Usually the first objection that is brought up when a person who holds to a memorialist position learns that I hold to the view that some kind of sanctifying grace is imparted to a participant in the Lord’s Supper is that I’m believing in magical elements. To quote a commentator on a previous thread, where I introduced this idea:
The Bible does NOT teach that magic rituals obtain grace, but rather that faith is rewarded with grace.
I believe there are two reasons that this, and similar responses I’ve heard from many people, occur. The first, and one I will only touch on here, is that it comes from a lingering rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. Having “grown up” in Baptist churches, where the memorialist position was the norm, all other positions were pretty much lumped together as being the Roman Catholic view, or at least on the way to it. I don’t believe this was done intentionally, by most, but was done simply for lack of knowledge on other traditions in general and lack of thought on the Lord’s Supper particularly.
As an example to this, I was talking with a friends dad the other day who use to be a pastor in The Christian And Missionary Alliance (Not to put either the dad [who I enjoy talking with] or the CMA [which I am attending a church of and enjoying it very much at the moment] down but only to illustrate the issue) and the fact that I think grace is imparted in the supper came up. His first reaction was to call it a Catholic view and begin to discuss what is wrong transubstantiation. The fact that I didn’t mention the topic of Christ’s presence, but only wished to talk about what happens in the Lord’s Supper didn’t seem to matter. It was a deviation from the memorialist position and therefore must be Catholic and include the whole of the Catholic teaching. This is of course absurd, but it happens often. The only way to combat this is education on the fact that protestants have historically had varying views on the Lord’s Supper and not everything different is Catholic. Of course a better understanding of what the Roman Catholic Church actually teaches and why would also help.
The second reason that any grace position is rejected as magic, and I think the more pervasive one, is that the vast majority of people today have in their minds a radical separation between the spiritual and physical world. We can chalk this dichotomy up to gnosticism or enlightenment philosophers, but the fact is that it’s there and it’s undeniable. The idea that God would use an object to give grace, seems so very strange to many because of this.
Today’s average Protestant Christian has simply accepted the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and never actually looked to see what it means. It has therefore morphed into something much closer to a doctrine that says “justification by faith in faith alone” eliminating any physical connection and bringing in the nebulous idea that it is faith the saves a person and not something or someone. When pressed on it, every protestant worth their salt will respond that it is Christ that saves, but in the abstract, the fact that He was a physical person whose action we put faith in to accomplish what scripture promises putting faith in Him will, is not considered. The physical actions of Christ are often overlooked on account of faith. We are not saved by faith, but saved by a person who in faith we trust in to do what He promised.
To bring this a bit away from the abstract, we could ask the question: If Christ did not go to the cross, commit a physical action, would salvation still be open to people even if they had faith? The answer I think is no, Christ needed to go to the cross, and He needed to be raised again or else our faith would be in nothing.
This is all well and good you say, but that was Christ committing a physical action, your speaking of us performing a physical action of receive grace. Isn’t that works salvation?
Works is the funny thing in Protestant theology. I was once asked long, long ago, how I could say I didn’t believe works saved and then say that faith was needed to be saved. Wasn’t faith a work? The question perplexed me for a while, I was a very new believer, but the answer is quite simple; faith may be a work, but it is one that is done not by our own power but by God’s (Ephesians 2:8).
The Protestant argument against works is, or at least should be, that the person is trying to save themselves. They are doing works of their own power to get a spiritual result. They think that by doing something they are storing up merit that counts towards them in heaven. These are not views I want to put forward as what happens in the Lord’s Supper at all.
When I say sanctifying grace is given in the Lord’s Supper I mean that God uses the elements of it to give us grace. It’s the avenue which He sends His grace to us through. There is no inherent quality in the bread and wine that gives grace to any eater of it, but God sends His grace through it to those who take it in faith. As we saw earlier God uses the physical Christ to bring saving grace to us, and we see other examples in scripture of Him using physical objects to bring grace to people.
Consider Numbers 21:9:
So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
There are several questions to ask with a passage like this. Was it a work for the people to look at the snake? Did they heal themselves? Was it the snake that healed, or was it God? Of course we will say it was not a work, that God healed them and it wasn’t the snake that did but God working through the physical object. The same questions should be asked with Mark 8:23-25 where Christ used physical objects to heal a man of his blindness.
None of this is proof, or even an argument, that sanctifying grace is given in the Lord’s supper, thats not the point here. The point is to give the person pause who rejects that view out of hand because it comes across as magic. God can, and does, use physical means to distribute His grace. He did it with Christ, with the serpents on the pole, and with mud and spit. The absolute dichotomy between physical and spiritual is not one found in scripture. Our God works in mysterious ways, and through mysterious objects, and we should embrace that!
I think the scriptural examples you cite at first seem very reasonable, however, with regard to another concept (individual will of God) I have found myself asking new questions about scriptural “proof” for certain doctrines. For example, is the bronze serpent really a normative example? Can we take an isolated incident in Israel’s history and then clump that with a few more non-normative illustrations (healing by Jesus garment, maybe?) to form something as standardized as guaranteed grace via communion? Especially when this seems to, if not violate, at least fall outside the realm of established normative scriptural principles? I am not saying your view is not supported in scripture, but I don’t think a passage like the bronze serpent lends any weight to it.
