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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/31/2003 6:58 PM (GMT -6) |   | Sign, Seal, Signified...
Any thoughts (or sources) on them? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/31/2003 7:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1913 -- Page No: 1421
www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/Webster/data/1421.html
- SignetA seal; especially, in England, the seal used by the sovereign in sealing private letters and grants that pass by bill under the sign manual; — called also privy signet.
- Signeted
Stamped or marked with a signet.
- Significance
3. Importance; moment; weight; consequence
- Significant
1. Fitted or ... having a meaning; standing as a sign or token; expressive
- Signify
1. To show by a sign; to communicate by any conventional token; to make known; to declare; to express;
www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/sign
SIGN
- d) Any symbol or emblem which prefigures, typifles, or represents, an idea; a type; hence, sometimes, a picture.
The holy symbols, or signs, are not barely
significative; but what they represent is as
certainly delivered to us as the symbols
themselves.
--Brerewood.
- e) A word or a character regarded as the outward manifestation of thought; as, words are the sign of ideas.
- (f) A motion, an action, or a gesture by which a thought is expressed, or a command or a wish made known.
They made signs to his father, how he would have him called.
--Luke i. 62.
Now, where's some definition of SYMBOL?
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/31/2003 7:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Switching to something less academic.....
I read this about John's baptism: (Notice that water does not save.)
quote:
Baptism as a word means immersion or submersion in water. It was practiced in the Old Testament and even in some pagan religions as the sign of death and re-birth. Thus, John the Baptist was baptizing as the sign of new life and repentance which means literally a change of mind, and so of desires and actions in preparation of the coming of the Kingdom of God in Christ.
I did some searching and found a Reformed source (on the Westminster Confession) that refers to Baptism as being a "sign designed to seal and apply the spiritual grace signified by them."
quote:
(http://www.reformed.org/documents/fisher/q092.html(
THE SHORTER CATECHISM EXPLAINED // QUESTION 92. What is a sacrament?
Q.Why are they practical, and not merely speculative signs?
A. Because they are designed not only to represent the spiritual grace signified by them but likewise to seal and apply the same.
Ahhhhhh!!!! A "sign" that "seals." | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/31/2003 7:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Those of us who's heritage flows from Medieval Europe are somewhat hampered, discomforted, every time we try to think about "symbol" and "reality" as a consortium. We have a really hard time doing that. We feel much more comfortable holding them apart, and taking them one at a time.
That Berengarus of Tours guy got in such 'hot water' over emphasizing that the Sacraments are "symbols" (which they are), but unfortunately he concluded that symbol meant not "real." And Trent (?) reacted by saying "real" and "not symbol." So the aftermath was that Medieval Christianity felt that symbol and reality were mutually exclusive!
But "signs" and "seals" are connected: a signate ring impresses its seal. And my own wedding ring (a "symbol") is also a "real" part of my marriage. All that brings some clarity to how the Calvinist view of the Eucharist is that the bread and wine are also the "real presence" (CRC) of Christ's body and blood. (Nothing Lutheran or RCC about it.) Well, that might raise the discomfort level... But that just shows how touchy sacramental topics are since old Mr. Berengarus. : ) | | Back to Top | | |
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turner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 13
| Posted 9/1/2003 3:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's a setting that we all know.
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V
For most of us (with the exception of the Eastern Church that has Baptism, Chrismation and Communion all together for the infant at the same time) our "home" local church has some significant "rite of passages" that are REAL part of the life of the individual, and are shared powerfully by the church community too.
A difference between my own Swedish-Baptist family tradition and the Dutch-Reformed my own family participates in is that while the Swedish-Baptist "dedicate" children to God trusting/inciting the Lord to walk beside their Loved all life long. And while Swedish-Baptist "baptize" oder persons who have an appreciation of their faith... The Dutch-Reformed "Baptize" the infants they dedicate and have older kids give "profession of faith."
But as the Dutch-Reformed pastor pointed out: (1) neither the Reformed nor the Baptists think that the water itself saves; and (2) neither the Reformed nor the Baptists think that one days actions are enough for a whole life. Both believe that the Christian HAS TO finish the race!
By the same token, for both the Reformed and the Baptists, neither neglects either the baptismal action nor the verbal confession--whatever the form.
Something is symbolic, and something is real.
Personally, I think they are together. But ALL are part of something pointing to Jesus Christ.
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What's YOUR tradition?
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