Secular & Holy

InterVarsity press has recently published a book (Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper) promoting the "sacraments" from an evangelical viewpoint. The author makes the following observation:
 
"I have come to believe that the reason evangelicals fail to appreciate the sacraments and to understand their biblical importance is that evangelicalism suffers from an inherent dualism -- or worse, what Philip Lee calls Protestant gnosticism. Evangelical theology tends toward a cleavage between the material and the spiritual, the earthly and the heavenly, which I find to be too insensitive to the world as God's creation and to the incarnation of Jesus Christ into our actual fallen humanity. In this essentially dualistic worldview the sacraments, which by their very nature function through material elements, cannot bear the weight of spiritual reality. Therefore, they are either suspect because it seems heretical to think that water and bread and wine do actually unite us to Christ, or they are merely show-and-tell lessons, not worthy of any more study than a Sunday school flannelgraph."

The author could not be more confused. The Scriptures tell us that "even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians:2:5-6 [5] Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) [6] And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
See All...).

"For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philippians:3:20For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
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For the Christian, therefore, there is no "cleavage" between the material and the spiritual. Further, Jesus exhorted his disciples to do this "in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians:11:24And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
See All...). In other words, it is our recognition and partaking of what the Lord has already done that is of utmost importance. The author's idea, therefore, "that bread and wine do actually unite us to Christ" is absolutely without substance.