Saturday, January 13, 2007

Supper a good work

Rich Lusk observes that the mere memorialist (whom he terms a 'mentalist') is as in danger of making the Lord's Supper a human work as the medieval Roman Catholic. An empty symbol cannot do anything except cast you back on yourself and your own works, your abilities to remember and conjour up religious sentiment.

A Calvinistic ('symbolic instrumentalist') view emphasises dependance on the Spirit and promise of God with the Lord’s Supper as God’s gift to us (in which he offers us the whole Chrits, the glorified God-Man), not a work which we do for God but a work which God does for us.

2 comments:

Pete said...

Great observation.

In the ultra-memorialist tradition I grew up in, the only rationale for the Lord's supper was 'we do it because Christ asked us to do it' - i.e. its about our obedience to God, not his grace to us. This could make it close to a work. At the least it almost entirely obscures the grace of God in the sacrament.

Marc Lloyd said...

Thanks, Pete. I agree.