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Open Letter Greetings, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask forgiveness for my typical lack of correspondence and sincerely regret that word from me should come in such a manner that will undoubtedly prove disconcerting to many of you. Be that as it may, I am compelled to send this to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, because I trust your wisdom, love, and friendship. I ask for your reason and counsel regarding the following matters. Answers to specific questions would be wonderful, or just weighing in on general issues would also be greatly appreciated. Please don’t feel obligated to respond to everything or even to reply at all. As many of you know, the divisions in Christendom have long disturbed me. I remember learning about Islam when I was twelve or thirteen how Mohammed’s followers had split into Sunni and Shiite camps and I thought to myself: “Those idiots. They claim to represent the ‘true’ God and here they are split it two sides that can’t agree or get along!” I recognized the pedestrial taste immediately. Is there any doubt why Paul pleads: “that there be no divisions among [us], but that [we] be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1Cor 1:10? It was with this wisdom that the church fathers confessed there to be “One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.” Despite the recent trend towards ecumenism, denominations number some thirty thousand with quotidian growth. Although most of these agree on many essentials, often enough they disagree on what the essentials even are. It certainly doesn’t take a logician to see that this means that error is present and widespread among the faithful. Christ, remember, is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” John 14:6. The pursuit of Truth is thus the pursuit of Christ. Although I’m not as brilliant as some of you, I do operate largely on an intellectual basis compared with many and desire to be sure of my beliefs. I’ve become an adult, and can no longer delay a decision on what church has it right. The division in today’s church in the West springs from the Protestant Reformation. It is consequently here that I began my investigation. The Reformation centered on two issues: sola scriptura, or scripture alone, and sola fide, or justification by faith alone. I first came to doubt sola scriptura some six years ago. Studying Judaism at the time, I discovered that they acknowledged divine revelation in two forms of Truth handed down from Moses at Sinai: the written Torah and the oral Torah handed down from rabbi to rabbi. Although this both bothered and intrigued me, I delayed further study, fearing the possible consequences. So I ignored everything, hiding safely in my Afghani cave lest the army rangers spot me. Last spring, Christ challenged me on my disobedience. Circumstances now compel me to make a responsible, well-informed decision. I have since searched the scriptures. I have read everything I could get my hands on: Luther, Calvin, White, Sproul, Armstrong, MacArthur, and others on the Protestant side and Hahn, Newman, Hoge, Staples, Keating, Sungenis, Currie, the Catechism, Trent, and Vatican II on the Catholic. While I knew that the Catholic Church had the advantage of two eons of unbroken succession going back to Christ and the Apostles, I still had qualms with many of the distinctive Catholic doctrines, believing many of them to be unbiblical and contradictory to the Bible. The more I read, however, the more logical and biblical these doctrines appeared and the less biblical my own Protestant “Bible Christian” ones began to appear. I know the cost of discipleship, and know that I must follow Christ wherever he may lead me, even if it means loosing the friendship of those I hold so dear. I hope it shall never come to that! So, if I am wrong, please convince me so. I am, after all, accountable to you, my brothers and sisters. I wish there were space and time for everything, however in the interest of brevity here are the three greatest reasons for my alleged apostasy: Sola Scriptura
Protestantism is based upon the belief that Scripture is the sole rule of authority, faith and practice. It is the sole infallible interpreter of itself, and is perspicuous (clear) concerning all matters necessary for salvation. Catholics believe that Christ did not establish a Scripture so much as a Church. The apostles were given a deposit of faith through Christ and the Holy Spirit that has, like that of Moses, been passed down through both written and oral traditions. Christ furthermore delegated His teaching authority to the Apostles, passed on through Apostolic Succession, which not only recognized and canonized the Scripture, but is also needed to clarify and infallibly interpret the Bible. Both sides agree completely that the
Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God.
