Our request is not asked from a lack of charity but with a desire to preserve it. Neither denominational loyalties nor personal vendettas are at issue. The issue is that the classical dogmatic systems of reformed theology and our reformed confessions are not arbitrary list of ideas that are more or less biblical. It is rather that our confessions embody patterns of teaching that are lifted from Scripture and are carefully correlated in ways that interpret the whole of Christian existence at every point.
So the famed five points have never been solely or even primarily the basis for identifying one as holding reformed faith. In a confessionally reformed denomination such as the one in which this member is deeply privileged to be an elder, this would never be disputed. The reason is that it is a virtual truism in such churches that the Canons do not stand by themselves as THE confession of the church. The Canons were a confessional latecomer; they exist to clarify disputed points in the full confession of reformed faith as set forth in the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic and the Scots Confessions of Faith, the Heidelberger, Geneva Catechism and other such statements.
In reformed faith, sacraments relate closely to the temporal administration of grace, to the way that God deals with his people, and establishes and maintains his church. The sacraments relate to our view of Gods peoples in two testaments and our hermeneutical approach to the Scriptures. They relate to our philosophy of ministry, to our practice of specifically reformed spirituality, and to our view of the believers relationship to the world. They certainly relate to eschatology. We have debated this with Seedy already. Baptism and the Lords Supper as mere ordinances represent a theology that is alien to the reformed interpretation of our Christian faith. If this is not grasped, we will soon be fighting the same philosophical battle on these and other fields not here named over and over and over again. The discussion of reformed distinctives will seem uncharitable, and the board will become "reformed" in name only. You can learn this now or later. We prefer now.
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (4-1-9), John Calvin wrote:
It is important to understand that this is no idiosyncrasy of Calvins. When they address the marks of the church, the confessions that the reformers framed concur with Calvin that the sacramentsincluding infant baptismis a necessary mark without which there can be and is no true church.
The Second Helvetic Confession in Chapter 20 on Holy Baptism states:
The Confession of Rochelle (also called the Gallican Confession) states in Article 28:
To that, we must add Article 35 as it states:
The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 29 on "The Marks of the True Church, and Wherein it Differs from the False Church" also teaches this doctrine. It says:
Beside this we place the words of Belgic Confession, Article 34 "Holy Baptism." It says that as
John Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Wolfgang Musculus, other reformers plus their confessions concur that without baptism (including infant baptism), no true church exists. How is antipadeobaptism compatible with reformed theology when the 16th century magisterial reformers and the confessions that they bequeathed to us indicate that the absence of baptism (including infant baptism) is a mark of the false church? Will we have our confessions or not?
Without being uncharitable, hard questions must sometimes be asked. If antipadeobaptic posts may stand, can we reply with the words of our own confessionsthat religious bodies refusing to administer the sacrament are not true churches at all, but are false churches, that they are sects which mistakenly take to themselves the name "church?" Can we affirm our confessions as they despise the error of those who condemn the baptism of the infants of believers? Can we declare with our confessions that such churches refuse to submit themselves to the yoke of Christ?
This member does not care to be put in the position of having to say such things. But if we cannot speak the words of our own confessions that the reformers themselves bequeathed to us, in what sense is the board devoted to the reformed confessional system? Will we be allowed to speak the conviction of our confessions in good faith or not? Can we be confessionally reformed on all the points of our confession or not?
That members with eclectic beliefs be invited to post both on the baptistic and reformed boards on the basis of theological affinity is more than equitable. Whereas a soteriological board already exists, that suggestion is extremely generous. There is also a newly formed board for baptistic distinctives, issues and concerns. Antipadeobaptist posts belong there.
We will not negotiate our reformed confessions our ecclesiology. The question is called.
We call for a moderator ruling.
Blessings!
Covenant Heart
