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Did Christ Die For Our Sins? See What This ELCA Seminary President Has To Say

3/28/2016

6 Comments

 
​The Bible is God’s Word. It is true, it is right, it is accurate, it is without error, it is God-breathed.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a denomination that constantly denies Scripture, throwing its truth out the window in favor of their own thoughts, beliefs and feelings.  
 
God’s Word tells us that Christ "'himself bore our sins' in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; 'by his wounds you have been healed'" (1 Peter 2:24, NIV). This idea is found throughout the Bible in such places like Isaiah 53:5, 1 Corinthians 15:3, Colossians 2:14, Hebrews 9:28 and Romans 4:25.
 
So what do we find being taught by an ELCA seminary president? 
 
“(T)he cross is not about punishment for sin either. Not for Jesus’ sin, certainly, but also not for ours.” So says David Lose, President of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. David Lose, who previously was a professor at the ELCA’s Luther Seminary goes on to say:
 
“That is, of course, a tradition interpretation of the cross: that because God is just, God has to punish sin, and because God is loving, God beats up on Jesus instead of us. But I have a hunch that this understanding of the cross says more about our inadequate understanding of justice than it says about God. In contrast to this theory, I’d suggest that the cross is not about punishment but is instead about identification, solidarity, and love.” (read here)
 
This is against the witness of Scripture.
 
And please take note who seminary president David Lose is addressing as he writes. He begins his blog with “Dear Working Preacher,”
 
Later saying,
 
“Dear Partner, what might we say to people this Sunday?”
 
And,
 
“That’s what we can tell our people, Dear Partner, and this, at last, is all promise. Thanks for sounding that message.”
 
President Lose is instructing pastors into this teaching and telling them to preach accordingly, indoctrinating the people in their congregations. That is scary. He is teaching something against God’s Word, to ELCA pastors who will take that false-teaching to the pulpit. Is there any wonder why so many Bible-believing Christians are calling on ELCA members to leave the denomination? 
 
A couple of people challenged Lose in the comments section of this article saying,
 
“’The cross is not about punishment.’ Really? Then what of ‘sacrifice,’ ‘scapegoat,’ ‘passover lamb,’ and ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’?”
 
And,
 
“…biblical writers’ clear use of the model of the sacrifice of lambs (John 1:29; Hebrews 9, etc.). Paul employs often the substitution concept, to stand in our place under the law, to take the punishment we deserve (Galatians 4:4, Romans 3:21-26), and of course the familiar “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ came to take our place, to take unto himself our guilt, sin, and death, to give his li(f)e as a ransom (Mark 10).”
 
Because of those comments, Lose wrote another article where he says,
 
“I found our exchange in the comments last week kind of fascinating. You probably don’t read the comments, so I’ll recap briefly. The exchange centered on how we understand the cross and was prompted by a statement I made that ‘the cross is not about punishment for sin.’ Several folks questioned that, referencing Anselm’s substitutionary theory of atonement and the attendant Scriptural passages associated with it…Anselm’s view – echoed later by Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Reformed theologians in North America – is one of the primary ways the Church, particularly in the West, has understood the cross and, indeed, is perhaps the dominant view today.
 
And yet all that notwithstanding, I have to say I find it utterly unconvincing and, indeed, rather off-putting and out of character with the God I know in Jesus.” (read here)
 
The most popular and beloved liberal ELCA pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber has a similar belief saying, “And just to be clear: The cross is not about God as divine child abuser sadly sending his little boy off to be killed because we were bad and well, somebody had to pay." (read here)
 
ELCA leaders continually walk in opposition to God’s Word.


Find out more about substitutionary atonement and why it is Biblically correct here.


6 Comments
Didaskalos link
3/29/2016 04:46:04 pm

Why does the ELCA keep pretending it's in any way Lutheran (not to mention Christian) when it blatantly contradicts Martin Luther on, among other Biblical teachings: universalism, homosexuality and same-sex "marriage," the Atonement, and the Virgin Birth?

Luther’s Second Sermon on Luke 24:36-47:

". . .But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made.
Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them.

"This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, “If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation."
(Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344)

". . . …it [the term “satisfaction”] is nevertheless too weak and says too little concerning the grace of Christ and does not do honor enough to his sufferings, to which one should give higher honor, confessing that he not only has made satisfaction for sin but has also redeemed us from the power of death, the devil, and hell, and established an everlasting kingdom of grace and of daily forgiveness of the sin that remains in us; and thus is become for us, as St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:30, an eternal redemption and sanctification…"
(Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 351)

Reply
Mark Gehrke link
3/31/2016 09:49:41 am

Thank you for keeping us updated on an apostate church. The devil is alive and well, and working within the church. May members of this apostate church wake up.

Reply
Donnie
3/31/2016 10:41:59 am

"if it were possible, even the very elect would be deceived"........maybe he is not part of the elect because he is definitely deceived.......and worse yet deceiving others

Reply
Michael Taylor
3/31/2016 10:07:37 pm

"The people spoke against God and against Moses, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.' Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.' So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.' So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live." (Numbers 21:5-9)

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-15)

Both the bronze serpent and the Cross represent God's judgment upon sin. And there is an understanding of sin and judgment on the part of those who look to the serpent or to the Cross.

Reply
John
4/1/2016 12:05:38 am

If you all think that President Lose's opening lines are bad, then please save yourselves the trouble of reading the rest of his yarn. Honestly, I feel the worst for anyone who has paid tuition at his "seminary." Gal 1:8-9 seems the proper conclusion here: "let him be anathema!"

Reply
Anonymous Disciple of Christ
4/2/2016 10:44:17 am

Is it not painfully obvious to everyone that there is a concerted effort within the nation's largest denomination (and likely best funded) to funamentally transform Christian doctrine and belief?
Same sex marriage should be a major clue.
I actually support secular same sex-marriage, but not within the church- there is no biblical basis for it.
There is never much talk about that- Christians who oppose religious same sex marriages within the church, but SUPPORT secular same-sex marriages.

Anyway, the Lutheran and Gettysburg seminaries are both struggling big time.

David Lose is steering Christian thought in a particular direction, and that direction is NOT toward the Cross and Redemption...

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    Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.  
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