I always thought he was. Still think so. And I’ve always been aware of the following passage:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
So I ask you. Are calvinists obligated to believe that when Paul wrote, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” that he really meant, “Now those of you who are truly regenerate are the body of Christ and individually members of it, but the rest of you aren’t because being baptized provides no assurance that you belong to the body of Christ.”?
If so, what is the practical difference between such a belief and just stating outright “Calvinists are the ones who know better than to believe the Bible.”?
I have to admit I’m completely lost about all this. Back when I became a calvinist it was because the calvinists were the only ones who took the Bible seriously. The calvinists were not the ones writing books on submission to human tradition as a safety procedure for avoiding errors to which the Bible allegedly leaves a reader vulnerable. We were not known for constantly coming up with really lame arguments to show how a bunch of passages don’t have any real weight for doing theology.
That kind of cowardice is brand new to me. How about you? When did the Reformed Churches become Cities of Refuge from Offending Scriptures? When did the calvinist mind shut down?
As for me and my house, we will always believe that Paul was an orthodox calvinist. And we will not live in fear.
Real Calvinists capitalize Calvinist.
Heretic.
😉
Oh, but Mark, don’t you see? This is talking about Spirit baptism, not water baptism.
Eh . . . ya got me. I concede. And in case you were wondering, my original comment was facetious. It is the standard objection that will be leveled against regarding references to baptism as “actually doing something.”
Mark,
Where Calvinism has moved, is not an accident, but is the necessary resolution of the incompatibility of “justification by faith alone” and “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” Something’s got to give. The sacramental has been supplanted by the subjective. The problem was at the foundations, not just an accident of history.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
And when Paul writes the entire Corinthian congregation that they are each members of the body of Christ?
The Council of Trent disagrees with you, Bryan:
Session 7, Canon 10. “If anyone says that by the sole remembrance and the faith of the baptism received, all sins committed after baptism are either remitted or made venial, let him be anathema.”
Thus Francis Turrettin:
Justification by faith alone for Protestestants consistently meant that baptism was sufficient and required no alleged other “sacraments” such as penance or confirmation to add to it.
Calvin on the false sacrament of confirmation is a typical example:
The American Evangelical madness was never the intent of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, and should not be blamed on it. John Williamson Nevin noticed the American aberration in his own day:
Baptism says one is justified and faith believes what baptism says. There is no conflict. Turettin was right: “saving faith is not excluded, but is coordinated with baptism as a divinely constituted means of our salvation.”
Mark,
If you thought something I said was incompatible with Trent 7 Can. 10, then you misunderstood me. Claiming that “justification by faith alone” means that baptism is sufficient, is either to claim that faith and baptism are synonyms (which they are not), or to violate the laws of logic. Because baptism is not identical to faith (but is rather the sacrament by which we receive faith), therefore, one cannot hold both that justification is by faith alone, and that baptism is sufficient, without contradicting oneself. Likewise, claiming that “Baptism says one is justified and faith believes what baptism says” creates the following dilemma: either baptism justifies us or it does not. If baptism justifies us, then we are not justified by faith alone. But if baptism does not justify us, then if “baptism says one is justified”, baptism lies. And in that case, if “faith believes what baptism says”, then the faith alone by which we are justified, if faith based on a lie.
Something’s got to give. And if one makes sola fide the doctrine by which the Church stands or falls, then what has to go, is “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” And that’s what has happened in Protestantism.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
The only thing that needs to give is your assignment of reality to the roles of A and not-A in order to arrive at your desired conclusion. Gordon Clark as a Roman Catholic is no more rational than Gordon Clark as a Protestant. Francis Turettin knows more of reason: