Was the early Church 'Baptist'/Evangelical?

[dean198]

quote:
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I think I would disagree with you on the mono-episcopal system - as far as I can tell it was instituted by the apostles themselves, possibly out of the ministry of evangelists. Timothy for example was given authority to appoint and remove elders in ephesus.....Titus for given jurisdiction to set in order all of the churches of Crete.
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"mono-episcopacy" means, as you just criticized above, "the Roman papacy claiming authority never taught by the ante nicene church". i.e. one bishop supreme over all.

I thought you meant the one bishop to a city idea. I can't see what else Timothy and Titus were if not the first bishops....and the early church taught this also.

It is basically the secular business/govt. "executive" model (which itself is greatly unbalanced as it is). And it was Rome which basically started it, even though the positions were further rehashed afterwards.
Yes, it is all mixed up today, and I just pray God will begin opening people up to what He has really layed out for us in the Bible. Tradition is getting us nowhere.

Yeah, we really need to get back to the New Testament, and not just talk about it. I strongly believe in house church for a variety of reasons, but money is one...it should be spent on building living stones, not dead ones.

 

[John Gilmore]

Originally posted by John Gilmore:

The bread and wine do not transform. His word, "This is my body", is efficacious wherever His word is spoken and the meaning of His word is not changed to something other than "This is my body."

The Lutheran Church is the only Christian church that purposely omits all human prayers immediately before and after Christ's words ("This is my body; this is my blood") in Holy Communion. As 'Sola Scriptura' and the early fathers teach, it is not our words or our prayers that cause His body to be present but His word alone is efficacious.

As Chrysostom says (in Serm. de Pass.) in his Sermon concerning the Passion: Christ Himself prepared this table and blesses it; for no man makes the bread and wine set before us the body and blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The words are spoken by the mouth of the priest, but by God's power and grace, by the word, where He speaks: "This is My body," the elements presented are consecrated in the Supper. And just as the declaration, Gen. 1, 28: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," was spoken only once, but is ever efficacious in nature, so that it is fruitful and multiplies, so also this declaration ["This is My body; this is My blood"] was spoken once, but even to this day and to His advent it is efficacious, and works so that in the Supper of the Church His true body and blood are present.
Formula of Concord, Art. VII, 1576

 

[Eric B]

But scripture does not say He is physically present in the sacrament!

"This is my body"

That does not say that. You're reading that into a simple statement of "remembrance". That was the point. Not some mystical reality.

The bread and wine do not transform. His word, "This is my body", is efficacious wherever His word is spoken and the meaning of His word is not changed to something other than "This is my body."

So it all really hinges on the physical. No wonder that is so important!

Exactly!

As 'Sola Scriptura' and the early fathers teach, it is not our words or our prayers that cause His body to be present but His word alone is efficacious.


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As Chrysostom says (in Serm. de Pass.) ...And just as the declaration, Gen. 1, 28: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," was spoken only once, but is ever efficacious in nature, so that it is fruitful and multiplies, so also this declaration ["This is My body; this is My blood"] was spoken once, but even to this day and to His advent it is efficacious, and works so that in the Supper of the Church His true body and blood are present.

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All of this is still assigning a mystical meaning to it that is not warranted by the text alone. You affirm "Exactly" it is all about the physical, but remember, this is a spiritual reality! And first it as compared to the Incarnation and resurrection, and then the "multiplying" of bread and fish; and now it's the Creation! Still, all bread and wine is not created as Christ's flesh and blood. It would have to "transform" sometime. I guess whenever it is selected for use in the ceremony.
Once again, it seems to me much simpler just to say that it is a spiritual presence (not physical), and this primarily from two or three being gathered in His name, to partake the supper. Anything beyond that, and you have to go way outside scripture to Fathers who added their own spin to it. Once again, none of us even follows everything they said.

[ August 10, 2004, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]

 

[John Gilmore]

Eric B,

quote:
But scripture does not say He is physically present in the sacrament!

"This is my body"

That does not say that. You're reading that into a simple statement of "remembrance". That was the point. Not some mystical reality.

No. You are creating a mystical reality of remembrance. I am simply repeating scripture.

