UOJ since the law has no power to make them feel guilty--ever. 


-- Bruce Church


Source: Ichabod, click here.

More proof that old time orthodox Lutherans rejected UOJ principles

One of the most glaring differences between JBFA people and UOJ advocates is their idea of the object of faith. In UOJ teaching, the object of faith is justification itself. On the other hand with those who confess One JBFA, the object of faith is the Atonement. In my post a couple of years ago, I had this exchange with a well-known advocate of UOJ, and you can find the comments here…


Me: Atonement you said in the previous comments that it is the object of faith?

DJW: I did not say that. I have always spoken of God's forgiveness, through and on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ, as the object of faith.

In the same place DJW even said Ultimately and most personally, it is God's justification in Christ - his word of pardon and forgiveness - that is the object of faith. God's forgiveness of the sinner is his personal message to each of us, because of the atonement (not because of our faith). And forgiveness and justification are essentially the same thing.

Indeed it is agreed by all of Christendom, that Justification = Forgiveness of Sins. From the quote above we see then beyond any shadow of doubt that the object of faith amongst UOJers is Justification, an event purported to have occurred for all people when Jesus died and rose again from the dead.

Even recent prodigal son of UOJ said this about the above quote... there was a time when I had difficulty with the Webber statements you provided. What you presented here is balanced justification and I have no problem with it

Below I provide a quote from Errors of Missouri p.252 which clearly shows that the UOJ myth is nonsense and has been denied by the BoC men. Schmidt attributes the quote below from Hunnius, Leyser and Gesner, faculty members of Wittenberg at the time of Huber. Schmidt quotes them from their work entitled  Thorough Refutation of Huber. The emphases below are mine.

“Just as we are justified, not on account of faith as a work or merit, but through faith, inasmuch as we embrace the merit of Christ by faith; so too we are chosen of God unto eternal life, not on account of faith, but through faith, as St. Paul writes 2 Thess. 2:13: ‘God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and I belief of the truth”. And just as we by faith embrace not justification itself, but the merit of Christ, and become justified when we accept Christ in true faith; so also faith embraces not election itself, as Dr. Huber imagines [LPC: and he imagined that faith embraces justification as UOJers do today], but the grace of election and the Lord Christ in His merit, and they who appropriate Him in faith are the ones that are chosen in Christ, Eph 1. So then faith is included in predestination precisely as it is taken in man’s justification before God.”

Here the “merit of Christ” is clearly taught as the object of faith. Now what does this phrase mean? We do not have to look far because the BoC uses this phrase too and it has been known that Hunnius was a signer of the Formula of Concord. We can find its proper meaning by studying the context in passages where it appears. Let us allow the text to explain itself. As an example in SD III we read...

9 Concerning the righteousness of faith before God we believe, teach, and confess unanimously, in accordance with the comprehensive summary of our faith and confession presented above, that poor sinful man is justified before God, that is, absolved and declared free and exempt from all his sins, and from the sentence of well-deserved condemnation, and adopted into sonship and heirship of eternal life, without any merit or worth of our own, also without any preceding, present, or any subsequent works, out of pure grace, because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Christ alone, whose obedience is reckoned to us for righteousness
....
13 For faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us by faith, if we are to be justified thereby. 14] Therefore the righteousness which is imputed to faith or to the believer out of pure grace is the obedience, suffering, and resurrection of Christ, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law, and paid for [expiated] our sins. 15

The object of faith, the merit of Christ is the Atonement, and not Justification as UOJ myth makers presuppose, and mind you it is their presuppostion that is driving them, not Scripture nor the BoC. The merit of Christ is that perfect and righteous life of obedience to God which Christ lived and in the end gave up as payment for the sins of the world. This, team JBFA have always asserted, that the object of faith is the Atonement and what is imputed to faith when the object is held is the righteousness of Christ. This righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner when he believes.

BM's comments on Hunnius' book contra Huber

Brett Meyer has a good comment on the book, Theses Opposed to Huberianism: A Defense of the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification by Aegidius Hunnius,  translated by Paul A. Rydecki. It is found at Ichabod and can be read here.

Samuel Huber ( c. 1547-1624) was a former Reformed pastor/teacher who converted to Lutheranism. While teaching at Wittenberg, he espoused UOJ from which the present Waltherian UOJers have taken their present theory. Huber was rejected by the BoC writers. To say that he was treated as a heretic will be too mild.

Of course the UOJ myth makers will say, following Tom Hardt that - Huber's version of UOJ is bad, but the right version of UOJ is that of Walther's version. This again is a myth. To test this hypothesis, one just has to look at Hunnius' book then to see if Hunnius espouses Walther's version of UOJ. Now that will be an interesting scholarly exercise if ever they can show this. Then they have extended themselves. I doubt it.

