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God’s Name in Baptism

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Beginning with the birth of Seth’s son Enosh we hear of “calling on the name of the Lord” to communicate a growing sense of relationship with God. Upon Enosh’s birth the scriptures say that “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.” During Abraham’s wanderings in Canaan, we hear of calling on the name of the Lord as the form of worship. Wherever Abraham went he called on the name of the Lord when he built an altar. Thus from the beginning of redemptive history God’s name, or at least calling on God’s name, is understood as a relationship between God and humanity.

This is beautifully expounded in God’s meeting with Moses in the burning bush. In Exodus 3 beginning in verse 13 God has a conversation with Moses about God’s name. First his name is “I AM WHO I AM,” indicating that God’s true essence is being itself–and even beyond human comprehension. But then he brings it down to earth and explains:

“Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

So in this text is dictated succinctly how we are to understand God’s name. First his name is I AM. His name is himself, not just his title. Then, he is for his people. He is the God of our spiritual fathers. That is his name and that is who he is. Thus God’s name: HE IS and HE IS for us. This is succinctly the gospel. When God speaks of proclaiming his truth in the context of the Old Covenant he speaks of proclaiming his name (Ex 9:16).

This is made even clearer in Chapter 6:

“God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'” Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.”

While Abraham called on the name of the Lord in worship God did not reveal his name to him; he promised an intimate relationship with Abraham’s descendants, but he did not realize that promise to Abraham. But now that God is ready to redeem his people from the land of Egypt and make them a people for himself he reveals his name as the LORD (YHWH) and expounds upon it: “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.” Again, God’s name is in reality the gospel: it is the good news of the salvation of his people. It is in itself the proclamation, as God says to Pharaoh: “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Following the Exodus God then establishes his covenant with the people of Israel at Sinai. In the Ten Commandments he commands that his people should not take the name of the LORD in vain; that it is holy. Indeed, this follows from the proclamation to Moses that I AM WHO I AM, setting God’s name apart from all other things, defining it as the most holy of anything that humans ever hear or know. But he does not leave his name in that fearsome status, he then graciously gives his name to his people in Numbers 6:

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Here God goes a step further than before and applies his name to his people for their blessing. This is a precedent that will be seen throughout the rest of the Old Testament. God’s name is holy because it is his very being. Not only is it his being in the abstract, but more precisely when God reveals his name to his people it is a revelation of the gospel: it is what and who God is for them. And he gives himself to his people by putting his name on them.

This is beautifully portrayed when the birth of Samson was announced to his parents in Judges 13. The “angel” announces that the child who would be born to Manoah’s barren wife would in fact save Israel from its oppressors. This is a picture of Jesus who would be born later; the news that is being told to Manoah and his wife is a proto-gospel or a gospel type. The angel is the bearer of that gospel. When asked what his name is he answers “Why do you ask my name, seeing that it is wonderful?” and he does not give his name. Another way to look at this is to say that his name is Wonderful–as is the news he brings. The name is in fact the news: God is doing wonderful things for his people. Here again, the name is the abbreviated gospel. Even if we understand “Wonderful” not to be his name but rather an adjective describing his name, it begs the question: why is his name wonderful for Israel? The answer to this question is the gospel.

When David has in his heart to build a temple for God, he is told to wait and let Solomon build the temple. During this discussion and the subsequent building of the temple God speaks of this temple as the place where he will put his name (I Kings 8:16-30). Indeed he placed his very presence in that temple in the Holy of Holies. But the way that God describes his presence with his people in the temple is by saying that he will put his name there.

In Psalm 115 the psalmist places even salvation in the God’s name: “Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!” Calling on God’s name is in fact to call on his salvation. To have God’s name is to have God and his saving presence. In Isaiah 43:6,7 God’s sons and daughters are those who are called by his name. Those who are to be saved by them are ones who will “know my name” (Isaiah 52:6).

Lest we think at this point that God’s name is a rubber stamp that gives someone unconditional communion with God, we must pay heed to the sobering voice of Jeremiah in 7:11-14:

“Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.”

While God’s name is salvation to a people who receive him it is anything but salvation for those who have been given his name and yet rejected him in their hearts and actions. God’s punishment of the Israelites is not in spite of his name, it is because of it. God’s name is pure and holy and it must be defended. But what does it mean that God’s name is holy? We don’t put it in a shrine, or write it in special ink on holy paper. No, God’s name is the relationship, revealed successively through time according to his plan, that God desires to have with his people. His name is that relationship in the Godhead that he extends to his people through his covenants. His name is himself, his character, and love. So if those who bear his “name” only in a declarative sense and not in their actual relating to God, then they reap their own fruit; they do not obtain love and joy and peace and all the gifts that are the bounty of God. They get punished and cast out.

God does this precisely so that he can accomplish his plan for the fullness of time by purging his people of lies and sending his Truth, his Name in human form. If God’s name were only his reputation over and against anyone else, then destroying humanity wholesale would be the way to protect the holiness of his name. But because his name is the relationship, being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for their salvation, then defending his holy name means punishing his people in order that they might be restored to him in that relationship of love. This is how closely God has tied his own self to the fate of humanity: the holiness of his own name depends on saving them.

