Being a review of “church doctrine, bible truth,” by the rev. M. S. Sadler.
Looked at merely doctrinally, it was the substitution of a sweet memorial of eternal redemption wrought, for one of an earthly deliverance, of a people who now rejected their Messiah; but only accomplished the higher purposes of God in doing so. That blessed work was also laying in blood the foundation of the new covenant. Of a covenant with the communicant, or with the church, no trace is found in the word. It is a mere doctrinal fable. We get the blessings of it spiritually, as I have said; but formally the new covenant, as the old to which it refers as new, is made with Israel, and with no one else. There was a covenant made with Abraham (besides promises relating to Israel), confirmed to the seed Christ; and those who have Christ's Spirit, being in Christ, and Christ's, have the blessing of this (though they have a great deal more), but as the new covenant, promised in Jer. 31, the Mediator of it having come, and the blood of it shed, we participate in spirit in its blessings, God having done all needed to set it up, and the Jews having refused to accept the Mediator, even in glory. (Acts 3; 7) It will be established, according to promise, but by grace in God's due time. This Christ also teaches. It is the new covenant in His blood, and, further, shed for many. It is thus shed blood alone which is before us in the Eucharist. It is an abiding witness that, as to God's part in it, the foundation of the new covenent is laid in the blood of the Mediator of it, and that that blood is shed for many. It is further a sign of the unity of the body, so that those who take part in it are there as one body in Christ, identified withal with all true saints.
The word “blessing.... we bless,” as is perfectly evident from scripture, is simply giving thanks. (See 1 Cor. 11:26; 10:1626For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. (1 Corinthians 11:26)
16The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16); Luke 22:1717And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: (Luke 22:17); compare Mark 14:22, 2822And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. (Mark 14:22)
28But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. (Mark 14:28); Matt. 26:26, 2726And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; (Matthew 26:26‑27); exactly the same word as John 6:2323(Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks:) (John 6:23).) When the Lord therefore says, “this is my body,” He speaks, it is admitted, figuratively. It is still bread. It could not be His body then, nor, in spite of Augustine, did He hold His body in His own hand, nor was there thus any such body, that is, dead and the blood poured out, as it is said (ἐκχυωόμενον). Nor is there now. It is the figure of Christ as a victim, and only so. I do not insist on “broken,” for I suppose it is not the true reading. If “given” be genuine, it is the same thing; but I rest on the whole evident meaning, and it is expressly for its, not to us. It is the shed blood, shed for many. That we feed on Christ as then dead for us, and His blood shed, when eating the bread and drinking the wine specially, though at all times, is all well. But it is we eat, and we who “do” in remembrance of that which must be, and can only be, remembered as past, though the One I remember is now ascended to the right hand of God, the same loving Savior. The real act is our eating, and our drinking, our doing in remembrance, and even if “breaking” be spoken of, on which Mr. Sadler insists, it is we who break too. The wine is equally a figure, and a figure of blood shed, a shedding which took place on the cross, of which we perpetuate the memory. As regards its being a figure, as Mr. Sadler says, identified with its object in the use of it, I have no objection to the thought at all. The more it is realized the better. Were I to do, or capable of doing, so horrid and wicked a thing as spitting on my mother's picture, I should be putting disgraceful and most wicked contempt on my mother. If I eat unworthily (not be unworthy to eat), (and they were carousing and drinking their fill, and despising the poor) I am guilty of so slighting and counting a common thing the Lord's body. I have no thought to weaken this a moment. There is also communion; but Mr. Sadler's translation and explanation, and his church's with it, is wholly false. The English translators, most unhappily and avowedly, fond of changing the word when it was the same in Greek, have translated the same word, communion, partaking, fellowship. Thus it is κοινωνία of the blood, of the body. But in verse 18 the priests who ate of the altar are κοινωνοί of the altar, and in verse 20, κοινωνοί of devils. Communicating or communicators of altars or devils does not give a very intelligible sense; but, the moment we use the word rightly, the sense in each case is evident. They are morally identified with that of which they partake. The priests among the Jews were (κοινωνοί) morally identified with the altar of Jehovah, the heathen with the demons or devils, to which the Gentiles offered. Were they going to identify themselves with devils and with the Lord, and provoke the Lord to jealousy? If they ate and drank with each—partook of them—they were κοινωνοί, morally partakers or identified with them. “Communication of” is a simply impossible sense if we read the passage.
The reasoning as to covenant (in p. 186) proves just the contrary what it is produced for. Covenants were ratified with brood, not with figures of blood. The covenant therefore was ratified on the cross, where blood itself was spilled, not in the Eucharist, where Mr. Sadler admits there is really no blood at all. It arises from his notion of ratifying a covenant with the communicant, a tradition perhaps of his church, but an idea of which no trace is found in scripture. “I am the true vine” refers to Israel, the vine brought out of Egypt. There was no church union then with disciples. This began at Pentecost. Ephesians show it to have been impossible till after the death and exaltation of Christ. They were already (ἤδη) clean by reason of the word He had spoken. I do not pursue this farther, because it has nothing to do with our subject. “Vine” and “door” remain figures in any case.
