I have often times written and insisted that the Doctrines of Grace (fashionably styled as TULIP) absolutely require the larger context of the Reformed faith in order to retain their meaning. This means that those who hold to TULIP while denying the larger context of the Reformed Faith either don’t really hold to TULIP or are involved in some serious contradictions. I have, on ironink especially made that argument regarding the sacraments.
Recently, I stumbled across an article that makes that same overall argument in spades. I highly recommend it. It was written by Dr. Richard Muller and can be found at,
http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/how-many-points/
I am going to hit some highlights here for those who don’t have the time to read ten pages.
“They also — all of them (Reformed confessions) — agree on the assumption that our assurance of the salvation, wrought by grace alone through the work of Christ and God’s Spirit in us, rests not on our outward deeds or personal claims but on our apprehension of Christ in faith and on our recognition of the inward work of the Spirit in us. Because this assurance is inward and cannot easily or definitively be externalized, all of these documents also agree that the church is both visible and invisible — that it is a covenanted people of God identified not by externalized indications of the work of God in individuals, such as adult conversion experiences but by the preaching of the word of God and the right administration of the sacraments.”
In today’s evangelical church the push is commonly towards externalizing indications that a work of God in individuals has taken place. This push was seen once upon a time in raising a hand or walking an aisle or sitting at the seekers bench. When the Pentecostals came along indications became a little more bizarre. With the third wave we have external indications of God’s work that range from swinging from chandeliers to making animal sounds. What the evangelical church misses is that God has given us externalized indications of his work in the Word preached and the Sacraments distributed. When we push for these non Word and Sacrament externalized indications we are subtly moving away from the importance of the Church where the God given externalized indications take place in Word and Sacrament and are moving towards an individualized me and Jesus Christianity. After all, you don’t need to be at church to get an electric Holy Spirit charge, and even if you are at church the emphasis of church gets changed from God acting in Word and Sacrament to a anticipation of when the Holy Spirit will cause some strange and aberrant behavior. Because we are totally depraved God works in us through the ordained means of Word and Sacrament. Moving the emphasis from the means of grace that God uses to resurrect sinners, to funky behavior that can be mimicked by anybody overturns the TULIP applecart.
“Baptism, rightly understood from the human side, signifies the placement of our children into the context where the promised grace of God is surely at work. And who more than an infant, incapable of meritorious works, can indicate to us that this salvation is by grace alone? By way of contrast, the restriction of baptism to adult believers who make a “decision” and who come forward voluntarily to receive a mere ordinance stands against recognition of baptism as a sign of utter graciousness on the part of God: Baptism here is offered only to certain individuals who have passed muster before a human, albeit churchly, court — or to state the problem slightly differently, who have had a particular experience viewed as the necessary prerequisite to baptism by a particular churchly group. If grace and election relate to this post-decision baptism, they can hardly be qualified by the terms “irresistible” and “unconditional.” There is an inescapable irony in refusing baptism to children, offering it only to adults, and then telling the adults that they must become as little children in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven.”
Muller then moves on to slice and dice the evangelical piety and nomenclature that talks about “having a personal relationship with Jesus.” Muller suggest that such talk that belies such an easy and casual intimacy can possibly detract from the “majesty of the doctrine of Christ’s Kingship.” He also suggests that this “personal relationship” language with its implied reciprocity may subtly inject in our thinking that salvation is, like any personal relationship, a co-operative effort. Muller suggests, by appealing to the Heidelberg Catechism, that a more Reformed way to speak than speaking of a “personal relationship” is by speaking that we belong in body and soul and in life and death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ.
Anyway … I recommend the whole article for your perusal. I would only slightly question Muller on two points. First, I would slightly question the way he connects the decrees of God in eternity to the way those decrees come to fruition in space and time. Muller rightly faults some people for not having a temporal order of grace. I would only add that that other people probably need to be faulted for not understanding that their temporal order of grace needs to be anchored in an a-temporal order of grace.
Second, I could wish that Muller saw the connection between a vigorous postmillennialism and the doctrines of grace. I agree with everything he says about amillennialism (and I think he uses “amillennialism” to include postmillennial notions) but I believe that a denial of a victorious eschatology flies in the face of the perseverance of the saints. Granted, amillennialism perseveres the saints but they persevere in the context of defeat. Postmillennialism does more justice to the triumph of Christ over all of his enemies in my estimation.
Anyway … great article by Dr. Muller. Give it a read and tell me what you think.
What say ye of Rome?