The Catholic position immediately struck me as being in
harmony with Jewish practice prior to Christ. Nowhere
does the Bible deny the Oral Torah. When Jesus
criticizes tradition, it is against traditions of men
that nullify the word of God. This does not
deny divine oral tradition, or even traditions of men in
harmony with the word. In fact, Paul states: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” 2 Thess 2:15, NIV. I propose: 1) It seems logical that if Scripture is the sole rule of faith and practice, then this doctrine should itself be Scriptural. In fact, not only should it be, it must! In fact it is not. The verses best used to defend it do not hold up to closer scrutiny, such as 2 Timothy 3: 16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” NIV. Now, first of all, this says ‘All Scripture’, not ‘Only Scripture”. It also states that Scripture is ‘useful’ or ‘profitable’ for those things, not the sole source or authority. Lastly, there is no New Testament when Paul wrote this and he was referring to the Old Testament. It, Paul tells Timothy in verse 15, is able to make him ‘wise unto salvation’. If this passage teaches sola scriptura, then it teaches sola olday estamenttay! There are of course far more passages argued over which we can discuss, but I have found no convincing scriptural evidence for the doctrine. Sola scriptura is an extra-biblical rule of faith and practice that must be rejected on its own reasoning. The
Bible nowhere states its contents (The table of contents
is not part of it). The canon of the New Testament
was hotly disputed for many years following the death of
the Apostles, a process itself making sola scriptura
unworkable in the early Church. It was not until
the Synod of Hippo in 393 (well after the conversion of
Constantine and the alleged apostasy of the Roman whore
of Babylon) that the 27 books of the New Testament were
first listed and defined by the Church. Up until
this time, the acceptance of books such as Hebrews, 2
Peter, and Revelation varied from place to place.
Church authority settles the matter of the Bible for the
Catholic. Although we as Protestants unthinkingly
rely on Zondervan and the ‘traditions of men’,
there is really nothing stopping the individual
interpreter, guided by the Holy Spirit, from rejecting
books of the canon, as the reformers rejected the
Apocrypha and as Luther initially attempted to do to
James, Revelation, and other NT books which presented
problems for his Gospel of faith alone. The ‘epistle
of Straw’ slur commonly slung at Catholic
pronouncements originates in Luther’s attack on the
book of James (part of the NT for those of you from Rio
Linda)! 3) Sola Scriptura is disproved by 500 years of Protestant history. Martin Luther began the Reformation against a church that needed reform. It always has and always will until the return of the king. Sola scriptura was necessary to circumvent Church authority in order to validate sola fide. In so doing, Luther opened a Pandora’s box that continues to spawn denomination after denomination half a millennia later. He quickly found himself as a more moderate reformer, but had no way of keeping the reform camp together. Sola scriptura teaches that Scripture is perspicuous (sufficiently clear for the Christian guided by the Holy Spirit to understand the essentials) concerning all matters necessary for salvation. We have found that it is not. In fact, we can’t even agree on what matters are essential for Salvation! A good example is Baptism. Extreme circumstances aside (the thief on the cross), is it necessary for salvation? Do we not just need to “accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” (find that one in the Bible!)? Is water baptism? Is it sacrament or symbol? Does it regenerate degenerates? Is it necessary for infants? Shouldn’t these matters be clear in Scripture to the praying Christian? Correct
me if I’m wrong, but is not sola scriptura the
heart of so many divisions in the Church? I mean is
not one of the thousands of Protestant denominations
right and the others teaching multiple falsehoods? Why
would Christ not give us an authority, knowing this would
arise, that would settle these matters? 4) He did. When in Acts there arises a dispute over the necessity of circumcision and keeping the law of Moses, a council is convened at Jerusalem which settled the matter in Acts 15. Now was this not settled before Paul recorded it in writing because of church authority, or is it only infallible because he wrote it down? You object that this authority was only with the apostles. Then why is Matthias chosen to take Judas’ place among them in Acts 1? The KJV best translates the Greek as “let his bishoprick let another take” Acts 1:20. Is this not scriptural evidence for Apostolic succession? If not, what is it? Where in Scripture does it say that church authority died with the last Apostle? Is this not an extra-biblical rule of faith and practice? I could go on for ages, but will spare you for the time being. These points alone where enough for me to began to seriously question my Protestant heritage. Sola FideAn adequate discussion of this topic would require a book, but following are my major issues: The material cause of the Reformation is justification by faith alone. Justification is understood as a forensic, legal act in which God declares the sinner to be righteous through faith alone in Christ, and that God as judge sees not our sins but the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Works can play no part in our justification whatsoever. The Church objected that
justification was through faith working in love. Their
outlook is not so much a legal one as a familial one.
