Come to the Table: T.F. Torrance on Intercommunion as a Way Forward in Ecumenical Action

Daniel J. Cameron

Daniel J. Cameron (Ph.D. The University of Aberdeen) serves as the Bible Department Head and Director of Spiritual Director at Chicago Hope Academy in Chicago, IL and as the English Ministry Pastor at Promise and Fulfillment Community Church in Wheeling, IL.

Introduction

The church has been concerned with its unity since its origin in its new form in Christ. This is so because the church is, by its very nature, one in Christ. As written in John 17, Jesus prayed that the church would be one, that it would reflect the oneness of its essence in its historical life and action in and towards the world. By its very nature, “the historical and pilgrim people of God consist in the renewal and reunion of divided and fragmented mankind in the Body of Christ.”^[1] This is grounded in the work of Christ, through which God and humanity are reconciled to each other. As a result of this reconciliation, we are reconciled to one another. So, “the being of the Church consists in the redeemed life of those who being reconciled to God in Christ are therein also reconciled to one another, and are compacted together into one living community in which each member is what he is through the common participation of all in Christ and mutual sharing in the life of others in love.”^[2] The life of the church is a life of those who have been reconciled to God in which we live out this reconciliation with each other. This life of reconciliation defines the church’s life from its beginning to its current existence and its work in the future. Through this reconciliation the church is reunited with God, who is the “creative source of its life,” and through this reconciliation the church “continually realizes it’s being as the universal community in which the unity of mankind disrupted by sin is recovered and brought to its fullness in the new creation.”^[3] Reconciliation must define the way the church lives its life and mission in this world. The church must live a life of unity. But what kind of unity should the church pursue? How should it be pursued? And can the Eucharist be a means to ecclesial unity?

This essay argues that the visible unity of the church is a reflection of its ontological unity as the reconciled Body of Christ and essential to this is the shared celebration of the Eucharist. As such, the ecumenical life of the church is an action from a place of ontological unity and not towards a place of ontological unity. In order to defend this thesis, I will define the nature of the church as the reconciled Body of Christ. I will then extrapolate the nature of the church, as defined in the previous section, to the practice of intercommunion as a means toward the visible unity of the church. In this essay, T. F. Torrance will be my primary conversation partner. This is intentional as this essay is a work of retrieval bringing Torrance’s previous work with the World Council of Churches and his work on intercommunion back into the current ecumenical conversation. While much of Torrance’s writings are grounded in Christology, he should be understood as a theologian of the church. Therefore, his Christology and incarnational theology is for the sake of the church and the life of the church. In other words, Torrance should also be understood as an ecumenical theologian.^[4]

The Nature of the Church

While there are many analogies used in the Bible to refer to the church, one that seems to encapsulate them all is the church as the Body of Christ. Paul uses this analogy multiple times (Ephesians 5, Col. 1:18, Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 12, etc.). Torrance argues that this analogy is primary for several reasons. First, it is “the most deeply Christological of them all, and refers us directly to Christ Himself, the Head and Saviour of the Body.”^[5] Second, this analogy emphasizes Christ rather than “the body.” This is important because, when thinking about the church, we can easily become distracted by and so focused on “the body” that the “Church tends to come between us and the Lord.”^[6] The emphasis in this analogy helps focus our thinking such that we are forced not to think of the church as it is, not in sociological or anthropological language as a human institution. As the church belongs to Christ, he has made his own and he is the head to which the church submits in everything. “The Church is the Body of Christ.”^[7] Jesus Christ is the essence of the church, and as such any faithful ecclesiology must be a necessarily Christological ecclesiology.

The church is only ever the church in Christ. In the incarnation, Jesus assumed us into union with himself and therefore with the Godhead: “He identified Himself with us, made Himself one with us, and on that ground claims us as His own, lays hold of us, and assumes us into union and communion with Him, so that as Church we find our essential being and life not in ourselves but in Him alone.”^[8] Thus, the church originated in the incarnation when Jesus became human. As such, the church cannot exist apart from Christ, for it is through union with Christ himself that the church finds its life and mission. This means that as the church “we find our essential being and life not in ourselves but in Him alone.”^[9] Only as we participate in Christ are we the church. Through this participation in Christ, this sharing in the being and life of Christ, the church is the Body of Christ; it is “only on the ground of this participation in Christ Himself is the Church a community of believers, a communion of love, a fellowship of reconciliation on earth.”^[10] Thus, the church cannot and does not exist apart from the person of the incarnate Jesus.

Given that the church has been gathered up into the mystery of Christ in the incarnation and atonement, we can speak of the church as sacramentally the body of Christ. As Torrance argues, this gathering of the church into union with Jesus in the mystery of Christ can be understood as “the mutual involution of Incarnation and atonement is to be applied sacramentally to the Church in terms of its birth and growth as the Body of Christ.”^[11] Understanding incarnation and atonement together means that baptism and the eucharist should also be considered in relationship with one another, as a “saving operation of reconciliation and unification.”^[12] Baptism and the eucharist can be understood as two parts of the one work of Jesus in atoning for our sins. Through the incarnation and atonement Jesus united the church to himself. Through baptism, we are incorporated into that body of Christ, and through the eucharist we continue to partake or participate in the body of Christ. Torrance argues,

Baptism speaks of our justification and incorporation into Christ as an abiding reality; the Eucharist speaks of it as an eschatologically repeated event to be inserted into our flesh and blood, into time and history, as often as we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ until He comes.^[13]

We sacramentally participate in the body of Christ and can be sacramentally considered the body of Christ because of our baptismal incorporation into Jesus’s incarnate body and through our continued eucharistic participation in the body of Christ until he returns.

In Jesus Christ we are called and united with Him such that everything about our very existence is redeemed. We exist as the church as a being that is ever becoming new in our union with Christ as his spiritual body. In Jesus the church is given a “new structure” as “the spiritual body of Christ.”^[14] Because of this new shape, the church must not conform to temporal structures, for this is “not to walk according to Christ, for that is to subject oneself again to the tyrant forces from which we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ.”^[15] The church is rooted in this person, the person of the Son, and is thus considered his body. But, lest we fall into the trap of the Latin heresy, this reality is not external, but internal and ontological, it is “an expression of the ontological reality of the Church incorporated with Christ himself, who not only mediates reconciliation between man and god but constitutes and embodies it in his own divine-human Reality as Mediator.”^[16]

Torrance brings out the idea that Jesus is both a personalizing person and a humanizing human to show the “significance of this ontological relation to the Person of the Mediator for us as human beings.”^[17] The question was raised in the early church concerning whether Jesus was one person or both a divine and a human person, as they tried to avoid speaking about Jesus in a way that made him a “schizoid” or “without his human person being turned into an empty mask,” which would “make the incarnation unreal.”^[18] Rather, the person who became incarnate in Jesus Christ “is the Creator Word of God by whom all men are made and in whom they consist.” Through him “all creaturely personal being is derived,” and thus “the incarnation must be regarded as creative, personalizing activity.”^[19] Therefore, in the incarnation all of God’s interactions with us became personalized. As an atoning act of God, the incarnation also takes our fallen humanity and brings it back into relationship with God, restoring our humanity into the image of the Son.

On the grounds that Jesus is both the personalizing person and the humanizing human, we begin to see “more clearly why the Church is not merely a society of individuals gathered together on moral grounds and externally connected with one another through common ethical ideals.”^[20] There is no way to affect the ontological reality of our depersonalized and dehumanized persons and natures through external organization. Thus, it is only in and through the personalizing and humanizing human, Jesus Christ, that the “transforming [of] human social relations” takes place.^[21] In other words, it is

through the ontological reconciliation with God affected in the mediation of Christ which binds the Church to Christ as his body. Through union and communion with Christ human society may be transmuted into a Christian community in which interpersonal relations are healed and restored in the Person of the Mediator, and in which interrelations between human beings are constantly renewed and sustained through the humanizing activity of Christ Jesus, the one Man in whom and through whom as Mediator between God and man they may be reconciled to one another within the ontological and social structures of their existence.^[22]

Thus, Jesus is the church’s ontological ground through which it, as a theological society grounded in Christ through the Spirit, takes shape, and finds its structure. In order to begin thinking about the solution to our disunity, it is pertinent to gain a deeper understanding of our unity and disunity.

To understand the contradictory nature of our disunity in the church, we must begin with the reality of our unity as the church. The church’s essential nature is not found in its various earthly forms and divisions, but rather in Christ through the Spirit. To think of it another way, “The Church throughout all its manifestations in space and time is intrinsically and essentially one, for it is constituted as Church through the presence of the one Lord and his One Spirit.”^[23] It is the Spirit who empowers the church to live out its essential life in the meantime (its earthly pilgrimage) as those who participate in the mission of Christ, that is, to participate in the ministry of reconciliation. The ambiguity of the church’s earthly life is that, while it lives as those who have been raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places, it still lives on earth in between the comings of Christ. So, though the church is made of one body, the body of Christ, it still lives in the meantime in a “body of flesh,” waiting for the “redemption of the body.”^[24]

The church lives in ambiguity in its earthly life for it lives in two ages: the age of the resurrection and the old age. The age of the resurrection “has already overtaken us and is reality here and now through the presence of the Holy Spirit.”^[25] It is the old age “whose ‘forms and fashions’ the Church must use if it is not to go out of the world.”^[26] Thus, the church exists as the community of those who have been resurrected and are truly a new creation, though it lives in the midst of the fallen world and uses forms and orders of the current age to participate in the fallen world for the sake of the mission of Christ. Torrance captures this ambiguity well when he argues,

Although the Church lives in this present age (aeon) it is redeemed from it (Gal. 1:4) and therefore must not be conformed to it (Rom. 12:2). Although the Church has its conversation in the world (kosmos; 2 Cor. 1:2; 1 Cor. 5:10; John 17:15) the Church is not of it (John 15:19) and therefore it must not be subject to its ordinances (Col. 2:8, 20; Gal. 4:3, 9) or walk according to its lust (1 John 2:15 f.) or even according to its wisdom (1 Cor. 1:20 f.). The world (1 John 2:17) and its form (1 Cor. 7:31) pass away with this present evil age, so while we must use this world we must not misuse it (1 Cor. 7:31) lest we be condemned with the world (1 Cor. 14:10).^[27]

Although the church partakes in this ambiguity as the body of Christ living in the meantime, taking on the forms and orders of this world, these forms and orders are not essential parts of its nature, as it exists as a body that is already risen with Christ.^[28] The essential nature of the church should be understood as Jesus himself and his love. The question remains, how does the church live in this ambiguity and express its essential nature?

The church must learn to put off the old man and put on the new man that is Christ. It is only “in terms of its crucifixion and resurrection with Christ can the Church manifest in the midst of these forms its essential form as the form of Christ.”^[29] The historical forms of the church are not part of its essential nature due to its participation in the resurrected and ascended Christ; thus, through the church’s participation in the communion of the Spirit, it already participates in a new age, the age that is yet to come. Hence, these historical forms are rendered ambiguous.^[30]

The church transcends this ambiguity through its participation in and through the Holy Spirit. In this way, the church is rooted in the act of love, and in love the church grows into maturity in Christ. It is the Holy Spirit as the “consubstantial communion” between the Father and Son and through whom we are hypostatically united in Christ that the church becomes a “communion of love.”^[31] This is captured in the New Testament concept of koinonia, often translated as “fellowship.” However, contemporary ideas of fellowship have been reduced to mere hanging out with others, usually surrounding food and drink. The New Testament concept of koinonia is much more profound. Koinonia is “primarily the Church’s participation through the Spirit in Jesus Christ.”^[32] This participation is to be understood in two directions: vertically and horizontally. Vertically, koinonia, as communion through the Spirit, has to do with the church’s participation in Christ. Horizontally, it has to do with our communion with each other. This communion of the Spirit is essential to our oneness as the church, for

It is a communion which by its very nature transcends and denies all earthly divisions, so that active engagement in this communion through the Lord’s Supper is the sacramental means whereby the Love of God heals the Church of its earthly divisions, compacts its members into one Body, and manifests itself as the perfection of the Church in Christ.^[33]

The question that faces us at this juncture is how does this essential form of the church as a communion of love, as the body of Christ, take form in this fallen world?

This essential form of love takes the form of servant within space and time. That is, in the time before Christ’s return, the church as the communion of the Spirit and as a communion of love takes the form of a servant in the meantime, “for the way of Christ is the way of the Church also.”^[34] The church must understand itself as the church of the resurrected Christ who has an essential form that is not of this world, and yet it exists in this fallen and passing world and thus manifests its essential form within this world as the church of the crucified Christ. This is what Luke argues in chapter nine of his gospel, in which he tells Christ’s disciples to pick up their cross and follow Him. Paul also articulates this idea in Philippians 2:5, in which he tells Jesus’s disciples to have the mind of Christ as he humbled himself to the point of death on the cross. Thus, the mindset of crucifixion should shape and form the life of the church as a communion of love in the meantime. Through this attitude and posture of service the church’s essential nature as the body of Christ and the communion of the Spirit, the communion of love, is made manifest in the world. This is essential to the pursuit of unity as the church, for it is,

As the Church becomes one Body with Christ through the Communion of the Spirit (John 15; 16), through sacramental Communion (1 Cor. 10; 11; 12), Love as the essential form of the Church breaks through the pride and quarrels of men (Luke 22:14 ff.; John 13:1 ff.), breaks through the sinful forms of division and heresy (1 Cor. 10; 11), transcends even the necessary forms which the gifts of the Spirit assume in the ministry and order of the Church on earth (1 Cor. 12; 13; 14), and manifests itself as greater than even faith and hope. In so far as they are “in part” “they shall be done away”, but Love remains on into eternity as the Esse of the Church in Christ.^[35]

One of the main questions that faces those who want to pursue the unity of the church on earth is what does this unity look like exactly? Torrance attempts to answer this question by referencing the church’s double unity, which includes the “unity of the Spirit” and the “unity of the faith.” The unity of the Spirit is a “perfected reality” that is manifested upon the church through baptism. In other words, the unity of the Spirit references the essential unity of the church as a communion of the Spirit in which we are incorporated through Spirit baptism and we participate sacramentally through water baptism. The unity of the faith refers to the way that the church should grow in unity as it grows in its knowledge of God and pursues maturity in Christ. This double unity is to be understood together without falsely dichotomizing the two. As Torrance argues, “It belongs to the essential life of the Church that it holds to the unity of the Spirit and through Word and Sacrament grows up into the fullness of Christ, that is, built up into complete unity in Him, and extended to the ends of the earth and the ends of the age as the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”^[36] This growth of the unity of faith in the knowledge of God is a struggle against our body of flesh as we seek to make our essential unity of the Spirit manifest in space and time. Thus, the church needs sanctification, constant cleansing, and nurturing, as Paul argues in Ephesians 5.

Essential to this struggle is an understanding of the relationship of the sacraments with the life of the church in the meantime. In other words, this dual concept of unity corresponds to the two sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. Through the person and work of Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension, we are gathered together into one body, the Body of Christ. This is why Torrance argues that “the road to unity lies through the atonement.”^[37] We participate in this sacramentally through baptism, “for it is sacramentally incorporated into the One Body of Christ” and thus, baptism is the “primary expression of the oneness of the church.”^[38] Though the reality of the church is that it is one, on earth it lives in the midst of the dividedness of humankind. As Torrance argues,

In Jesus Christ the Church is Holy and Perfected (Heb. 10:10) for He presents it to the Father as His own Body pure and spotless, but on earth the Church is still the body of sinners waiting for the redemption of the body of sin and death, living in the midst of the estrangement and dividedness of mankind. From the wounds sustained in its ministry and warfare, from the baffling onslaught of spiritual wickedness, from failure and disobedience and sin the Church on earth needs healing and renewal.^[39]

