Stay on the Rails Grasshopper

I was in a couple discussions on facebook this morning (actually, I still am participating in them) and a couple of the following statements popped up.

"the sacraments are a true means of grace applied by the Spirit to the elect only. many were circumcised that received no grace. many are baptized that are still without the grace of God." ~Facebook User

"The offspring of believers are born holy, because their children, while yet in the womb, before they breathe the vital air, have been adopted into the covenant of eternal life. Nor are they brought into the Church by baptism on any other ground than because they belong to the body of the Church before they were born. He who admits aliens to baptism profanes it, for how can it be lawful to confer the badge of Christ on aliens from Christ?... Baptism must therefore be preceded by the gift of adoption, which is not the cause of half salvation merely, but gives salvation entire, and this salvation is afterward ratified by baptism." ~John Calvin (Refutation of the 'Adultero-German Interim Declaration' on the True Method of Reforming the Church)

Here is where Reformed Theology goes off the rails in their Sacramentology. In essence, presuppositions and Covenant Theology ends up getting in the way of very clear Scriptures.

I'll address the facebook comment first, then Calvin. The problems with the first statement are numerous. The first problem is obvious: Where does Scripture *ever* use the sort of language that the Sacraments are means of grace applied only to the elect? Does this mean that the Sacraments are only means of grace insofar as a person's election is concerned? Does this mean that the Sacraments are not means of grace for all the persons who are baptized but not elect? In Reformed Theology the answer is yes to both of these questions. This betrays an overarching hermeneutic and first premise of doing theology that taints the Reformed interpretation of certain passages.

Basically, if "x" then therefore "y" must be true. The problem is that in practice, this equates to, "if unconditional election is true and the P in the TULIP is true, then Baptism and the Eucharist are only gracious for those people alone." But where is this in Scripture? Likewise, how can we ever have any objective assurance from the Sacraments if this is the case? So much for divine promise in the Sacraments. Once again, a person ends up being forced to look inwardly at himself to have assurance of salvation and election.

The second part of the statement is misguided as well because it once again assumes the same presuppositions. Again, where does Scripture ever say that there are numerous baptized persons who never received the grace of God? It doesn't say that anywhere. Now, it certainly is true that many baptized persons fall away and are lost. But this does not mean they never received the grace of God, especially since we are talking about a Holy Scripture that gives warning after warning of people falling away from the faith.

Ultimately, the whole statement ends up being an assumption based solely on the Reformed view of election and perseverance. But the statement is not Scriptural.

Calvin's statement is worth addressing as well. Read Calvin closely. He is essentially pitching a stance known in Reformed circles as "presumptive regeneration." In other words, Calvin is saying that they baptize infants *because they're already regenerate.* In short, your children are already saved, that's why they baptize them.

This is nothing more than Baptist Theology wearing a black Geneva gown. Calvin would have you believe that Baptism is only to be administered to regenerate persons. How much different is this than Baptist Theology? Not much. No wonder Lutherans have historically referred to the Reformed as sacramentarians (anti-Sacramental).

The much larger problem is that Calvin directly contradicts Scripture. In a Holy Scripture where it repeatedly insists that it is Baptism itself that buries us and raises us in faith with Christ (Ro 6:3-4, Col 2:12, Gal 3:27, etc), saves us (1Pe 3:21), and regenerates us (Ti 3:5), Calvin would have us believe the direct opposite. That is, we are baptized because we are already buried and raised with Christ.

And contradicting Scripture is indeed a massive problem.

+Pax+