Bishop
Jerry Ogles on Ash Wednesday
JC Ryle, one of the greatest and most
biblically centered bishops of the Church of England, seems to have properly
identified a growing influence of spiritual-dumbing down of the church
beginning well before even the Oxford Movement culprits entered the stage. He
wrote in Holiness:
I cannot withhold my conviction that the
professing Church of the nineteenth century is as much damaged by laxity and
indistinctness about matters of doctrine within, as it is by skeptics and
unbelievers without. Myriads of professing Christians nowadays seem utterly
unable to distinguish things that differ. Like people afflicted with
colour-blindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is
false, what is sound and what is unsound. If a preacher of religion is only
clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all right, however
strange and heterogeneous his sermons may be. They are destitute of spiritual
sense, apparently, and cannot detect error. Popery or Protestantism, an
atonement or no atonement, a personal Holy Ghost or no Holy Ghost, future
punishment or no future punishment, High Church or Low Church or Broad Church,
Trinitarianism, Arianism, or Unitarianism, nothing comes amiss to them: they
can swallow it all, if they cannot digest it! Carried away by a fancied
liberality and charity, they seem to think everybody is right and nobody is
wrong, every clergyman is sound and none are unsound, everybody is going to be
saved and nobody going to be lost. Their religion is made up of negatives; and
the only positive thing about them is that they dislike distinctness and think
all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong!
Everything that Bishop Ryle wrote, he
backed up with biblical principles.
When I hear of the justification for
application of ashes, for example, today, I hear only well-conceived and
intellectual opinions of the church tradition. True biblical tradition cannot
stand alone, but must be supported by God's Word. Why do we not hear those who
defend Ashes applied to the little spot on the forehead as being justified by
Christ? If I saw such references, it would cause me to consider that I may have
misinterpreted the very Words of Jesus; however, no one who supports ashes on
the forehead as a sign of Lenten Fast have addressed the very cogent and clear
admonition of Christ in Matthew, Chapter 6! 16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as
the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they
may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash
thy face; 18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward
thee openly. (Matt 6:16-18
(KJV) What does Christ mean by "they disfigure their faces?" What
does He mean when He says that people who do so desire that men know that they
fast? What does our Lord mean when He says that the proper way to fast would be
to anoint our heads as if going on a pleasant visit; and what does He mean when
He says that we should wash our faces before fasting? Is He appealing for the
use of water-proof ashes? Ridiculous in the extreme! Oh, and by the way, how
can we keep our fast secret when we go out in society at large wearing a smudge
of ashes on our faces? What am I missing here, pray tell? Do we have eyes to
see, and see not; ears to hear and hear not?
Bishop Charles Pettit McIlvaine, first
Chaplain to the US Military Academy, third Chaplain of the US Senate, and first
Bishop of the great State of Ohio wrote in His "Oxford Movement
Compared" - written contemporaneous with the Oxford Movement and
Tractarians:
The doctrine of Justification by Faith was
the master-principle of the Reformation. " Therefore by a contrary way
(said the chief Theologians of the Council) he that will establish the body of
the Catholic doctrine (in other words, he that would re-instate Indulgences,
Penances, Purgatory, the opus operatum of the Sacraments, the authority of the
Priest's absolutions, the Sacrifice of the Mass, &c.) must
overthrow the
heresy of Justification by faith only."* In all this, there was the soundest
view of the relation of cause and effect. And therefore have we no question,
that now, while Oxford Divinity is fast developing its real character, indivers
ramifications of overt Romanism, and exhibiting the strongest tendencies to do
so, more and more; the only explanation needed is to be found in its entire
defection from the Scriptural doctrine of how a sinner can be "just with
God;" and the only antidote required is the clear understanding,
the
faithful teaching, the full carrying out of that same great doctrine, so mighty
in the war of the Reformation, so feared and hated and libelled in the Councils
of the Church of Rome, Justification, by the Imputed Righteousness of Christ,
through the alone agency of a living faith.