The church is given the eucharist as a way of participating sacramentally in this constant and continual need for continual healing and nourishment in Christ. Through our participation in the sacrament of the eucharist, we “may so participate in the death and resurrection of Christ that it may be forgiven by Him and cleansed in His blood, be healed of its infirmities and reconciled from its estrangements.”^[40] That the sacraments take such an important role in the church’s unity points us to the fact that this unity is not a result of the work of humankind but of Jesus himself. The sacraments help us avoid a sort of ecumenical Pelagianism, in which the unity of the church is achieved through the work of humankind alone. In other words, “The Church cannot conserve the unity of the Spirit by looking to itself or by trying to preserve its own life.”^[41] Rather, the church is empowered by the Spirit to complete its mission of reconciliation in the world and in reliance upon Christ to sanctify the church. The World Council of Churches, while acknowledging our unity comes from God himself and we seek to manifest that unity in the world do so in such a way that produces a kind of unintended ecumenical Pelagianism. They define the ecumenical movement as a movement which “seeks to foster cooperation and sharing, common witness and common action by the churches and their members. More specifically, however, it is a renewal movement in and through the churches which has found expression in diverse initiatives and networks among lay people, especially women and youth.”^[42] It is this cooperation, sharing, and common action and witness that seem to define the ecumenical movement for the WCC.^[43] Is this the best way to understand the ecumenical movement and the reality of our disunity?

If the reality is that the church is one in its essential nature, how are we to understand its disunity? One symptom of this disunity is the fact that we refer to different Protestant denominations as “churches.” Torrance points to the example of the 1954 Faith and Order meeting, titled, “Our oneness in Christ and our disunity as churches.” He argues that “the very term ‘churches’ implies a denial of the unity of the Church [and] it ought to be dropped in ecumenical discussions.”^[44] This is why Torrance uses the language “our disunity in the church” rather than “our disunity as churches.” The reality is that the church cannot be divided any more than the person of Christ can be divided, and yet “the impossible seems to have happened.”^[45]

The church is filled with diversity of many kinds: sex, race, socioeconomic status, and so on. However, this diversity is not the problem. Revelation 7:9 points out that the people of God are composed of a diversity of peoples. Diversity within the church is God-given and a reflection of the diverse nature of God himself. God is a diverse unity consisting of three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in one nature. The church is called to reflect this diverse unity. Ultimately, then, “The problem is not our God-given diversity but the scandal of our sinful division.”^[46] In other words, division within the church is “rooted in the irrational and awful mystery of iniquity, in the ungodly powers and forces which are still rampant in the whole creation, and which seek to confuse the Church and defeat its mission.”^[47]

Our confession of our oneness in Christ must be connected to our confession of our oneness in our sin. We are sinful people who live in our body of flesh and thus are susceptible to that fallenness. We must confess that we are responsible for causing disunity within the church, for

It belongs to our sin that we deny the sole Lordship of Christ over the Church by usurping it, by claiming the vineyard for our own, by possessing our “church” for ourselves, by regarding our theology, order, history, nationality, etc., as our own “valued treasures”, thus involving them in the independence and usurpation of our sin, and involving ourselves more and more in the separation of sin.^[48]

This means that we take it upon ourselves to determine the church’s most important aspect, or even treat the church as if it belongs to us such that we are the Lord of the church with authority over it. It is to our detriment that, even when we have believed the truth, we have still caused division within the church with that truth. Sadly, then, the forms and divisions of the world have snuck into the church to divide what cannot be divided. For it is “within our divisions the God-given diversities in the Church have often been so corroded and corrupted that were under the one Spirit they should minister to the richness and fullness of the Church, under another lordship they may even minister to the extension of our divisions.”^[49] This is acknowledged by the World Council of Churches in their document “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC”; however, the divisions that are described and the issues that they claim the church must deal with are issues such as economic and political dependency, wars and violence, racial and ethnic division, militarism, interreligious conflict, poverty, and climate change.^[50]

These issues are declared as part of the ever-changing way in which we understand what it means to be the universal church in light of “growing globalization.”^[51] Issues that have manifested in denominationalism, which are “reinforcing the tendency of churches to concentrate on their internal and institutional concerns at the expense of their ecumenical commitment.”^[52] This ecumenical commitment is summed up by the WCC as a “common witness” which individual churches must remember in their call to evangelism and mission.^[53] This understanding of the ecumenical commitment being centered on a common witness is falling short of the call to unity we see in scripture. Paul argues in Ephesians 4:4 that “there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” (NRSV). In the original text the word order (Eν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα) places emphasis upon the one body and one Spirit before going into the remainder of the seven “one” statements. The reason that Paul emphasizes this here is a call back to his words in Ephesians 2 in which he argues that our divisions were dealt with through the reconciling work of Christ on the cross in such a way that there is now one new humanity in “one body” which is ultimately “joined together” and built “together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” in Jesus himself (NRSV).^[54] Our oneness in mission and evangelism is not itself the ontological oneness of the church but rather is the fruit of that ontological oneness in Christ. So how is it then that we are to overcome this disunity?