Fast-forward to the New Covenant. There is an anointed Savior to be born and he will come from God. And his name is “Emmanuel” or “God With Us”. Given the prophetic implications of God’s name as his saving presence with his people, we can understand: Jesus is quite literally God’s salvation with man. His name is who he is for his people. This God With Us is then baptized into Israel’s repentance by John the Baptist. Again God truly becomes solidary with his people and binds himself to the fate of his people. In the waters of baptism he, declared to be God’s Son by the voice from heaven, takes onto himself the sin of Israel by submitting to her same baptism.

Jesus then speaks of his name as God speaks of his name to the Israelites. In Matthew 18:20 Jesus says “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Clearly Jesus’ name is Jesus’ presence. This is not in a sort of incantation or a summoning of Jesus merely by speaking his name. If we understand that God’s name is who God is for his people, then God’s name is his relationship with his people. Thus to be gather in Jesus’ name is to be gather in the context of and for the purpose of relationship to him by faith, as were Abraham Isaac and Jacob to the God whose name had not yet been fully revealed.

Thus when Jesus teaches us to pray he begins with “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” This opening petition bases our prayer to God on our relationship with him: his name. This begs the question: on what basis do we claim to have God’s name?

When Jesus left his church with his baptism, he commands that it be done in his name–the name of the Trinity. The Gospel of John records Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer shortly before he was crucified. In it Jesus prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” Clearly God’s name is still understood to be God’s relationship with his people, given to Jesus in his own name, and extended to the disciples with the gift of Jesus’ name. He further explains the gift of his name in verse 26: “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Therefore being one with the Father comes by remaining in his name given through Jesus. John does not record the Great Commission, but this statement can be seen as relating to baptism: one is baptized in the name of the Trinity. The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 is in fact the only place in the New Testament where Jesus tells us explicitly how we get his name: we are baptized. Jesus also says that his name brings the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) who is the very Trinitarian relationship of love. Thus baptism gives the Holy Spirit because Jesus has placed his name–God’s name–in it: “…Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

We cannot regard baptism then as an incantation, invoking the divine name and thus affecting his presence. No, his name is himself and his relationship to his people. It’s a package deal; when a person rejects the relationship, then the name also is rejected and does not benefit that person. But because of the aforementioned promises we must confess that his saving name is given in baptism along with the Holy Spirit when it is received in faith. The Apostle Peter extended this promise to the crowds gathered at Pentecost when he said in Acts 2 “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Just as promised, Jesus was giving his name–his gift of Trinitarian salvation and love–in his baptism through the accompanied Holy Spirit.

When a person is baptized she then receives God’s name and with God’s name is the promised Holy Spirit. Another way of saying this is that when a person is baptized she receives God himself; his presence for her salvation. This must be as real and powerful as the presence of God on the mercy seat in Solomon’s temple. Indeed it is more; for now the presence of God is in the heart of the individual and no one need say to his brother “know God” for each baptized person knows God when his faith receives God’s salvation, wrought by Christ, in his name.

With this historical understanding of God’s name and its gift of salvation, from Genesis through the gospels, the following passages from Acts and the epistles concerning baptism should be understood:

I Corinthians 6:11 “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Acts 19:5,6 “On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.”

Acts 22:16 “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

Galatians 3:27 “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Romans 6:3-5 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Colossians 2:11,12 “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”

I Peter 3:20,21 “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

These passages show a perspective on baptism as being the ritual that encompasses all the Christian life, causing our life to become one with the story and power of Jesus’ life by giving us his name.

Anyone Want a Taste?

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Sometimes we taste what we expect to taste. When we were first offered a taste of fine armagnac, if the person giving it to us had said that it was some evaporated concoction of rotten grape juice, we likely would have found nothing pleasant in it at all. It’s harshness and its strange complexity would have been thought almost toxic! But when we are told that this glass of cognac contains the labors of centuries; the distilled product of humanity’s most exacting palates, resulting in a tried and true beverage of bliss, well, then we’re apt to taste something quite different–and cherish every drop! If at first it seems bitter and harsh, we are likely to judge our own self as inexperienced in such sublimity of the senses and give ourselves more time to learn the joys of fine alcohol.

The early church referred to the teachings of the Christ and the sacraments as “mysteries”. They were only revealed successively to those inquiring into the faith, i.e., catechesis, and finally in baptism and the Eucharist. At this point the Christian was not thought to have “attained” knowledge, but would continue to grow in sanctification through the reception of these mysteries in the body of believers. And however long the church examined and experienced these gifts, they never ceased to be mysteries.

There is something very humbling about such view of Christian initiation and discipleship. Something that all ancient Christians have known, and many sections of Evangelicalism seem to have lost, is that things pertaining to God are wonderful, beyond human searching, and received only insofar as God gives them.

The liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (347-407) has this prayer before the celebration of the Eucharist:

“Again, we bow before You and pray to You, O good and loving God. Hear our supplication: cleanse our souls and bodies from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and grant that we may stand before Your holy altar without blame or condemnation. Grant also, O God, progress in life, faith, and spiritual discernment to the faithful who pray with us, so that they may always worship You with reverence and love, partake of Your Holy Mysteries without blame or condemnation, and become worthy of Your heavenly kingdom.”

