How to think about those outside of the Reformed fold…

[C. M. Sheffield]

Some WELS Lutherans won't even pray with you if you aren't also WELS.

It does make things easier if you just say, "If you're not one of us; you're not a Christian." Instead of inquiring into someone's experience and understanding of the gospel, you can just ask, "Are you WELS?" And if they say "No", you can turn your back and walk away leaving that unwashed Philistine where stands.

 

[RamistThomist]

This church had it as a requirement that in order to take the Lord's Supper, you had to be a Baptized believer.

That's the crux of the matter. Everyone believes that a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for receiving the supper is being baptized. If paedobaptist baptisms are illegitimate, then why would they be welcome to take the Supper? I'm not saying this is my personal view. I'm just drawing out the logic.

 

[De Jager]

From our very own @Guido's Brother

Baptists a False Church According to the Belgic Confession?

Brothers, I have a question that deals with the Belgic Confession's language of "false church/true church" as it relates to Baptists. In the Westminster tradition, we use the language of "more pure or less pure" when talking about the church. Chapter 25.4 of the Westminster Confession...

www.puritanboard.com

Now, my words:

This is a thorny issue and it cannot help but be so. That's the nature of it. Belgic Confession article 29 seems at first glance may seem to be fairly uncharitable. However, in the context it was pretty obviously distinguishing between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Churches. Other groups, whether they be Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, etc. I would agree are "sects", borrowing again from the language of article 29. They are not "false" churches, in the sense that the Roman Catholic Church is. That word "sect" may be viewed as pejorative but I don't intend in that way. One definition I find of a 'sect' is "a group that has separated from an established Church". In that sense, the Reformed are a "sect" if your baseline is Roman Catholicism. However, if your baseline is the reformed churches, then Methodists, Baptists, Brethren, etc. are sects. That doesn't mean that they're not Christian or that God isn't working among them. In fact, He quite obviously is. I think there is room, as reformed believers to both believe that these groups have left the truest and best form of the church AND that the Lord is still pleased to use them and their churches for His glory and for the conversion of sinners unto Him (and I would imagine that my Baptist brothers would say the same of our churches). In fact, these "sects" can often put us to shame in several categories, including zeal for reaching the lost, personal piety, etc.

I remember @Guido's Brother telling me to look into Belgic Confession Article 29 when determining whether I should stay in the Christian Reformed Church. For a variety of reasons, I left the CRC and joined the URC. Looking back, I see certain marks of the true church are marred or missing in the CRC. For example, the gospel is sometimes watered down, church discipline is often not undertaken, and the sacraments are often misused, whether by paedocommunion or by baptizing the children of people who really aren't even serious about their faith. I can't call it a true church because of that, but I also can't call it a false church or claim that God isn't working there at all. Neither would I say that there aren't many real Christians in those churches.

 

[VictorBravo]

That's the crux of the matter. Everyone believes that a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for receiving the supper is being baptized. If paedobaptist baptisms are illegitimate, then why would they be welcome to take the Supper? I'm not saying this is my personal view. I'm just drawing out the logic.

I've noted this before in passing, I think in discussions with Matthew Winzer, that the LBCF looks deliberatively vague on the issue.

Chapter 26 has the church composed of invisible and visible saints. Visible saints are those "professing the faith of the gospel...."

Chapter 27 on the Communion of Saints references only saints, not method of baptism. It goes into various duties of fellowship and worship, and includes the phrase, "even all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus;...."

I know there are Baptists who disagree (I have taken hits over it, BTW), but I take these statements as directives to welcome all who trust in Christ alone to the Lord's table. Baptism is important to us, yes, but one who professes faith here and now is a visible saint worthy to worship in communion with us.

 

[Christopher Robin]

My "Reformed" Baptist church (LBC, Three Forms of Unity) does not fence the Lord's Table so severely as to exclude those who are not members of that particular church or those who have not been baptized by immersion. I really doubt that it's actually common among Baptists who hold to the doctrines of sovereign grace.

 

[Ed Walsh]

I think it was an honest question. And it is not out of order. Although I would gladly be corrected, it seems to me to be a well-known and accepted fact that historically, and even presently, Presbyterians believe Reformed Baptist churches are at least to some degree less pure, and I am sure Baptists believe the same about Presbyterians. This doesn't have anything to do, however, with how the two sides view the others as individual Christians. Remember, this is an ecclesiological question, not a soteriological one.

As Isaiah often does, he included himself in this indictment against all men.

Isaiah 64:6-7
But we are all as an unclean thing , and all our righteousnesses are as filthy [literally: a "menstruous cloth"] rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

If at any time you find yourself acting differently than described in this verse, remember--It does not come from you alone. It is the seed (1 John 3:9) of God that was planted in you by the pure will and Grace of God.

I used to unconsciously think of the visible Church pretty much limited to the Reformed. But in my older years (I'll be 70 in a few days), I have consciously come to have a much broader view. Kind of like God treated Israel of old. I also think The Westminster Confession, chapter 25, section 2 would agree. It is that broader Church that is the house in which judgment must begin. (1 Peter 4:17) It is the Reformed branch of the Church that will be held to a higher standard. (Luke 12:4) Is it not a historical fact that many modern Presbyterian churches are found wanting when compared to some former times?

I am so thankful for the Reformed view of the Faith, but it makes me cry out daily for more Grace to live up to what I know.

In defense of my more ecumenical view, let us all consider the Apostle Paul's opening address again to the very worst church in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

Note: I'm sure this is the first time I ever wrote the word 'ecumenical,' and I hope it's my last.