The righteousness of Christ is not so much imputed as
infused into the Christian. Justification is not a
one time act in which we accept Christ as personal lord
and savior, but a process of receiving sanctifying grace,
beginning with baptism (initial justification) and
continued through a life-long process of “working
out” our salvation Phil 2:12-13. Justification
is intimately linked with sanctification, and the
believer is not merely declared righteous but, in this
life and the following, made righteous. It is important to first note that both sides agree that salvation is a completely gratuitous gift from God and that nothing that we do before justification or without Christ’s Grace, either faith or works, can in any way merit justification before a Holy God. The Protestant position is simple, very appealing, avoids some very sticky, confusing doctrines that easily lead to corruption, and has many verses that seem to support it: “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5:1, “By Grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, but is the gift of God; not as a result or works, that no one should boast’ Ephesians 2:8-9. Most such versus come from Paul’s epistles. However, the deeper into the Bible one goes (I have not found convincing evidence that sola fide, the alleged heart of the Gospel, was taught by anyone before Luther. Every statement by a church father that seems to confirm it is explicitly denied in another statement. For the sake of discussion I’ll limit this to the Bible.), the more problematic the issue becomes. I always knew that “faith without works is dead” James 2:30. If you read a few lines down, however, you’ll discover that the apostle wrote that: “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only” James 2:24 NKJV. It is troubling that were justification through faith alone the very essence of the gospel, the Holy Spirit did not once inspire Paul or any of the other writes to qualify “faith”, a central theme in all his writings, with the word “alone”. The Spirit did, however, prompt James to explicitly deny it. In fact, Luther added the word “alone” to his translation of the Bible into German where it was not in the Greek so as to justify his justification. You won’t even find this in other Protestant versions like the KJV. In addition, there are many verses that I find irreconcilable to justification by faith alone. Here are some: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” Matt 7:21 “For not the hearers of the law
are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be
justified.” Rom 2:13 God “will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality” Rom 2:6-7 I think most of the trouble over this issue derives from a misunderstanding of what Paul means by ‘works of the law’. Paul contends to a large extent with the heretical faction of Jewish Christians who required that gentile converts conform to the laws of the old covenant such as circumcision (which was superceded by baptism). It seems that these, not the new covenant laws such as “love thy neighbor as thyself” and “do this in remembrance of me,” are what Paul means as ‘works of the law’. As for other passages, I have not found them inconsistent with the Tridentine position. For example, we are told “By Grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, but is the gift of God; not as a result or works, that no one should boast’ Ephesians 2:8-9). Now while this is perfectly consistent with sola fide, it does not explicitly teach it. To claim this as undeniable proof of sola fide is to practice eisegesis. This passage is absolutely true by both theological standards. The central truth of the passages is quite clearly that we are saved by Grace, not by our own works or righteousness. It is Christ’s righteousness, whether imputed, infused, or overdue from the heavenly library, which saves us. This passage must also be interpreted in the light of the rest of scripture, which also tells us we are “justified by works, and not by faith alone”. Now, as an interesting note, as I understand it the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Churches (all save one small, backwater group) are more or less now officially reconciled on this issue. Please don’t ask me how. If you know, please enlighten me. Although I personally cannot accept Luther’s idea (Ich kann noch nicht anders), I often wonder why this became the article on which the Church stands or falls. I certainly don’t find it clearly taught in the Bible at all, and I find it enlightening that it is not even an important question in the Eastern Church. Ultimately I think Paul’s command for unity more important than scholastic hair-splitting on this issue, and can thus see no reason to remain separate from the Church universal over this issue, even if I did find sola fide convincing. The Eucharist The Eucharist is also a source of major contention between Protestants and Catholics, albeit to largely varying degrees. The greatest distinction is of course between those who believe in the Real Presence (Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans), and those who view communion as merely or mostly symbolic (Followers of Zwingli, Anabaptists, Presbyterians…) I will deal largely with symbol vs. substance, and not over the philosophical manner in which ‘this is my body’ (transubstantiation vs. consubstatiation, etc.) One of the most important portions of scripture concerning the Eucharist is found in John 6. Jesus states: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” John 6:51. Now Jesus says “I am the…” quite a few times. He tells us in John 10:9 “I am the door”, but none of his listeners ever accuses him of being made out of wood (although word is he floats on water). This is because when He says something like “I am the true vine”, they all understood the metaphor and that he was speaking metaphorically. John 6, however, is different. The Jews do not take him metaphorically. They question: “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” John 6:52. Cannibalism, remember, is forbidden in the Torah, as is drinking blood. Jesus is a good teacher. When his disciples do not understand, he explains. Now rather than clarifying that “Well I didn’t mean literally eat my flesh but symbolically remember it,” he encourages their alleged error. He responds "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him… He who eats this bread will live forever” John 6:53-58. The Jews are shocked: “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” verse 60 (NIV translates it better as “Who can accept it?"). Jesus fires back “Does this offend you?” “Now from this moment many who had gathered there in Capernaum left and followed him no more” John 6:66. Scripture is clear that they took him literally and thought it abhorrent. Yet Jesus lets them depart forever over such a misunderstanding? In fact this is the only incident in which Christ’s followers leave him over a doctrinal matter it the Bible! It also seems to be the beginning of Judas’ fall. Jesus asks the twelve if they want to go too, but Peter responds: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” In other words, “Yeah, we’re thinking about it because you’re speaking lunacy. We just don’t have anywhere else to go!” The traditional response to this is that Jesus backtracks in verse 63, rendering everything else symbolic: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” The argument goes that the flesh (the substance of the Eucharist or physical matter) profits nothing, but it’s the spirit in the action and the belief in Christ’s death that gives life. Clearly, Plato lives too. I think this is incorrect. If the flesh (i.e. the substance) profits nothing, then Christ need not physically die. I mean why even become flesh if it profits nothing! The incarnation? You can see this quickly leading to Gnosticism. But Christ’s death in the flesh (substance) profited everything! I therefore propose that Christ means it is the Spirit, or supernatural understanding granted by grace, that allows us to understand this, and that the flesh or human comprehension cannot grasp it. Jesus later uses this meaning of the ‘flesh’ as our fallen human understanding or reason when he tells his opponents: “You judge according to the flesh…” John 8:15. Jesus means that belief in such a radical teaching must be a matter of faith. Now, the second part of 63 has been taken to mean that life is given through the Word, which is the bread of life and the flesh of Christ. Now I’m not going to reject this. Christ is after all the Word made flesh, which is the bread of life! But this must not be taken so as to discard everything Christ just said. The words that give life, after all, are to eat his flesh and drink his blood! The Greek word used in John for ‘eat’ is a graphic one that could also be translated ‘chew’. It’s also worth mentioning that although at the Last Supper Christ could have said in either Greek or Aramaic “This represents my body” or “This contains my body”, he said “This is my body”. Ironic, is in not, that Fundamentalists who insist on the absolute literalness of Genesis and seven days should cling so ardently to a symbolic interpretation here at the heart of the New Testament when the bloody Catholics are virtually the only literalists around? The belief in the Eucharist as the Real Presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ is perhaps the most important, joyous, and enlightening revelation I’ve ever had in my Christian journey. “Let me esplain. No, there is no time. Let me sum up”: Christ came to form a new covenant. This is not primarily a contract whereby God justifies sinners. It is much more. Covenants forge family bonds. This is why marriage is really a covenant, not a legal contract, and why Christians have always viewed Christ’s relationship with His Church in terms of a marriage. Christ invites us to share in the eternal life of the Trinity! Now let’s just examine the marriage covenant, which I think we can all agree was instituted by God in Genesis and is a truly holy institution. In a marriage all the family gathers around and the couple makes vows to one another and says “I do” and then they are married and that’s it, right? Well, yeah, that’s all vital, but the union isn’t set in stone and the vow is not fulfilled until it’s consummated. How does this work? In a contract, we exchange goods and services; but in a covenant, we exchange persons. My life is yours; your life is mine. If you’ll forgive me a biological reality, the marriage covenant is sealed when the bride receives the bridegroom physically into herself and, as we are told, the two become one flesh. So how, I ask you, do we become members of the body of Christ? How are we, the bridegroom, united to our beloved? Could the Eucharist be the wedding feast of the lamb? Might it be the consummation of Christ’s covenant? Jesus attended a wedding feast at which he performed his first miracle. He replenished their stocks by turning water into wine. In fact, one might even go so far as to say he transubstantiated their water into wine. Could this miracle have a deeper meaning when pondered with the rest of scripture? Is it mere coincidence it happens at a wedding, or perhaps even foreshadowing? What about the feeding of the five thousand? Jesus commands his apostles to distribute a meager five loaves to thousands, yet there is miraculously more than enough! Is it also a coincidence that this immediately precedes the above passages from John 6 above about eating His flesh and blood? Could His flesh be miraculously transformed to feed a billion? Paul also seems to teach the Real Presence. “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” 1 Cor 10: 16 NIV. His instructions that each examines himself before partaking because “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord… For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself” 1 Cor 11:27,29 NIV seem inconsistent with the idea of symbolism. To sin against, or ‘answer for’ as other translations have it, someone’s body is literally to be guilty of homicide. This seems to imply more than a symbol. The thing that really leads me to a literal interpretation of these passages, however, has been my study of the Last Supper and Crucifixion and their relation to and fulfillment of the Old Covenant sacrifices. I was largely reared, as many of you, to regard the more sacramental and liturgical sects as a ‘religion’ (a dirty word, mind you) occupied with empty symbols and acts signifying dimly remembered truths. Now I am frankly beginning to think I had it exactly backwards. The Crucifixion, I believe, is inseparably linked to the initiation of the New Passover in the Upper Room. It is at the Last Supper that Christ begins the Jewish Passover liturgy. Here we find in Scripture the second and third cups in the cup of wine, the blessing, and the unleavened bread. We also find the singing of the hil-el Psalms 114-118. But then something odd happens. Jesus forgets the fourth cup, the cup of consummation! Instead he states "I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until I am entering into the kingdom of God" and heads out into the night. This shocked the apostles and any Jew who would have read it! He forgot the central part! But he didn’t. He pleads with His Father to “remove this cup”! Which cup? The fourth cup of the Passover meal. In Mark 15:23 he is offered wine and myrrh as a painkiller, but refuses not only because he is to suffer for the sins of the world, but because of his pledge at the Last Supper not to drink of the fruit of the vine. Jesus is crucified. Now immediately preceding Jesus’ death, John records an informative fact: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" John 19:28-30.
Now let’s step back to the first Passover, way back in Egypt. What did God command the Israelites to do in order that the spirit of death might pass over them in Exodus 12? They had to eat unleavened bread, take an unblemished lamb, slaughter it, spread it’s blood above their door with a hyssop branch, and then eat all of the lamb. In the NT Passover we find unleavened bread, a sacrificed unblemished lamb, wine held aloft with a hyssop branch, and the eating of the lamb. Now putting that all together was the first time in my life that I actually started to understand why we practice this odd quasi-cannibalistic ritual. To eat and drink the sacrificial lamb is to take part in that sacrifice. We ‘remember’ not only in the sense of mentally recalling Jesus, but in a greater sense such as we see in Genesis where God ‘remembers’ his covenant with Abraham. Did he need reminding, as if God forgot? No, God remembers when he participates, enacts, lives, follows and fulfills his covenant. Therefore let us also participate, live and follow in Christ’s new Passover. The evidence from the early Church confirms this reading of scripture. The earliest examples are: “[heretics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]). "We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (Justin Martyr, First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]). Well, I really ought not to write more. I feel like the man who strove for orthodoxy and, upon finding it, discovered that he had become a heretic! Actually, I quite feel like our Protestant tradition has failed me. At worst, I suppose, I would not find Augustine, Aquinas, Tolkien, Buckley, Chesterton and Newman such bad company. Once again, please send me your thoughts, criticisms, questions, and responses. I’d like to hear them, or would at least entreat your enduring friendship. Also, please keep me in prayer. Your humble servant, Ryan (This letter was written as informal correspondence and thus does not contain footnotes. References are available upon request and my apologies to anyone who has not be properly referenced. Those responsible for the referencing have been sacked. Your cousin was bit by a moøse?) |