While the believers are gathered together in joy to receive the promised salvation of God, there prevails an attitude of supplication and reverence, regarding the mysteries of God as something to of awe that the individual receives with trembling.

Conspicuously absent is the triumphalism prevalent in Evangelical liturgies. It may be observed that the attitude of joy found in American Evangelicalism is indeed a fruit of the gospel, allowing the soul to rejoice in God’s goodness. However, with this advent of triumphal liturgies has also come the loss of the appreciation of mystery that the church had for so long cherished.

The Apostle Paul viewed the stewardship of the mysteries as a responsibility that came with the judgment of God on how faithful one is at that stewardship. Since God is that judge, I have no place to judge any particular steward. But as a Christian who desires to be guided and discipled by one who cherishes God’s gifts of word and sacrament as indeed mysteries of God and is himself submitted to them, I am given the responsibility of finding such a servant of Christ to whom I can entrust the shepherding of my soul.

I have to think that there are others like me. And I have to wonder, if the “accessibility” of the gospel and the success of emotional worship experiences come at the loss of appreciation for the mysteries, has the church gained anything?

Perhaps our perspective would be matured if we understand that grapes grown on the hills of the Cognac region of France two hundred years ago, are only now being bottled and sold in the Richard Hennessy line. If you think my analogy irrelevant to the gospel, consider rather two thousand years instead of two hundred. This is the amount of time that God passed over “former sins” in order to “show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). Somehow God does not view ministry method with the same marketing strategy inherent in our worship experience design of today. If this generation has a liturgical sweet tooth, are they significantly different from the “evil and adulterous generation” that seeks signs and wonders? (Matthew 16:4)

True, it is easy to criticize the efforts of godly people seeking to preach the gospel to our times. After all, is not this our call? Now the mystery is revealed! Indeed, and it remains a mystery. If we expect sincere persons to desire a taste let us tell them of what a marvelous mystery it is, incomparable in all the world and unsearchable but for the gifts of Jesus Christ. Then they’re likely to taste again, submitting their experience to the judgment of the divine mystery rather than submitting the church to the judgment of the emotions.

An Assessment of Closed Communion

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

The church is in a fix. She is divided and rife with dissention, quarrels, factionism and even hate. Jesus prayed “that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” When we observe the church today we see anything but unity. We see division in doctrine, in church government, in regionalism, in culture and in personal conflict. Given this state of affairs one may wonder how we even dare to approach the table of the Lord’s Supper? In some sense it is a wonder that any church body presumes to take Christ’s body, which was given and shed so that the saints might be one, while remaining in open division with the majority of Christendom.

By faith we believe that in the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). But that power is not something conjured by the elites as is the case in some religions; this power belongs to God alone and is wielded by his Spirit through his Word. This applies to a discussion on the Lord’s Supper because this Eucharist is the gospel in bread and wine, flesh and blood. As Jesus says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This is an earth-shattering, world transforming statement. The prophets had long spoken of the new covenant:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.(Jeremiah 31:31-34)

When Jesus says that this cup is the new covenant in his blood he is in fact saying that he himself is bringing this promise from Jeremiah to fruition and he is doing it by giving us his very self to eat and drink. He is making a true people for himself out of people who were not his people before–and he is doing it by his blood.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke record the Last Supper where Jesus instituted the Eucharist. But the gospel of John does not. Instead, he records the long speeches and prayers that Jesus shared with his disciples in the days before his arrest and crucifixion. These teachings include the washing of the disciples’ feet, teaching that the least will be greatest (13:1-20) . He gives them his “New Commandmant” to “love one another just as I have loved you” (13:31-35). He assures them that he is the Truth (14:1-13) and that he will send his Spirit of truth to teach them all things (14:15-29). Then in Chapters 15 and 16 he tells them about the difference between him and the world, and he encourages them to remain in him, saying “take heart; I have overcome the world” (16:33) He is setting his disciples up to carry on the work which he will begin with his death and resurrection: creating and nurturing the church. He culminates these teaching with his High Priestly Prayer in Chapter 17. Here Jesus asks his Father to cause his people to remain in him even as he remains in the Father; he is asking for God’s power to make us, the church, one people as God has desired before the foundations of the world. And the previous four chapters are teaching us how that looks.

Where the other three gospels gave us the Eucharist as God’s New Covenant in Jesus’ blood which is written on our hearts, the gospel of John tells us what it looks like, from the heart of God, to be and live as one body. There is much at stake in the Lord’s Supper. It is integral to God’s plan for all time; making a people holy and set apart for himself.

The disparity between Jesus’ teachings on the character and nature of his body in the Gospel of John and the divided state of the church today is striking. It begs the question: who is worthy of partaking of the Eucharist? The Apostle Paul indeed warns us against eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood in an unworthy manner, lest we eat and drink judgment on ourselves.

The early church felt strongly that the hearts of those partaking of the Eucharist should be repentant of sin and reconciled with their brothers and sisters in the church. In Norman Nagel’s article on closed communion he describes how the kiss of peace was integral to the Eucharist fellowship, explained in the Didascalia. Members of the church exchanged the peace to ensure that all were reconciled in the body, thus following the Apostle’s instruction to examine oneself to make sure one is “discerning” the body. If there was any division in the body, the kiss of peace was halted until reconciliation was effectuated, at which point the Eucharist was received by all. He also quotes Justin Martyr: “This food we call eucharist, and no one may receive it unless he believes that our teaching is true, and has been washed with the washing for forgiveness of sins unto regeneration, and lives as Christ handed down to us.”

