Forgotten Power: The Lord’s Supper and the Biblical Pattern of Revival

 

Editor Note: The editors of the Pneuma Review are aware that Dr. De Arteaga’s views on sacraments will not be universally received among our readers. This guest essay is printed to encourage thought and discussion. Please add your comments below to join the conversation.

 

Revivals without the Lord’s Supper

As we have seen,* by the time Charles Finney began his revival ministry in the 1820s, the model of the Word and the Lord’s Supper as a vehicle for revival began to diminish. With the revival ministry of Dwight Moody (1837–1899), Finney’s innovation of revivals without the traditional sacraments was solidified as the evangelical pattern. Since then no major evangelist has incorporated the Lord’s Supper as part of the revival cycle—although a few have urged immediate baptism after the conversion experience.

Was the elimination of the Lord’s Supper and its replacement with the altar call a Spirit-inspired development, or was it an unfortunate mistake? The noted Christian historian Iain Murray has recently said a loud Yes to the second question in a thoughtful and provocative book, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism.¹ Murray argues that evangelicals should return to the revival methods that stressed prayer and personal repentance rather than the emotionalism of an altar call. We have pointed out how the abuse of the altar call, especially when combined with the doctrine of eternal assurance, has contributed to the blight of American antinomianism (ch. 2*).

Nevertheless, it is also true that the era since the 1830s has been the most revival-rich in church history. The revivals of the current age include the great Finney and Moody campaigns, and their tradition has continued through such figures as Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. The Pentecostal revivals, which include the Azusa Street revival and the Pentecostal movement, the charismatic renewal, and the current wave of revival (Toronto/Pensacola), follow the pattern of avoiding the Lord’s Supper as a revival event.

In truth, contemporary evangelists such as Billy Graham and Reinhard Bonnke have, in sheer numbers of conversions, outpaced all of the traditional sacramental revivals of history. It is hard to see how, for instance, the current Bonnke revivals in Africa could accommodate any sort of communion service. In a recent revival campaign in Benin, West Africa, the Rev. Bonnke and his ministry team attracted 640,000 persons during their six-day campaign and received 200,000 responses for salvation. The ministry team was overwhelmed by that response, as they had brought only 120,000 copies of their discipleship booklet, Now That You Are Saved. Thankfully they coordinated with the area Christian churches to assure that those who made a decision for Christ were channeled into active fellowships.²

To criticize that many of the persons who make the altar call at such events eventually backslide is to miss the point that many others do in fact become mature Christians. The current rapid expansion of Christianity in the Third World would not have been possible without the new sacramental form of the altar call. Further, most mature evangelists, such as Graham or Bonnke, go to great lengths to cooperate with local churches to assure that the convert’s discipling follows the altar call.

All of this raises an important question: Is the association of revival and the Lord’s Supper now obsolete? Should the great Scottish revivals and the Wesleyan revival be seen as charming chapters of church history that have little relevance for the modern church? Is the fact that God now seems to be pouring out his grace of revival mostly through evangelists who do not use the Lord’s Supper during revival or even teach about it as necessary for the new believer make this sacrament obsolete as a revival tool?

If Christianity were ruled by statistical analysis, we might indeed conclude that such is the case and indeed declare the altar call the new sacrament of evangelization—end of argument. However, Christians must always look back to the biblical evidence as a “reality check” and affirmation of current practice. In fact, both the Old and New Testament revivals have a strong sacramental component that is too often overlooked by modern readers, who look at the biblical data through contemporary, nonsacramental categories. Looking carefully at the biblical witness will help locate the divine plan for the role of the Lord’s Supper in revivals.

 

 

The “Chronicler” as Old Testament Theologian of Revival³

Several related Old Testament books deal centrally with the cycle of sin and revival: 1 and 2 Chronicles (originally one work) and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (also probably one work). The writer (or editor) of these works, called the “Chronicler” by scholars, wrote perhaps as early as the late sixth century b.c.⁴ This was a time when the Second Temple was functioning as the center of Jewish worship, but Israel was no longer politically independent. The Chronicler was probably a Levitical scribe and singer or musician—his works have a lot of detail about the music ministry of the temple.

It has also been noted that the Chronicler’s writings downplay the role of the classical prophets such as Isaiah or Hosea. Along this line, note the incident in the book of Nehemiah in which local prophets accept bribes to give false utterances against rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 6:10–14). This is not something that reflects well on the office of the prophet. Instead, the Chronicler takes an almost Pentecostal view that the Spirit of God and prophetic utterances are universally spread.⁵ For the Chronicler, the classic prophets such as Isaiah and Hosea are part of the voice of God to Israel and Judah, but they are not the entire voice. There are also lesser “seers,” momentary speakers of God’s word, such as a pagan pharaoh (2 Chron. 35:20–22) and a soldier, a “chief of the Thirty,” who had the Spirit of God come on him to give a valid prophecy (1 Chron. 12:18). These are messengers of God who did not have the formal prophetic office. Presumably the Chronicler would not have been surprised by the visionary and prophetic experiences of the Scottish revivals or the Cane Ridge revival, where even children prophesied.

