Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by gaining_age »

Thanks for the responses! I have much reading to do (or reread) and maybe more context to give.

Excellent input so far... and I did hit a very interesting web page in searching for some info on the topic (slightly offside... but) had an interesting view on 1 Corinthians that they were doing all kinds of church and Paul had lots to give nudges on improvement).

Web link: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... ship.html and it uses the word: eucharismatic.

Definitely makes me want to take a closer look at 1 Corinthians.

Thanks Tuttle-- Protestant view point is a key piece for me as well.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by mcommini »

"How do I liturgy?" Divinely.

That said, I did grow up in churches of the "ordinance" variety and well remember that quarterly or so Lord's Supper when the pastor would tell us to ignore all the words we were about to say because they didn't mean what they quite clearly said. I also remember being taught about the two ordinances and how they were the only ones instituted by Christ. Very early on I realized that the "two ordinances" really only works if we really don't believe that Christ is the eternal Word- because that Word ordained marriage as the joining of two into one flesh and then appealed to His own words when the question of divorce was brought up during His earthly ministry. Oh, the same Word spoke to Moses and told him to ordain elders ("presbyteros" in the Septuagint translations the Apostles used- which is where we eventually get our English word "priest") to lead His people. And during His earthly ministry He quite clearly gave the Apostles the power of Absolution, which is the real goal of Confession. Also during His earthly ministry He gave His disciples the ability to heal diseases by laying on of hands- which is the goal of Holy Unction. Confirmation or Chrismation is the reception of the Holy Spirit (represented in the later ritual by the anointing of oil) which Christ ritually enacted before Pentecost by breathing on His disciples and saying "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22).

So much for two ordinances.

Now to get on to the nitty-gritty: Orthodox Christians really don't use the word "sacrament" too often unless we're involved in a discussion with Protestants and Roman Catholics. Our term is "mystery". This isn't to say that "sacrament" isn't a perfectly good term- it really describes the end result of the mysteries. All holy mysteries exist to take matter and make it sacred- we take bread and wine and set it aside for the use of God in that strange mystery where He returns that bread and wine to us as His Body and Blood. We offer up a man and woman and He returns to us one flesh. We offer up the waters of chaos and He gives us His Death and Resurrection. We offer up a man and He returns to us an elder to provide us with these sacred things. The holy mysteries are the means by which we re-take our pre-Fallen duties and eventually offer up the entirety of the cosmos. Death entered the cosmos through our Fall, in the mysteries of the Church we return matter to its holy state and say with God "it is good".

The sacraments also exist to take us from our own time and unite us with the Church eternal and triumphant. In the Divine Liturgy, the portion where the hierarch reads the words of institution ("this is My body", etc) is called the "anamnesis", the "remembrance". We are called from our own time and place to the event we are ritually enacting so that we may partake of that event- we are "re-membered" into that great gathering of members in one Body, we are "re-called" from this time and place to another.

Or, I could say that I agree completely that the Eucharist "represents" the Body and Blood of Christ if by that we mean that the Eucharist makes present that Body and Blood shed once and for all time on Calvary. We are not sacrificing Christ again on the altar- the Eucharist is called the "bloodless sacrifice" despite the fact that we believe we are indeed eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Our sacrifice is indeed bread and wine- but once offered up to God, He re-presents it to us as His Body and Blood, His holy Paschal Lamb, the partaking of which makes us members of His holy Israel.

Baptism "represents" death and resurrection- in that entering the waters we are indeed made present in the depths of Hades or Sheol, where Christ re-presents Himself to lead us into the life of His Resurrection when we emerge.

The biggest difference between the Catholic and Radical Protestant understandings of the sacraments is really that the Radical Reformation staked its claim in Nominalism (similar to the Roman church staking its claim in Aristotlianism via Aquinas). Before the Radical Reformation we could all say together that the Eucharist is a spiritual reality and we'd all pretty much mean that the "spiritual reality", the symbol, is the higher and truer meaning- the spiritual reality is more real than the elements you see on the table. After the Radical Reformation "spiritual reality" or "symbol" came to mean "allegory" or "fable", something not as real as the tangible grains and grapes put on the table- basically that the bread is imaginary flesh and the wine is imaginary blood. The argument was never really about the sacraments themselves but rather the nature of reality itself- can there be invisible realities or is the visible world all that is real? And when understood in that light, I think that it is quite clear that Zwingli and those who followed after were so dead wrong as to give Joseph Smith a run for his money.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by Jocose »

mcommini wrote: 01 Dec 2022, 12:14 "How do I liturgy?" Divinely.

