Efficacy of confession and absolution

We agree on something!
If I'm not mistaken, this was Luther's view as well. Calvin and the Roman Catholic Church of the day, contra Luther, taught that John 6 was referring to Communion, one of the few instances in which they agreed on the sacraments (though Calvin's view of what actually happens in Communion was of course radically different from the Roman Catholic understanding).

 

Words on the eucharist, on absolution, are simply plain text of Scripture. You open it, you read it, and there it is, simply printed on the page. X is X, Y is Y. If we treat Scripture as our highest authority, and we do, then it's a very simple journey from there to understanding both the eucharist, and absolution, in a high manner (as indeed historically it's been done).

My concern is that those who don't like the high doctrine of the eucharist, or absolution, do it not out of some greater fidelity to Scripture, but rather, out of a nascent (possibly unconscious) secularism.

"Oh who can believe that hocus pocus about the eucharist. Eat God? Pfffff, tosh."
"Some physical person can be in charge of whether I still have my sins? Please, that's like in the movies, that doesn't exist in reality."

This is nascent secularism/atheism. Judging Christian doctrine with no reference to Anglicanism, no reference to the church fathers or Scripture, but solely judging it based on 2021 postmodern Western prejudices of what "seems right". We live in a plastic civilization, and we want a plastic religion. That doesn't challenge us, or embarrass us in front of our friends.

 

You think an Anglican 'badge' OK's canabalism then? If that's what I have to believe to get one, I don't want it. I already found out that I would have to believe that God is male, apparently to deserve to keep one, in spite of God being One God, a Holy Trinity and Spirit. I am a real Anglican and have no need for a 'badge'.
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Not ignored no and I don't know what adiaphora is but receiving communion is not essential to receiving eternal life, otherwise Christ would have said so. John 6:56-69 cannot refer to the Eucharist because Christ was still alive when he said it. The Eucharist did not yet even exist. Certainly I would remember the author and finisher of our faith every time I ate bread and drank wine, especially in company with other believers. Heb. 5:9, Heb. 12:2, 1 Cor.11:25. WHENEVER I ate bread or drank wine, at least, not just on Sunday Morning at church.
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Or it’s nascent Gnosticism. I think our Revivalist friends have a very firm belief in God and deplore secularism in the social or political sense. I think it has more to do with this belief that it’s ‘my soul and God’ that’s all that matters. That is drilled into you if you grow up in those traditions. It’s an ingrained mental habit and it is very hard to break.

 

How do you square this understanding, as an Anglican, with Article XXV of the 39 Articles?

Emphasis in quotation is mine. The reference to St. Paul comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, particularly this: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord." (1 Cor. 11:27)

 

No problem with it at all. Do you believe that you could be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus, Rom.8:35-39 by imprisonment and deprivation of any possibility of ever receiving communion for the rest of your life, until your death by starvation or execution, like what could have been the case in Nazi Germany under the Hitler regime or the Stalin pogroms or the Pol Pot Cambodian death camps or even Communist China and the Japanese occupations?

Do even you believe that Christians under such persecution would have no access to "effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards them, by the which he doth work invisibly in them, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm their Faith in him." Are you saying that without receiving the Holy Communion they are effectively cut off from God's signs of grace and good will?

That effectively salvation is handed out weekly by a man in a chasuble?
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Given that you're not under such extreme duress (I do devoutly hope), I'm wondering what your rationale is, not what some hypothetical person's is.

I can come up with a thousand excuses for not following any commandment in the Bible (and the Lord's supper is a command, not a request), but in the end my excuses amount to nothing. I must do as God wills if I may by any means do so, even unto torture and death. Jesus Christ is my sovereign Lord, and his word is law.

"Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19) is not the same is "Do this in remembrance of me if it so pleases you."

 

i'm a vegetarian

 

I didn’t say merely a memorial. The specific verse where Jesus says to eat his flesh and blood and you will never hunger or thirst can be understood in a variety of ways. Why are you hungry and thirsty after partaking of the Eucharist? You see, things must be properly understood in the context the NT author and Christ meant to deliver. The matter of fact is that you can be assured you’re not going to hell just because you’re not part of the “apostolic” churches that can provide you with the “real” Eucharist. in fact, the so called apostolic churches of Rome and the orthodox have perverted the gospel, so no matter how many Eucharists they receive, many people in them may very well go to hell, because they trust in their own works, or the work of the mass, and not the finished atonement of Jesus Christ. As I’ve said multiple times on this thread, I do not believe in apostolic succession as the physical laying on of hands by a bishop supposedly succeeding from the apostles.why I do not believe in it is very simple. It is neither in scripture, nor supported in history. It is a matter of fact, as much that I am alive, that the succession of modern day priests has been broken.
So no, it’s not a mere memorial, but your salvation is not in jeopardy if you don’t take communion in Rome or the orthodox, or even the Anglican Church which I believe has preserved the truth of the gospel.