He goes on to add:
They compass sea and land to make one
proselyte. They creep in everywhere, like the Egyptian frogs, and leave no
stone unturned, in the palace or the workhouse, to promote their cause, (b) It
has been furthered immensely by the proceedings of the Ritualistic party in the
Church of England. That energetic and active body has been vilifying the
Reformation and sneering at Protestantism for many years, with only too much
success. It has corrupted, leavened, blinded, and poisoned the minds of many
Churchmen by incessant misrepresentation. It has gradually familiarized people
with every distinctive doctrine and practice of Romanism-the real presence-the
mass-auricular confession and priestly absolution-the sacerdotal character of
the ministry-the monastic system-and a histrionic, sensuous, showy style of
public worship-and the natural result is, that many simple people see no mighty
harm in downright genuine Popery! Last, but not least, the spurious liberality
of the ay we live in helps on the Romeward tendency. It is fashionable now to
say that all sects should be equal-that the State should have nothing to do
with religion-that all creeds should be regarded with equal favour and
respect-and that there is a substratum of common truth at the bottom of all
kinds of religion, whether Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity! The
consequence is that myriads of ignorant folk begin to think there is nothing
peculiarly dangerous in the tenets of Papists any more than in the tenets of
Methodists, Independents, Presbyterians, or Baptists-and that we ought to let
Romanism alone and never expose its unscriptural and Christ-dishonouring
character.
Are simply to give up on Scripture and
follow the traditions of man? As for me, as long as I stand, I will stand on
God's Holy Word.
An
Ashless Ash Wednesday for Anglicans
http://theheritageanglicannetwork.blogspot.com/
In the sixteenth century the
English Reformers abolished the imposition of ashes on the heads of
parishioners on Ash Wednesday due to the superstitious beliefs that had become
associated with the practice. The practice was too closely tied the Medieval
doctrines of attrition, auricular confession, contrition, priestly absolution, and
penance.
The imposition of ashes was not
reintroduced into the Church of England and her daughter churches until the
nineteenth century and then by the Ritualists. It was one of the errors in
doctrine, practice, and ritual the Romeward Movement revived to make the
Anglican Church more like the Roman Catholic Church in the hopes they would
help to affect a reunion between the Church of England and the Church of Rome.
The 1979 Book of Common Prayer
popularized the practice in the Episcopal Church in the closing decades of the
twentieth century.
The following articles on Ashes,
Ash Wednesday, Fasting, and Lent are taken from A Protestant Dictionary, which
was published under the auspices of the Protestant Reformation Society in 1904,
and was compiled for Evangelicals in the Church of England and the Church of
Ireland.
Ashes Used for sprinkling
persons by the Romish Church. Before use, the ashes are dedicated previously by
a special prayer offered by a bishop. In that prayer, invocation is made to God
"that whosoever shall sprinkle themselves with these ashes for the
redemption of their sins may obtain health of body and protection of
soul."
Ash-Wednesday A mediaeval
title given to the first day of Lent. It had formerly two names: (1)
"Caput jejunii," the "head of the fast," and (2) "Dies
cinerum." The forty days of Lent, being appointed in memory of our Lord’s
fast in the wilderness as a season of abstinence, date from the Wednesday of
the first week, because it was never the custom to fast on Sundays, and in this
way the full number of forty is made up. The name of "Ash Wednesday"
was given in reference to an ancient discipline, described by Gratian, according
to which penitents had to appear before the Bishop and Clergy clothed in sack
cloth. The seven penitential Psalms were then sung, after which ashes were
thrown upon them, and they covered their heads with sackcloth. The Church of
England, however, has in no way retained or sanctioned those superstitions. By
the Scriptures appointed to be read and the prayers to be used, she has rather
exhibited the true ideal of a fast. The old title of Ash-Wednesday is only
employed as an alternative for the " first day of Lent," because
before the Reformation it was "commonly so called." The revival of
such practices is therefore entirely foreign to her prescribed ritual and is
illegal.
