An Outline of an Anglican Life (Tarsitano, 1994)/Lesson Three

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Lesson Three: Sin, Salvation & Grace is the third lesson of An Outline of an Anglican Life.

Sin

What is sin?

Sin is disobeying God. As St. John tells us, "All unrighteousness is sin" (1 John 5:17). Sin is the violation of any commandment of God: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). Sin is the rejection of God and of all the good things that come from him. If this sounds too strong, consider these words of our Lord: "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

Sin is the opposite of love; therefore, sin is hatred for God, the rejection of the world as God made it, and the attempt to be our own gods. In the book of Genesis (see Chapter 3, especially verse 5), we read that the devil tempted Adam and Eve by telling them that they could become gods themselves by disobeying the One True God.[1]

Man as God Made Him

What is "original righteousness"?

"Original righteousness" is the created state of the human race: that is, man as God created man to be, in God's own image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). Man and the universe (the world, or created nature) were made good by God, and they only became subject to death, decay, and evil later, in the fall of man. God tells us the truth in Genesis, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (1:31).[2]

God is spirit, that is, eternal life without a body or any other limit (John 4:24), so the image and likeness of God is spiritual, not primarily physical (although the incarnation of Jesus Christ indicates that even man's physical nature can be conformed to the image and likeness of God) (see Hebrews 1:1-4). Man in God's image is united to God, united within himself, morally good, intelligent, capable of moral choice (the true meaning of "free will"), capable of love, and immortal.

It is important to note that man is by creation an indivisible union of body, soul, and spirit (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12). God forms Adam from the dust of the earth, breathes his Spirit/Life into his nostrils, and makes him "a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). Body, soul, and spirit are not parts, in the sense of a machine that can properly be taken apart. When Christ "gives up the ghost" (the spirit of life) on the cross, he dies (John 19:30). Death is the division of man's created unity.[3]

Man is the prime example of "the sacramental principle": the use of an outward, physical sign to show the spiritual life, goodness, and grace of God.[4] The creation of the physical world is, in and of itself, a sacramental sign of God's goodness and love. Mankind, as first created, is the sacramental expression of God's person (image and likeness). In the division of sacramental labor among the members of the human race, man is the sacrament of God and woman is the sacrament of creation (see Ephesians 5:20-33).[5]

In other words, we learn about what mankind is supposed to be by studying God's revelation of himself (of which created humanity is a major part). Unfortunately, because man is now fallen, we cannot study mankind to learn about God at this time, with the exception of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Fall

What is "original sin"?

Original sin is the sin of Adam and the effects of Adam's sin as inherited by all of his descendants: that is, the human race. Original sin is the perversion of mankind's created nature, the corruption of original righteousness, the inborn weakness of the human character that predisposes all men and women to sin (see Article IX, BCP 604, where original sin is also called "birth sin").[6][ed 1]

Another name for this weakness is "fallenness," because Adam "fell into sin," falling away from the created goodness he had received from God. The fall of the human race affected not only Adam, Eve, and all of their descendants, but the whole of created nature (see Romans 8:19-23, for the fall of nature with man; see Psalm 51:5, for the fallenness of the entire human race, so that we are conceived in human sinfulness).[7]

How could the sin of two people affect the whole world?

Actually, it was the sin of one man that changed mankind, and the world with it. Adam's sin was the real fall, not Eve's (see Romans 5:12). Until he sinned himself, Adam still had the option of throwing himself on God's mercy and offering himself as a sacrifice for Eve's sin, just as the only other totally innocent man who has ever lived, our Lord Jesus Christ, actually did for us all.

But let's begin at the beginning. Who was Adam's father? The answer, according to the Scriptures, is God (Luke 3:38). Man is not an animal. God created man separately from the rest of nature, forming him from the dust of the earth, breathing the Spirit of life into him, making him in His own image and likeness (see Genesis 1:25-28; 2:7). God made man to have dominion over the earth, not merely to be a part of nature. Mankind is the purpose of creation (see Psalm 8). The earth was created as a training ground, a kind of "Sunday School," to prepare created beings made in God's image and likeness for eternal fellowship with Him.

Note also, the entire human race is derived from Adam, including Eve, who was not a separate creation but made from Adam's rib (Genesis 2:22; 1 Timothy 2:13).

