The past thirty years or so has witnessed a much deeper appreciation of the sacraments, especially of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the two sacraments which apply to all laymen and laywomen. No longer are they regarded as mere ritual acts--pieces of ceremonial--which can be dispensed with at will. This is partly due to the work of New Testament scholars, who as early as the last half of the nineteenth century began to realize that the religion of the New Testament was profoundly sacramental. Most of these scholars were themselves non-sacramentalists and regarded the sacramental nature of Christianity as a Pauline perversion of original Christianity. The source of this perversion was to be found in the mystery religions with which the Gentile churches of the Pauline mission were surrounded. But this over-simplification has been found by later scholars to be unsound. The gulf which separates the Pauline epistles from the synoptic Gospels is nothing like so wide nor so deep as was formerly supposed. It is much more certain that the roots of Pauline sacramentalism are to be found in Jewish sources out of which Christianity arose, than in the pagan surroundings. This has meant, further, that the quality of Christian sacramentalism is seen as something quite different from the sacramentalism of Greek and Oriental cults. This difference is best expressed by the word ethical--Christian sacramentalism is 'ethical,' rather than 'mystical,' in the theosophical sense of the word 'mystical.' This is illustrated by the fact that Paul could appeal to both baptism and the Lord's Supper as grounds for arguing about Christian conduct.¹

      This ethical emphasis is related to the fact that the Christian faith is grounded in a series of events-things which happened in [49] history--'the mighty works of God.' It is not, in the first place, based on ideas, but on facts of history, 'the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth.' These events were prepared for in the long course of history which preceded the coming of Jesus, and especially in the history of Israel, the covenant people of God. They are, briefly, the birth, life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, which are to have their consummation in His 'coming again' in the 'last time.' The primitive church, before the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, preached these things as the saving acts of God. In Christ God had visited and redeemed His people Israel.² The primitive church, not only preached these things, but dramatically re-presented them in two redemption rites which they practiced--baptism and 'the breaking of the bread.' In both these rites, with their expressive symbolism--burial in and emergence from water in the one case; and the 'breaking of bread' in the other case--they 'visibly depicted Jesus Christ crucified'³ and 'proclaimed the Lord's death till He come.'⁴ From the beginning the church so preached and so worshipped, glorying in the cross of Christ, which to the world was an instrument of shame. Such was the primitive Gospel, and such is the core of the Gospel in all ages. Whatever this was to mean for the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ and of His death, it already meant that Jesus not only brought the Gospel, but that He was the Gospel which He brought. The Gospel was not good advice, but good news about God, who in the person of Jesus Christ had been 'manifested in the flesh'⁵ and had 'tabernacled with men' in this life.⁶

      This means that the Christian faith has to do with this life as well as with the life to come. In Christianity the material is not the opposite of the spiritual; rather it is profoundly spiritualized.⁷ In one sense we can say that Christianity is a materialistic religion; but perhaps it is better to say that it is a deeply sacramental religion. It transfigures and transforms the life of this world, making all [50] things new, investing everything and every action with a new significance. Nothing that a man who is in Christ does in his daily life--his life of business and politics--can be divested of this significance. There is no way of setting 'spiritual' assets over against 'material' debits and balancing the heavenly account; for all is spiritual. It is in the light of this that the Christian sacraments take on a new meaning and have a new value.

      The sacraments employ as material media, water, bread and wine. In the ancient world these constituted the very necessities of life, of this life. Without them men could not live. It was these common things of our daily life which were made to serve as the media of the highest spiritual gifts, reminding us that in these things, 'No man could live unto himself,'⁸ that no man could eat his own supper while others went hungry,⁹ that no man could use the things which formed the substance of our common life to his own advantage and the loss of others, without denying Christ; or as Paul puts it 'being guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.'¹⁰ The sacraments are there for one thing to remind us that we cannot play fast and loose with the historical realities of this life. Indeed, they are there that we might have power to transform the sordid realities of this life into something nearer to the pattern of the kingdom of God. To put it simply, this means that when a man accepts baptism he becomes a new kind of creature functioning in this world, no longer living unto himself. He forsakes selfishness for community. When he shares in the service of the Holy Communion, it means that he makes all things holy during the following week, whatever he is engaged in.