Fasting There is no command to fast in the New
Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord, speaking to Jews who were then
accustomed to fast, says : "When thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash
thy face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is
in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly
(Matt. vi. 17, 18). Under the Old Testament there was but one fast distinctly
enjoined namely, "the fast" on the great day of atonement (Lev. xvi.
29-31), which is referred to in Acts xxvii. 9. Other fasts were, however,
enjoined on special occasions by the direction of the civil or religious
authorities (e.g. Jer, xxxvi. 9). After the destruction of the Jewish State
fasts became more numerous (Zech. vii. 5). But when the Lord was inquired of
concerning those fasts, the answer given by the prophet Zechariah showed that
those fasts were neither enjoined nor forbidden, and that persons were at
liberty to make use of such days or not, according as they found fasting
beneficial or otherwise to themselves; such acts not being regarded as in
themselves meritorious in the sight of God (Zech. vii. 5/.). The Lord, by the
mouth of Isaiah (ch. Iviii. 5-7), asks, " Is it such a fast that I have
chosen ? a day for a man to afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as a
bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? wilt thou call this a
fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is not this the fast that I have
chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness ; to undo the heavy burdens? . . . Is
it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are
cast out to thy house ? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and
that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? "
Our Lord' s teaching concerning
the times most suitable for fasting is set forth in the following passage:
" Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bride groom
is with them ? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from
them, and then shall they fast" (Matt. ix. 15), which passage has been
explained by the Church of England in her Homily of Fasting, Part II., as
follows: "Ye shall note, that so long as God revealeth His mercy unto us,
and giveth us of His benefits, either spiritual or corporal, we are said to be
with the Bridegroom at the marriage. . . . But the marriage is said then to be
ended, and the Bridegroom to be gone, when Almighty God smiteth us with
affliction, and seenieth to leave us in the midst of a number of adversities.
So God sometimes striketh private men privately with sundry adversities, as
trouble of mind, loss of friends, loss of goods, long and dangerous sicknesses,
& c. Then it is a fit time for that man to humble himself to Almighty God
by fasting, and to mourn and bewail his sins with a sorrowful heart. . . .
Again, when God shall afflict a whole region or country with wars, with famine,
with pestilence . . . and such other calamities, then is it time for all states
and sorts of people . . . to humble themselves by fasting, and bewail their
sinful living before God."
The principle here laid down can
be exemplified from Scripture histories. David fasted when his child was sick
(2 Sam. xii. 16) ; Esther, with her maidens, fasted ere she went in to
Ahasuerus (Esth. iv. 16) ; Ezra fasted at the river of Ahava (Ezra viii. 21);
Daniel set himself to seek the Lord by prayer and fasting (Dan. ix. 3). Christ
said of certain demons, "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer
and fasting" (Mark ix. 29), but the oldest MSS. omit the words "and
fasting." (See R.V. and marginal note on Matt. xvii. 21.) And prior to the
solemn ordination of elders, Paul and Barnabas "prayed with fasting"
(Acts xiv. 23).
Our Lord Himself fasted forty
days and forty nights, but during that time He did not experience the pangs of
hunger. The Gospels which record the Temptation, all call attention to that
fact. St. Matthew says, " He was afterward an hungered " (Matt. iv.
2). St. Mark does not mention the fasting (Mark i. 12, 13). St. Luke says of
those days, "And when they were ended, He afterward hungered." The
forty days appear, therefore, to have been spent in rapt ecstasy and
contemplation. The actual temptation occurred at the close of that period.
