Warfield on the Eucharist as Sacrifice

Liam Beadle has some striking quotations from B B Warfield (a hot Prot!) on the Supper as a Sacrifice.

I've added some bleeding chunks on Warfield to the comments which I reproduce here.

On Warfield's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, see further:

Selected Shorter Writings, ed. Meeter, John E., vol 1, (Nutley, NJ, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1970) 37. 'The Fundamental Significance of the Lord’s Supper' (p332ff).

Warfield argues that: The Lord’s Supper is the Christian Passover, a perpetual sacrificial feast in which the sacrifice of our Lord is not repeated but applied, not merely commemorated. (p336)

“All who partake of this bread and (p336) wine, the appointed symbols of his body and blood, therefore, are symbolically partaking of the victim offered on the altar of the cross, and are by this act professing themselves offerers of the sacrifice and seeking to become beneficiaries of it. This is the fundamental significance of the Lord’s Supper. Whenever the Lord’s Supper is spread before us we are invited to take our place at the sacrificial feast, the substance of which is the flesh and blood of the victim which has been sacrificed once for all at Calvary; and as we eat of these in their symbols, we are – certainly not repeating his sacrifice, nor yet prolonging it – but continuing that solemn festival upon it instituted by Christ, by which we testify our “participation in the altar” and claim our part in the benefits bought by the offering immolated on it. The sacrificial feast is not the sacrifice, in the sense of the thing offered, that is eaten in it: and therefore it is presuppositive of the sacrifice in the sense of the act of offering and implies that this offering has already been performed. The Lord’s Supper as a sacrificial feast is accordingly not the sacrifice, that is, the act of offering up Christ’s body and blood: it is however, the sacrifice, that is the body and blood of Christ that were offered, which is eaten in it: and therefore it is presuppositive of the sacrifice as an act of offering and implies that this act has already been performed once for all.” (p337)

His only other comments on the Supper I know of are in 23. 'The Posture of Recipients at the Lord’s Supper: A Footnote to the History of Reformed Usages' (p351ff)

“The fundamental fact, determinative of all such questions for the Reformed, is that the Supper is a feast and is to be administered at a table.” (p351)
“From the very beginning of their existence, the Reformed churches had insisted that the Supper is s meal and is to be administered at a table.” (p352)
Our Lord recumbent recipients (p352)
In antiquity elements received standing, the typical posture for prayer and praise (p353)
Leeuwaarden church in Frisia receive elements walking to suggest readiness for service (p353)
Seated usual reformed position (p353)
Kneeling suggests humility (p353) – Romanists, many German Protestants, C of E, Bohemians
Normally receive in their places – going up to altar a Laudian innovation (p358)
Scots would “sit at the table as guests at the festival of the Lord” (p359)
Gillespie says that “the nature of a feast requireth that the guests be set at table, and that all the guests be set about it, for the use of a table is not for some, but for all the guests, else no table is necessary but a cupboard.” Sub-committee of Westminster Assembly on Directory of Public Worship, Miscellany Questions, XVIII (p360)
The debate on communicating at the table at the Assembly took three weeks (p363)

I'd love to be pointed to more.

Some new old heroes?

Some evangelicals can sometimes give the impression that nothing much good happened in the church between Augustine of Hippo and Luther.

Could anyone suggest some heroes from that period of church history?

Could you recommend places to start in their writings or good (especially readable) biographies of them?

I guess a few condidates (though I know very little about some of them), in no particular order, could be Augustine of Canterbury, Boniface, Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Patrick, Bede, Thomas Becket, Edward the Confessor, Tyndale & Wycliffe (of course).

Encouraged

I think speaking to Christians who are sick, struggling or suffering in some way yet persevering can be one of the most encouraging things there is. A few times I've been to minister to such people and found that they've been a great blessing to me. I hope if I find myself in such a situation I will speak openly and joyfully about the Lord Jesus Christ as my rock and fortress and that I'll be able to witness to others of his love and grace.

Sovereign Treacle

Thomas Watson comments:

He is the only wise God; he knows how to make evil things work for good to his children. Rom viii 28. He can make a sovereign treacle of poison.

The Lord's Prayer (Banner of Truth, 1965) p4

You Must Be Born Again, (Israel) (Again)

In thinking about a corporate understanding of John 3:1-15, I came across this:




Descent from Father Abraham and membership of one of the twelve tribes of Israel will no longer count for membership in the people of God…. Easily missed is the fact that Jesus is actually addressing the nation of Israel in the person of this noted individual. This point emerges where we translate the Greek literally:

verse 7 Marvel not that I say unto thee,
‘You (plural) must be born from above’.

verse 11 ‘… you (plural) do not receive our witness’.

