The Lord’s Supper: Sacrament or Sacrifice?

By Robin G. Jordan

In my previous article, "The Thirty-Nine Articles, Grace, and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper," I examined the Articles’ doctrines of grace and the Lord’s Supper and I took a look how the Anglican Church in North America and its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission in Americas, measured up to the Articles in these areas. In this article I further examine the Articles’ doctrine of the Lord’s Supper and compare it to the teaching of the service books most commonly used in the ACNA and the AMiA in the United States and Canada. These service books include the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the 1985 Canadian Book of Alternative Services, the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book, and An Anglican Prayer Book (2008). The General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church authorized a modern language version of the Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book this past June. However, it is not yet in use.

Clause 4 of the Jerusalem Declaration states very succinctly the position of GAFCON on the Thirty-Nine Articles:

We uphold the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

Not only does GAFCON maintain that the doctrine of the Articles is agreeable to Scripture but it is authoritative as Scripture. As the GAFCON Theological Resource Group explains in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the Articles are authoritative because they do agree with Scripture. They have no authority of their own. Their authority is the authority of Scripture. They do not bind consciences any tighter than does Scripture.

Articles 25, 26, 28, and 29 are not the only Articles that apply to the Lord’s Supper. So do Articles 23, 24, 30, and 31. Article 23 states that no man is permitted to take upon himself the office of public preaching or ministration of the sacraments before he has been called and appointed to fulfill this office. It is noteworthy that Article 23 says nothing about ordination as an essential requirement for the exercise of the office of public preaching or the ministration of the sacraments, only that whoever exercises these offices must be called and appointed. Article 23 goes on to identify those who are to be accepted as lawfully called and appointed. They must have been selected and called to this work by men to whom has been entrusted public authority in the Church to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard. There is no mention of bishops. Those entrusted with this authority might be bishops as was the case in the Church of England before and after the Commonwealth period. They might be the pastors and elders of the church as in the Reformed Church in Geneva. They might be the magistrate as in the Reformed Church in Zurich and the other Swiss city-states (and in the reformed Church of England in which the magistrate was the English monarch and the bishops to whom this authority was delegated were ministers of the Crown.) They might be the congregation itself as was the case in Massachusetts in Colonial times in the seventeenth century. They might also be a special commission established for that purpose as was the case in the Church of England during the Commonwealth period when the office of bishop was abolished along with the Book of Common Prayer. They might be standing committees acting as the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese in the absence of a bishop as is the case in the present day Episcopal Church and a number of other Anglican bodies in North America.

Article 24 stresses the incompatibility of ministering the sacraments in a language foreign to the people with the Word of God and the custom of the primitive Church.

Article 30 emphasizes that Christ ordained and commanded that the wine as well as the bread should be ministered alike to all Christian persons. The cup should not be withheld from the laity.

Article 31 lays stress on the New Testament teaching that the one offering of Christ was finished in the cross, and was sufficient for the sins of the whole world. It condemns in strong language the teaching that the Eucharist is a reiteration or representation of Christ’s offering for the living and dead, to obtain remission of their punishment or guilt.

In 1958 the Lambeth Conference commended to the Anglican Communion a doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice which maintains that, while we do not repeat Christ’s sacrifice or add to it, we do more than commemorate it. We also participate in it. This doctrine, J. I. Packer explains in The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, is based upon two principles.

First…the sacrifice of Christ is more than his once-for-all death on Calvary and in some sense continues into the presence; second…the church’s union with Christ is such that Christians are incorporated, not merely into his death and resurrection, but into his present sacrificing activity as well.

Packer goes on to point out principles in the Articles 25-26 on the sacraments and Articles 28-31 on the Lord’s Supper, which have bearing upon this twentieth century development. These principles are:

--Both sacraments are signs of the gospel, with their meaning fixed by the gospel.
--Both sacraments are acts of God terminating on men.
--Both sacraments proclaim Christ’s work for and in men.
--Both sacraments are means by which God works faith.

