DYB Anglicanism Course 2019

The Anglican Worship

To begin with, questions regarding the nature of the Church, of its ministry, and especially of its
sacraments, are primarily and foundationally, questions of the nature of God.1

God as revealed in the bible, whom we worship, is a God who speaks. When I say speak, I mean it
in a broader sense of communicating with us. Why does he do so? He desires to establish a
relationship with us. He longs to form us, the church, as His people. God at heart, is a relational God!

“I will be their God and they will be my people” is a verse that is repeated throughout the Scriptures
in Exe 37:27, Heb 8:10, Jer 31:33, 2 Cor 6:16

Yet the manner through which God chooses to communicate with us is often through physical and
human means. Yes, sometimes God speaks in a supernatural voice, like at the baptism of Christ,
displaying His awesome presence and power, but more often, He speaks to us through creaturely
means. We call this this process or means as mediation. God mediates his nature and grace to us
humans through His chosen channels.

One example is God’s creation. Psalms 19:1 says “The heavens are telling the glory of God; the skies
are proclaiming the work of his hands.” Romans 1:20 also says that “since the creation of the world
God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being
understood from what has been made.” God’s goodness and nature is mediated through creation.

Another example is us as the church. We as a community reflect the love and salvation of God to the
world. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5: “You are the light of the world… let your light shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (v13-16)

Yet the most powerful mediation of who God is is Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:2-3 tells us that in the last
days God has spoken through his Son and “the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact
representation of his being.”

According to Roman Catholic tradition, and I do agree with them, Jesus the Man is the primordial
sacrament. This “means that all other Christian sacraments have their meaning only in and through
Jesus’ sacramentality. This means that the Church is fundamentally and only a sacrament because
Jesus is a sacrament. Baptism is fundamentally and only a sacrament because Jesus is a sacrament…
and so on.”2 Jesus is the primordial sacrament “because this man, the Son of God himself, is
intended by the Father to be in his humanity the only way to the actuality of redemption.”

1
John E. Colwell, Promise and Presence: An Exploration of Sacramental Theology (UK: Paternoster, 2005), 2.
2
Kenan B. Osbourne, O.F.M. Sacramental Theology: A General Introduction (NY: Paulist Press, 1988), 76.

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Sacramentality

What then is sacramentality? In ecclesiological terms, by sacramentality, we simply mean the

A precise beginning point for a theology of sacraments is the faith-conviction that God’s revelation,
the knowledge of God, God’s communication of the divine will and God’s presence are given to us
humans through mediation, and are not immediate to us. God’s presence and will are
communicated through persons and/or events. This communication is not “news” or information
about… it is God’s very self. God’s Spirit is internal to these human persons or events in order to
approach people in love, to change them, to impel them to further action, to return to God. At the
same time, these human beings though being channels, do not cease to be human, and the events
remain human accomplishments: in both, God is present and active, without destroying their
uniqueness. That is the “sacramental structure” or “sacramental principle” that penetrates the
whole history of God and humanity.3

As you can see, sacramentality existed since the beginning of time, but is only in the second
millennium that it received much more thought on it. Why is this important? With this concept in
mind, then can we begin to more fully understand and appreciate the nature of our Anglican
sacraments.

But first, a little history.

Our Inherited Sacramental Tradition

For the first 800 years, there had been no systematic treatise on what believers experienced in the
eucharist. For nearly 1200 years, there had been no consensus even on how many sacraments there
were. Augustine mentioned several dozen. We can see why. If God communicates himself through
creaturely means, then there are numerous ways He could make himself known to us.

Yet all these freedoms ended in 1150 when Peter Lombard, the bishop of Paris, defined the
sacraments as “baptism, confirmation, the bread of blessing, that is, the eucharist, penance,
extreme unction, orders, marriage.”4 This was in line with the scholastic urge to define things. The
Council of Trent then confirmed this: no “more, or less, than seven.” And for something to be a
Sacrament it has to meet three essential criteria:

(1) outward sign and

If something is lacking just one of these criteria, it is not a Sacrament.

