The Mosaic Covenant was established with physical Israel not with spiritual Israel?

[Ben Zartman]

Your contention seems to indicate you view the church as purely believers with no visible expression. If a person becomes a member of a church by profession of faith, yet falls away, are you claiming that they were "never of us"? If so, my second portion is 100% relevant, and it would seem you don't understand the argument.

Andrew,
I hope Brandon will indulge my answering your question, but it's the standard RB position to say that people who fall away were never of us. The true church are the redeemed of God who cannot fall away, since none can pluck us from the Father's hand. The visible congregations, call them local churches, have tares among the wheat, but the tares are not Christians. A Christian is one who has been born again. But this is one point where RBs--all the ones I know, be they 1689 federalists or the vanilla variety like myself--would disagree with Presbyterians. Each one's position on this is a sine qua non of their confessional association.

 

[Dachaser]

Andrew,
I hope Brandon will indulge my answering your question, but it's the standard RB position to say that people who fall away were never of us. The true church are the redeemed of God who cannot fall away, since none can pluck us from the Father's hand. The visible congregations, call them local churches, have tares among the wheat, but the tares are not Christians. A Christian is one who has been born again. But this is one point where RBs--all the ones I know, be they 1689 federalists or the vanilla variety like myself--would disagree with Presbyterians. Each one's position on this is a sine qua non of their confessional association.

This would indeed be the Baptist position on this topic, and would also add that is why Baptists tend to see the Church founded at Pentecost, as only the saved are actually part of her under the NC now.

 

[brandonadams]

Instead pointing me to a website (which I personally do not like because of the many misquotations), I'd prefer you engage me here.

Sorry, if you're not willing to read longer answers to your question, there is no point in me wasting my time here. There aren't any shortcuts in this discussion. I'm bowing out of this and the other discussions. I hope the resources are helpful to those who are interested in learning the position.

Also, I searched the thread (and I might have missed it) but where does Rutherford say that most Israelites were known unbelievers? (Cite the source too please)

It is further down in the essay that I linked to. His concluding statement is "We are against Separatists who will have the number of aged persons that are members of the church and the number of those who are to be admitted to the sacrament [of the Lord’s Table] equal. We think multitudes are members of the visible church, and must be hearers as known unbelievers, who are not to be admitted to the sacrament [of the Lord’s Table]." Per my quotations, he defends this point by appeal to Israel, which was vastly made of known unbelievers who had every right to remain part of Israel, members of the Old Covenant, be circumcised, and have their children circumcised because they descended from Abraham.

The vast, vast majority of modern Presbyterians reject Rutherford's ecclessiology on this point. They have adopted the Separatist/Congregationalist view (note, for example, PCA Book of Order 56-4.j, which was not in the original Directory for Public Worship). When Jonathan Edwards, John Erskine, and Charles Hodge encountered the idea that known unbelievers should be allowed to be members of the church, they all specifically argued that there is a difference between Israel and the church.

I already posted this in comment #80, but here is Edwards

That such appellations as God’s people, God’s Israel, and some other like phrases, are used and applied in Scripture with considerable diversity of intention… And with regard to the people of Israel, it is very manifest, that something diverse is oftentimes intended by that nation being God’s people, from their being visible saints, visibly holy, or having those qualifications which are requisite in order to a due admission to the ecclesiastical privileges of such. That nation, that family of Israel according to the flesh, and with regard to that external and carnal qualification, were in some sense adopted by God to be his peculiar people, and his covenant people… On the whole, it is evident that the very nation of Israel, not as visible saints, but as the progeny of Jacob according to the flesh, were in some respect a chosen people, a people of God, a covenant people, an holy nation; even as Jerusalem was a chosen city, the city of God, a holy city, and a city that God had engaged by covenant to dwell in. Thus a sovereign and all-wise God was pleased to ordain things with respect to the nation of Israel…

That nation was a typical nation. There was then literally a land, which was a type of heaven, the true dwelling-place of God; and an external city, which was a type of the spiritual city of God; an external temple of God, which was a type of his spiritual temple. So there was an external people and family of God, by carnal generation, which was a type of his spiritual progeny. And the covenant by which they were made a people of God, was a type of the covenant of grace; and so is sometimes represented as a marriage-covenant.

Jonathan Edwards on the Nation of Israel as a Type of the Church

Here is Erskine (18th century Scottish Presbyterian arguing against the national church concept)

Let it then be observed, that men are said to be sanctified or made holy in very different senses. Sanctification, for the distinction, though an old, is not a bad one, is either real or relative.

