By Robin G. Jordan
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”1 Peter 2:4-5 ESV
Classical Anglicanism recognizes that Christians as Christ’s royal priesthood make offerings to God in three ways. We offer our thanksgiving. We offer our praise. We offer our lives. A General Thanksgiving in The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 touches upon all these three ways.
In A General Thanksgiving we “beseech” God, we humbly ask him, to give us “that due sense of all thy mercies…,” to give us ability to keenly perceive all the mercies that God has shown us and to be fully conscious of these mercies. We acknowledge that this true appreciation of God’s mercies for which we are asking is what we ought to be showing to God at all times. It is the proper thing to do.
We ask for this intensely acute sense of God’s mercies in order that “our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful….” The end result of having this sense of God’s mercies, the end result that we desire, is that we feel gratitude toward God from the depths of our hearts, from our innermost being. This gratitude is more than a passing feeling. It is a habitual attitude. It is not feigned. It is not pretended or simulated. It is not counterfeited or imagined. It is genuine and very real. We desire this sense of God’s mercies so that we can make a continuous offering of thanksgiving to God every waking moment of our lives.
We also ask for this sense of God’s mercies to bring about a second end result: “….we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days.” To “show forth” is to display. We spread out in view of others and exhibit to the whole world our praise of God, our approbation of God and our admiration of him. We make it known to all and sundry. We desire this sense of God’s mercies so that we can also make a continuous offering of praise to God.
We desire to show forth God’s praise in two ways—“with our lips” and “in our lives.” To “show forth” is also to let appear. We are asking God to let his praise not only resound from our lips but also be reflected in how we live.
We show forth God’s praise “with our lips” in a number of ways. The first thing that is likely to come to mind is singing a hymn, psalm, or spiritual song (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). But showing forth God’s praise with our lips goes beyond praising God in song. The apostle Peter is very emphatic:
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10 ESV).
We are to make public the great merits of God who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We are not only to make know God’s might deeds, but also his character, his attributes, and especially his hesiad—his loving kindness. We are to tell God’s story. We do this by speaking aloud our prayers in the hearing of others in a language that they can understand, by reading aloud the Scriptures to others, by telling Bible stories to small children, by proclaiming God’s excellencies from the pulpit, by making visible his goodwill and favour toward us in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We are also to tell how God’s story has intersected with our own, what God has done in our lives. We are to share the intersecting of God’s story and our own with all who will listen.
In A General Thanksgiving we express the desire to show forth God’s praise in our lives in two principle ways—by giving ourselves up to God’s service and by walking before God in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives. In other words, we desire to dedicate our lives completely to God’s service and to lead lives that are worthy of those in God’s service, lives that bring glory and honour to God. We desire to make a continuous offering of ourselves and our lives to God.
These three offerings then are what classical Anglicanism recognizes that all Christians are to make—the offerings of thanksgiving, of praise, and of ourselves. Nowhere in the New Testament do we read that anyone on our behalf or we ourselves are to offer Christ under the forms of bread and wine in sacrifice for our sins to God. Nowhere in the New Testament do we read that Christ himself re-offers his sacrifice to God or pleads his sacrifice to God in heaven. Rather we read that Christ “has no need…to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27 ESV). Having made on the cross in the words of The Book of Common Prayer “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world,” Christ “is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven…” (Hebrews 8:1 ESV).
We go on to read:
“For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:24-28 ESV).
We further read:
“And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:11-14 ESV)
The New Testament is very clear that no additional sacrifice may be offered for our sins:
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27 ESV).
It is also unambiguous in regards to what sacrifices are pleasing to God:
“You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’ I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation” (Psalms 40:5-10 ESV).
“Make thanksgiving your sacrifice to God, and perform your vows to the Most High” (Psalm 50:14, alternate rendering, ESV).
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! (Psalm 50: 23, ESV)
Offer unto God thanksgiving : and pay thy vows unto the most Highest….Whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoureth me : and to him that ordereth his conversation right will I shew the salvation of God. (Psalm 50:14,23 BCP 1662)
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalms 51:17 ESV).
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:12-13 ESV)
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2 ESV)
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV)
“Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:15-16 ESV).
For Biblically faithful Anglicans every day is a day for the offering of thanksgiving and praise and ourselves to God, not one brief hour on Saturday night or Sunday morning. As we read God’s word each morning and pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit, we lift up our hearts and minds to heaven where Christ sits at the Father’s right hand, there to receive sustenance and strength for our souls from the Bread of Life. Grateful for all the mercies God has shown us, we begin a new day of praise and service, dedicating all we say and do to the glory of God.
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