Still, all bread and wine is not created as Christ's flesh and blood. It would have to "transform" sometime. I guess whenever it is selected for use in the ceremony.
Once again, it seems to me much simpler just to say that it is a spiritual presence (not physical), and this primarily from two or three being gathered in His name, to partake the supper. Anything beyond that, and you have to go way outside scripture to Fathers who added their own spin to it. Once again, none of us even follows everything they said.

Let me repeat. The elements do not transform. The papists added their spin to the simple words of scripture in order to justify their blasphemous work of the mass. The fathers did not teach the papist "transformation" of the bread and wine.

For the reason why, in addition to the expressions of Christ and St. Paul (the bread in the Supper is the body of Christ or the communion of the body of Christ), also the forms: under the bread, with the bread, in the bread [the body of Christ is present and offered], are employed, is that by means of them the papistical transubstantiation may be rejected and the sacramental union of the unchanged essence of the bread and of the body of Christ indicated...
Even as many eminent ancient teachers, Justin, Cyprian, Augustine, Leo, Gelasius, Chrysostom and others, use this simile concerning the words of Christ's testament: This is My body, that just as in Christ two distinct, unchanged natures are inseparably united, so in the Holy Supper the two substances, the natural bread and the true natural body of Christ, are present together here upon earth in the appointed administration of the Sacrament.
Formula of Concord, Art. VII, 1576

The natural body of Christ is present as His own plain words and those of Paul and the early fathers attest. But His Body is present according to His word alone not any work, merit, word, or prayer of man.

 

[Eric B]

No. You are creating a mystical reality of remembrance. I am simply repeating scripture.

The natural body of Christ is present as His own plain words and those of Paul and the early fathers attest.

You may be "repeating" scripture, but you're still adding all of this other stuff to it; no less than I am. (it does not "attest" anything about any "natural body", or any other such philosophy). I'm just pointing out that you can not always take that word "IS" to mean something literal, physical. We see that in Gal. 4:24, 25. Then there's Heb. 12:29. (this one does not even specify it as an allegory!). There are manyother such examples.

Let me repeat. The elements do not transform. The papists added their spin to the simple words of scripture in order to justify their blasphemous work of the mass. The fathers did not teach the papist "transformation" of the bread and wine.

But His Body is present according to His word alone not any work, merit, word, or prayer of man.

OK, then I don;t understand, now. Did the bread and wine start out as the body and blood? Is all bread and wine already that now? This doesn't make any more sense than saying it transformed.

 

[John Gilmore]

Eric B,

For the third and last time, the bread and wine that the Lord blesses in Holy Communion remain bread and wine until they are consumed in the stomaches of the communicants.

The Lord does not lie or deceive although men do. The body and blood of Christ is present in, with, and under that bread and that wine when His word is spoken, "This is my body; this is my blood" and men do not change His word to mean, "This is not my body; this is not my blood."

 

[Eric B]

For the third and last time, the bread and wine that the Lord blesses in Holy Communion remain bread and wine until they are consumed in the stomaches of the communicants.

OK, I didn't get that from all the commentary you osted before. Thanks for finally spelling it out. I take it you mean that they are always bread and wine (until they are disolved into waste), not that they then become the body and blood when they are digested into the body.
I still don't quite get what it means to be "present in, with, and under". I would simply once again restate that as Christ's presence being spiritual, not physical.


To further comment on "mystical reality of remembrance" vs. "simply repeating scripture", if you simply repeat the rest of the verse, you'll come across the "remembrance" part. (Pardon me, but I don't know how I could miss that comeback. When I'm reading through all these discussions, I can be short of wit sometimes.) It was not made up as any "mystical reality". Yet as we see, adding all of this philosophy to a simple statement, and the simplicity of the Gospel. causes confusion

 

[John Gilmore]

Eric B,

I still don't quite get what it means to be "present in, with, and under".

There is ample precedent in the Church Catholic for the use of phrases that are not in bible in order to refute errorists (e.g., the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, etc.). "In, with, and under" refutes those who say they agree with Paul, "the bread that we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" but deny his words. For example, the papists teach that the bread is not present; the Calvinists that the Body is not present; and the consubstantionists that the bread and the Body form some sort of mixture. But scripture, the early fathers, and the Lutheran Church all teach the sacramental union of the body and Blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine.