The last point, Packer emphasizes, “is basic to the truth that they are means of grace”. The sacraments “function as means of grace because God makes them means to faith.” Packer further stresses:

On this view, believing and receiving are the essence of sacramental worship. Those who have received sacraments should indeed give themselves to God, but such self-giving is a response to the grace made known in the sacrament and not strictly part of the sacramental action itself. This is the view clearly expressed in the 1662 Communion office.

Packer identifies four ways in which the eucharistic doctrine the 1958 Lambeth Conference commended to the Anglican Communion appears to conflict with these four principles.

--This doctrine is not fixed by the gospel.
--This doctrine turns the Lord’s Supper into an act of man terminating on God.
--This doctrine makes the Lord’s Supper a symbolizing not of Christ’s sacrifice so much as our own.
--This doctrine minimizes the function of the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace.

In his discussion of these points Packer draws attention to the fact that the Lambeth doctrine is insistent in postulating the continuation of Christ’s sacrifice in heaven and goes to great lengths to incorporate our sacrifice into his. On the other hand, Packer points out to us, “Scripture equates Christ’s sacrifice with his death and proclaims his work of offering as finished.” Scripture emphasizes “the uniqueness of Christ’s vicarious sacrificial death” and keeps it “distinct from the sacrifice of praise and service that is our response to it.” The emphases of the Lambeth doctrine do not come from the New Testament gospel.

Packer goes on to explain:

The essential action ceases to be God’s sacramental offering of Christ to men and becomes our sacrificial offering of ourselves with Christ to God. But this is to embrace an unbiblical fancy about the re-presenting of Calvary and to treat our response to the sacrament as if it were the sacrament itself.

The Lambeth doctrine transforms the Lord’s Supper into “a showing forth of the church’s devotion,” to which the proclamation of the Lord’s death is not essential.

Packer further explains:

On this view, the church comes to the eucharist to give rather than to get; not primarily to receive, but to offer itself in thanksgiving for what it has received already. This cuts across the view of the Articles, that the Lord’s Supper is first and foremost a means for God to strengthen faith and communicate to believing hearts the fruits of Calvary.

Packer concludes that the Articles passed verdict on the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice in the sixteenth century, “by anticipation” ruling it out as “misshapen.”

It is noteworthy that the 1958 Lambeth Conference also commended to the Anglican Communion a pattern for the service of Holy Communion that was based not upon the 1662 Communion office but Dom Gregory Dix’s The Shape of the Liturgy. It is this pattern that has influenced the pattern of the liturgy in the more recent service books such the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the 1985 Canadian Book of Alternative Services. Unlike the 1662 Communion office these later rites do not liturgically give expression to the doctrines of salvation by grace and justification by faith and have greatly blurred these teachings in the liturgy.

As we shall see, Packer’s assessment of the Lambeth doctrine and his applications of principles from the Thirty-Nine Articles in that assessment, is relevant to our comparison of the Articles’ doctrine of the Lord’s Supper and the teaching of the services books most commonly used in the ACNA and its ministry partner, the AMiA.

The Thirty-Nine Articles formulates the beliefs that the services of 1662 Book of Common Prayer express. One of the main functions of the Articles is to be doctrinal standards for the interpretation of the Prayer Book. They are also the beliefs by which the newer service books ought to be interpreted. The compilers of the newer service books do not appear to have thought in these terms. Consequently, the doctrine of these service books frequently conflict with the doctrine of the Articles. This is particularly the case with the 1928 and 1979 revisions of the American Prayer Book.

