One of the popular Protestant churches televised its morning worship hour on the program "Great Churches of the Golden West." Looking forward through the aisle of the magnificent building, our gaze centered on the altar. A seven-branched candlestick stood on either side of the altar, and above it was a cross, illuminated by the soft light from a rose-tinted window. The choir members faced one another from the seats arranged on the sides of the chancel. The pulpit was to the right and in front of the choir seats. The emblems of the broken body and spilled blood of our Lord were served during the worship hour. As the minister prayed, facing the altar, he prayed for the "sacrificial cup."
The word altar is a misnomer when applied to the communion table. Protestantism these days is moving Romeward, and in scores of Protestant churches the so-called altar is placed in the center and is made central in the worship. The words sanctuary and altar are commonly used when referring to the church building and the communion table. These expressions are borrowed from Roman Catholics.
In the second century of our era a priesthood was established, patterned after the Levitical priesthood. In Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History,. Book 1, pages 117 and 133, we read:
"The bishops now wished to be thought to correspond with the high priests of the Jews; the presbyters were said to come in place of the priests; and the deacons were made parallel with the Levites. . . But in a little time, those to whom these titles were given. . . maintained that they had the same rank and dignity, and possessed the same rights and privileges with those who bore these titles under the Mosaic dispensation. . . . In like manner the comparison of the Christian oblations with the Jewish victims and sacrifices, produced many unnecessary rites; and in time corrupted essentially the doctrine of the Lord's supper, which ere they were aware of it, was converted into a sacrifice."
When Jesus died on Calvary's cross all the shadowy and typical services of the earthly sanctuary were forever ended. The "one sacrifice forever" had been made. Jesus, our great High Priest, now entered upon His ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. The new covenant has a sanctuary, an altar, a sacrifice, a priesthood. There is "a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands"; a high priest, "made higher than the heavens"; a sacrifice of Christ Himself, who "by his own blood . . . entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Jesus offered "one sacrifice for sins forever," and by "one offering he bath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." The "bloodless sacrifice of the mass" is a counterfeit of the sacrifice made by our Lord on Calvary's cross. Our sanctuary is in heaven; our priesthood is the priesthood of Jesus; our altar of sacrifice was on Calvary's mount; our altar of incense is the golden altar before the throne; the one who forgives our sins, our Mediator, is the One who "ever liveth to make intercession" for us.
In the ECyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by McClintock and Strong, are found these words:
"The apostles in no instance call the bread and wine a sacrifice, or the Lord's table an altar, or the Christian minister a priest. . . . When the ancient apologists were reproached with having no temples, no altars, no shrines, they simply replied, 'Shrines and altars we have not.' "—Volume I, p. 183.
As the Protestant churches move Romeward, we must be careful lest we pattern after their ritual and adopt their customs and expressions. The predictions made long ago in the book The Great Controversy are fast meeting their fulfillment. Startling admissions are made. For example, there is the following statement from The Christian Century:
"We are on the threshold of a great amalgamation of churches. Protestantism will clasp hands -with the Roman Catholics, a confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God."—December 16, 1942.
"Regardless of our varying shades of conceptional 'difference in our approach to the Lord's Supper, we are united with the Roman Catholic in believing that through this sacrament we come before God and as close to God as ever in our religious 'experience. We attended the high mass of the Catholic Church. Here was beauty in all its splendor, from music and intonation of liturgy to the colorful glass and the magnificence of altar and vestments. And those of us who would share the achievements of Christian freedom and have a part in establishing a more satisfactory world order must dare to pay the price in personal discipline through a proper use of the holy communion." —October. 7, 1942.
It has been said that the mass is the point of cleavage between Romanism and Protestantism. With the emphasis now being given in Protestant churches to the "altar" and the "sacrificial cup," to the destroying of denominational differences and the development of unity in a common belief in Jesus, is it possible that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, accepted by Protestants as a sacrament and a sacrifice, may become the focal point of unity? We would do well to read again the chapters in The Great Controversy: "The Sanctuary," "Character and Aims of the Papacy," and others, that we may not drift with the popular current toward the great stream of amalgamation of churches, which flows toward Rome.