Do you know also what is interesting during this controversy? Huber charged the BoC authors who espoused JBFA of Calvinism! Now does that not ring a peculiar bell?

Is it not interesting that the present UOJ defenders are doing the same in charging JBFA people of the same?

Like father, like son, so the saying goes. Present UOJ defenders are just like their father Huber. The fruit does not fall too far from the tree. This saying is solemnly true.

UOJ and their mantra

This is a post on the run. I apologise for being brief, I am in between editing my conference papers and marking of student work.

What I notice with UOJers is that they love to repeat their well worn out mantras. However the issue is that they offer no Scriptural proof for their repeating of parroted slogans. A mantra mostly works not for the one who is hearing it but in actuality it works for the one pronouncing it, it is a type of psycho cybernetic self talk to make one's self believe in what the mantra says. Here are a few mantras I have heard them self talk:

1. If you do not believe in objective justification then you must be a Limited Atonement believer.

Me: I grin. I was a Calvinist, and these Lutherans claiming JBFA people believe in LA do not know what they are talking about. In order to be an LA believer, two things must happen. First, one must equate the atonement with justification. That is to say, when Jesus died on the cross or resurrected, people have been already forgiven automatically too. Who is doing this equating? Not JBFAers, it is the UOJ.  Second, to be an LA believer, must deny the mention of the word "world" in 1 John 2:1-2 to mean the whole world without exception, rather it is asserted to be the world of Gentile believers. This is done to similar passages. JBFAers do not do such thing.

2. In order to believe in something, that something must already exists.

Me: Test this for a moment. This is clearly false and we can even give evidence of this from Scripture. It is Romans 4³For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. We could even follow this with Romans 4: 9b or we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Their mantra is fallacious in many counts but do not talk to them about fallacy, they have no clue as to what such a thing is. For example, Abraham believed that the Messiah was to come and would die for his sins. From Abraham's perspective, it has not happened yet. From Abraham's time frame, the event was still in the future. This is the reason why faith is miraculous though miraculously created by God through His chosen means - Word and Sacraments. This is the reason why faith is precious to God and in fact, Jesus is the author of it.    Even in human terms, this idea is not even true. We believe in people's promises all the time. I render work for a company on the promise that after the job is done, I would get paid. I meet people for an appointment on the promise they will be at a set time and place. These are all future promises.


There is one vital aspect in this debate that must be brought to light. The two camps, JBFAer and UOJers differ in the object of faith. Consistent UOJers are unanimous in this, that for them the object of faith is not the Atonement that happened in the past as payment for sins, for them the object of faith is the Justification that has already, so they say, occurred 2000 years ago. In this regard the commentator R. C. H. Lenski is correct in his criticism of them. In his commentary on Romans 1:17, Lenski was well correct that in the UOJ scheme of things, there really is no declaration of righteousness that happens when a person believes because the declaration already happened in the past. Whereas in JBFA, the object of faith is the Atonement in accordance to Romans 3:21-26, specially, v.25. UOJers are quick to claim that we are twisting their words, but deny as much as they want, the effect of their teaching is that it simply makes justification a mythical. Lenski rebuts well the idea that if you believe in such a way, you are being synergistic. So to keep the laymen from the truth, Walther and Co. and the rest of UOJers ran a propaganda of bad mouthing Lenski. Yet, even non-Lutherans held Lenski in high esteem as a NT scholar even today.

Discussing UOJ to a UOJer

Discussing UOJ to a UOJer quickly leads to disgusting turn of events. Invariably, I and others in Team JBFA eventually get told off that we are being insulting. Eventually they are offended at our words.

What a neat trick.

Instead of dealing with the substance of the arguments, the table is turned. The problem is suddenly shifted no more to the contradictory ideas found in UOJ, rather the issue is on those who are arguing against it. Obviously there is no point continuing to talk if all it becomes is an exercise in trading insults. I too would see no value in that. In fact, lately, I shutdown the comments in one of the threads as it was soon becoming that way, boring.

However, when the discussion is focused on the contradictory phenomenon produced by UOJ, such as its portrayal of God in absurd terms, personal accusations of lying soon surfaces. Are we being insulting or perhaps that is the nature of UOJ itself, to produce absurdities?

Another is the accusation that Team JBFA misunderstands the proper teaching of UOJ. If that is the case, perhaps they should speak in such a way that they are clearly understood. Perhaps they should take on responsibility that may be their manner of speaking is purposely contrary to the language of Scripture that is causing people to be confused. We certainly know from where confusion comes from, and it is not from God, so says St. Paul.

Frankly, I do not believe Team JBFA misunderstood them. In actuality they have been understood properly and their dodging leads them to tiredness and in exasperation. I do not blame them, I would be exasperated too if all I did was to patch a hole into every absurdity in my position my critics show me.

