This Friday is Calvin's 500th birthday.
Let us face it. In the world of Protestantdom, we are surrounded and circled around by Calvinists and those he influenced. In my country of birth, Lutherans are not even a blip in the radar. You won't find us much in the city. You will find us in the mountains and remote rural places but not in the urban areas. Luther is only known to handful of Protestant pastors there. If an Evangelical pastor there knows Luther, you can bet he is pretty educated.
There are quite a few wise words that Calvin said that I like. I stress the few (LOL).
Have you read his prayers? I certainly come out impressed by his spirituality whenever I read them.
I was reminded of him when I visited Ichabod who featured a couple of things he said regarding the sacraments in connection to Enthusiasm.
Here is an example from Calvin's Institutes:
We must not suppose that there is some latent virtue inherent in the sacraments by which they, in themselves, confer the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon us, in the same way in which wine is drunk out of a cup, since the only office divinely assigned them is to attest and ratify the benevolence of the Lord towards us; and they avail no farther than accompanied by the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts, and make us capable of receiving this testimony, in which various distinguished graces are clearly manifested…They [the sacraments] do not of themselves bestow any grace, but they announce and manifest it, and, like earnests and badges, give a ratification of the gifts which the divine liberality has bestowed upon us.
What did Calvin do in the above quote? He weakened the connection of the Sacraments with the HS. In short, for Calvin, the Sacraments may or may not be accompanied by the HS. For him, there is no guarantee that the HS will accompany the Sacraments for sure, the HS is detached from the Sacraments. I have several theories as to what might be going on in his psyche that led him to say this stuff but that is for another post.
What then is the effect of this detachment or lack of guarantee that the HS is with the Sacraments? You cannot look to it. Calvin's ambeguity has a negative effect on the believer in that he becomes at a loss as to where God's promises are located. He no longer has a guarantee that when he goes there, God will meet him there. Hence, the believer may have to look for a zap from above, and they often do, ergo, Enthusiasm.
At least with Zwingli, it was much better, at least with him, you knew he said the Sacraments were mere symbols. You knew where he stood, and he was wrong. Calvin's vague position I believe has led to the chaos we see in Evangelicalism. This uncertainty as to where the HS works and what He uses to supply what God demands (faith) is like being in a ship that has lost its rudder.
Contrast the above with what the BoC on FC, SD XI says about the matter:
Furthermore, the declaration in John 6:44 is right and true, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."However, the Father will not do this without means, but hasordained His Word and Sacraments for this purpose as ordinarymeans and instruments. It is not the will of the Father or ofthe Son that a person should not hear or should despise thepreaching of His Word and wait for the drawing of the Fatherwithout the Word and Sacraments. For the Father draws indeed by the power of His Holy Spirit. However, He works according to His usual way. He works by the hearing of His holy, divine Word. Every poor sinner should therefore attend to the Word, hear it attentively, and not doubt the Father's drawing. For the HolySpirit will be with His Word in His power, and will work by it.That is the Father's drawing. (paragraphs 75-77)
Notice how the BoC leaves nothing uncertain, notice how boldly it asserts the HS is with the Word and the Sacraments. What is the effect of this to the struggling Christian who is in doubt if he has faith? He is assured that he can go to the Word and Sacraments where his faith may be strengthened, increased - he has a guarantee that the HS will meet him there. When he goes to the Word, he is certain, it is God speaking to him. When he goes to the Supper, he is certain, Jesus is pronouncing and giving evidence that his sins have been paid for. Assurance.
32 comments:
I don't know a whole lot about Calvin, other than his Geneva was a pretty dreary place to live under his guidence, and that he had a more humanistic approach to the Word, internalizing it more than the Lutherans who emphasized the 'external Word' (extra nos).
When you internalize, you start to end up with more of you, and less of Christ.
I'm sure he wrote and said a lot of great things, but I much prefer to stick with Luther, who may not have gotten everything right either, but he sure knew the gospel.
And that is enough for me.
SM,
I believe you are correct in Calvin internalizing. For one thing it is easy to conclude that the Sacraments do not do anything if you see the participants not having some visible life change. I believe this happened to Calvin - Romans were pretty corrupt, so rather than blaming the soil, the sower got detached from the seed.
But this for example makes a blunder of ignoring the parable of the sower and the seed.
LP
LP
I was raised in calvinistic doctrine. The reason he had to back off the sacraments was due to his bent toward double predestination. In that view the Holy Spirit does not do any work in the non elect. And since non elects were baptized and partook of the Supper they could not carry the promise of the Holy Spirit.
