Posted on 02/28/2015 12:17:20 PM PST by RnMomof7
How much is your church like the ancient church?
That’s a popular question these days—especially if you read guys like Robert Webber, Brian McLaren, Wolfgang Simson, or Frank Viola and George Barna.
Most of the contemporary discussion about the ancient church attempts to show discrepancies between what is now and what was then. The not-so-subtle implication is that there is something very wrong with the contemporary church. Blame Constantine. Blame the Enlightenment. Blame Capitalism. Blame the Fundamentalists. It doesn’t really matter. The only way to fix the church today is to get back to the ancient church.
Based on this premise we are told (by some) that the church needs to be more sacramental, more liturgical, and more mystical. We ought to light candles, burn incense, celebrate the arts, foster community, and avoid conventional church structures (like, especially, preaching). By others, we are told that we need to meet in houses and not church buildings. (And again, cut down on the preaching.)
All of this is proposed on the supposition that these practices characterized the ancient church.
Really?
Is that what the ancient church was like? And have theologically-conservative, Bible-believing churches in America gone so far off course that the twenty-first century church looks nothing like the early church of the first or second centuries?
Perhaps the best way to answer such questions, rather than perusing modern books on the subject, is to read a description of the ancient church by someone who was actually there.
Enter Justin Martyr.
Justin was born toward the end of the first century. He died in 165 as a martyr for his faith in Jesus Christ.
Around 150, he wrote a defense of the faith to the Roman emperor—called his First Apology—arguing that Christianity should not be illegal. In the course of his defense, he describes what a typical church service was like in his day.
I think you’ll be encouraged to see what was included in an ancient Christian worship service.
(Note that Justin referred to the pastor by the term “president,” namely as the one “presiding” over the worship service. This was likely done because he using terminology that a pagan emperor would understand.)
Justin wrote:
On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a given city or rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president [pastor] in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers.
When we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent, saying the ‘Amen.’ A distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present they are sent by the deacons.
Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need.But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. (First Apology, 67)
Per Justin’s description, we get a pretty good idea of what took place in an ancient Christian church service. Notice at least seven important factors: (1) Scripture was read, from both the New Testament (“the memoirs of the apostles”) and the Old Testament (“the writings of the prophets”). (2) The pastor preached a message (“discourse”), exhorting the people to obey the things they had just heard from the Scripture. (3) The congregation prayed together. (4) The congregation participated in commemorating the Lord’s Supper. (5) In their preparation for Communion, the pastor prayed and the congregation sang songs of affirmation. (6) An offering was taken in order to meet the needs of fellow saints. (7) All of this took place on Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.
When I read Justin’s description I am encouraged, because those same things are found at my church too. Like the ancient church described here, we read the Scripture, listen to preaching, pray, sing, give, and regularly celebrate the Lord’s Table. And, of course, we also meet on Sundays.
When contemporary authors argue that the church needs to get back to the “ancient practices” of the church, my question is: What “ancient practices” are they talking about? The sacramental mysticism of the medieval period perhaps?
If you really want the ancient church, it doesn’t get any more ancient than the quote provided above. In fact, Justin’s description of an ancient church service is the earliest we have outside the New Testament.
So, should we get back to the practices of the ancient church? If this passage from Justin provides the model, I’m all for it.
And the children of Israel are once again being gathered back to the land God gave them to be their inheritance for all time.
The words of the priest are the direct efficient cause of the change of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. His human soul and divinity become present by “concomitance,” not as a direct effect of the words of consecration.
According to Thomas Aquinas, the Eucharist at the Last Supper was the same body and blood of Jesus that the apostles saw at table with them. If one of the apostles had celebrated the Eucharist while Jesus was in the tomb, the Eucharistic species would have contained his dead body, and his dead blood. It would have contained his divinity as well, because his divinity is the “act of existence” of his body and blood. I.e, even in death, the body and blood were hypostatically united with his divinity Person. His human soul would not have been present, because he was dead. After the Resurrection, the Eucharist contains the body and blood, and the human soul, and the divine Person of the Risen Christ.
AFAIK, the Magisterium has not dealt with the hypothetical portion of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching (i.e., the part about the celebration of the Eucharist while Jesus was dead), but I am quite sure that it is not correct to say that the Real Presence in the Eucharist did not occur at the Last Supper, and could not occur until after Pentecost.
So you don't know if Jesus and the apostles were eating the real flesh and blood of Jesus at the last supper? Is that what you are saying?
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you. And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.
And the LORD said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the LORD, and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary. And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. Thus saith the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness. For thus saith the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.
So the flesh and blood that the Catholic church claims people are eating and drinking is from the RISEN Christ.
Except that flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
And there's no record of Christ's risen body having any blood since it was all poured out.
Not to mention that the CCC states that the eucharist is a participation in the BLOODLESS sacrifice of Christ, which accomplishes nothing because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
Unbloody sacrifice
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P41.HTM
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner."188
So if the Catholic church is claiming they are offering an unbloody sacrifice, it is NOT the same one as Christ made.
That covenant was with Israel. You and I are not Israel nor has the so called “church” superseded Israel.
Except that flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
"Flesh" (and "blood") sometimes refer to sinful human nature, deprived of grace. In that sense, "flesh and blood" will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Nevertheless, the term "flesh" retains its primary meaning of, simply, flesh--i.e., the body.
The very beginning of Saint John's Gospel tells us that "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." Saint John was NOT telling us that Word became "sinful human nature"! He was telling us that the Word became united with a HUMAN NATURE. I.e., the Word became a man.
Since the FLESH or BODY of Jesus that is present in the Eucharist is the same flesh or body or human nature that St. John is referring to when he says "the Word became flesh," obviously the body and blood in the Eucharist are NOT "sinful human nature," but are the sinless human nature of Jesus Christ.
And your point is?
And where is any mention of the blood in that comment?
The blood is what redeems us.
I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Posting that has absolutely nothing to do with our conversation. Paul indeed was a Jew. The New Testament ekklesia is NOT.
You may only testify for yourself.
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