Most Magisterial Tulips

[filosofer]

Okay, I really liked the video - even shared it with one of my Baptist pastor employers who was asking about the difference about Calvinism and Lutheranism.

However, was Fisk just using hyperbole when he talked about us worshipping bread and wine? Because for the life of me that's what it sounded like he said.

Did I read the BoC wrong? One of the arguments in the BoC against the RCC was that they were reserving the Eucharist for the purpose of Eucharistic adoration - which is not proper. My understanding is that we receive Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion, but we do not worship the sacrament. Am I missing something?

Fisk's statement is against those who deny the presence of Christ's body and blood. From that perspective, the highest form of worship is to receive God's gifts. So receiving the bread/body and wine/blood is worship.

 

[Tangible]

Thanks for the clarification, dtk & DaRev. My point was that the focus is switched from God forgiving us to us forgiving each other.

Also since there is no corporate confession, in actual practice there are many if not most who proceed to commune without having confessed at all.

 

[porterross]

Interesting and informative topic, but I was more excited when I thought this was a thread about flowering bulbs.

 

[AngCath]

Interesting and informative topic, but I was more excited when I thought this was a thread about flowering bulbs.

 

[Studeclunker]

Interesting and informative topic, but I was more excited when I thought this was a thread about flowering bulbs.

LOL, that make two-lips of us.

 

[DaRev]

Also since there is no corporate confession, in actual practice there are many if not most who proceed to commune without having confessed at all.

Their lack of confession not withstanding, we also need to remember that the Confessions teach us that since the Baptists, who share a Reformed view of the Lord's Supper and have changed the meaning of Christ's words, do not even have the Sacrament. It is an all around lack of faith on their part.

 

[JM]

Some Reformed thoughts on the vid: This is one I've never heard before...

You will find the video does not represent Reformed teaching.

The Reformed view isn't gnostic, not in the least; that's just a standard element of Lutheran slander. But you must understand: to affirm spiritual reality; to insist on a full-orbed faith (notitia, assensus, fiducia) as essential to salvation, and such faith is necessarily reflexive and reflective; to deny that eternal salvation can be lost by strength of a human will (even while affirming apostasy, rightly defined); to believe that the embodied Christ has been "received into heaven until the times of restoration of all things," Act.3:21, i.e. that the risen Christ has a localized body like all other embodied humanity (pre-death & post-resurrection)--such doctrines, in the form we affirm them, offend our Lutheran brethren.

Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI

 

[BBAS 64]

Good day, All

I have spent a great deal of time dealing with this issue in the past here and other places. There are some things I agree with in the video, but on some points I agree with what he said about Lutherism but Luther may have seen things a bit differnet.

Riddleblog - The Latest Post - On the Differences Between Lutheranism and Calvinism -- Audio from "Issues,[bless and do not curse]Etc."

Give it a listen.

Case in point Luter writes:

Luther:
Commentary on Romans,

All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned

Regarding God's desire for all men to be saved, Luther himself objects. In response to the claim that 'God desires all men to be saved,' and that 'Christ died for all men,' he writes

These points and others like them can be refuted as easily as the first one. For these verses must always be understood as pertaining to the elect only, as the apostle says in 2 Tim. 2:10 'everything for the sake of the elect.' For in an absolute sense Christ did not die for all, because he says: 'This is my blood which is poured out for you' and 'for many' - He does not say: for all - 'for the forgiveness of sins' (Mark 14:24, Matt. 26:28)

Bondage of the will:
If, then, we are taught and believe that we ought to be ignorant of the necessary foreknowledge of God and the necessity of events, Christian faith is utterly destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely; for the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered, or impeded.



For His Glory!!

Bill

 

[Lizabth]

Bill...I think Luther and Calvin were much closer that most Lutherans seem to want to admit. I have definite calvinist leanings, but, as there is no reformed church here abouts, am attending an LCMS church.

I've spent quite a lot of time studying through the Lutheran Confessions, and honestly, there is little there with which my calvinist heart could not agree. On the Lord's Supper, I like very much how Luther put it: the plain words of Jesus are to be taken as the plain words Jesus. How He meant them, I take them. Simple as that.

Now, Lutheranism has it's oddities, things like believing that Baptism saves you(with no reference to Jesus) or that all the whole world is justified and there is no more sin or law(UOJ), or that we ought not to be in union with 'other' Christians. America tends to create these odd little off-shoots to all religions.

I don't pay that much mind. Maybe if Fisk got took off his LCMS blinders, he would feel the same and have a little charity towards fellow Christians. There are folks every bit as smart as the brightest Concordia grad who have come to some differing takes on the faith. Every body of believers has its quirks. We all see through a glass darkly.

I sure don't see why Lutherans are so threatened by Calvinists. They have so very much in common. T....yup. U....yup. L.....well,( realistically, of COURSE the atonement is limited, not in its power, but because of man's evil heart...some folks go to hell). I...yup. P.....yup. Read your confessions. Read your Luther. You'll find it all there.

 

[Lizabth]

This is a fabulous take on the 'differences' between Lutherans and Calvinists:



"The difference seems to be conveyed best by saying that the Reformed Christian thinks theologically, the Lutheran anthropologically. The Reformed person is not content with an exclusively historical stance but raises his sights to the idea, the eternal decree of God. By contrast, the Lutheran takes his position in the midst of the history of redemption and feels no need to enter more deeply into the counsel of God. For the Reformed, therefore, election is the heart of the church; for Lutherans, justification is the article by which the church stands or falls. Among the former the primary question is: How is the glory of God advanced? Among the latter it is: How does a human get saved? The struggle of the former is above all paganism- idolatry; that of the latter against Judaism- works righteousness. The Reformed person does not rest until he has traced all things retrospectively to the divine decree, tracking down the “wherefore” of things, and has prospectively made all things subservient to the glory of God; the Lutheran is content with the “that” and enjoys the salvation in which he is, by faith, a participant. From this difference in principle, the dogmatic controversies between them (with respect to the image of God, original sin, the person of Christ, the order of salvation, the sacraments, church government, ethics, etc.) can be easily explained."
—Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics

 

[ContraMundum]

No longer a fan of Rev Fisk. He knows so little about the authentic beliefs of others, but he spends an awful lot of time teaching about them and trying to debunk them. His possible questions to the Calvinist are answered pretty much in every Calvinist book I've read. Pretty much red herrings. Ask a Calvinist yourself...if you're a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse].

 

[ContraMundum]

I really liked this. His comments on Paradox really got me thinking and cant seem to shake them. Along with the idea that Calvinism is a by product of much of the philosophy of the time of the reformation.

All of the Reformation Churches have a lot of thought contemporary to that era in them. When I converted to Christianity (from Judaism) I was really kind of put off by how Latin/Greek/Western/Renaissance the Reformation was as compared to the Eastern Churches and the ECF. Eventually, I came to accept that the Holy Spirit nonetheless could still work through and use these paradigms to bring forth God's truth. He has always done it this way.