Faith come by hearing and hearing by the eating of bread and wine?
I mentioned in a previous post that something said on the White Horse Inn last Sunday was bugging me relating to the Lord's Supper. I went back and listened several times, and it still bothers me.
Here are the snippets:
At 12 minutes...
Horton: He is coming down to you in the form of Words
Riddlebarger: Not only in Words but in bread and wine
Rosenblatt: Thank you!
----
At 31 minutes…
Horton: Through the preaching of the Gospel, so that you don’t have to go get it, you just believe it and you are justified.
Rosenblat: Absolutely, key point. And uh also…
Riddlebarger: Add sacraments!
Rosenblat: Yeah, sacraments
Is the Lord coming to the unregenerate in bread and wine? Or is He presented in the preaching of His Word?
It strikes me that there is, dare I say it, an overemphasis on the elements of the Lord's Supper. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We are justified by faith alone. I know these guys would all affirm that, and would (I hope) reject any salvific nature in the Lord's Supper. But the language used here seems careless, as if we are justified by faith and we come to faith by the preaching of the Word and the sacraments. An unbeliever who partakes of the Lord's Supper doesn't find faith in that, they bring down condemnation upon themselves. Just as being baptized without first having a credible profession of faith does not justify one, or bring one to faith.
Maybe I am missing something, because I just don't see what they are talking about. I get that it was a brief snippet of conversation but it happened twice and each time it sounded wrong. I may be way of base here, maybe someone can listen to what they said and help me out.
4 comments:
I caught the show, and I too heard the reference both times. I dismissed it as a reference to a way of reaching the unregenerate, I believe the context the fellows were using referred to "consubstantiation" that states the presence of Christ in the elements whether or not the partakers are believers or unbelievers. Or something like that.
I guess I proceed with the assumption that the sacraments are not agents of regeneration in the way that the Word preached in conjunction with the working of the Holy Spirit. Maybe I am being too restrictive.
The Reformed (i.e., the "truly" Reformed as we Baptists are not considred "truly" Reformed by the WHI) have long believed that Jesus is present in the Supper but not via consubt or transubt. I have no problem when they say he is present in the Supper because the Gospel is preached through it, but I have yet to determine how he is present in the bread and wine but not via consub or transub.
I do know that Luther and Zwingli fought over this (and I mean fought, with Luther banging his fist on the desk shouting "Hoc est corpus meum!" "This is my body") but aupposedly years later, Luther read Calvin's Treatise on the Supper and said that had he read that before there would have been no argument.
Despite this, I still don't get it. Though I have read much of what they say, it doesn't make sense becasue sometimes it sounds like consubt and at other times it sounds like the traditional Baptist memorial view, which to me seems not only more in line with the Scriptures, but also a safer view with regard to biblical teaching.
The Lord's Supper to an unbeliever would, to my mind, be no more effective than a baptism. I think it begins to read more into the event than the Bible warrants. More on this in a fascinating upcoming post.
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