Historic Christianity 1: What we've learned in 500 years

I'll list what I think are the important items. Then, I'll list some of the thoughts of the leading reformers, where they contributed, and where they missed the mark.


1. The natural will is in bondage to sin
- Augustine
- Luther
- Calvin

2. Election originates from God
- same crowd as above
- and Aquinas too

3. All believers are priests and sprititual
- Luther

4. Limited Atonement
- In praxis, almost all of Christianity acts in
accordance with this.

5. Irresistible Grace
- Calvin
(tends to follow from #1)

6. Perseverance of the Saints
- Calvin
(tends to follow from #1)

7. 2 Ordinances only
- Zwingli, contra Luther

8. Baptism & Lord's Supper are not Salvific
- Zwingli said they're not Sacramental
- Luther and Calvin
- "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me"

9. Hymns are good and instructional
- Luther
- contra Zwingli

10. Baptism relates a believer to a local community of believers
- Anabaptists
- contra historical "replacement theology" (i.e. everyone else)

11. Separation of church and state
- Anabaptists
- contra historical "replacement theology" (i.e. everyone else)

12. Freedom of religion
- Anabaptists
- contra historical "replacement theology" (i.e. everyone else)

13. Jesus is not merely a rabbi; he's a Moses
- prophet
- lawgiver
- replaces and updates the decalogue
- authority supersedes Moses'
- The children of Abraham are noted by their belief and trust in Messiah's promises. Just as messiah is the reality where Moses is the type, just so God's fulfillment of his promises is in the church.




Luther
1 - fallen human beings are in willing servitude to sin.
2 - the believer is justified by God's saving righteousness.
3 - the believer is a member of a holy priesthood.

Human beings are prone to legalism.

God's righteousness in Romans 1:17 is not about his judging righteousness,
but rather it is about his saving righteousness.

"Works of the law" (Rom. 3:20, 28; Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10) refers to the whole law,
both ceremonial and moral. This is the crux of Paul's argument against Judaizers: they trusted in their own works and goodness.

Fallen human beings are in *willing* servitude to sin. By nature we choose to sin,
and by nature we never choose to believe. (This is supported by the opposite promise made in Jeremiah, and Jesus' comment about physicians healing themselves - why promise a new heart if you don't need one?).

Divine election is closely related to justification. Romans 11:5-6.

Priesthood of the Believer.

Calvin
TULIP

In Calvin's Geneva, the church ran the state, and killed dissidents.

A worthy statement: "man cannot deserve heaven by his actions but rather has to accept salvation as an undeserved gift of God's mercy and love"

Here is the crux of Calvin's argument: "We know that God always acts in justice. How
that justice works is beyond our sight in this life."

In the covenant of grace, the Father chose a people, Christ promised to die for them,
and the Spirit pledged Himself to apply salvation to their hearts.

Limited atonement is a necessary position with full support of the Bible. There are
perceived tension points, but much less so than the opposite position. It is supported by Paul's concept of the Bondage of the Will (Luther) and Election. So "all" refers to "all those the Father has given Me" and also may be a shorthand for the Gentiles. Note that the parable of the Sheep and the Goats appears to also support a Limited Atonement. So thus "world" in John 3:16-17 means unregenerate believers scattered abroad among the Gentile nations as well as among the Jews. John was a Hebrew gospel, and the first Christians were Jews. They knew that "world" meant there was no more "us" vs "them". John 15:18-19. In 2 Peter 3:9, the key word is "wish" [boulomai]. It means God's "desiderative" will, rather than his resolve. Similarly 1 Tim 2:4-5 [yelei].

Zwingli vs Everyone
In Zwingli's Switzerland, the state ran the church, and killed dissidents.

Zwingli ditched the 5 spurious sacraments, stripped the 2 remaining sacraments from any mystical properties, and threw out all hymns.

To Zwingli, all sacraments were merely external signs, attestations by the faithful, but without any sacral or supernatural characteristics.

Zwingli decided that the Lord's Supper was only a commemoration; no other reformer would go that far; not Calvin, and Luther was closest to the Catholic position.

Zwingli figured thst baptism did not wash away sins; rather, it was a community act of accepting someone into the Church. Therefore it didn't matter whether it was done in infancy or adulthood. [Rob-Tyro: He forgot that baptism is the sign of the believer's belief]


...But while Luther accepted everything in church tradition that was not explicitly contrary to the scriptures, Zwingli interpreted Luther's principle sola scriptura
[only the biblical writings (not the tradition of the church)] strictly: Zwingli said that every ritual not explicitly mentioned in the Bible should be abolished, and so he did with five of the seven sacraments - only Baptism and the Lord's Supper were kept up in Switzerland's Reformed Churches. While Luther wrote himself dozens of hymns to transport the protestant convictions into the hearts of believers, the Swiss churches regarded hymns as unscriptural and provided metrical translations of the Psalms instead.

[Rob-Tyro: What is the purpose of a tradition? How do we measure a tradition against the gospel? As a protestant I believe that hymns are powerful teaching tools, especially in our denominations which lack a catechism. But I also believe that there are only two ordinances.]

Still more controversial was the interpretation of the Lord's Supper: Both Luther and
Zwingli agreed that the catholic mass was a source of much popular superstition and both wished to eliminate the notion of sacrifice (as if the church could contribute anything to salvation) as completely contrary to the reformed principle of sola gratia [all salvation due to God's grace alone]. But while Luther, being a pious man aware of his roots on the countryside, still belived in the mysterious real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, Zwingli as an intellectual sharply distinguished the material from the spiritual and was horrified of the idea that "physical objects might be the vehicles of spiritual gifts." (Chadwick, Reformation, p. 79).


Anabaptists vs Zwingli
They returned us to believer's baptism. Zwingli didn't buy it.

They also championed the separation of church and state, and the freedom of religion -- both are twined together.  Zwingli didn't buy that, either. Neither did Calvin. They proceeded to set up little theocracies, just like the English. Even the Puritans fell into that trap.

They rejected conventional Christian practices, such as wearing wedding rings, taking oaths, and participating in civil government. They adhered to a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and Believer's Baptism [credobaptism].

Regarding a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. Can we all agree that Jesus used hyperbole as a teaching tool? And can we all agree that, after talking about plucking out eyes, that the Bible doesn't mention that people started plucking out their eyes, and in fact they understood perfectly well that He was using a figure of speech to impress a teaching into peoples' minds??