Additionally, I could not care less on the use of objective/subjective categories which they promote. I have no need of such paradigm. I came to the realisation that Jesus died for my sins without such categories. I certainly have no use of such paradigms.

Both camps agree that UOJ is not evident in the Book of Concord. It is amazing that the most crucial document of the Reformation where in the issue at that time was how a person was made right with God, no such categories were employed by the Reformers. Their rallying cry was justification by faith alone (JBFA), it would have been fitting to have clarified UOJ then, not in terminology of course, but also in concept. Yet both camps - UOJers and anti-UOJers agree that the BoC is silent on this matter. That should ring bells and should be suspect but no, such information does not avail. Facts do not really change people's opinion when a conviction has already gripped them.

Col 2:14 in the Apology of Augsburg Confession

In the last post mentioned below, we had a discussion on how Col 2:13-14 should be interpreted. Below I offer as further evidence of my contention that the blotting out of the accusation of the Law happens at the point of faith and not unconditionally nor automatically when Jesus was crucified at the Cross. Here I offer the evidence found in the Apology, Article XII. I quote in color the pertinent exposition below:

48] And then in Col. 2:14 it is said that Christ blots out the handwriting which through the Law is against us. Here also there are two parts, the handwriting and the blotting out of the handwriting. The handwriting, however, is conscience, convicting and condemning us. The Law, moreover, is the word which reproves and condemns sins. Therefore, this voice which says, I have sinned against the Lord, as David says, 2 Sam. 12:13, is the handwriting. And wicked and secure men do not seriously give forth this voice. For they do not see, they do not read the sentence of the Law written in the heart. In true griefs and terrors this sentence is perceived. Therefore the handwriting which condemns us is contrition itself. To blot out the handwriting is to expunge this sentence by which we declare that we shall be condemned, and to engrave the sentence according to which we know that we have been freed from this condemnation. But faith is the new sentence, which reverses the former sentence, and gives peace and life to the heart.

I have highlighted a very important statement made by the Apology. Please note firmly what the author of the AP said about faith. It is faith - the new sentence, that reverses the first sentence of accusation, namely, it cancels out the original sentence of condemnation.

I offer this evidence that what St. Paul meant in the cancellation of the Law's demands and effects happen at the point of justification which in context at our Baptism. In fact this jives well with what St. Paul wrote in

Romans 6¹⁴For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace

Col 2:13-14 a UOJ Text? Tertium non datur once again.

Over at so called Luther Quest, Mr. Joe Krohn (LutherRocks), a JBFAer and Mr. Jim Pierce of Confessional Bytes, a UOJer, had an interchange.

In that interchange, Jim Pierce employed Colossians 2:13-15, to prove that this passage teaches the forgiveness of the whole world, without faith, prior to faith before we were born. I quote Mr. Pierce in one comment said...

If you deny that the sins of the whole world have been forgiven on account of the blood sacrifice of Christ, then you have likely fallen into error regarding the atonement. That is, you must reject that Christ has made full satisfaction for the debt of sins for the whole world. Here the debt of sin is defined for us by Paul in the epistle to the Colossians:

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" (Colossians 2:13-15 ESV).

----

After Joe replied saying the context of that passage refers to believers, Jim replied with

I understand that the greater context of the Colossians quotation is directed at believers. However, the text I cite to you deals with the sins of the world. If that is not true, as you assert, then you are left defending a version of limited atonement, which I know you do not want to do, but it is inescapable. Deny that the cancellation of the record of debt, by nailing it to the cross, is universal and you are left with the cancellation of debt only being for some and namely only the elect.

In my study, I find this doctrine of universal objective justification, truly a peculiar doctrine found amongst synodic Lutherans in USA. This doctrine teaches that the whole human race has been declared righteous (effectively forgiven) already even before any of them (humans) ever believed in Christ or not. Faith has nothing to do with this declaration, so they say. In fact if I recall in that interchange, one UOJer opposing Joe Krohn even confessed that Sodom and Gomorrah were forgiven (hence, declared righteous) too. I grin since I recall that God told Abraham if He found 10 righteous people there he would not destroy the twin cities.

Thankfully there are some pastors and theologians who oppose this UOJ teaching on Justification.

Jim homed in on the phrase " having forgiven us all our trespasses" (v.13-14). His contention is the "us" there refers to all human beings and he asserts that if you do not believe like he does, you are guilty of being a Calvinist, believing in Limited Atonement. Is this true?

Let me examine this claim using a fine tooth comb, called Scripture interprets Scripture, a Lutheran method which is axiomatic for handling the Word of God rightly. Please note, you do not need the Greek here (though I can deal with it if you want me too).

