“The decree is not independent of means because is it a decree concerning those means.”
No Diluting Agent
“Moderns who are stuck with the language of Westminster want to say that we actually have to understand this as a sacramental union, with the word sacramental being understood as some sort of diluting agent. But I want to say it is a sacramental union, with union meaning union.”
Central Identity
“The Reformation began with a striking emphasis on the center of the covenant, which was Christ and Him crucified . . . The Reformers said you recognize a man by looking at his face, not the ends of his shoelaces, and if you want to recognize the Church, then you must look straight at her Head, who is Christ.”
A Defining Function
“At the end of history, the eschatological Church will be comprised of all the elect and none of the reprobate. The eschatological Church serves the same defining function as the invisible Church, but with one advantage. It is necessarily the same Church that we are members of now, it is a Church grounded in historical reality, and it does not tempt us to think in terms of a Hellenistic upper story and lower story.”
More Than Meets the Eye
“The Church of yesterday is just as invisible as the heavenly Church. We lose the communion of the saints if we depend upon what we can see.”
Grace in the OT
“The Old Covenant is not the time in which God attempted to save His people through law, but, finding this to be a failure, decided to use grace and forgiveness in the New Covenant . . . the contrast in the New Testament is not between Old and New; the contrast is between Old distorted and Old fulfilled.”
An Actual Covenant, In Other Words
“This covenant of grace does not float above human history in some kind of ethereal way. The history of the covenant is intertwined with the rest of human history, including kings, battles, dates, and of course promises and sacraments.”
This, Plus Nothing
“We cannot make a distinction between the saints of the Old Testament and the saints of the New in this respect. They may and do differ with regard to gifts and graces, but individual justification is the sine qua non of being a genuine saint of God. In all this we are discussing, and reaffirming, the traditional Protestant doctrine of the righteousness of Christ imputed to those individuals who are elect. This, plus nothing, constitutes the ground of their final acceptance before God.”
Other Saving Graces
“The kind of faith that God gives as a gift is always alive . . . when God has done this wonderful work, the faithful instrument does not shrivel up and die. It continues to love God and obey Him . . . Faith without works is a dead faith, and a dead faith never justified anybody. Saving faith is every accompanied by all other saving graces.”
Ground and Instrument
“Nor does God justify us because of our faith—rather He justifies us because of Christ’s obedience and work, and this is appropriated by us through faith.”