My last essay in this series on the Articles of the Creed was in June 2023. Its subject was the ninth Article on “The Holy Catholick Church.” I have resumed this series, a little over two years later, because of its association with a theme that I have been discussing in more recent essays, that the fundamentals of the Christian faith should be identified with the doctrines confessed in the Creeds of the ancient, undivided, Church. True fundamentalism and true Catholicism, therefore, are one and the same. Therefore, let us turn to the tenth Article of the Creed.
In the
Latin of the Apostles’ Creed this is a simple two word Article. In fact, beginning with this Article the
final three Articles in the Apostles’ Creed are all two words, since the final
Amen is not part of the final Article but pertains to the entire Creed. In this Article, the two words are remissionem peccatorum. Archbishop Cranmer’s equally simple rendition
of these in English, as we find them in the Restoration Book of Common Prayer,
are “the Forgiveness of sins.”
The Apostles’ Creed is a slightly modified form of the old
Roman Symbol. What we now call Creeds from
the Latin verb credo (“I believe”) were called Symbols back when Greek was the
predominant language in the Church. The
Roman Symbol or Creed was the one that catechumens had to learn to recite in
their baptism in the Church in Rome at least as early as the second
century. St. Irenaeus of Lyon, who calls
it a regula fidei (“rule of faith”),
which was another earlier way of referring to what we now call a Creed, quoted
it in his Against Heresies, (1)
written towards the end of the second century.
There is a very old account of the Apostles’ Creed as having come from
the hands of the Apostles’ themselves.
According to this ancient tradition they composed it on the first
Whitsunday (Christian Pentecost), with each of the twelve, including St.
Matthias, contributing one of its twelve Articles. In the ante-Nicene period various versions of
the Symbol or Regula Fidei were used by Churches in different locations and
these were similar enough that it is reasonable to think that they all
developed out of one original which may very well have been the work of the
Apostles. When the Church met in her
first ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325 AD to address the Arian controversy
she published a Creed which, as modified by the second ecumenical Council which
met at Constantinople in 381 AD, became what has since the fourth century been
the most universally received of the ancient Creeds, the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan, usually just called the Nicene. It too began as a local version of the
original Symbol, although it is hard to pinpoint it more precisely than to stay
that it was from the region in which the Holy Land is situated, (2) and should
be regarded as the product of the councils regardless of which local version
was their primarily source.
In the conciliar Creed the tenth Article differs from its
counterpart in the Apostles’ Creed, in that this Article is set apart from what
proceeds it by a verbal shift. In the
Apostles’ Creed, every Article is asserted as an object of the verb “Credo” (“I
believe”) which appears twice, at the beginning of the first Article and at the
beginning of the eighth. The tenth
Article falls under the “I believe” of the eighth Article in the Apostles’
Creed. In the conciliar Creed the
initial Πιστεύομεν (“We believe”) (3) is not repeated in the original Greek
text, nor is it repeated in the Latin text.
Archbishop Cranmer in his English rendition saw fit to repeat it both at
the beginning of the eighth Article as in the Apostles’ Creed and at the
beginning of the ninth Article. The
tenth Article, however, even in the Greek original, begins with a different
verb. This verb controls only the tenth
Article because yet a third verb introduces the eleventh Article. The tenth Article in Greek is ὁμολογοῦμεν ἓν
βάπτισμα εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. In the
Restoration Book of Common Prayer we find Archbishop Cranmer’s translation
which is based on the liturgical version, in which the only difference is the
use of the first person singular rather than the first person plural. That translation is “I acknowledge one
baptism for the remission of sins.”
Now, before we read too much into this change in the verb,
note that the difference between ὁμολογέω and πιστεύω is not like the
difference between standing and sitting, or even the difference between hearing
and seeing. ὁμολογέω is the
corresponding verb to a noun formed by adding the prefix meaning “same” to the
word λόγος which is the word for “word” or “reason”. The noun means “agreement” and the verb means
“agree.” In the Authorized Bible it is
usually translated “confess”, as, for example, in 1 John 1:9 “if we confess our
sins”. An adverb formed from the
participle of this verb is rendered “without controversy” in 1 Timothy
3:16. ὁμολογέω, therefore, is very
similar to πιστεύω in meaning with the basic difference being that whereas
believing can be entirely internal confessing is an outward act. In Romans 10:9-10 the two are treated as
being basically the internal and outward sides of the same act. The use of ὁμολογοῦμεν here, therefore, may
merely be because it was thought to be more appropriate to introduce the matter
of baptism.
The conciliar Creed in this Article contains two items where
its counterpart in the Apostles’ Creed contains only one. The one item is identical in both versions of
the Creed, although it is translated slightly differently in the BCP. The Latin original of “the forgiveness of
sins” in the Apostles’ Creed, remissionem
peccatorum, is how ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν is rendered in the Latin liturgical
translation of the Nicene Creed and, obviously, the synonym for forgiveness
found in the English translation of the Nicene Creed, remission, is an
Anglicized descendent of the Latin word used here. The Greek and Latin words, or rather the
corresponding verbs from which the nouns are derived, are both compounds built
from verbs meaning “to send”, ἵημι in Greek, mitto in Latin. The Greek
prefix means “away” or “from” and the Greek compound illustrates the meaning of
forgiveness. The offended party, sends
the offense away from himself, he lets it go rather than holding it to himself
or clinging to it in resentment and anger. Our English word “forgive” is also a compound
conveying a similar idea. “For”, used as
a prefix rather than a preposition or conjunction, had the meaning of “away” or
“thoroughly” (it is related to the Latin per),
so to “forgive” is to “give away” or to “give thoroughly.” “Give” in “forgive”, has the sense of “send” because
while the person being forgiven does receive something in the act of
forgiveness it is not what the person doing the forgiving “gives away”, i.e.,
the offense he himself had received from the person needing the
forgiveness. This needs to be kept in
mind with regards to the Latin term as well, because the Latin prefix “re”
means “back” or “again” and the idea here is not that the person doing the
forgiving revisits the offense on the offending party, which would be the
opposite of forgiveness, revenge.
The forgiveness of sins confessed in this Article is divine
forgiveness of human sins and not our forgiving of others although the
obligation that Christ has placed on us to forgive others is grounded in God’s
forgiveness of us. In the language of precise theology, forgiveness is an
aspect or element of salvation.