First the said passage obviously is preceded by verses 8 - 12. Note that the pronoun "you" (the Colossians St. Paul is addressing), refers to believers, in fact St. Paul mentions they have been circumcised with Christ through their being baptised. Did St Paul mean by the word "us" the whole human race, of which he and the Colossians are included? Or did St. Paul mean by that pronoun, he and the Colossians as Christians since they all both got baptised and have believed in Christ? Is it not obvious that St. Paul was baptised like them? If you have doubts read Acts where St. Paul got baptised. Because the "you" refers to the Colossians, the "us" must be taken in the sense of "us" baptised believers in Christ.

Now, wait, do not be in hurry to label this Limited Atonement, we will get to that shortly.

Let me proceed further.

Observe a few things. In this passage St. Paul speaks nailing it to the cross. The "it" refers back to the demands of the Law - the demand to be punished for your debt, your sins. Notice this crucifixion language. St. Paul often adopts this co-crucified language in many of his letters. For example in Galatians, St. Paul said this of himself, Gal 2:²⁰I am crucified with Christ. When did this crucifixion happen to him? When was St. Paul crucified? See Romans 6:6, at his baptism.

The point here then is that the time when God nailed the demands of the Law against us was when we got baptised! It was not before we got baptised, it was at that point when we got baptised, so says Scripture. Thus the forgiveness St. Paul speaks of here is at the point when the Means of Grace was applied to us by the HS - at our baptism.

What Jim Pierce is espousing is that people are forgiven before and without the Means of Grace. Yet when we use Scripture to interpret Scripture it is conclusive that - in this example, a person once baptised is attached to Christ, buried, dead, crucified with Christ. Clearly and obviously, in some sense, the Law has no more claim on a person who is dead. The IRS and the ATO can not keep going to cemeteries demanding payment for unpaid taxes. These taxation bureaus are writing off the tax debt of dead people, they must, because who do they run after?

Thus the forgiveness St. Paul was speaking of in Colossians happened at the point of their baptism.

So let us deal with Pierce's claim that if you do not believe his interpretation you must slide to Limited Atonement. There are so many fallacies in this assertion. It is tertium non datur, meaning, no third alternative. It is also the slippery slope fallacy.

Now, if this is the only passage we have in the Scripture, one may be sympathetic to Jim's claim, but is this all the teaching we have from Scripture? No, we have 1 John 2:1-2, 1 Tim 2:6 etc. These passages teach no Limited Atonement. Hence, once again as per normal I have found again severe fallacies in the claims of UOJers.

In fact in my study of UOJ, no UOJer who has come before him ever gave the passage as a support for UOJ. Jim was being creative in throwing this passage as support for UOJ but it does not avail.

In the end what does the Colossian passage teach? Forgiveness happens through the Means of Grace .......ONLY. Note, I did not say forgiveness happes through the Means of Grace. (period), I said -- Forgiveness happens through the Means of Grace .......ONLY.

One wonders why there are still atheists today

It is a wonder why today there are still atheists around. When one looks at the advancements in astronomy, physics and mathematics it is remarkable how they are still around. Most people of scientific and atheistic persuasion are now turning agnostic. I still see of course atheists with utter hatred for theists. These people come from a Positivist outlook. If that term is foreign to you, please do a wikipaedia search on the word. Briefly it is someone who needs empirical evidence in order to know something exists or is true.

Positivism is now passe. People in the social science and education

disciplines are now going post-Modern, and by that it means Modernism of the Positivist outlook has been bunked. The only ones hanging around atheism are generally people who have swallowed the faulty arguments of either Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking.

Most of the arguments I have seen from today's atheists are not intellectual arguments, they are more emotional arguments rather than intellectual. Normally they do not argue but they ridicule, mock and demean the theist. As and example the the late Anthony Flew (well known atheist of the last decade), a well known atheist turned theist gave a fair and penetrating critique of Dawkins' God Delusion book. What arguments did Dawkins and his gang give for Flew's arguments? Well Dawkins and his gang said that Flew had a mental disorder when Flew became a theist. Is that an argument? You will find that the discussion on this quickly goes down the gutter road of offensive psychoanalysis - read Flew's counter found here.

Then there are those lay people and scientists (but not physicists nor astronomers and mathematicians) who follow Stephen Hawkings' statements in Grand Design. In fact there are fellow physicists who criticized Hawkings' conclusions in Grand Design and these people are hardly theists themselves. Examples would be Roger Penrose and Australian physicist Paul Davies. Books like this sell but not to fellow physicists but to the lay person who would like to see justification for the none existence of God.