The body and physical nature are the means that God has provided for the spiritual life of mankind. This principle is easier to grasp if we remember that the most spiritual act in history was the death of one man on a cross. This is the same fact that permits bread and wine to be the outward and visible sign of Christ's Body and Blood in the Holy Communion, (I would suggest for consideration the idea that Christ is "attached" to the bread and wine in the same way that Christ is "attached" to the body born in Bethlehem, in the same way that Adam, you, and I are "attached" to our bodies: namely, God's fiat or spiritual commandment.)

The sin in the Garden was the sacramental sin of disobeying physically the spiritual commandment of God not to eat of the fruit of a particular tree, the penalty for which was death (Genesis 2:16-17). "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and "the tree of life" (Genesis 3:22) were not magic trees: they were sacramental trees (outward and visible signs).

Although Eve ate of the forbidden fruit first, it was Adam that God held responsible for the first sin (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23). It was Adam who was created to be a son of God (remember: Christ alone is the uncreated, eternal, only-begotten Son of God); Adam who was given headship over the human race and physical creation to imitate God's good rulership over all. Adam dragged all humanity and all creation down with him.

What is most frightening about Adam's sin is how totally unnecessary it was. Adam already had everything, including eternal life, freedom, and personal fellowship with God. Adam chose death and depravity for himself and for mankind. An analogy would be a President of the United States who pushed the button starting a nuclear war, simply because he felt like abusing his authority. All his people would suffer, and any survivors would always have to live with the results of his action, both in terms of environmental and genetic damage.

The Nature of Evil

If Adam had everything, what is evil?

Evil is not a thing. There is no created evil. God repeatedly tells us that everything he created is good (see Genesis 1). In the theological language of the Church, evil is called "a privation of good," meaning the perversion or spoiling of some good thing that God has made. Evil has no existence of its own, so there is no "self-existing" (substantial) evil.[8]

Evil is a way of acting, the chosen rejection of God by some creature endowed with a free will. Thus, sin is the perversion of freedom; lust, hate, and apathy are the perversions of love; gluttony is the perversion of enjoyment; idolatry is the perversion of worship; cancer is the perversion of growth; and so forth, endlessly to our shame and destruction. The devil is not a god, and he has no power to create "evil things."[9]

We need to see, then, that evil and sin are fundamentally identical. The devil and other fallen angels were the first to commit evil by rebelling against God before the creation of the world (see Ezekiel 28:14-19; Revelation 12:7-9). The devil insinuates himself into the Garden to spread the contagion of sin to mankind, and mankind willingly, voluntarily begins to sin. The devil's rebellion against God is pointless, of course, as is all evil. Evil is not able to overcome God. The devil cannot create or even destroy: he can only spoil and ruin.

Why does a good God tolerate evil?

God tolerates evil, first of all, because he loves all his creatures, even those who are most rebellious. His creation is a kind of covenant, a promise that he will not take away the life he has given, even from those who do wrong (see Malachi 3:6). God has also made a covenant of free will with angels (created spirits without bodies) and mankind (created spirits with bodies). If we are to be more than pets and puppets, we must be able to disobey as well as obey, and to experience freely the consequences of both (see, for example, God's covenant with his people, including the blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience, in Deuteronomy 28). God does, however, intervene in the lives of his free creatures, both to protect the freedom of his own sovereign will for their good, and in response to prayer (an act of his creatures' free will).

Knowing God's Will

How do we know what evil (sin) is?

People have known throughout history that something is terribly wrong with mankind and the world. Things fall apart. Men and women harm one another, and they are incapable of doing all the good things they intend. It is as if mankind has some terrible disease. We hurt even the people we love the most.

God's revelation in the Bible, made to his first chosen people and to the Church, teaches us what the disease is: disobedience to his will, or sin (see Romans 7:14-25).

How do we learn the will of God?

The Bible reveals to us the will of God, not only from the perspective of this world, but from God's own perspective (see Deuteronomy 4:10; Matthew 4:4). The entire Bible is the explanation of God's will in creation and in redemption (see Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; as well as Articles VI and VII, BCP 603-604). Christians are bound today by the entirety of the Scriptures, with the exception of the specifically civil and ritual law of the ancient Israel, now superseded by the fulfillments and ordinances of the New Testament Israel, the Church.[10]

We learn especially about God's will in the Old Testament in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). In the New Testament, our Lord explains the will and law of God in the Summary of the Law (Matthew 22:37-40), when he teaches us to love God with our whole hearts, our whole souls, and our whole minds; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This Summary of the Law, of course, is no new teaching. Our Lord is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The moral teaching of the Old and New Testaments is one, as God is one.

