Justification: Protestant vs. Catholic

I am borrowing my title from Dr. Gavin Ortlund who presents a very informative YouTube video on the differences and similarities between Protestants and Catholics on the doctrine of justification. He notes some important differences such as Protestants hold to imputed righteousness which is forensic. Imputed righteousness transpires at the moment of faith in Christ and is a completed judicial act. Catholics advocate infused righteousness which is based on observing the sacraments throughout his/her life.

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Refutation of baptismal regeneration utilizing Mk. 16:15; Acts 2:38; 22:16

One movement that holds to baptismal regeneration is the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma clearly represents the RCC: “Baptism is that Sacrament in which man being washed with water in the name of the Three Divine Persons is spiritually reborn …. Faith, as it is not the effective cause of justification … need not be present. The faith which infants lack is ... replaced by the faith of the Church. The formula ‘ex opere operato’ asserts, negatively that the sacramental grace is not conferred by reason of the subjective activity of the recipient, and positively, that the sacramental grace is caused by the validly operated sacramental sign.” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 971-972). The Latin phrase “ex opera operato” means “by work performed” which means grace is conferred by the sacrament of baptism.

Mark 16:16 cannot be used to teach baptismal regeneration: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The second part of the verse negates baptismal regeneration being taught in the first part because of the omission of baptism as a basis for condemnation. “The verse is simply talking about general cases without making a pedantic qualification for the unusual case of someone who believers and is not baptized” (Grudem, 981).

Neither can Acts 2:38 be used to teach water baptism saves. The eis is not purposive or causative as baptismal regenerationalists would teach. “It is equally true that it may say that baptism is not for the purpose of the forgiveness of sins but because of forgiveness (that had already taken place at repentance).  Eis is clearly used with this meaning in Matthew 12:41---‘they repented at (on the basis of, or because of) the preaching of Jonah.’ It certainly cannot mean in that verse that they repented with a view to the preaching of Jonah” (Ryrie, 337).

 

Spurgeon’s most popular and controversial sermon: Baptismal Regeneration

W. Y. Fullerton writes that The baptismal regeneration controversy was inaugurated by a sermon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle on June 5, 1864. Before he preached it, Mr. Spurgeon warned his publishers that he was about to destroy at a blow the circulation of his printed sermons, but the blow must be struck. He was mistaken, for there was never such a demand for any sermon as for that one. In these days, when newspapers circulate a million copies a day, it may seem a small thing to say that a sermon had at once a circulation of a quarter of a million, but in those days, and for a sermon in any day, such a sale is phenomenal.

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Martin Luther's View of Infant Baptism

This review of Sola Fide Compromised? Martin Luther and the doctrine of Baptism by Patrick Ramsey (in Themelios 34.2, 2009: 179-193) is going to be shocking to some. D. Patrick Ramsey believes it is arguable that “Luther’s own doctrine of justification by faith alone is compromised by or at least in tension with his doctrine of baptism, particularly his understanding of baptismal regeneration.” Ramsey states that “this paper will argue that Luther’s doctrine of baptism is inconsistent with his doctrine of justification by faith alone.” Ramsey, a Presbyterian, is not alone. Southern Baptist theologian John S. Hammett writes, “In fact, Luther, on other issues challenged tradition in the name of Scripture, used tradition to argue for infant baptism against the Anabaptists: “Were child baptism now wrong God would certainly not have permitted it to continue so long, nor let it become so universally and thoroughly established in all Christendom” (Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches. 267).

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