Today, we
will be dealing with the second in our series on the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, again in no particular
order. In this one, I am addressing the
sacrament of Confirmation, sometimes called the “Sacrament of Christian Maturity.” This is certainly not the most talked-about
sacrament, and even many Catholics are prone to misunderstand it.
So, what is Catholic Confirmation, actually? The Catechism of the Catholic Church states
that Confirmation is one of three “sacraments of initiation,” baptism and Holy
Communion being the other two. It also
claims that Confirmation is necessary for the “completion of baptismal grace.”
(CCC #1285)
Confirmation
is a ritual of the Church that claims that:
-
It roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes
us cry, “Abba! Father!"
-
It unites us more firmly to Christ;
-
It increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;
-
It renders our bond with the Church more perfect
-
It gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread
and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess
the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross. (CCC #1303)
Not only that, but the Catechism
claims that “… the effect of the
sacrament of Confirmation IS the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit
as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.” (CCC #1302 – Emphasis
added)
The Catholic Catechism also states
that Confirmation causes the seal of the Holy Spirit to be given to the
Catholic. (CCC #1293 and CCC #1295)
Is it important for the Catholic to
believe in Confirmation? Very much
so. The Council of Trent states that if
a person says that Confirmation is not instituted by Christ, that person is
considered “anathema.” (Session VII, Canon I, “On the
Sacraments in General”)
By the way, an anathema is the severest form of excommunication in
the Catholic Church, where one is eternally condemned to Hell unless and until
he does penance to the Church’s satisfaction.
Well, at least these things are what
the Catholic Church claims about
Confirmation. Ok, so that’s a pretty weighty teaching, being mandatory
and all for every Catholic to believe.
But does Catholic Confirmation actually do all those things listed
above? And if it does, how? And, most importantly, is it indeed
established by Jesus Christ?
So what does Jesus say about this Confirmation event? If you look in the pages of the New
Testament, you will not find any such ritual.
You will find that there is no single specific event that does all these
things mentioned above. Every
Christian’s journey starts with salvation, that is, when justification is
imputed to him by faith and his heart is changed by God. After this happens, sanctification is the
process where we are, over time, “rooted more deeply” and “united more firmly”
to Christ, as we strive to please Him.
If a person is truly saved, the process of sanctification will indeed
happen, whether there is a particular ceremony or not.
As far as the gifts of the Holy Spirit
being increased in someone, Scripture tells us that these gifts are given as God wills (1 Corinthians 12:11) – He,
alone, does the choosing of the gift(s), and He alone decides at what point in
life to give them to you. There is nothing
in Scripture about them coming from a formal church ritual.
Catholic
statements about Confirmation are indeed tall claims, and since the Catholic
Church claims that there is a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the
Confirmation event, akin to the event on the Day of Pentecost, it must
necessarily be a miracle, right? If this is true, is there any real evidence
that the person confirmed is any closer to Christ, or that His gifts have, on
that day, increased in that person’s life?
Have all the recipients of Confirmation spoken in other languages as
they did on the Day of Pentecost? Has it
caused them to do miracles like those in the early church? You see, real
miracles, like those found in the Bible, always had clear evidence to back them
up, and were not just empty claims.
To have a
group go through a formal ritual like Confirmation and tell them that a special miracle had to have
happened (without proof) is deceptive.
Reality
In reality, the bottom line is this:
the Catholic Church has, in the ceremony of Confirmation, a powerless person in
an unbiblical role, performing an empty ritual, conferring fake gifts to a
(more often than not) clueless recipient.
That may sound unkind, but let me
explain. The powerless person is the
Catholic priest or bishop and he is powerless because there is no biblical
backing for this “sacrament.” Furthermore,
his is indeed an unbiblical role, since there is no ministerial priesthood in
the New Testament. The ritual is empty
because there is no such thing as a ritual, ceremony or ordinance that provides
grace for a person. Rituals are works,
and grace does not come through works (1 Peter 5:5-6), therefore, this
ceremony’s “gifts” are fake. Concerning
the recipient being clueless, most of the time, these are young, pre-teen
children, who can hardly be considered “mature” when receiving this sacrament,
even though it is often called the sacrament of maturity. The Catholic may say that Confirmation is
just the beginning of his walk of
maturity. Well, perhaps so, but there is
no biblical evidence that Catholic Confirmation is the starting point.
Now, I’m not
saying that the ritual of Confirmation has never had any meaning for the
“confirmand” (the person being confirmed), but that it simply does not provide grace, as it claims. I’m also not
saying that the Holy Spirit could never work in the heart of any recipient
during this ceremony. It is possible. I am not limiting the Holy Spirit’s ability
to work in someone whose heart is right, but the Holy Spirit does not give
grace to a person because he goes through a particular ceremony, especially an
unbiblical one.
Again, grace
is not obtained through rituals (Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6) and therefore,
sacraments cannot be a means of grace (Romans 11:6).
Conclusion
Catholics
will claim that their Confirmation is biblical, since its ceremony uses the
laying on of hands and anointing oil.
But that doesn’t prove anything.
Any unbiblical group can do the same.
The apostle
Paul does mention that Jesus Christ will “confirm” the believer until the
end. But this is an ongoing thing, not a one-time ritual. Paul is simply saying that the Christian
needs to be “confirmed” in the sense that he is strengthened, established, kept and sustained in the faith (1 Corinthians 1:6-8). THAT
is biblical confirmation.
The Catholic
Church has a system of many rituals that its members depend on from cradle to
grave. This system supposedly doles out
God’s grace through sacraments, piece by piece, in periodic installments. And they claim that it is only through the
Church that one can get these saving sacraments, thus shackling its members to “Mother
Church.” Catholic Confirmation is only
one of those sacraments.
But
remember, real and biblical salvation doesn’t come in installments or rituals. It simply comes by FAITH in the Person and
work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary (John 3:16; Romans 4:4-5; Ephesians
2:8-9).
See also
this link concerning sacraments:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2011/01/sacraments-gods-grace-for-sale.html
And this
link on the priesthood:
http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/03/priesthood.html