One somewhat funny incident I recall was the interview of Hawkings' co-author, Leonard Mlodinow at Larry King Live. One of those interviewed pointed to Mlodinow, Godel's Theorems. Briefly one of Godel's theorems is that in a formal system that includes arithmetic, you will have true statements that have no proofs in arithmetic. Since we use arithmetic in our world of affairs, that implies we have true statements that we have no proof in our world of affairs. Mlodinow countered - ohh, but Godel's theorems pertain to axiomatic systems, physics is not like that, it is empirical and not axiomatic.

We can grin. We all know physics uses arithmetic, in fact it uses geometry which uses arithmetic, in fact physics uses calculus (analysis) which uses geometry which presupposes arithmetic. Mlodinow clearly does not appreciate the findings of Godel or he is a bit naive if not ignorant of the implications made by Godel's theorems.

Godel like almost all mathematicians believe in the validity of intuitions or intuitive truths. Mathematicians do that all the time when they accept an axiom or rule of inference. The majority of mathematicians are platonists not fictionalists or nominalist. Certainly Godel never accepted the notion that maths is just syntax. The proof of God is very intuitive. It is simple.

Something can not come out of nothing.

If you ask me who is believing a myth, I would say NOT those that believe in God, because the statement above is obvious, common sense and intuitive. The one who really believes in a myth is someone who believes that something CAN come out of nothing. This is the one who believes in a myth.

A proof for the existence of God

I am just having some rest and recreation, my doctor says I must rest after they placed a stent in one of my heart arteries. What an irony, the one that is supposed to be giving me health (food) is the one that is killing me.

Here goes the proof....consider the following sentences:

1.) God exists

2.) None of the sentences in this pair is true.

Let us call sentence 1 and 2 as G and N respectively. Then we have the following conjunction of sentences as a pair, G & N.

Now G or N may be true or false, we do not know which is which.

Assume first that N is true. If so, then we have a contradiction because there is supposed to be no sentence in the pair that is true, and so the value of G is irrelevant. Whatever it is G & N is inconsistent.

Assume now that N is false. If so, then the negation of N means at least one of the pair is true. Since there are only two sentences, G and N and we know N is false, it must be G that is true.

Thus in order for statement G & N to make sense or for it to be consistent, G must be true.

Hence G is true or God exists.

This is my elaboration of Buridan's Proof of the existence of God.

Too much to bear when you bare too much

You need to have crocodile skin when you get involved with controversial issues. When you place your bet and let the chips fall where they may, there are some consequences. For example, you need to accept that other party will call you names, you will be shunned, you will be misrepresented and most likely you will be alone when you bare yourself, when you let people know where you stand with regards to a controversial issue. Some cost accounting need to happen before you sign your name. That goes with the territory, so you must cultivate a thick hide and comfort yourself with the Scriptures.

I think Hermann Sasse typifies this himself in The Lonely Way.

For some this is way too much to bear specially when family and perhaps income are involved. I do not know how that is solved, there is likely no solution to this dilemma. This we come to realize is not for everyone. For some this is too much pressure to hold, there are other lives involved and these lives have for example, social and economical needs.

However, one must also realize that a doctrine which we may oppose does not float out there in thin air, but the doctrine lives inside the hearts and minds of people. Such people may not fight clean but rather fight your position subtly. You may not know but I have 25+ years of experience in the computing industry and I have learned a very important lesson early in my career: Any technical problem can be solved politically.

By analogy, any theological problem can be solved politically too.

We can not be naive, if our opponent knows well he can not rebut the solid position we hold, he might try to go political on us and thereby undermine in reality the testimony we hold.

Either he tries to intimidate you politically and usually that does not work or he can try to sweeten you up politically too, like flatter you and thereby glory in you.

^{Psalm 62: 4}They only consult to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.

Romans 4:25 UOJ Fallacies

Yet Scripture teaches only one justification; namely, the one by faith in Christ, Romans 3:28. (Walter A. Maier II, A Summary Exposition of The Doctrine of Justification By Grace

Through Faith)

UOJ stands for Universal Objective Justification which teaches that there are two justifications. The first one is called objective justification, the one (so they say) was when Jesus was raised from the dead, God (according to LC-MS/WELS/ELS, American Synods) in Christ has declared the whole world already righteous. This has already passed and for all people. The other one is called subjective, this will come about when you believe what the first one says about you.

Make no mistake, they do not mean the object of your faith should be the Atonement, not that; they want you to believe the one past that, when (according to UOJers) God has declared you righteous/forgiven already. It has already passed and you believe that (so they say) past declaration that happened before you were born.

I asked one UOJ pastor the following and you will find the conversation here.

Me: Atonement you said in the previous comments that it is the object of faith.(sic)(?)

Response: I did not say that. I have always spoken of God's forgiveness, through and on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ, as the object of faith.

In my early years, I thought it was the Atonement that they meant and I thought it was a labeling mistake, I bought into UOJ before, until I looked deeper.