The statements of page 182 are wholly without foundation. Supposing He is the true door, “door” is a figure, nor is there any entrance into the innermost sanctuary. “True vine” —refers to a vine not, after all, the true one, that is, to Israel. All this is ranting. The image in Hebrews is a veil, not a door, and they went through it, and had not to eat it. All this is hardly worth so many words.
As regards a sacrifice, the scriptural answer is simple enough, “There is no more sacrifice for sin.” The insisting on the flesh of Christ is of all importance. His true incarnation and true death was a crucial point. So only was He a man, so only could He make atonement. It was an evil spirit which did not confess Him come in flesh. This was that spirit of Antichrist. All acquainted with church history know that the church was tormented with this at the beginning, teachers called Docetæ or Gnostics denying He came in flesh. Whence also Paul, “the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” The insisting on it by John, and his motive for it, are as plain as plain can be to any one reading his writings, knowing the value of the truth, or, as I have said, acquainted with church history. Christ was a real true man, in a body, in flesh, and really died as a man shedding His blood, though God over all, blessed forever. But all this has nothing to do with the Eucharist, save that it is in the most important way presented to us there in what is the external bond of the church's very subsistence. Nay, it is all frightfully weakened and subverted, by turning these vital truths into a false explanation of the Eucharist; for I recognize, as I have said, that the Lord's supper is the central point of union and worship, as to its forms, and according to Christ's institution.
Mr. Sadler admits that the Eucharist has scarcely one feature in common with the things which in scripture are called sacrifices. (Page 178.) He tells us (p. 174) that the real spiritual value lay, not in the costliness of the victim, nor in its death and the outpouring of its blood, nor in its consumption by fire, but in the implied reference to the atoning death of Christ. But it was in these things that the reference consisted; and they made them, and above all Him, a sacrifice together with the offering of Himself up to God, to be one; not one of which elements is found in the Eucharist. A “memorial” of Himself will not do, it must be Himself. Christ must offer Himself without spot to God. He must, as we are told in Heb. 9, suffer to be a sacrifice.
He gives the disciples the memorials or symbols of His body and blood to eat and drink, not to offer. They were to do it in remembrance of Him, not to sacrifice Him over again. That His sacrifice of Himself is in remembrance, no Christian will deny, or be disposed to deny. But if we are sacrificing Him, then it is not a remembrance of Him. Blood must be shed for a sacrifice; what is sacrifice must bear sin, or suffer, or at least suffer as made sin. But the Eucharist looks at the blood as already shed, the sacrifice as already complete, and is a witness in remembrance that it is so, and that nothing can be added, taken away or repeated. God has accepted it, and Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, because by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. A commemoration of His having died cannot be a sacrifice. He did not offer a sacrifice in the upper room; and though the value of His sacrifice is ever in heaven, He is not doing it in heaven. He is, as Heb. 10 insists, in contrast with the standing Jewish priests, always at work because nothing was really done, sitting at the right hand of God because all is done, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. To the Judaism of an unfinished work always doing, this “church system” would reduce us. A glorified Christ cannot be offered in sacrifice. He is, as man, glorified, because He has finished the work which His Father gave Him to do.
Let any one read Heb. 9 x. carefully, and see if this theory is not the subversion of Christianity in this respect. He does intercede, thank God, with God. He is an advocate with the Father, to obtain help not to sin, to restore our communion if we have sinned, but this is founded on a finished work, and a complete righteousness. Where in scripture is it said Christ was pleading His sacrifice in the upper chamber? where that the church is pleading in the holy Eucharist? (Page 175.) It is a pernicious fable, and that is all. I challenge Mr. Sadler for his authority to produce such a thought from the word of God. It is superstition, not piety; presumption, not lowliness; a pretension to be offerers of Christ as if He had not finished all.
Mr. Sadler pretends there are better means to recall Christ to our hearts than the Eucharist. The answer is simple; Christ did not think so. For my part I thank God He did not. Doing it in commemoration, doing it to show the Lord's death, is not offering a sacrifice in any sense. No doubt it is with Christ, not with our faith, we are occupied, but we are not offering Him. All that Mr. Sadler is obliged to add to make out his case (p. 177) is not in what Christ said. Doing a thing in remembrance of Him is not sacrificing Him, and does not mean it; nor was He then offering Himself at all, but giving the symbol of a finished sacrifice to eat. No comparison of the Eucharist and Jewish sacrifices is needed. In many respects it is more excellent. We drink what represents the blood of Christ. It is occupied with the sacrifice as already finished, not as being constantly done typically and never done really. But each was right in its place.