      In the same way that the Christian Gospel has to do with matter and spirit, so it has to do with 'our time' and 'God's time.' Just as matter and spirit are not in opposition, so time and eternity are not in opposition. The Biblical conception of eternity is not, like the Greek conception, that of timelessness in which nothing happens, that of the negation of time; but one in which created time is related to 'God's time' (eternity). We are between the times, between 'God's time' before there was 'created time' and 'God's time' when 'created time' will be no more, when mortality will be swallowed up [51] in immortality. The events which constitute the Gospel are events in history, in 'our time'; but they are more than this, they are the penetration of 'God's time' (eternity) into 'our time' (history). Thus they have a double quality. Whilst our Lord was begotten and born at a specific time in history, He was 'begotten before all worlds';¹¹ whilst He was crucified at a particular time in history, He was 'slain from the foundation of the world.'¹² His life and death constitute the redemption of time, investing it with a new eternal quality. Likewise it is the work of the church, in Him, to 'redeem the time.'¹³ This eschatological¹⁴ quality attaches particularly to the Christian sacraments. As events the sacraments have the same double quality which attach to the birth and death of our Lord. They are events (action is their character) in time, but they transcend time. Baptism introduces into the life eternal, which as an earnest is possessed here and now; and the Lord's Supper is the anticipation of the Lamb's Bridal Feast,¹⁵ which is granted 'till He come.' The life eternal into which we are introduced is particularly the life of the church, but the church is to act as leaven in the whole of society that it may leaven the whole lump. This life eternal has special significance for the life here and now. It is one in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female; in other words in which the barriers between race and race, class and class, sex and sex are broken down. It is the life of koinonia. This finds characteristic expression in the Apocalypse, in which it may well have been part of a eucharistic hymn, in the description of the multitude at the Lamb's Bridal Feast.¹⁶ No one can partake of the Christian sacraments without realizing the terrific impact this ought to have on his life in economic and political realities, in fashioning the events of our time nearer to the pattern of 'God's time' which will be fulfilled in the 'last time.' We cannot escape the responsibility laid upon us if we are truly 'partakers of Christ.'¹⁷

      This is the fundamental sacramental character of the Christian [52] faith. If water, bread and wine, the basic things of life, have a sacred character in the two Gospel sacraments, if they are sanctified to spiritual use, then all that is of the stuff of life is sacred and is to be sanctified to spiritual use; which means a profound ethical discipline in all the events of life. If this is so as a general sacramental principle, let us see how it applies to the two Gospel sacraments--baptism and the Lord's Supper.

      BAPTISM: To understand the meaning of baptism for life in the New Testament, we must move back from modern times, in which the symbolism has been impaired to such an extent, that the original meaning of the rite is hidden. In primitive baptism the penitent who sought admission to the church, after confessing his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, was submerged in water and rose again from the water. Before immersion he was stripped of his garments and after immersion re-clothed with either the same garments or garments of white.¹⁸ This 'putting off' and 'putting on' of garments had its realistic symbolism. I say realistic symbolism for in that ancient world all symbolism was realistic, that is, it effected what it represented. The frequent references to what is 'put off' by the penitent at baptism, and to what is 'put on' are sufficient evidence of the importance of the symbolism.¹⁹ Virtually, after baptism, the convert was a 'new creature.' That this is not merely a metaphorical allusion, but intended to be a sacramental reality, is seen in the Epistles in the constant arguments from it to the kind of conduct which should characterize the new man. True, the change had a double reference--it was a change of nature, of very being; and it was a change of ethical life. It is so startling a change that what is 'put off' is described as 'darkness,' and what is 'put on' is described as 'life'; the one is 'death' and the other is 'life.' The mystical change of being is the most important part of primitive baptism, but it is the ethical change with which I am mainly concerned here. The converts were in many cases rescued from a pagan environment, but not all. Some came, like Paul himself, from a Jewish [53] environment with its high ethical standards. Nevertheless, whether from Jewry or from paganism, baptism introduced into a new kind of moral life. No longer could life in its relatedness be as before. We may list the kind of things which belong to the former life and which belong to the new life, as Paul does so many times.²⁰ But the chief criterion of the new life is agape (love), love to God in Christ and love to man. The life of love is wholly inclusive; it affects every kind of human relationship, business, political, professional, family and friendly. In none of these can we be the same as the non-Christian. It means acting in every human relationship in a Christ-like way. We 'put off,' not only such gross sins as fornication and drunkenness, but untruthfulness, craftiness, deceitfulness and covetousness.²¹ It is not easy for us to realize that in the Epistles covetousness, which can enter into almost every human relationship, is equally condemned with drunkenness and fornication.²² It is difficult because we have passed through an era when drunkenness and fornication were frowned upon as not being respectable, whilst commercial practices involving covetousness were respectable and even legalized. In that period (as so often now) it was easy for a Christian to adopt the standards of the world and to consider that, so long as he kept within the law, he was doing no wrong. But any form of covetousness is always wrong for the Christian. That is one of the things he has 'put off' at his baptism as surely as he put off his garments to be baptized.

