Stone-Campbell Sacramental Theology
John Mark Hicks
The Stone-Campbell Movement (SCM), inclusive of Churches of Christ, practices
three ordinances or sacraments: Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Lord’s Day. “Here,
then,” Thomas Campbell wrote, “are the three grand comprehensive positive, ordinances
of the gospel; namely, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Lord’s Day” which are
“designed to keep the blissful subject of our present and eternal salvation” before us “and
one day every week [is] publicly set apart for” that “joyful” purpose.1 Alexander
Campbell called them the “positive institutions of the Christian system.” They are the
“indispensable provisions of remedial mercy” and “not one of them can be dispensed
with by any who desire the perfection of the Christian state and of the Christian
character.”2 Their remedial significance is rooted in the “death, burial and resurrection of
Christ” which are the “grounds of justification and hope.”3 In other words, they are
gospel and “catholic” (universal) ordinances,4 that is, “means of grace” through which
“the hand of God” writes upon our hearts the character of his Son.5 From its inception,
the SCM has held that the gospel ordinances or sacraments are Baptism, the Lord’s
Supper and the Lord’s Day.
This is embedded in our corporate consciousness. At the centennial celebration of
the Declaration and Address in 1909, Carey Morgan speaks as a veritable representative
Thomas Campbell, “An Address to All our Christian Brethren, Upon the Necessity and Importance of the
Actual Enjoyment of our Holy Religion,” Millennial Harbinger, Third Series 1 (May 1844) 202 (emphasis
mine).
2
Alexander Campbell, Christian Baptism with its Antecedents and Consequents (Bethany: Campbell,
1851) 246-247.
3
Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1870) 2:223-4.
4
Alexander Campbell, “Dialogue on Heresy,” Millennial Harbinger 3 (August 1832) 404.
5
Alexander Campbell, "Regeneration,” Millennial Harbinger Extra 4 (August 1833) 341.
1
2
of the whole movement: “There are three such memorials: the Lord’s Supper, Baptism
and the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial of his death, Baptism is a symbol
of his burial, and the Lord’s Day celebrates his resurrection.”6
Theologically, within the SCM these gospel ordinances have been ordinarily
understood along the following lines. Baptism is a means of grace through faith for
justification as we participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is
a means of grace through faith for sanctification as we remember and/or commune with
the body and blood of Christ. The Lord’s Day is a means of grace through faith for
communal worship as we celebrate the resurrection. In this sense, they are not only
gospel ordinances (e.g., commands to be obeyed), but also sacramental means through
which believers experience the grace of the gospel by the power of the Spirit. They are
sacraments in the sense that they are concrete moments in space and time which not only
signify the gospel but also by which the Father communicates justifying and sanctifying
grace to believers through Jesus in the power of the Spirit.
Defining Sacrament
The “means of grace” language is problematic because it is too overtly
sacramental for some. Though this language is the SCM at its theological best, many in
the twentieth century have become more anthropocentric in orientation; more concerned
about, as R. C. Bell put it, “human mechanics” than “divine dynamics.”7 Our antisacramentalism owes more to Zwinglian Protestantism and/or Lockean epistemology
than we might admit. Some have interpreted Baptism as more of a human act of
Carey Morgan, “The Place of the Lord’s Supper in the Movement,” Cennential Convention Report, ed.
W. R. Warren (Cinncinati: Standard, 1910) 464.
6
7
R. C. Bell, "Honor to Whom Honor is Due," Firm Foundation 68 (6 November 1951), 6.
3
obedience that crosses the boundary of lost and saved than a divine act of grace. Others
have reduced Baptism primarily, perhaps merely, to a human testimonial (common
among Evangelicals) such that it becomes a naked sign. Some have reduced the
significance of the Lord’s Supper to cognitive reflection on the death of Jesus as if were
merely a memorial. Some have reduced attendance on the Lord’s Day to a legal duty
where we perform “five acts of worship” for God or to an occasion primarily for mutual
edification rather than anything remotely connected with sacramental imagination. The
Assembly has become something we do for God and/or something we do for each other
rather than primarily something God does for us.
In recent books I have addressed these three ordinances.8 My intent was to renew
a sacramental understanding within the SCM—to reorient our thinking from an
anthropocentric tendency (mere human acts) to a more theocentric grounding. The
sacraments are divine acts of grace through which God transforms believers into his
image by the presence of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Thus, a sacrament is an external
symbol through which God acts to grace his people and by which his people participate
in the gospel through faith.