Where can I learn what the Church teaches about the Ten Commandments and the Summary of the Law?

The First Office of Instruction (BCP 285-289) provides a simple, but thorough, discussion of the Commandments and the Summary.

The Consequences of Sin

What are the consequences of sin?

The consequences of sin are separation from God (see Ephesians 4:17-19); war with my neighbor (see Genesis 4:6-8, 23-24); the weakening of my will and the destruction of my own integrity (Romans 7:19-25); and death (Romans 6:20-23).

What is separation from God?

Separation from God is hell (see Matthew 25:31-46 and Revelation 20:11-15). Since God is the Creator and Source of all goodness and life (James 1:17), separation from God is separation from all good things and life itself. There is nothing more terrible than this separation. The "place" we call "Hell" is the permanent state of separation from God, but we experience hell any time we are separated from God by sin. We also call Hell "eternal death," because permanent separation from God is permanent separation from life (see Revelation 20:14-15).

In addition, since God made my neighbor, separation from God makes me my neighbor's enemy. We see these effects of sin in the Garden, immediately after mankind's fall. Adam blamed both God and Eve for his own sinfulness (Genesis 3:12).

The Remedy for Sin

Is there any remedy for sin?

Since all of mankind has fallen into both "original sin" (the fallenness and moral weakness of the human race through Adam) and "actual sin" (our own individual acts of disobedience against God), on our own we can do nothing about sin (see Romans 3:23 and Psalm 49:7-9). We gave up our freedom to sin, making ourselves slaves to sin, so we are not free to help ourselves (see Romans 6:16,20-23; and see Article X, "Of Free Will," BCP 605).[11]

Jesus Christ is the only salvation from sin because Jesus Christ alone is both God and a sinless human being (see Matthew 16:16-17; Hebrews 4:14-15; see also Article XV, "Of Christ Alone without Sin," BCP 605). Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Son of man. He is the "Christ," the "Messiah," the anointed one whom God has chosen to be the Savior of mankind and of the world (see Romans 8:1-4; 1 Corinthians 15:20-23,51-58; see also Article II, "Of the Word of Son of God, which was made very Man," BCP 603, and Article XVII, "Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ," BCP 606[ed 2]).

How does Jesus Christ save us?

Jesus Christ saves us by offering his life as a sacrifice for sin, in place of our own. This action is sometimes called "the substitutionary atonement," meaning that by his dying in our place for sin Christ has made us "at one" with his Father again. But whatever this fundamental truth of Christianity is called, it is the essence of the Gospel message, which must be believed for the sake of any human being's salvation (see, for example: Isaiah 53:12; John 1:29; Romans 5:12-21; Romans 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 9:28; and see Article XI, "Of the Justification of Man," BCP 605).[12]

Instead of condemning all men for sin eternally, God the Father chose to accept the voluntary sacrifice of his Son on our behalf, and on behalf of all the redeemed. God's created son, Adam, had rejected life. God's uncreated, only-begotten Son would give life back (1 Corinthians 15:22).

God used his dealings with the people of the Old Testament to teach them about sacrifice. He taught them that the only price of human life is human life itself (see Genesis 9:6), so that we would learn that sin is a matter of life and death. He taught them that the outward and visible sign of life is the blood (see Deuteronomy 12:23). He taught them to offer animals as sacrifices for their sins (Exodus 29:36, 30:10; Hebrews 9:22), as signs of their repentance, because without repentance there can be no forgiveness (see Luke 13:3). (Note the interesting fact that "bloodshed" and "blessed" are etymologically versions of the same word in English.)

But animals were not human beings, and they were not willing sacrifices for sins. Only the sacrifice of a willing, sinless human being could be a true offering for the sin of mankind (Hebrews 9:7-12). So God provided a sacrifice (see Genesis 22:8), his own Son, who voluntarily became a human being ("incarnate," "in the flesh") by the Holy Ghost, of the human flesh of the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem (see 2 Corinthians 5:21).

The purpose of the Virgin Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the way, was not the mere display of God's power (or some sort of denial of the holiness of marriage under God). The Virgin Birth was the preparation of a victim who would be by actual inheritance both God and man, without inheriting the fallen, sinful will of Adam (which we all inherit through our fallen, human fathers).[13] Not only as God, but as a human being, Jesus Christ has the same Father that Adam had: God. Jesus Christ is the second Adam who gives his life for the redemption ("the buying back") of the children of the first Adam, so that by incorporation into the resurrected body of Christ (the Church) fallen men can be new creatures, a new human race freed from sin to live with God forever (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23; 2 Corinthians 5:17-19; and see Lesson One).

In fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ was taken outside the city of Jerusalem and killed on a cross. Since Christ's life belonged to Christ alone, only Christ could offer his life to the Father. He was raised from the dead by the power of God on the third day to become our Great High Priest, and he ascended into heaven to offer himself to the Father once for all and eternally for the remission of our sins (see Hebrews 10:1-23).

The New Life in Christ

If Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world, why do I still sin?

Jesus Christ did not die to make it impossible for us to be bad; he died to make it possible for us to be good. We are redeemed sinners, but we are sinners nevertheless. Jesus Christ's death did not take away our moral weakness as descendants of Adam: it gave us a new way of being good (see Article XVI, "Of Sin after Baptism," BCP 605).

What is this new way?

The new way of being good that Christ gave us is the joining of our imperfect lives with his perfect life by God's grace. Christ gave us the possibility of a new relationship with God, as his adopted children by grace, to replace the relationship we had thrown away forever by sinning (see Romans 8:12-17; Galatians 4:4-7). We do not deserve this new relationship, but God in his love chooses us for it (see John 15:16; Ephesians 1:3-6). Jesus Christ calls this relationship the new testament in his own blood, which is shed for the remission of sin (cancellation of, pardon of, release from sin) (see Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25).[14]

We cannot enter into this relationship on our own, or in any way but God's way (see John 3:3,5-8). God is absolutely in charge of our salvation, and we are powerless to live without him. Just as Lazarus could not leave the tomb and live until Jesus Christ called him (see John 11:43-44), we cannot live eternally until God calls us and makes us alive. The dead can do nothing, and we are dead in sin, until God quickens us (regenerates us, makes us born again) by his grace (see John 3:3,5-8 again; and Romans 4:17; Romans 6:3-5; Ephesians 2:4-6; Colossians 2:13-14).

A true Christian life must begin with God's regeneration of our lives by grace. The character of our new lives in God's grace is the character of Jesus Christ himself, for by the power of God's grace and by baptism we are made the Body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 13:13,27; Ephesians 5:30). In Jesus Christ, as the members of his Body, by Christ's merits and Christ's alone, we are justified (accepted as righteous) before God the Father (see Romans 5:18-21; Titus 3:3-7). Our justification by God's grace in our Lord Jesus Christ does not mean that we become instantly perfect, as Christ is now, was, and ever will be perfect. But our justification does mean that when God the Father looks at us he does not see our sins and weakness but the strength and goodness of his Son Jesus Christ.

We are in Christ a new humanity, redeemed from sin (see Ephesians 4:17-24). We are new creatures, with a new life and a new purpose (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Moreover, what we could not do on our own as weak persons (our old sinful selves), we can now do by the power of God, joined to the perfectly good and perfectly strong person of Christ. When we are united with Christ in faith by baptism, he makes up for our weaknesses. When we fall into sin, we are not destroyed because we belong to Christ and not to sin. Christ gives us gifts of repentance and the forgiveness of our sins. Christ gives us grace to grow better, to grow up into his own image and likeness, which is the image and likeness of God and what we were created to be in the first place (see Ephesians 4:7-16).

Jesus Christ is the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25). He preserves us unto eternal life, and he sanctifies us (makes us holy) by the gift of new life in him and the power of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 1:26-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17).

Grace and Faith

What is grace?

Grace is, first of all, God's pleasure in doing good, in being faithful to himself (see Ephesians 1:3-10; 2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 4:11). Grace is God's loving power, and we experience it in our lives as the free gift of participation in God's own life (see Ephesians 2:4-10). We experience grace as God's favor, as God's kindness, as God's help, as God's forgiveness, as the power to be good, as the authority to act in God's Name (see Ephesians 4:7-16; Hebrews 4:16). Grace enables us to do what we ought to do, and to be what we ought to be (see 1 Corinthians 1:4-9; 15:9-11).

What is faith?