That said, I did grow up in churches of the "ordinance" variety and well remember that quarterly or so Lord's Supper when the pastor would tell us to ignore all the words we were about to say because they didn't mean what they quite clearly said. I also remember being taught about the two ordinances and how they were the only ones instituted by Christ. Very early on I realized that the "two ordinances" really only works if we really don't believe that Christ is the eternal Word- because that Word ordained marriage as the joining of two into one flesh and then appealed to His own words when the question of divorce was brought up during His earthly ministry. Oh, the same Word spoke to Moses and told him to ordain elders ("presbyteros" in the Septuagint translations the Apostles used- which is where we eventually get our English word "priest") to lead His people. And during His earthly ministry He quite clearly gave the Apostles the power of Absolution, which is the real goal of Confession. Also during His earthly ministry He gave His disciples the ability to heal diseases by laying on of hands- which is the goal of Holy Unction. Confirmation or Chrismation is the reception of the Holy Spirit (represented in the later ritual by the anointing of oil) which Christ ritually enacted before Pentecost by breathing on His disciples and saying "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22).

So much for two ordinances.

Now to get on to the nitty-gritty: Orthodox Christians really don't use the word "sacrament" too often unless we're involved in a discussion with Protestants and Roman Catholics. Our term is "mystery". This isn't to say that "sacrament" isn't a perfectly good term- it really describes the end result of the mysteries. All holy mysteries exist to take matter and make it sacred- we take bread and wine and set it aside for the use of God in that strange mystery where He returns that bread and wine to us as His Body and Blood. We offer up a man and woman and He returns to us one flesh. We offer up the waters of chaos and He gives us His Death and Resurrection. We offer up a man and He returns to us an elder to provide us with these sacred things. The holy mysteries are the means by which we re-take our pre-Fallen duties and eventually offer up the entirety of the cosmos. Death entered the cosmos through our Fall, in the mysteries of the Church we return matter to its holy state and say with God "it is good".

The sacraments also exist to take us from our own time and unite us with the Church eternal and triumphant. In the Divine Liturgy, the portion where the hierarch reads the words of institution ("this is My body", etc) is called the "anamnesis", the "remembrance". We are called from our own time and place to the event we are ritually enacting so that we may partake of that event- we are "re-membered" into that great gathering of members in one Body, we are "re-called" from this time and place to another.

Or, I could say that I agree completely that the Eucharist "represents" the Body and Blood of Christ if by that we mean that the Eucharist makes present that Body and Blood shed once and for all time on Calvary. We are not sacrificing Christ again on the altar- the Eucharist is called the "bloodless sacrifice" despite the fact that we believe we are indeed eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Our sacrifice is indeed bread and wine- but once offered up to God, He re-presents it to us as His Body and Blood, His holy Paschal Lamb, the partaking of which makes us members of His holy Israel.

Baptism "represents" death and resurrection- in that entering the waters we are indeed made present in the depths of Hades or Sheol, where Christ re-presents Himself to lead us into the life of His Resurrection when we emerge.

The biggest difference between the Catholic and Radical Protestant understandings of the sacraments is really that the Radical Reformation staked its claim in Nominalism (similar to the Roman church staking its claim in Aristotlianism via Aquinas). Before the Radical Reformation we could all say together that the Eucharist is a spiritual reality and we'd all pretty much mean that the "spiritual reality", the symbol, is the higher and truer meaning- the spiritual reality is more real than the elements you see on the table. After the Radical Reformation "spiritual reality" or "symbol" came to mean "allegory" or "fable", something not as real as the tangible grains and grapes put on the table- basically that the bread is imaginary flesh and the wine is imaginary blood. The argument was never really about the sacraments themselves but rather the nature of reality itself- can there be invisible realities or is the visible world all that is real? And when understood in that light, I think that it is quite clear that Zwingli and those who followed after were so dead wrong as to give Joseph Smith a run for his money.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by tuttle »

mcommini wrote: 01 Dec 2022, 12:14 "How do I liturgy?" Divinely.

That said, I did grow up in churches of the "ordinance" variety and well remember that quarterly or so Lord's Supper when the pastor would tell us to ignore all the words we were about to say because they didn't mean what they quite clearly said. I also remember being taught about the two ordinances and how they were the only ones instituted by Christ. Very early on I realized that the "two ordinances" really only works if we really don't believe that Christ is the eternal Word- because that Word ordained marriage as the joining of two into one flesh and then appealed to His own words when the question of divorce was brought up during His earthly ministry. Oh, the same Word spoke to Moses and told him to ordain elders ("presbyteros" in the Septuagint translations the Apostles used- which is where we eventually get our English word "priest") to lead His people. And during His earthly ministry He quite clearly gave the Apostles the power of Absolution, which is the real goal of Confession. Also during His earthly ministry He gave His disciples the ability to heal diseases by laying on of hands- which is the goal of Holy Unction. Confirmation or Chrismation is the reception of the Holy Spirit (represented in the later ritual by the anointing of oil) which Christ ritually enacted before Pentecost by breathing on His disciples and saying "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22).

So much for two ordinances.
To be clear, I think the distinguishing of two ordinances are the only ones instituted by Christ for all believers. At least I believe that was the original intent. I understand it's not necessarily taken the same way today.
mcommini wrote: 01 Dec 2022, 12:14
The biggest difference between the Catholic and Radical Protestant understandings of the sacraments is really that the Radical Reformation staked its claim in Nominalism (similar to the Roman church staking its claim in Aristotlianism via Aquinas). Before the Radical Reformation we could all say together that the Eucharist is a spiritual reality and we'd all pretty much mean that the "spiritual reality", the symbol, is the higher and truer meaning- the spiritual reality is more real than the elements you see on the table. After the Radical Reformation "spiritual reality" or "symbol" came to mean "allegory" or "fable", something not as real as the tangible grains and grapes put on the table- basically that the bread is imaginary flesh and the wine is imaginary blood. The argument was never really about the sacraments themselves but rather the nature of reality itself- can there be invisible realities or is the visible world all that is real? And when understood in that light, I think that it is quite clear that Zwingli and those who followed after were so dead wrong as to give Joseph Smith a run for his money.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by tuttle »

gaining_age wrote: 01 Dec 2022, 10:51 Thanks for the responses! I have much reading to do (or reread) and maybe more context to give.

Excellent input so far... and I did hit a very interesting web page in searching for some info on the topic (slightly offside... but) had an interesting view on 1 Corinthians that they were doing all kinds of church and Paul had lots to give nudges on improvement).

Web link: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... ship.html and it uses the word: eucharismatic.

Definitely makes me want to take a closer look at 1 Corinthians.

Thanks Tuttle-- Protestant view point is a key piece for me as well.
1 Corinthians 10 solidified a sacramental worldview for me. Specifically the reality of Christ's presence in the Supper.

I wrote this piece a while back that sort of dives into it: http://sounddoxology.blogspot.com/2014 ... pper.html
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by mcommini »

tuttle wrote: 02 Dec 2022, 05:37
gaining_age wrote: 01 Dec 2022, 10:51 Thanks for the responses! I have much reading to do (or reread) and maybe more context to give.

Excellent input so far... and I did hit a very interesting web page in searching for some info on the topic (slightly offside... but) had an interesting view on 1 Corinthians that they were doing all kinds of church and Paul had lots to give nudges on improvement).

Web link: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... ship.html and it uses the word: eucharismatic.

Definitely makes me want to take a closer look at 1 Corinthians.

Thanks Tuttle-- Protestant view point is a key piece for me as well.
1 Corinthians 10 solidified a sacramental worldview for me. Specifically the reality of Christ's presence in the Supper.

I wrote this piece a while back that sort of dives into it: http://sounddoxology.blogspot.com/2014 ... pper.html
1 Corinthians 10 blew my young Evangelical mind. Warning: Do not attempt to abandon all preconceived notions when approaching Scripture unless one is absolutely ready to change denominations.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by gaining_age »

I've been doing some interesting reading and comparison checks and, of course, liturgy observing.

Sacrament isn't quite the issue I'm wrestling with it seems. Communion... means of forgiveness or means of grace?

Small nuance on that last part.
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Ordinance vs. Sacrament considerations

Post by Del »

gaining_age wrote: 04 Dec 2022, 15:43 I've been doing some interesting reading and comparison checks and, of course, liturgy observing.

Sacrament isn't quite the issue I'm wrestling with it seems. Communion... means of forgiveness or means of grace?

Small nuance on that last part.
I'm not sure what you mean.

"Grace" means "gift."

Forgiveness of sins is a great gift.
Being invited by Christ into relationship with Him is a gift.
And nourishment for strength and fortitude for grow closer to Christ in holiness is also a gift.
===================================
The Eucharist is "accepting Christ as your savior" -- quite literally. More intimately than the marital embrace.

Catholics believe that approaching Christ and receiving Him gives us an opportunity to have venial (small) sins forgiven (1 John 5). We should to make effort to remember those sins and ask for forgiveness.

On the other hand, 1 Cor 11 warns us not to receive Christ while living in a state of mortal sin. Joining Christ with our serious sin invites Christ to judge us now, just as He will judge each of us at our death.

In the Apostolic Church, the ordinary sacrament of forgiveness is confession of our sins to a priest -- with sincere repentance. Then we can receive Christ in the Eucharist with joy and confidence.
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