To overcome these divisions within the church, we must submit our divisions before the cross of Christ. The cross is the place where the divisive power of sin most strongly manifests itself, and yet it was defeated by the work of Christ on the cross and in his resurrection. Thus, “By planting the Cross of Christ in the midst of our divisions we believe He will overrule all their sin and make them serve His purpose of unity.”^[55] Our oneness only exists within the crucified and risen Christ, “Which means the crucifixion and death of our old self, of our own theology, our own so-called ‘church’, our own form of ‘order’, for we may only live with Christ as One New Man and as One Body in that we deny ourselves and take up His Cross as our own.”^[56] The unity of the church in the meantime exists as the church participates in the new creation, when the body of flesh will be cast off for its new glorified body and all the historical forms and orders of the church fall away. What will be left is a community that exists as a communion in the Spirit as a communion of love. The church must have eschatological sight as it looks to this day. In the meantime, we are given the eucharist as a way of expressing this unity. In taking part in the eucharist, “we eat and drink judgment to our sin and division” and “we are given an anticipation of the complete Oneness which Christ will reveal when He comes in final judgment to do away with all that is sinful, and in the power of the resurrection to consummate the Oneness of Christ and His Church as the One Body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.”^[57] The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope in the face of our disunity, for it gives the church the privilege of participating in its future oneness in the here and now.

This eschatological vision can seem to make any attempt of visible unity now null and void, leaving those seeking unity feeling hopeless. However, this is not and should not be the case. While we look forward to the day our unity will be made known, it is not the consummation of our perfection, but rather the apocalypse or “revelation of what is a present but hidden reality.”^[58] This is the mystery of the church and its nature; its future reality penetrates back to the present time such that we live, act, love, and serve as the eschatological community of God. It is “because it’s true life and unity are lodged in a future that penetrates back into the present, we must understand the disunity of the Church in history as even now under the attack of the unity that is yet to be revealed.”^[59] The unshakeable hope of the church in the meantime, and in the face of all the disunity that we see in the church in the present time, is grounded in the reality that “the oneness of the Church is already perfected reality in the once and for all death and resurrection of Christ, no division of the Church on earth can disrupt that oneness or withstand its advent impact upon the Church any more than it can undo the incarnation, crucifixion, or resurrection of Christ.”^[60] If division exists within the current life of the church, what can be done to overcome it and be the united body of Christ that is the church’s essential nature? It is to this question that we turn, examining some of the answers that Torrance offers.

To overcome the division faced by the church, Torrance concludes that we “must affirm the reality of the Church’s oneness revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and seek to act in ‘the obedience of faith’ to that oneness.”^[61] This can happen as we look away from ourselves and back to Christ, which is why Torrance argues that the body of Christ is the primary analogy for the church, for it draws our attention away from the church itself and directly to Christ.^[62] In doing so, we submit our division before the crucified and risen Jesus and allow him to bring our unity to visible realization in our earthly lives. Torrance argues that we must view our division in the church with repentance. When we approach our division with repentance—not a repentance that we expect from others but a repentance ourselves—we revoke our lordship over the church and begin to view it properly as under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Then, as we respond to our division in the obedience of faith, we “let Jesus Christ take control over our divided and broken estate and to heal it by His grace and power.”^[63]

In Conflict and Agreement in the Church, Torrance proposes four ways to pursue unity as we live out the “obedience of faith.” First, he argues that “we must listen together in the midst of our disunity to the voice of our one Lord speaking to us through Holy Scripture.”^[64] Because the scriptures are a double-edged sword which can expose the truest intentions of our heart and reveal to us the ways we have sinned and fallen short of what God has called us to, we must submit ourselves to the hearing of scripture, for it will expose the ways we have contributed to the church’s divisions. Second, he argues that as the church listens to scripture, we must submit ourselves to a cruciform life in which we daily pick up our crosses and follow Jesus because, as Paul argues in Romans 6, we were crucified with Christ on the cross and we have been raised with Christ to new life. We follow the pattern of Jesus in his life of submission and humility. As Torrance claims,

If the way of the Son of Man was through the cross and the resurrection to the One New Man, then the way of the divided “churches” is through Eucharistic obedience to Him, that the bread which we break may indeed be the Communion in the one Body, and the cup which we bless may indeed be the Communion in the Blood of Him who alone is the “Saviour of the Body” (Eph. 5:23).^[65]

At this point we begin to see the importance of the eucharist for the pursuit of the unity of the church. We will turn to this more specifically shortly.

Torrance’s third proposal is that “we must learn how to speak the truth in love with one another (Eph. 4:15, 25), and to discern in others the one body of which we are members (compare 1 Cor. 11:29).”^[66] Thus, the church must be wholly committed to the pursuit of the truth. However, this pursuit of truth must be always done in love, for we must remember that we are not the lord over others’ faith. Jesus alone is the Lord over us all. Thus, we can and should point each other to the truth, but always as an act of love as we pursue the truth, that is Jesus, together. In doing so, we may push each other and together grow into maturity in Christ, as Paul argues in Ephesians 4.

The fourth and final proposal Torrance makes is that “we must learn to bear witness together to Him who has already overcome our sins and divisions and who graciously uses sinners in His service.”^[67] In the joint pursuit to be testifiers to Jesus himself we continue to look away from and point others away from our dividedness and to the unity that we have in Jesus. This is not a sleight of hand, in which we try to direct others away from our dividedness so we can continue to perpetuate it. Instead, in pursuing this joint witness to Christ, we look away from ourselves and submit ourselves to the Lordship of Christ, allowing him to root out those divisions and sanctify us into the united body that we are created to be.