Theological forgiveness can be seen as the reverse side of the coin to
justification. Forgiveness is our sins
not being charged to us, justification is our faith being credited to us as
righteousness on account of the propitiatory redemption accomplished for us by
Jesus Christ. Forgiveness is Romans
4:7-8, justification is Romans 4:3-5. In
the tenth Article of the Creed, however, distinctions like this are not in view
and “the forgiveness of sins” should be understood as including all of the
benefits to the sinner of Christ’s saving work encapsulated under the head of
that of which the need is the most immediate.
The other item that is found in the tenth Article of the
conciliar Creed is baptism. The wording
with which the Article links baptism with forgiveness of sins is found in three
verses of the New Testament. In two of these, Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3, βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν
is said to be what John the Baptist preached.
Except that baptism is here modified by μετανοίας, “of repentance,”
rather than ἓν, “one”, the wording is identical to the Article in the
Creed. The other verse is the one
containing St. Peter’s answer to the crowd in Jerusalem who heard him preach
after the descent of the Holy Ghost on the first Whitsunday, (4) were
convicted, and cried out “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts.
2:37). St. Peter’s response was “Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts. 2:38). In this verse, the concept of baptism is
expressed with the imperative verb βαπτισθήτω rather than the noun, and
repentance is expressed by a separate imperative rather than as a modifier of
baptism, which is modified instead with ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
showing that this is specifically Christian baptism. It is by this last item that we know that
while the Greek wording is slightly further removed from that of the Creed than
in the Gospel verses, it is this verse that the conciliar Fathers undoubtedly
had in mind when they drafted the Article, for it is Christian baptism that is
affirmed here. We shall look at how
Christian baptism differs from and related to John’s baptism momentarily, but
first let us account for the word in the Creed that is not found in either Acts
2:38 or either of verses describing John’s baptism. That word is ἓν, which means one, and it is
an allusion to Ephesians 4:5 εἷς κύριος, μία πίστις, ἓν βάπτισμα,
or in English, (5) “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
This Article was not a controversial one prior to the
Reformation of the sixteenth century, nor was it a point of disagreement
between the Reformers and the Church of Rome.
Before showing how the tenth Articles stands up well in the arguments
about baptism that arose quite late in Church history, we would do well to
consider the origins of baptism at the other end of Church history, the
beginning. The Gospels tell us how
immediately prior to the ministry of our Lord, John, His maternal cousin, began
preaching in the wilderness near the river Jordan, calling on Israel to repent
of their sins in preparation for the coming Kingdom, and baptizing them in the
river. Large multitudes came to hear him
and to confess their sins and be baptized.
The Gospels record several different types of people asking him how to
live out their repentance in their specific situations (Lk. 3:10-14). They also record representatives of the
Jewish leadership in Jerusalem asking him by what authority he was preaching
and baptizing. There is no record,
however, of anyone asking him something to the effect of “John, what is this
baptism you are talking about, I have never heard of it before, did you just
make up something new?”
There is a reason no such question is recorded. In the Old Testament, there were a number of
ritual cleansings using water. Moses
ritually washed Aaron and his sons before vesting them and ordaining them into
the Old Testament priesthood (Lev. 8:6).
A ritual washing with water was part of the high priest’s preparation
for the Day of Atonement (Lev. 6:4). Out of these commandments, the general idea
of a הֶיקְוּמ (mikveh) or ritual bath arose.
It was for performing these that King Solomon ordered the construction
of a huge “molten sea” for the first Temple (1 Kings 7:23). At some point the rabbis added the form of הֶיקְוּמ
called a הֲלָבִיט (tevilah) to circumcision and the offering of a sacrifice as
a requirement for Gentiles who wished to convert. הֲלָבִיט
translates into Greek as βάπτισμα. Exactly when this was added is uncertain,
but it was well before the ministry of John the Baptist. The record in the Talmud (6) of a debate between
Yehoshua ben Hananya and Eliezer ben Hyrcanus over the relative importance of
“immersion” and circumcision is particularly illuminating, for these rabbis
lived immediately after the destruction of the Temple, by which point baptism
was well established as the initiatory rite of Christianity, and if the views
expressed had not already long been a part of rabbinical tradition they would
have been very unlikely to have arisen. (7)
Elsewhere in the Talmud, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is quoted as saying “Just
as your ancestors entered the covenant only through circumcision, immersion in
a ritual bath, and the sprinkling of blood, converts must do the same.” (8) This practice having started long before the
day of liberal individualism and its notion that religion is a personal
preference, entire households often converted at one time and when this took
place infants born into the household prior to conversion were baptized with
the rest of the household. Infants born
into the household after the conversion were not baptized because the family
they were born into was already part of the Covenant, but the baptism of
already born infants in household conversions was standard and
non-controversial. (9)
When John began calling Israel to repentance and baptizing
them, therefore, the question of “what” he was doing did not arise because they
were familiar with baptism. John’s
baptism differed from the established practice on one important point,
however. John, whose entire ministry
took place in the wilderness of Judea, was not preaching to Gentiles or even to
Samaritans. It was those who were
already members of the Covenant nation that he was preaching to, calling to
repentance, and to whom he was administering the ritual washing of conversion. The significance of this is contained in His
message, that the promised kingdom was at hand (Matt. 3:2) and that they needed
to prepare for the arrival of Him Who was to follow after (Matt. 3:11-12).
Baptism, therefore, which began prior to John as a ritual
bath administered as one of the requirements for Gentiles converting to the
Jewish religion, under John was administered to the Jews themselves for the
purpose of preparing them for the coming of the Christ. It was not yet Christian baptism,
however. Jesus Himself came to John to
be baptized. St. Matthew records that
John objected, saying “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to
me?” (Matt. 3:14). John’s reasoning was
understandable. He was administering
baptism to those who were confessing their sins in repentance, but Jesus had no
sins of His own to confess and therefore no need of repentance. Jesus’ answer to John was “Suffer it to be so
now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” (Matt. 3:15) Jesus’ meaning is less obvious from His
wording than John’s, but it appears to be that His undergoing baptism was
important to His completing the work for which He had become Man, the reconciliation
of sinning man to God by the satisfaction of His righteous requirements. In response to the heresy of Apollinaris who
taught that Jesus’ humanity lacked a human νοῦς with its place being taken
by the divine Λόγος, the Church Fathers, who condemned this heresy in the same
council that published the final form of the Creed, said “Το γαρ απρόσληπτον
και αθεράπευτον”, “for that which is not taken is also not healed.” (10) A similar principle can be offered as the
explanation here – for baptism, the ritual bath of repentance, to truly benefit
the sinful people upon whom it is administered, it needed to be sanctified
itself by having been undergone by the Son of God. (11)
Jesus’ own baptism, therefore, was the first step in turning
this ritual bath which the Jews applied to Gentile converts and John to the
Jews themselves, into the sacrament of entry into the New Covenant that He
would inaugurate with His death and resurrection. The final step would be when, after His
resurrection and before His ascension, He commanded His disciples to “Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matt. 28:20).
Whereas Jewish proselyte baptism was administered only to
Gentiles and John’s baptism was administered only to Jews, Christian baptism
was to be administered to everyone, Jew and Gentile. Of the three rabbinic requirements for
Gentile conversion, baptism was the one Jesus chose to retain for His
Church. After Gentiles started
converting to Christianity, the question of whether they needed to be
circumcised was raised and the Apostolic council of Jerusalem, ruled no (Acts
15). Jesus’ death was the final blood
sacrifice, of which all the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament had been
foreshadows, which effectually accomplished that to which the past sacrifices
could only look forward, the taking away of sin. (Heb. 9:11-14, 24-28;
10:10-14) It is fitting, therefore, that
the only one of the Jewish conversion rites to be adopted into Christianity, be
the one that does not involve the shedding of blood.
As the only one of the Jewish rites of initiation to pass
into Christianity, baptism became the New Covenant successor not merely of its
own previous forms, but of circumcision as well. St. Paul says as much in Colossians where he
writes:
And ye are complete in
him, which is the head of all principality and power: In whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism,
wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God,
who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having
forgiven you all trespasses; ; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that
was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross; (Col 2:10-14) (12)
That Christian baptism is the New Covenant successor to its
previous forms and to circumcision is a sufficient answer to all the antipaedobaptist
arguments against the baptism of the infants of Christian families. As the successor to John’s baptism, Christian
baptism is to be administered to those who received John’s baptism, Jews. As the successor to Jewish proselyte baptism,
Christian baptism is to the administered to the recipients of Jewish proselyte
baptism, Gentiles. As the successor to
both, Christian baptism is more inclusive than either and it is also more
inclusive than circumcision to which it is also the successor. Circumcision could only be administered to
males. Baptism is administered to male
and female alike, a fact that was raised in the rabbinic debates over which was
the more essential part of proselyte conversion. The New Covenant is presented in Scripture as
the superior covenant to which the Old looked forward as a shadowy type. A sound principle that can be reasonably
deduced from this is that the successor rite of the superior covenant will
include at least as much as was included in its predecessor rite(s) under the
inferior covenant. The infants of
Covenant families under the Old Covenant were circumcised, if they were male,
on the eight day. The infants of
proselyte families, if they were born prior to their family’s conversion, were
baptized. For the infants of Christian
families to be excluded from Christian baptism would be to exclude from the
successor rite, those who were included in the predecessor rite(s). From the
principle we have just established, and the overall tenure of the shift from
less inclusive to more inclusive going from the Old to the New Covenant, the antipaedobaptist
position would require an authoritative Scriptural text authorizing this
exclusion to have even a modicum of credibility and no such text exists. To the contrary, Jesus’ response to His
disciples when they tried to prevent parents from bringing their children to
receive His blessing provide the exact opposite of such. Here is St. Mark’s account:
But when Jesus saw it,
he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come
unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say
unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall not enter therein. (Mk. 10:14-15)
The principle that Christian baptism is inclusive of all the
rites to which it is successor applies not merely to the question of to whom it
is to be administered, but to the benefits it confers as well. Membership in the Covenant community of
national Israel was the principle benefit conferred by circumcision and
proselyte baptism and Christian baptism confers membership in the reconstituted
Israel that is the Christian Church. (13)
As we have seen the baptism John preached was “εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν”,
“for the forgiveness of sins” and St. Peter made this same association with
Christian baptism on the first Whitsunday.
Another place where this association is made is later in the book of
Acts when St. Paul gives an account of his conversion to the mob in
Jerusalem. In this telling of his
conversion, he mentions that Ananias said to him “And now why tarriest thou?
arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the
Lord” (Acts 22:16). From these clear
references, it can be reasonably deduced that other verses that connect the
removal of sins to water or washing such as 1 Cor. 6:11, Eph. 5:26, and Heb.
10:22, are alluding to baptism, as the Church has always taught. St. Peter in one remarkable passage affirmed
that baptism confers salvation while clarifying that it is not by the water
acting qua water as in an ordinary
physical cleansing that this is accomplished (1 Pet. 3:20-22).
Let us take a closer look at how Christian baptism was
historically instituted. The wording of
the institution of Christian baptism in the Great Commission in our Authorized
Bible, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” somewhat unfortunately
conceals the fact that a different verb is used in the next instruction “Teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” “Teaching” in Matt. 28:20 is διδάσκοντες, a
participle form of διδάσκω which is the basic Greek verb for “teach.” The imperative translated “teach” in the
previous verse, however, is μαθητεύσατε.
This is the aorist imperative of μαθητεύω
which is derived from the noun meaning “disciple” and which can mean to be a
disciple or, as it does in this verse, to “make a disciple.” While “teach” is
not a wrong translation of μαθητεύσατ, “make disciples” is better here. The command to make disciples of the nations and
the command to baptize are both expressed by imperatives and placed in
apposition, with the next instruction being introduced with a participle. This indicates that the Apostles were to make
disciples out of the nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son,
and the Holy Spirit. Then, when the
disciples had been made by baptism, they were to be taught, for that is what a
disciple is, someone who learns, someone who is taught. (14) This making Christian baptism into the
instrument by which Christian disciples are formally made is the for the most
part another way of saying that baptism confers membership in the Church under
the New Covenant the way circumcision conferred membership in Israel under the
Old.
Now consider the baptismal formula. Christian baptism was to
be in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This pointed back to the event in which
Christ sanctified baptism by undergoing it Himself. While one can demonstrate the Holy Trinity
from Old Testament texts alone, (15) it was at Jesus’ baptism that the Three
Persons were revealed in their distinction from each other (that it is in the
name rather than names of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that Christian
baptism is to be administered shows the essential unity of the Three
Persons). Jesus Himself is the Son, of
course, and at His baptism, the Father spoke from heaven saying “This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17) and the Holy Spirit
descended upon Him “like a dove” (Matt. 3:16).
This pointing back to Christ’s own baptism in the baptismal
formula also pointed forward to the blessings conveyed in Christian baptism. While it was not unknown for the Covenant
people to be called God’s children in the Old Testament (Ex. 4:22, Hos. 11:1,
Deut. 14:1), usually, as is the case with the first two of the examples
provided, it was the entire nation as a collective that spoken of as His child,
singular. Under the New Covenant,
however, that the people of God are His children is emphasized like it never
was under the Old. Sometimes Christians
are spoken of as God’s children by adoption (Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:4-6, Eph. 1:5),
and sometimes they are spoken of as His children by means of a birth (Jn.
1:12-13, Jn. 3:3-8, Tit. 3:5, Jas. 1:18, 1 Pet. 1:3, 23). The verses that speak of this birth tell us
that it is not a physical birth (it is not of blood, Jn. 1:13) but a spiritual
(Jn. 3:5-8). The Holy Spirit
accomplishes this birth through the means of the word (Ja. 1:18, 1 Pet. 1:23)
and of water which is explicitly mentioned in John 3:5 and also suggested by
the expression διὰ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας, “through the washing of
regeneration” in Tit.3:5. (16) The
blessing of becoming a child of God, therefore, is conveyed in Christian
baptism and while believers obviously do not become children of God in the same
sense that Jesus is the Son of God this blessing clearly corresponds to the
Father’s pronouncement over His Son in His baptism. Indeed, the less emphasized aspect of
adoption in becoming the children of God as Christians, is best explained as
Christian sonship being derived from His Sonship through the blessing that is
most frequently said to be conveyed through baptism in the New Testament, union
with Jesus Christ. If our baptism is the
means through which the Holy Spirit unites us to Jesus Christ in His death and
resurrection, as St. Paul says it is, then it stands to reason that it unites
us with Him in His baptism as well.
This is all the more evident when we consider what else
happened to Christ in His baptism. The
Holy Spirit descended upon Him. While
the descent of the Holy Spirit upon believers is not limited to baptism it is
clearly associated with it. Remember St.
Peter’s words that inspired the wording of the Creedal Article we are
discussing “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost.” (Acts 2:38) When later, St. Peter
preaches the Gospel to Cornelius, the Holy Spirit descends upon him and his
household prior to their baptism (Acts 10:44-46). The reason for this difference is evident
from the text – the descent of the Holy Spirit was the sign St. Peter needed to
persuade those who had accompanied him that the converted Gentiles be baptized
into the Church (Acts 10:47-48). Later
in Acts, St. Paul encounters disciples of John in Ephesus who had received his
baptism but who in response to the question “Have ye received the Holy Ghost
since ye believed?” answered “We have not so much as heard whether there be any
Holy Ghost.” (Acts 19:2). St. Paul then
preached Christ to them and they received Christian baptism and then “when Paul
had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them.” (Acts. 19:6). The second baptism administered to these in
this passage was their first and only Christian baptism. There is no precedent here for administering
a second baptism to someone who has already been baptized in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which would be in violation of the “ἓν βάπτισμα”
of Ephesians 4:5 (an epistle written to the Church in the city where this had
taken place).
That the descent of the Holy Ghost is said in Acts 19 to
have come after St. Paul laid hands on them alludes back to the eighth chapter
of Acts where St. Philip, the deacon of that name not the Apostle, preaches the
Gospel in Samaria and baptizes the converts, including Simon Magus, but the
descent of the Holy Spirit comes after the Apostles, SS Peter and John come to
Samaria and lay hands on the new baptized.
The laying on of Apostolic hands in these chapters is the same laying on
of hands associated with baptism (and repentance, faith, the resurrection of
the dead, and eternal judgement) in Hebrews 6:2 as foundational doctrine and it
is the rite that historically has been called “confirmation” in the West. The point taken from these passages should
not be that the descent of the Holy Spirit is conferred through a second rite
rather than through baptism. The point
of the account in Acts 8 seems to be that while Christian baptism did not need
to be administered by the governors of the Church, who at the time were the
Apostles themselves, to be valid it needed their sanction for the full benefits
to be enjoyed by the baptized. (17) From
this it can be reasonably argued that confirmation, while treated as a distinct
rite in ecclesiastical usage for convenience’s sake, is more properly thought
of as the second part of the rite of Christian baptism itself. (18)
Christ, therefore, in His own baptism, sanctified the
pre-existing rite for its use in His Church under the New Covenant and
established a pattern for the blessings that would be conveyed through
Christian baptism. (19) It is
unsurprising, therefore, that the blessing that St. Paul most emphasized as
being associated with baptism in his writings, is union with Jesus Christ.
In the sixth chapter of Romans, he wrote: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:3-4). In Galatians 3:27 he wrote “For as many of
you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” We have already seen that in the second
chapter of Colossians where he associates baptism under the New Covenant with
circumcision under the Old, he wrote Colossians 2:12 he wrote “Buried with him
in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the
operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” (Col. 2:12) In 1 Corinthians he expressed the same idea
from a different angle “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all
made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Here, the emphasis is upon the unity of the
Church, which is the one body, the body of Christ, into which we have been
baptized, and the Holy Spirit is identified as the Agent Who works through the
means of baptism to effect this union of believers with each other and with
Jesus Christ.
When someone is united with Jesus
Christ, Jesus’ Christ’s death becomes that person’s own, both answering for his
sins before the tribunal of divine justice and cutting him off from his old
sinful life that he may live in union with Jesus Christ in His resurrection
life. It is entirely appropriate,
therefore, that the instrument through which the Holy Spirit unites us to
Christ according to the Scriptures is confessed in our Creed to be “for the
remission of sin”, which expression is itself Scriptural. It is only in Christ that the sinner can find
forgiveness of sins.
The word translated “for” in both the
Creed and the relevant New Testament verses is the preposition εἰς. Opponents of the plain truth of the Article
under consideration maintain that in the New Testament verses where it is
proclaimed εἰς means something like “upon” or “because of.” While not, perhaps, out of the range of
possible meanings for this word, these are far from it’s usual usage. This
is a very basic Greek preposition. (20) Liddell
and Scott give as its first and most basic definition “into, and then more loosely, to” and identify “into” in the sense of
place as the “oldest and commonest usage” of the word. (21) In 575 of its New Testament usages
it is rendered “into” in the Authorized Bible.
This by far the most common translation, with “to” (289 places) and “unto”
(209 places) in the second and third places. The next most common
translations are “in” and “for” and “for” is the translation in the Authorized
Bible in the relevant verses. Usually
when it is translated “for” it is in the sense of “in order that” or “for the
purpose that.” (22) Think of how Acts
2:38 would read if εἰς had been rendered by its most usual translation.
With that as the sole change from the Authorized Bible it would read “Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ into the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
Those who oppose the administration of
baptism to the infants of families in the Covenant community usually deny that
any benefits are conferred in baptism except perhaps that of external membership
in the visible Church the value of which they minimize because in their
thinking the “real” Church is invisible. While loudly proclaiming their
adherence to “the Bible” which they set against the teachings of the Church,
they deny what the Bible very explicitly says about the benefits conferred
through baptism. It is further ironic
that those who deny that anything is done in baptism for the recipients of
baptism are also those who insist that a particular mode of administration is
absolutely necessary for it to be valid. (23)
As noted earlier, these doctrines were not raised in objection to Church
doctrine and practice in the first millennium and a half of Christian
history. When they were raised in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was not by those seeking to reform the
Church of the erroneous teachings and practices of the papal usurpation, but by
rigorist fanatics seeking to separate from the reformed Churches of continental
Europe and of England.
At the bottom of these objections to
the idea of anything other than external Church membership being conferred
through baptism there are two notions.
One of these is that it conflicts with the Reformation doctrine of
justification by faith alone. Here the
irony must be observed that among the Reformers, the strongest possible stance
in favour of the traditional view of baptism as conferring regenerating and
justifying grace on its recipients was that taken by the man whose name will
forever be associated with sola fide,
Dr. Martin Luther, (24) whereas the first separatist groups to reject the
traditional view of baptism and the practice of infant baptism, also rejected
justification by faith alone. (25) The
two truths are not in conflict, however, because baptism is not a work but a
Sacrament. (26) Works are what we do. St. Paul excluded these from any role in bringing
about our justification before God (Eph. 2:8-9) because salvation is a gift
freely given and if it were by works it would be something we earned (Rom.
4:4). Our role in our own salvation is
as recipient and faith is the means given to us by which to receive saving
grace. Works on our part that are
acceptable and pleasing to God are the outcome of our salvation, (Eph. 2:10,
Tit. 3:4-8), not a factor that contributes to bringing it about. Sacraments are means established by God
through which He gives His grace to us.
God is the Agent Who works through them to bestow blessings on us, they
are not works on our part, nor do they intrude into faith’s role but rather
complement it. Faith is the hand with
which we receive saving grace, the Word and Sacraments are the hands through
which God gives us saving grace. (27)
Rejection of the teachings of the
Scriptures and Church tradition about baptism’s role the instrument of
conveying regenerating grace noticeably creates a vacuum. This is why so many evangelicals who
supposedly reject baptismal regeneration in the name of “faith alone” end their
Gospel presentations not by telling their hearers or readers to merely believe
or trust the message they have just heard about Jesus and what He has done for
them but to perform an act of the will that will make them Christians. This act of the will, the exact nature of
which varies from preacher to preacher, and even from sermon to sermon from the
same preacher, so as to create needless confusion, entered evangelical practice
to fill the place that had been left vacant by the rejection of sound doctrine
regarding baptism and in many confused Gospel presentations, takes, or comes
close to taking, the place of faith as well.
This is hardly a step in the right direction and is arguably best
described as a revival of a form of the ancient Pelagian heresy, one ironically
often embraced by those who think of themselves as adhering to strict
Augustinian orthodoxy.
The other notion is the idea that the
material, such as water, cannot serve as a medium for the spiritual, such as
grace, and that therefore it can at most be an imperfect representation of
it. The influence of this idea can
clearly be seen on Zurich Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, informing his thinking on
everything from Sacraments to icons, although he would not have been willing to
affirm it stated as nakedly as it is in the first sentence of this paragraph. The Reformed tradition was unable to completely
escape its influence, despite the best efforts of more conservative Reformers
such as Calvin and Bullinger, although it is in the separatist sects that it
has borne its most pernicious fruit. The
unwillingness of Zwingli et al., to
affirm this idea outright, despite allowing it to influence their thought, is
due to its obvious resemblance to the matter-spirit dichotomy that the main
heretics of the second and third centuries derived from Platonic
philosophy. Pressed to its logical
extreme, this idea is ultimately a denial of Creation, that God made everything
“visible and invisible” and pronounced it good, of the nature of man whom God
made in His own image of both matter and spirit, of the Incarnation, that God
the Son took human nature, both spiritual and material, into His Own Eternal
Person to be united with Him forevermore, and of the entire Gospel that God so
took humanity to Himself that by dying and triumphing over death, He might save
mankind from bondage to sin and death.
To avoid allowing ourselves to be
influenced by such ultimately anti-Christian thinking, let us confidently
affirm the tenth Article of our Creed, which, after all, merely confesses what
the Scriptures themselves teach.
(2) Eusebius of Caesarea, the “Christian Herodotus”, was present at the Council of Nicaea and testified that he brought the Symbol with which he had been catechized to the Council and urged its acceptance. In the nineteenth century, it was thought by many on the basis of this testimony that the original Nicene Creed was a modification of the Caesarean Symbol. Since then, others have argued against this on the grounds that the Nicene Creed more closely resembles, especially in the section pertaining to the doctrines under discussion at Nicaea, the Symbol used by St. Cyril in Jerusalem. German liberal Church historians Adolf von Harnack and Hans Lietzmann argued for these theories respectively. Rather than saying that the council took one or the other of these and edited it into the Creed they published it is probably more accurate to say the council drafted its own Creed after taking both of these and likely several others into consideration.
(3) The Creed as published by the councils is expressed in the plural, although liturgically it has always been confessed in the singular.
(4) Whitsunday is the Christian Pentecost (the fiftieth day after Easter/Pascha/Resurrection Sunday, the Christian Passover), the successor in the Christian age to the Festival of Weeks or Shavuot, the Jewish Pentecost (the fiftieth day from the Sunday after the Jewish Passover).
(5) The εἷς in Ephesians 4:5 is the masculine form of “one”, corresponding to the feminine μία and the neuter ἓν. Note that it has a circumflex accent and an ‘ over it. The ‘ means that it is pronounced with an h sound at the beginning. Otherwise it is identical in form to εἰς, the preposition linking baptism with forgiveness in the Creed and in Mk. 1:4, Lk. 3:3, and Acts. 2:38.
(6) Yevamot, 4, 46b. Keep in mind that the Talmud belongs to post-Second Temple rabbinic Judaism. This Judaism is not, contrary to what many say today, the religion of the Old Covenant, the antecedent to Christianity. The Old Covenant religion was given to a particular people, to be practiced in a particular place, under a divinely established ministry, the Aaronic priesthood. Rabbinic Judaism, like Christianity, is a successor religion to the Old Covenant religion. In Christianity, the Aaronic priesthood has been replaced by the Apostolic ministry of the New Covenant. In Rabbinic Judaism, lay teachers who arose after the Babylonian Captivity became the new clergy of the religion after the destruction of the Second Temple meant the end of the duties of the Aaronic priesthood. Christianity is the true successor religion to the Old Covenant because it is based on faith in the Christ Who came and inaugurated the New Covenant by fulfilling the Old. Rabbinic Judaism, arose out of necessity after the destruction of the Second Temple, an event that took place almost four decades after the Ascension of Christ, after all the events in the book of Acts had taken place, after all the epistles of the New Testament and all the Gospels with the possible exception of John had been written. On the matter at hand, however, Christians have no reason to regard the rabbinic writings as less than reliable. If had not been Jewish practice to baptize Gentile converts prior to John’s Baptism, rabbis writing after the destruction of the Second Temple would hardly have introduced it then, let alone invent a backstory for it.
(7) For example, Rabbi Yehoshua argued from Exodus 24:8 and a tradition that there is no blood sprinkling without “immersion,” that all of the Israelites were immersed at that point on Mt. Sinai and that immersion is essential to conversion. He extended the argument to prove that the Israelite foremothers were immersed as well, because if they were not “then with what were they brought under the wings of the Divine Presence?”
(8) Keritot, 9a. The translation quoted here and in the previous note is the William Davidson Talmud. Yehuda HaNasi, (135-217 AD), was the chief editor of the Mishnah, the core part of the Talmud on which the other part, the Gemara, is commentary.
(9) “What was the procedure in proselyte baptism? Was it administered to children? The answer is that when Gentiles adopted the Jewish faith it was completely taken for granted that at the same time the children also, including even very young children, should be received into the Jewish faith.” .Joachim Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1960), 37. This is an English translation by David Cairns of a German original that was first published in 1938. Jeremias cited Paul Billerbeck (author, with Hermann Strack, of the 1926 Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash) as his source in the first footnote to the section quoted, and provided several rabbinic references to the point in his second footnote. His entire argument from the practice of proselyte baptism, extends from the middle of page 37 to the beginning of page 40.
(10) St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistles, 101.5.
(11) That in the baptism of our Lord, it was not the baptism that sanctified but the One baptized Who sanctified the baptism, was a common Patristic theme. See, for example, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians, 18, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations, 39 and St. Maximus of Turin, Sermon 100: On the Holy Epiphany.
(12) “He explains still more clearly the manner of spiritual circumcision — because, being buried with Christ, we are partakers of his death. He expressly declares that we obtain this by means of baptism, that it may be the more clearly apparent that there is no advantage from circumcision under the reign of Christ. For some one might otherwise object: “Why do you abolish circumcision on this pretext — that its accomplishment is in Christ? Was not Abraham, also, circumcised spiritually, and yet this did not hinder the adding of the sign to the reality? Outward circumcision, therefore, is not superfluous, although that which is inward is conferred by Christ.” Paul anticipates an objection of this kind, by making mention of baptism. Christ, says he, accomplishes in us spiritual circumcision, not through means of that ancient sign, which was in force under Moses, but by baptism. Baptism, therefore, is a sign of the thing that is presented to us, which while absent was prefigured by circumcision.” – John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, translated by the Rev. John Pringle (Edinburgh, Calvin Translation Society, 1851).
(13) That Christ’s Church is Israel, reconstituted under the New Covenant, is the clear teaching of the New Testament. It is the inescapable conclusion of the olive tree metaphor in Romans 11. The olive tree is Israel. Those who belonged to Israel as she was prior to reconstitution but who rejected Jesus Christ were cut off and can be grafted back in whenever they believe in Jesus Christ. Those who had not belonged to Israel prior to reconstitution but who believed in Jesus Christ were grafted in. The olive tree remains Israel but its branches whether natural (Jews) or wild (Gentiles) are those who believe in Jesus Christ making it the Church. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants found in each of the Synoptic Gospels is all about the reconstitution of Israel. In the parable, the vineyard represents the Kingdom of God which is Israel (Christ’s kingdom has three aspects – that of power, that of glory, and that of grace. In the power aspect it includes everything and everyone, in its glory aspect it will ultimately include all except the damned, and in its grace aspect, it is His Covenant people on earth), the wicked tenants are those placed in leadership over Israel under the Old Covenant, and the new tenants are those Christ places in leadership over the Church under the New Covenant (the Apostolic ministry).
(14) It pains me to write this, because 99.99 % of the time no other English translation can hold a candle to the Authorized Bible, both because most of them were translated from Greek New Testament texts compiled on rationalist principles (such as the idea that the most accurate reading can be found in manuscripts that were hidden away for over a millennium rather than in those used by the Church) and because they were translated in the century in which, as the late Joe Sobran pointed out “we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college”, but this is one place where almost every newer translation – ASV, NIV, ESV, NASV, RSV, NRSV, New Living, New Century, NKJV, whatever - is superior. William Tyndale had rendered both verbs as “teach” in his translation and this was preserved in most of the early English translations including the Authorized. The Roman Catholic translation that was contemporary with the Authorized, the Douay-Rheims, also renders it this way, and precedent for obscuring the distinction between the verbs in translation goes back to St. Jerome who used forms of doceo for both in the Latin Vulgate.
(15) God in creation speaks to Himself in the royal plural (Gen. 1:26), that His plurality is three-fold can be inferred from the triple Sanctus sung by the seraphim in Isaiah 6, the Spirit is referred to in Gen. 1:2 and repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, and the Son is referred to in the second Psalm.
(16) John Calvin, says of the phrase in Titus “By the washing of regeneration I have no doubt that he alludes, at least, to baptism, and even I will not object to have this passage expounded as relating to baptism; not that salvation is contained in the outward symbol of water, but because baptism tells to us the salvation obtained by Christ.” John Calvin, Commentaries on The Epistles to Titus, Timothy and Philemon, translated by Rev. William Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1856). This is interesting because he rejected interpreting the water in John 3:5 as an allusion to baptism, despite acknowledging that “the greater part of expounders agree” with St. John Chrysostom in understanding it that way and writing “It is true that, by neglecting baptism, we are excluded from salvation; and in this sense I acknowledge that it is necessary” and no other sense of necessity than this has ever been claimed for it by any responsible teacher of baptismal regeneration. These last quotations are from Calvin’s Commentary on John, Volume 1, also translated by Rev. William Pringle and published by the CTS, but in 1847.
The expository tradition of interpreting the water of John 3:5 as baptism is stronger even than Calvin’s wording suggests. This interpretation predated St. John Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth century, having been taught by the earliest of the Patristic writers (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 61, St. Irenaeus, Fragments 34, Tertullian, On Baptism, 12.1 and A Treatise on the Soul, 39) and ubiquitously by the orthodox Fathers prior to the ecumenical councils (see St. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 8,3, St. Cyprian, Epistles, 1.3, 71.1, 72.21, Apostolic Constitutions, 6.3). Indeed, there were very few dissenters to this interpretation prior to the sixteenth century and these few were not otherwise noted for their orthodoxy (the Valentinian Gnostics, for example, against whom St. Irenaeus wrote, see his discussion of this point in Against Heresies, 1.21.2-4).
Calvin’s double-mindedness on this matter is best explained as the result of his attempt to apply conservative brakes to the radical direction on which Zwingli had placed the Reformed movement while being unable to entirely break away from Zwingli’s neo-Gnostic allergy to seeing spiritual good being as being capable of being communicated through material means.
Dr. Luther, who had no such allergy, had no such double-mindedness. From his Small Catechism, “Q. What benefits does Baptism give? A. It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare” and “Q. How can water do such great things? A. Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water. For without God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism. But with the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three: ‘He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.’ (Titus 3:5–8)”
(17) In the West this is why only the bishops, to whom the Apostles’ government of the Church passed, confirm. In the East the chrism has to be blessed by a bishop. This point is only directly related to the Acts 8 passage where the Apostles had to confirm someone baptized by a deacon. In Acts 19 it is unclear who did the actual baptizing of those St. Paul confirmed although his remarks in 1 Corinthians 1 might suggest that he customarily delegated baptizing to others.
(18) This is, in fact, indicated by the name attached to the rite in the West. While “confirmation” today means “verification”, originally it meant “strengthening” and it was in this sense of the word that it was given to the rite (the current meaning is derived from the original because in verifying a statement or argument you strengthen the case for it). The idea was that the Holy Spirit came upon the believer in both baptism and confirmation and through the latter conferred gifts that strengthened what was conferred in the former. While antipaedobaptists sometimes argue that confirmation was a late invention, created by the Church so that those who had received infant baptism, which the antipaedobaptists also consider to be a late invention, could publicly “confirm” the pledges of faith and repentance made for them by their sponsors, this is based entirely on assumptions that are historically false. Confirmation is not a late invention, it is not even an extra-Scriptural invention, but is the laying on of hands found in Acts 8 and 19 and Hebrews 6. What happened relatively late in Western Church history was that it was deferred to later in life. Originally, the universal practice was to confirm immediately after baptism, as is still practiced for those baptized as adults and which the Eastern Orthodox Church, which calls it “chrismation” after the anointing oil used in it, still practices for infants thus illustrating the point that it is really the second part of baptism rather than something entirely distinct and separate.
(19) “As these events happened with Christ, we should likewise know that following the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit come upon us from the gates of heaven, imbuing us with the anointing of heavenly glory. We become the sons of God by the adoption expressed through the Father’s voice. These actual events prefigured an image of the Mysteries established for us.” – St. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew, 2.6. The chapter and section numbers of this commentary do not line up with the chapter and verse numbers in the Gospel itself. The translation quoted is that by D. H. Williams (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012) where it can be found on page 53. St. Hilary here is representative of Patristic thinking.
(20) In Warren C. Trenchard’s The Student’s Complete Vocabulary Guide to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), which includes a listing of every word in the Greek New Testament by frequency of occurrence in descending order, εἰς appears in the first paragraph of the list where its occurrences are numbered at 1768 (James Strong in his Concordance has the occurrences at 1774). Similarly, in William Bishop Owen and Edgar Johnson Goodspeed’s Homeric Vocabularies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), εἰς appears in the first list under the category of “Pronouns, Adjectives, Prepositions, Etc.” which contains the words in this category that appear in the Homeric corpus 500-10, 000 times. In Henry Lamar Crosby and John Nevin Schaeffer, An Introduction to Greek (New York: Allyn and Baker, 1959) it appears in the vocabulary list for Lesson IV. Clyde Pharr’s Homeric Greek:A Book for Beginners (New York: D. C. Heath & Co., 1920) has it in the fifth lesson, but the fourth vocabulary list since Lesson II is review.
(21) Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, “εἰς” in A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940).
(22) Consider the other instances in the book of Acts where εἰς is rendered “for”. In Acts 7:5 and 7:21, “for” has the sense of “as” in context. In Acts 9:21 it is used as part of a larger clause expressing intent or purpose. In Acts 10:4 it is used again with the sense of “as”. In Acts 13:2 it expresses the purpose for which SS Paul and Barnabas were to be set aside, and in Acts 14:26 which also has two of the “to” renditions of the preposition, the “for” indicates purpose. In Acts 23:30 it indicates that St. Paul is the person “for” whom the Jews laid wait. In Acts 26:16, the expression “εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ” is rendered “for this purpose” although in this case the “for” is actually the post-positive γὰρ and εἰς is wrapped up in translation with τοῦτο as “this purpose.”
