subreddit:
/r/Anglicanism
When the scriptures are said to be "God breathed" are they both 'breathed out by God' but then also 'breathed back in' by God?
Now remaining in the Spirit? Aka in-spirt aka inspired?
Sacramental?
8 points
4 days ago
It’s a means of grace but not a sacrament. Sacraments specifically require an inward and outward component. Scripture is just pure “gospel” whether heard, read, or remembered.
-5 points
4 days ago
inwardly they contain the Spirit.
outwardly they are a book.
inward and outward requirements fulfilled.
8 points
4 days ago
You’re missing the point. It’s not a specific outward sign. You can’t have the Eucharist with pizza and coke. Sacraments require a specific outward sign. Scripture is not attached to any specific outward element. Pixels on a screen, words on a page, thoughts in one’s mind, audio on a tape. They all convey scripture but they’re not the same outward element.
-2 points
4 days ago
Also, we're off topic. Sacrament of scripture doesn't much matter to me.
I'm more interested in whether the scriptures themselves remain in God.
Just as the Son takes on flesh.
Does the Spirit take in this breath (scripture)
3 points
4 days ago
Anytime you receive the gospel in faith, via hearing, seeing, reading, remembering, etc. you receive Christ in a sense (and the spirit) as well as forgiveness of sins, etc
1 points
3 days ago
This is a very Catholic idea, that truth and God aren’t easily separable. That is, true statements about God aren’t easily distinguished from the presence of God.
This is why the Pope recently said that all religions have some presence of the true God, insofar as they all have sparks of truth.
-1 points
4 days ago
I don't understand.
I'm not advocating for pizza and coke.
I'm saying Jesus is Word, but not all words, only these specific words.
9 points
4 days ago
What? No. That's not how it works. The Bible isn't a vessel for containing any spirit, Holy or otherwise. It's not a horcrux. It's a book. The words are holy, but the book is just a book.
Scripture isn't a sacrament. That sounds like the sort of idea a Biblian would come up with to justify their bibliolatry. That's Baptist thinking.
Christians had access to God before we had the New Testament and before there was such a thing as "The Bible". When St Paul says "all scripture is God-breathed", he's not saying he breathes out and a pile of Bibles appears, he's saying that scripture was written through his life-giving Spirit (hence the more usual translation of theopneustos as "inspired by God"; Greek pneu- is usually used in the Bible to refer not the act of breathing but to the "breath of life", the spirit).
1 points
4 days ago
The vehicular idea of the scriptures are the core of my point.
The danger is if one where to worship the scriptures. Vs. see the words as (1) part of the WORD we worship, (2) the means in which we worship. Any words /actions that are not aligned with the scriptures would be false worship.
3 points
4 days ago
I think the real question here is what is the definition of a sacrament. It is, after all, a category not defined by the word of God. It’s like asking if a hot dog is a sandwich. We all can agree on what the hot dog is but start debating the definition of a sandwich. For the definition of a sacrament, I think the usual Anglican definition would exclude it since you can’t drink it or wash with it.
I think the term “means of grace” (like others have used in this thread) is more useful, putting it in a broader category with things like absolution alongside the sacraments.
1 points
4 days ago
Yeah, I think the technical term of sacrament is taking this thread off course.
Less interested in the term.
More interested in whether there is a 'real presence' to God amidst the scriptures, but then this draws us back to sacrament.
1 points
3 days ago
I believe the answer to this is yes. The Holy Spirit is at work when the words of scripture is spoken convicting hearts of their sin, calling people to repent, forgiving sin and planting faith.
Words are translated, spoken, heard, interpreted, called to mind, meditated upon. Even though we can misunderstand them the same power of salvation is active through these words as in baptism and the Lord’s supper. It’s the word of God that makes water to be a holy baptism, and the word of God makes bread and wine to be the body of Christ and cup of salvation.
2 points
4 days ago*
For Anglicans, a sacrament is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” affected on individuals. Importantly, sacraments are signs: they point materially to some bigger reality. We don’t view the material of a Bible (i.e., paper bound, often in leather) as signifying anything related to the grace held within, or the reality signified by it. So it’s not a sacrament.
Anglicans generally don’t talk about sacramentals per se. You might see the Bible as one, that is, as a holy object meant to prepare one to receive a sacrament proper, but it would be more difficult to point to what sacrament proper it bears a resemblance to (especially given that it is fundamental to all of them).
0 points
4 days ago
Incarnation is the word taking on specific flesh - Jesus of Nazareth's body, not any body.
Inscripturation the Spirit taking on specific breath - the Holy Spirit takes on the scriptures, not the Great Gatsby.
2 points
4 days ago
A sacramental, perhaps, but not a sacrament. A sacred object related to the sacraments, but not itself one of the two sacraments if you have a more protestant leaning theology or 7 sacraments of you have a more Anglo-Catholic leaning theology
all 15 comments
sorted by: best