When those in the church can begin to do these things, Torrance argues that Jesus

opens their eyes to discern in themselves wherein they have contributed to the dividedness of the Church, and wherein they must learn to deny themselves if they are not to perpetuate division and are to follow the one Lord in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. For some this may mean that certain theological demands (e.g. a particular conception of the Eucharist), true though it may be in the perspective of division, cannot be made binding for others.^[68]

As we pursue unity, we must deny ourselves and see other churches as Jesus himself sees them. As illustrated in the book of Acts, as Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute and kill Christians, Jesus appeared and asked Saul why he was persecuting him. In other words, Jesus argues that to persecute others in the church is to persecute Jesus. What we say about other churches we say about Jesus. Thus, as the way of Jesus was the way of crucifixion and resurrection, of self-humiliation and humility, “the way of the divided ‘churches’ is through Eucharistic obedience to Him, that the bread which we break may indeed be the Communion in the one Body, and the cup which we bless may indeed be the Communion in the Blood of Him who alone is the ‘Saviour of the Body.’”^[69]

The Eucharist and Visible Unity

Intercommunion was the topic of discussion at the meeting of the Commission of Faith and Order in the 1950s. There are a variety of ways to understand the concept of intercommunion, thus it is crucial to first define it. In itself, intercommunion implies a divided church, or at the very least not a single unified church, but “denominations related to one another somewhat after the manner of independent sovereign states.”^[70] Intercommunion can thus be defined as “an agreement between churches of different denominations whereby the communicant members of each may freely communicate at the altars of either.”^[71] However, the report from the Faith and Order commission offers a different term, “intercelebration.”^[72] This is due to the fact that churches such as the Orthodox Church do not view themselves as one church among many others, but the only church, as they hold to and express the full truth of the gospel. Therefore, they “cannot conceive of sacramental fellowship in distinction from the full fellowship of the church.”^[73] This meeting of the Faith and Order commission found several areas of agreement, such as the state of the church’s disunity, the need for further discussion regarding intercommunion, and the sinful nature of division present within the church. They could not agree, however, on who could partake in intercommunion. Some churches believe that anyone belonging to any branch of the one church of Christ can partake; others argue that there cannot be communion in the eucharist without communion in the full life of the church.

For instance, Lutheran theologian Frank Senn argues that “when we are together in ecumenical assemblies in which full communion is not yet possible, we should abstain from celebrating or receiving Holy Communion. Instead, let us confess the sins—also of the church—that keep us from gathering at the one Table of the Lord.”^[74] In the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II opened the possibility of a communicatio in sacris, but only in particular situations in which the priest can be sure that it is not being used without discretion. However, Vatican II raises concerns with the use of the eucharist as the cause and expression of unity.^[75] The first concern relates to the kind of unity experienced in the eucharist. Catholic theologian Jeffrey VanderWilt argues that there are three kinds of unity experienced in the eucharist: a unity of intention, a unity of identity, and a unity of jurisdiction.^[76] The unity of intent, VanderWilt argues, is like that of betrothal, that is, you intend to be with that person. VanderWilt maintains that, where the unity of intent is not present, eucharistic sharing is not possible. As Thomas Richstater argues, “receiving communion at the same altar is not a sign of unity when we do so with the intention of separating afterwards to return to our various Churches.”^[77] The unity of identity refers to the reality that in the eucharist the church gives up its own ideas about identity and submits to the identity and intentions of Christ. The unity of jurisdiction has to do with the unity of a party or, in other words, institutional unity. What is the relationship, then, between the eucharist and church unity in Catholic theology? Sacraments “cause what they signify and signify what they cause.”^[78] Vanderwilt states, “Vatican II consistently argued against the use of the Eucharist as a means toward Christian unity. This argument divides the sacrament as the cause of unity from the sacrament as the sign of unity.”^[79] While the Catholic Church can recognize partial communion among churches of varying denominations and branches, full communion cannot be recognized, for it would betray their eucharistic theology.

A difference of eucharistic theology should be brought before the cross of Jesus, in which we are called to live a cruciform life. As Torrance writes, “For some this may mean that certain theological demands (for example, a particular conception of the Eucharist), true though it may be in the perspective of division, cannot be made binding for others.”^[80] Intercommunion is essential to our pursuit of unity as the church of Jesus Christ. He argues that “ultimately refusal of intercommunion can only mean for me a lack of trust in the Opus Dei in the Eucharist and a fear that it is not so powerful as to overcome our mistakes and heal our divisions, and bring medicine to our mortal strifes.”^[81] Further, he claims that, if we truly believe that Christ is present to us in the eucharist, then we must “put the Lord and Head of the Church before Church Order, before Doctrine, before Tradition.”^[82] He even goes as far to argue that keeping a strict interpretation of the eucharist and forcing it upon others causes division.^[83] As we think of intercommunion, it is important to understand that the eucharistic participation of the believer follows their inclusion into the body of Christ through baptism. The right to partake in the eucharist does not come from any church order but from baptism itself. This is because baptism “means actual incorporation into the Body of Christ, and already means through the Word a continuous feeding upon the flesh and blood of Christ.”^[84] Thus we are faced with the question: “who are we to deny those so baptized renewal of their incorporation in the Body of Christ, provided that they are sincere?”^[85] This understanding of baptism keeps us from falsely dichotomising it from the eucharist. If we withhold the eucharist from someone who has been sincerely baptized, we withhold the body of Christ from one who is a part of the body of Christ.