Why use the term sacrament? Historically, this is not our language since the word
does not appear in Scripture.9 It is also subject to misunderstanding—debates over the
sacraments have a long history—but even “ordinance” has similar problems. Sacramental
language is historic shorthand for a theological idea (much like eschatological is
John Mark Hicks, Come to the Table: Revisioning the Lord’s Supper (Orange, CA: New Leaf Press,
2002); John Mark Hicks and Greg Taylor, Down in the River to Pray: Revisioning Baptism as God’s
Transforming Work (Siloam Springs, AR: Leafwood Press, 2004), and John Mark Hicks, Johnny Melton
and Bobby Valentine, A Gathered People: Revisioning the Assembly as Transforming Encounter (Abilene:
Leafwood, 2007).
9
E. G. Sewell, “How Many Sacraments?” Gospel Advocate 15 (13 Nov 1873) 1094-1096, is representative.
8
4
shorthand for all the events that will take place from the second coming of Christ to the
appearance of a new heaven and new earth). It saves space. My definition is consistent
with the substance of the historic church. It is not specifically Roman Catholic, Protestant
(e.g., Lutheran, Anglican and Presbyterian) or Orthodox (“mysteries”) since their
common meaning is that by faith God gives grace through material symbols. Differences
between these various traditions emerge because other ideas are added to that basic one.
Instead of repeating a lengthy set of words, the use of the term sacrament as technical
shorthand conveys the intended meaning in the common language of the historic
Christian faith. If anyone dislikes it, no one is bound to it. It is not necessary for
Christian discourse. If the terminology is offensive, when it appears in the text substitute
this definition of sacrament: “by faith God gives the grace of Jesus Christ through
material symbols in the power of the Spirit by whom we participate in the future.”
Sacrament involves several ideas. First, a sacrament involves created materiality.
Baptism utilizes the material element of water and the Lord’s Supper uses bread and
wine. The concrete sign of the Assembly is the gathered community. As created
embodied material beings, we are buried in water, eat/drink the Supper, and gather as a
community. Second, a sacrament signifies something; it points to a reality beyond itself.
Baptism signifies the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Table signifies the presence of
Christ eating with his disciples as well as his body and blood, and the Assembly signifies
the heavenly assembly around the throne of God.
Third, a sacrament is a means of grace. The material elements do not merely
represent, but they participate in the reality to which they point. They are not mere signs,
but symbols that mediate the spiritual reality. The signs become symbols because God
5
does something through them. Through Baptism we share in the death and resurrection of
Jesus (Rom 6:3-4), through the Lord’s Supper we eat with Jesus at his table in his
kingdom (Matt 26:30; Luke 22:15-18, 28-30) as well as nourished by his body and blood
(John 6:51-58), and through assembling as a community, we enter the sanctuary of God
(Heb 10:19-25; 12:22-24). Fourth, God accomplishes his sacramental work by the power
of his Spirit. Through Baptism we experience new birth as we are born of the Spirit (John
3:5; cf. Titus 3:5), through eating with Christ we enjoy the communion of the Spirit at the
Table (1 Cor 10:16; 2 Cor 13:14), and as an assembly we worship the Father in the Spirit
through Jesus (John 4:24). The Spirit mediates the grace of God through Baptism,
mediates the presence of Christ through the Table, and transports us into the heavenly
assembly surrounding the throne of the Father.
Fifth, sacrament is the experience of the eschaton—a participation in the future
reality of the kingdom of God. Through Baptism we already experience our own
resurrection by participating in Jesus’ resurrection, through the Lord’s Supper we already
eat at the future Messianic banquet by eating at the Lord’s Table, and through Assembly
we already participate in the future eschatological gathering of the people of God around
the throne (Rev 7:9-17). Sixth, God’s work through the sacrament is received by faith.
Without faith there are no eyes to see or experience the spiritual reality to which the signs
point and in which the symbols participate. Thus, through faith we are buried and raised
with Christ in Baptism (Col 2:12), through faith we eat at the Lord’s Table (1 Cor 10:1622), and through faith we draw near to God in the Assembly (Heb 10:22; cf. 11:6).
Alexander Campbell’s Sacramental Theology
6
Baptism. Alexander Campbell became the polemical champion of Kentucky Baptists
through his debates with the Presbyterians Walker (1820) and McCalla (1823). In the
latter debate Campbell pressed an argument against infant baptism based on the design of
the ordinance. He strongly connected baptism with the joy of forgiveness. During the
debate he addressed his Baptist friends on this point.
