Lessons learned this AM:
Respond to one rC, and another will say you are misrepresenting him. Lesson: rC’s are allowed to differ, but you aren’t allowed to criticize.
rC’s can go ballistic and lose all balance on rC blogs, without rebuke (at least, public rebuke).
If you say, “This position trumps soteriology with sacramentalism” rC’s will say, “No, you are wrong, sacramentalism trumps soteriology.”
You can repeat the WCF word-for-word on election, predestination, justification, and the atonement, and not be Reformed; but you can deny what the WCF says on all those things (as Rome does) and still it is better to be in a Roman church than a Reformed Baptist one (yeah, sorry, unless you take over the reigns of government and drown us for being heretics, we aren’t going away).
Also, it seems very important to some rC’s to affirm that the Apostles Creed is somehow a sufficient summary of the gospel. If that is so, why do we have Romans? Galatians? Of course it is not a sufficient summary of the gospel for all purposes. That is like asking, “Isn’t the abstract of an article sufficient for all purposes?” If it was, you would not need to bother with the rest of the article, would you? Indeed, if one were to press this issue, would it not follow that there would be no need for any further creedal statements? Wasn’t the Apostles Creed enough for the Arians? Of course, we all know the Arians could affirm that confession, since it was not designed to refute their errors. Hence the need for greater clarity on the nature of the gospel itself, and yes, even the dreaded (it seems, from the language of the rC’s, anyway) solas.
And I will gladly affirm and state openly: if you do not believe that your sole standing before the throne of the Holy God is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ which is yours by faith and faith alone without a stitch of human merit (even that claimed to be prompted by grace!) then you are no more Reformed than the Pope in Rome.
