Now Mad Dawg. You know me well enough than to think that is what I was saying. I am a Calvinist. Calvinists are 100% about giving God the credit.
Go back and reread my post. I'm trying to get into the head of an Orthodox or Catholic Christian in regards to the sacraments and concluding that the church is not that Institution in Rome but the people of God whatever stream they flow from. A true Christian will be known by the works he performs. Performing the sacraments with regularity isn't what makes one a Christian. What? Alexander VI can go out and father bastard children and have orgies but as long as he says mass the right way, by golly gum, he is a Christian! Such a thought is foreign to Scripture.
So what does the church look like? Is it folks that repeat the right formulas and perform the right rituals but live like sinners the rest of the time? Or, is it people who trust Christ with their very lives? I would say that in Luther's day that people were saved in spite of the Church but not because of it. The same is today since all human institutions be they Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Presybterian, Methodist or whatever are human institutions are just that- human. Christ works through them in various ways - but He draws men unto Himself in spite of human failings.
There was nothing sacred in the Roman Church of Luther's day that he should have clinged to it. Rather, Christ alone would become his banner since all others were but cheap imitations.
Your case, as it seemed to me, for saying the Church was not what we say it is (not agreeing or disagreeing with your statement of its "being an Institution to Rome) was that the guys there were a disgrace. That's why I characterized it the way I did.
So what does the church look like? Is it folks that repeat the right formulas and perform the right rituals but live like sinners the rest of the time? Or, is it people who trust Christ with their very lives?
See that sounds like it depends on the works of the people. Or - Okay, or you're saying it doesn't bear the fruits one would expect a Church to bear? So the fruits don't make Church but they diagnose Church? That's more interesting.
Still, I'll suggest door C: the folks to whom the promise was made -- as a place marker. But I'll think about it, too.
People were never saved because of the Church. And the Church was not, and is not, the hierarchy. In the worst, most upside down case - of which I'll grant Alexander was a probably example, if they administer and celebrate the sacraments and do not corrupt the teaching when they teach, the rest of their lives are not so important.
I don't know if you're ordained, as your fellowship reckons ordination, but I used to think I was ordained, and while I tried, mostly failed, to be a good example and all, I never thought being ordained conveyed especial mojo, in a general sense. I was just as liable to be a horse's patoot as the next guy, I just was in more trouble when I failed.
YES, it is more than desirable for the clergy to be conspicuously virtuous, but it's not of the essence. And in bad times, it's the essence that will count. That's what the argument against Donatism comes down to to me. There was a guy I knew slightly. I can't remember his name so the boss lady and I call him "Father Grouchy" when we pray for him. He struck me as a jerk. But, hey, I strike me as a jerk. I'm not going to hold it against him. We're all, or most of us, trying here, at least part of the time, the best we know how.
The real problem is we only know what a few academics and history makers say the church was like. If the Church is, as we maintain, NOT a human institution, we would look for the fruits maybe in unexpected places? Back to my image of Sinai: Lousy mountain, Outstanding Torah.
And the rest of it strikes me as restatement of the thesis: Luther saw nothing sacred. But it remains to be determined how accurate his vision was. You agree with him. I don't.
Stay tuned. God will figure out a way to show we're both wrong.