As I have written elsewhere the 1928 Prayer Book was framed at a time when there was a movement in the Protestant Episcopal Church to remove the Thirty-Nine Articles from the American Prayer Book. The Articles had never occupied a central place in the life and teaching of that church. By the 1920s the evangelicals, the one theological school of thought in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which had accept their authority had vanished from the scene. The changes that the 1928 revision introduced into the American Prayer Book were far-reaching and even radical. A number of these alterations and additions in the Communion office brought the doctrine of the 1928 revision into conflict with the doctrine of the Articles. These changes had strong historical associations with the Medieval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation, eucharistic sacrifice, and the sacerdotal character of the priesthood. The liturgical elements that they introduced into the Communion office are open to interpretation as teaching these doctrines.

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer would pave the way for the 1979 revision of the American Prayer Book. The Holy Eucharist Rite I of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, like the 1928 Communion office, is open to the same interpretation. The Holy Eucharist Rite II of the 1979 Prayer Book contains four eucharistic prayers that express not only a doctrine of the objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements but also the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. In the 1979 Prayer Book the Thirty-Nine Articles is relegated to the historical documents section and is presented as a relic of the past.

The 1962 Canadian Communion office was adopted four years after the 1958 Lambeth Conference and shows its influence. The 1962 Canadian Prayer of Consecration in its choice of wording for the anamnesis directs it Godward as if God needed a reminder of Christ.

Wherefore, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, we thy humble servants, with all thy holy Church, remembering the precious death of thy beloved Son, his mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again in glory, do make before thee [my emphasis], in this sacrament of the holy Bread of eternal life and the Cup of everlasting salvation, the memorial which he hath commanded….

It opens the Lord’s Supper in the 1962 Canada Prayer Book to interpretation as being a commemorative sacrifice directed Godward, rather than a commemoration of a sacrifice directed manward. The 1962 Canadian Communion office also adopts liturgical elements historically associated with belief in the objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements.

All six Eucharistic prayers in the 1985 Canadian Book of Alternative Services show the influence of the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. They also countenance the view that Christ is present in the bread and wine.

The 2003 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book, as my analysis of its Communion office has shown, departs from the doctrine of the earlier Reformed Episcopal Prayer Books and is open to interpretation as giving expression to doctrines of eucharistic presence and sacrifice contrary to the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles. An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), which is purported to contain modern language versions of the Communion offices of the 1662 Prayer Book, the 1928 Prayer Book, and the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book, makes alterations and additions to these rites that change their theology. For example, the words “with these your gifts” is dropped from the Oblation in the 1928 Prayer of Consecration. This omission changes the whole meaning of the Lord’s Supper. The revised Prayer of Consecration infers that Christ commanded us to offer the Lord’s Supper as a commemorative sacrifice directed Godward rather than observe the Lord’s Supper as a commemoration of a sacrifice directed manward. The late Peter Toon who was the chief editor of An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) subscribed to the view of eucharistic sacrifice that the Caroline High Churchmen and John and Charles Wesley held. In their view Christ is “always standing before God’s throne, presenting, offering, or pleading his earthly sacrifice.” The following explanation of this view is taken from J. I. Packer’s The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today.

…the church’s sacrifice is explained in terms of pleading Christ’s death for the remission of our own and others’ sins as we offer all that we are and have to God. This pleading is said to be a ‘re-presenting’ (not symbolizing, but a fresh offering or a ‘making present again’) of Christ’s sacrifice to the Father in union with Christ himself as he re-presents it; and the church’s corporate self-offering in Christ, within which our re-presenting of Calvary finds its place, is seen as the main purpose of, and the central action in the eucharistic liturgy.

While this view of eucharistic sacrifice may have been what Peter sought to give expression in the revised Prayer of Consecration, it may also have been the result of poor editing, which has never been corrected. In any event it also leaves An Anglican Prayer Book open to interpretation as teaching the Medieval doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. An Anglican Prayer Book’s modern language version of the 1962 Canadian Communion office has two corporate self-offerings of the church, the first in the Prayer of Consecration and the second in the Post-Communion Prayer. Here again poor editing may have been the culprit. Liturgical elements have been added to the 1662 Communion office that implies an objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements incompatible with the doctrine of the Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book. Peter would have done a great service to Anglicanism in North America if he had compiled an unaltered modern language version of the 1662 Prayer Book as he did the 1928 book at one point.