The Chronicler used many sources, most notably 1 and 2 Kings, but also the prophetic books of the Bible, memoirs, and other sources we no longer have. These he forged into a theological interpretation of the history of the rise, fall, and restoration of the Israelite nation from the time of David and Solomon to the beginning of the Second Temple period. He focused on the southern kingdom of Judah, which included Jerusalem and its beloved temple.

The Chronicler’s longest work, 1 and 2 Chronicles, is not the favorite Old Testament reading for most Christians. The work begins with lengthy genealogies and includes details of temple worship that bore many of us. It is also history, and therefore one may be tempted to downgrade it as less useful than Old Testament books such as Proverbs or Psalms.⁶ But principally, because it is an Old Testament book, some of the Chronicler’s assumptions are alien to modern readers. For starters, the Chronicler understands that God manifests his character through both mercy and retribution. If one disobeys the precepts of the law of God, and especially if one falls into idolatry, retribution will be severe and certain—on this earth, and not necessarily in the afterlife.⁷ Many contemporary Christians have been raised with the idea that God has so much “unconditional love” that his retribution is merely a rhetorical threat.

The Chronicler also assumes that the full, true worship of God is corporate worship, which takes place within the context of the temple cult, with its divinely established covenant rites of the Mosaic law. This is not to say that the author is an Old Testament legalist, for throughout the work is a deeply embedded understanding that proper worship must include sincere and wholehearted devotion to the one God of Israel. This is dramatically highlighted when the Chronicler cites King David’s charge to his son Solomon with his duties as king:

And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. (1 Chron. 28:9)

This stark choice is repeated throughout the work and becomes the judgment peg of the kings of Judah and Israel.

Finally, the last section of Chronicles shows the kingdom of Judah overrun by the Babylonians. Jerusalem is sacked, the people are killed or exiled, and the temple itself is destroyed. Although there is also a hint of the coming restoration of the temple, this is not a Hollywood ending. The contemporary reader may receive the impression that Chronicles is mostly a book of divine retribution—and like Lamentations, a record of spiritual tragedy.

That is an unbalanced view. Although 1 and 2 Chronicles record the history of the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, embedded in that tragic narrative is the pattern for restitution and revival—a hopeful theme. It is the good news of God’s promise that no matter how apostate his people become, revival is possible. Without exaggeration it can be said that the Chronicler is the Old Testament theologian of revival, and his writings present for us a focused pattern for revival and restoration. Although the details of the revivals in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah are different, the general pattern is the same. A sinful and apostate nation must repent, reject idolatry, seek God, and obey his laws and commands. Obedience and loyalty to the Lord is manifest especially in the corporate worship and covenant ordinances of the Mosaic law.

 

 

The Chronicler divided his first work, the books of Chronicles, into two major historical sections. The first describes the establishment of the divine pattern for temple worship under David and Solomon (1 Chron. 11–2 Chron. 9). The second section, the rest of the work (2 Chron. 10–36), details the waves of apostasy, idolatry, and disloyalty to the Lord—but with glorious examples of revival.

The Chronicler’s description of David’s reign focuses on the restoration of the ark of the covenant to its proper place as center of Israel’s worship. The ark is brought to the newly conquered capital, Jerusalem, by its proper Levitical and priestly escort. David then sets in place all that is necessary for the priests to perform the daily sacrifices of the Mosaic law. As a result, David’s kingdom is strengthened and expanded (1 Chron. 18). The high point of this first section is the dedication of the temple under Solomon. During the praise songs by the singers and musicians God sets his seal of approval on the temple with his special presence as a cloud of glory that occasioned the original “fallings”—that is, the priests faint away under the power of God as the temple ceremony proceeds (see 1 Kings 8:11).

The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good; his love endures forever.”

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God. (2 Chron. 5:13–14)⁸

This was followed by Solomon’s dedicatory prayer, which includes a lengthy supplication asking God to forgive any future sins of the people and pleas for future restoration and revival:

When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, “We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly”; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen … then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you. (2 Chron. 6:36–39)

Sometime during the week of dedication the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and reaffirmed Solomon’s request in words that have been often quoted in recent decades:

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chron. 7:14)

 

The Three Revivals of the First Temple

After Solomon’s reign came the kingship of Rehoboam. He “did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord” (2 Chron. 12:14). In his greed for power he foolishly forced the northern tribes into rebellion and divided the kingdom into the northern part, Israel, and the southern, Judah (including the city of Jerusalem). The national decline actually began under the latter part of King Solomon’s reign, when he allowed the allure of foreign wives to dampen his fervor for the Lord (1 Kings 11). This is not mentioned by the Chronicler, who wishes to present the reign of Solomon as perfect.

