The catholic Concept of Church

Written by Pastor Nuckols Sunday, 18 October 2009 10:59

            What kills a church is the loss of that which preserves the church, the Word of God and the Sacraments of Christ. Compared with the impressive rites performed in the pagan temples, the Sacraments of the church are inconspicuous, simple actions—a simple washing with water, the breaking of bread, the prayer of the Holy Supper, the distribution of the bread and wine. And yet there is a great difference. This simple rendering of the apostolic message is more than human talk and more than human wisdom. Christ himself is speaking the Word of His Gospel through the mouth of His called minister: “Thy sins are forgiven unto thee.” This washing with water is not only a sign, a picture, but really the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, bringing us forgiveness of sins, and with it life and salvation. For the hands of the minister and the words he speaks are the hands of Christ, the words of Christ. And the bread and the wine which we receive from the minister, we receive really form the hands of Christ. The bread and wine are not only symbols, like the corresponding things in the mystery religions, but they are really the true body of Christ and the blood which He shed for us for the remission of sins.  Forgiveness of sins, this is always the first gift of Christ, in the Word of the Gospel, in Baptism, in the Lord’s Supper.

            The American concept of the church basically avoids this question. It surrenders dogma and liturgy as something unessential—“trifling matters.” For us, however, both of these belong to the essence of the church: the Word and the Sacrament, confession and liturgy. We understand the protest against an ossified orthodoxy and a dreary ritualism, and we agree with this protest. But we believe that the church possesses in the Word of God the eternal truth, over against all the relativism of human knowledge. And we believe that in the evangelically understood Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, that in the liturgical life of the church which is grounded on these things, the powers are present which are able to establish a new and real human fellowship, even in an age in which all human fellowships are unraveling.