 

[Eric B]

So both the body and the bread are there. Wouldn't that also be some sort of "mixture"? Or is it supposed to be some "purality in unity" like the Trinity? I would say that was overgenerakization. But just like that doctrine, because the Bible does not lay it out as a formula, yet some misunderstand and formulate a wrong doctrine, and read it into the scriptures; then the so-called "orthodox" come with a counter-formula, sculpted around the false theories, and read it into the Bible under the premise of "clarifying" it. By this time we have gooten far away from any real Biblical statement, without any preconceived interpretation on it. But it doesn't have to be in the Bible; it is just clarifying what it does teach in opposition to that error over there. I think we need to get back to what the Bible says alone, and realize that much of what we think it says is also our own interpretation.
Once again, Paul repeated Christ verbatim, and if you read the rest of the verse, it is "this is my body, which is broken for you...[now it does not end here]...this do in remembrance of Me." Paul then adds "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until He come". Nothing about recreating it; no new "homoousion" of the body and bread. And for that reason, anyone who partakes of it to fill themselves is "guilty of (liable to) the body and blood of the Lord", and "not discerning ("separating thoroughly"; not respecting as "set apart" or sacred) the Lord's body" i.e. the "real" one which was actually "broken" for us. The ceremony is to remind us of this solemn event, and to take it lightly dishonors Christ. Nothing other than that is said.

 

[John Gilmore]

Eric B,

As new errors are developed by innovative preachers, the church must continually development doctrinal statements to refute these new errors. For example, the Papists also take Paul's words "show the Lord's death until He come" out of context. Only, instead of a remembrance meal contrary to Christ's plain words, they derive a proof text for the Sacrifice of the Mass!

 

[dean198]

Eric, I wanted to tell you about a resource which I have found very interesting....it is
www.scrollpublishing.com
The guy produces lots of tapes about the early church....and they totally demolish Romanism and Eastern Orthodoxy....and Protestantism!

Dean

 

[Eric B]

Pretty interesting catalogue of resources. It took me a long time to find out which movement he was coming from. His book on the Restoration Movement (i.e. Campbellism) makes it clear he is in the Campbell/Stone camp.
While I admire the ideal of the Restoration movement, they too make some of the same mistakes in projecting 2nd. century thought into the NT. They may be on my side rearding communion, but with Baptism, they are clearly on the Catholic side, and then there's the ridiculous instruments philosophy, which has been used a lot lately on the Music forum by the traditional-only side (ven though they use instruments).

I've found some stuff I had quoted a long time ago regarding the transition from the apostolic age to the apostolic fathers:

Jesse Lyman Hurlbut The Story of the Christian Church p.41

We would like to read of the later work of such helpers of St. Paul as Timothy, Apollos, and Titus., but all these...drop out of record at his death. For 50 years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it arises, about AD 120, with the writings of the earliest church fathers [Justin], we find a church in many aspects different from that in the days of Peter and Paul

William Fitzgerald, Lectures on Ecclesiastical History:

...over this period of transition, which immediately succeeds upon the era properly called apostolic, great obscurity hangs...

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church

The remaining 30 years of the first century are involved in mysterious darkness, illuminated only by the writings of John. This is a period of church history about which we know least and would like to know most.

William J. McGothlin, The Course Of Christian History

But Christianity itself had been in [the] process of transformation as it progressed and at the close of the period was in many respects quite different from the apostolic Christianity -

Samuel G. Green, A Handbook of Christian History:

The 30 years which followed the close of the New Testament Canon and the destruction of Jerusalem are in truth, the most obscure in the history of the Church. When we emerge in the second century, we are, to a great extent, in a changed world

 

[dean198]

Not quite Eric! Bercot was raised a Jehovah Witness, became an evangelical, ordained as an Anglican priest, and now attends a Mennonite Church! He has some respect for the Campbellites and Methodists and others though.
Clips of some of his messages can be heard at:
http://truthseekers.8m.com/Bercot/Bercot.html
I disagree with the idea that there is a big difference between the apostolic and post apostolic age. Eusebius' history covers both periods, and such post apostolic leaders as Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp personally knew the apostles. What these writers mean is that the teaching of the post apostolic writers doesn't agree with the theological grid they have forced upon the apostles.
Regards
Dean