After the reign of Rehoboam’s son, Abijah, Asa inherited the throne of Judah and immediately began warring against the creeping idolatry that had settled on the land: “He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles” (2 Chron. 14:3). Then, after a decade of peace and prosperity, the Ethiopians attempted to invade Judah. Asa called on the Lord and routed the invaders with a much smaller army. The Judean army sacked the enemy camp and took many cattle (the mobile commissary of ancient armies). As King Asa made his triumphal return, he was met by Azariah, a man on whom the “Spirit of God came,” who gave Asa words of prophetic encouragement: “But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded” (15:7).

The messenger’s words encouraged Asa to initiate another wave of reform and idol cleansing. Many from the northern kingdom flocked to Judah “when they saw that the Lord his God was with him” (2 Chron. 15:9). Asa then proclaimed a Passover-like feast, and the captured Ethiopian cattle were sacrificed before the Lord—and served as the entrée. During this feast Asa led the people into a renewal of their covenant with God:

They took an oath to the Lord with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side. (2 Chron. 15:14–15)

The period of prosperity and religious faithfulness continued under Asa’s successor Jehoshaphat. Unfortunately, the kings following Jehoshaphat were less faithful to the Lord. The decline became precipitous under the reign of Ahaz, who not only cast idols to worship but also sacrificed his sons as burnt offerings to those very idols—the deepest level of apostasy (2 Chron. 28:2–3). The Chronicler details the defeats and disasters suffered by the kingdom of Judah as a result of Ahaz’s apostasy. These events set the stage for the greatest of the First Temple revivals, under Ahaz’s son Hezekiah.
 

 
When the youthful King Hezekiah ascended to the throne in Judah, the temple was boarded up, and worship of the Lord had been discontinued. He immediately called in the priests and Levites to open and cleanse the temple—a process that took several weeks. The first service of the reopened temple was a sin offering for the sins of the previous generation. The king then called for a thank offering from the people, and the response was overwhelming—a sign that the revival had come: “Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it [revival of worship at the temple] was done so quickly” (2 Chron. 29:36).

At this point “the king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month” (2 Chron. 30:2). It was a month later than its mandated time because the priests had not been properly consecrated. Hezekiah converted the Passover into a “revivalistic” event for all God’s people by inviting the tribes of the northern kingdom, Israel, to share the Passover. This was in spite of the fact that Judah and Israel had recently fought a series of bitter wars.

For the most part the northern tribes ridiculed Hezekiah’s invitation—they were content with their own gods. Some from the north did come, but these and the other Jews from outside Judah had not properly consecrated themselves according to the Mosaic law (Ex. 12:43–49; Num. 9:10). They should have been disqualified from participating in the Passover. Hezekiah prayed that the Lord would overlook this requirement:

“May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God—the Lord, the God of his fathers—even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.” And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people. (2 Chron. 30:18–20)

The “healing” in this passage refers to healing from ritual impurity. The whole assembly then “celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing, while the Levites and priests sang to the Lord every day, accompanied by the Lord’s instruments of praise” (2 Chron. 30:21). All this was so good that everyone agreed to extend the feast and celebrate another seven days. This calls to mind the revival at Cambuslang in 1742, with its unprecedented second communion.

This revival, strengthened by the observance of the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, spilled out into further reforms and revival. The people returned to their cities and destroyed the idols and local worship centers. Hezekiah reorganized the daily temple service so that it would be regular, and the priests, supported by the tithes of the people, dedicated themselves to the study of the law. Soon the tithe donated for temple worship was so abundant that new storehouses had to be built to contain the produce.

The Chronicler describes Hezekiah as a new David. True temple worship was restored and idolatry suppressed, and the law of Moses became normative in the kingdom of Judah. Positive earthly consequences resulted: Judah prospered, and with God’s miraculous intervention, an assault from the huge Assyrian army was rebuffed (2 Chron. 32).

Unfortunately the two kings who followed Hezekiah again “did evil in the sight of the Lord” and reestablished witchcraft, child sacrifice, and idolatry in Judah. This sets the scene for the last revival in Chronicles, the one led by King Josiah. This was a last hurrah of true temple worship before the dispersion and exile of Judah and the destruction of the temple.

