"You must learn of the sacraments!" they shouted to Christian from the sidelines of the Way that is straight and narrow

Of course one(CT or whoever) would think Winzer is FV if they are a baptist, because we who adopt infant baptism are seen as a type of Romanist no matter what our views on Regeneration/Justification are just because of our belief that baptism can further bless or further curse, baptism DOES SOMETHING in our view, which baptists totally disagree with and hate! CT should take a break from FV and get back to studying the sacraments...OOPS! I mean.."THE ORDINaNCES" :P

The Holy Spirit Himself is my teacher regarding what is symbolized by baptism and the so-called Lord's Supper. The Holy Spirit doesn't say it is about crackers and grape juice. Any more than you are supposed to actually eat Jesus' flesh. Jesus kind of disabused the apostles of that notion as Scripture tells us. Neither did the more bright Reformers like Zwingli and Calvin think it was about crackers and grape juice. The problem with the Reformers on this subject is they feared man more than God and taught what they knew to be shallow nonsense so as not to upset man in such a politically tense time.

Of course there's also more going on regarding 'sacraments.' For them to be so entrenched in Christian experience it has to be due to there being different levels of Christian experience (a subject establishment Christians suppress with the same vehemence they suppress any talk of spiritual warfare or the subject of regeneration by the word and the Spirit itself). The unregenerate, or the regenerate-though-shallow, who by constitution gravitate towards ritual, need their ritual sacraments. It's kind of funny that there are only two for them and one of them is a once and done experience. Actually one can make the case that they cling to the lone remaining 'sacrament' as a way to wash their hands of any necessity to make any effort at all in accumulating the Spirit and being in union with Christ (and of course their justification is it is not *our* effort, yet once regenerated you have *ability* to make efforts, pilgrim). Really, when seen in this light, the Christians who champion ritual sacraments are the most willfully delinquent Christians among us.

So what has the Holy Spirit taught me regarding the 'sacraments' (and did He talk to me audibly and in the King's English? ha ha, yes, it's always fun mocking the work of the Holy Spirit, isn't it, churchians?). Oh, that parenthetical aside is the 'mean' side of me. I'm trying to not be so brutal on this blog.

Well, it's a hard subject to approach, simply because it comes under the category of 'talking out of school.' And why are we not suppose to 'talk out of school'? For the same reason Scripture tells us not to cast pearls before swine.

So it's a hard subject to approach. I'm really left to approaching the subject by citing the rare instances where mainstream Reformed Theology touches on the subject. For instance, in Grudem's Systematic Theology he touches on the subject of baptism being an ongoing process and being about accumulating the Spirit. He does it mostly in a foot note, but it is there. It's kind of silly for me to have to cite Grudem, but there it is. As for the so-called Lord's Supper, that is a subject - regarding the deeper understanding of it - that Reformed Theology really avoids altogether. It wasn't a good start when the apostles themselves thought Jesus was talking about cannibalism. That is the revealed word of God kind of signaling to us that the deeper teaching is rare and not for everybody. Available to anybody, but not for everybody. Probably not mandatory for salvation either, but there is degree of reward in Heaven. (The word 'probably' doesn't even need to be in that last sentence.)

So, swine, if you ever begin to lose your desire to be swine, and you begin to value things of higher value than barely edible garbage and slop, just know that the higher teaching exists and is available to anyone with the will to seek it.

In 'be awake' and 'love your enemy' is a world of sophisticated mystical doctrine. Mystical in regards to the mystical union with Christ.

To find the practical teaching you need to begin to fear God more than you fear man. When you fear God alone you don't fear man. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

(And see this post:

http://electofgod.blogspot.com/2011/08/summit-vs-foundation.html

to make sure you don't go getting too crazy... Though you may have to get crazy for a league or two to get at what you need... Ironically to get to where you fear God alone you will seem like a rebel to all that people hold dear, though you will just be a rebel to the world and to the Devil and to your own inner fallen nature.)