In effect, Jesus is addressing Israel with an announcement that is at the same time bad news and good news. It is bad news because it declares that Israel is not the Kingdom of God, but it is good news because it points to the door into the Kingdom. That ‘door’ is through the one who now speaks to Nicodemus, Jesus himself.

In turn this bears on the meaning of the words, ‘born of water and the Spirit’ (verse 5). Most likely Jesus is referring to God’s promise to gather together his scattered people into their true homeland and to wash them with water and give them his Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-28). In other words, God promises to forgive those sins that caused them to be scattered and to give them his inner strength to please him from now on.” (p42)

Paul Barnett, John: The Shepherd King Reading The Bible Today Series (Sydney, Aquila Press, 2005)

He Shall Have Dominion

A live blog from camp!

All is going well - through many dangers, toils and snares, and with His strength made perfect in weakness and so on. Thanks if you prayed and to the Lord and to all the team!

We've been having excellent times in Psalms 1 & 8 so far thanks to Mr Ken MacDonald.

I was especially struck by how dominion was seen partly in Adam, lost, exercised fully in Christ, progressively in us and perfectly in the future.

Think of Jesus domion over nature: He calms the storm and walks on water.

And over the beasts of the field: He rides an unbroken donkey no one else has ever ridden and the pigs rush to their death as He allows demons to enter them.

And over the fish of the sea: they climb into nets at His command, they pay His taxes and he serves them up.

And over the birds of the air: the Spirit comes on Him in the form of a dove and not a bird falls from the heavens except at His Father's command.

I just have to go and exercise a bit of dominion over Mr Dan Ritchie who is a very naughty leader. He just said there was some man outside the main building to see me. I took off my Christmas tree hair band, picked up my official looking folder and pen and marched out, where upon a group of boys water bombed me. Vengance may be the Lord's but a bit of corrective "punishment" might be in order...

Camp

We’re off on our CPAS Ventures camp first thing in the morning, for which we’d very much appreciate your prayers.

It’s a camp which is not really a camp, since we’re staying in a boarding school. Though it will be a little more like camping than usual since, in a radical move for us, some leaders will have to sleep on the floor, although I understand this is normal at some camps.

Its Romsey 1, which is not Romsey 1 since I believe it follows on from Romsey 2. Its no longer in Romsey at Hampshire Collegiate School this year but at Cumnor House School in Danehill in East Sussex. The site is new to us.

Though it's high summer and the weather will of course be glorious sunshine all week, we’re having Christmas and New Year.

The preaching and Bible Studies will be sequential edited highlights from John’s Gospel. I'm giving the first talk on John 20:31 entitled "Reading The Last Page First".

As a leadership team we'll be studying selected Psalms and I'll speak on a couple of Psalms from the Book of Common Prayer that I preached on recently.

I’ll be acting a adjutant (the main up front leadership for the kids) for the first time. Mrs Lloyd will be looking after Master Lloyd for the first time at camp. A kind church member will be looking after Caleb, oh, and Esther, for the first time at the curatage.

We’ll have 26 leaders (including cooks and a junior leader, quite a few of whom are new to our camp) and 44 eleven to fourteen year olds. Oh, and one baby, of course.

Proc Trust Autumn Ministers' Conference

I have just looked myself onto the Proc Trust Autumn joint ministers' conference, but don't let that put you off going.

I understand the food is lovely and plentiful and there is a good bar. Mrs Lloyd has cased the joint.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Little Ones In Church

Thanks to Mrs Lloyd for directing me to Mrs Wilson's blog post on little ones in church.

http://femina.reformedblogs.com/2008/07/24/little-ones-in-church/#more-418

I would love to see all our children with us in church for the whole service and admitted to the Lord's Table, but I think we might be a generation away from that as a congregation. Who knows. How would you move a church in that direction? Do you have experience of doing it in a church where others don't? It would be great if we could manage it with our little Jono. I don't really want to see him exiled or excommunicated.

Mrs Wilson's post should also be read in conjunction with Pastor Wilson's post on children in worship, which as I remember argues something like that whilst it is not a sin for the church to gather without the children and there are times when age specific teaching / addressing male heads of households / those who can understand etc. might be appropriate, as a norm the kids should we welcomed and included.

The Sunday School movement in the UK is a fairly recent invention and rather a mixed blessing in my view.

