Sovereign Grace and Benji

Benji

Well, there he is, Lil Benji.  God’s gift one again . . . we have a precious daughter and now a son.  God’s proof of sovereign grace is in infant baptism.  How’s that?  Well, a baby that cannot save itself, much less baptise itself, cannot defend itself, is by the grace of the parents brought before the congregation and the minister and made a member of the visible church by being graciously brought through the waters of baptism–something it did not choose to do of his own free will, because, well, he can’t.  He doesn’t have the ability.  Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65).  So, too, infants presented to the mercies of God on the promise alone that the gift salvation of salvation belongs to children (Acts 2:39) and God determines into what families children are born (Acts 17).

So too, God the Holy Spirit takes whomever he may choose when we were dead in sin and unable to respond to God, helpless and lost–he takes us in mercy, gives us life and changes our hearts.  He presents us to God the Father, washed by the blood of God the Son, having given us the gifts of faith, belief and repentence.  Indeed, he saves us when are incapable of saving ourselves.  Soli Deo Gloria.

 

Covenant Objectivity

I recently wandered into the local Catholic church for prayer; it was about mid-day and I was driving by.  I had the desire to go inside the beautiful church (Protestants are aesthetically challenged with our multi-purpose buildings, and coffee shops to boot; indeed, nothing about our houses of faith even resemble a church . . . I digress).  So I did.  I crossed myself out of respect, a rite even Luther employed, and sat down and prayed.  It was quiet in the massive ediface.  The statuary was immaculate–pardon the pun.  Yes, I know, someone will easily dismiss them as idols, but I don’t want to grace that ahistorical argument.  Anyhoo, while there, I took a gander through the prayerbook and there was an interesting affirmation of non-Catholic Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ, but separated because of impure worship.  Rome believes (and every one of us carry our theological snobbery into these discussions with our claims to exclusivity) that the Protestants because of a lack of apostolic succession do not possess the true Eucharist.  They acknowledge a common objective baptism, but not true Communion. 

I don’t hold that aaginst the Holy Father, Benedict XVI and His flock, we presbyterians would quickly awash his entire herd into the lowest part of hell claiming along with the Arminians that they cannot be saved precisely becuase they do not frame sola fide the same was the Synod of Dort.  The fact is as Rome’s subtle trajectory about Baptism is evident, they are justified because sola fide is true; we are not justified for having a right cerebral understanding of sola fide.  In essence, there will be plenty of presbyterians in hell, just like there will be plenty of the Roman stock in hell as well (only after a brief stint in purgatory obviously . . .).