It indeed stole comfort from the battle weary saint. I thank the Lord for tossing me into Luther's writings.
God's peace. †
I spent about 10 years of my Christian life as an ardent Calvinist and agonized the whole time over whether I had a gracious God or not. It's no accident that the Westminster Confession of Faith has a separate chapter on Assurance, unlike the BoC where assurance permeates the entire work.
DC,
That was at the top of the list in my theories why Calvin said what he said. His predestinarian thinking predominated his theology.
Put it this way - his Sovereignty Doctrine says God can do anything and he is not bound by any means.
At first blush this sounds logical, but at second blush, this really offers no guarantee or it offers anything and anywhere God might do something.
Lutheran doctrine of Sovereignty says that though God is not bound, he is by his Sovereignty binding himself to these means to give us certainty where he may be found. He is found In Christ and his Word and Sacraments confers what it conveys, they lead us to Christ.
Lutheran doctrine has a way of promoting faith in Christ. We need to talk about this some more in future posts.
LP
Hi Joel,
I did not stay long in Calvinism like you did, I think I was in it for 4 years or so.
Your experience was the same as mine, I was always in a question as to my election in fact it has a way of terrifying you and locking you into a depressive state and also obsessive state.
What bothered me was that the Limited Atonement passages that I read - did not satisfy my own study of the passages.
BTW Calvin has a way of being innovative or what I call, fixing something that is not broken.
For example, his doctrine of repentance is quite different from ours. Take the case of baptismal regeneration, Calvinists will tell you that Calvin believed in it, and Calvinist will tell you he did not.
Ambiguity.
Unfortunatley Melanchton shared his ambiguity when Luther passed away and was rightly rejected by orthodox Lutherans.
Sige,
LPC
Joel.
Ask the missus if she cooks Arroz ala Cubana. I will be cooking this weekend.
BTW, surely you like adobo, no?
LPC
Lito,
I too will admit to having read Calvin with profit (!). One quote of his I like is "the human heart is an idol-making factory". A vivid image and a very Lutheran thought.
Do you know Calvinism, albeit in a moderate form, is on the rise in Australia through the expansion of the evangelical Anglicans? I posted about this recently on my blog in a post called An Eye on the Reformed (unashamed plug!). Presbyterians of various stripes are also planting new churches in suburbia.
I don't think this is entirely bad news...I think there may be a positive spin-off for the LCA, if we can get our act together, because the assurance issue that plagues sensitive Calvinists provides an open door to the Lutheran faith.
Btw, Sasse has an interesting section on Calvin's approach to the sacraments in This Is My Body which Pr Brett may have. Sasse thinks Calvin was an ambitious man who thought he could resolve the differences between the Zwinglians and Lutherans on the sacrament and go down in history as a hero rather than the ambivalent figure he turned out to be - distrusted by Lutherans and misunderstood by the Reformed (how many reformed hold Calvin's view on the sacrament? I'd wager Zwingli's approach has always been more readily understood and hence more popular.
Calvinists have a poor grasp of the Incarnation! The Incarnation means that the whole person is saved, not just the soul. The Sacraments are precisely meant to remind us of that. They remind precisely by saving the whole person, by killing and making alive. And just as the Incarnation means God with us, not in us, so the Sacraments embody the external Word.
Pr.M.
If we could get our act together!???
My oath.
Our anti-triumphalism sometimes is a mask for laziness.
Yes, it is becoming popular specially amongst disenfranchised young evangelicals.
Some of them will be coming to the castle and we should be there to provide comfort and relief. They have a way of tilting over the cart on sanctification and shelving justification.
Agreed, Calvin did try to resolve the issues between Zwingli and Luther but he winded up being confusing on the issue. Remember the controversy with Westphal? He was foaming in the mouth cause Westphal got him cornered.
LP
AS,
Great input bro.
I do not know what to say, but there is something wonderfully unique that I experience when I go to our communion administered by a Lutheran pastor.
THIS IS the body of Christ broken for your sins.
That is so personal, I just get blessed.
Hope you are enjoying the sem break, not too long and it is starting again.
God bless your studies, been excited for you.
Kuya
LP,
I can concur with what many have said already having been an Calvinist myself. The irony is that he's championed as the anti-synergist and nothing could be further from the truth. When he disconnected the sacraments, he set forth, albeit unintentional, the new synergistic pathway and it most strongly manifests itself in the logical outcome of his doctrine via the Puritans. You can't say "monergysm" then take away God coming down to us in the sacraments whereby you necessarily throw people back INTO themselves and seriously be taken as monergistic. When Calvin removed the grace from the sacraments making them signs and seals only of a grace somewhere else delivered he fostered a form of gnosticism and that becomes the new synergistic pathway.
