"Jesus First" Continues To Support Werning's Lies About The Trinity

By: Rev. Jack Cascione
Werning writes: "Rev. Cascione has made doctrinal and theological statements that are contrary to the Scriptures.  The transcripts of the December and February meetings reveal that Rev. Cascione maintains that all of God died on the Cross on Good Friday, despite the clear Confession of the Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds which show the divine and human natures of Christ, who died on the Cross (and the Catechism tells that the Father did not die on the Cross.)"

In numerous letters Werning vigorously defends each of the following statements about God in his book "Health and Healing for the LCMS" as follows:

1. "experiencing God in a three-fold manner."
2. "three manners of being (God above us, God among us, God in us),"
3. "three levels of reality [in God] (nature, history, existence)"
4. "three ways in which God reveals Himself"
5. "three forms of address [from God] ('You shall!,' 'You may!,' 'You
 can!')"
6. "one of the three ways in which God has revealed Himself"

Werning's defense of these statements have led him to maintain the following additional lies about God:

1. We experience God through prayer.
2. All of God did not die on the cross.
3. All theology is not Christology.

Werning's claims of "experiencing God in a three-fold manner" and that we experience God in prayer are polytheistic idolatry.  Werning is unable to explain to all the recipients of his book how anyone experiences God except by faith through the means of grace.  We can't see, feel, hear or sense God
in any way, which is why we call our relationship with God, "by faith alone."

"Jesus First" has publicly endorsed Werning's book, "Health and Healing For the LCMS," and its officers have defended Werning's position on the Trinity on pages 33 and 34 of his book.  Reverend Vern Gundermann is the President of "Jesus First," and I have been led to believe that President Kieschnick attends his congregation.  Either Werning's teaching about the Trinity is orthodox or Gundermann is endorsing lies about God.  Will "Jesus First" lies about God become the public teaching of the LCMS?

Werning's District President, Rev. Ron Meyer, writes July 9, 2001:  ". . . it is my duty and privilege, hereby, to affirm the clearly stated, Lutheran position of Dr. Werning on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as heard by my own ears when he confessed to me his Athanasian understanding of the Trinity and as read by my own eyes in Dr. Werning's writings."

The Bible and The Lutheran Confessions contradict President Ron Meyer.  The Lutheran Confessions teach that Jesus is all of God not a part of God. "Now, since He [Christ] is such a man as is super naturally one person with God, and apart from this man there is no God. . ." (Formula, Thor. Decl. VIII Of the Person of Christ Concordia Triglotta 1045)

"That is to say, Scripture bears witness that the three persons and the entire Trinity are the one true God, and that each person is perfectly and in all respects that one true God."  (Martin Chemnitz, "Loci Theologici CPH 1989, Page 74)

"As shown above, each Person possesses the entire divine essence as well as the divine attributes and works, which do not exist in three 'sets,' but only one 'set." In other words, each Person in the Deity is the entire God, and not a third of God.  Luther: 'Of these Persons each one is the entire God, outside which [Person] there is no other God.'" (Pieper Vol. 1 390)

Pieper, Chemnitz, and the Lutheran Confessions quote Luther's Treatise on the Last Words of David (LW15). "You may say very correctly of the Dove: That is God, and there is no God beyond that one." Vol. 15:304

"You may say very correctly of this Voice: That is God, and there is not God beyond that." LW 15:305

"You can say very correctly of the Man: That is God and there is no other God beside him." LW15:305

"However, it is also correct to say that God died for us, for the Son is God, and there is no other God but only more Persons in the same Godhead." 15:310

"Dr. Luther says also in his book Of the Councils and the Church:  We Christians must know that if God is not also in the balance, and gives the weight, we sink to the bottom with our scale. By this I mean:  If it were not to be said [if these things were not true], God has died for us, but only a man, we would be lost. But if 'God's death' and 'God died' lie in the scale of the balance, then He sinks down, and we rise up as a light, empty scale. But indeed He can also rise again or leap out of the scale; yet He could not sit in the scale unless He became a man like us, so that it could be said: 'God died'" 'God's passion,' 'God's blood,' 'God's death.' For in His nature God cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person, it is correctly called God's death, when the man dies who is one thing or one person with God. Thus far Luther." (Formula of Concord, Article VIII, Par 44, Concordia Triglotta pages 1029-1030)

Because Jesus is all of God, all theology must be Christology just as all theology must be the Word of the Father and all theology must be inspired by the Holy Ghost.  Each person of the Trinity is entirely responsible for the entire Bible, yet there is only one God, one faith, one Lord, one Baptism. Three revelations, experiences, beings, realities, and forms of address from or in God are the utterings of a polytheistic idolater. (Pieper Vol. 1:390)

What a marvelous and successful Synod we would have if the Synodical headquarters were able to invent its own God!

November 21, 2002