 

Can you point me to anywhere in scripture where the apostles used their power to bind and loose sins, or where they explained it? Anywhere in scripture where they did not declare forgiveness of sins to someone professing to the gospel? How the early church could have possibly retained sins if they only did general absolution? The very simple meaning you seem to take from bind and loose, and yet, how can we know this power was given to the “successors” of the apostles? I think it’s my fifth time saying it. There is zero proof modern day priests have valid succession. It’s the type of stuff romans believe about the papacy. Just like there is no historical proof the bishop of Rome had supremacy over the whole church, there is no historical proof that succession has been kept. In fact, all evidence points against it. I know the power of binding and loosing was given to the apostles. But can you show me how they employed it? Or else, it just becomes your own modern interpretation as well. I certainly did not see people confessing to Paul in private and him telling them their sins weren’t forgiven because he could tell they weren’t genuine enough. So I’d like to see where or how exactly you think they exercise this power. The question isn’t does scripture say it, the question is how we ought to interpret it. I mean, “this is my body.” Transubstantiation? Spiritual presence or local and physical? Not everything can be reduced to “well scripture is clear about this and anyone else that disagrees is just doing so because of their own traditions.”
I would argue that no, there is no evidence of a sacramental priesthood in the New Testament, and we do not see the apostles declaring sins are forgiven or retained anywhere outside the context of believing the gospel. Believing in Christ and your sins will be nailed to the cross, reject him and you will be damned. Also with excommunication, and casting out a brother so he might be saved. It is pastoral authority, telling them something they believe or are doing is deeply wrong. What I don’t believe the apostles did is the Roman private confession where you confess to a priest, and they then “ascertain” whether you’re actually sorry or not (100% of the time pretty much they say yes) and then they loose your sin. No, I don’t believe in that if that’s what you’re arguing. I do believe the ministers of God have the power to pronounce conditional forgiveness of sins to all those in Christ with a contrite heart. They also have the power to discipline and excommunicate members of the church. Aside from that, it seems like Roman ex opere operato and the priest as an alter Christ, none of which is based in scripture. That Augustine may have believed it, I don’t really care. It’s not biblical.

 

Remember, Jesus was celebrating the Passover seder with the disciples. Jesus and the disciples were Israelites of the tribe of Judah. All Israelites were commanded to celebrate the Passover once per year at that time of year, in remembrance of the death angel passing over their houses when the blood of the lamb was seen on the doorposts.

So when Jesus said what He said, He was commanding them to celebrate the Passover in remembrance of Him, Jesus, the one foreshadowed by that lamb's blood. Consider how Jesus is quoted (a bit more completely) in 1 Cor. 11:35 -- This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. How often were they commanded to celebrate the Passover? Once per year. How often are we commanded to celebrate the New Passover in remembrance of Jesus shedding His blood so that we might be redeemed? Once per year. Can we do it more often? Of course; we're not legalistic about it, right?

One might say that we are saved when Jesus' blood is applied, through faith, to the 'doorposts' of our hearts. But once it's been applied, it tends to stay. Even the Israelites didn't apply the blood annually; they just did it one time, and afterward they had an annual meal of remembrance.

Some people don't want to obey our Lord, though. They don't want to partake of the bread and wine "in remembrance of Me (Jesus)." They want to 'do this as a means of receiving saving grace,' which is not what Jesus commanded.

 

You can't just look at that verse. You have to actually read the verses around it. Anything outside of the real presence is just not supported by Scripture or tradition. Of course heaven will be full of non apostolic succession Christianity but it should would be easier for the faithful if they were in a church with Apostolic succession and the means of grace.

 

Interesting, considering that I grew up as a devout RC. So much for 'ingrained habits.'

 

Acts 5 is an extreme version of it, but here it is:

Excommunication is also a form of this, which Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5:

In this instance there is the implication that although Paul did not have authority to forgive the man's sin before the Church, the man would nevertheless be forgiven "in the day of the Lord", but not before (which, BTW, implies an intermediate state after death rather than "going straight to heaven"). So it's possible there remains a distinction between sacramental absolution and final absolution, and that the withholding of the former does not necessarily imply the denial of the latter, but we have to be careful that we're not reading into the text. The Scriptures don't spell out all the particulars. That task was left to the canon law.

So here you have 2 apostles pronouncing judgment, and in one case the effect is immediate. Also bear in mind these passages were likely written before the Gospel of John, so it's not like the apostles and those whom they appointed were waiting for John's Gospel to be written before they could say "we have the authority to forgive and retain sins". The earliest written records of Christianity - Paul's letters - indicate they were already doing this and believed they had the authority directly from Christ to do so.

 

I wasn't talking about you personally. And I was defending Revivalists against the charge of "nascent atheism". Gnosticism is hardwired into American culture. It would be surprising if any religious group weren't affected by it in one way or another, including Roman Catholicism.

 

You seem to be assuming that I do not attend Eucharist every Sunday that I am able. I expect I have attended considerably more Eucharists in my 75 year lifetime and even led the ministry of the word part many more times than you have and not a single one was attended out of a 'sense of duty' or in mere compliant 'obedience to a command'. I participated, served and ministered in every single one because I love The Lord my God and my neighbour as myself.

If mere duty were a confessed reason for attending I'm inclined to wonder what a 'worshipper's' rationale for apparently reluctant attendance might turn out to actually be.
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With a badge! Big deal!

 

I prefer to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, but I'll never qualify for a Vegetarian badge.

 

Not even an 'Anglican' Vegetarian badge?