Plain Path Christian, School of Geneva
Plain Path Christian. It's more biblical. School of Geneva. All the sacrament issues can be taken however one sees fit. As long as you don't believe in any stench of baptismal regeneration, which is pure death. Zwingli had it in understanding early on, then he kept thinking, and over-thinking, and confusing it all in conflicts taking it all out of context. Ending up Beast side. Here he is early on:
If someone is so strong that his assurance and certainty are independent of time, place, person and such like, then he has no need for sprinkling with water; but if he is a little stupid or thick-headed he needs some demonstration, so then that kind of believer is baptized because he is cleansed inwardly by faith in the same way as he is outwardly by water.
He thought water baptism was for those with weak faith and feeble minds. They needed it as assurance. So be it. More Zwingli:
“They are wrong, therefore, by the whole width of heaven who think that sacraments have any cleansing power.” and “This was a vain invention; as if, forsooth, when a man is wet with the water something happens in him which he could not possibly have known unless water had been poured over him at the same time!” and “It is clearly frivolous to teach that . . . the sacraments can remit sins or confer blessings.” and “Water-baptism cannot contribute in any way to the washing away of sin.” [From here.]
So just be a plain path Christian, school of Geneva, and find the practical level of the faith from there...
(I should state that what sets a plain path Christian apart is the valuation and moving towards and doing the practical level of the faith. Plain path in this sense is what the Puritans were about. Reducing to practice. Practical knowledge exists to guide one in this direction and at this level, but it has to be found, or, connected with. This is part of the process. A plain path Christian also reads the Word of God complete: once, three times, seven times. Men and devils mock this, without - and within - the visible church, and so be it. It is the foundation. It is what makes you serious. It is what the devil most doesn't want you doing. "Read those commentaries, boys! Read that Christian theory and philosophy! Anything...!" anything but that Word of God... The devil hates the Word of God because it regenerates God's own. The Word and the Spirit. And read it pure: AV1611...or NKJV if you must...all other versions are based on the devil's personal manuscripts...)
Born. I always wondered what I was. In terms of terminology. I'm a plain path Christian...
- Holy Bible, AV1611
- Institutes of the Christian Religion - Calvin
- Commentaries - Calvin
- Institutes of Elenctic Theology - Turretin
- Biblical Theology - Owen
- Economy of the Covenants - Witsius
- Westminster Standards
9 Comments:
Let's try and be plain, shall we?
The Sacraments are not the cause of the spiritual but rather the spiritual is manifested in the sacraments as a gift to the believer.
Perhaps its time we put Mr. Strawman back in the closet?
The core of the issue - the battle with the devil, if you will - when you hear this subject spoken about by myself (or a Zwingli as quoted above) is how the devil infiltrates the visible church.
Clericalism and sacramentalism are primarily how the devil defiles the visible church and keeps souls in the darkness.
Clerics who assert worldly power into God's domain by making of themselves mediators of God's grace via the rituals of the sacraments; then add to that the false teaching of baptismal regeneration which in so many ways keeps people in the power of darkness. One principle way being the devaluing of the effectual work of the Word and the Spirit in regeneration. Which usually gets to the point where the Word of God is actually mocked and worse (in the Roman Catholic domain it was actually outlawed upon punishment of torture and death).
As for the sacraments (I'll use that term if you want to) having anything to do with the mysteries of God grace and the communication of that grace I will just say: once you get past the false notions of rituals - teaching rituals, visual parables - being anything other than rituals then you will find that in the New Testament there is a wide and deep teaching regarding how one comes more into the presence (or is filled) with the Holy Spirit and how one comes into direct communion with God Himself. The two great commandments, prayer and fasting, watchfulness and mortification, etc... Sacraments are mysteries. See them, practice them, how you see fit.
But the main issue with this subject is not should one do the sacraments, however you see that, but will you allow the devil to use them to keep you in the dark.
And on this subject: give the devil an inch and he's got a mile...
Well, it seems that Mr. Strawman is at least partially burned but you put out the fire before you could be rid of him for good.
"Sacraments are mysteries."
ok, That's a start.
"As for the sacraments... having anything to do with the mysteries of God grace and the communication of that grace I will just say: once you get past the false notions of rituals -...being anything other than rituals then you will find that in the New Testament there is a wide and deep teaching regarding how one comes more into the presence (or is filled) with the Holy Spirit and how one comes into direct communion with God Himself."
Perhaps its just terminological difficulties but 'rituals' per se would not seem to be false especially since God instituted all sorts of rituals at various times in redemptive history. As to your hermeneutical heirarchy of appropriate rituals, (i.e. prayer, fasting, etc..), we are only left with assertions as to their relative importance versus that of sacraments and notionally susceptible to the same sort of devilish influences as sacraments.