Fasting, therefore, appears to be
of value only when employed for the purpose of giving oneself up to continuous
prayer, while abstinence from special kinds of food is nowhere enjoined or
recommended in Scripture, although Daniel, in his penitential sorrow of three
weeks, abstained from all pleasant food (Dan. x. 2, 3). St. Paul alludes to the
"commanding to abstain from meats" as a mark of the apostasy (1 Tim.
iv. 3), and a sign of weak faith in persons who attached importance to such
trifling matters. " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. xiv. 17, and
the whole of that chapter). In fine, when fasting is employed in order to be
able to spend the time in prayer, it may be recommended ; but abstinence from
food as a means of punishing the body and laying up " merit " is to
be strongly condemned. An abstinence from certain food may be useful for
"bodily exercise" or discipline "bodily exercise profiteth a
little," or "for a little while " (1 Tim. iv. 8) such exercise
has occasionally been useful, but is not to be regarded as really a spiritual
work.
The prohibition to eat meat on
fast days, prescribed by the statute 2 & 3 Edward VI., c. 19, which may be
alluded to in " the Tables and Rules " attached to the Book of Common
Prayer which mentions " the Fasts, and Days of Abstinence to be observed
in the year," is further dwelt on in the Homily on Fasting, Part II.,
which states that the statute of Edward VI. referred to, was framed for
political reasons. It was " in consideration of the maintaining of
fisher-towns bordering upon the seas, and for the increase of fishermen, of
whom do spring mariners to go upon the sea, to the furnishing of the navy of
the realm. . . . Such laws of princes and other magistrates are not made to put
holiness in one kind of meat and drink more than another, to make one day more
holy than another, but are grounded merely upon policy," namely, as
afterwards explained, for the increase and support of the English navy, and
"for the sooner reducing of victuals to a more moderate price, to the
better sustenance of the poor." [C. H. H. W.]
Lent The word is derived either
from the A.S. lencten (spring), or from the Dutch lenten (to make mild), the
severity of winter being then relaxed. Lent is a period of forty days in the
spring, immediately before Easter, prescribed as a time of fasting. The Greek
and Latin names for Lent simply indicate the number of its days. Lent is
asserted to have been of early, and even of Apostolic origin, but, had the
latter been the case, some allusion would have been made to it in the New
Testament. But in the New Testament there is no fast prescribed, nor even a
positive exhortation to fasting (see FASTING). Our Lord s declaration in the
A.V. concerning the boy possessed with an unclean spirit, is often quoted that
"this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting"
(Matt. xvii. 21; Mark ix. 29). All the best MSS., however, omit the entire
verse in the account in St. Matthew, and the word " fasting " in that
of St. Mark (see R.Y.). The same omission is made by the R.V. on MS. authority
with regard to the word "fasting" in two other verses, viz., Acts x.
30 ; 1 Cor. vii. 5. That the oldest MSS. should agree in omitting all reference
to fasting in four passages in the New Testament, where fasting was supposed to
be mentioned, is highly suggestive of interpolations made in the sacred text to
suit the ideas of a non-Apostolic Age.
The forty days of Lent are often
said to have been instituted as a fast in memory of our Lord's "fast"
of a similar period in the wilderness. But the Lord passed that period in a state
of exalted spiritual meditation or ecstasy, for St. Matthew distinctly states
that Christ’s hunger was subsequent to the forty days, "When he had fasted
forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred" (Matt. iv. 2).
Lent had originally no real connection with the forty days fast in the desert.
Lent seems to have been first established by a Pope, about AD 130, to be a
tithe of the year (thirty-six days only), and was for centuries confined to
that period. When the additional four days were added is not certain, probably
not till the time of Pope Gregory II., who died in 731.
Our Lord, in Matt. ix. 15,
indicated that the providential circumstances of life were the true guide as to
seasons of fasting. Cassian, a disciple of Chrysostom in the fifth century,
contrasting the Primitive Church with that of his own day, said, " It
ought to be known that the observance of the forty days had no existence so
long as the perfection of that Primitive Church remained inviolate." Lent
helped in later times to increase the power of the priests. For in the Roman
and Eastern Churches dispensations which permit the eating of meat on fast days
may be obtained for a money payment, and fines are levied on those who break
the Church law by eating meat on such days without a dispensation.
