Marks of the Church: Retraction and Clarification.

Just so you know, my readers are good. I have been offered a potential correction concerning the Anglican position on Baptism from the 39 Articles, articles 25 and 27. They read:

XXV. Of the Sacraments.

Sacraments ordained of Christ, be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession; but rather they are certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God’s good will towards us, by which he does work invisibly in us, and does not only quicken, but also strengthens and confirms our faith in him. 

   There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. 

   Those five, commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be computed for Sacraments of the gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the scriptures; but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. 

   The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be guessed upon, or to be carried about; but that we should duly use them. And in such only, as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation; But they that receive them unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation, as St. Paul says.

XXVII. Of Baptism.

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from other that be not christened:  but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby as by an instru­ment, they that receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church:  the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the holy ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed; and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.  The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

It is not often that I am called to task for an issue like this, but I must confess that I have been spending so much time in the Reformed world, that I may have missed this point. The Anglican position on Baptism may be exactly the same as the Lutheran position and regeneration is assumed with Baptism, but this will require further study.

As I work through this again, I expect Luther might be the best to read on the subject, but I will be open to suggestions. The issue of the perseverance of the saints is at stake and it will require much prayer and consideration. 

In the mean time, let us assume that I hold to the positions that I have stated whether the Anglican Church does or not, and I will also ferret out the position of the Reformed Episcopal Church within the Anglican Church of North America. 

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Hebrews 3

Therefore.  Today’s passage begins, once again, with therefore.  The last section of chapter 2 dealt with Jesus becoming a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  The rest that follows is in light of that declaration, the key declaration of chapter 2.  But chapter 3 has a large quote stuck smack in the middle of it.  So, let’s go to Psalm 95 first, and see the context of that Psalm, then return to Hebrews and see how the writer of Hebrews contextualizes that Psalm.

The theme of chapter 3, perhaps the whole book of Hebrews, is true faith.  True faith is a faith placed in the correct place.  Faith always has an object (hint: look up to blue letters just above.) Before we jump back into the Old Testament, notice the first half of verse 7 first, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says….  The writer is stating that the Holy Spirit was speaking the words of Psalm 95.  Jumping to John 14-16, we know that the Holy Spirit always speaks of the redeeming plan of God through Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the writer of Hebrews is saying that Psalm 95 is in some way about Jesus.  Now, we are almost ready to go there.

Psalm 94 is going to be our starting point.  Read it now.  Since we are already in chapter 6 of Hebrews, some of this is going to sound terribly familiar.  As you read Psalm 94, ask yourself to whom the Psalmist is speaking in verse 8.  Understand, O dullest of the people!  Fools, when will you be wise?  Now, just for a second, go peak at Hebrews 5:11.  About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.  It is probably obvious that dull is not complementary.  One last section of Psalm 94 before we move on: verses 14-15.  For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; 15 for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.  I want you to hear these images, and just let them register for now.  Later, we will put all the images together into a collage, and from there a larger picture will emerge.

Psalm 95:1-7a fits in nicely with the Psalms of praise before and after.  But stuck into this string of praise, is 94 and 95:7b-11. 

Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I  swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Now, in Bible study, we learned that these words refer to events in Exodus 17:1-7.  But the key to this passage is the issues of hearts and rest.

Let’s go back to Psalm 94 and see that God will not abandon his heritage, and then in Psalm 95 that the fathers put God to the test, and he loathed them for it.  This is tough stuff.  Whenever I hear nominal Christians suggest that Jesus loves me, and he just wants me to do my best, or that God loves the sinner, but hates the sin, I think of passages like this. The fathers of that generation of Israel put God to the test, and He loathed them for it.  That sort of gives pause to how we choose to pray, does it not?  What is going on in those verses?

Now, for the heart, we are asked not to harden our hearts, because justice with return to the righteous, and all the upright of heart will follow it.  Upright is a virtual synonym for righteous in this phrase.  So, this all sounds like a command.  But what we have to realize is that this is Psalms, the center of the Old Testament.  David wrote many of these Psalms.  The covenants are all in play at this point, as we are prior to the Diaspora in redemptive history.  The key point is that the Sinai Covenant, or Mosaic Covenant, is a conditional covenant.  Do this and ye shall live; do it not and ye shall perish.  This is a Law passage.  What happened to Israel later in redemptive history?  They failed at keeping the Law, and were therefore thrown out of the promised land.  So, who then, ultimately are the righteous, the upright of heart?  We know from Psalms 5, 10, 14 and 36,  Isaiah 59 and 64, and Romans 1-3, that no one is righteous, no, not even one.  Look at Ecclesiastes 7:20.  Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.  So, who are the righteous, the upright of heart?  No one.  No one qualifies.  That is the point of the Law.  After the Fall, no one is capable of fulfilling the Law. 

But, we also have the part about God not abandoning His heritage.  Which covenant is still intact after the Diaspora?  Stop looking at Moses, and set your eyes upon Abraham.  That covenant is a royal grant that is guaranteed by God.  Upon what basis was Abraham deemed righteous?  Was he obedient to the Law?  I would remind you of the episode with his wife in Egypt.  He is declared righteous because he believes in the promise of God.  He did not earn this declaration by his works.  He did not deserve this declaration.  He received this declaration based upon his faith in the promise of God.

Reformed theology, and remember that the Episcopal Church is a reformed church, understands that the Bible is pounding away at the notion that the heart is evil, that man is not capable of good.  So, when we are told not to harden our heart, we are being asked to do the impossible.  All that we are capable of doing as fallen people is to turn away from God and harden our hearts.  It is God who seeks us.  God, through the power and work of the Holy Spirit, gathers the sheep and gives them the gift of faith.  We, the elect, receive that faith in the work of Jesus on the Cross and his propitiation on our behalves, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And now, finally, let’s go to Chapter 3, starting with verse 12.   

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 

Remember who the audience of Hebrews is: a believing community of Christians, who are predominantly of Jewish heritage.  The faith of the elect is through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, that is a faith that cannot be turned aside.  Jesus will not lose even one of his flock.  So, who then can these others be who are able to harden their hearts?

The answer is within that word that follows along from Old Testament to New Testament, describing the set of people known as believers: remnant.  To understand this whole comment, the Calvinist doctrine of visible and invisible church is helpful.  Suppose instead of church, we are talking about the Old Testament covenants.  There are clearly benefits to being a Jewish citizen during the time of David, unless your name is Uriah.  But while all Jewish citizens share in these same benefits, only a few are both in the family of Israel and also believers in the promise of God to Abraham.  Most of Israel viewed the covenants through the conditional covenant of Moses at Sinai.  Therefore, the object of their faith was on their own righteousness (or perceived self-righteousness) rather than upon the righteousness that is a gift from God through his promise as it is made known to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, there were some who benefited from being with the overall covenant community, but were not, in fact, a part of that remnant of whom the Bible speaks.  In the same way, the church is full of a group of people who benefit from being members of that community.  But some of them may not believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They might not have been given the gift of true faith through the power of the Holy Spirit.  These people would be sitting in church on Sunday, and listening to the sermon given by the writer of Hebrews.  These people are not true believers.  They will harden their hearts towards God.  This is the natural state of man.  Except for the Holy Spirit and His gift of belief by Mercy and Grace to the remnant elect, there we would all be, everyone of us.

So, who falls away and who holds fast to their faith in Jesus’ redeeming work and propitiation on our behalf to the end?  The people who give lip service to the gospel, but lack true believe: those will fall away.  The people who have received the gift of true faith in Christ’s redeeming work: those will persevere to the end, but not of their own doing.  It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that it is possible for anyone.

Now, look at verses 16-19.  Who were those who rebelled in the time of Moses?  Who were the ones who persevered and entered into His rest?  Verse 19 says: So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.  It’s right there in the text.  Belief is the criteria for boldly claiming the inheritance. 

In chapter 4, we are going to discuss this idea of His rest.

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Arminianism vs. Calvinism: The debate part two

Jacobus Arminius was a Dutch theologian from the end of the sixteenth century.  His remarks in a paper published after his death were highly critical of certain aspects of what was becoming the Calvinist doctrines in the Dutch Reformation.  The Synod of Dordt was convened to deal with the Arminian problem, and the resultant Canons of Dordt contain the Five points of Calvinism.  Interestingly enough, Arminius’ document is called the Five Articles of the Remonstrants.  Since I plan to discuss the full Canons of Dordt in the future, this particular discussion will center on Arminius’ work, and the direct Calvinist rebuttal, without diving into the full set of doctrines for either side.

While it would be perhaps easy to label Arminius a heretic, Luther thought it important that there be a distinction between being in error over a particular doctrine and being a heretic.  Even if, as in the case of Arminius, you follow his error to its logical conclusion, and that conclusion is a heresy, this is not the same as being a heretic.  This distinction is thought to be very important.  At the end of the discussion, I will come back to this point so as to come as close to an ecumenical position as can be made.

Having said that, the Synod of Dordt declared the Five Articles of Remonstrance heretical.  Remember first, that the Remonstrants were reacting to the Calvinist doctrines of the Belgic Confession.  Therefore, they already had the Calvinists in a foul mood by complaining.  Secondly, this is all happening in the shadow of Trent, which occurred fifty years prior to 1610, when these Articles were published.  Therefore, many of the Reformers were clearly not in the mood to give ground back to Rome on any issue.  And so, without further elaboration, let’s discuss the specifics.

Article 1

That God, by an eternal and unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ his Son, before the foundation of the world, hath determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, shall believe on this his son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through this grace, even to the end; and, on the other hand, to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath, and to condemn them as alienate from Christ, according to the word of the Gospel in John 3:36: “He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him,” and according to other passages of Scripture also.

Nice.  At first glance, this doesn’t look that bad.  But if you will remember the recent post that I made about “only” being an important word, look where that word is importantly missing from this article.  First, there are conditions applied here.  Whereas Calvin would say shall believe only, Arminius says believe and persevere in faith.  This is a dangerous precipice on which he has moved.  To persevere implies activity or work on the part of the individual.  While Calvin talks about perseverance of the saints in that Jesus will persevere in the shepherding of His flock, Arminius has turned this into individual humans persevering in their faith.  In other words, although he states that through grace we receive faith, it is by our own works that we maintain it. 

Article 2

That agreeably thereunto, Jesus Christ the Savior of the world, died for all men and for every man, so that he has obtained for them all, by his death on the cross, redemption and the forgiveness of sins; yet that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer, according to the word of the Gospel of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  And in the First Epistle of John 2:2: “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

More of the same.  We need to address the Article first and then 1 John 2:2.  Arminius specifically states that Christ died for every man.  This means that the resurrection is not sufficient for salvation for some men.  He requires a work from man.  He has turned belief and faith into a work, rather than a gift of grace received from the Holy Spirit.  Arminius actually contradicts himself from the first article.  The theological difference between Jesus having died for all men, but it wasn’t effective for some, and Jesus having died for His elect, and it was completely effective for them all, is huge.  Can you really worship a god who is ineffective in achieving his ends?  Or rather, do you believe that God accomplished exactly what He set out to accomplish?

1 John 2:2 is a huge passage.  When reading a verse that seems to say something out of step with the rest of the gospel, a good rule is to go back and put the verse back into context.  Look instead at the first paragraph of 1 John 2.  This looks a little different when you read the next four verses.  In the context of the whole letter, it is clear that there are schisms within the early church that John is addressing.  If Salvation was for everyone, much of the rest of this letter would not make any sense.  It makes far better sense that the phrase the sins of the whole world means that these Christians to whom John is writing are not the only Christians for whom the resurrection was effective.  The Christians in the whole world, both of that time and of all times, are the beneficiaries of the propitiation earned by the resurrection.  This is every much as vast and sweeping a statement in terms of numbers and future without compromising the rest of the letter or the Gospel.  Remember, any sentence removed from context is vulnerable to manipulation of its meaning.  This sentence makes perfect sense within its context in 1 John without attempting to apply meaning other than that which John intended.

Article 3

That man has not saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as he, in the state of apostasy and sin, can of an by himself neither think, will, nor do anything that is truly good (such as saving Faith eminently is); but that it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and renewed in understanding, inclination, or will, and all his powers, in order that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good, according to the Word of Christ, John 15:5, “Without me ye can do nothing.”

This one is interesting.  This is the idea of prevenient grace that you may hear about.  More on this is coming in the next article.  The Romans talk about the same thing in a slightly different way.  What is meant here is that fallen man needs a push.  The grace that saves sort of cleans the slate for you, but then you are on your own for the rest of your life.  So, we need Christ to teach us what is good, but after we are born again, we know what is right.  What this does is say that the curse of Adam is lifted in terms of the condition of sin, and yet we still suffer the wage of sin at death.  It is a truly remarkable contradiction for which no explanation is offered.  The only workable solution is that perfection is required to avoid death, but not for salvation.  I’m not finding any passages that make that work.

Article 4

That this grace of God is the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of all good, even to this extent, that the regenerate man himself, without prevenient or assisting, awakening, following and cooperative grace, can nei­ther think, will, nor do good, nor withstand any temptations to evil; so that all good deeds or movements, that can be conceived, must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. but respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible; inas­much as it is written con­cerning many, that they have resisted the Holy Ghost.  Acts 7 and else­where in many places.

This article that discusses prevenient grace again explicitly denies the doctrine of irresistible grace.  But that is logical to Arminius, isn’t it?  If you do not believe that Romans 3:1-20 means that man’s condition is completely hopeless without Jesus, and do believe that everyone is the beneficiary of the resurrection, then it makes sense that people have to be able to say NO to God.  This is exactly backwards from Calvin.  Calvin thinks that God sees the world as a vast graveyard, and then God stoops down and saves a lot of us.  Arminius thinks that God saves everyone, but we have the ability to turn our backs on God.  Which God sounds worthy of worship to you:  God who does exactly what He sets out to do and is completely effective doing it, or god who tries to save everyone, but many humans are able to resist and defy him?  This is a Holiness of God problem.  Surely, Arminius had a higher view of God that this.

Article 5

That those who are in­corporated into Christ by true faith, and have thereby become partakers of his life-giving Spirit, have thereby full power to strive against Satan, sin, the world, and their own flesh, and to win the victory; it being well un­derstood that it is ever through the assisting grace of the Holy Ghost; and that Jesus Christ assists them through his Spirit in all temptations, extends to them his hand, and if only they are ready for the conflict, and desire his help, and are not inactive, keeps them from falling, so that they, by no craft or power of Satan, can be misled nor plucked out of Christ’s hands, according to the Word of Christ, John 10:28: “Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” But whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginning of their life in Christ, of again returning to this present evil world, of turning away from the holy doctrine which was deliv­ered them, of losing a good conscience, of be­coming devoid of grace, that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scripture, be­fore we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our mind.

Clearly John 10:28 is a difficult passage for Arminius.  He tries to explain it away.  Essentially, he has to do great violence to the verse in order to make his theology fit.  A rule of thumb: theology flows out from the text; theology is not imposed upon the text.  Arminius is determined to elevate man to the level of God, with just a little hand up from God. 

This is what we are being sold in the church today.  Whenever we are asked to make a decision for God, we are being asked an Arminian question.  Calvin and Luther wouldn’t ask for altar calls because altar calls flow from either Arminian or, worse, Pelagian theology.  The style of worship is a necessary outflow from theology and doctrine.  When we change the way we worship, we are signaling a change in doctrine.  That should always get our attention.

Is Arminius a heretic?  He clearly errs.  The similarities to Pelagius are striking.  But Arminius maintains a small semblance of grace in his theology.  He at least requires Christ to wipe the slate of sin clean for us.  We are at liberty to muck it up again.  Finally, Arminius runs head long into John 10:28, by his own admission, and just tosses out the verse.  It is a difficult call, but many Calvinists would call many Arminians brothers in Christ.  That will break the tie for now.  In the end, it will not be us who decides.  We are not, after all, given the ministry of fruit inspection.

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Building Blocks: Calvinism: Perseverance of the Saints

Our fifth point of Calvinism for discussion is the Perseverance of the saints.  This is a doctrine that means that once a person is truly saved, they are God’s forever.  This doctrine begs a few questions.  First, what is the function of Baptism?  Next, when does justification occur?  How do you know that you are one of the elect?  What happens when a person turns away from God?  Was that person truly saved?  What if he was already Baptized?  These are all tough questions, but they need answers.