I was just reading more Sasse last night (This Is My Body) and from what I gather there were two major reasons Luther ultimately rejected Zwingli (and Bucer) and would not offer him the right hand of fellowship as a brother in Christ. It was not Luther’s temperament either.
1. Luther, like the church since the very Apostles, saw the LS as essential to the church’s existence. From day one the church practiced closed communion. In fact the term “closed” came from the closing of the doors during the LS. Sasse points out that even Zwingli understood this, closed communion…Sasse explains that even Zwingli himself would have NEVER admitted a Baptist to his LS table. Modern eyes with its open door policy finds this utterly foreign to its thinking. But the “modern”, especially Americanized democratic, church is not the historic biblical church since the days of the Apostles.
2. Luther correctly saw the “fuzzy language” issue. Historically the Arians of the Arian heresy did the same thing. They broadened the language so that it could be used so as to sound like they were saying the same thing speaking of Christ’s humanity and deity, yet denying when pressed to sharpen their definitions His deity with things like “only the title God” and such. But durying ecumenical attempts, preaching, and teaching they’d fuzz it so it sounded the same. Kind of like in our day if you go to ANY church and ask, “Do you believe in the Bible as the Word of God and the Gospel”, and you get a resounding “Why yes.” Even a Mormon will say “yes” to that. The same thing occurs with the terms “sacrament”, “real presence”, “eating/drinking” etc… when in fact there is no middle ground that meats on the two.
Sasse, on this last point, points out to Zwingli’s credit with all his faults he was superior to both Bucer and later Calvin on this issue. Zwingli understood well that there was no so called “middle ground” between the two views – one is as opposed to the other as the other is to it. Here Zwingli does rightly see better than Bucer of his time and Calvin later the issue.
Larry
Larry,
Great to read your comments here.
Right now there is a Calvinistic bandwagon which if you do not step back you will be swept by the hooplah.
I wonder why more credit than is due is being given when in fact he was confusing on quite a number and very important issue.
It is a wonder a lot a people are not realizing the effect of taking away certainty in the Sacraments.
Your pointing out the use of language is spot on. Even historically, in Protestantdom, the non-Lutherans have adopted Lutheran terms but they have given a spin into it. I was reading one time Calvin's idea of repentance and I came out concluding that it was a compromise with the Roman concept.
Right, even JWs will agree about being born again and they even speak of Jesus as Savior, but nope, not the way we mean it.
Take the case of Limited Atonement, you look at his exegesis of key passages and you come away saying he did not believe it, you look at other passages he wrote about, and 5 Pointers will tell you Calvin did. He had the skill of talking in both sides of his mouth.
I'd say, chuck it, abandon the confusion, go to the BOC where it exposes Scripture in clear terms on subjects that are vital to faith.
LPC
The Sacraments were instituted to prevent faith from collapsing inwards, to prevent God from being reduced to an abstraction, etc. God the Father did not send the Son into this world to be an idea, but concretely to be born as Man. Jesus did not come to give a new Law, but to die(!) Jesus lives on firstly by being resurrected on the third day, and is now ascended into heaven. He is first the Sacrament, only then is He the Example.
The Romans and Byzantines reverses the order; whilst the Liberals mutilate the former ...
A.S.
Thanks also for this, indeed, the sacraments make concrete God's relationship to us. No need to wonder if God is for you or against you.
In Christ, he is for you always - it is always - yes and amen.
LPC
The Calvinist's real disjunction therefore is between the Sacraments and *faith.* The Sacraments are necessarily and in themselves extra nos. You cannot run away from that ... its sheer physicality ... even if the Calvinists choose to ignore this. But on the other hand, faith can easily be faith in faith, without one knowing it at all. The Puritan reflex faith is precisely that. It's Law, rather than Gospel. It's a process, rather than an event. So, instead of the Sacraments providing assurance, it turns upon us to do the work.
So, the only way is the Lutheran Way in which Word and Sacraments are held closely together ... never putting assunder what God has instituted ...
Sadly, for the Calvinist, justification or forgiveness of sins can never be a down-to-earth breaking in of the Word here and now in the living present, but an event somewhere in heaven or in the past. This is why the Word cannot be truly said to kill and make alive but merely to inform of what has already taken place ... a confirmation, if you will.