Let's cut to the chase and find the ground reasons for your antipathy towards the Sacraments. The baptistic mindset is geared towards individualism and afraid of the peer issues of a strong corporate assembly. I do not deny this is an inherent problem in a strong corporate atomosphere. However, the overzealous emphasis upon individual subjective states outside a strong body leads towards all sorts of heresies (I'm not suggesting that you are such) as we see with so many bible cults and weird word-faith nonsense. Simply put, God generally works through the corporate body as a means to check the noetic effects of sin within individuals.
One strawman at a time, I suppose.
God works within individuals to regenerate and sanctifcy and your fears of noetic depravity are typical of a Christian who only thinks in terms of 'pre-regeneration'.
This would follow if you are a person who thinks rituals regenerate you. Even if you think that 'a little' it warps your approach to God and His Word.
Regeneration is effected, when it is effected, by the Word and the Spirit.
You want to be outer-directed (sensual) with rituals and church buildings, yet God doesn't work that way.
When I said sacraments are mysteries I wasn't lending one degree of legitimacy towards the visual parables of baptism and the Lord's supper doing anything other than be a dumb show for the senses (dumb show, i.e. visual show).
A point: my list of practices and things the New Testament talks about regarding connecting with and communing with God were not written in an intentionally hierarchical manner. They were just a list of some of those things put into a sentence.
The reason regenerate Christians are hardcore on this sacraments issue is simply because we know what regeneration is and how it is effected. We just know. Anybody can say whatever they want, or make whatever accusation they want, but we know. So when you or anybody attempts to give a ritual sacrament anything other than what it is, a visual parable, we will come down hard on you, because we know the devil asserts power in the visible church via clericalism and sacramentalism.
You can deny we know all you want, but you're dealing with elect of God, and we're not the type to back down to the Kingdom of Satan. We fear only God.
Did Calvin or the Puritans agree with your view of the sacraments?
Calvin and the Puritans both agree with my position that the false doctrin of baptismal regeneration is the stench of the devil within the visible church.
If you read what I say on sacraments it is this: see it however you see it. The Bible is not clear on things such as paedo vs. credo baptism. (I personally find the arguments against infant baptism rather strong - actually rather obviously strong - but so be it, others don't, for whatever reason.)
But if you hold to infant baptism or credo baptism because you think baptism regenerates you you are dead - literally dead - wrong.
As I wrote above, the main issue here is exposing the false - purely Satanic - doctrine of baptismal regeneration. This is worth dying for. Issues of mode of baptism or infant baptism, etc., are not.
When baptismal regeneration is pushed by the devil via his ministers in the visible church then clerics and rituals are exalted above the Word and the Spirit. It is Word and the Spirit that regenerates God's own. The devil knows this.
CT: If I ever teach a class on a postmodern deconstruction of Christianity , and I want an example of a reader-response approach to the creeds and Christian history....you are my poster :-) Seriously, do you feel any responsibility to the books and volumes of ink these people wrote that disagree with your particular take on the sacraments? You say, "they didn't believe in sacramental regeneration, etc" as if that puts them in your camp on the questions of what are the sacraments and what do they do? C'mon. Do I have to list the books by Puritans and Calvinists that contain not twenty words you could stand to read?
As you call me pomo, it appears to me you have, at the same time, adopted a reading of the Puritans and Calvin that no scholar anywhere would amen. (I know, they all are living blindly in the fear of men, etc. But ever Terretin, Berkhof and 99% of the WCF signers would find you wrong.
Why don't you just say they are wrong and you are right? I keep repeating this because, it's strange to see YOUR FEAR of being out there without the "Puritan" and "reformed" label, when you know darned well you couldn't be a teaching elder in any reformed church anywhere with your view of the visible church, the ministry or the sacraments. Yet, for some reason, you need to associate yourself with them.
Those of us who read you understand you clearly: You alone are correct about what Christianity is. Why not just say it? Quit trying to rework the Puritans and Calvin into your image.
On the Jordan essay: Sort of like being told you've invested all your stock in buggy whips, isn't it. ;-)
Have a good week. I'm travelling.
The difference between myself and you is you are taking man as authority and I am taking the Bible as authority. The Bible simply is not dogmatic on the issues of the sacraments (and church polity of that matter). These are areas man exploits to assert man's vain, worldly power into God's domain, so naturally man takes them dogmatically. You lose your power (clericalism, sacramentalism) if you don't take them dogmatically and if others don't take them dogmatically.
The puritans certainly did see these issues as I do (and as any Christian who disdains to give authority to man and not to the Word of God does).
A Christian who is on-the-mark on these issues doesn't necessarily believe as I do, but they do see the issues as not primary because the Bible doesn't make them primary. If they make them primary they are playing games, setting themselves up as authority over the Word of God.
Go with what the Bible says sometime...
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