      The earliest developed doctrine of baptism appears to have been that of dying and rising with Christ.²³ It was the sacrament of identification with Christ in His death and burial and resurrection. The penitent believer was literally crucified with Christ, buried with Him and raised with Him to a new life. Baptism is therefore always a point of departure for an ethical argument, as it is in Romans VI-VIII. There is to be a radical change. How far this change reaches is further explained in Colossians. It includes "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, [54] forbearing one another, forgiving one another . . . above all these things agape, which is the bond of perfectness."²⁴ It introduces into a society which knows no racial discrimination nor any class distinction.²⁵ It affects behavior done in word or deed,²⁶ an all inclusive obligation. It reaches to behavior between husband and wife, children and parents, slaves and owners, workers and employers.²⁷ There is nothing in the affairs of this life which can stand outside this new relationship in Christ. Baptized Christians are 'partakers of Christ';²⁸ they actually share in His nature, and as such they must be Christ-like in every human action. What this meant for Christian action is seen in the account of the Great Assize. Every human being is potentially a brother of Christ and is to be treated as if he were Christ in every kind of dealing, even in the most matter-of-fact business dealings. Christian action means feeding the hungry, exercising hospitality to strangers, clothing the naked, ministering to the sick, and visiting prisoners.²⁹

      We come now to the ancient impressive symbolism of the rite--that of immersion of the whole body in water. Water itself is symbolic of purification, but in this case it was not the purification of the filth (dirt) which might attach to the flesh, as in the case of an ordinary bath, but 'the answer of a good conscience towards God.'³⁰ It was moral cleansing--the end of one kind of life and the beginning of another, lived in the power of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was such a new kind of moral life that it could only be lived by supernatural power. It was the whole body which was immersed. Think of the implications of that! The lower limbs and feet could never again be engaged on errands of hurt to any human creature, on running to and fro with intent to do mischief; the sexual organs could never again be devoted to lustful and harmful purposes, in fornication and adultery--they also had been baptized; the hands could never again administer hurt to any of God's creatures; the mouth could never again lend itself to false speech, [55] whether lascivious, covetous, or malicious; the eyes could never again look upon evil with pleasure; the ears could never again listen to slander and false evidence and take pleasure in it; and the brain could never again devise schemes of craftiness and terror. It was total immersion and it meant total surrender to the will of God and the way of Christ, the resisting of every temptation to fall to a lower standard in ways of life, whatever the respectable standards of our environment might be. Christians were a different race of people with entirely different standards of life, and they were in possession of a new power which would enable them to manifest their new standards and to work as a leaven within the world transforming it. Such was the meaning of their baptism and the faith into which it admitted them.