Thus the question is answered; who is the Eucharist for? Those who are one with Christ and are one with his body. This is a three dimensional communion; it includes oneness in salvation by faith in Christ and his baptism, oneness in doctrine and oneness in Christian love and action. This approach to the Lord’s Supper appreciates the concerns of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer that the whole body might remain in him and remain one.

Now we face a problem: the church is divided. In spite of all the teaching on the “invisible church” the concern of Jesus in his prayer and the concern of the Apostle Paul in his exhortation to the Corinthians were very much that of a unity that is shared and experienced in a very visible way. There is no escaping the indictment on a divided church: division is sin insofar as God’s will is the unity of Christ’s body. So we have a sacrament of the New Covenant intended for unity and love–with God’s Word written on his people’s hearts–in a church that is anything but.

The Corinthians learned that when they were not living as Christ’s body, partaking of the Lord’s Supper was an unpleasant thing. They were ill and dying because they were not loving their Christian brothers and sisters in their partaking of the Holy Eucharist. In this case Christ’s body did not cease to be Christ’s body, but the act of taking it did cease to be the “Lord’s Supper”. This is because the Lord’s Supper is an invitation to life in the New Covenant. Still more; it is the life itself delivered to us! But when it is taken in sin it is not the reception of his grace but of his judgment–not the supper of life that Jesus intended.

This contradicts some open communion claims that the Eucharist is “pure gospel.” Indeed, it was intended as such for hearts that receive it in repentant joy, but as is the case with God’s Word, it delivers judgment to the unrepentant. Because it is Christ’s body it is truly Christ himself, judge of sin and deliverer of forgiveness. When a repentant sinner receives the body and blood he does receive pure gospel, but when a Corinthian eats and drinks out of gluttony and disregards his neighbor the judgment he receives is nothing if not law.

This has implications for a church that is existing as a divided body. The church is corporately sinning against Christ’s body. There is no way for any church to escape this. Ephraim Radner, a priest in the Episcopal church explores this understanding of Christ’s Spirit in his book “The End of the Church; a Pneumatology of Christian Division in the West.” He explains that, while this experience of division for all intents and purposes is contrary to the will of God, we may also observe that it has its own figure in Christ’s cross as well. It is a corporate sin which is tragic and is also atoned for on the cross; the experience of Christ’s own suffering and afflicted body, broken and beaten. This suffering of Christ looks back to the exile of Israel for her sins as Christ says to his Father “why have you forsaken me?” And it also looks forward to the age of the church where Christ’s body will continue to be a stiff-necked and divided one, suffering because of her sins. And Christ’s Spirit continues to be the one that is revealed (or hidded) in a form of suffering along with his people.

Much can be learned from this perspective. Primarily it reminds the church that her response to the situation should be the same one that all of the prophets sought from Israel: that of repentance. We must realize that there does not lie within our human resources the solution to this division. Our posture then is one of repentance, waiting on God to act on behalf of his afflicted church. Secondly, it sheds light on what sort of flavor the Eucharist has to our church. Radner intimates the answer to this in the title to his fourth chapter “Vinegar and Gall: Tasting the Eucharist in the Divided Church.” Essentially he extends the logic of I Corinthians 11. The Corinthians were living in sin toward their brothers and so the Eucharist was being taken to their judgment–even while their discernment was impaired and they were oblivious to the judgment that they were experiencing! Such also was the case of Israel up until the Babylonian Captivity; they were hearing but not understanding, seeing but not perceiving, and suffering for it in painful oblivion.

This line of I Corinthians 11 reasoning does not have a place for denying Eucharist to a brother who is not taking it worthily under pretext that it might lead to his judgment. The point is precisely that the church does and should receive Christ’s body and blood and that as she tastes it she receives what Christ is to her at that time: life and peace or judgment.

The instruction of the Apostle Paul is to examine oneself and eat rightly, but not, curiously, to stop partaking until this is effectuated. It is assumed that his instruction will be followed immediately and repentance will ensue. The “what if they don’t” is simply not in the scope of his instruction here. While we often are preoccupied with dealing with those who persist in denying or disagreeing and figuring out the appropriate stick for such persons, the Apostle Paul instructs on how things should be done and leaves the work of the stick to the judgment that God himself is already enacting through the sacrament itself. There was no need to deny anyone access to the table; who would want to keep eating and drinking judgment on themselves?

In any case, damnation is not at issue here; Paul makes it clear that the judgment in view is disciplinary, intended to curb us away from continued sin (verse 32). How strange it would seem that a pastor should prevent one from being disciplined by God! The body and blood are serving as a spiritual catalyst, if you will, of the relationship of those individuals to Christ and his body. To those who are repentant toward God and love his church the sacrament is peace and life; to those who are self-serving and disregard his body the sacrament is judgment and suffering. The sacrament brings to immediacy and makes (painfully) evident the spiritual condition of the body that exists already: it does not create the condition. It puts flesh on the church in a singular way: the manner in which the church engages in the Eucharist reveals the church’s heart toward the body of Christ and defines that church’s relationship to Christ. The Eucharist causes the church to taste, feel, and experience the state of her relationship to Jesus.