From the perspective of the Thirty-Nine Articles the teaching of all six service books are unscriptural. Yet it is to this teaching that congregations in the ACNA and the AMIA, which use these service books, are exposed Sunday after Sunday. It is this teaching that is forming and shaping their understanding of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

The mandate that Archbishop Duncan gave to ACNA Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force that they produce a Prayer Book so attractive that people will want to use it does not suggest that the book will express the beliefs formulated by the Articles or embody the principles found in them. If the new book is anything like An Anglican Prayer Book, the 2011 Book of Common Prayer, or A Modern Language Version of the Reformed Episcopal Book of Communion Prayer, it will continue the movement away from historic Anglicanism that is arguably a major distinguishing characteristic of what Archbishop Duncan has called “American Anglicanism.”

The ACNA and its mission partner, the AMiA, may not have abandoned historic moral standards in one area—homosexual practice. However, they are offshoots of the former Protestant Episcopal Church, and like the church from which they broke away, they have forsaken historical doctrinal standards in a number of areas. While a scattering of congregations and clergy in these two bodies have returned to these standards, the ACNA and the AMiA as a whole show no movement in that direction.

The evidence points to at least one element at work in the two bodies to export to the Anglican provinces forming GAFCON beliefs and practices that conflict with Anglicanism’s historical doctrinal standards and thereby weaken, if not negate, these standards in GAFCON. The Anglican Church of Rwanda adopted a set of canons heavily indebted to the doctrine, language, norms, and principles of the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. This set of canons reject the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies on the sacraments and ordination and in other key areas and replace them with the dogmas of the Council of Trent. Under the provisions of the Rwandan canons the relationship of the Primatial Vicar of the AMiA to the Rwandan primate is same as that of a Roman Catholic archbishop to the Roman Pontiff. All authority in the AMiA is derivative from the Rwandan primate, traceable back to the Rwandan primate, and is delegated by the Primatial Vicar as his deputy in North America. The Rwandan canons are largely the work of a former Episcopal priest, now in the AMiA, and serving as a close adviser to the Primatial Vicar.

More recently, the ACNA persuaded the Church of Nigeria to adopt its policy toward the orders of bishops consecrated in independent Catholic and Convergence churches. The primary cause for concern is not the qualifications of these bishops or the validity or the regularity of their orders but the willingness of the ACNA to promote its policies among GAFCON member provinces and to pursue their acceptance. The GAFCON primates have been faced with encroachment upon historical doctrinal and moral standards from one quarter in North America. These two developments suggest that they are now confronted with intrusion upon these standards from this quarter. Those upon whom they are relying to propagate and reinforce such standards in North America are not themselves fully committed to the standards and have their own agenda.

While the GAFCON primates have charitably recognized the ACNA as a genuine expression of Anglicanism, the ACNA and its ministry partner, the AMiA, may be too far removed from authentic historic Anglicanism in their beliefs and practices to realistically partner with GAFCON in a global reformation of Anglicanism. Rather they are likely to work against such a reformation due to their weak commitment to historic doctrinal standards or to send it off course. In commenting upon the strained relations between the Church of Nigeria and the Episcopal Church in the United States the former Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola cited Amos 3:3. “Can two walk together unless they are agreed?” Can the ACNA, the AMiA, and GAFCON work together unless they are fully agreed?

In his second letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul warns against the unequal yoking together of believers with unbelievers. While Paul was referring to the marriage of Christians to non-Christians, the underlying principle has wider application. In a partnership between those among whom non-confessional Anglicanism has long held sway and those for whom Anglicanism is a confessional stance, the partners are going to pull in different directions. The first group cannot be expected to truly represent the interests of the second group. Rather they can be expected to go in pursuit of their own interests. This points more than ever to the pressing need for a champion of authentic historic Anglicanism in North America.