      THE LORD'S SUPPER: In the Lord's Supper the church did that which Christ had done on the night of His betrayal. At first the rite seems to have been accompanied with a fellowship meal called 'the love feast,' in which food was common or shared. This was not likely to lead to abuses in Jewish communities on Palestinian soil. Jews were already familiar with such a social meal--the chaburah, and with them practically all eating had a religious significance. But it did lead to abuses on Gentile soil, as we know from the Corinthian letters,³¹ and the practice was gradually dropped. The practice itself, however, shows how deeply social was the Lord's Supper in its intention. This does not, of course, exhaust the meaning, but it is one important aspect of it which is apt to be forgotten in modern times. The aspect is shown in the earliest names for the rite--"communion"³² and "the breaking of the bread."³³

      The word 'communion' is a translation of koinoni, one of the most important words in the New Testament.³⁴ This is a word which the Christian church filled with a new content. It speaks of community, a new kind of community in which there is interpenetration of personality without loss of individuality. This community is not like a mass or mob, in which there is no [56] interpenetration of personality, but control from above, and it may easily become slavery. Neither is it a group of individuals whose one concern is liberty and that freedom from control which may easily minister to selfishness. It is, rather, a community in which there is found a new liberty and freedom in the deepest concern for each other. It has, of course, supernatural roots. It is the kind of fellowship which exists in God Himself--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,³⁵ and it is maintained by heavenly food.³⁶ It is exhibited in and sealed by the one bread of the Lord's Supper. By the intimacy of all sharing the one loaf and the one cup there is vividly depicted the community life of the church,³⁷ a community life which is to leaven that of the world. It is a community in which if one suffers, all suffer; in which all have 'the same care for one another'; in which 'if one member is honored, all members rejoice';³⁸ in fact, it is a community ruled by agape and not at all by self-interest. Such is the community life exhibited in, and supported by the Lord's Supper, the pattern of community which the church is to set to the world.

      The name 'breaking of bread,' which may be the earliest name for Holy Communion,³⁹ was familiar in Jewish circles, where most meals had a religious significance. It came from the ritual act of the 'house father' breaking and blessing bread at the beginning of a meal.⁴⁰ In that ancient world, to break faith with a man with whom one had broken bread was a most heinous sin. At the institution of the Lord's Supper, there was a traitor at the table. That is the meaning of the pregnant word when Jesus was asked who the traitor was: "It is one of the Twelve that dippeth with me in the [57] dish."⁴¹ To eat and drink at the Lord's Table is to be 'in love and charity with one's neighbor,' to bind oneself in loyalty, first to Christ, then to those with whom one is joined in such Holy Communion, and eventually to all that is good and true and noble in mankind. We become blood-brothers with all who thus commune, of whatever race or tongue. It is not a 'spiritual' exercise for covering a multitude of sins, but a spiritual exercise for banishing sin in every form, for uniting what sin divides. It is a true 'breaking of bread' with our brother man. It is not intended to make us worse hypocrites than we were before, helping us for a moment to hide our inner malice and covetousness, even from ourselves; but rather for the remedy of our hypocrisy.

      But this does not exhaust the significance of the Lord's Supper. Whilst it, in all probability, had its origin in the daily meals which Jesus most likely partook with the Twelve, which would explain its social and corporate aspect, which were undoubtedly associated with it since primitive times; it had a specific origin in the last supper which Jesus celebrated with the Twelve on the night of His betrayal. Whether this was actually a Jewish Passover, or a special chaburah on the eve of the Passover, it was redolent with Passover associations. The word 'covenant' appears in all the accounts of the institution in connection with the Cup.⁴² As the Jewish Passover celebrated the redemption from bondage in Egypt, the Lord's Supper celebrated the New Covenant redemption from the bondage of sin. As the Jewish Passover celebrated the redemption to a new life for Israel under the Law of Moses, which was summed up in love to God and love to man; so the Lord's Supper celebrated redemption to the new life of freedom and liberty for the 'New Israel' with no racial limits, under the law of Christ, which was summed up in love to God and to all men. The word 'covenant'⁴³ itself is important. It signifies the deepest of personal relationships, involving fealty and loyalty, truth, honesty, frankness and straight dealing in every relationship. To traduce a love so mighty is to be a traitor to Christ; and how easily we may traduce it! It is not only by [58] cowardly speech that we deny Him, but by cowardly action in the ways of the common life which He Himself lived.

