Sacramental
Union and the Antichrist
If
you had asked me as a teenager what I thought of the idea of uniting all the
denominations into one denomination, I would have treated the idea as something
evil, and firmly resisted it. In my mind, this would have been equivalent to
the Antichrist's future attempt to set up a one-world Church. That was the
primary reason, I think, why even though I generally thought that the
denomination of whatever church I was attending at the time was the most
doctrinally correct, I never ever thought that, say, all Christians in the
world should be attending only the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) or the
Assembly of God (Springfield, MO), or only churches of one particular
denomination. During the time I was a Pentecostal I would have agreed that all
Christians in the world should be Pentecostals. But I would have been extremely
suspicious of efforts to bring all Christians into one denomination.[1]
The very idea that one of the existing institutions was the one true Church
that Christ founded never even crossed my mind. (See my other discussions of
that here
and here.)
Now,
reflecting back, I am amazed that in my prior state I would have treated efforts
to effect what is plainly entailed in Jesus's intimate prayer of John 17 (i.e.
institutional unity) as the evil work of the Antichrist. I had made the mistake
of assuming that what Jesus wants of His Church must be the opposite of what
the Antichrist wants of his false church, not realizing that the Antichrist
tries to duplicate Christ's Church. I was mistakenly using my interpretation of
passages about the Antichrist as a starting point for interpreting Christ's prayer
in John 17. Is it not the work of Satan when we are deceived into calling good
evil, and evil good? So my former view of any effort to bring all Christians
into institutional unity as that of the Antichrist, was itself the result of a
diabolical deception. But the deception is very subtle, because it is true that
the Antichrist wants to bring all Christians into institutional unity. The
difference between the desire of Christ, and the desire of the Antichrist, on
this matter, is that Christ wants to bring all Christians (and all men) into
the institution He founded (Matt 16:18), whereas the Antichrist wants to bring
all Christians (and all men) into the institution he will found. Likewise, just
as Christ wants to keep all men out of the Antichrist's false church (cf.
Revelation 13:11-18; 14:9-12), so Satan wants to keep all men out of the Church
Christ founded.
One
way Satan does this is by deceiving men into believing that there is no institution
that is the one true Church that Christ founded. Then when the claim [that one
existing institution is the true institution that Christ founded] is
encountered, the claim is immediately rejected as "arrogant" or
"sectarian". If a person thinks that none of the existing
institutions is the one Christ founded, then consumerism is the default
position, because then our decision concerning where to worship is at best
based on which denomination comes closest in doctrine to our own interpretation
of Scripture. In response to reading John 17 and 1 Cor 1:10, such a person, not
knowing that Christ Himself founded an institution, may even advocate the
elimination of all denominations. Such a person would treat Christian unity
entirely as spiritual, that is, entirely by means of the leading of the Spirit,
having nothing to do with institutions or hierarchical human authority or
matter.[2]
My
treatment of church membership and the institutional unity of the Church during
my youth belies an underlying gnosticism. I treated unity entirely as spiritual
and formal[3],
i.e. agreement with the Scriptures. I had no conception of the organic unity
that Christ's mystical body (i.e. His Church) is supposed to have through the
sacraments. Organic unity is not merely formal unity. We are not pure spirit as
the angels; we are matter-form composites. We have a body and a soul. Our unity
as Christians, therefore, is not to be only formal, but to include the
material. In other words, we are to be members of one visible body, that is,
one visible institution. Christ unites us into one visible body (i.e. the
Church) through *material* sacraments by which we are united to His whole
being, and the divine life of the Trinity. Until we understand that, we cannot
understand John 6, or John 17. We will 'spiritualize' (i.e. gnosticize) such
passages.
I
did the same with Matthew 16:18. The 'rock' upon which Christ would build His
Church, in my mind, was either Peter's statement "You are the Christ, the
Son of the Living God" or faith of the sort that Peter shows when
making that statement.[4]
Notice that in both interpretations the 'rock' is entirely *formal*, that is,
it is a universal apart from particularizing matter. So the only kind of ecclesial
foundation these two interpretations of this verse can provide is a *formal*
foundation, i.e. formal agreement with them. These two interpretations cannot
therefore provide any foundation for the sacraments. How can sacraments, being
material, flow from a proposition or a formula or anything else that is wholly
formal? My way of interpreting Matthew 16:18 therefore entailed that church
authority was grounded only in *formal* (i.e. doctrinal) agreement with what I
believed to be the sort of faith Peter had. Seeing Scripture through gnostic
lenses, I could not even conceive that Christ would actually pick one of His
Apostles to be the rock upon which He would build His Church. But a visible and
enduring institution needs a visible foundation stone upon which to be built. That
is why we see the Apostles as foundation stones of the Church in Revelation
21:14, and also in Ephesians 2:20. And Christ was founding a visible and
enduring institution, a visible and hierarchical body, not merely an invisible
set (i.e. the set of all believers). This visible institution was not left
without a visible head when Christ ascended, for Christ had appointed a steward
and given him the keys of the kingdom, to be passed on to successors until
Christ returned.
Jesus
shows in Luke 12:42ff (cf. Matt 20:8; 24:45-51) that a master appoints a
steward (oikonomos) over his household when the master goes away. We
know that the Church is the household ("oikw") of
God (cf. 1 Tim 3:15). And we also see that the language Jesus uses in giving to
Peter the "keys of the kingdom" (Matt 16:19) refers back to Isaiah
22:15-23, where it refers to a king's entrusting authority to a steward of the
kingdom. Without gnostic lenses, we see in Matthew 16 Jesus appointing Peter to
be the steward of His Church while He is away, to be the rock (i.e. first
steward) upon which Christ builds His Church. The steward has been entrusted
with the riches of his master (cf. Luke 16). The riches of Christ are His
graces. These come to us through the sacraments, which are administered by the
Church. From Peter the chief steward, and the Apostles in communion with Peter,
the riches of Christ are bestowed upon all those who are brought into Christ's
household, the Church.
In
my experience, this Catholic way of understanding the Church has not even been
conceived of by most Protestants. The very idea of there being one true Church,
and this being a visible institution, has typically never even been imagined or
seriously considered as a genuine possibility.[5]
That is why it is often immediately dismissed when encountered. And if a
Christian is unaware that Christ founded a visible institution, such a person most
likely will be highly suspicious of efforts to fulfill Christ's prayer in John
17 by, among other things, bringing all Christians into one institution. A
Christian of this sort might even treat such efforts as the work of the
Antichrist.
[1]� I was somewhat suspicious even of the concept of a denomination. I myself was never officially a member of any church until I was twenty-seven, even though I had attended church regularly since infancy. In my mind, God looked at the heart; He didn't look at membership. Therefore, membership was irrelevant, unnecessary and possibly a cause of false assurance. Why didn't God care about membership? Because, from my point of view, denominations and churches (e.g. Bedford Falls Assembly of God) were man-made constructs. Men could plant a church, or start a denomination, and such things could pass away at any time. I knew that the Assemblies of God (Springfield, MO) had begun less than one hundred years prior.
[2]� I am using the term 'matter' here in the classical sense of form and matter.
[3]� I am using the term 'formal' here in the classical sense of form and matter.
[4]� If you are familiar with the type-token distinction, I did not even want to allow the 'rock' to be Peter's faith in the token sense. That would have particularized too much (for me) the rock upon which Christ would build His Church. That is why I say "faith of the sort that Peter shows".
[5]� Of course most Catholics seem to have little conception of what it is like to think as a Protestant. So the failure to understand the other person's position is there on both ends.