Tell them you make nothing essential to salvation but the blood of Christ,
but that God has made baptism essential to their formal forgiveness in this
life, to their admission into his kingdom on earth. Tell them that God had
made it essential to their happiness that they should have a pledge on his
part in this life, an assurance in the name of the Father and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, of their actual pardon, of the remission of all their sins,
and that this assurance is baptism. Tell the disciples to rise in haste and be
baptized and wash away their sins, calling on the name of the Lord.10
Campbell believed that some Baptists had reduced baptism “to the level of a moral
example, or a moral precept.” But Campbell invested baptism with soteriological
significance. It is God’s “formal pledge” of the believer’s “personal acquittal or
pardon.”11 Baptism was no longer a mere sign for Campbell. In this way Campbell
moved toward a Scottish Presbyterian (Calvinian) meaning for baptism though in the
context of believer’s baptism. Campbell alludes to Calvin’s own words by referring to
baptism as a “proof and token” of the remission of sins. Baptism is God’s “sensible
pledge”—an external testimony—of forgiveness, salvation and regeneration.12
In the wake of Walter Scott’s successful revivalistic preaching where baptism for
the remission of sins was subsituted for the mourner’s bench,13 Campbell began a series
10
Alexander Campbell and W. L. McCalla, A Public Debate on Christian Baptism (London: Simpkin and
Marshall, 1842) 125
11
Campbell, Public Debate, 118.
12
Alexander Campbell, "A Catalogue of Queries--Answered," Christian Baptist 6 (2 February 1829), 164.
13
Alexander Campbell, "Anecdotes, Incidents, and Facts--No. VI," Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 6
(January 1849) 48.
7
of ten essays entitled the “Restoration of the Ancient Gospel.”14 Campbell now describes
baptism as a means or instrument of grace. For example, “forgiveness is through
immersion”15 or baptism is “a certain act by, or in which their sins are forgiven.”16
Baptism is a “medium through which the forgiveness of sins is imparted.”17 Campbell is
quite adamant about this point: “I do earnestly contend that God, through the blood of
Christ, forgives our sins through immersion—through the very act, and in the very
instant.”18 Campbell moved beyond any kind of Zwinglianism and embraced a high
Calvinian understanding of the instrumentality of baptism as a means of grace. While not
a “procuring” or “efficient cause,” baptism is an “instrumental cause.”19
The fundamental impulse of Campbell’s baptismal theology was the assurance of
the forgiveness of sins. He rejected the frontier search for assurance through a subjective
conversion experience. Instead of calling the sinner to “pray through” at the mourner’s
bench, the early SCM called sinners to Jesus through “washing away their sins” in
baptism which is God’s “sensible pledge” by which God assured believers of his gracious
forgiveness. It is both an objective moment of assurance and a means of grace. Campbell,
in essence, adopted a Calvinian understanding of the meaning of baptism, and he
recognized this in an extended quote from Calvin at the conclusion of which he wondered
whether his opponents would now call Calvin a “Campbellite.”20 Accepting believer’s
immersion, Campbell also embraced the sacramental meaning of baptism consistent with
14
Campbell, Christian Baptist 5 (7 January 1828), 128-130; (5 February 1828), 164-168; (3 March 1828),
179-182; (7 April), 221-223; (5 May 1828), 229-232; (2 June 1828), 254-257; 6 (7 July 1828), 276-279; (4
August 1828), 14-17; (6 October 1828), 72-74; and (3 November 1828), 97-100.
15
Campbell, “No. II,” 166.
16
Campbell, “No. V,” 232.
17
Campbell, “No. VI,” 254, or a “medium of remission…the means through which, by faith, we are
forgiven” (Campbell, “Reply to C.F.,” Christian Baptist 7 [1 February 1830], 181).
18
Campbell, “No. VII,” 277.
19
Campbell, Christian Baptism, 256.
20
Alexander Campbell, "Calvin on Baptism," Millennial Harbinger 4 (November 1833) 547.
8
the historic church (Patristics, Luther, Calvin) unlike the Baptists who followed Zwingli’s
rejection of any external act as a means of grace.
Lord’s Supper. Against the backdrop of Scottish Presbyterianism and Scottish
Independency, “table” is a significant theological and liturgical term for Alexander
Campbell. Scottish and American Presbyterian sacramental solemnities which involved
the communicants sitting at real tables were often characterized by the intense practice of
penitential spiritual disciplines, including meditation on Christ’s sufferings, selfexamination and sorrow.21 Campbell complained the Supper had become “religious
penance, accompanied by morose piety...expressed in…sad countenances on sundry days
of humiliation, fasting and preparation.”22 The table habits of his contemporaries,
according to Campbell, summon “mourners to the house of sorrow” and it is “as sad as a
funeral parade.”23 For Campbell himself, however, “table” was not only a real gathering
around a table, but saturated with festive joy. Christ “did not assemble them to weep, and
wail, and starve with him,” Campbell writes. “No, he commands them to rejoice always,
and bids them eat and drink abundantly.” We assemble to “eat and drink with him” at his
table.24 The table is a moment when disciples are “honored with a seat at the King’s
table” where they “eat in his presence” and “in honor of his love.”25
Yet, despite this language and a Reformed theological orientation which
confessed the Supper as a “means of grace,” the dominant language of the early SCM is
21
Leigh Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2001) 134-36.
22
Alexander Campbell, Christian System, 2nd ed. (Pittsburg, PA: Forrester & Campbell, 1839) 175.
23
Alexander Campbell, “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.--No. VI.: On the Breaking of
Bread--No. I,” Christian Baptist 3 (1 August 1825) 176.
24
Christian System, 175.
25
Christian System, 340.
9
commemorative, even “simply commemorative.”26 The problem here is not only
Zwinglianism but, as Fikes has demonstrated, Lockean “common sense philosophy”
which “hindered the vibrant practice of communion.”27 The rational categories of
Lockean epistemology did not permit the full vigor of a Calvinian understanding of the
spiritual dynamic of the Supper to fully enrich Campbell’s understanding of the Supper.
Only later when those categories were recognized and in some sense transcended, as with
Robert Richardson and Robert Milligan, was a more sacramental theology possible.28 It is
present in Campbell, but his default mode of thinking tended to epistemologically delimit
the meaning of the table. The Lord’s Supper is more of an “argument” for the gospel
rather than the experience of divine communion.29
Without a vibrant sacramental theology of the table Churches of Christ lost the
festive joy of the table envisioned by Campbell. A. B. Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel
Advocate, published the September 30th, 1915 special issue on the Lord’s Supper in
booklet form in 1917 (reprinted four times, the last in 1972).30 The articles, consistent
with 20th Churches of Christ as a whole, primarily characterized the Supper as
26
Thomas Munnell, The Care for the Churches (St. Louis: Christian Publishing Co., 1888), 251.
Thomas Jason Fikes, “’In a Manner Well Pleasing’: The Theology and Practice of the Lord’s Supper in
the Stone-Campbell Movement, 1800-1875” (Ph.D. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, 2005), 43.
28
Robert Milligan, The Scheme of Redemption (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Co., 1977; reprint of 1868 ed),
429-30: “…commemorative is not enough…It is intended also to be the medium of furnishing and
imparting spiritual nourishment to the hungry and thirsty soul.” Robert Richardson, Communings in the
Sanctuary (Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing and Publishing Co., 1872), 87-88: “And it is here, above
all, that the films of error may be taken from our eyes that we may recognize the spiritual presence of our
Savior, and that he may be made known to us in the breaking of bread.”
29
Fikes, 113-114; cf. Campbell, Christian System, 323: “This institution commemorates the love which
reconciled us to God, and always furnishes us with a new argument to live for him who died for us. Him
who feels not the eloquence and power of this argument, all other arguments assail in vain.” Cf. "Remarks"
[on Discipulus' "What Is the Real Design of the Lord's Supper?"]. Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 3
(July 1846): 396.
30
A. B. Lipscomb, compiler and John T. Hinds, ed., Around the Lord’s Table: A Series of Articles Written
by Conscientious and Thoughtful Men About the World’s Greatest Commemorative Institution, Revised
Edition (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Co., 1950). It was printed in 1917, 1922, 1934 (rev. ed.), 1950, and
1972.
27
10
commemorative (memorial, monumental) and declarative (testimonial, proclamation).31
The former is more prominent than the latter but both are cognitive and anthropocentric
categories. We remember and we proclaim. Through this cognitive process, we
contemplate the death of Christ and when we do this together by eating and drinking we
proclaim the Lord’s death. Where the idea of “spiritual nourishment” does arise, it is
often understood as “faithful observance” of divine commandments and the same
nourishment that all obedience entails. 32
Nevertheless, others did insist on a spiritual dynamic, a means of grace, through
eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table. James A. Harding identified Scripture reading,
fellowship with the poor, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer as means of grace through which
God “transform[s] poor, frail, sinful human being[s] into the likeness of Christ.”33 E. A.
Elam and E. G. Sewell, heirs to the emphases of the Nashville Bible School, both used
this language.34 The spiritual dynamic is a healthy one in these writers. Sacramentality,
then, in terms of the Lord’s Supper is present within the SCM but a minority voice.
G. G. Taylor, “Church Worship. No. 2,” Gospel Advocate 57 (June 26, 1912) 732-33.
“The design of this institution…is two-fold—viz., (1) memorial and (2) testimonial.” Or, Thrice, “Tact
Required,” Around the Lord’s Table, 46: “memorial…testimonial.” Or, Leroy Brownlow, Why I Am a
Member of the Church of Christ (Ft. Worth, TX: Leroy Brownlow Publications, 1945) 169-170: “a
memorial which preaches…”; Or, R. L. Whiteside and C. R. Nichol, Sound Doctrine (Clifton, TX: Nichol
Publishing Co., 1954; reprint from 1920) 1:165-166: “commemorative” and “declarative.”
32
For example, Whiteside and Nichol, Sound Doctrine, 1:166, identify the meaning of the table as (1)
commemorative, (2) declarative, and (3) “spiritual nourishment.”
33
James A. Harding, “Scraps,” The Way 4 (26 February 1903) 401-2. Cf. John Mark Hicks and Bobby
Valentine, Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of David Lipscomb and James Harding
(Abilene, TX: Leafwood Publishers, 2006) 75-141.
34
E. G. Sewell, “The Importance of the Lord’s Supper,” Gospel Advocate 57 (September 30, 1915) 986:
“proper attendance upon the Lord’s Supper is a wonderful means of grace to strengthen the hearts and lives
of Christians in all things connected with the service of God.” E.A. Elam, “The Lord’s Supper,” Gospel
Advocate 57 (September 30, 1915) 983-984: “Jesus meets his disciples here in their assemblies to partake
of the Lord’s Supper...Every time the Supper is observed, Jesus is present…This is a spiritual Supper, is
spiritual food, and upon it Christians feed [for] spiritual growth or development.”
31
11
Assembly. Typologically recalling the language of Leviticus 23, Campbell calls
the day of “assembly” a “day of rest, of peace, of joy, a festival sacred to the Lord.”35
The theological ground of this joy was the not only the celebration of creation, the
resurrection of Jesus and outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost, 36 but also the “deep and
solemn conviction that the [assembly] is the house of God—the temple of the Holy
Spirit—and that we are, especially and emphatically, in the presence of the Lord while
we are engaged in his worship.” Every occasion of the “assemblies of the saints” is a
“meeting with the Lord”—an experience of “Divine Presence.”37
The sanctification of the Lord’s Day meant, in part, that Christians assemble in
the presence of God. As assembly, the “church must view herself” as the “habitation of
God,” the “temple of God,” even “the gate of heaven.” Those assembled “must feel”
themselves as “specially [sic] in the presence of the Lord, not as on other days or in other
places.” The assembly must conduct itself as “if the Lord Jesus was personally present”
since indeed the Lord “’is in the midst of them’ if they have met in his name and
according to his word.”38
Gathering “in the name” of Christ is constitutive of the assembly. “Where this is
wanting, or any other principle substituted in its place, the assembly, however designated,
is not, nor can it be, a church of Christ.” But this is not simply about authority as if we
assemble out of some kind of mere duty. Rather, believers assemble out of “their
attachment to him, and love to his name.” The “love of Christ” must be the “grand
Alexander Campbell, "The First Day of the Week Is Not the Seventh Day,” Millennial Harbinger 5
(September 1834) 466.
36
Alexander Campbell, “Address to the Readers of the Christian Baptist. No. III,” Christian Baptist 1 (2
February 1824) 45-46.
37
Alexander Campbell, “Worshipping Assemblies--No. I.," Millennial Harbinger, New Series 3 (October
1839) 441-2.
38
Alexander Campbell, "Order of the Church as Respects Worship," The Millennial Harbinger Extra 6
(October 1835) 508.
35
12
prevailing principle which draws them together.” By this affection the assembled
recognize the blessedness of Jesus’ “presence.”39
Campbell’s sacramental theology is not a form of legalism. He does not believe
the ordinances of God are mere duties or acts of obedience. While faith is the originating
principle of obedience, love is the primary motivation and the ordinances themselves are
“means” of “the enjoyment of the present salvation of God.” Indeed, “all the wisdom,
power, love, mercy, compassion or grace of God is in the ordinances.”40 The ordinances
(sacraments) communicate grace to those who obey them in faith. Campbell’s theology
of “ordinances” is essentially a “sacramental theology.”
Engagement with Christian Tradition
Baptism. The historic understanding of the church has been that baptism is a means of
divine grace. The ancient church provides abundance evidence, even in the second
century. The Shepherd of Hermas (Vision, 3.3.3; Mandate, 4.3.1; Similitudes, 9.16.3),
Justin Martyr (Apology, 1:61), Irenaeus (Apostolic Preaching, 3), and Tertullian (On
Baptism, 1, 7) all understand baptism as an effective symbol. In the late fourth century,
Chrysostom enumerates “the gifts of baptism” as “the remission of sins…sanctification,
righteousness, filial adoption, and inheritance” with the result that the baptized are
“members of Christ” and “dwelling places of the Spirit” (Baptismal Instructions 3.6).
Martin Luther, in continuity with both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
traditions, taught that “the power, effect, benefit, fruit and purpose of Baptism is to save”
and baptism “effects the forgiveness of sins” (Small Catechism). Zwingli, however,
Philalethese, “Review of Tassey's Vindication, &c.--Continued from Page 314,” Christian Baptist 4.10
(7 May 1827) 331.
40
Campbell, Christian System, 149-150.
39
13
opposed any understanding of baptism as a means of grace. “External things are
nothing,” Ulrich Zwingli writes. “They avail nothing for salvation.”41 He rejected any
effectual connection between baptism and the salvation it signified since “Christ himself
did not connect salvation with baptism: it is always by faith alone.”42 Zwingli’s definition
of “faith alone” excluded all externals but Luther’s definition included baptism. “In
short,” Luther writes, “whatever God effects in us he does through such external
ordinances” (Large Catechism).43
Both Luther and John Calvin opposed the innovations of Zwingli. As the
Augsburg Confession (1530) affirms, baptism is no mere “profession among men” but is
it is a sign and testimony of the will of God toward us so that faith “believes the promises
that are set forth and offered” (article 13) and “baptism is necessary for salvation” (article
9).44 Calvin rejected any notion that the sacraments “merely feed our eyes with bare
show.” Instead, God “effectually performs what he figures” (Institutes 4.15.14) in that the
sign conveys “the substance and reality, inasmuch as God works by external means”
(Institutes 4.15.1).45 The sacraments are not “empty signs.” Rather, “the reality and
efficacy at the same time” are “conjoined with them.”46 Anglicanism (Thirty-Nine
Articles, 35) and later Presbyterianism (Westminster Confession of Faith, 38.6) followed
Calvin. The SCM represents a continuation of Calvin’s perspective.
Zwingli, “Of Baptism,” in Zwingli and Bullinger, ed. G. W. Bromiley (LCC; Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1953), 130.
42
Zwingli, “Of Baptism,” 136.
43
Luther’s catechisms are available at http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenbergluther.html.
44
The confession is available at http://www.bookofconcord.org/augsburgconfession.html.
45
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, LCC 20; ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).
46
Calvin, “The Best Method of Obtaining Concord, Provided the Truth Be Sought Without Contention,” in
Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters (Grand Rapids: Baker, reprinted 1983), 2:573.
41
14
Early English Baptist theology tended to follow Calvin, while Continental
Anabaptist theology tended to follow Zwingli. Eighteenth and nineteenth century
revivalism watered down British sacramentalism except among the Scottish Baptists.47
American Baptists, influenced by the Great Awakenings and revivalistic conversion
measures, rejected any kind of baptismal efficacy. Baptism was reduced to a mere human
testimony. However, in the twentieth century, the work of Alec Gilmore, Neville Clark,
R.E.O. White and G.R. Beasley-Murray revived the earlier sacramental understanding of
baptism among British Baptists.48 The impact of this revival is particularly evident
among contemporary British Baptists and among a growing number of American
Baptists.49 Consequently, Baptist and Stone-Campbell baptismal perspectives are
beginning to coalesce and some kind of “rapprochement” is possible.50
Lord’s Supper. The ancient church was table-centered in its liturgy. The weekly
table was the heartbeat of early Christian assemblies. Both the Eastern and Western
(“High Mass” in Roman Catholicism) churches maintained a weekly celebration of the
Eucharist throughout the centuries even though participation often waned. Theologically,
at the heart of this weekly communion was a deep mystery—the mystery of communion
between God and humanity mediated by the incarnate God through eating his body and
drinking his blood. While the Eastern church resisted attempts to give any metaphysical
47
Stanley K. Fowler, More than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism
(Carlislie: Paternoster Press, 2002) and Derek B. Murray, “An Eighteenth Century Baptismal Controversy
in Scotland,” 419-429, in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary
Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (JSNT, 171; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).
48
Gilmore, ed., Christian Baptism: A Fresh Attempt to Understand the Rite of Baptism in terms of
Scripture, History and Theology (London: Lutterworth Press, 1959); Clark, An Approach to the Theology of
the Sacraments (London: SCM Press, 1956); White, The Biblical Doctrine of Initiation (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1960); and Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962).
49
Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, eds., Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies
(London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) and Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, Believer’s
Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Nashville: Broadman & Holmann Academic, 2006).
50
A.B. Caneday, “Baptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement,” in Believer’s Baptism, 304; cf. 324-328.
15
definition to this mystery, the Western church ultimately codified their understanding in
the notion of transubstantiation in the thirteenth century.
The Protestants rejected this codification but could find no general agreement
among themselves. Luther defended consubstantiation and Zwingli tended toward an
anthropocentric memorial. Calvin attempted to mediate the disagreement by rejecting
earthly physicality (“substance”) but affirming the spiritual reality of Christ’s presence in
the bread and wine. While both Luther and Calvin encouraged a weekly Lord’s Supper
as the central liturgical act alongside the preaching of the Word (though Calvin could
only convince his magistrates to celebrate the Eucharist in at least one of the churches in
Geneva every week), Zwingli pioneered a Protestant assembly that was little more than a
sermon surrounded by prayers. He separated the weekly Lord’s Day from the Lord’s
Supper (quarterly in Zurich). Indicative of this shift, Leo Jud, one of Zwingli’s cohorts,
authored a Sunday liturgy entitled Order for Opening and Closing of Sermons.51 The
Puritans followed this Reformed proclivity to celebrate the Lord’s Supper quarterly or
monthly though some, like John Owen, contended for weekly observance.52
As a result, the Reformed tradition increasingly shifted the meaning of the
assembly as a whole and the Lord’s Supper in particular toward a more anthropocentric
focus—it became fundamentally an occasion for pedagogy, a time for teaching and
learning. Without music (Zwingli excluded all music and Puritans only sang a limited
number of Psalms) and Eucharist, the assembly lost the historic church’s sense of
mystery and transcendence. The Eucharist, along with the assembly, was reduced to
Noted by James H. Nichols, “The Liturgical Tradition of the Reformed Churches,” Theology Today 11
(July 1954) 217.
52
John Owen, “A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New
Testament,” The Works of John Owen (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1966 reprint) 15:512.
51
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human activity—what humans did for God or for each other. This has shaped much of
American Evangelicalism though music became increasingly more important as the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries progressed.
Twentieth century liturgical renewal has reinvested in many American churches a
sense of transcendence. Mainline traditions (e.g., Methodists) are moving toward a
weekly liturgical celebration of the Supper (with Robert Webber leading the way53).
Theologians are stressing the Supper’s sacramental nature as well as emphasizing its
political, missional and ecumenical meaning.54 Many Evangelicals are also
reappropriating a sacramental understanding of the Lord’s Supper, that is, it is the “very
means by which we participate in the intangible and spiritual realities without which
there is no life.”55 Some of this, especially in the Reformed tradition, is a recovery of
Calvin’s liturgical sacramentalism as well as table-centered liturgy.56 Though there is
significant variety among Emergent churches, they generally emphasize a weekly table as
well as the social and mysterious dimensions of the meal. The twentieth-first century is
witnessing a renewal of the sacramental table as an encounter between gathered believers
and the divine community. Many within the SCM welcome this renewal.
Assembly. Eastern theology is fundamentally liturgical which is both mystical and
aesthetic. Their architecture is designed to accentuate the mysterious, transcendent
53
Robert Webber, Worship: Old and New (Grand Radids: Zondervan, 1994).
John Koenig, The Feast of the World’s Redemption: Eucharistic Origins and Christian Mission
(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International Press, 2000), Francis J. Moloney, A Body Broken for a Broken
People: Eucharist in the New Testament, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), and William T.
Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers, 1998).
55
Gordon T. Smith, A Holy Meal: The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2005) 25. See also Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper: Recovering the
Sacraments for Evangelical Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
56
James H. Nichols, Corporate Worship in the Reformed Tradition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1968) 57. Cf. Nichols, “The Intent of the Calvinist Liturgy” in The Heritage of John Calvin (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1973) 87-109. See also the Cavlin Center for Worship at Calvin Theological Seminary
(http://www.calvin.edu/worship/stories/lords_supper.php).
54
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presence of God. The sanctuary is God’s dwelling place—it is his throne room. The
surroundings—the icons, the candles, the floor plan, the dome—arouse emotion and
transport the worshipper into the presence of God. They evoke a sense of participation in
the assembly around the throne. Orthodox liturgy stresses that worship is nothing less
than heaven on earth. The holy liturgy embraces two worlds at once—the liturgy of
heaven and earth. When the church gathers for the Eucharist, it gathers with the whole
church around the world in the heavenly places at the throne of God. The “Liturgy of the
Presanctified” states at the time of the Great Entrance that “now the powers of heaven are
serving with us invisibly, for behold the King of Glory enters.”57
While the Western church lost much of this mystery and the sense of
eschatological presence, the assembly of the church for the Eucharist was nevertheless an
entrance into divine presence. The remnants of this idea are found in Western liturgical
traditions. When the church sings the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) it joins the heavenly
chorus surrounding the throne of God. This is no mere distant praise. Rather, “the earthly
church actually and already participates in the worship of heaven.”58
The Orthodox tradition reminds us that the table in the gathered church is the
“sacrament of assembly.”59 The assembly, with the Eucharist at its center, involves the
sacramental presence of God. The assembly is sacred—the whole assembly—because, by
the Spirit, the gathered community has been lifted up into the throne room of God. There
the assembly encounters the divine presence. This moves assembly, and consequently
Eucharist, beyond proclamation and memory. Rather, the “newness, the uniqueness of the
57
The liturgy is available at http://www.byzantines.net/liturgy/presanctified.htm
Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology (London: Epworth Press, 1971) 117.
59
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, trans. Paul Kachur (Crestwood, NY,
St. Vladimir’s, 1987), 27.
58
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Christian leitourgia [is] in its eschatological nature as the presence here and now of the
future parousia, as the ephiphany of that which is to come, as communion with the
‘world to come’.” The day of assembly, the “Lord’s day,” is a “symbol, i.e., the
manifestation, now, of the kingdom.”60 This is no mere corporate vertical relationship,
but the present experience of the future. We see the world with eschatological eyes in the
Eucharist and authentically experience the future.
The presence of the eschatological reality in the assembly gathered around the
table pulls us into the fullness of the kingdom of God. By the Spirit we experience the
alreadiness of the kingdom as we are present in the throne room of God. The assembly is
“the sacrament of the coming of the risen Lord, of our meeting and communion with him
‘at his table in his kingdom’.” Through the Eucharist the church ascends and enters “into
the light and joy and triumph of the kingdom” in such a way that the Eucharist is a “fully
realized symbol.”61 This is the truth of the Orthodox mantra that the assembly of the
church is “heaven on earth,” or “standing in the temple (assembly, JMH) we stand in
heaven.”62 “Let us beware,” Chrysostom warns, “that we do not remain on the earth.”63
The contemporary church—linking itself with this historic past—is renewing this
sense of sacramental assembly in the twenty-first century where the gathered people
constitute a sacramental presence of Christ.64 Even within the Emergent church tradition
which strongly emphasizes mission and discipleship, there is nevertheless a sense of
60
Schmemann, 43.
Schmemann, 43-44.
62
Schmemann, 45.
63
As quoted by Schmemann, 169.
64
See Nathan D. Mitchell, “Christ’s Presence in the Assembly,” Worship 80 (May 2006) 252-265 and
Judith Marie Kubicki, “Recognizing the Presence of Christ in the Liturgical Assembly,” Theological
Studies 65.4 (December 2004) 817-837. Cf. Gordon Lathrop, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999).
61
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gathered community in the presence of God through ritual, liturgy and mutuality.65 It is a
renewal of ancient traditions of gathering, hearing the Word, sharing the meal, and
moving out of assembly to fulfill the mission of God in the world.66 The SCM’s long
tradition of assembling “to meet God” is rooted in the historic tradition of the church and
a strong sacramental understanding of assembly.
Conclusion
The SCM represents an American renewal of ancient sacramental theology
through the lenses of Scottish Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist traditions. That
theology—baptism for the remission of sins, weekly table-centered liturgy, and assembly
in the heavenly sanctuary—is at once biblical, historic and existential. Biblically, it takes
seriously the instrumental language of Scripture where God, by faith, graciously
encounters his people through material elements to which the promises of God are
attached. Historically, it links the contemporary church with its past, particularly the
dominant consensus of the tradition of the church. Existentially, we experience the grace
of the Father through the Holy Spirit whereby the people of God are empowered for
transformation into the image of Christ, assured of God’s faithfulness, encountered by the
presence of Christ, and consecrated to the mission of God in the world. Rather than
retreating from this sacramental theology as if it were an embarrassment, the heirs of the
SCM now have an opportunity for fruitful dialogue with other traditions.
65
Cf. Don Kimball, Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) and Jonny Baker & Doug Gay with Jenny Brown, compliers, Alternative
Worship: Resources from and for the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004).
66
This is the four-fold liturgical pattern that many Emergent and “blended” churches have embraced due to
the work of Robert Webber (e.g., Worship: Old and New).