The principle is this: the church always receives Christ’s body at the Eucharist, but its import for the body both depends on and affects whether and how the body is living as Christ’s body. The church who shared the kiss of peace as both fruit of and means for reconciliation around the altar received a truly delicious and salutary sacrament. The experience of the church today at the Lord’s table is a dulled one because of her division. This can be observed in the issues which we discuss in relation to the Lord’s Supper and in the manner in which we go about those discussions. The sin of the Corinthians was that they did not recognize the brother sitting next to them even while they were eating the food of divine reconciliation. The sin of conservative Lutheran churches today is that, while they recognize the brother, they exclude the brother from fellowship out of a desire to preserve right doctrine. While the motive is in some sense more godly, is the act any less sinful?

As stated earlier, the church lacks the ability to extricate herself from the conundrum she faces. Her first call is to be a penitent church as she deals with the very serious questions that face her in an era of denominations:

If we restrict access to the Eucharist to only those who agree with us in all areas of doctrine, then we are excluding others who are indeed members of Christ’s body. In this case we are withholding the body and blood from those to whom Christ would extend it. For who is the “for you” of the words of the institution if not those who are united to Christ by faith in baptism? For a repentant Christian to be denied Christ’s body is a tragedy of eternal proportions; it is non-recognition of Christ’s body regardless of what we might acknowledge concerning that person’s faith.

If, on the other hand, the church practices open communion and allows any Christian to share in the altar in order to include all of God’s church, the risk is that the confession will be confused. The church must regard as very serious a denial of Christ’s bodily presence in the Supper; if a failure to recognize the body of Christ gathered around the Lord’s Table was a sin worthy of judgment, how much more a failure to recognize the very body of Christ that created the brotherhood of those gathered around the table? If the church welcomes such people to the table without making a clear testimony to real presence, then truth is confused and the Christian who denies real presence is left in ignorance of a great gift of the gospel because the church, motivated by a desire for unity, failed to deliver the clear truth concerning the sacrament. If a church does not give clear testimony to the real presence of Christ’s body out of fear of excluding some Christians, then she demonstrates a lack of faith in God’s word to work on the hearts of all believers according to is Spirit. If the clear confession of real presence causes some to abstain from the Lord’s Supper, then it is God’s word which has “closed” the communion, and not the judgment of pastor or congregation of an individual. It is God’s word which has created, sustained and defined his body; this is its work.

Open communion and closed communion as they are widely practiced are human solutions aimed at either preserving the true confession or preserving the unity of the church. They are human solutions to a problem as old as wayward Israel: the sin of God’s people in straying from his promises. God’s call to his people is time and again to repent and wait on him to act, to bring them out of Egypt, or Babylon, or Roman rule, or the diaspora of the church.

Meanwhile, the call of the church hasn’t changed. The church is called to proclaim unequivocally the truth of the gospel and to live it. Around the Lord’s Table this means that we are to make clear the truth concerning Christ’s body and blood. As the Apostle Paul did, we make clear the consequences of partaking unworthily and call all to repentance. But the “fencing” of the table goes beyond the scriptural mandate. The pastoral Epistles state nothing about the pastor’s duty even to administer the sacraments (though it may be implied), much less to vet the participants. The call to the individual is to examine oneself; the call to the church is to proclaim the truth. While closed communion seeks to preserve the truth it does so at the expense of what Radner calls “caritative enactment”, that is the concern that the early church for reconciliation or “the peace”. In these rituals the church was seeking to enact in the liturgy the overflow of love that characterizes Christ’s body. A celebration of the sacrament of the New Covenant in Christ’s body must not sacrifice either the truth of the sacrament or the inclusion of all of Christ’s repentant body.

In the footnotes of Norman Nagel’s article on “The True Catholicity of Closed Communion” he writes that “Our neighboring Orthodox priest said that they do not speak of closed communion. They never needed to; everybody always knew. “The doors” in the liturgy is expression enough.” This also is instructive. If the church were to focus her energies on proclaiming clearly the truth concerning the Body and Blood of Christ through word and actions in the liturgy then she would likely not find herself in the divisive position of deciding who can and who can’t participate.

Saint Ignatius in his letter to the Smyrnaeans also writes that “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father of His goodness, raised up again.” Two things should be noted here. First, they abstained of their own will because they recognized that they did not agree with the clear confession of Christ’s body and blood. Secondly, these were not Christians of a different theological persuasion; they did not even pray! They are also described as lacking love, not giving to the poor and not believing in the grace of Christ. Saint Ignatius was not speaking of evangelical Christians; he was speaking of Gnostic pagans.

From these two anecdotes, one contemporary and one ancient, it is demonstrated that if a church feels the necessity of enacting a policy of closed communion then the church should examine the clarity of her confession on Sunday morning in the liturgy. This goes far beyond a statement in the bulletin. A liturgy acts out the message and life of Christ. If a Christian who denies real presence comes into our congregations, the liturgy should be two things at once: overwhelmingly expressive of the love of Christ becoming incarnate in the hearts of those gathered and also crystal clear concerning the truth of Christ’s gifts of life eternal in his body and blood. Instead of being examined concerning his or her belief, the truth should be heard, its reality experienced, and the invitation received to be joined to that reality. If this is done, then any person sharing in the altar is necessarily making a common confession.