      Whether we take the words, 'Do this as my anamnesis,' as Gregory Dix does,⁴⁴ to mean 'Do this for my re-calling' where 're-calling' has the full sense of 'bringing back'; or whether we take them to mean merely, 'Do this in remembrance of me,' the meaning is fearful enough. In either case in the act of Communion, we have been in the very presence of Christ, and shall we go out as Zaccheus did, who gave half his goods to feed the poor and restored fourfold what he had wrongly exacted; or to do as Judas did who sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver? This is a fearful question and helps us to see what Paul meant when he said, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup," and what he meant by 'not discerning the Lord's body.' Like Judas we may be 'guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,'⁴⁵ or as the writer of Hebrews puts it, we may 'crucify to ourselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.'⁴⁶ Instead of 'a medicine of immortality' the Holy Communion may become to us an instrument of damnation.

      One of the purposes of the Lord's Supper is that we may 'shew forth the Lord's Death till he come.' This is the sacrificial aspect of the rite. That sacrificial death which He died is repeated in us. We are made partakers of Him, joined to His sacrifice for sin, and 'present our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God.' We are no longer 'conformed to this world,' with all its false standards, but 'transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'⁴⁷ What an idle mockery our Communion is, if we carelessly come and leave without 'presenting our bodies a living sacrifice,' without intending to change a single element in our standards of life; if we eat the Bread of Life and go out to rob our neighbor of the bread which perisheth! Take note that it is not our minds and wills alone which we offer as a living sacrifice: it is our bodies by which we perform the deeds which either glorify God, or put Christ to an open shame. [59]

      Even more solemn are the words of institution, "Take, eat, this is my body"; "Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new covenant." Whether we take these words in their most realistic sense, or whether we interpret them metaphorically, the reality we are brought face to face with in Holy Communion is the body and blood of Christ.⁴⁸ These were given in sacrificial love for mankind. He who being God was yet man, came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father. He loved to the uttermost. It is with this bread and wine that we are fed, that we may be strengthened with the selfless love which was in Him, and which He gives to us. Every Christ-like act in the social and political fabric of our lives, is a showing forth of Christ to the world. Every un-Christ-like act is a denial of Him and makes mockery of our Communion.

      Finally, there is the eschatological aspect of the Lord's Supper. This is marked in all the accounts of the institution of the rite of the Last Supper.⁴⁹ The Lord's Supper, not only looks back to the 'saving acts' of our Lord's life, death and resurrection; it also looks forward to the consummation of all things. The goal is the kingdom of God, the rule of God in the hearts of all men. That kingdom is always in a state of being and becoming. In the days of His flesh our Lord so spoke of it. He could say, "If I, by the spirit of God, cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you";⁵⁰ and yet He could speak of it as growing like the mustard plant from the tiny mustard seed,⁵¹ and could teach His disciples to pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Even so, its consummation was beyond history. It would be revealed at the 'last time,' in His 'coming again.' The kingdom is both present and future, not either present or future, as different schools of Christian thought have tried to make it. The idea that we ourselves can build the kingdom of heaven on earth with earthly bricks, the puerilities of our economic and political subterfuges, is false. We deceive ourselves with yet another utopia, another Tower of Babel. But, on the other hand, the fact that the perfection of the kingdom can only come from Him and that it is beyond history, that it awaits His 'coming again,' is no excuse for our failing to bring it nearer [60] here on earth. Men and women should see in the church, in its fellowship life, in those who commune with the body and blood of Christ, the spearhead of the kingdom. It is our Lord's express purpose that the will of God should be done on earth as it is in heaven, and it cannot be so done until it is done in us. What this is to mean in the sacrifice of our own selfish interests, in the economic, social, and political life of our time may be left to the imagination of each reader, as he comes face to face with the reality of our Lord's sacrificial life and death in the service of Holy Communion. If he does not find here that judgment upon his own conscience and that strength and grace to enable reformation, he will find them nowhere else.⁵² "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup."⁵³ [61]

[CTR 49-61]