Regulative Principle of Worship

Assignment:
A response paper of 6-7 pages on the topic of student presentations (“God’s revelation defines Christian worship as it does Christian doctrine” – pro and con).

The goal of the response paper is for the student to interact critically with the primary source material. The student must consider carefully and fairly both sides of a debated issue before coming to a conclusion. The response paper must include footnotes and a brief bibliography.

Discuss Murray’s view of the import of baptism.

Baptism is important to the family of God because it is to be our initiation into this family. God communicates this familial relationship through his covenant promises and covenant blessings. Baptism is the sign and seal of being engrafted into the covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, just as Abraham and his descendants were engrafted into the covenant relationship with Yahweh by circumcision.

When God gave this promise to Abraham, he sealed it with a sign of shed blood which symbolized the cutting off of sin and thus making one pure. The New Covenant realization of that purity is found in the washing away of sin by baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28: 19). Because the former sign pointed to Christ on the cross and the new sign points us back to the promise given to Abraham to “increase your numbers” (Gen 17: 2), we are able to see that this is a more perfect sign. The sign of baptism breaks open the watershed event that is the cleansing of God’s people by offering it to more than just Jewish males, but now to the woman and to the Gentile. This makes baptism vital to the modern church as she seeks to bring the message of salvation to the world.

It is that message of salvation that baptism conveys in the seemingly simple sign of washing. This is a symbol of God’s mercy, his act of propitiation that makes an unclean, unrighteous people the sons and daughters of the living God. The importance of baptism is the gospel message it conveys to us so clearly that our sins are covered and Christ’s righteousness is placed upon us. This is the nature of union with Christ, that we are in him and he is in us.

Baptism is the sign and seal of this covenant promise for salvation in Christ alone. The importance of that comes into even clearer focus as we realize that in God’s keeping of his covenant promises there is no guarantee of covenant blessing. This blessing is only for those that have been called out before the foundations of the world to bear the name of Jesus Christ on their hearts. For those individuals their baptism is a constant reminder of their being set apart from the world, that their baptism was made effectual by faith alone and by their enjoyment of God’s covenant blessings. However, for those that do not receive their baptism by faith they are reaping the grave consequences of God’s covenant cursing. This is why baptism is so important and why teaching children and adults the reality of God’s promises as realized in this sign and seal thereof upon their heart is vital to their souls.

“When Jesus broke the bread and said ‘This is my body,’ he surely was not saying that in giving it, he was distributing his flesh.”...

“When Jesus broke the bread and said ‘This is my body,’ he surely was not saying that in giving it, he was distributing his flesh.” (Clowney, p. 289) What was he saying and what does the action of eating and drinking mean?

Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are a New Testament fulfillment of the promise given to the Israelites in Egypt, when they were given the promise of salvation through the Passover Lamb. Jesus was telling his disciples that he was about to become their Passover Lamb and that the hour had finally arrived for him to begin his journey towards the completed work on the cross. He was showing them a picture, an illustration of a reality they were about to experience and he was preparing them to witness God’s judgment. Just as Moses prepared God’s covenant people by giving them instructions for the coming judgment and a way towards salvation, so Christ was preparing his disciples and even us now for a still future judgment to come.

Here again we have the gospel given to us in a very particular way. It is proclaiming a single act of judgment poured out once and for all on Jesus Christ and in his words of institution, “do this remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24) an ongoing process of salvation or sanctification that is to be done all our lives. That is what eating and drinking means to the saved sinner, that Jesus Christ is actively sanctifying us and providing nourishment for our soul. He is promising us a continual communion with him in the body of Christ, in the covenant relationship he has established and he is pointing us towards the ultimate wedding feast we are to enjoy with him in glory.

Zwingli, Luther and Calvin had different views of the meaning of Jesus’ words “this is my body.”...

Zwingli, Luther and Calvin had different views of the meaning of Jesus’ words “this is my body.” How were their views related to their respective views of Christ (be specific)?

As we examined in class that our sacramentlogy is closely related to our Christology, so we see how we view the God-Son will shape how we view the sacraments. For Zwingli the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was a real absence of Jesus Christ and a memorial of what the historical Jesus Christ had done.

Luther held a view that Jesus Christ’s humanity and divinity took on properties of one another, so that in glorification the physical body of Jesus Christ could take on the divine properties. This led specifically to Luther’s view of the Lord’s Supper that while not transubstantiation was viewed as consubstantiation. This meant that while he didn’t believe that the priest’s actions are what made the bread and wine the physical body and blood of Christ, but that it was God’s grace that brought the physical body and blood into the elements. This opens the door for a Roman Catholic view of grace that would be undoing the very justification that Luther preached. It also shows us a Jesus Christ who could not be fully human anymore and thus could not pay the penalty for our sins.

Calvin however, believed in a God-Son who had the divinity engrafted into a divine person and a humanity that was engrafted into a divine person. This view allows for Jesus Christ to be both fully God, divine and having all the attributes of God and to be fully human, physical, confined to this world, to a body and to be just like us. The personhood of Jesus Christ is what allows him to pay the penalty for our sins and this is what the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is to call us to remember. That the wrath of God was poured out into the broken body and the shedding of blood, like the Passover Lamb, provides salvation for all who partake in a worthy manner. This reality is what allows Calvin to say that there is a spiritually real presence in the sacrament as we partake because Luther’s fleshly eating and Zwingli’s absent sacrament both deny the divine personhood of Jesus Christ.

Discuss Poythress’ position on “indifferentism and rigorism” and their relation to baptizing small children.

