All Articles For Contending for the Faith

We now conclude our quotation from Hodge as he refutes the Romish view of the Lord’s Supper in his Systematic Theology, Vol. III, 688-692: “5. The doctrine of the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, is an integral part of the great system or error, which must stand or fall as a whole. Romanism is another gospel. It proposes a different method of salvation from that presented in the word of God. It teaches that no one can be saved who is out of the pale of that visible society of which the pope of Rome is the head; and that...

Rome, we noted in our preceding article, contends that, whereas the Protestant conception of the sacrament of baptism is superficial, its own conception of this sacrament is rich and profound. The Canons of the Council of Trent on the subject of baptism are brief and comprehensive. The Canons anathematize those who teach that Christian baptism has no superior efficacy to that of John the Baptist; that true, natural water is not essential in the administration of this sacrament, or that the language of our Lord in John 3:5, “Except a man be born of water, etc.,” is to be understood metaphorically;...

The Zwinglian view of the Lord’s Supper is known as the symbolical view. Concerning this view of the Lord’s Sipper, Rev. Hoeksema writes in his Dogmatics as follows: “The traditional and generally accepted representation of the Zwinglian view is that this reformer did not really see a sacrament at all in the Eucharist. According to him the Lord’s Supper was a mere feast of commemoration. In the Lord’s Supper there was really no operation of God in Christ, but rather an act on the part of the church.

The Saxon Visitation Articles were composed in A.D. 1592. These articles are historically important because they are a condensed and authoritative statement of the differences between orthodox Lutheranism and Calvinism concerning the doctrines of the sacraments, the person of Christ, and predestination. Article I of these articles is the article on the Lord’s Supper, and it sets forth the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Churches on this sacrament as follows: 

Finally, the sacrament seals the promise of the gospel and the truth that righteousness is by faith. The sacraments and faith belong inseparably together. How must this expression be understood? That the sacrament seals this righteousness by faith is objectively true. The sacrament itself is a seal of this. This is not difficult to understand. Fact is, the sacraments (also applicable to the sacrament of baptism) speak of two fundamental truths: man’s utter hopelessness and the fulness of all our salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is plain, is it not?

In distinction from the Protestant view, the Roman Catholic Church lays all emphasis upon the sacraments. Whereas the Protestant view stresses the priority of the Word of God, Roman Catholicism assumes that the sacraments contain all that is necessary for the salvation of the sinner, need no interpretation, and therefore render the Word completely superfluous as a means of grace. According to Rome, the sacrament of baptism is the sacrament of regeneration. They declare accursed who claims that the sacraments do not contain the grace which they signify, or do not confer that grace on those who do not place...

We now continue with our quotation of Art. VII of the Lutheran Confession of the Formula of Concord which treats the Lutheran conception of the Lord’s Supper: 

We now continue with our quotation from the Gallican Confession in connection with the truth of the canon of the sacred Scriptures. We will finish Article V of this Confession. 

We concluded our preceding article by quoting what our Heidelberg Catechism has to say about the sacrament of baptism in Lord’s Days 26 and 27. In these Lord’s Days emphasis is laid upon the fact that our sins are washed away only through the blood and Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Heidelberg Catechism emphatically denies that the outward washing of water itself is the washing away of our sins. This, we understand, is the teaching of Rome, and it is emphatically denied by the Reformed conception of the sacrament. It is maintained in these Lord’s Days that only...

We were discussing in our preceding article the negative statement of the Formula of Concord, the Lutheran Comession of Faith, setting forth the Lutheran conception of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The severity of the language of this confession must, of course, be understood in the light of the time when it was composed.