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| A Review of My Book | | Date Created: Nov 29, 2004, 09:10 PM |
 Gillis Harp, a history professor at Grove City College, wrote a favorable review of my book in the December 2004 issue of Modern Reformation. The current MR issue, however, is only available in good old-fashioned print right now.
I don't know Prof. Harp, but I sure do appreciate his complimentary review. I plan to write him a note this week. The last two sentences of his review sum it up pretty nicely. After making a few criticisms (see below), he writes:Still, the Lord Service is an excellent contribution to the sort of rethinking Reformed Christians need to do if they are truly committed to the principle of semper reformanda. It merits wide readership. For those of you who have access to the review, you'll have noticed that Dr. Harp only took issue with two things in the book. The first is no surprise, but even so it was a very mild comment. He notes that "not everyone will be convinced by his argument for young children receiving communion based on an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11:28ff." Well, that's certainly true. I debated with myself about whether to include chapter 26 at all. I didn't want anyone to reject the entire book because of my argument for paedocommunion. I hope that won't be the case.
Prof. Harp's second criticism seems a bit more substantial:This reviewer was unhappy about some of the sacrificial language Meyers appears prepared to apply to eucharistic worship (see especially pp. 68, 70, 96). The reformers rightly took pains to stress that, as sinners, we do not enter into Christ's self offering (although we are certainly beneficiaries of it) and that the only sacrifice the faithful offer in the Eucharist is the purely responsive offering of praise and thanksgiving. Now, I'd like to respond briefly to this last criticism. First, it seems to me like the recovery of the biblical teaching concerning our union with Christ would help here. Since so much work has been done on this doctrine by Reformed theologians in the 20th century I would think it was time to rethink the place and importance of the offertory in the liturgy of corporate worship. All I am trying to do is rethink the meaning of the offertory in the light of our union with Christ.
Second, the Reformers were rightly worried about the late Medieval church's distortion of the meaning and place of "works" in the Christian life. But it seems to me that in rejecting Rome's distortion they tended to go overboard in disparaging good works, even sometimes good works done by Christians through faith in the power of the Spirit. This was sometimes true for Luther and even more so for Lutherans. Unfortunately, the positive things Calvin says about works are often obscured, even for Calvinists, because we have tended to read Calvin through the lens of the Lutheran law-gospel hermenuetic.
Third, it was, of course, proper given the theological atmosphere of their day for the reformers to emphasize the gift of grace in Christ and to highlight that our appropriate response to the sheer gift of grace is, as Prof. Harp noted "praise and thanksgiving." But there are also plenty of passages in the Scriptures that plainly teach that another proper and fitting response to God's mercy in Christ is to offer ourselves and our works. Romans 12:1ff. is a good example, but there are many others. We give ourselves, including our works, not merely out of gratitude but also because we are in Christ and Christ is in us through his Spirit working in and through us. We draw near to the Father by the Spirit in the Son with our hands full of works done by the power of the Spirit in union with Christ our Head.
Fourth, liturgically, the beginning of the service is the place for the people to speak, act, and think is such a way that they confess "nothing in my hand I bring." Confession and absolution are about clinging to the cross of Christ alone. But once we have received the forgiveness of sins we then respond to God's grace by "not appearing before the Lord empty-handed" (Ex. 34:20).
One can see this movement in the great Lutheran (!) hymn "O, Dearest Jesus" (LH #143). It begins with the alien righteousness of Christ, and then leads the congregation to sing of promising to God to live aright. The climax stresses our gift to the Lord in Christ and the crown we will receive:But worthless is my sacrifice; I own it.
But, Lord, for love's sake, thou wilt not disown it.
Thou wilt accept my gift in Thy great meekness;
Nor shame my weakness.
And when, dear Lord, before Thy throne in heaven,
To me at last the crown of life is given,
Where sweetest hymns Thy saints forever raise Thee,
I, too, shall praise Thee!" Another way we might note this order is to look at the heavenly liturgy in the book of Revelation. Toward the beginning of the service we have a vision of "a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, and from all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes" (Rev. 7:9). A few verses later the elders ask John who these clothed in white are. John then answers, "These are they ibes coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb." (7:13). Clearly here the white robes are the result of the cleansing blood of Jesus.
But later in the book and in the heavenly liturgy the armies of heaven appear "arrayed in fine linen, white and pure." But now we are told that she has been granted "to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints" (Rev. 19:8). Here the white robes are the "righeous works of the saints." Do we have any place for this in our doctrine or liturgy?
You bet we do. Our doctrinal standards make it clear that the Christian's "ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the spirit of Christ" (Westminister Confession, chapt. 16, para. 3). Furthermore, the Confession says nothing different than what I have expressed in my book with regard to the offertory and Lord's Supper. Paragraph 6 of chapter 16 says that notwithstanding the fact that our good works cannot merit God's favor because they are always insufficient and tainted (cf. 16.4-5), nevertheless "the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him" and that the Father, "looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections" (WCF 16.6). If this is what our doctrine is, why can't it be expressed in our liturgy?
Fifth, I believe because we are so deathly afraid of "good works" this movement in the liturgy is underdeveloped. And conversely (lex orandi, lex credendi) because our liturgical offertories are typically so feeble we have effectively forgotten these truths about good works. The upshot in my mind is that the offertory deserves a lot more thoughtful study than it usually gets. For example, I have been assuming that the offertory and the Lord's Supper are connected, but this is not generally appreciated. The bread and wine ought to be brought forward with our tithes and offerings as symbolic of the gifts we offer in Christ. I talk about this a bit on pp. 208-9 in the Lord's Service, especially footnote #11. At this point in the sequence of God's service to us we are not merely to offer him praise and thanksgiving, but rather offer ourselves and our works. That includes the good deeds we have done that week. The Lord then, as our Westminister standards teach us, accepts us and our works "in Christ."
Fifth, the only other response I might make to Prof. Harp's comments is to note that I use "sacrificial language" to describe the Lord's Supper because I think speaking of communion in this way is inescapable given that the Supper is the fulfilment of "the sacrifice of peace" or as we typically call it the peace or fellowship offering.
After all, we do have bread and wine, body and blood on a table. As I say in the book, the fact that it has already been separated (as all animal "offerings" in the OT have the blood drained and separated from the body) means that the first movement of the "sacrifice" has been accomplished. Jesus has died on the cross and he is not slain again, even symbolically, in the action of the Lord's Supper. Rather, we eat and drink of his glorified flesh and blood. This is because we are united to him, flesh of his flesh, etc.
By the way, C. John Collins has argued in the most recent edition of the Westminster Theological Journal that the Eucharist is the fulfilment of the typology of the "peace offering" in the old order. If this is so, it should not be inappropriate to apply "sacrificial language" to the Eucharist. After all, as I argue extensively in the first half of my book, "sacrifice" is much more than just vicarious propitiation; it is also transformative and culinary.
This post may have went well beyond what my reviewer had in mind when he made his small criticism. I hope he will agree with most of what I say here. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of confusion about these matters out there. He himself no doubt is clear about much of this, but not everybody is. I hope my extended comments have been helpful to others.
Even so, after all of that, Prof. Hart's criticisms are mild and I may have completely missed his point. Perhaps he will respond and/or clarify his misgivings. At any rate, I thank him for his encouraging words. |
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