Coming Clean

So, at the beginning of the year, I started a couple of studies. One was to read the Bible and the Catechism in a year. The other was a study of the Book of Revelation. And there’s one thing that has been beating me over the head in good, repetitive manner in those studies: Jesus is The Revelation.

Why is that important?

Well, when you look at other religions, you get one of two views: (1) revelation is not clear nor complete but snippets have been recorded and a path is more or less set or (2) revelation has been exhaustively recorded, the path is not in need of interpretation - it is what it is. In the former camp, you’ve got pretty much all of your eastern religions, and I’d throw Judaism in the mix. In the latter camp, you’ve basically got Islam (as I understand it, anyways … could be a bad perception). Christianity doesn’t really fit in either mix.

The reason why Christianity doesn’t fit is because Christ is The Revelation. The Old Testament is the record of God’s gradual revelation of His nature and mystery in preparation for The Revelation of Jesus, the Manifestation of God’s nature and mystery. The New Testament is the incomplete record of the life of Jesus - the record of the Revelation of Life and all that Life is about. So the fullness of Revelation has been revealed, but it is not exhaustively recorded or even necessarily perceived.

And any Christian more or less knows that what I’ve just said is true. The New Testament is not The Revelation. Jesus is. And so that means that while we can trust the New Testament, we cannot expect that the New Testament is communicating to us in a way that we can necessarily and unmistakably understand. In other words, we cannot in ourselves trust that we understand all that Scripture is saying to us nor that Scripture is even telling us all that we need or ought to know.

And this is why the Church and Apostolic Tradition are crucial in Christianity. The Church is The Witness of Christ, rooted in the 12 Apostles. Some of that witness is recorded in the New Testament, but by the New Testament’s own account, it is not to be mistaken as The Revelation nor the fullness of The Revelation that the Church has witnessed and is witness to.

And so continuity of witness is vital to the life of the Church. If there were a break in that witness, a break in the communion of Witness, then by and large there would be a full schism in what the Church is witness to and thus the authority by which the Church claims to be a witness. That’s pretty much the basis of the Church’s ecclesiology and authority. It’s the most solid and easily made argument for the authority of the Church.

And of course, just when I make sure I’ve made a valid argument, I go to the Catechism and find these paragraphs I’ve never read before:

874 Christ is himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted the Church. He gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal:

In order to shepherd the People of God and to increase its numbers without cease, Christ the Lord set up in his Church a variety of offices which aim at the good of the whole body. The holders of office, who are invested with a sacred power, are, in fact, dedicated to promoting the interests of their brethren, so that all who belong to the People of God . . . may attain to salvation.389

875 “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?”390 No one - no individual and no community - can proclaim the Gospel to himself: “Faith comes from what is heard.”391 No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. The one sent by the Lord does not speak and act on his own authority, but by virtue of Christ’s authority; not as a member of the community, but speaking to it in the name of Christ. No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ. From him, bishops and priests receive the mission and faculty (”the sacred power”) to act in persona Christi Capitis; deacons receive the strength to serve the people of God in the diaconia of liturgy, word and charity, in communion with the bishop and his presbyterate. The ministry in which Christ’s emissaries do and give by God’s grace what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a “sacrament” by the Church’s tradition. Indeed, the ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament.