For the foreseeable future, CommunioSanctorum.com will reside here at cs.reformedcatholicism.com. Please fix your links accordingly.

Since most of our activity is at ReformedCatholicism.com, we’re going to be working on taking the posts here and importing them into the ReformedCatholicism.com website and making them available to the public there. We’ll mark them as CS posts (probably through a unique category/sub-categories model) so everyone can find them at a moment’s notice.

We have other plans for this domain name. (imperious laugh inserted here!) :)

1. Sola Scriptura is only true if the Bible is viewed as the possession of the Church, and not the possession of the individual. It is the early Church which published the Bible (the same Church which wrote the early Creeds), and therefore it is to that Church that we must first look to guide our understanding of the deposit of faith found in Holy Scripture. Sola Scriptura simply means that the Bible contains the only divinely revealed (and therefore infallible) statement of our Faith, so that public revelation is not to be sought outside of Scripture. It means that the authority of the Church is to be expressed through a reverent submission to Holy Scripture, neither adding to it nor taking from it. But sola Scriptura is a principle for the Church, and not a hermeneutical rule for the individual in his Bible study. For an individual to employ a sola Scriptura principle (I base my belief on the Bible alone) is a sure recipe for subjectivism, heresy and disaster. Such is the heresy of the Radical Reformation and much of today’s “evangelical” Baptistish Bible-onlyism.

2. The boundaries of the Christian faith are entirely contained in the Bible, and are defined in the Ecumenical Creeds of the early Church. The first four Creeds mark out the limits of the Faith; the fifth and sixth Creeds rule out Nestorian and Monothelite interpretations of the Faith; the seventh Council applies orthodox Christology to a dispute over the use of images in worship.

3. The Old Testament Apocryphal books are useful for the promotion of piety in the Church, but are not to be looked to as a Rule of Faith for establishing doctrine.

4. The “gospel” is a statement of the good news concerning what has been accomplished for the world through the Passion and the Glory of Christ. It is not to be identified with any particular interpretation of the mechanism whereby the good news is appropriated by believers. Justification by faith alone is a Protestant phrase which was intended to distinguish one interpretation of the meaning of justification from an understanding of the position of Roman Catholicism in the 16th century. Justification by faith alone is not the gospel; in fact, it is not even a part of the gospel, because the content of the gospel is what God has done for us through Christ, not what I must do to receive the benefit. Galatians 1:6-9 does not turn justification by “faith alone” into a statement of the gospel, for Paul’s Judaizing opponents at Galatia did not deny justification by faith “alone.” They denied to faith any role in justification whatsoever, and insisted that it was through the Law, and not through the death of Christ, that justification was received (Gal. 2:16, 21). To deny that Christ has died for our justification would in fact be a denial of the gospel, but no orthodox Christian denies that.

5. Baptism by water is ordinarily necessary for salvation (John 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21). It both conveys and attests to our regeneration and forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3-4; Tit. 3:5). It is a sign of our spiritual renewal, and a reminder of God’s promises to all who belong to his family (Acts 2:39). It is the eschatological sign of the Abrahamic covenant which has been effectually ratified through Christ’s blood (Col. 2:11-12). Therefore, the sacrament of baptism should not be denied to the children of Church members (Acts 16:15, 31-33).

6. The Eucharist is a covenant meal which is celebrated by members of Christ’s Church in remembrance of the benefits which were secured through the Passion of our Lord (1 Cor. 11:23-26). When the bread and wine are consumed through the mouth, with faith expressed in the heart, the souls of the faithful are nourished by the body and blood of Jesus unto eternal life (John 6:27-29, 35, 53-58).

7. Calvinism, when separated from a healthy Catholic ecumenism, is neither true to Calvin, nor a help to the Church. Total depravity affirms the necessity of the priority of grace in conversion. Unconditional election preserves the gratuity and mystery of predestination to glory. Limited atonement affirms the certain efficacy of Christ’s death viewed in its subsequent relation to the mystery of election. Irresistible grace affirms the fact that faith is to be seen monergistically as a gift from God, outside our natural capacity, and ultimately dependent upon the mystery of his will. Perseverance of the saints means that all those secretly predestined to glory will surely attain to that end because of God’s decree. When Calvinistic doctrines are misunderstood, and used primarily as a tool for attacking the shortcomings of Roman Catholic and Arminian Christians, then they lose their proper place within the role of Christian theology. Calvinism is best understood simply as a more consistent affirmation of the basic Christian truths which all believers intend to affirm. Calvin’s love, respect, and cordial unity in Christ with believers like Melanchthon should provide a pattern for how Calvinists relate to believers of other theological viewpoints.

8. The body of Christ is simply the people of God under the New Covenant (Eph. 2:11-22). It consists of Jews and Gentiles alike in the newly constituted family of Abraham (Gal. 3:28-29). Whereas the family of Abraham was confined to the Jewish nation under the Old Covenant, it has now opened up to embrace people of all nationalities (Eph. 3:6; Rom. 11:11-24). Like every family, it is larger than individual households. Therefore, when a person enters the body of Christ through faith and baptism (Gal. 3:26-27), they do not simply join a local church, but the worldwide family of God (Eph. 3:10, 14; 4:4, 10-12).

Just as each local church has leaders which are called sometimes overseers (Phil. 1:1), sometimes pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11), sometimes presbyters (Acts 20:17), so in the early Church there was an apostolic “bishoprick” (Acts 1:20b) which provided oversight to the whole Church, initially in Jerusalem, but eventually throughout the world. This bishoprick was from the earliest times shared with others outside the apostolic circle, including James the brother of our Lord (Acts 15:19), Ephaphroditus (Phil. 2:25), Timothy (1 Tim. 1:3), Titus (Tit. 1:5), and certain leaders in various locales throughout Asia Minor (the “angels” of Revelation 2-3). These men provided “fatherly” (cf. 1 Tim. 3:1, 5) oversight to the churches gathered in specific regions, which extended beyond the limited reach of the apostles. Likewise today, the Church should recognize the authority of bishops, who continue in their role of oversight over local church presbyters and laity for the welfare of the flock gathered in particular geographical regions.

For those who are interested, I have an essay up at www.reformedcatholicism.com which deals with the common confusion (seen in the views of Ergun Caner) of Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism.

It has been thirteen years since I graduated from LIFE Bible College (now Life Pacific College–I won’t go into that) back in 1993. At that time, I was headed to Dallas Theological Seminary for further studies. I was at that time firmly immersed in the Evangelical subculture, particularly Pentecostalism. This remained the case until I finished up my graduate studies several years later at Talbot in 1997. In some ways, those were the best years of my life. But in other ways they are like a strange dream. As a Reformed Anglo-Catholic in 2006, I now find myself living in a quite different ecclesial world. As I look back on those years, I have to ask myself some questions:

1. How was I ever dumb enough to believe that I should be suspicious of the “true conversion” of Roman Catholics, just because they did not articulate the mechanisms of justification in the same way as I was taught in Bible college? How could I mistake justification by faith alone in Christ alone (the NT doctrine), with justification by faith IN my faith alone in Christ alone (the popular pseudo-Reformed doctrine today)?

2. How did I ever get duped into thinking that men who obsessively promote a religion which revolves around the five points of Calvinism could be mistaken for being oracles of sound Christian orthodoxy? Why did I not have the discernment to recognize that people who center upon theological minutiae, and make them the substance of the Faith, are not speaking for the Good Shepherd?

3. How did I get the idea that salvation was a matter of my personal decision to accept Christ as my Lord and Savior, wherever, whenever and however I might so choose (by God’s sovereign grace of course), apart from the Church’s decision to receive me into her bosom through the grace of baptism? How on earth did I ever accept those goofy evangelical attempts to explain away the plain meaning of verses like Acts 2:38 and 22:16, and 1 Peter 3:21? Sola Scriptura my foot!

