Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Mr. (Rev.) Roger Salter: Salvation and the Sacraments

SALVATION AND THE SACRAMENTS
By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
March 16, 2014

It is almost true to say that within the Christian Church serious confusion arises through the competing proclamation of three pathways to salvation, namely 1) the way of personal merit, 2) the sacraments as indispensable means of salvation, and 3) trust in Jesus Christ and his righteousness imputed to the believer immediately upon the exercise of sincere faith.

The least plausible of these alternatives, of course, is the way of works. St. Paul demolishes this fatal fiction with one succinct statement (backed up by a multiplicity of others): So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6). Legalism prevails enormously in the church under many guises that mix works, human attitude and action, with inadequate conceptions of grace in varying proportions, from outright Pelagianism to devilishly subtle forms of Semi-Pelagianism, but in each version of a polluted gospel a contribution from the sinner (inevitably small given our condition) is required for their salvation. Salvation is not cheap (a minimum contribution) but free (at great cost to the One who stood as Victim in our stead).

Human effort is regarded as necessary preparation for saving help from God. Man strives and grace supplies the deficiency. The sheer odiousness of this notion is to some extent mitigated in classic Romanism by the shrewd qualification that good works are enabled, even prompted perhaps, by divine influence. The disqualification, that mars even the testimony of the Thomists and Dominicans as the best advocates of gratuitous redemption within the Roman Tradition, is the combination of merit i.e. the sinner’s contrition, rectitude and moral/spiritual attainment with the Saviour’s hard won achievement on our behalf.

The First Prayer of Thanksgiving (BCP1662) clearly excludes the weighing of our merits in any possible sense, and especially in placing them in the same scales with those of the Lord Jesus, but forthrightly acknowledges that we are saved by his merits alone, which makes our deliverance from sin and condemnation to forgiveness and divine fellowship pure gift to be received by faith alone. “Most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. . . . yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The prayer frankly recognizes both our unworthiness and helplessness to proffer any merits at all to God for our commendation, that our duty and service are not meritorious, and that all the benefits of the redeemed are procured by their Redeemer. What other benefits are there to secure by any other means than those purchased for us by his passion? All is of Messiah’s grace. The amalgam of works and grace proposed by Rome and those of similar sentiment is distasteful to the palate of the new man.

Every aspect of DIY is excluded from the gospel to make our rescue in Christ sure. Good works, right living in every sense (not merely the projects about which churches may tend to boast), are the effects of salvation. But they are still tainted and not worthy to be taken into consideration with the perfection of Christ’s person and performance. We are indebted to him alone. The Scriptures, like the road signs at the point where traffic lane repairs cease, declare the message, “END OF WORKS!”. “By his merit, we who once had demerits now are made creditors” (Peter Martyr).

The more knotty problem for believers to untie is the matter of the sacraments, their nature, necessity, and efficacy. It is not unusual for human religiosity to place supreme importance upon rites and acts that are external, formal, observable, and dateable without an accurate appreciation of their true purpose and meaning. Sacraments are given to represent and seal the interior work of divine grace within the human heart, and they address the understanding, confirming and strengthening the faith necessary to the reception of these sacred ordinances. This is the nature of the grace they truly convey. Sacramental language is specific and sure in what it pledges to the believer, but it is generously suppositional toward those presented for participation in sacramental administration. Human discernment as to worthiness is fallible and a credible profession is normally accepted. The promises contained within the sacraments are certainly effectual for the elect. The judgment of the Lord is effectual in the merely nominal believer or the hypocritical.

Grace may precede, coincide with, or follow the external rite. The efficacy is not in the elements employed or the action of the ministrant but in the electing grace of God and the operation of the Holy Spirit. The view to be deplored is that of baptismal regeneration. For the sake of brevity, the decision of the Court of Appeal in the Gorham versus the Bishop of Exeter Case (19thC) is sufficient to show that baptismal regeneration is not consistent with classic Anglican doctrine.

The freeness and liberality of saving grace instantly available to faith has to be stoutly defended. Earnest longing for God, evinced in true repentance and unfeigned faith, is the mark of one already regenerate and in union with the Son of God. That union is not deferred until nor dependent upon the administration of the sacrament. Would Jesus Christ suspend or annul that union through lack of water, bread, or wine? These are the material signs and pledges of a spiritual and heartfelt connection with the Saviour, which in the normal course of discipleship connect the believer to sacramental observance through which profound awareness of his divinely given privileges becomes impressively vivid and incalculably precious. This is not to devalue the sacraments nor to degrade them. The absolute emphasis of Holy Scripture is on the openness and instantaneousness of access to God. It is the movement of the heart that matters principally and that movement, unless impeded by necessity or misunderstanding, will inevitably find its way to sacramental obedience through the tokens of God’s immeasurable saving love.

Is the regenerate condition of the individual, which makes possible any, even the slightest, sign of the life of God within not counted, or even cancelled, by any length of sacramental delay? Faith, faith, faith cements us to communion with the Holy Three. God gave the faith that arises within the human heart, the Crucified One is the object of that faith, the Spirit has sweetly initiated and enabled that faith. The sacraments are not the cause of faith. They confirm and concretize faith to the believer’s senses and are a witness to surrounding spectators of a shared faith.

Doctrinal language and sacramental vocabulary are crafted for different purposes. The former is descriptive and the latter affirmative of relationship. The distinction isn’t hard and fast, but it is there in terms of objectivity and subjectivity, confession concerning God and communion with him. The former may be mere intellectual belief, the latter personal trust.

Our faith is not founded simply on a string of textual quotations, but upon the whole tenor of Scripture, the linkage of propositions in the “analogy of faith” approach to interpretation. The overall and complete revelation is ascertained in its essence, and every part is examined in its appropriate context. What kind of God do we have, and what is our plight, and is not our deliverance, once the peril is recognized, immediate the moment that the divine Spirit and the human spirit come together in assent to the divine word and confidence in it? Sacraments are necessary to our growth in grace, not our entrance into grace. God may use his ordinances as he chooses, but we are to use his ordinances as he advises - in faith, which makes them means of grace to us as effectual signs, addressing our comprehension of what has occurred for our rescue from sin and its consequences.

It is commonly conceded that the sign/symbol/seal and that reality which is signified are referred to interchangeably e.g. in religious parlance “with this ring I thee wed” or “receive the right hand of fellowship” but the reality is in the intent of the heart of all involved. Through faith (the grace-wrought intent of the heart) the soul of the believer is married to God and in fellowship with him.

The weight of the biblical message veers to the emphasis upon the negotiations of the divine heart with the human. Here regeneration, faith, and repentance occur through sovereign grace. The sacramental seals of the wondrous relationship established within providentially follow the purpose of predestination. In infant baptism faith looks toward to the fulfillment of covenant promise to the little one presented to the Saviour who received such as heirs of the kingdom; in adult baptism faith rejoices in salvation received; in the Lord’s Supper faith is nourished in the once for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus and our future celebration of salvation completed in heaven.

The sacraments enable us to view every facet of Jesus’ accomplishment on our behalf. This fact is demonstrated in Peter’s words found in Acts 2:38, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”. Repentance is the disposition of the regenerate. The glory and potency of the name is recognized by faith, the aliveness of the regenerate. The word “for” is equivalent to “unto” and in this setting is accurately rendered as “with a view to” forgiveness, a benefit which is discerned in the bloodshedding. The view facilitated by baptism is the view of the cross which cancels the sins of the penitent. Is this not sacramental grace in abundance? Is not the cross the efficient instrument of the Lord’s compassion from which flow all the benefits of his passion?

What a danger there is in the possibility of the sacraments, in some estimations (sacramentalism), serving to eclipse the view, validity, and value of the cross.

“Forgiveness of sins is grounded in Christ alone. Peter commanded them to be baptized ‘so that your sins may be forgiven.’ Christ has once for all reconciled us to himself in Christ, ‘not counting men’s sins against them’ (2 Corinthians 5:19), and now plants in our hearts the faith of his Spirit. However, baptism is the seal by which he confirms this benefit to us. As baptism is the down payment and pledge of our adoption, it is correctly said to be given to us for the forgiveness of our sins. Because we receive Christ’s gifts by faith, and baptism confirms and increases our faith, forgiveness of sins, which is the result of faith, is linked to it, as a superior to an inferior. In addition to this we must not derive our doctrine of baptism from here, as Peter is just touching on it at this point. Our old nature is crucified by baptism, as Paul teaches, so that we may live a new life (Romans 6:4,6). Scripture teaches everywhere that baptism is a sign and token of repentance. In this passage in Acts Peter is not teaching about baptism but the forgiveness of sins. He says incidentally that baptism is the confirmation of the forgiveness of sins” (John Calvin, Acts 3:38).


The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church

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