Faith is trust in God and his promises, the dedication of all that we are to loving and obeying God simply because he is God and deserving of all our love (see Luke 17:5-6; Romans 4:13-25).[15][ed 3] Faith is "the substance of things hoped for" (the "surety," the spiritual "bond" of our dependence on the reality of God's promises) and "the evidence of things unseen" (the spiritual "proof" that we act upon when we obey God) (see Hebrews 11:1, and see the rest of that chapter as the power and effects of faith are listed).

Faith is a gift of grace, and the necessary means of salvation: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). We cannot please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6). We can not do good works without faith (see Article XII, "Of Good Works," and Article XIII, "Of Works before Justification," BCP 605).[16] And that faith must be faith in Jesus Christ in particular. No other faith will do. As St. Paul tells us, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema [accursed, appointed for destruction]" (1 Corinthians 16:22). Only faith in Christ gives life:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

How do I get grace?

We receive grace as God's gift, through faith in Jesus Christ, and through God's action in the sacraments which Christ has provided for us, especially through Baptism and the Holy Communion (see Romans 5:15-17; 2 Corinthians 9:12-15; Ephesians 3:7; Ephesians 4:7).

We do not earn grace or deserve it. The good works that we do are the result of the grace that God gives us (1 Corinthians 12:6,11). We deserve nothing from God when we do good works in his Name because doing good is our created duty (Luke 17:7-10).

Salvation

What is salvation?

Salvation is God's forgiveness of our sins, our restoration to fellowship with him, and eternal life (see 1 Peter 1:3-9). Salvation is the end of our separation from God and the complete restoration of God's will for us in our lives. On the Last Day, we will be raised from the dead ourselves to be what the resurrected Christ is now (1 Corinthians 15:20-22; and see also Acts 24:14-16).

When we discuss salvation, we speak of our "election": our calling by Christ to new life in him (see 1 Peter 1:1-2). We speak of our "sanctification," which is our "being made holy" as God is holy, in the Body of his Son Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14). We speak of our "justification," which is our being restored to a full relationship with God in Christ whose own justice (or righteousness) is accepted by the Father in place of our corruption (see Romans 5:16-19). We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, by grace through faith, and not for our own good works or deservings (see Articles X through XV, beginning BCP 605). Faith is the essential precondition of justification (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Romans 5:1-2).

Can I earn salvation?

No. Salvation is the work of God: the Father forgiving; the Son propitiating and teaching; and the Holy Ghost inspiring and sanctifying. We receive salvation as a gift of love from the Father, by the Son, and through the Holy Ghost; and we are made saints by that love.[17]

Is salvation possible apart from Christ?

No, because Jesus Christ is God, and salvation is the work of God, not man. No human being has the power to save himself or anyone else (see Psalm 49:7-9, especially in the Prayer Book translation). There is no salvation apart from Christ and his Church because Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; and no one goes to the Father in heaven except by him (John 14:6).

What is the purpose of human existence?

The purpose of human existence is to be what Jesus Christ is. In the lovely words of the answer to the first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." Those who do not confess Christ will spend eternity in hell with the devil, separated from God and the saints.