This is the reason why they won't buy the suggestion to rename OJ to OA, Objective Atonement, or OP, Objective Propitiation. Why not? It is because that is not what they believe! Atonement is not their object of faith, this is contrary to Romans 3:25, where Jesus as Propitiation is the object of faith in that verse. In fact one can say the object of faith in UOJ is not the person or work of Jesus but the justification that has already happened to you in the past when Jesus was raised from the dead.

Where did this idea of come from. Many verses have been alluded too but the famous one is their interpretation of Romans 4:25. According to LC-MS teaching (and the others like WELS/ELS etc.) the "our" mentioned in Romans 4:25 refers to "us human beings in general". You can find this in LC-MS Brief Statement 1932, Article 17b. This verse is extracted from Romans 4:24 and completely isolates it from its context as well as disrespects the nature of St. Paul' rhetorical expression of this verse. Indeed, this is where the LC-MS/WELS/ELS are isolated and cut off from the rest of the Protestant world because if you look at the way independent exegetes and even some Lutheran NT scholars interpret this (non LC-MS/WELS/ELS), there is no way you can responsibly take "our" as the whole unbelieving world. Indeed their interpretation of this verse is truly novel and unique, it stands alone in the Protestant world!

You do not need to be knowledgeable of the Greek to ascertain this. You just need to respect the overall context, "our" refers to believers and the verse is a rhetorical verse.

The first fallacy they claim is this - they say you have to believe in Limited Atonement if you do not accept their interpretation.

This is a non-sequitur bull. The other is that it is the fallacy of tertium non datur; it thinks there is no third possibility. This is a fallacy because there are other Scriptures that teach of Jesus' Atonement as for all people, for example, 1 John 2:1-2, John 3:16 etc., yet justification is not universal but only happens to those who receive by faith in that Propitiation (see again Romans 3:25).

Their (UOJer's) interpretation of Romans 4:25 is "quasi-universalistic" or "crypto-universalistic".

They do not want me to quote to them R. C. H. Lenski because they already branded and gave him a black propaganda, even though Evangelical scholars respect him! Remember what St. Paul said about Elders? He said that they should be respected by outsiders or have a good reputation from outsiders. Apparently this is not valued by UOJers despite the fact that Lenski fits what St. Paul required, to be respected by those outside one's sphere of influence. So I will quote another Lutheran, Peter Stuhlmacher, (Paul's Letter to the Romans, a Commentary, p. 75), on this verse:

Christ's act of sacrifice on the cross ordained by God and endorsed as valid by the resurrection, is and remains the legal ground for the justification of all those who, as the "ungodly", believe in the God who revealed himself in Christ. God's salvific righteousness comes to pass in the resurrected Christ from "now"(Romans 3:21) until the final judgement (Romans 8:33f).

The other fallacy that UOJers commit is to claim that - well if you believe that interpretation then you will have faith in your faith.

This is another fallacy which is called "post hoc ergo propter hoc".

I can not begin to unravel this fallacy, there is so much I could say.

Notice that the objections by UOJers stem not from what the Scripture says, they are not exegetical objections, they are rationalistic objections. The line goes "if you believe that, then you should believe this" etc. This fallacy is easy to spot if you step back for a moment and analyse the objection, the objection does not stem from the text of Scripture, it stems from not believing this or that. The objection is strewn into a straw man argument already and so if you get sucked in such reasoning, the conclusion is already drawn for you. You just have to slot in their paradigm that is why people will not release easily their crutch on UOJ. It is addicting.

We are to believe what Scripture says not believe what we want to believe. In the case of UOJ on this verse, the belief is already determined and so the verse is just coerced to fit that belief. Is this honest or right handling of Scripture?

The unfortunate and nasty thing about UOJers is that they are quick to label as "heretics" those who oppose or are skeptic of their views. Now how many times have I been called that? Take a good look at the exegesis of well known exegetes of the past on this verse. Go to Sanday and Headlam's, or C. K. Barrett's exegetical work. They all agree with Lenski and Stuhlmacher. I will even later go to a theological library and get C. E. B. Cranfield's work and check his take on this. The Book of Proverbs says that in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

The name calling tactic has been employed before by the arch UOJ promoter C. F. W. Walther. UOJers are like their father in the faith. He was cultic and branded those who opposed his cultic ideas as "heretics" so, it is not surprising to see his UOJ followers to be cultic too (if you asked me).

Remember, ex falso quod libet, from what is false, you can deduce anything. UOJ is filled with fallacy and from a falsehood, you can prove anything. That is not a strength, it is a weakness that should be rejected.

Falsifiability, is that important to you?