(23) That mode is full body immersion. While הֲלָבִיט means immersion and βάπτισμα is the ordinary Greek translation of הֲלָבִיט, the Greek word is not limited to the Hebrew word’s meaning. This is evident in the New Testament itself. In Luke 11:38, “And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner” the word translated “washed” is ἐβαπτίσθη which hardly means “immersed” in this context. Here the Greek word is being used, not for הֲלָבִיט but for הֶיקְוּמ, the broader category of which הֲלָבִיט was a specific example. In the early Church immersion was the preferred mode of baptism and the Eastern Orthodox still use a triple immersion even for infant baptisms, but that it was not absolutely necessary for the validity of the Sacrament is attested as early as the Didache (at least mid-second century, if not earlier), the seventh chapter of which includes instructions as to what to do if the preferred way of baptizing isn’t available (use standing water if running isn’t available, warm if cold isn’t available, pour if there isn’t enough to immerse).
(24) “No Christian since apostolic days ever wrote more eloquently and convincingly about Holy Baptism than Luther…His greatest regret when he knew he would die was that he would be unable to write another book on the subject…Luther believes that Baptism, like the Gospel, is powerful to confer the very faith it calls for with its promises and in each case the Holy Spirit monergistically (i.e., exclusively, without any cooperation from the one baptized) works faith through the instruments of His choosing, namely Baptism and the Gospel.” Robert D. Preus, Getting into the Theology of Concord: A Study of the Book of Concord (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1977 ), 64-65.
(25) "Menno, and Anabaptists generally, did not accept Luther's forensic doctrine of justification by faith alone because they saw it as an impediment to the true doctrine of a 'lively' faith which issues in holy living." Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers (Nashville: Broadman, 1988), 269.
(26) Sacrament is the Anglicization of the Latin sacramentum. This word was formed by the adding of a suffix indicating instrumentality to the word for “holy”, thus literally meaning the means or instrument of holiness. It was originally used with the sense of an oath or a vow. When it entered ecclesiastical terminology as the Latin word used in place of the Greek μυστήριον it took on the meaning of a ceremony or rite. Patristic teaching narrowed this further to mean a ceremony or rite established by God in Covenant as a means or instrument through which He bestows grace on those in Covenant with Him.
The Roman Church teaches that there are seven Sacraments, these correspond to the seven Mysteries recognized by the Eastern Orthodox although the Eastern Orthodox do not take a dogmatic position on the number of these the way the Roman Church does. Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge, after distinguishing between a broader sense of Sacrament that includes all rites, and the narrower theological sense of rites that are means of grace, wrote “it is evident that they [baptism and the Lord’s Supper] are the only sacraments under the Christian dispensation; and such is the view taken by all Protestants.” Systematic Theology, Vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995, original edition 1872), 492.
He immediately undermines this statement, however, by noting that the Lutheran Confessions acknowledge three (the third is Absolution, see the Defence of the Augsburg Confession, Article XIII, paragraph 2). The more strictly confessional, a Lutheran is, the more likely he is to still affirm three Sacraments rather than two. Those that speak of two Sacraments like the Reformed, point to Dr. Luther’s Larger Catechism (Holy Baptism, paragraph 74) where, without denying what he had written elsewhere about Absolution as the third Gospel Sacrament, he argued that it was really part of the first Sacrament because repentance and absolution is a returning to baptism.
In our Anglican Articles of Religion, Article XXV asserts that “There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord” and of the others it says “Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel.” Here, the distinction between the two Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ in the Gospels and the others is made without an absolute denial that the others are Sacraments, just that they are not “Sacraments of the Gospel.” Hence the common distinction among Anglicans who retain the general term for all of these between Gospel or Dominical Sacraments on the one hand (baptism and the Eucharist), and Ecclesiastical Sacraments on the other. A parallel can be drawn between this distinction and the distinction between the canonical books of the Old Testament (those acknowledged as Scripture by both Christians and Jews) and the non-canonical or ecclesiastical books (those contained in the LXX Old Testament but not acknowledged by the Jews) which is far better than just writing the ecclesiastical books off altogether which distinction is supported by our Articles even if the unfortunate term “apocrypha” is misapplied to them there.
Apart from the fact that we have Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ instituting baptism and the Eucharist for His Church, the other Scriptural basis for this distinction is that the Gospel promises are attached to baptism and the Eucharist in the New Testament in a way that is not true of the others. This is, in fact, the more important basis, because of the distinction because the other “commonly called Sacraments” are all found in the New Testament, and the Absolution that was corrupted into Penance was, in fact, instituted by Jesus Christ in the Gospel accounts.
Confirmation, as we have seen in the text of the essay is clearly found in the New Testament (vide supra note 18, however, for the case against counting it as something separate from baptism). So is the ordination of ministers (Acts 6:6, 14:23, 1 Tim. 4:14, 5:22, for example) and while we do not have a Gospel account of Jesus instructing the Apostles on ordination, we do have the Gospel account of Jesus ordaining them (Mk. 3:14). The anointing of the sick is commanded in the epistles (Jas. 5:14-15), Rome later corrupted it from its Scriptural purpose (healing) into something administered to the dying (hence “grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles” – Article XXV). Matrimony is the ecclesiastical consecration of marriage and, rather ironically, marriage is the only one of these things to which the Scriptures actually apply the word Sacrament (“sacramentum hoc magnum est” in Eph. 5:32 in the Latin Vulgate, although sacramentum/μυστήριον here almost certainly is used in the Greek word’s most basic meaning of “secret” or “mystery” in that word’s usual English sense). In the Gospels, Jesus gave His Apostles the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”, (Matt. 16:19-20, where St. Peter is the singled out as the recipient, Matt. 18:18 which speaks of it more generally, and in John 20:22-23 Jesus explicitly gives this power to all the Apostles). This included the power to “bind” or excommunicate, an example of the use of which is found in 1 Corinthians 5, and the power to “loose” or absolve. What Article XXV calls Penance is to the key of Absolution what extreme Unction is to the anointment of healing, a Roman corruption and distortion.
(27) In dogmatic theology, especially Lutheran, there are technical terms for this distinction. Faith is the ὄργανον ληπτικόν (receiving instrument) and the means of grace (Word and Sacraments) are the ὄργανον δοτικόν (giving instrument). I would like to see this terminology used more widely in theology because the distinction is a very important one.
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