Reformed is not Enough - part IV: More on Sacraments and Unity

After several months gap, I’m continuing my reading of Reformed is not Enough. In three previous posts (part I, part II and part III) I have been quoting some of my favourite excerpts. Now that I’m reading again, it’s time to start quoting again…

Baptism really does something to the person who is baptised. But let’s be quite clear:

“We reject the Roman Catholic notion that saving grace goes in when the waters go on. We deny any ex opere operate efficacy to the waters of baptism. We also deny the modern Protestant reductionism that says that when the water goes on, somebody gets wet.

“In one sense, it is true that if you baptise an unrepentant pagan, you get a wet pagan. But it is the thesis of this book that far more happens than this. When you baptise an unrepentant pagan, what you actually get is a covenant-breaker. His baptism now obligates him to live a life of repentance, love and trust, which he is refusing to do.” (page 99)

So why does the Bible speak of baptism saving somone (1 Peter 3), forgiving sin (Acts 2, 22) and so on? Because of the union between the sign and the thing signified which means it is appropriate to speak of one in terms of the other. There are two ways to break that union:

“Consequently the analogy of faith requires us to say that water baptism without saving faith is worse than useless. The bare formalist attempts to bring about a divorce between sign and thing signified is guilty of a very great sin. What God has joined together no man should dare to separate.

“But a similar warning must go to the devotional pietist, the one who would be wiser in his speech than God has chosen to be in his holy Word. He also wants a divorce between sign and thing signified. He says that we must never say that baptism saves or washes away sin, because blockhead believers will always get the wrong idea and think they can go to Heaven by taking a bath.” (pages 102-103)

When it comes to church unity, we need to distinguish between standards for leadership and standards for discipleship. Or between what you may teach, and what you need to believe just to be a Christian.

“When we fight over false teaching in the pulpit, we have to remember that to say that a certain man is not qualified to teach the Word is not the same thing as saying he is not a Christian. Put another way, defrocking is not excommunication. We need to define from the Scriptures the standards of leadership (which means raising the standard, and fighting more) and also define from the Scriptures the standards of fellowship (which means broadening the standard, and fighting less). Our central concern in our fight for reformation involves who ascends to the pulpit, and not who ascends to heaven.” (Page 118)