The authority of the eucharist is also relevant to our discussion of intercommunion. Where does eucharistic authority lie? Torrance relies on an interpretation of Matthew 12, in which Jesus tells the Pharisees that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. The context of this passage is Jesus dining with sinners, which upsets the Pharisees. Jesus responds by describing the eating of a meal, claiming that he has the authority to decide with whom and when he shall eat. This is reminiscent of the meal shared with us in the eucharist, in which Christ gives us himself. Thus, it can be argued that Jesus is the “Lord of the Eucharist” for the “eucharist was made for man not man made for the eucharist.”^[86] Jesus decides with whom he will dispense and share his supper. In sharing in the new creation that is to come, a participation in the eschatological Christ, “All barriers of intercommunion are broken down.”^[87]

This does not mean that the church cannot prohibit anyone from participating in the eucharist. Refusal is reserved for those who are lapsed and those who have denied their baptism and turned away from their faith. But this refusal of the eucharist is not done with the authority of the church, but only with the authority of Jesus himself. This “fencing” of the table takes place by the prophetic ministry of the word of God, in which the grace and mercy of Jesus is brought to bear upon the church: “It is when His Word and authority are glorified that it is indeed the Lord’s table and the Lord’s supper.”^[88] The table and the supper are under the authority of Jesus himself, “not a private supper owned and administered on exclusive principles by the Church.”^[89]

What is the relation of the church’s order to the eucharist? Do the orders of the church have authority over the eucharist, or the eucharist over the orders of the church? It is through baptism that we are included into the body of Christ, and thus we take on the form and order of Christ. Through the charismata the church on earth takes on the form of Christ. The church is thus given the word and sacrament in which it participates, as its “order more and more approximate to and partake of the one Body of Christ.”^[90] This takes place most clearly in the church’s participation in the eucharist, in which it takes on its eschatological order and becomes realized in the church on earth. Torrance argues,

The actual ordering of the church partakes of the form and fashion of this passing world, and as such it can never be identified in its historical structure with the essential form of the Church or be allowed to anticipate the order yet to be fully disclosed in the eschaton.^[91]

The eucharist is never subordinate to the forms and orders of the church; it is from the eucharist that the church is ordered and reordered as it begins to stray from its calling. The eucharist cannot be subordinate to the church’s forms and orders, nor to history, as it is “the transcendent manifestation of the Son of Man within history until he comes again in the fullness of his glory.”^[92] When we understand the eucharist in this way, we realize that the church’s participation in the eucharist “is above all the divinely given means of unity in the church.”^[93] Thus, intercommunion is an essential aspect of the pursuit of church unity. As I conclude, I give Torrance the space he deserves,

It is certain that at the last day all the barriers of liturgy and cult and order that have been erected in history around the Holy Table of the Lord will be torn down, for in that great day, ‘The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.’ And St. John adds, if any man shall take away these words from the Book of Prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City. We cannot afford to wait until the eschaton to hear those words. The Eucharist is given to us here and now as an anticipation within history of the Marriage-supper of the Lamb. In every true Eucharist, therefore, the Church, as the Bride of Christ, will join the Spirit, saying, Come. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.^[94]

Conclusion

In this essay I argued that the visible unity of the church is a reflection of its ontological unity as the reconciled Body of Christ and essential to this is the shared celebration of the Eucharist. Thus, the ecumenical life of the church is an action from a place of ontological unity and not towards a place of ontological unity. I defended this thesis by first defining the nature of the church as the reconciled Body of Christ. I followed this with an extrapolation of the nature of the church to the practice of intercommunion as a means towards visible unity. In no way is this article the end of the conversation. There is much to still be researched on this topic such as the commands in 1 Corinthians not to partake of the supper in an unworthy manner. My desire was that this article could serve as a retrieval of the theology of T. F. Torrance in order to rethink his arguments in light of the conversation that has taken place since Torrance was engaged in this dialogue.

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^[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation: Essays Towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1996), 20.

^[2] Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, 21.

^[3] Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, 21.

^[4] See Joel Scandrett, “Thomas F. Torrance and Ecumenism,” in T & T Clark Handbook of Thomas F. Torrance, ed. Paul D. Molnar and Myk Habets,51-66 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2020). See also Daniel J. Cameron, “Thomas Forsyth Torrance: Ecumenical Theologian,” Christianity Today, December 2, 2017, https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/thomas-forsyth-tf-torrance.html.

^[5] Thomas F. Torrance, Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Faith. 2nd ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 6.

^[6] Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, 7.

^[7] Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, 6. Emphasis mine.

^[8] Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, 9; compare with. John A. T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (London: SCM Press, 2012).

^[9] Torrance, “What Is the Church?” The Ecumenical Review 11, no. 1 (October 1958): 9.

^[10] Torrance, “What Is the Church?” 9.

^[11] Thomas F. Torrance, Conflict and Agreement in the Church, vol. 1, Order and Disorder (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1996), 1: 258.

^[12] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement,1: 258.

^[13] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement,1: 258.

^[14] Thomas F. Torrance, Royal Priesthood: A Theology of Ordained Ministry (London: T & T Clark, 2003), 53.