Notes

  1. ↑ We must all understand clearly that we all are sinners, that sin is not a problem that "other people" have. Consider Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Consider, too, the sobering truth of 1 John 1:8: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Given the laxity of much teaching, some may labor under the misapprehension that the Anglican Church teaches something other than the sinfulness of all men. But this is not so. The American version of Article XXXV "Of the Homilies" (BCP 610) teaches that the Homilies are "an explication of Christian doctrine, and instructive in piety and morals." Thus they are the teaching of this Church. Further, the "Homily of Justification" referred to in Article XI "Of the Justification of Man" is understood to be Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's "Homily of Salvation" (Browne 299). The entire "Homily of Salvation" is worth intense study, but the opening is especially useful here to indicate the unequivocal teaching of this Church: Because all men be sinners and offenders against God, and breakers of his law and commandments, therefore can no man by his own acts, works, and deeds (seem they never so good) be justified and made righteous before God; but every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness, or justification, to be received at God's own hands, that is to say, the remission, pardon, and forgiveness of his sins and trespasses in such things as he hath offended. And this justification or righteousness, which we so receive by God's mercy and Christ's merits, embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and allowed of God for our perfect and full justification (Carl S. Meyer, ed., Cranmer's Selected Writings [London: SPCK, 1961], 12).
  2. ↑ The term "original righteousness" is used in Article IX "Of Original or Birth Sin." Kidd's commentary on this article is especially interesting, especially his discussion of the theological term "total depravity." Bicknell's commentary suffers from his inability to conceive of a literal Adam and Eve. Packer, Concise Theology, 82-84, also offers an excellent, brief discussion of the effects of sin on human nature.
  3. ↑ What is presented here is called the "trichotomous," or three-part description of human nature: that man is made up of body, soul, and spirit. The competing description among faithful Christians is called the "dichotomous," or two-part position: that man is made up of body and soul, with the soul being itself the spiritual element in man. Of course, we must remember that God did not create man to be taken apart, so that both of these descriptions are only attempts to describe God's creation and are elements of a theological doctrine of man, called an "anthropology." The present author believes that trichotomy is more consistent with a completely biblical anthropology. For a dichotomist position, see Berkhof's Summary of Christian Doctrine, 67-68.
  4. ↑ The word "sacrament" means originally in Classical Latin "an oath," in particular a military oath (Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia, s.v.). Roman soldiers also referred to the "blooding" of a new member of a legion, and thus his fulfillment of his oath, as a sacramentum. The word appears in the Latin Vulgate as a translation of Greek mysterion, and comes into technical use in the writing of Tertullian, the first major theological writer in Latin. St. Augustine of Hippo gave us our present definition (found, for example, in the Second Office of Instruction, BCP 292) of "a visible sign of an invisible grace" (Schaff-Herzog, s.v.). The number seven, attached to the sacraments by many writers, only comes later as an application of numerological principles. Henry Bettenson gives us a picture of the broadness of the term in his notes to his translation of Tertullian (c. 200), in The Early Christian Fathers. He gives the sense of sacramentum as a symbol or bond (n. 122); as a mystery (n. 131); as a revelation (n. 137); and excerpts Tertullian's explanation from De Baptismo that the sealing of baptism is "the clothing, as it were, of the faith which before was bare" (145). Similarly, in Bettenson's The Later Christian Fathers (London: Oxford, 1970; Oxford Paperback, 1972; reprint with corrections, 1974) we find a variety of interesting uses of the word sacramentum in St. Hilary of Poitiers (315-67). Summarizing, we find Christ himself is the sacramentum of mediation between God and mankind (p.49, De Trinitate, 9.3,4); there is the sacramentum of the gospel dispensation (p.50, De Trinitate, 9.14); and there is the sacramentum of Christ's weeping (p.53, De Trinitate, 10.55).
  5. ↑ John Milton summarizes a number of passages of Scripture when he describes Adam and Eve in creation: "He for God only, she for God in him" {Paradise Lost, IV, 299; in The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton, Cambridge Edition, ed. Douglas Bush [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965]}. For example, St. Paul outlines the human order in terms of creation and marriage in 1 Timothy 2:13-15. Moreover, the entire Song of Solomon has consistently been read as an extended allegory of the relation between God and the elect. Here we see the interlocking human order, since the redeemed taken together (male and female) are described as the Bride of God. The same image is offered in St. John's vision of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9). This two tier set of signs is also used in Isaiah 62:5: "For as a young man marrieth a virgin; so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bride-groom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."
  6. ↑ Kidd explains in his discussion of Article IX that "birth sin" is a clearer term in English than original sin, since it translates the sense of the original Latin that sinfulness is a fact of fallen human existence from the very beginning of each human person's life (The Thirty Nine Articles 122).
