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Pilgrim said:
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speratus said:
Secondly, Pilgrim and JE, if I read their previous posts correctly, would deny there is any efficacy (in the narrow sense) through Word and Sacrament for either elect or reprobate.
I am more than confident to respond to this statement in behalf of JE as well as myself, knowing perfectly well what JE believes on this matter. First, you didn't read either of our posts correctly.

I was referring to your earlier post of July 14, "As J_Edwards has said so many times, as I have as well, baptism is a "sign" and a "seal" but it has no power to save." And JE's post of Jul 11, "No, no, a 1000 times NO, Infants are NOT saved by baptism!"

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Pilgrim opinesSecond, you evidently didn't read my next to last reply to you here, where I wrote:

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The Bible and Calvinism assert that God is sovereign and consequently all things occur according to His eternal counsel. ALL that God wills (decreed) is "efficacious", i.e., it will accomplish that which He has purposed.<br>

I have no problem with your broad definition of efficacy. For the narrow definition of "efficacy" (which I thought your question was directed to), I was using Calvin's definition in his "Antidote to Trent" which I quoted on July 17.

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For in the Sacraments God alone properly acts; men bring nothing of their own, but approach to receive the grace offered to them. Thus, in Baptism, God washed us by the blood of his Son and regenerated us by his Spirit; in the Supper he feeds us with the flesh and blood of Christ. What part of the work can man claim, without blasphemy, since the whole appears to be of grace?


I hope this acquits me of any anti-Calvinist bias.

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Pilgrim opinesHowever, what God has purposed through the Gospel and in the sacraments are not necessarily identical. Further, what God has purposed through these means in regard to the elect most often differs; e.g., the Gospel invariably is the means through which the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect and calls them to faith immediately. Baptism differs in that regeneration is most often not accomplished in baptism but later through the Gospel. And the Lord's Table differs yet even more so, in regard to the elect, in that it serves to strengthen, console, etc., the elect and thus its focus is upon sanctification rather than justification.

The efficacy of the gospel in Word and Sacrament is not reduced or eliminated because man hears preaching or receives the sacraments in a regenerative condition. God saves us when we, in faith, are baptized, hear His Word preached, and eat and drink His body and blood. As Calvin writes, man is merely passive receiving that which is efficaciously offered. The whole is of grace alone.