I realize you say this:
…and it does give me pause. However, while I agree that God has used objects (clearly) to perform certain acts, even divine acts - this does not mean that we can jump to the idea that God will always impart grace via bread and wine.
I would agree, the examples I cite do not show that grace is given in communion in any way. It is simply a response to the magic argument. I will, I hope, get around to writing more entries on this topic which will actually address what happens in communion. At this point I haven’t even explained what I mean by sanctifying grace, nor given any evidence for it in either one of my posts on this topic.
Other examples the above commentators would perhaps like to investigate include Apostolic Church fathers who see the Lord’s Supper as ‘magical’ or, perhaps more appropriately, Sacramental.
Ignatius, Polycarp, and Irenaeus all have apostolic connections to St. John. They all see it as being Sacramental.
St. Paul thinks it is Sacramental, as he thinks that abusing it is what is killing people, or at the very least making them sick (see 1 Cor. 11)
Even Martin Luther thought it to be Sacramental, even if he disagreed with transubstantiation.
Bryan said, “At this point I haven’t even explained what I mean by sanctifying grace, nor given any evidence for it…”
Yes, that was going to be my question.
Also, there are both sacramental and non-sacramental protestant denominations–you could school us a bit about that difference.
Bryan said, “The absolute dichotomy between physical and spiritual is not one found in scripture.”
True, true. Our scientific mindset makes us wish that dichotomy did exist.
Hmm. As an ex-Catholic, I’ve pondered and studied this topic many times. I appreciated you article. Grace is truly an amazing thing. I’ve always seen the bronze serpent explained as a precursor to Christ on the cross. All who look and believe will be saved. The Lord’s Supper is more like the manna that God gave the Israelites in the desert. It just keeps us spiritually alive instead of physically. Baptism is a work as is praying. Our whole life is filled with work, and it only makes sense that we should be doing it all for the Lord. The problem only comes when we do the work to save ourselves. Wanting ourselves to be saved is how we are wired, but our sinful nature keeps us from looking to God as a first reaction. So God steps in and shows us where we should be putting that faith for salvation. I haven’t said much about the Lord’s Supper, but I’m still not sure that I’m going to be able to fully grasp that one on this earth.
Hi Tank, nice to see you here. I appreciate, for personal reasons, hearing the Catholic point of view on various topics.
I hope you feel welcome and will stick around.
Paul is very clear that abuse of the Lord’s Supper results in harm. The reason for this is that abuse of the Lord’s Supper indicates a lack of respect for the thing which it represent, Christ’s sacrifice. He is also clear that we do it to proclaim the truth of Christ’s sacrifice: 1 Corinthians 11:17-33
Romans 4 wrote:
No man does any action to merit grace, it it granted as a gift as a result of works. What happens when a man sin’s more greatly?
Romans 4 wrote:
Abraham was COMMANDED to be circumcised (just as we are commanded to be Baptised and to take Communion). His circumcision though was NOT what granted him grace though, but his faith.
Romans 5 wrote:
It is not our rightdoing that merits our reward, but Christ’s gift. Nothing we do or don’t do will merit it. In fact, this complete lack of need for action causes Paul to address in the next verse (6:1) whether there is even any reason why we shouldn’t just go on doing bad things. The answer is that we shouldn’t because we are new creations.
Romans 6 said:
It isn’t our actions that give us grace, it is our faith that results in upright actions. I don’t get grace because I obey, I obey because I’ve been given grace. Like circumcision, the sacrament isn’t about causing a change to take place in us, it is representing the change that has ALREADY occurred. The physical act of looking at a snake never saves anyone, it was the decision to trust God that caused people to look at the snake. Faith, like sin, only occurs in the heart. Physical actions are merely the manifestation of the heart’s condition.
All citations were in CEV (Contemporary English Version).
At first I feared the Message - and I thought the world had turned upside-down.
No, I would NEVER cite the Message… I don’t get into many fights regarding versions, but the Message often ends up adding or subtracting meaning when compared to any other version. As CEV demonstrates, clear language is possible without distorting the meaning compared to other versions.
Atanamis, although I don’t directly interact with you in the next entry on this subject (just finished writing it) I hope it will clear up, or at least bring to a head, our disagreements on this. If not the post after that one will since it will deal with the sacraments as a whole before turning to baptism.
Bryan
SDG
While there are many minor doctrines of Scripture that are likely to remain debatable until we speak face to face with Christ, the core doctrines are clearly outlined repeatedly in Scripture (particularly in Romans). One of those core doctrines is the mechanism by which we have access to grace. The Bible is explicitly clear that the ceremonies and symbolism is intended to point us toward a faith in Christ, rather than having innate magical powers to “force” God to bestow grace on us.
I have many, many passages backing up my point, and NONE of the passages addressing communion indicate that taking communion bestows grace upon us. The closest to this is Paul’s comments that improper observation of communion bestows harm, guilt, and death, but the context makes it pretty clear that this is due to the disrespect it shows for the memory of Christ and to his body (the Christian church).
To convince me of your point, you’re going to have to do better than show me the logic of fellow man (such as Calvin), and point to the SCRIPTURE from which you draw your views.