Lent
Lent is coming up, it starts this
coming Wednesday, called Ash Wednesday.
So, what does the word Lent mean? It has an obscure origin, and is
probably a corruption of Lencten, or a similar term in ancient Anglo, Saxon,
and Germanic languages, all of which referred to spring, new life, and hope. Although it is generally considered to
be a time of mourning and repentance, it is more than that, it is like death, a
time of new life and hope because by means of the death of Christ, we receive
new life.
Many avoid Lent and Holy Week
because they think it isn’t a happy and uplifting time—but to be honest,
neither is most of life. Sometimes we come to church all scrubbed up, dressed
nicely, with smiles on our faces, and when people ask how we are, we reply that
everything is fine and we even boast how wonderful things are—but is it? Life is not always uplifting, or
wonderful, or pleasant, or joyous.
To claim it is, is to miss the whole point of the incarnation! God
became flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus faced temptation, He suffered hunger and
thirst, He suffered the agony of crucifixion. Jesus our God did not face these
things so that we would be exempt from them, He faced these things so that we
would have dignity in them, He faced these things that in Him we might have
triumph.
The forty days commemorate the
significant "forty" periods in Scripture (although forty is not
always significant), including the forty years the Jews wandered in the desert
after they had been rescued by God from Egypt, and which did not end until they
repented. Jonah preached to Nineveh that God's judgment would come on them in
forty days. During that time the people repented and thus were spared God's
judgment. Jesus was tested by the Devil in the desert for forty days before He
began His public ministry, announcing salvation to the repentant and judgment
to those who continued to rebel against God. Jesus prophesied that God's
judgment would come against Israel for rejecting Him as Messiah within the time
of His own generation (Matt.
24; Luke 21; Mark 13). Within forty years of His death, burial, and
resurrection, Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was so ravaged that
"not one stone [was] left here upon another" (Matt. 24:2). The Jewish Christians,
however, escaped this judgment of God by fleeing to Pella before the final
Roman siege, just as Jesus had warned them to do (Matt. 24:16-21).
Lent is a time for Christians to
contemplate their sinfulness, repent, ask God's forgiveness, and realize the
infinite sacrifice God made on their behalf. It is to be a time of quiet
contemplation, but not a time of despair, since it culminates in the
commemoration of the resurrection. Traditionally, those who are joining the
church spend this period in special instruction regarding Christian doctrine, practice,
and responsibility. Historically, prospective members ("catechumens")
did not participate in the Lord's Supper portion of the Sunday services until
they were received into full membership on the Sunday of the Resurrection of
Our Lord. For them, this first experience of Ash Wednesday and Lent has special
significance as God's eternal plan of salvation is applied to them personally.
Jesus told us that if we fast we
are not to make a show of it, like hypocrites do. A fast is different from a
hunger strike: a fast is a personal act of devotion to God, while a hunger
strike is a public act most often used to shine a spotlight on injustice. A
fast is also different from anorexia nervosa: it is disciplined diet, not total abstention from food. During a
religious fast, you still eat, you just abstain from certain foodstuffs.
Traditionally, people have fasted by eliminating luxury items from their diets,
such as meats. A fast can consist of eating whatever you want, but drinking
only water.
More positively, you can fast in
other areas beyond food, you can commit to a something that can benefit the
church, such cutting back in an entertainment area, using that time for Bible
study and donating the savings to the church.
On Palm Sunday, there were crowds
who cheered Jesus as the King, but where were all those fair-weather friends
when Jesus prayed in agony on Gethsemane, and where were they when He hung upon
the cross? Let us be bold to join Him, fasting in the wilderness for forty days
during Lent; let us be bold to pray with Him in the garden on Maundy Thursday,
let us fearlessly stand at the foot of His cross on Good Friday, so that we may
witness His Resurrection and His Ascension, and join in His triumphant reign.
