What is it to be Reformed?

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rbcbob

Puritan Board Graduate
What is it to be Reformed?

Erroll Hulse asks and answers the question in the quote below.

There has been a great deal of energetic debate lately over whether or not Reformed Baptists are warranted in the use of the word Reformed in their self designation. Some have indicated that this debate will continue till Christ returns. I think that they are right.

Does that make continued debate over “Reformed” futile? I do not think so. If we maintain a patient and gracious spirit while explaining our positions and views there can be an expanding of our understanding of one another’s views. We can also see areas where we have not seen clearly some points which we thought we had understood.

Do I need for my Paedobaptist brethren to concede to me a right to see myself as a Reformed Baptist? No. Must I eventually concede that they are correct in denying me the disputed designation? No.

Let us continue to learn from one another and edify one another.


What is it to be Reformed?

Occasionally Presbyterians object to Baptists calling themselves ‘Reformed’. How can they be ‘Reformed’ if they do not follow John Calvin’s teaching on infant baptism?

Reformed Baptists believe that this issue was settled 320 years ago when the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith was published. Their confession follows the Westminster Confession of faith in all its chapters but makes progress in reform, firstly in rejecting infant baptism as having no scripture warrant and also in taking the doctrine of the Church forward by rejecting the idea of Corpus Christianum that is that the idea that the whole of society is ‘Christian’ by infant baptism. The 1689 implicitly lined up with the Presbyterians in rejecting Arminianism, Antinomianism, Quakerism and Millenarianism. Today that would mean rejection of New Covenant teaching on law, charismatic tongues and prophecies and dispensationalism. With regard to infant baptism the magisterial reformers were locked into the principle of Corpus Christianum. The 16th century reformation was only possible by submission to civil magistrates. To break rank and reject infant baptism, as the anabaptists found out to their cost, was to suffer the death penalty.

To be reformed is to accept the principle that we must continue in the work of reformation. The 16th Century reformation was incomplete. According to scholars Louw and Stander infant baptism began in North Africa in the third century and over time developed to become the universal practice of the Eastern Church and the Roman Catholic Church. That provides the practice with a traditional warrant but not with a biblical warrant. Ulrich Zwingli after swinging toward the baptist position returned to the idea of Corpus Christianum. Zwingli accommodated infant baptism by using the covenant argument. Reformed Baptists insist that the new covenant indicates a most emphatic discontinuity with the Old Covenant (Hebrews 8:7-13) and that the new covenant supports the practice of the gathered Church of believers based on a credible profession of faith. In order to maintain discipline in their churches Presbyterians also have to practise acceptance into church membership using the principle of a credible profession of faith.

Maintaining unity

John 17 and Ephesians 4:1-6 stress that the unity of believers is of the utmost importance. The more biblical doctrine that there is the better and stronger will be the unity. We have much more in common with Presbyterians who preach in the expository fashion than we do with shallow Arminian Baptists who do not. Thus many Reformed Baptists find themselves in Presbyterian churches and many Presbyterians not able to locate a reformed paedobaptist church find themselves in a Reformed Baptist church.

Recently Brian H Cosby, a graduate of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham Alabama and now an ordinand for the Presbyterian Church in America, wrote a brilliant penetrating article on how to understand the words Puritan and Puritanism. This seventeen page essay was published in the Churchman. Cosby explains that there are two ways of viewing the definition of Puritanism. First we can view it historically and politically in which case Puritanism as a movement ended in 1689. The second way is to view Puritanism as a spiritual movement which has continued and has been perpetuated to the present day by those who love and practise the main tenets of the Puritans. In that case C H Spurgeon can be regarded as the best exemplar of Puritanism in the 19th Century and Martyn Lloyd-Jones the best exemplar of Puritanism in the 20th Century with Joel Beeke fast becoming the best exemplar and promoter of Puritanism in the 21st Century.

Brian Cosby cites a work by Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason in which they outline seven ‘characteristics’ of Puritanism. 1. Puritanism was a movement of spirituality, 2. It lays stress on experiencing communion with God, 3. Puritans were united in their dependence upon the Bible as their supreme source of spiritual sustenance and guide for the reformation of life, 4. They were predominantly Augustinian in their emphasis upon human sinfulness and divine grace, 5. They placed great emphasis upon the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, 6. They were deeply troubled by sacramental forms of Catholic spirituality fostered within the Anglican Church, and 7. Puritanism was also, in part, a revival movement.

For item six our concern is not worship in the Anglican church but the invasion of superficiality into our worship services. If we major on the principles outlined above we will maintain unity with Presbyterians and also play a major role in advancing biblical Christianity around the world today. In several countries it is Reformed Baptists who are leading in the work of recovering the reformed faith.

Erroll Hulse editor Reformation Today
 
Nice post.

John 17 and Ephesians 4:1-6 stress that the unity of believers is of the utmost importance. The more biblical doctrine that there is the better and stronger will be the unity. We have much more in common with Presbyterians who preach in the expository fashion than we do with shallow Arminian Baptists who do not. Thus many Reformed Baptists find themselves in Presbyterian churches and many Presbyterians not able to locate a reformed paedobaptist church find themselves in a Reformed Baptist church.

Yup! Quite a few Baptists in the PCA. And quite a few Presbyterians in certain areas leaving to attend RB with good preaching.

charismatic tongues and prophecies

You'll get disagreement on that one, what with the alliance of confessing evangelicals and Grudem, Mahaney, etc.
 
I'm a paedobaptist and I still don't think I'd be given the designation of being "reformed", since being reformed is much more than being paedo-baptist and a Calvinist. I just call myself a reforming Presbyterian. The way I look at it, the Lord will grow me as he sees fit to convince me through the scriptures of all the little reformed distinctives that I hear or read about from those "more reformed" than I. People who just jump ship readily to fit in with this camp or that camp seem to love men more than they do God; even if the ship they jump to happened to be biblically/theologically correct. I love God and I love his people and I want to serve him through serving his people in whatever capacity he'd have me do. :pilgrim:
 
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