But for us Lutherans, let us hold fast and be thankful that the minister is authorised by the risen and crucified Lord to do the electing deed, NOT to offer, but precisely and specifically to give, literally hand over the Word in its oral and sacramental form, the absolution, the Body and Blood and the washing of Baptism to the sinner there and then ... Election and predestination is not just something relegated to a distant past or even before the foundations of the world, but the call of the Gospel today, and tomorrow and as long as this world goes on ...
http://www.cph.org/cphstore/Category.asp?find%5Fcategory=97642&find%5Fdescription=Professional%2FAcademic+%2D+Sale&find%5Fpart%5Fdesc=
CPH warehouse sale ...
LP,
Glad to be here, you got some great conversations going on here. I have to thank Steve (OAL) for inviting me to check it out…glad he did. I’ve noticed a bit of what you said on the whole Calvin 500 thing, it’s almost like celebrating a Hollywood movie star in some corners, the celebrity and such. That language part is one of the biggest most frustrating things. You made a good point about JWs. Because I use to do a fair amount of “witnessing” back in my SB days to Mormons, even out in Utah, and one of the most frustrating things was the conversation when one would use normal biblical Christian terms like “grace” and so forth. They’d say, “Yea we believe that too”. We had deacons coming back saying, “They believe what we believe”. It was all based on the lingo. Yet, I’ve noted when I’ve engaged a Calvinist on an issue like the LS, that same frustrating, “Yea we believe that too” comes up. It gets really frustrating when they say “we believe in the real presence”, and then you point out, but not in the bread and wine. They say yes the real presence is in the LS where the HS takes you up to heaven…etc… And you reply, “But not THERE, right THERE IN THAT bread and wine…so you don’t believe in the real presence. You almost have to invent a new language yet to be procured.
AS,
That is some great stuff!
Yours,
Larry
AS,
Right, if there is no more a place where we can go that God promises to be there, we are left like sheep without a shepherd so there is this intra nos thing that leaves us to our own devices.
That insight on the means of our election is a very good thing. That reminds me of what was so much missing - in that unlike the BoC which hammers you to look at the Word and Sacraments, Westminster simply relegates it to the free will of God and the God who does not bind himself for the good of his people. In practical terms though they emphasize the promises of God, in another sense they cut it off because there is no place where he may be found, he is everywhere and no where at the same time.
LPC
The interesting thing about Calvinism and America and the complaint regarding today’s evangelical church is that many Reformed complain about it, yet don’t really see that Calvinism is it’s root and this, even Pentecostalism is the logical extension of Calvin.
America is practically solely influenced by English Calvinism and all its derivatives, even the Baptist church can trace itself back to Calvin, even Wesley and Arminianism. All those came out of Calvin. The Puritans, staunch Calvinist, if you read them much over time, having thoroughly followed Calvin in disconnecting the Sacraments (look up their “half-way” covenant stuff) over time looked more and more inward and for the “process of conversion”, the ordo salutus. If you read even the highest end Puritans like Jonathan Edwards they spend much paper and ink ferreting out what is real conversion and what is not, I mean nearly everything they wrote…it was obsessive. Children were panicked about “am I elect” and such. A true story of a woman throwing her baby down a well killing it and saying, “Now I know I’m not elect, surely I will go to hell”. What is frightening about that is that she found comfort in knowing she was hell bound over NOT knowing IF she was elect. You see how true hell works, and this kind of terror among many in Calvinism, though not that drastic in doing what she did, is not too few at all. These kind of terrors over election are pretty part and parcel with Calvinist. Hell I nearly on numerous occasions wanted to commit suicide over it, and that is WELL outside of my normal personality – yet the terror is so great and the sacraments according to the Calvinist doctrine (Baptist OR Reformed) allows for no help whatsoever it drives men and women to utter despair. It is EXACTLY as Luther once said that the devil leads men to these great heights to break their necks and fall like he did.