If any person comes to the altar hearing and knowing full well that the church teaches real presence but denying it in his or her heart, then the judgment on that person is of God’s will, and no pastor is called to prevent God’s word (in this case his fleshly word) from having its way with a person. The sacrament will bring to bear on that person the poignant reality of that person’s relationship to Christ and his body. A pastor’s call is to proclaim; he is not God’s bouncer.

The nature of the Eucharist is “closed” in and of itself. It is “for you”, that is, Jesus’ disciples. If it is for some then it is not for others. But this closed nature is based on a criteria of Jesus himself; those who are his body get his body to their blessing or to their discipline. The curious situation we have today is that members of his body don’t think they can get his body. Our gospel response should be “well then let’s shout out to them the good news that they can and invite them to have it!” This puts the burden of examining right where it belongs: on “each one”. When we make abundantly and joyfully clear what it is that is given in the sacrament if they should repent, the individual must decide if he or she wants it and needs it. If they decide that they do, then we rejoice and welcome Christ’s body to the table.

The Idolatry of Doing Good

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

On what basis is a good deed good? We might say that whatever has the effect of benefiting our neighbor is a good deed. But what if that deed was done out of selfish motive? Generally we do not call such deeds good, but rather self-aggrandizing.

What about the deed done out of guilt? If we act out of a sense of self flagellation, or a desire to atone for our wrong, then have we not put ourselves in the place of the only One who has the power to atone? Indeed, guilt itself was atoned for on the cross. Guilt offerings and sin offerings were done away with because Christ himself is the guilt offering.

Why then do we still find ourselves acting out of guilt? We act out of guilt when our condition becomes the motivation for our actions. We are guilty of all sorts of wrong, so when our condition becomes motivation, good cannot but be done out of guilt. But that is what we are freed from by the cross of Jesus. He died in order that we might now live in relation to him, and not according to our human condition.

Therefore, when we do good for someone out of guilt, we are idolaters. We are turning from a life that is lived according to Jesus and his relationship with us, and turning to a life that is lived according to our human condition.

Now the human condition is such that if we are thorough in the examination of our motives we might likely find that nearly all that we do has a self-referential motive. This might by some short-sighted line of thinking cause us to hesitate to do the good that we might if it is so motivated by guilt. But is not that consideration itself one that is self-absorbed? To the one who hesitates to do good because he is afraid of doing it for the wrong motive, Luther writes “sin boldly”. Because fear is also something from which we are set free.

If we are to answer the first question “On what basis is a good deed good?” then we must answer that a good deed is good when it is a forgiven deed, and so does the will of God.

Sin is a fact and it taints our motives; fear of that sin is yet another sin! What is the solution for such a comical self-defeat? We know that sin is forgiven, so its fact cannot produce fear any longer. While some may do good because of guilt for past wrongs, Christians do good because they are forgiven of all wrongs. Any other reason is idolatry.

The Apostolic Ministry

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What is the apostolic ministry. Traditionally speaking it is the ministry passed down from the apostles. Some say that this ministry is by a succession of ordination, each succeeding bishop ordaining their successors from the apostles down to the present. Others argue that the apostolic ministry is determined by faithfulness to the teaching of the apostles in the New Testament.

An apostle is one who is “sent” (in Greek “apostello” means “to send”). In the New Testament there is not an adjective “apostolic”(apostolikos), but in the English Standard Version translation of the Bible there is one verse where the translators used the word “apostolic”. It is in Galatians 2:8. In this verse the apostle Paul is comparing his ministry among the Gentiles to that of Peter among the Jews. He is speaking about how God worked through both ministries. He refers to these ministries as “apostleships” (apostolh), but the ESV translates that word as “apostolic ministry”. This sheds light on how we use the word “apostolic”

The Body of Christ

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When the Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their lack of love in I Corinthians 11:17-22, he is attacking a church-wide problem; he is attacking a collective sin. When he says that “each one ought to examine himself” (v. 28) we are to take this command as being given for the purpose of the unity of the church, and not just the repentance of individuals for various sins. He says that “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (10:17) in order to reinforce that taking the bread and cup is a matter of communal identity. That is, when we all, as individuals, share of the bread and cup, we are made a part of Christ Body in the world, which is unified throughout all of time by his Holy Spirit.

It is true that we go to the Lord’s Supper to receive, personally, a gift from Christ. But let us understand the gift. The gift is that we are made to be participants of God’s plan in all of history to bring about one entity, a union in and with Christ, referred to as his “body”. This is the plan for salvation; to unite all things in Christ. Salvation from sin is necessary because sin stands in the way of this unification.

Because the bread and cup is the gift of Christ’s own self, it indeed delivers of necessity forgiveness of sins to those who receive it in faith. But the Lord’s Supper reaches beyond forgiveness of sins to bringing about what Christ was sent to accomplish. The bread and cup create of those who participate a living fulfillment of God’s plan; it is the founding and sustenance of his true body in time for eternity.

