Martin Luther's Teaching on Predestination.

[Rick Otto]

Having a will doesn't entitle us to freedom.

 

[squint]

Still in all, there was so much second-guessing of Luther by such a range of "guessers" on this thread, that it did strike me as unseemly even before you reached your own "enough is enough" level.

Lutherans are by no means some coherent unit. They 'used to be' an extremely dynamic and vocal bunch as a unit, but that really has deteriorated considerably the last few decades. Dramatically so.

And the expressions you see in this thread are partly the cause, not guessing. Just a smaller picture of a larger problem, to which M.R. referenced as well when speaking of the ELCA, the largest group of Lutherans, at least in name, but they have slipped away entirely.

I no longer do the Lutheran thing, but my wife and I are God parents for a couple Lutheran kids and I was quite shocked at how lifeless the last couple services we attended with their families were. Seriously dead. But of course the congregants probably didn't think so.

A lot of the attendees just want some place to drag their kids to so they can say they did their parental duties. They themselves usually don't have a clue or an interest in the Gospel or in Christ. He is IRRELEVANT.

s

 

[squint]

My comment to him was; the more responsibility that we take away from individuals, the more irresponsible they become. Add to this the sense of self from the "me" generation, and the attitude of entitlement that developed on account of it, it's no wonder that few take anything seriously, other than themselves.

Such is, I believe, the differences between the early reformers and many who desire to re-reform their faith; the early reformers, for the most part, desired only to do God's will. The one glaring, historical exception was Henry VIII; however there were already English Bishops looking towards Wittenburg, who's desire was not as selfish as Henry's.

I guess Henry was ahead of his time!

I did learn something in this thread about the LCMS from you:

"Our Confessions (both of which they had pledged to uphold "even unto death" at their confirmations)."

In the LCA I we certainly didn't 'go there' for sure.

Personally I would have an issue with trying to get a 'death pledge' out of a kid in 8th or 9th grade. That's a little extreme. I don't know what age that pledge is extracted from in the LCMS.

In order to 'die' for one's faith it's probably not a realistic expectation unless the holders are individually convinced to that level of pledge.

I might like to think I'd die for my beliefs (not the Lutheran cause, but my faith in Christ) but my brother who had the same upbringing as me and the same confirmation, parents (obviously), etc etc just can NOT relate to faith in Christ for any reason whatsoever. He simply has no interest or grasp of the subject matter or of Christ and never has, even though we both went through nearly identical motions in the LCA.

Funny how that works isn't it? And looking back on the kids I went through confirmation with I'd say less than one out of 10 are still Lutherans of some sort.

s

 

[Tangible]

LOL! The most ironic thing about the above response is that you post a passage which refutes your view, and does so specifically. That passage from Mark says, "Preach it to everyone and the ones that believe and are baptized will be saved." It doesn't say, "Preach it to everyone and, regardless of whether they believe, Christ still died for them." Um....huh? That makes zero sense and as smart as you are I am confused on how you even couple that passage with your view. You should run and hide when you see that passage. It's in direct contrast to your view, and it's not even difficult to see that.

The glory of the Gospel is that Christ died for His sheep and only His sheep and it is THEM and THEM ONLY who will be justified by His vicarious atonement:

John 17:9
I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.



No. That is the gospel of man. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News, is that ALL for whom Christ died will be made alive with Him and He shall lose none of them. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Your anti gospel is that Christ's death was impotent to accomplish anything in the lives of all who go to hell. Either that, or God's goal in the Cross wasn't the ACTUAL salvation of a single person. Your hope relies on nothing more than yourself, for you can only contend that it is when you added your works to the atonement of Christ that it becomes efficacious in atoning for your iniquity. As I've seen with man centered theology for years, that the one who "accepts Christ as his Savior" be glorified is FAR more important than that God sovereignly presides over His creation and, out of the mercy of His sweet benevolence, deigns to rescue a portion of them from their justifiable fate of condemnation.



And here you show nothing more than your ignorance. Do you not realize that some of the most prolific evangelists in history have been those who believe in the specific nature of the atonement? Further, it is your ilk that must contend that someone is not a part of the family of God until they do some identifiable work of reconciliation, i.e., ask God in to your heart, say the "sinner's prayer," submit to God, allow God in to your life, etc, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada, ad naseum. We, on the other hand, assume ALL people are God's elect and that we will likely never know who was truly a false believer. We know there are some that will fool others. But, as we are not God, we do not know whether someone's faith is genuine nor are we the ones that make someone stand or fall.

