Is everyone who is a member of the New Covenant saved?

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Hamalas

whippersnapper
I know this question has been discussed before, but most of the discussions have turned into turf wars between the paedo and credo sides so for the sake of simplicity could only those of you here who hold to paedobaptism please address the question: is everyone who is a member of the New Covenant saved?
 
Ben,
The New covenant/The Covenant of Grace have internal and external distinctions; Internally are only regenerate individuals. Externally are unregenerates. So, to answer your question, "Is everyone who is a member of the New Covenant saved"? Yes and no.

Ishmael, Esau, Judas are good examples of external covenant members.
 
Substance and Administration. It's always about these two things. If the New Covenant is an historic covenant, part of this world; then its historic administration is carried on by human agents, and there is no promise of infallibility, no pre-eschatological perfection. In a global, non-nuanced fashion, the answer is "No."

It is the reason many Baptists deny "historic administration" for the New Covenant. They refer it entirely to the spiritual realm and Spirit-administration. They are not interested in such clarification of the issue as we are. They wouldn't ask: "Member in which sense?" For them, there is only one sense; the only answer is "Yes."

We Presbyterians believe a person who partakes only of the New Covenant in its administrative functions--who does not have the substance--is not saved. But by such attachment as he has, he is thereby a member of the New Covenant. Administrative participation is *real* participation, so far as it goes; he is a visible (new) covenant-member.

Lack of salvation is lack of substance. This is the reality in every age except the eschatological. There have always been, and still are, people who maintain only a formal relationship to God, lacking the substantive relationship of the heart--the meaning within the external trappings.

The same criticism falls upon a covenant-member in the OT (regardless of which covenant), whose connection was purely formal, as is laid against a NC member. Hence, the warnings in Hebrews, which I paraphrase: "If those faithless were judged, how much more will one be today, who spurns an even greater salvation?"
 
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