WHAT IS THE SIN OF SACRAMENTALISM?
From about 500 A.D. until about 1500 A.D., a full thousand years, the church was engulfed in sacramentalism. Sacramentalism is a religion of ritual and ceremony without reality. In other words a church has become, CHRIST, so that the focal point is
* not to worship Christ but to worship the church,
* not to be right with God but to be right with the church,
* not to have a personal and intimate relationship with the living God,
but to function through the ritual, ceremony and rites of the church. This was known as the Dark Ages.
It was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. There was also the existence of the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church. The Church
* prescribed certain sacraments,
* certain ceremonies,
* certain forms of religion,
and rituals involving candles and beads and penance and all kinds of external functions by which through some automatic operation in outward form, a person could be made right with God.
These prescribed religious acts and duties and functions and ceremonies really made a person right with the church, not God but the church had become Christ. And the issue was to worship the church and not Christ.
Martin Luther came along in the 1500’s, and attacked the heretical and blasphemous institution and its sacramentalism successfully. And what prompted his heart was what he said to the Diet at Worms when he had to defend himself, when he said,
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God.”
He found that the Word of God ran contrary to sacramentalism. But during that one thousand years, the Word of God was taken out of the hands of the people and they were subject to whatever interpretation to the Word of God the church gave.
It was only when Luther discovered the reality that the Bible taught “the just shall live by faith,” that he realized the tremendous error of the church. A thousand years had gone by, a thousand years of great danger to the souls of men as the church propagated sacramentalism instead of true Christianity.
So much was Luther devoted to the Scripture that he was compelled to denounce sacramentalism. He said,
“Neither sacrament nor priest but faith in the Word of God justifies you. What concern of yours would it be if the Lord spoke through an ass, as long as you hear His Word in which you may hope and believe.” And then he said, “I recognize neither the father, the mother, the relative, the government nor the Christian church that wants to prevent me from listening to God’s Word,”
And, one of the things the church did during that time of the Dark Ages, was keep the Word of God out of the hands of the people so they might not interpret it for themselves.
Luther recognized that ritual and sacrament had substituted the church for the Lord of the church. And the church of Luther’s day was in bondage to its sacramental idol.
It had a ritual without a relationship.
It had penance without forgiveness.
It had ceremony without Christ.
Sadly Sacramentalism is alive and well and multitudes of souls of men are still kept in bondage by Roman Catholicism, which was, and is, more aggressive in sending people to hell, than sending them to heaven.
brianhenryblog 
Thank you for stating an opinion. However, I see no supporting evidence unless Luther is a greater authoity that Augustine, Ignatius, the Didache, & many other writibgs in the few centuries after the apostles. And Jn 6, 1Cor 13, and the synoptic Gospels narrative of the institution of the Eucharist.
Please explain the error. I admit some took this too far but abuse of a doctrine doesn’t disprove it.
Here’s my question for you ….HAVE YOU REPENTED OF SIN, OR MERELY DOING PENANCE FOR SIN?
Many years ago whilst reading in the Douay Rheims Catholic Bible I came across
Luke 13:3 “Unless you do penance, you shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
I was quite shocked that in the original Koine Greek it does not say that! The word is μετάνοια and signifies a “change of mind,” and should read:
“Unless you REPENT, you shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven”
I learned that “Penance” is a Catholic term, meaning us going to confession and then doing what the priest tells us to do to “make up for” our sins. ” Repentance” on the other hand, is an internal change that happens when we turn away from our sins and turn back to God.
“Repentance” had been substituted by “doing penance” – a punishment inflicted on oneself to atone (make satisfaction) for sin.
To be fair, Catholicism also speaks of penance as an inner attitude in which we detest and bewail our sins because they are offensive to God. True repentance is expressed by sorrow, and such acts as prayer and fasting, and that repentance results in “fruit” – good works that grow out of a changed mind.
Although modern official versions of the catholic bible have changed the word “penance” to now read “repentance” they have not changed their erroneous doctrine that is reflected in their official sources of doctrine. The big problem I have with “penance” is the intended purpose of such acts: penance is performed to make satisfaction for sin, as you can see can be from the following official sources:
* “Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction’ for or ‘expiate’ his sins. This satisfaction is called ‘penance.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1459).
* Penance “is meant not merely as a safeguard for the new life and as a remedy to weakness, but also as a vindicatory punishment for former sins” (Council of Trent, 14:8).
* “Satisfaction or penance is that prayer or other good work which the confessor enjoins on the penitent in expiation of his sins” (Catechism of Pius X, Sacrament of Penance).
Consequently, even though we are a genuinely contrite and having confessed our sins, we are still required to atone for sin by performing various works of penance in this world and by suffering in purgatory after death. We are not fit to enter heaven until we have made complete satisfaction. I see the following as the practical effects of “penance”!
Faith -is substituted by personal efforts and suffering.
Love – is mutated into a punishment! (Almsgiving is a principal form of penance).
Hope – is changed into fear and dread in anticipation of the torments of purgatory.