Without even realizing it, you accuse me of something that is far less damning than the tripe you publically embrace. You perceive my understanding of the Gospel to be reflected in this type of evangelical outreach:

"Christ might have died for you! That is, if you turn out to be one of his elect, which you can never know for sure until you die."

That is your characterization of my method. Your's on the other hand, is far less noteworthy:

"Hey, take comfort. Christ absolutely died for you. Now, you should know that, well, there are many people for whom Christ died that still end up in hell. So, even though I can happily tell you that Christ most assuredly died for you, you might still end up in hell. Um...yeah...I know that last part isn't very comforting but, hey, at least He died for you! Woo hoo!"

Yeah. That's better. Pshhht...



Wow...just when I thought this couldn't get any weirder...

So, now, I'm to believe that the people in hell are forgiven but, because they don't believe in Christ, they're going to burn in hell. Got it:

Brian Regan on Reading - YouTube

Your view about forgiven people in hell starts at 50 seconds into the vid. My response starts at 1:20. Your own comments are a far bigger indictment against yourself than I could level.

Forgiven people in hell? Seriously? That doesn't even make you feel ridiculous?



Maybe. But you didn't "effectively" make yourself not a millionaire. Either way, this, like the rest of your post, is nonsensical and is in no way a parallel to Scriptures revelation about the scope of the atonement. A better analogy, using your own silly parameters, is this:

You owe your bank 1 billion dollars. You have zilch. The bank, being the bank, knows you have no money. This crime warrants death. Instead of killing you, the bank manager removes 1 billion dollars of his own money and pays your debt to the bank. He doesn't pay it to you. He pays it to the bank. So, whether you "don't access the account" is irrelevent. You can't access the account. It's not your account. It's the banks account.



Why don't we just tell it like it is. In your view, the efficacy of Christ's death is determined by the creation. In your view, God desired to save everyone without exception, sent His Son to facilitate that very thing, and then, because of the all mighty creation, failed, and now will spend eternity weeping and gnashing his divine teeth in sorrow. Yeah. Really glorifying. Good luck with that.

Thankfully, Scripture clearly tells a different story. Christ died for the sins of all who WILL BE saved, and them only, and His atoning work exactly accomplishes what He intended it to and all He desired to save by His work on the Cross WILL BE saved by His work on the Cross.

Ahhhhhhh....the peace that the truth brings. It, more than anything else is truly is a comfort.

Being acrimonious doesn't prove your case. Being sarcastic doesn't prove your case either.

Being reasonable and rational doesn't make you scripturally correct, any more than being unreasonable and irrational makes scripture wrong.

 

[Albion]

Lutherans are by no means some coherent unit. They 'used to be' an extremely dynamic and vocal bunch as a unit, but that really has deteriorated considerably the last few decades. Dramatically so.

And the expressions you see in this thread are partly the cause, not guessing. Just a smaller picture of a larger problem, to which M.R. referenced as well when speaking of the ELCA, the largest group of Lutherans, at least in name, but they have slipped away entirely.

I no longer do the Lutheran thing, but my wife and I are God parents for a couple Lutheran kids and I was quite shocked at how lifeless the last couple services we attended with their families were. Seriously dead. But of course the congregants probably didn't think so.

A lot of the attendees just want some place to drag their kids to so they can say they did their parental duties. They themselves usually don't have a clue or an interest in the Gospel or in Christ. He is IRRELEVANT.

s

When the ELCA made its compact with the Episcopal Church, that really signalled the end for her as basically a Lutheran church rather than an amorphous "mainstream liberal" church body, IMHO.

 

[Tangible]

When the ELCA made its compact with the Episcopal Church, that really signalled the end for her as basically a Lutheran church rather than an amorphous "mainstream liberal" church body, IMHO.

Churches with which the ELCA is in full fellowship ...

• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• United Church of Christ
• The Episcopal Church (U.S.A)
• Moravian Church (U.S.A)
• Reformed Church in America
• The United Methodist Church

 

[Albion]

Churches with which the ELCA is in full fellowship ...

• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• United Church of Christ
• The Episcopal Church (U.S.A)
• Moravian Church (U.S.A)
• Reformed Church in America
• The United Methodist Church

I'm not a specialist on that subject, but somehow I am of the opinion that the connection with ECUSA is more than the inctercommunion agreements with some of those other churches. After all, it involved accepting the Episcopal Church's polity and a lot more. Comment?

 

[Reformationist]

Being acrimonious doesn't prove your case. Being sarcastic doesn't prove your case either.

Being reasonable and rational doesn't make you scripturally correct, any more than being unreasonable and irrational makes scripture wrong.

Hello pot. Meet kettle.