I am mentally handicapped so any suggestion such people are unable to understand the Gospel is directly from SATAN! You break the rules by claiming I am not a Christian if you think being mentally ill prevents a person from understanding Christ.
That wasn't the claim being made.
Rather, that by insisting that only people of a certain mental accuity are able to have faith, then the implication is that people with certain mental disabilities would somehow be unable to have faith.
Those of us from traditional Christian backgrounds utterly reject the idea that faith depends upon a person's mental accuity or intellect; instead confessing our belief in God's grace and that salvation is a work of grace. That is why we baptize infants, because the word and promises of God as contained in His Gospel, His gracious work of salvation, is for
everyone.
God doesn't require that we come to Him under our own power; rather God is the One who comes down, God comes to us, He meets us. He meets us through His Word and Sacraments, to give us Himself freely.
The preaching of the Gospel isn't an exercise in rhetoric, but the bold proclamation and declaration of God's love for the world and the victory of God in Christ for the world; it is not empty words, but the power of God to save (Romans 1:17-18), for this precious, holy, and indelible word of God is the very cause of our faith (Romans 10:17). Where this word is preached, where the Gospel is proclaimed, it is not the power of men, the eloquence, philosophy, or vane rhetoric of men at work--
it is God at work. It is not I who bring faith to the unbelieving, but God who through His word affects change, bringing faith, turning the dead and lost into living sons and daughters of God.
Whether it be an infant or an old man, whether it be the uneducated or the philosopher-sage, whether it be the most simple or the most sublime--all men stand the same under the Law, are sinners; and it is to such as these--sinners--to whom God is Savior; to these is the word preached, to these does God come down to meet through these simple, precious gifts of Word and Sacrament. It was for this very reason that Christ founded His Church, sent His apostles, and gave charge to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to preach forgiveness in His name, to proclaim His Gospel to every living creature.
By insisting that there are obstacles that must be overcome through our own efforts to reach God we pervert the simple and pure Gospel; we deny the grace of God, and we insist upon our own efforts. Salvation is not an obstacle that we need to achieve, it is the gracious, loving working of God upon sinners accomplished by Christ and granted to us as grace through the simple Means which He Himself has given. To preach the Gospel, to baptize, etc.
So that any one who is baptized is, indeed, an heir of faith, an heir of God, joint-heir with Christ, and member of the mystical Body of Christ, that is, His Church. She or he has salvation here, because Christ is their Savior, because He is the One saving them.
-CryptoLutheran