 

[Eric B]

No, what it means is that while some of those earliest fathers may have known the apostles, they still began putting their own spin on things. Like Ignatius' exaltation of the bishops. We see the office mentioned in the NT, but not given anywhere near the focus Ignatius gave them, and which further developed as time went on. Evn knowing the apostles personally was not a guarantee of doctrinal purity. Theapostles "knew" people who turned away also. Not that these fathers totally apostasized, but as another writer put it, they began "penning religious epistles, in sincerity, but not under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit". The Doctrines celarly were changing, as even you would admit. It had to begin somewhere. It began right as the apostles wrote, as they warned; it did not stay 100% pure for a hundred yeard, then suddenly change.

 

[dean198]

Well, I disagree there. I can't see what 'spin' they put on anything. When different churches and leaders, spread over the whole world and several generations, hold a uniformity of faith, and their faith is preserved from the original apostles independently from each other...than that is the apostolic faith. Ignatius, when you understand the context in which he wrote, really said nothing unscriptural. The churches were having problems with false teachers teaching docetism, and so Ignatius exhorts them to follow the bishops, because they hold to the orthodox teaching that Christ was really born of a virgin, really suffered on the cross, and was bodily raised from the dead, all of which the false teachers were denying. These false teachers were setting up their own meetings, and like Diotrophes, they refused to receive any of the orthodox teachers such as the bishop or those appointed by the bishop. Ignatius also wrote to Polycarp, and Polycarp was friends with John for twenty years, and appointed by John and perhaps other apostles. These were faithful men, not the false teachers who both Paul and John said are marked out by the fact that they leave the church and start their own meetings. That was how false teachers could be recognised. We also know their teachings....denying that Christ came in the flesh, turning the grace of God into a licence to sin, forbidding to marry, etc. These were the gnostics. The actual apostacy of the church was not until the fourth century. Before than the church was the true church with the true teaching of the apostles, by and large. Was is it the early church taught which you do not want to accept or believe?

Dean

 

[Eric B]

No, I certainly prefer the early Church to the later one (including the present). But I could just see how the doctrines were gradually starting to change; even from the "orthodox" leaders. Just like I had mentioned; Ignatius may have had noble reasons for teaching what he did regarding the bishops, but this was not how the apostles had taught how to handle the situations (i.e. exalting an office of he Church. And it seemed to be for persecution more than for false doctrine). So later leaders would take that; their successors would further expand upon it; and eventually, it would slowly transform into the fourth century system you speak of. (with bishops being given "authority" over wider areas, and bishops ruling over bishops; leading to five "patriarchs"; then eventually one over all). That did not spring up all of a sudden overnight. As Karen Armstrong put it, by the time Constantine came and favored the Church, it had already become "an efficient organization that was a microcosm of the Empire. That's onr reason why he liked it so. This was not the system the apostles had left.
So this is an example of how slight changes in the postapostolic period grew into doctrines that were unbiblical.

 

[dean198]

Well I have to agree that changes were coming in, (like infant baptism in North Africa). I don't think Ignatius had anything to do with the later development, and I would have to read Karen Armstrong, because I can't see that the pre-Nicene church resembled the empire in organization. It was during the time of Constantine that it was changed. I still think that the early church is a much better guide than anything since, but maybe you kind of agree with that to an extant too. But yes, scripture is the most important.
Dean

 

[Eric B]

It wasn't as much of an organization until Constantine, of course, but it was getting there. All that was needed was for Constantine to back it and end the persecution.

 

[wopik]

dean198

Polycarp personally knew the apostles

Polycarp was friends with [Apostle] John for twenty years....

That's why Polycarp and Polycrates were Quartodecimans: they observed Nisan 14 as the anniversary of Jesus' death. They kept the NT Passover- the cup and bread, "...the night in which He was betrayed...." (1 Cor 11: 23).

 

[wopik]

Polycarp learned directly from the Apostle John. Both kept Nisan/Abib 14 as the anniversary of Jesus' death.

Both were Quartodecimans, as was Jesus Himself.


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