The Reformed say they are Pauline until someone bothers to confront them with Paul
The agenda of the FV school of thought is to talk about the things God talks about in the way God talks about them. I remember conversing a couple of years ago with someone of substantial theological pedigree who objected to my statement that we are joined to Christ through baptism. My interlocutor insisted that baptism was a sign and seal of the covenant and not a means by which we are united to Christ. I found this statement analogous to insisting that my minivan is a Ford and not a Windstar. What really floored him, though, was my use of the prepositional phrase, “through baptism.” He seemed to think that nothing happens “through baptism” and that I should excise that formulation from my theological speech.
I tried to explain to him that I attributed no inherent power to baptism, but wanted to be faithful to the Bible’s way of speaking about baptism. Paul says in Romans 6:4: “We were therefore buried with Christ through baptism (dia tou baptismatos) into death.”
read the rest at Episcopos: Excursus on Baptism.
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December 9th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I think this stems from the veracious anti-catholic fervor that still exist among many protestants. It isn’t enough to disagree with Catholics or to point out the fallacy in their theology, but we protestants tend to try and distance ourselves so far from them that we’ve distanced ourselves from the valid and biblical underpinnings of their theological errors.
In this case, many have failed to make the distinction between the visible and physical act of baptism and the invisible and spiritual act of baptism by the holy spirit. How more can we be joined to Christ than through the union of the Holy Spirit?
December 9th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
How come it’s okay to say that things happen “through” other means of grace, then? Conversion doesn’t happen “through preaching?” God doesn’t hear and respond to us “through prayer?” REALLY?
There’s making your distinctions carefully, and then there’s venturing into incoherence in your objections to someone else’s way of making them.