It is never said in scripture to show forth [the Lord's death] before God, and angels, and men. The church, as were God's servants individually, is a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men, and this act will come in with the rest. But a sacrifice is offered, presented, shown to God only; and this applied to the Eucharist is abominably false, and subversive of Christianity, which rests stamped with this seal and impress, “no more sacrifice for sin,” or else the full value of the finished one is denied. I repeat, it is that only one, once offered, as finished once and forever, that is remembered in the Eucharist. To refer it (p. 186) to the giving thanks, blessing (not two things in scripture), breaking, taking, eating, drinking, as the sacrificial character, shows the fallacy of the whole thing, for the drinking could not be till the sacrifice was over, nor indeed the eating. As to the others they are at best only consecrating to be a victim. Breaking referred to Christ is unscriptural; the bread is broken. It is not said of Christ.
I hardly know if it be worth while to answer the chapter on priesthood. The whole system is so foreign to Christian truth, and the subject of the ministry has been so fully discussed elsewhere, that it is a weariness to go over it again. Still I will say a few words. First, Mr. Sadler expatiates on the apostle having peculiar powers. He might save himself the trouble. Every Christian owns it, I suppose. In the next place, I absolutely deny any ordination to ministry, a principle now very generally admitted by Christians, even by those who submit to it for the sake of order. Scripture, at any rate, is clear as to it. Further, he confounds everlasting redemption and forgiveness, or justification by faith, never recalled (for whom He justified, them He also glorified; and being justified we shall be saved from wrath), with administrative forgiveness in God's dealings or government, where, if a person be sick through chastisement, he having committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (Compare Job 36) In this sense the assembly forgives sins (2 Cor. 2:7, 107So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. (2 Corinthians 2:7)
10To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ; (2 Corinthians 2:10)); nay, I forgive my brother his trespasses. Of an elder or priest's doing it with authority there is no trace in scripture. On the contrary, where the elders are introduced, the prayer of faith saves the sink; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him, not a trace of any act of the elder.
Mr. Sadler goes on the principle of administering the sacrament. Sects may profess it, as he says, but scripture knows nothing of it. They broke bread, κατ’ οἶκον, in their houses. The disciples came together to break bread. That the thanksgiving and breaking of broad should be, for comeliness and edification, done by some grave brother, is all well, but we have no administering it in scripture. The bread which we break, the cup which we bless, speaks of what Corinthians do as such. The apostle was not there, and there is no hint of elders at all, though we know there commonly were, but their existence is ignored at Corinth if there were. There is no hint of any administering it. It is probable at Troas that Paul did it, though the words are very general. It was natural.
As to baptism, as a rule the apostles did not baptize. In Mark, if it be genuine, they are not sent to baptize but to preach the gospel. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;” but of who did it, not a word. From Galilee (not Bethany) the twelve were sent to baptize the Gentiles, making them disciples, and this, note, from a risen—not from an ascended—Christ. In the commission in Luke, always acted on in the Acts, there is nothing of baptism. The commission in Matt. 28 was to the Gentiles alone. This the apostles formally gave up to Paul and Barnabas (Gal. 2), the Lord having expressly called them to this service, and Paul tells us he was not sent to baptize—contrasts himself with the twelve who were. It is alleged this refers to his motive, not to have them counted his disciples; but this is not so: he gives it as a general reason for his conduct, though for that reason he rejoiced in the result. I do not doubt they baptized all their converts, Jews or Gentiles; but they had no commandment for the former, and they gave up the latter to Paul, and he expressly says he was not sent to do it.
So much for the commission. Then as to practice; in Acts 2 no hint of the apostles, or any commissioned by them, doing it. They were to be baptized for the remission of sins, and they were baptized. In chapter viii. 12 they were baptized, men and women: not a word of who did it, only not the apostles, nor, as it appears, any commission by them. It was all news to the apostles. In Cornelius's case Peter commanded them to be baptized, and Paul boasts, save in a few cases, of not having done it. As an argument for Mr. Sadler, I may add that lay baptism is valid in the English Establishment, as it is, and very common too, with Romanists. As regards commission to administer the Lord's supper, I should have added, there is none such; they were to take, eat; they were to divide it among themselves. It is exactly the opposite of a commission to administer it to others. The whole statement from beginning to end as to administering sacraments, in principle and as to the facts, is wholly without foundation in scripture; that all things should be done decently and in order is not. Indeed this thought is generally received by Christians on the continent, and growing rapidly in England. But scarcely one of the assertions of Mr. Sadler (pp. 206, 207) is founded on fact.
Christ did send the apostles to preach, at least if the end of Mark be genuine: at any rate they were to be Christ's witnesses, and Paul was expressly. He did send the twelve to baptize the Gentiles, which commission they relinquished, and He did give authority to remit sins administratively; He did not to administer the Lord's supper to them, nor to any one. And note, if by baptism remission of sins was received, which to those thus brought in I do not deny, as a rule it was not the apostles who remitted them, but other people. without any commission at all. That the apostles had an extraordinary commission, authority to ordain things in the churches, power to confer the Holy Ghost, besides their gifts, is quite clear. But even as to preaching and teaching, let us see how this clerical commissioning stands. At the persecution of Stephen all were scattered, except the apostles, and went everywhere preaching the word, and after the special case of Cornelius, by these first the gospel was carried to the Gentiles.