Mrs Wilson's post also shows the value of large families and long term settled ministries it seems to me. If, say, by the grace of God we had 4 kids who each had 4 kids, and the grandchildren and parents came to church, we would have a pretty sizable congregation. And if we had 4 other families like that in our church...

Some jottings on John

For what they're worth (which I'm afraid probably isn't very much) here's a Word Document with some notes I prepared for the leaders on Romsey 1 (a camp for 11-14 year olds) to help them prepare 6 Bible Studies on John 1:1-4, 35-51; 3:1-15; 6:1-24; 12:20-36; 19:16b-27

Mothers' Union

Apparently the Mothers' Union has a very strict no strike policy, so that's all right. :)

Do you have a Young Mums' group at your church, by the way? Are they?

You (Israel) Must Be Born Again

I have been reading with profit Derrick Olliff’s paper “The Eschatology of Being “Born Again”” in which he argues that in John 3, Jesus is saying that Israel corporately must be born again. Nicodemus, Israel’s teacher and a ruler of the Jews, is a representative figure and many of the “you”s are plural. Water and the Spirit language recall Isaiah 44 and Ezekiel 36-37. Israel’s exile death is over with the Jesus-event, she can be forgiven, raised to new life, transformed. The nations are gathered in, Israel’s restoration will be life for the world and there will be a new heavens and a new earth.

One quibble: I’m not sure I can agree that under the Old Covenant “the Spirit was not yet given in the Protestant born again sense to all those who trusted God” (p3). Surely Old Testament saints were regenerate by the Spirit even if they were not indwelt by the Spirit as New Testament believers are, but rather empowered for particular works of service. The saints under the Old Covenant were certainly spiritually alive whereas by nature mankind is dead in sin.

On the whole, though, Olliff’s thesis seems persuasive to me. If I’m convinced, how do our preach it and what are its applications? God has done what Jesus promised and prophesied here. You can be included in the international living people of God. Trust in Jesus and make sure you are part of the new transformed living people of God?

David Field and Alistair Roberts (to whom DF links) had made me agonize about this a couple of years ago just before I went off on a mission on which I was due to speak on John 3.

Of course, if you preach the corporate you get the individual thrown in but I do think an evangelical congregation might think it all sounds a bit strange and find it hard to get when they have always thought Jesus is saying "you must be personally regenerated".

As well as preaching on John 3 a week on Sunday I also have to come up with some Bible Study notes on it to be used with 11-14 year olds at camp next week...

Principles of Principled Irregular Action

It may be that some contemporary conservative evangelical (Anglicans) have written on this. If so, please point me to it.

But it seems to me that ideally it would be good to be really clear about the principles of principled irregular action before we acted.

Ecclesiastical

It seems to me that “the gospel dictates” that I should have a curate or plant a church in X street are not obviously good principles for irregular action. In the club of the Church of England those things might not be your decision and you are free to press for the rules of the club to be changed or to leave the club if you think the gospel dictates it. Disagreeing with your bishop on tactics does not mean you should act irregularly in an Episcopal church, even if you want to see a kind of reduced episcopasy in which the local church is acknowledged to be the centre of the action. A non-Anglican church could be planted. Perhaps an un-ordained person could be employed.

My bishop is a false teacher promoting homosexuality and therefore I need some alternative Episcopal ministry (in this club) would seem to me a far stronger case for irregular action.

Civil

Say for example, that the local council had refused you permission to hold an open air service on the sea-front on a Saturday afternoon in July, this would not seem to me to require civil disobedience. Of course, we must obey God not men and we must preach the gospel whether the local authority likes it or not, but we are not commanded to hold services on the seafront on Saturday afternoon. It would seem to me to be a mistake to go to prison over this one.

Resources

John Calvin and Samuel Rutherford on tyranicide might provide some resources. Their kind of programme might be: (1) plea (2) flight (3) fight. Fights should only be started by lesser authorities, not by private individuals.

Further political analogies might help. For example, presumably we expect diocesan bishops to behave more like constitutional monarchs rather than absolute rulers. Some of us may even live in a constitutional monarchy in a law abiding way if we’d rather have a republic.

Congessing Anglicans (FOCA)

All Anglicans are, of course, confessing Anglicans, or at least ought to be. We say the creeds each Sunday. We are officially committed to the doctrine of Holy Scripture which is set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bare witness. It is a great shame if some Anglicans are not saying the creeds and some others are saying them with their fingers crossed behind their backs.

Lambeth sorting it all out?