  7. ↑ St. Augustine of Hippo offers the classic explanation of original sin in The City of God, XIII, 14 (Trans. Marcus Dods, with intro. by Thomas Merton [New York: Modern Library, 1950], 422-423): For God, the author of natures, not of vices, created man upright; but man, being of his own will corrupted, and justly condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For we all were in that one man, since we all were that one man who fell into sin by the woman who was made from him before sin. For not yet was the particular form created and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to live, but already the seminal nature was there from which we were to be propagated; and this being vitiated by sin and bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could not be born of man in any other state. And thus, from the bad use of free will, there originated the whole train of evil, which, with its concatenation of miseries, convoys the human race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only being excepted who are freed by the grace of God.
  8. ↑ St. Basil of Caesarea (330-379) writes in his Ninth Homily (Bettenson, Later Fathers, 60-61): Do not on any account suppose God responsible for the existence of evil: and do not imagine that evil has any substantive existence of its own. Wickedness does not exist as if it were a kind of living creature. . . . For evil is the privation of good. . . as blindness supervenes on destruction of the eyes, so evil, having no independent existence, supervenes on mutilations of the soul.
  9. ↑ St. Augustine explains, "The devil encouraged evil, as a sin: he did not create evil, as a part of nature. Man is a part of nature; thus the devil persuaded nature, and perverted it. To inflict a wound is not to create a limb, but to harm it" (De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, 2.57, in Bettenson, Later Fathers, 197).
  10. ↑ One frequent error that we must watch for in our thinking is the tendency to read the Bible outside of any historical context. The Bible is not a random assembly of verses, but a historical narrative of the teaching and works of God. This is one of the points of Article VII "Of the Old Testament" (BCP 604). God's moral law never changes, but the teaching ordnances of the Old Testament have been fulfilled in the New, so that their preparatory purpose is complete. This is a Biblical doctrine, as evidenced by the tearing of the Temple veil (Luke 23:45), indicating God's completed use of that sanctuary and its ordinances. Similarly, in Peter's vision of the great sheet in Acts 10:9-16, God replaces the purity laws of the Old Testament with a completed, higher standard of redeemed spirituality and purity.
  11. ↑ For a brief commentary on Article X "Of Free Will" (BCP 604) see Kidd 128-130. For a very interesting exposition of the Scriptural proofs for this Article, see Browne 273-281.
  12. ↑ Of the commentaries on Article XI, "Of the Justification of Man," BCP 605, Kidd's is as usual a masterpiece of concision and Browne's is both extensive, covering the theological history of the related doctrines, and Scriptural.
  13. ↑ See St. Augustine's explanation of paternal or "seminal" transmission, in note 7, above.
  14. ↑ The word "remission" in Matthew 26:28 is aphesis, "to release," "to pardon," "to cancel an obligation, punishment, or guilt." It comes from the verb aphiemi, which has the legal sense of the cancellation of a debt or even a divorce (in this case from bondage to sin [see Romans 7:4]) (see Arndt and Gingrich, Lexicon, s.v.).
  15. ↑ For a longer discussion of faith, see Cranmer's "Homily of Faith, or A Short Declaration of the True, Lively, and Christian Faith" from the Book of Homilies of 1547 (Meyer, Cranmer's Writings, 22-31). Here, for example, Cranmer writes about true faith: "Therefore, as ye profess the name of Christ, good Christian people, let no such phantasy and imagination of faith at any time beguile you; but be sure of your faith, try it by your living, look upon the fruits that cometh of it, mark the increase of love and charity by it towards God and your neighbour, and so shall you perceive it to be a true lively faith" (31). True faith is not simply intellectual knowledge or assent, but a moral commitment to God and to all his purposes.
  16. ↑ As is so often the case, Kidd offers a useful brief commentary on Articles XII and XIII "Of Good Works" and "Of Works before Justification", and Browne offers a more extended discussion of them (Kidd, 138-142; Browne, 324-340). Cranmer's "Homily of Good Works or A Sermon of Good Works Annexed unto Faith" is also helpful (Meyer, Cranmer's Writings, 32-43). He writes there, "Even as a picture graven or painted is but a dead representation of the thing itself, and is without life, or any manner of moving; so be the works of all unfaithful persons before God" (32). See, also, Appendix II of the present work, for a discussion of Article XIII.
  17. ↑ Good summary discussions of the doctrines of salvation can be found in Berkhof's Summary of Christian Doctrine and Packer's Concise Theology (146-171).

Editorial Notes

  1. ↑ Page references "BCP" are to the American Book of Common Prayer of 1928, the Prayer Book Tarsitano uses throughout; his own Notes specify that all BCP page numbers refer to the 1928 American book unless otherwise noted.
  2. ↑ So printed; the Article bearing the title "Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ" is Article XVIII of the Thirty-nine Articles.
  3. ↑ Several words in the author's notes to this lesson (notes 15-17) are corrupted in the PDF source by a font-encoding defect; the readings given here are reconstructed from the passages as printed in the 1547 Book of Homilies and from the author's own cross-references.

Source: Louis R. Tarsitano, An Outline of an Anglican Life (Classical Anglican Press, 1994). Reproduced on AnglicanWiki by permission of Classical Anglican Press.

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