So as we partake of the bread and cup, even as we examine our hearts individually, our understanding also should reach beyond our individual hearts to the state of the church as a community, locally and the world throughout. The same questions we apply to our heart concerning sin, pride and divided relationships in order to repent and receive the sacrament joyfully are the same questions that we are to ask of our congregation and the world-wide church as we ingest the true and eternally life-giving body of Christ.

Temptation and Baptism

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then he can do anything and no thing is harder than another.

If God can do anything then he can prove himself when tested.

If Jesus is the Son of God then he has God’s power.

Therefore, Jesus can prove himself when he is tested and it is no harder for him to do so than it is for him to open or close his eyes.

This is the line of argument that Satan uses toward Jesus when he tempts him in the wilderness.

Here is the argument that we would be tempted to add:

True temptation implies a struggle

Jesus could prove himself to be God, as Satan asked, or resist the temptation with equal ease and without a struggle.

Therefore Jesus was not truly tempted.

This argument is equally flawed. Jesus treats it the same way as he does the argument of Satan, ignore it and continue to bear witness to the truth of who he is and why he came.

Preceding the temptation of Jesus in Luke’s narrative, he is baptized by John the Baptist and God testifies to who Jesus is. He says that Jesus is his very Son. Now both Satan and our curiosity would like to find out exactly what that means. Satan thought he could use the testimony as a weakness in Jesus, causing him to inadvertently obey Satan in the very act of proving that he was God’s Son. And we would like to make Jesus’ experience as a human to be fundamentally different from our own. In some ways we want an excuse for the fact that Jesus resisted temptation where often we fail to do so.

Jesus’ life condemns both arguments. Jesus did not allow the divine will to be bent by Satan’s schemes, but rather he remained hidden to the eyes of Satan, causing him to think he had defeated him even unto causing Jesus to die. But in fact Jesus was entrusting himself to the divine will, and through it, defeating Satan and all of his tricks for eternity!

Luke unabashedly states that Jesus ‘grew’ in wisdom. Now we would have no means of understanding a ‘growth’ in God. But only as a real human does this statement make sense. Jesus went through a progression of wisdom going from one level to another level of wisdom

Baptism, Illustrated Edition

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Jesus baptism is ours. To understand our own baptism we have only to look at that of Jesus for its illustration and explanation.

The Law and Prophets all spoke of the coming redemption of Israel, the Savior of Israel. For her sins God provided a sacrifice. As Isaac, in whom all of Israel was represented, was saved by the death of the sacrificial lamb, so all of Israel in her vast numbers were covered by the blood of lambs at the Passover. Both of these events illustrate how Jesus, as the Lamb of God, himself covers Israel.

In addition to being the Lamb, Jesus is also the high priest who represents the people. In him is all of Israel, for he is the seed of Abraham. All who believe in him are the children of Abraham by faith. In Christ is both Israel, and her sacrifice. For what did God demand but Israel herself as a living sacrifice. This relationship is typified by the Sabbath day, where his people are his and his alone, enjoyed by him (his “rest”).

When Jesus goes to the waters of baptism he is uniting these two images, that of Israel, and that of Savior of Israel. He is baptized by John, the last and greatest of prophets. John called the people to repent of sins. Jesus had no sins of his own, yet he identified with the people as their representative head

Judgment and Grace

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

per Rob’s inquiry.

There are two reasons given for the judgment of a sinner: 1, his sin, and 2, his choice to reject the gospel.

Passages such as Romans 3:11-18, echoing Psalms 14:1-4, 5:9, 140:3 and 10:7, show how clearly the human heart is already bent against God because of sin. This underlines humanity’s dependence on God’s mercy extended to it through the cross of Jesus.

In the epistles there are found many people, even some in the church, who have heard the gospel and seek to undermine it, actively working against God’s will for salvation (Philippians 3:18,19). These people are judged for rejecting the gospel, or not “obeying” it, as the apostle Peter says (I Peter 4:17), meaning that they do not submit their hearts to repentance and joyfully receive the gift.

This gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the reconciliation of all people to their God is a message that goes out into the entire world. Many are cut to the heart through the conviction of their sins by the Holy Spirit and repent and become recipients of the salvation purchased for them on the cross. Others harden their hearts as they are disposed to do through sin and do not receive the free gift of eternal life in Christ.

For those who are saved they are judged righteous in God’s sight because God has chosen to place his name upon them so that through faith in Christ they share in the blessedness that is Jesus’ eternal inheritance. God has chosen to work in their hearts through the Holy Spirit to bring them to salvation which he prepared for them in Christ. Though they are guilty of sin, and God’s just verdict for that sin is “guilty”, yet that sentence falls upon Christ, and the guilty are forgiven. This is the meaning of the saying “at the same time saint and sinner”. Because of the human’s nature, they are sinful, but because of God’s grace, they are forgiven, washed clean and given God’s very name in baptism. This is the paradox that the Christian lives in: guilty, yet forgiven and free of guilt.

For those who are damned to death are so damned because of their persistent rebellion against God and the rejection of his gospel. For those who have not heard, they reject God because they are living in rebellion of him from the day of their birth. For those who have heard the gospel and still reject it, they are condemned for that as well. As Paul says of such people “their condemnation is just” (Romans 3:8).