4. How was I so deluded as to think that the form of religion which is expressed in our popular American evangelical sub-culture could be equated with the historic faith of the one, holy Catholic Church? I mean, just take a wander through your average Christian bookstore in America and ask: Would Irenaeus, or Athanasius, or Augustine, or Aquinas, or Zwingli, or Luther, or Calvin be caught dead in this place? Sit through your average evangelical “worship” service, with its inane praise choruses, its “worship” teams, its goofy youth events, its frivolity, its rampant American individualism and man-centeredness, and ask yourself: Does this bear any resemblance whatsoever to the worship of the Catholic Church through the ages? And the most frightening thing is, most people today just don’t care.

5. How was I deluded enough to think that the supreme display of the love of God could be His demand that Jesus Christ take the awful punishment that was due to rebellious sinners in order that they might be forgiven without any relaxation of His exacting justice? How on earth did I for so many years follow a version of the Christian story which turned God the Father into the wicked servant of Jesus’ parable (Matt. 18:21-35), rather than being the merciful Master who cancels our debts without demanding repayment (18:27)? How could I accept a version of the Christian story which turns God into the older brother of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, rather than the loving Father who does not demand repayment of the wealth his son had wasted (Luke 15:19-22)?

Recently I came across an argument on the web that the word “you” in 2 Peter 3:9 should be limited to the elect, because the context of this passage is more eschatological than soteriological. So when Peter says that God does not want “anyone” to perish, that simply means he does not want any of the elect to perish. And we are supposed to believe that this conclusion is based upon pure exegesis. Right. This attempt to read hyper-Calvinistic dogma into Holy Writ fails for several reasons.

1. The Bible is not a systematic theology textbook. You simply cannot chop the text up into “soteriology” passages and “eschatology” passages. No serious exegete would put forth such a suggestion. Students of biblical theology are well aware of the fact that the hope of final salvation is embedded within the eschatological expectations of all of the biblical writers. It is scarcely possible to separate the two.

2. 2 Peter 3 is a perfect illustration of this point. In verse 9, coming to repentance is the opposite of perishing. It goes without saying that the opposite of perishing is salvation. In verse 13, the new heavens and new earth is the place where “righteousness” dwells–an allusion to Isaiah 65-66, which describes the anticipated salvation of Israel and the nations. Righteousness dwells there because the land has been ridden of all those who oppose God. Within the book of Isaiah “righteousness” is the equivalent of God’s saving mercy (cf. 46:13; 51:5-8; 56:1; 62:1-2). Both verse 9 and verse 15 speak of God’s patience, and in verse 15 we are told to consider the Lord’s patience to be “salvation.” The idea that this is not a passage we would want to put in the “soteriology” column is absurd.

3. The idea that this text can be limited to the elect is just silly. The point of verse 9 is not at all difficult to understand. The Church is tempted to doubt God’s word, because the Day of Judgment seems to be delayed. So Peter is reminding the Church of the words of the prophets and apostles (v. 2). Many will scoff at God in the last days, pointing out that the world continues as always (vv. 3-4). They have forgotten the lesson of the Great Flood (vv. 5-7). So Peter reminds his friends that the passage of time has no effect upon the eternal God (v. 8). The reason God has not yet judged the world is he wants to give everyone ample opportunity to repent (v. 9).

Why does Peter say that God is patient with “you”? The answer is obvious. Many within the Church have fallen away into apostasy and sin after having their sins cleansed away (1:9). Chapter 2 has gone to great lengths to describe those who once knew the way of righteousness, but who have since fallen away. False teachers have led many astray into the wrong paths (2:2, 14, 18-19). Peter still holds out hope that some of those who have been misled may be brought to repentance. The passage has nothing to do with God’s desire for salvation being limited to the elect; it is addressing the need for wayward Christians to be given an opportunity to turn back from apostasy before it is too late. God does not want any of his sheep to be lost forever (3:17).

But Peter says more than that in verse 9. Not only is God patient toward his straying sheep, but in fact it is not his desire that anyone should perish. He wants all to come to repentance. That is what the text says. That is what the text means. Though it is true that we find in other places that God has predestined only the elect to have life eternal, that is not the issue being addressed here. This passage is speaking of God’s desire, not of his decree. It is speaking of his revealed will, not his secret will. And it plainly contradicts the hyper-Calvinistic notion that God does not both genuinely desire all people to be saved, and sincerely offer to each and every person the benefits of the salvation his Son Jesus Christ has purchased.

