Fundamentalists assert that upon accepting Christ as personal Savior one’s
sinful soul is “covered up” by His imputed
merits. However, Sacred
Scripture tells us that our sins are not simply “covered up” but actually
washed away, and this by Baptism:
“Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
“Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his
name” (Acts 22:16).
“...he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had
done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal
by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus
Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might
become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. 3:5-7).
Furthermore, Scripture throughout conceives the forgiveness of sins as a
real and total removal: “wash,” “cleanse” (Ps. 51 [50]:2; 1 John 1:7);
“removes” (Ps. 103 [102]:12); “takes away” (St. John 1:29; 1 John 3:5);
“inner renewal” (Eph. 4:23); “washed,” “sanctified” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Even the sixteenth century Protestant leader John Calvin wrote the
following:
“Paul proves his previous assertion that Christ destroys sin in His
people from the effect of baptism, by which we are initiated into
faith in Him.”¹
Classical Fundamentalists and Evangelicals teach that even after one is
justified, the soul remains “totally depraved,”² covered only by Christ’s
imputed
merits. However, Scripture tells us that the Christian becomes a
“temple of the Holy Spirit” and that the soul is filled with the life of the
Blessed Trinity:
1
Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, 1540, 8:122.
2
Calvin taught “total depravity” in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559
ed.), Bk. 2, ch. 2, sect. 26-27; ch. 3, sect. 1-7; ch. 4, sect. 1-5.
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