Josiah inherited the throne as a boy of eight. By the time he was sixteen he began a cleansing of Judah from the idolatry of the two previous regimes. In the process of cleansing and repair the high priest discovered the scroll of “the Law of the Lord that had been given through Moses” (2 Chron. 34:14). This was probably the book of Deuteronomy. When the book of the law was read to King Josiah, he realized how far his people had departed from God’s command. The king tore his clothes as a sign of repentance and sent his advisors to seek a prophetic word on the matter. The prophetess Huldah gave the word of God: The sins and apostasy of Judah were beyond remedy, and Judah was doomed. However, because Josiah had sought the Lord and repented, “I [the Lord] will gather you to your fathers and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place and on those who live here” (34:28).

Josiah immediately busied himself in bringing Judah into more rigorous conformity with the law of Moses. Perhaps he was mindful of the ancient Jewish understanding of “changing God’s mind” through prayer and repentance. That understanding went as far back as Moses’ plea to God not to destroy the Jewish people for worshiping the golden calf (Ex. 32:9–14). King David had gone on a fast to try to save his newborn child in spite of the word of God from the prophet Nathan (2 Sam. 12:7–23). Josiah was presumably also aware of the prayer of King Hezekiah, which had added fifteen years to his life in spite of the initial word from God through Isaiah that he would die immediately (2 Kings 20:1–7).⁹

In any case, Josiah organized a covenant-renewal service. This took the form of an assembly of the men of Judah in which the law was read, and Josiah vowed to obey the requirements of the law: “Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their fathers” (2 Chron. 34:32). Josiah also encouraged the Levites to become teachers of the law. As the other righteous kings of Judah, he reinstated the observance of the Passover and its accompanying Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The Israelites who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem. (2 Chron. 35:17–18)

The only serious error of Josiah as king was one connected with a military decision. He did not discern that Neco, the pharaoh of Egypt, was on a mission from God to fight the Babylonians (2 Chron. 35:22). Josiah refused to give the Egyptian army safe passage through Judah but instead went out and gave battle. He lost both the battle and his life, and he was buried to the public chants and laments of the prophet Jeremiah.
 

 
In spite of Josiah’s splendid spiritual accomplishments, the Lord did not change his mind about destroying Jerusalem and punishing the people, and Huldah’s (and Jeremiah’s) prophecy came to pass. Within less than twenty-five years after Josiah’s death, Jerusalem was captured, its people killed or exiled, and the temple destroyed. The consequences of the apostasy and evil done by the kings and people of Judah had brought God’s severe judgment. This, however, did not cancel the promise of further revival and restoration—the theme that the Chronicler hints at in the last paragraph of 2 Chronicles and elaborates in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

 

Revival after the Babylonian Exile: Ezra and Nehemiah

The book of Ezra records how after the years of “Sabbath rest” in exile, a contingent of Jews returned to the ruins of Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and reestablish the worship of the Lord their God. The Chronicler’s main concern in this work is to show how the returning exiles, under first Zerubbabel, a prince, and later Ezra, a priest and scribe, cleansed themselves in order to become the restored people of God.

When the exiles returned, they found Jerusalem in ruins. They trusted the Lord for protection and built a temporary altar to begin the daily sacrifices mandated by the law. They also celebrated the Feast of Booths (Ezra 3:4). The temple foundation was laid, but the work was stopped because of local opposition.

Under the prophetic encouragement of Haggai and Zechariah, work on the temple started up again and was eventually finished. The Jews then gathered to dedicate the temple: “For seven days they celebrated with joy the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Lord had filled them with joy” (Ezra 6:22). Only then, when the community was strengthened with proper worship, did the central drama of the book of Ezra unfold: dismissal of foreign wives and children.

The story of the purified Jewish community is continued in the book of Nehemiah. This work completed the Chronicler’s cycle by showing the remnant Jewish community safe behind newly built walls and spiritually protected by a reinstated Mosaic law. This occurred through a great revival led by Nehemiah the governor and Ezra, who earlier had led the community to dismiss foreign wives and children.

The book of Nehemiah opens at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes I (465–424 b.c.). Nehemiah, personal cupbearer to the king, prays to God for the restoration of the Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls with promises found in Deuteronomy 30:2–4. God answers that prayer, and Nehemiah is given a royal commission to rebuild the walls of his beloved city.

Soon after Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he oversaw the rebuilding of the walls. He shamed the ruling class Jews into forgoing all usury and to free enslaved Jews. The work on the walls was completed in spite of opposition from local chieftains and an attack of false prophecy by prophets bought by the opposition (Neh. 6:10–14). Nehemiah then called a convocation of the returned exiles to dedicate the walls and reestablish the holy covenant of the Jews with God. Ezra the priest began the convocation with praise and worship and proceeded to read the Mosaic law. He read from morning to night, and priests assisted him in explaining the law to the people.

Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. (Neh. 8:9)

As Jonathan Edwards might have said, the crowd had been “exercised” by a spirit of conviction, which surprised the leadership.

Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”

Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them. (Neh. 8:10–12)

The next day the people gathered for further instruction in the law of Moses. They found in the law the command to celebrate the Feast of Booths.

So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves booths on their own roofs, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim. The whole company that had returned from exile built booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.

Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly. (Neh. 8:16–18)

That assembly on the eighth day was the opposite of the one they had just celebrated. The people fasted and wore sackcloth, and they repented of their sins and the sins of their fathers in rejecting the law of God. Finally, the assembled Jews recommitted themselves to God and to obedience of the law through a renewed covenant. In this case a covenant that outlined the obligations of the law was signed by the leadership of the renewed community.

 

The Chronicler as Sacramentalist

It is obvious that besides being a revivalist, the Chronicler was also a sacramentalist.¹⁰ He positioned the liturgy of the Israelite feasts and the covenant rites of temple worship in the midst of, and causally connected with, revival. Other factors were also important in his presentation of revival. Repentance was a major factor, of course, as in renouncing, with great tears and weeping, the idolatry and syncretism that continually infiltrated Israel and Judah.
 

 

Also critical for the Chronicler’s understanding of revival and restoration was the role of royal leadership. The spiritual orientation of the king set the course of loyalty to the Lord and his temple worship on the one hand, or apostasy and idolatry on the other. This makes sense in an age of absolute kings. The Chronicler would have been surprised by the course of events in America and the United Kingdom, where revivals have occurred under ungodly kings or presidents. Cane Ridge and the Second Great Awakening, for example, began under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, a Deist and possibly the least religious president of the United States in the nineteenth century (see ch. 7).

But after all is said and done, it is the covenant acts—the feasts (especially Passover and the Feast of Booths), the covenant renewals, and the daily temple sacrifices mandated by the law—that are for the Chronicler the “means of grace” to strengthen the Jewish community and clear the channel to heaven for God’s blessings. Nevertheless, it is fair to admit that nowhere does the Chronicler use the word “sacrament” (a word that does not appear anywhere in Scripture) or “means of grace” or other such phrases. In fact, the understanding of the Old Testament rites and ordinances as true sacraments—covenant signs that mediate grace—goes against centuries of Christian theology, an issue we need now to deal with more closely.

 

Were the Old Testament Covenant Rites True Sacraments?¹¹

Although the word “sacrament” does not occur, in regard to its mandated feasts, the Old Testament does use the word “ordinance” (which in church history has become a synonym for “sacrament”):

The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord’s Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days…. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month.’” (Lev. 23:33, 41)

A similar passage is found in Exodus in reference to Passover:

You shall observe this rite [Passover] as an ordinance for you and for your sons for ever. And when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. (Ex. 12:24–25 RSV)

The problem for many contemporary Christians in accepting the Passover, the Feast of Booths, or the other Israelite feasts as true sacraments lies in theological instruction and assumptions derived from early Christian theology. The issue goes back to the anti-Judaic prejudices of certain patristic writers, especially St. Augustine (354–430). Although Christianity began as a Jewish sect, relations between synagogue and church soon took an acrimonious turn. By the end of the second century it was no longer possible to be both a Jew and a Christian.¹² The rabbis excommunicated all Christians from the synagogue, and Christians retaliated by using harsh terms to describe the Jews’ rejection of the gospel.¹³

St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, laid the foundations of Western Christianity’s sacramental theology with his prolific writings. Unfortunately he also accepted the anti-Judaic beliefs of the early church.¹⁴ Moreover, he spent part of his adulthood among the Manicheans, a religious sect that believed the Old Testament was written by an evil god of vengeance and only the New Testament was inspired by the Holy Spirit. When Augustine became a Christian, he discarded that extreme view but continued to have problems in appreciating the Old Testament. Thus, in Augustine’s view the Old Testament sacramental feasts, temple service, and rites were “types,” foreshadowings of the Christian sacraments, but were not valid, grace-giving actions in themselves.¹⁵ Thus illogically, the rites and festivals gave no blessings to those who obeyed and performed them in the Old Testament times, but they were “instructional” for New Testament Christians (who had not yet been born!). For Augustine the only valid sacraments are those directly instituted by Christ and performed through the church.

