sacramentalists or sacramentarians part 2…
[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]
Bullinger’s two sermons on the nature of the sacraments are two of the lengthiest in the series. And these aren’t even his sermons on baptism and the Lord’s Supper specifically. He’s only dealing with the nature of the sacraments, not the sacraments themselves.
Again, we must remember the pastoral context to these sermons. The Decades were published between 1549-1552. That’s less than 35 years after the Reformation began and less than 15 years after William Tyndale was executed for publishing his English Bible. We’re dealing with a time in which Protestant theology didn’t exist as such 50 years prior. Churches in which these changes which had taken place would have been unimaginable two generations before. Pastors like Henry Bullinger were taking profound risks with their very lives by shepherding Protestant flocks, and they were investing those lives into those flocks through their preaching and writing.
Why bring all that up? Because Bullinger is profoundly mistaken in this sermon. His title for the sermon is,
That we must reason reverently about the sacraments, that they do not give grace, nor do they have grace included in them. Again, what the virtue and lawful end and use of the sacraments is. That they do us no good without faith; that they are not superfluous to the faithful; and that they do not depend upon the worthiness or unworthiness of the minister.
It’s that second bit where Bullinger errs, that the sacraments do not give grace. Now in fairness to Bullinger, his original version of the work (written in Latin) included the words ‘that they do not give grace of themselves.’ That I’d be happy to agree with. But it’s not what he meant in this sermon. Except it kind of is. Well, it’s complicated. Let’s look at what Bullinger says.
Touching the power and nature of the sacraments, which is to say what they do for man, writers have disputed greatly and abundantly. It seems to me that reverence must be used in this argument, and that I must take great heed that I do not turn either to the right hand or the left; that is, that I do not attribute too much to the sacraments, to the debasing of the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles; nor should I diminish or take away from the sacraments what they attributes to them, and that to my own damnation. But we shall plentifully give great praise and glory to the ordinances of God if we say of them what the Spirit of God has set down in the holy scriptures. To be willing to attribute more to them is not only an error in man, but a great fault which brings death and horrible destruction.
There’s so much in this that I have great sympathy for. His caution and reverence. His desire to ascribe neither too much nor too little to the sacraments. And he would have remembered the divisions that fell out after the Marburg Colloquy 20 years prior. Luther’s temper tantrum, shouting ‘This-is-my-body! [Hoc est corpus meum]’ at those assembled. So close to achieving union between Lutherans and Reformed, but that hope shattered because of a belligerent insistence on Christ’s physical presence in the supper, and that without arguing the point. Just yelling louder.
So I can sympathize with Bullinger. But I still think his definition is wrong, and it’s wrong because he doesn’t understand grace. No, not in the cliché way squishy evangelicals like to insult each other, ‘You just don’t understand grace.’ I mean, he doesn’t understand how scripture uses the term ‘grace’ and the fullness of its meaning especially in the New Testament.
Touching the word ‘grace,’ I will give you these few things to note. Grace is the favour and good-will of God, in which God the Father embraces us for Christ’s sake, purifies, justifies, and endues us with his good gifts, and saves us…. Now to confer grace, what is it else than to give, or frankly and freely to bestow something on a man which he didn’t have before? Therefore, if the sacraments do give grace to those who receive them, then truly they give those things which the sacraments signify–Christ with all his gifts–to those who didn’t have them before. That is to say, they make them pleasant and acceptable to God, they justify and save, and even that of themselves. Insomuch as they are said to have received power to sanctify from the passion of Christ and not to signify only or to help, to commend, or to further. They also attribute the receiving of grace to our work, whereby we receive the sacrament. But how contrary this doctrine is to the truth of his holy prophets and apostles, I will now declare.
Bullinger sees grace itself as a quality, almost a substance. Something which God gives us. Something which does something. This isn’t wholly unlike the Roman Catholic use of the word grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines grace as ‘favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his all to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life.’
The problem with the Catholic definition isn’t only an insufficient understanding of grace itself, but also the way it smuggles human works and merit into the discussion. Grace enables us to respond. How can a dead man live and respond? Grace enables him to. Then does he earn his participation in the divine nature and eternal life? No, it was still God’s free gift, but grace enabled him to merit that gift. Do you see the problem yet?
This is why it’s so critical that the Reformed separate justification and sanctification, you know, the way Romans does. Augustine was really helpful on some things, but he got the church into a blind alley with progressive justification (collapsing justification and sanctification into each other). Justification has to be all and only of God. Otherwise man can claim something before God. Our status, our legal standing before God, our right to paradise, that’s changed only because of Christ’s work on the cross. We are justified by his grace, by his free and undeserved favor, and that completely apart from us. But sanctification, that deals with our nature, who we are, and that is something we participate in. We are sanctified by his grace, this is, by the work of the Spirit, and because of the Spirit’s gracious work we ourselves truly grow to be more conformed to the image of Christ.
You see, grace isn’t just God’s favour, it’s also the Spirit’s work in us. Louis Berkhof points this out (following Bavinck and the Puritan tradition) by looking at passages such as Acts 6.5, 8 and Hebrews 10.29 to show the connection between grace and the Spirit, so much so that Berkhof says that ‘there are clear indications of the fact that [grace] is not a mere passive quality, but also an active force, a power, something that labours (1 Cor 15.10; 2 Cor 12.9; 2 Tim 2.1). In this sense of the word it is something like a synonym for the Holy Spirit’. When scripture speaks of God giving his people his grace, he’s not giving them a thing, he’s giving them a Person.
Thus the Westminster Confession of Faith argues in a similar vein that the sacraments do convey grace to those who receive them in a worthy manner, because grace isn’t a substance or a quality, grace is the work of the Spirit in us.
WCF 27.3. The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments, rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them; neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it, but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.
So contra Bullinger, the sacraments do give grace. No, it’s not from the work of the work itself (ex opere operato), it’s certainly not given without faith on the part of the recipient, but that doesn’t require that the sacraments are given without grace. And, funny enough, Bullinger also insists that the sacraments really do accomplish something for the faithful.
For they are holy things and not profane, because they are instituted of God, and for godly men, not for profane persons. They are effectual, and not without force. For in the church with the godly and faithful they work the same effect and end whereunto they are ordained by God.
Therefore they that partake of the sacraments do not receive nothing, as our opponents say, unless the institution of God is esteemed as nothing. He instituted sacraments to be testimonies of his grace, and seals of the truth of his promises. Therefore, as God is true and cannot lie, so the seals of his promises are most true. He has promised that he will be ours, and that in Christ he will communicate himself to us with all his gifts…. Therefore, when we partake of the sacraments, he proceeds to communicate himself to us in a special manner, that is to say, proper to the sacraments; and so we, which before were made partakers of Christ, do continue and strengthen that communion or fellowship spiritually and by faith in the celebration of the sacraments, outwardly sealing the same to ourselves by the signs.
We’ll look at this more the following week when we look at Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper. But on this issue, Bullinger is a better pastor and exegete than he is a theologian. He wants to keep the scriptural focus on what the sacraments do, and that for the good of the sheep, but he wants to avoid the errors of the Roman Catholic church and its sacramental system. Those errors separated Christ from his gifts and made participation in those gifts a matter of ritual rather than of faith, so we should look at Bullinger with understanding. But there’s much more to the sacraments than he allows in these two sermons. There’s much more to the Spirit’s work through baptism and the supper than many of us realize.
And we need it for our obedience, for our assurance, and for our growth.
Next, on holy baptism
