Reflections on the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. 23 Aug 14 began a perhaps unbroken, orderly, and personal journey through my favorite written confession of faith. This will be my personal reflections on this beloved written codification of the Christian Faith which is according to a Baptist flavor.
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Chapter 7, part 2: “Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ…”
God created a law that was bound in the natural world as well. That law is that creatures reproduce after their own kind. Adam was a natural man, but a fallen (sinfully permeated) and natural man. His children were like him in both their natural and spiritual beings. Christ begets children as well, but these are ones who are born again. Adopted sons and daughters of the Spirit are literal children with a new heavenly nature at work within them. They are not two dueling natures; they’re entirely new creatures. Nevertheless, sin still acts in their members and remains in this life with ever-diminishing power. Adam brought this upon himself. He was not forced to do so. Scripture says “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” 1 Timothy 2:14. Adam sinned. In Paul’s theological history there are only two men- Adam and Jesus. Whichever one you are of indicates your position before God this very day.
The covenant of grace, by design, is the only other covenant there is after The Fall. While there was an Old Testament dispensation of it and a New Testament one, the grace that made both conceivable is still one-hundred percent the same. It’s just that what God requires of those to whom he’s given these two types of grace has changed from those under Moses to those now under Jesus.
Salvation is freely offered to all men. That’s our commission. We are to tell men to repent, and tell them to whom they’re to repent toward. It’s not about “changing the world” for any one of us. It’s instead about being faithful where God has placed us, and living and going to make disciples wherever that is.
Salvation is alone by Jesus Christ. It is life and life eternal.
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