Over at Steadfast Lutherans (Waltherians IMHO) yours truly got banned from commenting further. The discussion revolved around the question whether or not Robert Preus rejected Universal Objective Justification(UOJ) in his later days. The question also involved Robert Preus' book Justification and Rome, his last work. You should get a copy of this book, it is a great book on Justification By Faith Alone (JBFA). I read about it at Ichabod's. My copy is in my library and is dirtied with notes and annotations. I do not keep my book clean, my loved books are dirtied (FYI).

Some people and the descendants of Robert Preus themselves claim that Preus never departed from UOJ.

Now to recap, UOJ teaches that your object of faith is should not be in the Atonement, but the forgiveness/justification (declaration of righteousness) that has already happened to ALL people and in the past when Jesus died on the Cross/Rose Again. Key passage here, so they say is Romans 4:25.

If Preus wanted to teach the most important concept that distinguishes Lutheranism from Romanism which is UOJ then in that book, Preus did a botched job in telling that. If we are to believe that he wanted people to learn UOJ from that book, he did a lousy job of doing that. If he wanted to be clear on UOJ he failed miserably in conveying that. If that is a book that will sell UOJ, you won't buy it based on that book. Instead, I walked away thoroughly enjoying JBFA, not UOJ.

At the Steadfast Waltherian blog I referred to earlier, Dr. Dan Gard, a professor at an LC-MS seminary made this claim: To state it once again: Dr. Robert Preus never changed his doctrinal position on Objective Justification.

Critical thinking suggests that when a claim is made, we must have some reasonable method of testing or verifying a claim. Falsifiabilty asks the question, do I have a method of obtaining evidence that proves this claim is false. I wrote about this topic in the area of testing the claims of evolution. This is where falsifiability comes in. Falsifiability is required if we are to accept a claim as valid and admit the claim as fact. To illustrate, I can claim that Jesus speaks to me each night and one night Jesus told me that UOJ is false. Now, how do you falsify that?

You can't. For in order to prove what I am saying is false, Jesus should come to you and deny my claim. Another, you have to be with me each night and observe if Jesus does show up but what if I meant he speaks to me in my mind, how do you verify that? You can't.

In that blog at Steadfast (so called), I asked a question to Prof. Gard, how does one go about proving his claim, apart from simply taking his word for it and basing it on his truthful character?

Apparently I was out of line in my questioning and so got banned by the moderator. The moderator stepped in and it was implied I was being sophomoric and out of line.

Do you think my question was out of line? Was I being sophomoric?

I thought my question was fair.

Over here we are constantly informed of university public lecturers. It is a great occasion whenever it happens. By public it means anyone can come and can asks questions after the lecture and yes usually well researched and titled people are the ones that give the lecture. However, in here no one is held sacred, not even if you are an old professor. That last 15 minutes for Q & A is what people wait for. In other words, the lecturer does not take your questions personally. It is a matter of facts, not a matter of persons. The reason is that by lecturing, the lecturer is asking the people to believe something and it stands to reason that if you are asking such a tall order, you can not run away from questions. For if you do, the public will simply think you are not a person that should be taken seriously, and that is the end of your future public lectures.

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Response from (emphasis mine)

Mild Colonial Boy, Esq. said...

Mr Cruz, I don't think that your arguments were out of line, they were well within usual "robust" academic standards. It is simply that the LCMS don't like to have pointed out they and the rest of North American Lutheranism has made a sectarian deviation from orthodox Lutheranism. Why not stick to separate concepts of Atonement and Justification by Faith without the Jesuitry of Objective and Subjective Justification?

She submitted, whew, finally.

My missus finally submitted her doctoral dissertation yesterday for examination. Her thesis is on world views and how it functions in the life of a school teacher. She also wrote plenty of papers on colonialism and its effect on childhood education. It was an 8 year project. In the last two years we practically did not have any weekends. On weekends, I would go with her to the university so she could write and I could be with her. I did not like to be separated from her so it was a torturous experience, like being chained. So I hang around do my work in her office. I had to do it otherwise I won't see her on weekends. She is a Research Fellow at Melbourne Uni, my university's nemesis in Melbourne. They got more money than Monash Uni. They have really nice offices for their staff and new buildings. That is why they are the premier uni in Oz. So if someone wants an academic career when they graduate they should go to Melbourne Uni. If you want an industrial career, hehehe, come to mine.

BTW, Melbourne Uni has plenty of American students too. They have a nice tradition of giving you a balloon when you submit your dissertation. Now we have to wait 4 months for the examiners to report their findings. I am still processing this as to what this means, no more agony of thesis writing. What do we do now on weekends?

Australia is an amazing country. Where will you find a country who will encourage its people to do a PhD and pay them for doing it? I paid zero dollars for mine, but instead they paid me roughly $20,000 a year, tax free for 3.5 years. After that you are on your own but having lapsed, that still entitles you to graduate. On top of that they give you office space so you can study privately and computers, books and money for going to conferences. They did not even charge me amenities fees. None. I just had to show up and study. How amazing is that?!!