3
The English word "sacrament" is derived indirectly from the Ecclesiastical Latin sacrāmentum, from Latin
sacrō ("hallow, consecrate"), from sacer ("sacred, holy"). This in turn is derived from the Greek New Testament
word "mysterion". In Ancient Rome, the term meant a soldier's oath of allegiance, and also a sacred rite.
Tertullian, a 3rd-century Christian writer, suggested that just as the soldier's oath was a sign of the beginning
of a new life, so too was initiation into the Christian community through baptism and Eucharist.
4
Peter Lombard, The Four Books of Sentences, 344.

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Protestant Reformation

The Protestants may have agreed with the theology but disagreed with the classification.

Specifically, they disagreed on the last part on which sacraments are instituted by Christ. Martin
Luther is the central figure. In his treatise “The Babylonian Captivity,” he definitively shaped
Protestant’s thinking on sacraments. He says that sacraments are the promises of Christ connected
to visible signs, and those promises are contained in Scripture. Only two meets the test: baptism and
eucharist, “for only in these two do we find both the divinely instituted sign and the promise of
forgiveness of sins.” Baptism’s effectiveness is stated in Mark 16:16 – “He who believes and is
baptized will be saved.” It is usually paired with Matthew 28:19. Eucharist’s effectiveness is found in
Matthew 26:28 – “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins.”

For Lutherans, the sacraments are “signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us,” and that
they demand “faith, which believes the promises that are set forth and offered.”5 They are not
simply an intellectual acceptance of the reality of the promise but a deep sense of assurance that the
sacrament actually conveys the promise that accompanies it.

Ulrich Zwingli, the chief reformer of Zurich, says “a sacrament is nothing else than an initiatory
ceremony or a pledging.”6 Instead, it is a sign or ceremonial “by which a man proves to the Church
that he either aims to be, or is, a soldier of Christ, and which inform(s) the whole Church rather than
yourself of your faith.”7 To Zwingli, therefore, sacraments are merely signs. There is also a
fundamental shift in the effect of sacraments from something that God does, to something we do.

But Zwingli tried to qualify himself. According to him, the sacraments do have power to “augment
faith and are an aid to it.” This power comes from the analogy between sign and signified. The
power is basically cerebral in nature. Sacraments primarily communicate information, not just to the
believer but to the community as well. That is where their power lies.

So Luther says sacraments have power, and Zwingli says it is an object lesson.

Calvin’s understanding of the sacraments is somewhere “in between” the views of Luther and
Zwingli. John Calvin approaches the sacraments from the weakness of the nature of humanity and
our need for visual signs. Sacraments are God’s chosen means of relating to this need. So there is a
teaching element there.

However, it is the Holy Spirit who “opens our hearts for the Word and sacraments to enter in.”8 The
Holy Spirit makes the sacraments operative. The sacraments “offer and set forth Christ to us”9
through the Holy Spirit. So there is true grace involved in the sacraments. Hence we must not focus
on the signs themselves but on God’s use of them for salvation.

5
The Augsburg Confession, 35.
6
Ulrich Zwingli, Commentary on True and False Religion, 181.
7
Ibid., 184.
8
John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, 1284.
9
Ibid., 1292.

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So what do the Anglicans say?

The Church of England sticks closest to Calvin’s view. In Article 25:

Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession,
but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will
towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also
strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.

Thus they are public pledges (as per Zwingli), but also effective signs (as per Calvin and Luther).

And that is what I want to focus on – something really happens. Sacraments are not just symbolic
but effectual in communicating the grace that is encapsulated in its nature. For example, again in
Article 27,

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are
discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-
Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the
Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God
by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by
virtue of prayer unto God.

And in Article 28 on the Lord’s Supper,

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among
themselves one to another, but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death:
insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which
we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking
of the Blood of Christ.

How shall we understand such statements? If we read these statements from the perspective of our
Anglican church fathers, we will understand that they truly mean a participation in the grace that
Christ promises through the sacraments. The sacraments are not merely memorial in nature, yes no
doubt they commemorate or point to something, but they are more than that. They are
instrumental in nature. So the next time you witness a baptism or partake in the Holy Communion,
know that you are actually receiving the grace of Christ!

And what are you receiving specifically? According to the catechism of the church,

The benefits we receive are the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with
Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our
nourishment in eternal life.