In summary, let those who have received the gospel of Jesus Christ rejoice for the marvelous gift which God chose to bestow on us. For those who have rejected the gospel or who live in sin apart from God, they are damned for their sin. Let them not blame God for their predicament; let God be true though every man were a liar.

Because of Sin

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Per Rob’s request

Could there not have been another way? Could God have saved us from our sins without sending Jesus? Why couldn’t God just forgive us without Jesus death? Why does death have to be the punishment for sin if God is merciful? Such questions are very common in Christian discussion and are indeed natural to our human curiosity.

It has been said that true Christian reformation always comes about by a renewed understanding of the doctrine of sin.

If sin is the way things are not supposed to be, perhaps we should seek to understand the way things are supposed to be. Humans were created to glorify God, to obey him, enjoy his creation, live in it, care for it, and give back to him all the praise for his marvelous gifts. This is living in God’s life; living in all that he creates and provides. God himself is life, so living is defined by being in him.

God foretold that should Adam and Eve eat of the tree they would die. Yet when they had eaten they did not die for many hundreds of years. But they were cast out of the garden, and this separation from God’s presence is the first definition of death. In God is life, so away from God is not life; is death. This is what scripture means by “the wages of sin is death.”

Physical death also follows. The cells of one’s body degenerate from the time they are first formed, and are replaced by new ones. But this whole process of replacement is a degenerating one so that over the years one’s entire body slows down until it can no longer keep up, and dies. Again, outside of the garden, without the Tree of Life to eat from, the body dies because it lacks the sustaining presence of its creator.

This is the two-fold death of sin: because of sin the body and the soul are separated from the author and sustainer of life. But why should sin bring this about? Sin is defined by the Apostle Paul as anything that does not proceed from faith. Faith relies in God’s providence, submitted to his will for all of creation and for the individual, trusting that his will is best. As is intended in Creation, all things live, move and have their being in the Creator, but if they rebel against this, they are rebelling against life; they are seeking death. The Creator is life and he gives life; to live in him is to live truly and to reject him is to reject life.

This life is characterized by its gift. In the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit we see the eternal society of life as it is given amongst three persons; life exists in giving it, in loving. So this is God’s desire for creation: that humans participate in this divine life-giving love, submit to it, receive it, and share it with one-another. This is the hope expressed by Christ’s prayer in John 17; that we might be one in him and share in the life that he shares with the Father. This is the creation restored.

But before creation restored we must realize why it needs to be restored. When humans rejected this God they rejected necessarily life itself. When a person acts out of selfishness, pride, negligence, carelessness, malice, etc., he places himself above and outside of this love in his own heart and leaves himself in the life-less domain that is outside the presence of God; east of Eden. Since creation was the scene in which God expressed his relationship with humanity, creation now naturally reflects the same death that humanity has desired upon itself by sinning. This is why a sinner rightly deserves death: sin is the demand to be excluded from life.

So then, on what basis does Jesus pray that we all may be one as he and the Father are one? Whence this hope? This prayer is called the high-priestly prayer because Jesus is filling his role as priest by interceding to the Father on behalf of sinners. But more importantly he is also priest because he is about to go to the cross to offer the sacrifice of his own blood for the sins of the world. If we do not understand sin, we must look again to the cross: there it is; separation from the Father, suffering, death. It is by the right of this sacrifice that he can look forward to the day when they will be “pure and blameless”. This day is referred to in the epistles as the day of Christ, or the day of the Lord. It is in view of the hope of this day that all Christians live because the death of sin will finally be no more when our bodies will be resurrected by him, just as he rose.

But until that day, humans remain in this sin ridden world and struggle against its temptations and the guilt of our own sin. This is why we must continue to hear the law and the gospel. The law is what told us that we have sinned. It said “You shall” and we didn’t. It said “You shall not” and we did. Indeed, outside of the supply of God’s life, we cannot but live according to this realm of sin. This is law: that we are only capable of sinning, if we do not dwell in God.

Is God then unjust to make such demands of us? Well let me ask you this: is it unjust for God to desire what is good? Indeed, to give us the law is to show us what is good. So the vision of what is good condemns us who are sinful. But the vision of what is good is not an end in itself; it points to the goodness revealed in Christ, when he gave himself to the last drop of his blood. Though the law could not save us, it points to the one who can and does. Jesus’ blood did cover all sins.

It would be wrong to say that God was obligated to provide a way for sins; if it were wrong for God to destroy all sinners, then it would certainly be wrong for him to kill his own perfect Son! No, he did so out of his desire to unite his creation with himself. And indeed, he will. Because of his work of death and resurrection for us, and because we have been baptized into his death “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his heavenly body through the same power that enabled him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3).

So in our Christian walk we still need law and gospel. The Law reminds of our sin so that we do not comfortably begin to live in death again, it convicts us of when we do sin, and gives us the vision for goodness, the way we will live with God in eternity. But we live by the gospel: God was not obligated to save us yet he did out of love, so we also are set free from the law in the Spirit and are obligated to no nothing, yet we live according to the life given us and do all things that are beneficial to eternally life in Jesus. This is life defined by God’s love as seen in Jesus’ gift on the cross. So we see that the cross is where sin is best seen, alone, dying, and where love is best seen, giving life, to the last drop of blood.