Augustine’s debasement of the Old Testament sacraments was hotly disputed by theologians in the Middle Ages.¹⁶ For example, St. Bonaventure totally disagreed and saw the Old Testament festivals (especially Passover) as sacraments and truly grace-giving. In his view, “the sacraments were instituted [by God] from the beginning to cure the sickness of sin, and they will endure until the end of time.”¹⁷ Although Bonaventure understood the primacy that Jesus played in establishing the church’s sacramental ministry, he also understood that the sacraments had their origins in the Father’s love and nature. For instance, Bonaventure believed that God established the sacrament of matrimony at the Garden of Eden, that it continued after the Fall among all peoples, and that it continues as a valid sacrament even among the heathen. Similarly, God established the sacrament of repentance (penance) as a spiritual universal. This can be seen as active in the ministries of the Old Testament prophets, who called the people of Israel to repentance and reconciliation with the Lord.

Unfortunately, St. Thomas Aquinas, who developed what became the official Roman Catholic theology of the sacraments, sided with Augustine. True sacraments were restricted to those sacred actions found in the New Testament and to those that could be linked to Jesus. For instance, St. Thomas claimed that baptism was instituted by Jesus when he received John’s baptism.¹⁸ The opinion that Jesus directly instituted sacraments of the church became the orthodox opinion of Roman Catholicism and later influenced Protestant theology as well.

Significantly, several of the Reformers battled this theological opinion and credited the Old Testament feasts (notably, the rite of circumcision and especially the Passover) as valid sacramental acts—in effect following the tradition of St. Bonaventure. John Calvin especially held to a high view of the Old Testament covenant rites, including circumcision, as valid sacraments.¹⁹ Puritan writers, including Solomon Stoddard (ch. 4), shared this more generous view of the Old Testament. However, as evangelical Protestantism drifted into the Zwinglian view of the sacraments as merely memorial, the high view of Old Testament covenant rites as true sacramental acts became irrelevant. Thus, most Protestant theologians aligned themselves with St. Augustine’s opinion that the Old Testament rites were merely “types” or shadows of New Testament sacraments and disregarded Calvin’s opinion.

A reading of Luke 7:28–30 indicates that St. Bonaventure and John Calvin were correct and that St. Augustine and St. Thomas were wrong. In these verses Jesus is talking about the ministry of John the Baptist, and Luke adds a significant comment.

“I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

In these verses, Jesus locates John the Baptist as an old-covenant prophet, and yet (as the comment by Luke demonstrates) his baptism contained an effective grace. It opened the ears of its participants to the gospel of Jesus.²⁰ When a person accepted baptism and entered into this God-inspired rite, that person received a specific grace. Those persons who refused baptism did not get it. In other words, Old Testament covenant acts are sacraments and do have a grace-mediating capacity, just as the New Testament sacraments.

 

 

The Scottish Communion Cycle as the Feast of Booths

Retrospectively, we may conclude that what happened in the Scottish communion cycles, including Cane Ridge, and in the camp meetings that followed, was a recovery of the sacrament of the Feast of Booths. It is not difficult to detect the hand of the Holy Spirit in shaping this recovery during the century and a half that it took to form the communion cycles. All the essential elements of the Feast of Booths were reactivated: a dramatic decrease in social pretensions and separations by removing the individual from his or her home (a major emblem of social standing), the charity and joy (and grace) of food sharing, and fellowship regardless of class or economic standing. These were combined with preaching the Word, repentance, and rededication. Certainly in the communion cycles there was the added and greater grace of the Lord’s Supper. Thus grace was heaped upon grace, perhaps the secret of their success in the face of such persistent opposition within and without the church. This may also explain why the camp-meeting tradition has been such a successful and enduring part of American Christianity.

The connection to the Feast of Booths was not understood, or at least publicly discussed, by even the staunchest defenders of the Scottish communion cycles. The anti-Semitic heritage of orthodox theology had closed their eyes to the possibility that imitating any of the ancient feasts could be an occasion of grace. Ultimately this theological gap exposed the communion cycle to ridicule and disintegration, so that without the comparison to the Feast of Booths the communion cycles were indeed regarded as unscriptural.

 

Paul’s Caution

Recent decades have seen an unprecedented upsurge of interest in, and appreciation of, the Jewish heritage of Christianity. Many Christian churches have experimented with celebrating a Christian Passover on Good Friday night instead of the usual somber vigil. My suggestion that there is a grace gained from celebrating the Feast of Booths (consciously or unconsciously) places this work within that ongoing movement.

However, we should also be aware that the “return-to-Jewish-roots” movement has a danger. We must begin with Paul’s warning to his churches not to be in bondage to Jewish traditions:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col. 2:16–17)

In this perspective, Augustine’s argument against the validity of Old Testament sacraments is an exaggeration of Paul’s warnings. The apostle’s revelation was that a dependence on the Jewish calendar and festival cycle for salvation or righteousness debases the effectiveness of the cross and is a legalistic bondage. But his words do not rule out the possibility that a person can freely receive a blessing of grace from the celebration of Old Testament feasts. After all, Paul himself kept a number of Jewish rites and rituals in his own personal life (cf. Acts 21:20–26; 1 Cor. 9:20).

