Confusion About Good Friday Plagues the LCMS
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

Doctor Waldo Werning's attempt to answer the unanswerable about the Trinity led him to deny the Gospel when he was asked, "When Christ died on the cross, was it all of God or part of God?" and he replied, "I'm not going to answer, God."

Werning understood that if he said, "God" it would mean that Christ was more than one third of God, so he could not answer. When he replies that the Son of God died on the cross, he means Christ is one third of God or not all of God.

Werning's book "Health and Healing For the LCMS" (pages 33-34, sent to every 2001 Convention delegate) is the cause for the confusion about Good Friday. LCMS South Wisconsin District officials and "Jesus First" are endorsing Werning's distortions about the Trinity.

This confusion about the Person of Christ and the Trinity shows that the Synod is no longer able to maintain a clear, unified, public teaching on its most fundamental doctrines among its top officials.

Saying that Jesus Christ is "all of God" does not mean that the Father or the Holy Spirit were on the cross with Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ died on the cross. The Father and the Holy Spirit are not the Son, and the Father and Holy Spirit did not suffer and die on the cross.

The doctrine of the Trinity is filled with apparent contradictions that cannot and must not be explained by human logic or reason. According to Cyril (fourth century AD), "God has redeemed us with His own suffering." (Page 124 "Loci Theologici" Cheminitz, CPH 1989) Cyril does not say, "one third of God suffered." We also know that it is impossible for God to suffer but, in Christ, God suffered on Good Friday for the sins of the world.

Jesus Christ is not one third of God, but all of God. So also the Father is all of God and the Holy Spirit is all of God, and yet there are not three Gods but only One God. God can never be less than "all of God!" "Each Person of the Trinity is the entire God." (J. T Muller Christian Dogmatics CPH page 148). "Of these Persons each one is the whole God, besides whom there is no other God." (Luther, same page) This concept defies human comprehension and explanation.

The following is also true: God is eternal and God cannot die yet, in Christ, God died for the sins of the world.

Werning's drift into Tritheism is evident in his claim that he experiences the Trinity in nature. He claims God is experienced in earthquakes rather than saying that only the earthquake is experienced. He writes about God as three revelations, communications, levels of reality, experiences, and manners of being. Hence, he can only think of Jesus Christ as one third of God on the cross.

Werning has created three divisions in God's work and activity. The true faith is that "There is no division or limitation of the divine attributes, works, or worship among the three Persons, but that the three Persons share in them without any distinctions of rank." (Pieper Vol. I. Page 386)

Werning also claims to experience Christ as Savior through prayer when all he has experienced is the prayer.

My reward for pointing out Werning's false doctrine, which he sent to every 2001 Convention delegate, is to have three grossly incompetent South Wisconsin District officials endorse Werning's doctrine of the Trinity and write that I have broken the Eighth Commandment.

Why can't Ron Meyer, the South Wisconsin District President, speak the truth about the Gospel? In order to protect Werning, Meyer slanders God unless, of course, Werning is speaking the real position about the Trinity for the LCMS.

At the same time, there are hundreds of LCMS clergy who appear to be more interested in defending their so-called "sacrament of ordination" and divine authority over the Voters' Assemblies, than speaking clearly about the Trinity. While defending their collars they may loose the doctrine of God.

Saying "100% of God," or "all of God," died on the cross, has troubled some LCMS pastors because the Church fathers didn't speak in terms of percentages.

Other phrases describing Jesus Christ as "the entire God," "Totus Deus," "the only God," "the whole Trinity is found in this Man," "the whole God," and "the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2.9)," written by Mueller, Koehler, Luther, and Paul, suffice to explain what I mean by "all of God" or "100% of God" died on the cross.

However, why is the adjective "all" necessary to modify "God," as if God needed a quantitative superlative to make Him extra or extra, extra God? Alas, there are too many rationalists who imagine that Christ is a percentage, fraction, or sliver of God, such as Doctor Waldo Werning, "Jesus First," and the South Wisconsin District President.

They take offense when I insist that Jesus Christ is not one third of God but "all of God." This is not a new problem. In order to silence the opposition, the Nicene Creed was compelled to name Christ, "very God of very God" because just plain "God" wasn't enough for the heretics.

If we just believed the words: "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh" (1Tim. 3:16) we wouldn't need words like, "entire," "Totus Deus," "only" "whole God," "fullness of the Godhead," "very God of very God," or "all of God" or any deity inflation. Just being "God" should be enough to explain that Christ is not a third of God. However, this requires faith instead of Church Growth Movement rationalism.

Werning promoted his "'Healthy Leaders for, Healthy Churches with, Healthy Members, Discipling Workshop' On Saturday, March 16, 2002, 9:00 a.m. - Noon at Lord of Glory Lutheran Church in Elk River MN." He explains a "Healthy Church" without the correct teaching of the Trinity. Here we have the odd comparison of a healthy church with a dead theology.

The Church Growth Movement, advocated by Doctor Werning, has invented its own worship to agree with its own invention of god. In the past, similar emotionalism and rationalism have brought us Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Christian Science, Unitarianism, and Jehovah Witnesses, all of whom reject the Trinity as explained in the Nicene Creed. Werning wants us to believe that "very God of very God" means one third of God.

The following theologians answer Werning:

"Whoever comes in touch with the man Christ also comes in touch with the Son of God. In fact, the whole Trinity is found in this Man." (Luther's Works 22:346)

Again Luther writes: "And when you have Him, you are grasping the very Son of God; and then you see and grasp God the Father Himself. The entire Holy Trinity is known in the Person of Christ." (Luther's Works 23:89)

Augustine writes: "We must always discuss this subject, [the Trinity] with the greatest and most outstanding humility and fear and listen with the most attentive and devoted ears, when we are in search of the unity of the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; because at no other point does one err with greater danger or seek with greater labor or find with greater benefit." ("Loci Theologici" Cheminitz, CPH 1989 Page 65).

"The External Works of the Trinity Are Undivided. When God outside His essence works something among His creatures, then the three Persons are together and work together, because there is one order and maker." ("Loci Theologici" Cheminitz, Page 74).

Luther writes: "If I ascribe to each Person a distinct external work in creation and exclude the other two Persons from this, then I have divided the one Godhead and have fashioned three gods or creators. And that is wrong . . . One must not separate the Persons with regard to the works and ascribe to each its distinct external work; but now must . . . ascribe externally each work to all three without distinction . . ." ("Loci Theologici" Cheminitz, Page 74).

"And thus Gregory of Naziansus can say, 'That which acts is the one essence common to the three Persons.' Therefore, just as the essence is one and undivided, so the One who acts and does is One, and the work itself is one and undivided" ("Loci Theologici" Cheminitz, Page 74).


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

March 18, 2002