[Concerning Matt. 18:3] “We have to be careful here because in many instances we get this turned around. We say that little children have to become like adults before they can enter the kingdom. They have to meet with the elders before they can come to the Table, and often preparation for communion seems more like preparation for ordination.”
No, Really
“For example, if the Scripture teaches election, then this is the ‘position’ of all churches in principle, regardless of what their denominational documents might say about it. This means that children of Baptists are in the covenant anyway, Nazarenes are eternally secure, and charismatics are not exercising the gift of prophecy.”
Starvation Theology
“Consequently, we do not want to be maneuvered into saying that Christians should grow big and strong, and then we will give them some food.”
A Wet Covenant Breaker
“In one sense, it is true that if you baptize an unrepentant pagan, you get a wet pagan. But it is the thesis of this book that far more happens than this. When you baptize an unrepentant pagan, what you actually get is a covenant-breaker. His baptism now obligates him to live a life of repentance, love and trust, which he is refusing to do.”
Parties to the Covenant
“If the sacraments are thought of a covenant actions between persons, rather than as static, ontological realities contained within the font or resting on the Table, we do two things. We avoid the swamp-like superstitions of true sacerdotalism, as well as the arid rationalism that detaches all of our actions from what they are meant to seal for us.”
The Vows Bind
“Put another way, there is no such thing as a merely nominal Christian any more than we can find a man who is nominal husband. There are many faithless husbands, but if a man is a husband at all, then is as much a husband as a faithful one.”
The Decree Encompasses All
“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.”