In sum, our enthusiasm for the grace possibilities from the Christian celebration of Passover or the Feast of Booths must be tempered by Paul’s warning. The Old Testament sacraments may very well be eternally valid, but they are not critical for salvation or for the development of the mature Christian life. Rather, they must be seen as additional blessings available to believers of every era.

 

New Testament Revival in Jerusalem²¹

Turning to the New Testament, the book of Acts presents the great and seminal revival that began at Pentecost and that birthed the Christian church. The revival sequence of Acts 2 can be easily discerned to be sacramental. The disciples were waiting and praying in the upper room for the reception of the Holy Spirit in response to Jesus’ last command (1:4–5, 8). The Holy Spirit then descended in dramatic form, with wind and tongues of fire as outward evidence. All those in the upper room received the gift of tongues and presumably other gifts of the Spirit. Peter then stepped out to an assembling crowd and preached an anointed sermon, calling for repentance and proclaiming the lordship of Jesus.

As a result, the crowd was “exercised,” as Jonathan Edwards would say (Acts 2:37, “cut to the heart”), and they asked, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). After further urging three thousand were immediately baptized (2:41). Luke then describes the life of the revival community in Jerusalem:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42–47)

We should note certain characteristics of this prototype revival. The new Jewish-Christian community devoted themselves to learning God’s Word through the apostles. They continued public worship at the temple and had an unusually strong communal life, which expressed itself in the sharing of material goods and property. The divine presence was strong in their midst and manifested in every individual, feeling a special sense of awe and fear of the Lord, and in the constant working of miracles through the apostles.
 

 
In the midst of all of this was a constant sacramental observance similar to that of the Old Testament revivals, except now the covenant signs were the ones mandated by their Lord. That they practiced immediate baptism is clear. Here there is no lengthy catechuminate as in the later centuries of the church.²² However the form or formula of baptism is not described and may have been, in its beginning at least, only in the name of Jesus, as is hinted at in the revival in Samaria (Acts 8:16).

Similarly, the meaning of the “breaking of bread” is unclear. Biblical commentators are practically unanimous in declaring this to be a form of the Lord’s Supper. This was certainly an Agape meal, a love feast in which the new believers experienced and celebrated the Lord’s presence. For the Jewish Christians the words of institution may not have been as important as giving thanks to God for the elements—a pattern derived from the Passover and continued in Jewish fellowship meals of the times.²³ The phrase “ate together with glad and sincere hearts” may also indicate that the love-feast element was predominant in the Jerusalem community over the more somber “memorial” of Christ’s death motif described in the Gospels.²⁴ In any case, some form of the Lord’s Supper and baptism stood at the center of the Jerusalem revival.

 

The Wesleyan Revival as Acts 2

We can now understand that the Wesleyan revival was close in character and grace to the revival described in Acts 2. This is not surprising, for the Wesley brothers strove consciously to recreate “primitive Christianity” among their societies. Like the first Christians in Acts 2, the early Methodists experienced a deep presence of the Holy Spirit. The Wesley brothers preached an “apostolic” (evangelical) gospel, stressed small group fellowship, and practiced sacramental worship to the point of seeking to recover the fullness of the original love feast/Lord’s Supper. In addition, the Wesleyan revival incorporated the Old Testament sacrament of the periodic covenant renewal. About the only element of the Jerusalem church that the early Methodists did not practice was the community of goods. It must be noted, however, that their concern and charity to the poor followed the original apostolic intent. We will discuss further the fullness of the Wesleyan revival below (ch. 16).

With this biblical perspective we can also see that the Scottish communion cycles and the Wesleyan revivals presented the church not just with charming chapters of church history but with the high point of a revival mode. These older revivals re-created with deeper fidelity than modern revivals the biblical pattern for renewing the people of God.

 

PR 

 