For those who are interested, I wrote a short piece on the New Perspective on Paul over at the Reformed Catholicism site (www.reformedcatholicism.com).

I hear your gleenings from Wright, of whom I have also learned from his work. However, to go against the doctrine of perseverance is to loathe your 39 Articles (Article 17):

As the godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feeling in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God . . .

I find you (at least from a cursory reading of your post) to be pitting Pauline theology against Christ; but alas, the such doth not exist. Both Paul and the Covenant Lord believed in present (via the imputation of federal justification/vindication) and final security (via eschatological justification procured through a life of covenant faithfulness). You swallow up justification in sanctification, as did Wesley. I can affirm God’s choice of me before the foundation of the world and respond to him in covenant faithfulness. I said it so much better in a post on my blogsite. I quote it in full here: “On Being Reformed and Catholic”

I’m a member of the ARP church and we are a merger of the descendants of two presbyteries that came to the States in the 1700’s from Scotland. The national religion in Scotland in the 1700’s became presbyterianism (thanks to the national covenant) and when they came to America, they brought that John Knox heritage with them. What does it mean to “reformed”? Broadly speaking, it means to hold theological beliefs that can be traced to Johannes Calvinius (John Calvin), the French Protestant reformer. Calvin’s theology is a Trinitarian covenantalism that can be exegeted and deduced from Augustine and Paul, i.e. the New Testament. His Institutes of the Christian Religion is structured around the Apostles’ Creed and it has a high covenantal development. To be reformed also means a high theocentrism, i.e. the Trinity is at the center of the Bible. A high christocentrism would be too Lutheran. All of life is coram deo and soli deo goria; even our salvation. Our salvation is God’s own sovereign choice to save whomever he wishes to be part of the covenant family he started building in the Garden of Eden when he made a distinction between the offspring of the serpent and Eve.

What does it mean to be catholic? Well, for me, it does not mean Roman Catholic. It means the theocentric focus carries us to define the Gospel according to the Ecumenical Creeds and Councils of the first four centuries of the church (Apostle’s Creed, Nicea 1 & 2, Athanasian, Chalcedonian [I might add Ephesian to some degree]). Such a focus will look at what unites the church, rather than divides us. What unites us, whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical or Pentecostal is our belief in the Trinity and our common Trinitarian baptism. It means looking—as a reformed believer—beyond the Synod of Dort for the definition of the Gospel; for the Gospel is not a thing, it is a Person—Jesus the Messiah and His Body in the Earth. The message of Jesus is not the five points of Calvinism (admittedly, it would include them!), it is that Jesus came to save sinners like me, wherever they may be. We are commanded to witness to and baptize the nations. Because reformed types have not looked past Dort, they are afraid to evangelize, lest they accidentally give the Gospel to someone not part of the “elect.” If we look at all people as “sinners” then all people need Jesus and all people CAN BE SAVED. A catholic Christianity is universal in scope and seeks to serve others in the hopes that whosever might believe the Gospel (through the agency of the Holy Spirit’s regeneration) will do just that.

A reformed Catholicism is needed in our time; a catholicity that embraces all baptized persons as covenantal brothers and sisters. What unites us to Christ is our Trinitarian baptism (Col. 2; Rom. 6:1ff; 1 Pet. 3:21, etc.). As a reformed catholic, I believe that the only way any person will believe is through the Father’s election before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:11; John 17:6ff) , the Son’s purchase of them on the cross (John 10) and the Holy Spirit’s regenerating them from spiritual death, giving them faith and enabling them to repent of their sins and believe the Gospel (Eph. 2:1-10). I believe this is what happens to all of fruitful branches (John 15) and what happens to all those presumed to be so, as their baptism signifies, unless they apostasize from the faith as a fruitless branch (John 15; Heb.10). In essence, the only people, whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical or Pentecostal that go to heaven are those just described as fruitful branches on the Vine of Christ. The Body is Christ’s regardless of denomination; it is our baptism that unites us to Christ and one another. “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephes. 4:4-6).

I hope this makes sense . . .