***ordaination to elder is valid no matter what the spiritual state of the ordaining elder.***
An ordination is valid only if God has truly called a man to it. IMHO an elder has no magical power to confer a calling on a person if that person is not called of God.
I know the PCA will not let a man preach in their church unless he is an ordained minister of the PCA. This legalistic rule completely disregards the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in his ability to choose men outside the "system". Something He has chose to do many times down through the ages.
I find it amazing that a Church could establish a rule for preaching that would exclude the very Apostles themselves (being that none of them are ordained in the PCA).
***Do you regard an openly gay elder as a valid elder ***
Would Paul?
Wouldn't living in open rebellion to the will of God automatically disqualify someone from holding a Church office?
***do you regard his ordinations as valid? ***
Again, man confers nothing on man that God has not already given.
***Wouldn't living in open rebellion to the will of God automatically disqualify someone from holding a Church office?***
I agree, hence my question: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" So, how can anyone hang their hat on a succession of elders through the laying on of men's hands unless you can also spiritually discern the state of the ordaining elder?
So, if the early Protestants who were ordained by Catholics regarded the Catholics themselves as apostate, then how can those apostate men bring a clean thing out of the unclean? If the Catholics weren't unclean, then what right did the Reformers have to break with Rome?
In the service of the Lord,
Christian.