It seems to me that there is much that is true and useful in the Windsor Continuation Group's presentation to the Lambeth conference dated yesterday, which is reported by the BBC here. It takes the situation seriously and (given its brevity) reflects on it legally, theologically and practically.

It remains to be seen, of course, what if anything will actually be done at Lambeth and afterwards. I can see that we need to take time and listen and not rush in, but on the other hand, the presentation itself uses words like "urgent" and "quickly". I'm not clear exactly what time-scale is envisioned. There is a fire and we should be putting it out now.

It's all very well saying that there are "wrongs" on both sides. No doubt. Everyone would agree that alternative episcopal oversight is irregular and not ideal. But it is hardly of the same order as living in a homoerotic relationship, or blessing or consecrating those who do so. We know from the Word of God that those who willfully do such things and do not repent will not inherit the Kingdom, whereas to my knowledge no one would want to say that Archbishop Greg Venables is courting damnation. We are in danger of swallowing a camel and straining out a gnat. Adequate provision must be made as soon as possible for traditionalists who in conscience cannot accept revisionist changes.

There needs to be a clear call to repentance from those who have blessed same-sex unions or consecrated practicing homosexuals. Practicing homosexual bishops should resign and if they do not do so they should be removed.

All being well (which is a big "if", of course) hopefully then alternative episcopal oversight will not be necessary and there could be a regularisation.

It seems to me that a Unity Covenant should be more explicitly theological and doctrinal than seems to be proposed, where the emphasis is more on people and structures.

Preaching Plans

I wish I didn't have to commit myself to these so far in advance; I'm not quite sure what the titles are for and I don't think I've come up with very good ones, but here are my Sunday preaching plans for September - December 08. The Lord's Prayer in the mornings and more on John's Gospel in the evening. Then its the 10 Commandments in the morning, I think.

Any tips or pointers to good resources always most welcome, of course!

Sept 7^th AM – Lord’s Prayer II – Mt 5:5-15

Sept 21^st PM – John 3:13-36 – The most famous verse in the Bible

Oct 5^th AM – Lord’s Prayer III – Mt 5:5-15

Oct 26^th PM – John 4:1-26 – The Drinks are on Jesus

Nov 2^nd AM – Lord’s Prayer IV – Mt 5:5-15

Nov 30^th PM – John 4:27-42 – Jesus’ Secret Food Supply

Dec 14^th AM – Toy Family Service (I did the gifts of the Magi last year, so not sure what to do this year!)

Dec 24^th 4pm – Crib Service

Dec 25^th AM – Christmas Day

Talk & Sermon Archive

We're gradually building up an audio library of sermons and talks on our church website.

Amongst other things, as well as my plodding through John's gospel, you can hear the vicar, Rev'd John Cheeseman (of Banner of Truth fame) on Eph 4-5, the life of Elijah and soon the Sermon on the Mount.

There are also some talks by Rev'd Tony Baker who is a retired member of our congregation.

Soon there should be Rev'd Andrew Cornes on "Why Bother to Get Married?" and Bishop Peter Brain (author of Going The Distance) on "Thanksgiving as an Antidote the Discouragement".

I especially thought some people might be interested in these talks - which are especially inteded to be accessible to non-Christians - by my predecessor as curate, Rev'd Jeremy Hobson (who is also a medical doctor).

'Why do bad things happen to good people?’

‘Is abortion ever right?’

‘Euthanasia – a good way to die?’

‘Dealing with depression’

‘What about stem cell research?’

Celery, anyone?

God willing, I'll be preaching at our family service on Sunday on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. I thought the imagery of a race might be appropriate for the end of the Sunday school year with its ideas of what's behind and what's ahead and moving on to a new stage of the journey of life, and so on. And of course its topical with the Olympics just around the corner.

Leon Morris argues in the Tyndale commentary (I guess uncontroversially?) that Paul has in mind the Isthmian Games which were held every two years at Corinth.

According to Morris the "crown" at the Isthmian games was at various times a wreath made of pine or celery.

Should I be making a crown of celery by way of an illustrative prop? And if so, how?!

Peter Enns a "leading postmodernist"

I'm not well up on the details of the controversy about Dr Peter Enns' doctrine of Scripture at Westminster Seminary though I understand Enns has repeatedly affirmed inerrancy. I was surprised to see that the Amazon blurb for Greg K. Beale's new book, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (Crossway) describes Enns as "one leading postmodernist".

Phew

Thanks to Miss Clarke who recommended Mozy, with whom I am now automatically and free of charge backing up my vital research with which we wouldn't want the church to be without.