Where will you get a deal like that? Today, I still could not believe I got mine for free.

CEOs hiring us?

Hmm, apparently international CEOs love graduates of my Alma Mater. I looked at the result of the survey conducted by the New York Times and for once, my university out does Melbourne Uni. This is unexpected because Melbourne Uni leads all Australian universities. My missus works for them as a Research Fellow.

Melbourne Uni ranked, last time I looked 31st around the world according to QS rankings; but my Monash ranked only 60th around the world. In 2010 it was 45th, now it even dropped back.

I spoke to a fellow graduate whose specialty is in Philosophy of Maths, he said "Man, there is no hope in me getting any tenured or fixed term position, ever. I think I will be forever doing sessional teaching here or there, doing adjunct work all the time".

I am happy for those who got hired, but that does not work for my philosopher friend and for me a maths logician. Last time I spoke to a CEO (of a very well established insurance company) was when I was a manager just prior to starting my studies. I asked him (through my boss) if he would give me just 1 day a week to study with no pay, he said," we have no need for PhDs here". Anyway, he was not an international CEO, maybe that is why.

Jesus' baptism is good news

I was just thinking of this today and this truth got hammered again to me, that the Baptism of Jesus is Good News to us.

Mark 1 has this:

⁹And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.

¹⁰And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:

¹¹And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

I highlight the verse that got nailed to my heart once again, in the baptism of Jesus, God said this about his Son. Now this is Good News.

Now based on our batting average, there is none who could ever please God. This should be clear as light and obvious to us by now. So in the vast sea of humanity, no one could ever please God. Yet, there was one who came and in him God is well pleased, Christ, God's Son. It is Good News to me because I know I fall short in pleasing God and so I can not come to God using my own credentials. However, I can come to God through Christ's merits not mine. He pleased God for me, as a gift.

Theologians have argued that John was right, Jesus need no baptism yet fulfilling all righteousness, Jesus subjected himself to John's baptism. This, theologians have argued, was Christ's way of uniting himself to humanity.

He was baptised for me, and in my baptism I was united to him, to the one in whom God is well pleased. My baptism clothed me with Christ, the one who pleased God for me (you), as Romans 6 suggests. That is Good News and something to praise Christ for.

Ethan does some maths

This is a scene in MI3 where Ethan Hunt does some calculation on using a pendulum sling to get to another building.

I am quite impressed with the production of the MI series, it competes well with James Bond. This new one is as good or even better than MI3.

Sometimes Christmas

Sometimes I am ambivalent about Christmas. It makes me both happy and sad. Sometimes it makes me sad when I think of those people who do not have a family they can share it with.

Christmas can be the loneliest time of the year for some people. Some would rather that it disappears as quickly as it came. I do not blame them. Christmas is no longer defined by Christ but by the shopping center so, if I were just on my own, with nobody, no friends, no family to spend it with, I would rather it goes quickly as it came. Knowing this, we have invited several strangers to dine in our home.

When I was kid, what really made me happy with Christmas were not the toys, it was the festivity in my parent's home. It reminds me of all of my extended family, my uncles and aunties and cousins busying themselves with the preparation. That was really the fun part because as they prepare, they all talk about things with their joking and kidding around. The of course you smell the food.

It reminds me of my granddad and most of all my grandmother. She was the master cook of our clan. Christmas in my home was the time my grandmother Martha would cook those special Christmas meals I never get to taste except - well, except during Christmas. She was our super cook.

Since we celebrate Christmas in the eve of Christmas, the whole day is spent cooking and so preparing for the meals start off early. Then come midnight, our "noche buena", we all sit together and eat what grandma cooked. It was well, just so swell. Then it won't be complete if we did not have that traditional cocoa drink (pictured here) with our sweets, our much loved famous sweetened purple yam (pictured here).

That chocolate drink comes in small round pieces called "tablea". My grandma would boil it and churn it with a churning stick shown above. She would slow cook it and as it slowly boils she would patiently church it and churn it.

I taught my wife how prepare and drink "tablea" the way I learned it from grandma Martha. Drinking "tablea" then has been passed on to my children. So tonight, just as it is warm when we drink it, it also warms my heart in remembering with fondness my grandparents who indirectly taught me that the fun part of Christmas togetherness that it brings.

In the end, only God could be an atheist

I heard something like this stated by Dr. Bob Morey. It is a funny statement but there is ring of truth in it.

Have you noticed how these neo-Darwinian atheists, when pressed to the wall, back track and plead ignorance as to whether they know or do not know if there is a God? Most of these atheists are functioning agnostics, they got a problem with their method of doing epistemology.

So if no one knows if there is a God or not, then the only person who can be an atheist is God (which of course he ain't an atheist).