Does God Do Everything?

In our last issue we considered the question, "Faith Alone, or Faith + Works?" In other words, do we attain salvation, sanctification and eternal life totally and completely by grace - a free gift from God, or do we contribute to the process by our "works" - our efforts? In a recent article Puritan Sacramentalism at the First Things website, Peter J. Leithart described the "high church" preparatory prayers that the priest says before sacramental acts such as baptism and the eucharist as not really necessary and even a form of "magic." Leithart writes that the natural elements - water, bread and wine - are already sanctified by God's creation, so they don't need any more special prayers to sanctify them. "Low church" pastors just read some Scriptures and say a prayer of thanks, sometimes even they even skip the readings and prayers, just do the acts without a word.

That prompted a response by Gabe Martini on the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy blog, stating that all those prayers actually do something, they bring us (our old rationalistic nature kicking and screaming) into the eternal spiritual reality of the heavenly temple where we join with the cherubim and seraphim in worship, and we are joined to the Body of Christ. The water of baptism is transformed by these prayers to be a spiritually cleansing and saving bath. The bread and wine are transformed by these prayers to be the Body and Blood of Christ, and we are joined to His Body by partaking - that is why the Scriptures call it "communion."

But there is more to this question than the need for preparatory prayers. Once they begin to strip away "all that ritual," there's really no reason to stop. In his reply to Gabe Martini, Fr. Andrew Damick correctly identifies this as a "reductio ad absurdam" argument: reducing and reducing, trimming away first this and then that, as Protestants tend to do, is actually sliding down a slippery slope that reduces to absurdity. "Why say preparatory prayers?" leads to: Why even observe baptism or the eucharist? Why belong to a church? Why even believe, if God has already done everything? Fr. Andrew points out that this is nothing less than the Monergist heresy - "one energy" - God's energy alone does it all, there is no need for us to do anything.

As Fr. Andrew wrote, to tell another person what that person believes when it is not what he actually believes is simply a scarecrow argument, insulting that person's intelligence. But to say that a person believes in "magic" when that person believes in the spiritual reality taking place in baptism and the eucharist is insulting God! The truth is, however, that "we are co-workers together with God" (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1). This is "synergy" - our working with God, not "monergy." Yes, God works, and we also work with Him. Christ said: "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), but that doesn't mean that we should do nothing! We are given His power to do His will: "God is at work in you, to will and to do His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). Grace is not merely a free gift, it is God's energy that transforms us into the image of Christ, Who always did the Father's will. This transformation only happens with our willing, active participation.

And to claim that all creation is sanctified and and we are all holy, so nothing and nobody should be set apart as specially holy is to fall into the same disastrous error as did Miriam and Korah et al, as described in Numbers chapters 12 and 16: "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, Has the Lord indeed spoken only with Moses? Hasn't he spoken also with us?" (Num. 12:1-2). The Lord struck Miriam with leprosy for her presumtion upon the special ordination that Moses held, as well as his being married to a black African woman.

But the revolt against Moses led by Korah, Dathan and Abiram along with 250 leading Israelites was a greater threat to the divinely-revealed religion of Israel, which earned them a far greater punishment: "Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men: and they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred fifty princes of the congregation, called to the assembly, men of renown; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, 'You take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and the Lord is among them: why then lift yourselves up above the assembly of the Lord?'" (Num. 16:1-3). The Lord caused the earth to open up and swallow Korah, Dathan and Abiram along with their families and possessions, and sent fire from heaven that consumed the other 250 Israelite co-conspirators.

It is a dangerous thing to rebel against God's ordained leaders and against our divinely-revealed Christian faith, the fulfilment of the Jewish religion. Western society has gone too far down this slippery slope, promoting the ordination of women and homosexuals, abortion, pornography, sexual immorality and homosexual marriage as the new normal. No society can long endure when its people care only about self-gratification, to the detriment of their spiritual well-being, their families and the birth rate of the nation as a whole. Western Europe's superficial prosperity and self-gratification has brought on a disastrous birth rate that is bringing those countries to the brink of extinction, to be only partially resolved by the influx of foreign workers - mostly Muslims - which has brought on its own set of problems: ethnic riots and terrorist attacks. And the U.S. is not far behind. May the Lord not punish us for believing that "God Does Everything" so that we don't need to do anything but gratify our own fleshly desires. Lord have mercy!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 15 Feb. 2015.)