Notes

1. Iain H. Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750–1858 (Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), ch. 11, “The Illusion of a New Era.” This is not meant to imply, however, that Murray endorses a return to the Lord’s Supper as having a role in revival.
2. The Reinhard Bonnke website is www.cfan.org, where one can follow the news of this amazing ministry.
3. This section is based on the seminal article by Donald F. Murray, “Retribution and Revival: Theological Theory, Religious Praxis, and the Future in Chronicles,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 88 (June 2000): 77–99.
4. The majority academic opinion of the past century has held that one author or editor was responsible for the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Some recent scholars have questioned this opinion and posited that the similarities in style and theological outlook are due to a disciples’ “school” or fellowship. The ultimate answer may be irresolvable this side of eternity. For the single-author opinion, which I have chosen because it in our case simplifies matters (and if wrong does no harm), I have depended on the work of the noted Old Testament scholar Peter R. Ackroyd, especially his recent work The Chronicler in His Age (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).
5. William M. Schiniedewind, “Prophets and Prophecy in the Books of Chronicles,” in The Chronicler as Historian, ed. David J. A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 204–24.
6. Fortunately, the books of Chronicles has received recent favorable attention from Bruce Wilkinson’s best-selling work on prayer based on the two-sentence “prayer of Jabez” embedded within one of the Chronicler’s lengthy genealogies (1 Chron. 4:9–10). See The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2000). This book has been ridiculed as materialistic and simplistic by liberal critics, but it is really an excellent work that demonstrates the simplicity and power of prayer. See Philip Zaleski, “In Defense of Jabez,” First Things 106 (October 2001): 10–12.
7. For a study of the Old Testament description of the relationship between a person’s moral acts and the consequences in personal and national history, see Gerhard von Rad, “The Essentials of Coping with Reality” in Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), esp. 124–37.
8. See also 2 Chron. 7:1–3.
9. The whole idea of changing God’s mind seems to be heretical within classical Christian theology, based as it is on second- and third-century Hellenistic philosophy, but it has received much attention in the current controversy over “Openness Theology.” For an introduction to this topic, see the cover story of the May 21, 2001 issue of Christianity Today, “Does God Know Your Next Move?” Editor’s Note: See also the discussion continuing in this issue about God’s control and man’s freedom. The “How Much Does God Control?” dialogue began in the Spring 2002 (Vol 5 No 2) issue of the Pneuma Review.
10. Many Old Testament scholars would agree with this; for example, see the work by William Johnstone, 2 Chronicles 10–36: Guilt and Atonement (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).
11. The following section was informed by the seminal article by A. H. C. Van Eijk, “The Difference Between the Old and the New Testament Sacraments as an Ecumenical Issue,” Bijdragen 52 (1991): 2–36.
12. One group, the Ebionites, attempted to be both Christian and Jewish, but they were considered heretical by both Jewish and Christian leaders. The Ebionites saw Jesus as Messiah, though not the divine Son of God, and rejected the writings of Paul. See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.27.
13. In contrast, Paul’s writings reveal the rejection of Christ by the Jews as providentially necessary for the salvation of the Gentiles, and eventually “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11). The anti-Semitism of the early church must be considered yet another unfortunate byproduct of the delay in accepting Paul’s letters as Scripture. We noted earlier (ch. 1) that without Paul’s writings the early church created a theology of the Holy Spirit that was lacking a full understanding of the gifts of the Spirit.
14. Clark M. Williamson. “The Adversus Judaeus Tradition in Christian Theology,” Encounter 39 (Summer 1978): 273–96; also Craig A. Evans and Donald A. Hagner, eds., Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). Anti-Semitism may date to the writing of the Gospel of John, when relations between the synagogue and church were already testy. Note the manner in which the term “Jews” in John’s Gospel is employed rather consistently in a negative way.
15. Marcel Dubois, “Jews, Judaism and Israel in the Theology of Saint Augustine,” Immanuel 22/23 (1989): 162–70.
16. A summary of this issue is found in Van Eijk’s, “The Difference Between the Old and the New Testament Sacraments.”
17. Cited from John Francis Quinn, “Saint Bonaventure and the Sacrament of Matrimony,” Franciscan Studies 12 (1974): 101.
18. Summa Theologica 3.66.2. The entire Summa is available from the web at www.newadvent.org/summa.
19. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.21–23.
20. It would be accurate but undignified to call John’s baptism the sacrament of “the big ear”; it is far better to give it a Latin name: the sacrament of the auris magna.
21. The literature on the book of Acts and on the Acts 2 revival is extensive. Of the many excellent biblical commentaries I found particularly helpful the volume in the Anchor Bible commentary by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
22. In defense of the catechuminate (i.e., the lengthy preparation, including exorcisms, and instruction of the believer before baptism), the Jews in Jerusalem knew the moral law of God through the Jewish Bible, whereas the converts of the Roman Empire did not, and thus they rightly had to be morally instructed before baptism.
23. Werner Elert, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries, trans. N. E. Nagel (St. Louis: Concordia, 1966), and the classic work by Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1945), ch. 4, “Eucharist and the Lord’s Supper.”
24. For an excellent review of modern biblical research on the New Testament church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper, see John L. Boyle, “Practice of the Eucharist in the New Testament,” Worship 44 (May 1970): 289–91, and Myles M. Bourke, “New Testament and the State of the Liturgy,” Worship 44 (March 1970): 130–42.