Imperishable Inheritance

The next post in our series on reformed the­ol­ogy is about the dis­tinc­tive doc­trines held to by reformed Chris­tians. I will exam­ine in my next post the things that divide reformed Chris­tians, but these are the basic ten­ants to which one must hold to to aptly label them­selves “reformed.”

Even though there are slight dif­fer­en­ti­a­tions on how reformed Chris­tians inter­pret each of these truths; the fact is that all would agree that these are the most promi­nent and the most impor­tant. The next post will uncover the areas of dis­agree­ment on these issues.

The Doc­trines of Grace

These doc­trines are known by most Chris­tians as the five points of Calvin­ism, but as we uncov­ered in the last post, these doc­trines did not start with John Calvin. These doc­trines deal with the sys­tem­atic field of sote­ri­ol­ogy which is the name for the doc­trine of sal­va­tion (sote­rios), but the first point deals with anthro­pol­ogy which is the doc­trine of man (anthro­pos). Here is an out­line of the doctrines.

1. From the fall of Adam, man is morally dead to God. There is noth­ing inside the nat­ural man that longs for, desires, or seeks after God. With­out the inter­ven­tion of God alone, no one would ever be saved; because man’s will is only inclined and enslaved to evil.
2. But there are peo­ple who are saved. This is only because of the rich, unde­serv­ing, and ever­last­ing grace pro­vided by God through elec­tion. This is where God cho­sen His favored ones not on the basis of any­thing they have done to merit God’s favor. God’s elec­tion is uncon­di­tional and individual.
3. The intent of Christ’s death was to secure the sal­va­tion of those the Father gave Him, but cov­er­ing their sin in a sub­sti­tu­tion­ary man­ner. Christ bore the sins of the elect on the cross, and it was accom­plished perfectly.
4. Since no man nat­u­rally will come to or seek after God, He over­comes our stub­born will to awaken us to Him. This is the process of regen­er­a­tion or the “new birth” which is brought about by the Holy Spirit. We are not “dragged” against our will, but we are finally set free from the bondage of sin.
5. God is faith­ful to fin­ish the work that He started in us to the praise of His name. There­fore, it is the work of God, through the Holy Spirit, to see us through the race of life to reach glorification.

These doc­trines are also called Mon­er­gism which means there is only One Agent in regeneration–and that is God alone. I am not going to defend these doc­trines Bib­li­cally here, but I have done so else­where. See my essay linked below.

Covenant The­ol­ogy

S.M. Baugh declares, “Let me make a bold asser­tion about Covenant the­ol­ogy: It is not inci­den­tal to Reformed the­ol­ogy — it is Reformed the­ol­ogy.” And he is quite right. The only rea­son I didn’t start with Covenant The­ol­ogy is because most peo­ple are famil­iar only with Calvin­ism. Covenant The­ol­ogy is actu­ally the “for­est” of the­ol­ogy for the reformed the­olo­gian, while Calvin­ism is actu­ally a “tree.” Covenant The­ol­ogy is the grid to which all reformed the­olo­gians look through. (Although it should be men­tioned there are the­olo­gians such as John MacArthur and his group that hold to a form of Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism; they are really ‘black sheep’ amongst reformed Christians.)

Covenant The­ol­ogy is a way to inter­pret the events of the Bible. We uti­lize the redemptive-historical hermeneu­tic where we inter­pret the unfold­ing rev­e­la­tion of the Bible as events shad­ow­ing and point­ing for­ward to Jesus (this is called Bib­li­cal The­ol­ogy). In Covenant The­ol­ogy, God’s main pur­pose in his­tory is first His Son and by exten­sion His elect through­out the ages. Through suc­ces­sive covenants (Adam, Noah, Abra­ham, Moses, David, and Mes­sianic) God reveals His plan of redemp­tion with Christ being the epi­cen­ter of all God’s revelation.

Covenant The­ol­ogy is often seen as “the other side” in the debate with Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists who largely inter­pret God’s main pur­pose in his­tory being eth­nic Israel (which they believe will be reunited in the Mil­len­nium of Rev 20). While Covenant The­olo­gians see “Israel” as receiv­ing a dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion in the New Tes­ta­ment. The true Israel is in fact Jesus and those who are the spir­i­tual seed of Abra­ham made pos­si­ble by Christ (Gal 3:29). While there are slight dif­fer­en­ti­a­tions in this study, these listed are the main points of agree­ment. See below for a list­ing of main points of Covenant Theology.

The Five Solas

There are fives solas (“only”) that are sub­scribed to by reformed Chris­tians. These were the bat­tle cry of the reform­ers in the 16th cen­tury, and these are the best syn­op­sis of the reformed van­tage point on theology.

1. Sola Scrip­tura — Scrip­ture alone is the ulti­mate guide and source of authority.
2. Sola Chris­tus — Christ alone is nec­es­sary for salvation.
3. Sola Gra­tia — We are saved by grace alone.
4. Sola Fide — Faith alone is the only nec­es­sary ingre­di­ent for jus­ti­fi­ca­tion (not works).
5. Sola Deo Glo­ria — We do all things for the glory of God alone.

The Reg­u­la­tive Principle

The Reg­u­la­tive Prin­ci­ple deals with the sub­ject of the church (Ecclessi­ol­ogy). This is the doc­trine that Chris­tians, in the local church, should only wor­ship in meth­ods pro­scribed in the Scrip­tures. This is con­trasted to the Nor­ma­tive Prin­ci­ple which states that any­thing not for­bid­den in the Scrip­tures is per­mis­si­ble in the local church.

The main modes of wor­ship pro­scribed in the Scrip­tures are the pub­lic read­ing of Scrip­ture, the pub­lic preach­ing of Scrip­ture, music, prayer, and the ordi­nances (com­mu­nion and bap­tism). Now just because we all agree that those are the out­lined meth­ods of wor­ship does not mean that all reformed Chris­tians agree on what those def­i­n­i­tions are, but I will cover that in the next post.

Creedal­ism

The last point of agree­ment among reformed Chris­tians (gen­er­ally) is a belief in his­toric creeds which out­line the doc­trines of our reformed faith. Pres­by­te­ri­ans use the West­min­ster Con­fes­sion of Faith, and Bap­tists use the Lon­don Bap­tist Con­fes­sions of Faith (1646 and 1689). Cat­e­chisms are also pop­u­lar with the most pop­u­lar being the Hei­del­berg Cat­e­chism.

Resources

1. Calvin­ism in Conversation
2. Con­trast­ing Covenant The­ol­ogy and Dispensationalism
3. The Apos­tles and Dispensationalism
4. The Five Solas of the Reformation
5. The Reg­u­la­tive Prin­ci­ple of Worship
6. In Defense of Creedalism