…That separation from other nations, in which the holiness of the Jews chiefly consisted (r), was not spiritual, resulting from rectitude of heart and a correspondent behavior; but barely external, resulting from certain sacred rites and ceremonies different from or opposite to those of other nations, and confined to certain places and persons (d). The middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, was the ceremonial law (e), which was neither necessary nor fit to make a spiritual separation In fact, it did not separate between good and bad men among the Jews: but between the house of Israel and the fearers of God or devout persons in the heathen nations (f). For which reason, though Cornelius was one that feared God, gave much alms, and prayed to God always, Peter was afraid of being polluted by intercourse with him.

(a) Lev. xxi. (b) Exod. xix. 6. (c) Exod. xix. 5, 6. Num. xxiii. 9. Deut. xxvi. 18, 19. (d) Lev. xx. 24,—26. Deut. xiv. 21. (e) Eph. ii. 14, 15. (f) Pial. cxviii. 4. A6ls xiii. 16, 26. xvii. 4, 17.

…as things were termed unclean, which were types or emblems of moral impurity, so the Jews were termed holy, not only because they were separated from other nations, but because they typified real Christians, who are in the fullest and noblest sense a holy nation, and a peculiar people (a). Types are visible things, different in their nature, from the spiritual things which they typify. If then the Jewish dispensation was typical, we may safely conclude, that the holiness of the Jewish nation being intended to typify the holiness of the Christian church, was of a different nature from it. And it is for this reason, that the Jewish dispensation is called the flesh and the letter, because persons and things in that dispensation, typified and represented persons and things under a more spiritual dispensation. (a) 1 Pet. ii. 9.

John Erskine’s “The Nature of the Sinai Covenant” (17-21)

Here is Hodge

That the Church is a visible society, consisting of the professors of the true religion, as distinguished from the body of true believers, known only to God, is plain, they say, because under the old dispensation it was such a society, embracing all the descendants of Abraham who professed the true religion, and received the sign of circumcision… The Church exists as an external society now as it did then; what once belonged to the commonwealth of Israel, now belongs to the visible Church...

It is to be remembered that there were two covenants made with Abraham. By the one, his natural descendants through Isaac were constituted a commonwealth, an external, visible community. By the other, his spiritual descendants were constituted a Church. The parties to the former covenant were God and the nation; to the other, God and his true people. The promises of the national covenant were national blessings; the promises of the spiritual covenant, (i.e. of the covenant of grace) were spiritual blessings, reconciliation, holiness, and eternal life. The conditions of the one covenant were circumcision and obedience to the law; the condition of the latter was, is, and ever has been, faith in the Messiah as the seed of the woman, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world. There cannot be a greater mistake than to confound the national covenant with the covenant of grace, and the commonwealth founded on the one with the Church founded on the other.

When Christ came “the commonwealth” was abolished, and there was nothing put in its place. The Church remained. There was no external covenant, nor promises of external blessings, on condition of external rites and subjection. There was a spiritual society with spiritual promises, on the condition of faith in Christ. In no part of the New Testament is any other condition of membership in the Church prescribed than that contained in the answer of Philip to the eunuch who desired baptism: “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (Acts viii. 37)
https://contrast2.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/hodge-on-the-visibility-of-the-church/

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Yet Israel had both civic and ecclesiastical discipline. No one was simply admitted to the knife or the altar with zero consideration for the purposed intent and manner of them.

 

[Ben Zartman]

This would indeed be the Baptist position on this topic, and would also add that is why Baptists tend to see the Church founded at Pentecost, as only the saved are actually part of her under the NC now.

Wrong again. David, Reformed Baptists assert that there was an OT church, not that the church began absolutely at Pentecost. Things changed with the coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant in His blood, but there has always been a church, the elect of God, in all ages.

 

[Dachaser]

Wrong again. David, Reformed Baptists assert that there was an OT church, not that the church began absolutely at Pentecost. Things changed with the coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant in His blood, but there has always been a church, the elect of God, in all ages.

Thanks for your input, as I am working through right now what reformed Baptists believe, and there still seems to be some who would hold with the Church being in the NC now as only the saved of the Lord, as only those who are redeemed will have the Spirit indwelling them, while not all under the Old Covenant were really part of this body, just those who were saved.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Thanks for your input, as I am working through right now what reformed Baptists believe, and there still seems to be some who would hold with the Church being in the NC now as only the saved of the Lord, as only those who are redeemed will have the Spirit indwelling them, while not all under the Old Covenant were really part of this body, just those who were saved.

Then perhaps instead of asserting "This would indeed be the Baptist position" you should have written "This would indeed be my current Baptist position" or "This would indeed be a non-Reformed Baptist position".

 

[Dachaser]

Then perhaps instead of asserting "This would indeed be the Baptist position" you should have written "This would indeed be my current Baptist position" or "This would indeed be a non-Reformed Baptist position".

I will be doing that going forward now on my answers.