My good friend Joe Young (who recent wrote a guest piece here about the Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus video) has started his own blog: Cage Free Calvinist. Go over and have a look. He's only got a couple of posts up, so far, but I'm guessing we'll see lots of commentary on philosophy, politics, religion, and the nature of discourse. Plus, he's a regular guest on the Apologetics.com Radio show, so I'm sure there will be posts related to the topics he discusses there.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Joe! You are now part of the problem!
Calvinistic Baptists have more in common with Lutherans on the Doctrine of Justification/Salvation than they do with their Arminian Baptist brethren.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the conversion of an adult non-believer, Arminians, Calvinists and Lutherans are in full agreement: salvation occurs when the sinner believes. Baptism is not a mandatory requirement to be saved. We have theological differences on how belief occurs, but we all believe that the second a sinner believes he is saved. If he dies a second later, he will go to heaven. He is a Christian.
Our significant denominational differences arise when we talk about the salvation of the infants and toddlers of Christian parents: how are these young children saved? What happens if, God forbid, one of them should die before reaching the age where they are capable of expressing a saving faith in Christ?
The Arminian answer is this: God saves all infants and toddlers who die, even the infants and toddlers of non-believers. They have no hard proof from Scripture to support this belief, but they believe that King David's comments about his dead infant gives them support for their position. Infants who die are "safe" in the arms of a loving God.
Calvinists look at their children in this manner: Their children are either the Elect or they are not. Presbyterian Calvinists will baptize their infants to bring them into the "covenant" (whatever that is!) of the Church but do not believe that baptism has any salvific value. "If my child is of the Elect he will declare himself to be a believer when he is older."
A Calvinistic Baptist will not baptize his infant, but looks at Election in the same way as the Presbyterian Calvinist: My child is either of the Elect or he is not. There is nothing I can do but bring him up in the Faith and leave the rest to God.
Lutherans believe that when God told us to baptize all nations, he meant to baptize ALL those who are of the Elect. Many Arminians and Calvinists assume that Lutherans believe that anyone we run through the baptismal font will get into heaven. Not true! Only the Elect will get into heaven. We baptize our infants in the HOPE that they are the Elect. Is it possible that some of the infants of Christian parents whom we baptize are not of the Elect and therefore will not be in heaven? Yes! But that is a mystery of God that we do not attempt to explain or understand.
However, we believe we are to do our job of "baptizing all nations" (who are of the Elect) by baptizing our infants and we then leave their Election up to God. We then follow Christ's command to "teach" them in the Faith as they grow up, but when they are older it will be their responsibility to nurture their faith with prayer, Bible study, worship, and the Lord's Supper. If these infant-baptized persons abandon their faith and turn their back on God, they may very well wake up one day in hell! Baptism is NOT a "Get-into-heaven-free" card! Salvation is by God's grace alone, received in faith alone.
No faith--->no salvation--->no eternal life!
The Calvinist position on the salvation of infants is very confusing to me…
discussion continued at:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2013/07/calvinistic-baptists-have-more-in.html