to be continued...LH
Cont...(sorry about the length)
So since the sacraments are unhinged and only signs and seals of a grace elsewhere given in the ordos salutus one MUST find where? After all what God fearer is going to sleep at night without knowing, “am I saved, elect, reborn”? What else in the entire universe is worth having if you don’t have that! And there, the inward journey begins, back INTO the heart and soul of the sinner to find “the spirit’s” work that “grace elsewhere given” but not in the sacraments. So it is no surprise that men like Wesley and Finney and others arose. It’s the logical progression of Calvin’s sacramental-less theology. And from Finney it is no small leap whatsoever to rank Pentecostalism, health and wealth theology, all sorts of theologies of glory. It starts with Calvin’s ever so seemingly slight error on the sacraments, just a half a degree off back in his time, but then 500 years later we have Finney, Wesley, Benny Hinn, etc… That’s what inward turning produces at length. When the “sacraments” only signify the grace ELSEWHERE given, that elsewhere becomes the search, “where is it”, that’s what the end product becomes. Hiding the Word of God, actual grace given in the water, bread and wine so that one’s theology in essences says, “Nope, God’s not here for you, elsewhere”, falsely send you on this hide and seek searching, “Then where is God’s salvation for me”, and so presto ‘theologies of glory’ of ALL sorts. Calvinist rail against Arminians, but the truth be known Arminians are their creation, their doctrinal children. If faith doesn’t come as a gift in the sacraments, and grace is conferred elsewhere, then these “ex-calvinist” become Arminian are simply try to put back into concrete something they can hold on to. So they move faith to “man’s decision”, it’s seemingly more concrete than Calvin’s vague ordos salutus.
Final point to where this all leads concerning American religion and its father Calvin. American’s Christian spectrum, in the widest sense is in a deplorable state. From liberalism to conservativism from Methodist, Baptist, Presby., Reformed, you name it – all the grandchildren of Calvin. America’s religion is now like and worse than Medieval Rome ever was. And we all consider the Papacy as thoroughly antichristic, but America is in a sense worse. It took the errors via Rome nearly 1500 years to produce a situation so bad that it took an evangelist like Luther to be used reform. Yet it has taken Calvin’s errors 500 year to manifest nearly the same level if not worse antichristic characters.
Larry
Larry,
I have not finished reading all your comments but out of excitement this one takes the bacon...
the complaint regarding today’s evangelical church is that many Reformed complain about it, yet don’t really see that Calvinism is it’s root and this, even Pentecostalism is the logical extension of Calvin.
Bingo!
LPC
AS,
You said something that I have recently been pondering about the sacraments,
“Sadly, for the Calvinist, justification or forgiveness of sins can never be a down-to-earth breaking in of the Word here and now in the living present, but an event somewhere in heaven or in the past.” --End Quote.
It donned on me literally the other day this idea, not as nicely as you just said. Then I could not help but wonder, “if the sacraments are not earthy, present tense, here and now, to and on and for me, then I’m left with somewhere else and past tense not necessarily to, on and for me. How does that, the later, not create merely historic faith, the very thing James is warning against? Because if Christ is not in the present and earthy to, on and for me via a sacrament of some kind, I’m left with Christ 2000 years ago only and that seems to only produce an historic faith. Now that historic faith may manifest itself in a more self-righteous form, a self-righteous toned “I believe it so (what a good faithful boy I am)” (more to James’s point), or a form that is more despairing in nature with a timid tone of “Well I believe it so (I’m just not sure for me)”. There’s to ways to not have faith in God it seems, one seems pious because its timid but its not. There’s the “I have the coin God needs so I’ll approach Him”. Then there’s the “I don’t have the coin God needs so I won’t approach Him”. Either one is deadly and really both arrogance and pride, the later just seems humble on face value but it is not because IF it could “get the coin” it would revert to the former.
Larry
AS/Larry,
What you guys just said makes sense to me now.
Now no wonder in evan-gel-lia there is hurrying up to - let us get that faith now, over and done with and let us now go hop into our bikes, start pedalling for sanctification.
Your comments seem to explain why in evan-gel-lia justification is whisked away in a hurry, making the believer look and ask, so ok what is next?
No wonder too there is something new, some new fad every 2 years.
LPC
Although I have many friends who are fans of the Puritans and of course Calvinists, I despise Puritanism, I despise the Puritan view of sanctification ... the ironic thing is that the pendulum has swung to the other side, I mean legalism used to be theological trend in the older days ... right from the start ... but now there is talk of the New Calvinists in the Reformed world, about the revival of Calvinism in the Anglo-American landscape, not least promoted by the efforts of the Banner of Truth. However, what we now see is a kind of antinomianism ... well, legalism and antinomianism are mirror images.
It used to be a holier-than-thou attitude; now we see cooler-than-thou attitude ... how amusing, these new Calvinists for the most part would claim ecclesial lineage with the Puritans, but 'repudiate' at least in action the doctrine of sanctification. This shows for example in their attitude towards the world, as the locus of the rule of Satan, rather than the world as God's essentially good but cursed creation as expressed in the institution of the three orders of life.