Poythress argued for a view that allowed for earlier and earlier baptism through his articles in an attempt to bring the credo-baptist view or one who believes in believers’ baptism to a padeo-baptist view or one who believes in infant baptism. He slowly moves his reader from one to the other.

The indifferentism view Poythress takes is to define a person who believes in infant baptism erroneously. This is a view that we baptize and forget about it, that once a person receives this sign and seal of union with Christ that they are automatically saved and regeneration is assumed. The fatal error here is that there is no real reason for the person to remain living a life that seeks after Christ and their lives will not be marked by true faith in Christ, but in a baptism that ultimately condemns them to a covenant cursing. Since the covenant blessing of baptism is salvation, is ever-lasting life, is union with Christ, then we can not be indifferent by showing our lack of concern for this amazing gift of grace.

Unfortunately, many have strayed too far into the other direction and shown a legalistic view of baptism that would only allow baptism when regeneration can be proven. The heart of this view is attempting to prevent the covenant cursing and to take faithfully the charge of the church to keep the keys of heaven, but it does so at grave peril to what baptism actually stands for and against. The rigorist view wants absolute assurance of regeneration, of saving faith, so that only those who show it can be a part of the visible church by proving their membership to the invisible church.

However; Jesus Christ himself commands that baptism should be a perpetual action of the church as they make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18). Every family that is a part of the covenant has children that they are raising as disciples of Christ and thus these children should be baptized. And the Apostles of Christ follow this command in practice when Peter proclaims baptism for the forgiveness of sins as a sign for those that believed and their children (Acts 2: 38-39). We cannot afford to be indifferent, callous, uncaring, and slothful regarding baptism in the covenant family and in our own lives; nor can we afford to be rigoristic and legalistic, fencing the covenant community beyond what Christ and scripture allows. By baptizing small children we are showing the continuity of the Old Testament church with the New Testament church and we are shining the light of the gospel into the hearts of those participating in our communion and those watching our familial relationship with God and one another in the body of Christ.

Related Articles:
Indifferentism and Rigorism in the Church: With Implications for Baptizing Small Children
Linking Small Children With Infants in the Theology of Baptizing

Briefly explain: signa nuda, ex opere operato...

Briefly explain: signa nuda, ex opere operato, “sacramental relation,” “visible words,” Protestant idea of grace/Roman Catholic idea of grace, “the efficacy of the sacraments is by faith alone.”

The view that “signa nuda, ex opera operato” is the Roman Catholic point of departure with the Protestant church on the sacraments. Roman Catholics believe that a view of the sacraments that is unlike theirs essentially signifies nothing because to their view it is the works worked, or the performance of the Church in administering the sacrament that bestows grace, that brings about the fulfillment of the sign and seal that the sacrament is meant to be. This view is in line with a works based righteousness and therefore they are consistent with their doctrine when they hold the power of grace in the hands of the Church. They are not correct though in their view that the Protestant sacrament is empty, though others in history like Zwingli have given that impression. Ultimately the Protestant view drinks in a spiritual reality in the sacraments that links heaven to earth and not the naturalistic and yet mystical way the Roman Catholic view takes.

The “sacramental relation” is the relationship that these signs and seals of outward promises by inward grace have in the covenantal union of God to his people. Our sacramental theology is worked out in our covenantal theology, so that we can experience the joy and familiarity that the sacrament brings to our familial relationship with our God.

We experience our initiation into the Church through our baptism as we are cleansed with water and the promise of God’s covenant with Abraham as realized through circumcision is applied to us by Christ’s shed blood and not our own. Then we experience our salvation in the Lord’s Supper as the Passover Lamb provided salvation for Israel, so we experience the covenant of grace.

By the Lord’s graces alone he has provided us a way to see and experience our salvation, his Gospel anew and in tangible visible signs. Because of our weakness and lack of faith, God has provided us “visible words” or pictures of the thing signified through the sacraments. Our baptism shows us God’s grace, shows us the cleansing we receive as we become sons and daughters of God the Father by the shedding of Christ’s blood for the remission of sin. It shows us righteousness and a propitiatory cleansing. By participating in the Lord’s Supper, we see the broken body and shed blood that Christ poured out for us on the cross. This is a retelling of the Gospel truth we receive when we hear the word, but done so by God’s authority and with the power of his grace in way that allows our eyes to see, our mouths to taste and provide a real nourishment. The sacraments call us to an understanding of our spiritual cleansing and our spiritual nourishment that is only made possible by faith alone.

The Protestant idea of grace is that of an attribute of God, while the Roman Catholic view is that of a mystical substance to be obtained. Holding to a Protestant view of grace we have the freedom to rest in who God is, how he loves us and how completely undeserving of that love we are. We can understand that there is no action of our own that we can take that will make us right with God and that it is only by act of compassion on his part that we receive salvation through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. A Roman Catholic view of grace as a mystical substance puts the power of that substance in the hands of the clergy and power to bestow that saving substance upon who they wish. This is tightly related to their view of the sacrament because they view this substance of grace as something that can be obtained through the sacrament pointing inward, rather than the Protestant who receives the sacrament and points outward to Jesus Christ.

The “efficacy of the sacrament is by faith alone” because the sacrament is only a real sacrament when the presence of the Lord is in it. Because his presence is what seals the promise that is signified in the sacrament we may only receive the benefits or those covenant blessings when we receive the sacraments by faith alone. Since this is the gospel and since the sacrament is a retelling of the gospel in picture form it is no mistake that the power of the sacrament will only be realized when participated in faithfully, in covenant relationship and by faith alone. Neither water nor bread and wine can confer the power of Christ upon a person; it is only by the grace of God that they receive the covenant blessing emblazoned in the sacrament.