Of course I disagree with the idea that doctrinal language needs to be taken verbatim from Scripture. I think language like Holy Trinity, Triune, Means of Grace, etc. are faithful to the voice of Scripture. I’m not sure what Christian faith and practice would look like apart from this language….

Also, means of grace as understood by sacramental Christians actually bring us into union and communion with Christ. We believe that He instituted them so that He can give us His grace according to the power of His Word and by the Holy Spirit. Humans are not ghosts or angels. We live in a physical, tangible, visible world as physical, tangible, visible human beings. The Son of God Himself took on flesh, bringing grace and redemption through His incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. What a scandal! And Christians have further contended that Jesus gave us physical, visible, tangible means of grace so that His forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation can be communicated to us. Holy Baptism with its water to joined to the word; Holy Absolution with the word spoken by another person; and Holy Communion with the word joined to bread and wine all bring us into union and commuion with Christ. Of course we also believe His Word effects the same. I realize this seems so earthly and unseemly, but it is born out of the incarnation and the words of Jesus (Matt. 28, John 20, and Institition accounts), not the vain or idolatrous imaginations of pagans. We actually believe that the word brings the infinite into the finite.

I don’t expect you to agree with this, but please don’t think that our faith resides in anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified for us and for our salvation.
Blessings on your proclamation of Christ as well,
+Mason

You are right niether “Trinity” nor “Triune” are part of God’s word to us and that may be important.

I am convinced that the “sacramental system” and that which from the catholic perspective is called “the church” are both great distractions from the faith and teachings of Jesus Christ.

You can read an essay in which I criticize the category “means of grace” by scrolling to the document title at the bottom of http://www.personaldiscipleship.blogspot.com

I will try to add an essay on Justin Martyr and another one on a NT view of eating in general soon.

Praying for your success under the great commission,
Jeff

And I commend your desire for clarity on such important matters. I confess that I submit to a mystery with respect to the sacraments that is beyond my reason or grasp, but not beyond my faith and believing. I remember reading St. Cyril of Jerusalem while at DTS and being confronted by the sacramental mysteries; obviously, I went in one direction while most stayed. It speaks to nothing other than my convictions led me in one way and led others in another. Yet we share the same faith and trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

We can discuss Justin Martyr, if you would like. I do confess, however, that my time grows short as the end of the church year is at hand and I prepare to enter into Advent and preparations for the celebration of the Nativity, which includes extra services and spiritual disciplines.
In Christ,
+Mason

My position is influenced by crying out to God for clarity on doctrinal matters of great importance.

I am prepared to work through the passages you mention without explaining away anything except confusion. And I can use Justin Martyr as a case study in what I have asserted.

yours,
Jeff

Paul refers to apostolic ministers as stewards of the “mysteries” of God (1 Cor. 4:1) and later refers to the cup as a participation in the blood of Christ and the bread as a participation in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16) before further discussing the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17-34). The language in all of this is quite sacramental. Moreover, I could go to any number of places in Holy Scripture where God uses the visible and material to communicate His presence and grace to His people. The early Christians didn’t need anything from the pagans- they only needed the Hebrew scriptures, the scandal of the incarnation, the Lord’s commands, and the Lord’s promise to be with them always.

If you want to follow the argument that the finite is not capable of the infinite, therefore eliminating the concept of sacrament, then fine. If you want to contend that Jesus is far off in some Protestant heaven and with us in spirit, then fine. And if you want to substantiate your beliefs with resources that share your view of reality, then fine. If you want to make the argument of hellenism based on a theory I reject, then fine. But none of these arguments are convincing. I have heard them before and they have been around for some time.

I would further argue that your position is more influenced by Nestorianism, a Gnosticizing tendency, German idealism, American transcendentalism or a host of other ‘-isms’ as all of them, in their various forms, deny the incarnational and sacramental principle in some form or fashion.

What I don’t have to do, however, is explain away the language of 1 Cor. 10:16; the language of John 6 (Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…); the institution language (is doesn’t always mean is, but metaphors are explained by Jesus and the institution accounts are bald for a reason, imo); or the “breaking of bread” as the revealing of Christ (Luke 24:35). In my perspective, these and other texts were understood sacramentally by the apostles and their disciples well before the end of the first century (see Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Didache). I believe that the Word has the power to effect what it says.

I would be happy to discuss Wilken’s book on early Christianity or even Angus. Our discussion is actually a hot-topic in NT and early Christian studies. It is one area that I am an iconoclast, siding with those who deny or diminish the prevailing claims of rapid deterioration in the early Church due to hellenism and politics.
+Mason

“I don’t think anyone is arguing that those technical terms are used in the Holy Scripture.”

So,

we agree that there is a development, evolution, or change (again, which ever term you are most comfortable with) at least in nomenclature.

“Mysterion”, the greek word for “mystery” and the Latin translation “Sacramenta” were technical terms for the sacrificed foods of the various helenistic mystery religions these “sacramenta” salvivfic power or grace before this nomenclature was used for the evolving catholic mutation of the Lord’s Supper.

In The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge It was written “…the same influence of pagan religious tradition…began about the same time, though more slowly and gradually, to have an effect on the Church…. This is most clearly seen in the history of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The very name “sacramenta” is a token of this.”

Some more recent dictionaries oftheology have provided definitions that might be more palatable to evangelical tastes by emphasising that the Latin “Sacramentum” was used to describe Roman military oaths. However, the military oaths described were rligious initiation rites which coincide with the “mysterion.”

-Jeff

The quote from Angus is merely the fallacy of appeal to authority. Just because Angus, a supposed authority, makes the claim does not mean it is true. I would quote St. Ignatius in response. As a disciple of St. John, why would he use such forceful language of real presence?

Neither does your guilt by association approach prove anything. I am not Roman Catholic and do not use any of those terms. Yet I still believe in the real presence. I don’t think anyone is arguing that those technical terms are used in the Holy Scripture.

If you want to demonstrate the “hellenism” of early Christianity, then you need to make the link between Greek philosophy and category as the determining factor in early Christian thought. I would argue with Hurtado that the worship life of early Christians has more inluence than Plato or Aristotle. In fact, the incarnational theology of early Christianity was offensive to Greek minds. And incarnational theology is the root of all sacramental theology.
+Mason

Samuel Angus wrote, “the rites practiced from a very early date by the Church in its native Jewish environment were not sacral acts….These symbolic rites rapidly and inevitable in the larger Hellenistic environment developed into sacraments and were equipped withe the efficacies of Hellenistic mysticism.”

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the mutated version of the Lord’s Supper is called “The Eucharist,” “The Sacred Mysteries,”
“Holy Sacrifice Of the Mass,” “Medicine Of Immortality,” and “Pure and Holy Sacrifice.”

None of these technical terms are used as such in the prophetic Scriptures.

Yours,
Jeff