These New Calvinists would unabashedly engage with the world not critically but by discerning the morals or even the Gospel in say, Hollywood inspired, funded, directed films ...
I mean let's get real ... the Old Adam loves the movies. I do ... but let us leave it at that ... watching movies and pretending to philosophise about the plot of the film is just plain ridiculous ... there is no distinction between the Old and New Adam. The world is irrelevant as the Gospel in concerned(!) New Calvinists want to appear cool and relevant ... engaging in culture and bringing culture under the sovereignty and Lordship of God ...
(I mean we are talking about blaspheming, God-hating actors and actresses here!!!)
There is no neutrality ... something the New Calvinists fail to understand ...
But there is no distinction here between the left- and right-hand kingdom ... the kingdom to come does not come by our efforts ... it is already here by the power of the Word and of grace ... whenever the Word is proclaimed orally and sacramentally ...
All these is rooted in the Calvinistic inconsistent application of the distinction between Law and Gospel ...
Even the distinction between the sacred and secular has virtually disappeared from the church scene in supposedly Calvinistic circles ... drums, electric guitars which detract from the proclamation of the Word, which syncretises with the purity of worship ... all is lost on the New Calvinist ... the distinction between public and private ministry ...
The world has already crept into the churches of the New Calvinists because the pendulum has swung from legalism of the Puritans to the antinomianism of the their successors in the form of the New Calvinists ...
As if that by talking about sanctification, by trying to sanctify that which is defiled (not talknig about sanctifying the creation of God such as food, etc.) one is sanctified, or one promotes sanctification!
Also, New Calvinists may be conservative Five-Pointers, but there are also some Charismatics (e.g. Wayne Grudem)or open to Charismaticism (e.g. John Piper) ... and or open to heresies which attacks justification by faith alone such as the NPP
... one thing they're not, that is confessional Protestants.
And of course you've got the problem of revivalism, which is an off-shoot of Pietism in itself a cousin of Puritanism.
Luther's still the best!
Very thought-provoking discussion ... all of your thoughts finally led me to post my own ongoing musings regarding this topic at my blog. My thoughts are definitely going in the same direction as Larry's (as usual!).
Blessings,
Dawn
AS,
It took me a while to realize that Puritanism is oversold.
I hope the young guns who are toying with Calvinism due to the advertisements of folk like John Piper and others will soon realize, they have been given a bum steer.
A long time ago, I compared the wisdom of Luther using jazz concepts.
Calvin is what I will call a bebop artist like Gillespie he has lots of technique but fuzzy and flux but Luther, he is the Louie Armstrong of Prot theology, he is clear and precise.
My departed trumpet teacher, bless his soul, said, (and he owned an 18 men, big band) no one has beaten Armstrong in simplicity and genius.
So with Luther.
LPC
Dear Dawn,
I am glad it has propelled you to more thoughtful consideration of the topic.
Thank you for featuring the discussion her in your blog and for your adding this blog in your blog roll.
Yes, Larry should be a blogger too.
I also mentioned your musings in the new post.
Calvinism does not eventually give certainty because its view of the Sovereignty of God is a God who does not limit himself. The Sacraments actually say that God though Sovereign condescends to be handled by men, i.e. the body of his Son to be eaten, his blood to be drank.
That is why some harsh critics of Calvinism compares its view of God to that of Islam.
God is great. Both fly the flag of God's greatness.
Yet, the Lutheran view of God is great...IN and THROUGH CHRIST. God the Father binding himself in the Son.
Blessings,
LPC
LP,
not to change the subject, but going back a few comments...I'm not sure I've had arroz ala cubana. Is it a Filipino dish? If so, I may have tasted it without knowing at a party or get-together hosted by Filipinos.
Adobo is awesome, but actually Filipino soups are my favorite. Very good, especially on a cold winter's day.
Hi Joel,
Ah yes the sopas. They are nice on a cold day/night. We have a Latvian guy who comes to our bible study/catechism group and he loves the soups too.
Arroz ala cubana is a Filipino version of a Cuban dish - minced beef with capsicum, eaten with garlic rice and fried egg. Also with fried plantains (I think that is the name in English, but it is simply a type of no so sweet banana).
http://www.carinderia.net/recipes/arrozalacubana.html
This is chicken feed with your missus, it is so easy to do. I bet she has done it.
LPC
That definitely sounds masarap! If she is not familiar with the dish, my mother-in-law (who resides with us half the year) should be.
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