^[15] Torrance, Royal Priesthood, 53.

^[16] Thomas F. Torrance, Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992), 67.

^[17] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 67.

^[18] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 67. It is important to note that the use of the word “schizoid” is the language used by the original author. I acknowledge that this is not language that is often used today.

^[19] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 68.

^[20] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 71.

^[21] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 71.

^[22] Torrance, Mediation of Christ, 71-72. This does not just have implications for our relationship with God or our interpersonal relationships. It has implications for the redemption of all human social structures. Torrance argues, “The very same message applies to human society, for in virtue of what takes place in the Church through corporate union and communion with Jesus Christ as his Body, the promise of transformation and renewal of all human social structures is held out in the Gospel, when society may at last be transmuted into a community of love centering in and sustained by the personalizing and humanizing presence of the Mediator” (72).

^[23] Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, 279.

^[24] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 270.

^[25] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 270.

^[26] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 270.

^[27] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 270.

^[28] Torrance here gives a helpful warning regarding the use of the forms and orders of this fallen world: “The world (1 John 2:17) and its form (1 Cor. 7:31) pass away with this present evil age, so while we must use this world we must not misuse it (1 Cor. 7:31) lest we be condemned with the world (1 Cor. 14:10).” Conflict and Agreement,1:270.

^[29] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 270.

^[30] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 271.

^[31] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 271.

^[32] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 271.

^[33] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 271.

^[34] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 271.

^[35] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 272.

^[36] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 273.

^[37] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 275.

^[38] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 274.

^[39] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 274.

^[40] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 274.

^[41] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 274.

^[42] “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)” 1.15, World Council of Churches, modified February 14, 2006, https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/common-understanding-and-vision-of-the-wcc-cuv.

^[43] This can be seen further in their explanation of how the WCC as a “living fellowship of churches” is made manifest. They argue: “Many other such significant declarations, both within the WCC and in other ecumenical contexts, could be mentioned. Yet for many people the understanding of the WCC as a living fellowship of churches has emerged more vividly through specific initiatives to engage the churches in reflecting and acting at the local level: among them the Programme to Combat Racism, the convergence texts on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, the study on the Community of Women and Men in the Church, the conciliar process on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, the Ecumenical Decade—Churches in Solidarity with Women, the study on Gospel and Culture and the Programme to Overcome Violence. Controversial though some of these have been among and within the member churches, they are important features of the profile of the WCC; and any attempt to articulate a common understanding of the WCC must take them into account.”

^[44] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 275.

^[45] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement,1: 275.

^[46] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 276, original emphasis.

^[47] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1:276.

^[48] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 277.

^[49] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 277.

^[50] “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)” 1.7.

^[51] “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)” 1.7.

^[52] “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)” 1.8.

^[53] “Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)” 1.8.

^[54] Compare with Peter O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 280-81.

^[55] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 277.

^[56] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 278.

^[57] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 278.

^[58] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 279.

^[59] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 279.

^[60] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 279.

^[61] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 279-80.

^[62] Torrance, “What Is the Church?” 6.

^[63] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 280.

^[64] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 280.

^[65] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 281-82.

^[66] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 282.

^[67] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement,1: 282.

^[68] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement,1: 282–83.

^[69] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 281.

^[70] Donald Ballie, Intercommunion: Report of a Theological Commission of Faith and Order, Faith and Order Commission Papers No. 5 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1951), 6. http://archive.org/details/wccfops2.005.

^[71] Ballie, Intercommunion, 6.

^[72] Ballie, Intercommunion, 7.

^[73] Ballie, Intercommunion, 6.

^[74] Frank C. Senn, “The Eucharist and Ecumenical Inter-Communion: Reflections on Ecclesia de Eucharistia,” Pro Ecclesia 13, no. 3 (2004): 322.

^[75] Vatican Council and George H. Tavard, Unitatis Redintegratio: Decree on Ecumenism, Promulgated by Pope Paul VI, November 18, 1965 (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1966).

^[76] Jeffrey VanderWilt, “Eucharistic Sharing and The Catholic Church.” Liturgy 20, no. 4 (2005): 50.

^[77] Thomas Richstatter, “Eucharist: Sign and Source of Christian Unity,” Catholic Update (2000): 1.

^[78] Jeffrey VanderWilt, “Eucharistic Sharing: Revising the Question,” Theological Studies 63, no. 4 (2002): 831.

^[79] VanderWilt, “Eucharistic Sharing: Revising the Question,” 831.

^[80] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1:283.

^[81] T. F. Torrance to Georges Florovsky, January 25, 1950, quoted in Matthew Baker, “Correspondence Between T. F. Torrance and Georges Florovsky (1950-1973),” Participatio 4 (2013): 298.

^[82] Torrance to Georges Florovsky, 298.

^[83] “Our divisions come however where we arrest some particular doctrine and freeze it a special point, and refuse for [?] pride or prejudice or history to carry this doctrine critically through the whole pleroma of our Church life and thought and practice.” Torrance and Georges Florovsky, 299.

^[84] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 339.

^[85] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 339.

^[86] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 340.

^[87] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 340.

^[88] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 341.

^[89] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 341.

^[90] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 344.

^[91] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 345.

^[92] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 348.

^[93] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1: 348.

^[94] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement, 1:350, emphasis in original.