Baptism is the sacrament through which a person enters into covenant relationship with God.  This is the same as signing a contract.  You have no access to the benefits of the contract if you didn’t sign it.  The issues next become who has access to a contract for signing and what happens when a person breaks the contract?  Justification occurs when the elect person is Baptized, infant or adult, but Baptism does not confer justification.  You know that you are one of the elect, really, if you care about the answer to that question.  The reprobate probably doesn’t care about that question.  But that’s just a flippant answer.  The answer is that the elect believe in Christ’s redeeming work on the Cross as testified in Scripture.  The elect attempts to live in obedience to His will and struggles with sin, repents of this sin and receives Grace regularly by hearing the preached Word and receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

What about the person who is Baptized, but who is actually reprobate and turns from God?  Clearly this will happen.  Why is Baptism not 100% effective while the atonement was 100% effective?  The answer is simple.  Man will baptize whoever will receive the sacrament; but man does not know the movings of the Holy Spirit.  It is clearly possible that many will be baptized and not receive the Holy Spirit.  This leads to a dangerous place that Pentecostalism has clearly exploited, and that is the issue of the fruits of the spirit.

In this Calvinist model, it is important to understand the distinctions of category.  We have defined two types of reprobate and one type of Christian.  There is the reprobate who is never Baptized and also the one who is baptized, but never really believes.  The Pentecostal describes two types of reprobate and two types of Christian, because Pentecostals are Arminian on their best day and Pelagian on their worst.  The Holy Spirit does something different for the Pentecostal than reveal the truth of the Gospel concerning Christ Jesus.  The decision to be Christian for the Pentecostal is a self contribution, one that can be retracted at a later date.  The Holy Spirit is involved in other things besides the gathering of Christ’s elect to Him and the revelation of the truth of the Gospel to those elect.  This something extra that they argue is contributed by the Holy Spirit stratifies the Christian community into carnal and higher Christians, a demarcation that has no Biblical support.

Therefore, back to the Calvinism model, when a person is baptized but falls away from Christ after however many years, it is clear that the Holy Spirit did not give that person belief.  It is therefore possible to have a person attend church every week for their whole life and not ever receive the gift of belief from the Holy Spirit.  It is likewise possible for a person to be Baptized and believe in the truth of the scripture without attending a church since their Baptism.  This violates the scriptural mandate for the life of the believer to remain in community with other believers, but it is still possible.  The main issue here is that once the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth of the scripture to a person, God will not lose that person.  The truth will persevere in that person regardless.  That person remains a believer even if they appear to wander away from church for a time.  The Holy Spirit will gather them back to Christ before their death or the Last Day, whichever comes first.  That is the meaning of the perseverance of the saints.

The fruit of the spirit, then, is that a person cares about his sin and understands his imperfections while trying to obey the simplified mandate of the Law as given by Jesus: Love God and Love your neighber, as if that were easy.  The reprobate has no regard for his sin.  This does not mean that a believer is without sin, quite the contrary.  This means that a believer has great concern over his failure to be obedient to Christ.  This is not to say, in the mind of a Calvinist, that there is a fear over the loss of salvation over sin.  On the contrary, salvation is assured by his justification through the blood of Jesus.  But in his sanctification, as he struggles throughout life with the fact that his body, mind and soul are still currently under the curse of Adam, he recognizes that he falls short of the standard and repents of these sins and the condition of sin regularly and receives absolution for this sin.  This turning away from sin requires constant support and encouragement.  We receive Grace from the hearing of the Word and the Sacrament, but this is after repentance.  This is a minidrama of salvation that occurs regularly, to renew us in the Grace and Love of God.

One final question that is often asked is what happens if a believer dies with unconfessed sin in his life.  If a Calvinist is asked this question, there is a slam dunk easy answer.  Of course he will die with unconfessed sin.  We will die in the condition of sin.  It is unavoidable.  If our salvation was dependent upon our own perfection, we would be totally without hope.  Fortunately, this is not a problem.  Due to the propitiating, vicarious, penal sacrifice of Jesus, known as the Atonement, our Advocate Christ Jesus imputes His perfection to us and our sinfulness is imputed to Him.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit who gives us this belief, seals the deal on our salvation.  In this way, through the righteousness given to us through the blood of Jesus, we may approach judgment with confidence and certainty.  This is not the sin of arrogance.  The sin of arrogance is the sin of self righteousness.  Our righteousness is in the blood of Christ.  That is how we saints may persevere.

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