1. Instituted Signs
Rev K M Watkins
The word sacrament does not appear in the Bible. But its theological use is well established and has come to be well defined. It is derived from the Latin sacramentum, which was used in three ways. Firstly, it described the money that each side deposited with the judge at the beginning of a legal case. Secondly, it was used for a soldier’s oath of allegiance to his commander. And thirdly, it was the equivalent of the sacred “mystery” of the Greeks, so the English equivalent of the Latin Vulgate Bible in Ephesians 5:32 is: “This is a great sacrament: but I speak concerning Christ and the church”. All three ideas may be applied to the sacraments of the Bible: they are a pledge, through which God deposits the assurance of His grace in Christ; they are an oath, in which the receiver acknowledges his obligation to be the Lord’s; and their outward symbolism represents hidden spiritual grace.
In the early Church, the Trinity, the incarnation, faith – all were called sacraments. To this day the Church of Rome insists on seven sacraments. To Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, she adds matrimony, orders, penance, confirmation and extreme unction.
Clearly a definition thoroughly based on Scripture is needed. Perhaps none is better than the Shorter Catechism‘s brief but wonderfully comprehensive statement: “A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers” (Ans 92). In the New Testament, there are but two ordinances answering to this definition: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These replace what may be seen as the sacraments of the Old Testament: Circumcision and the Passover respectively. Some of Rome’s additions are not even divine institutions, and none have been designed by God to be signs and seals of Christ and the covenant of grace.
To give the two sacraments their right place in worship depends on a correct understanding of their special place among the ordinances of God.
1This is the first part of a paper given at the Theological Conference in 1998.
Drawing on the Catechism definition, five aspects combine to establish their unique nature, and thus their distinctive place in worship.
Firstly, the sacraments are instituted by Christ, the Head of the Church. His great commission to the Church included the command to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mt 28:19). For the Supper, Christ’s dying command was: “This do in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor 11:24). Nothing but “Christ’s own appointment.”2 can authoritatively establish a sacrament. The words that Christ used in instituting the Lord’s Supper are vital: “the essence of a sacrament is from the divine institution.”3 It is this same commanding word of the Saviour that gives the sacraments their place in divine worship. Nothing else could, for the Second Commandment reserves to God the sole prerogative to determine how He will be worshipped.
Since sacraments have a warrant from heaven for their place in worship, how diligent we should be to give them their due place, as ordinances commanded by the Lord! He said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). We obey Christ in love, not merely by doing the things that He has commanded, but by doing them expressly because He has commanded them. By honouring the place of Baptism and the Supper as commanded parts of worship, we honour the One who requires them. Conversely, to neglect, despise or distort the sacraments must be a great sin against the Saviour. One might have hoped that this would never have been seen in Christendom. But sadly, almost no commands have been so badly kept.
Some have omitted them altogether. The Quakers consider such ceremonies to be too carnal for the New Testament dispensation. Thus they betray how little they know of true spirituality – for it is the carnal mind that is enmity against God’s law. The Salvation Army wanted to avoid the divisions that had arisen over the sacraments. Well did it call itself an army rather than a church, for by excluding sacraments it de-churched itself, their administration being an indispensable mark of a true branch of the visible Church. It also tried to be wiser than the Head of the Church, who not only prayed that all His people would be one (Jn 17:11), but also instituted sacraments as a means of expressing and confirming their unity.
Then there are those who feel that they “do not have the strength” to sit at the Lord’s Table. King Saul was displeased when David’s place at his table was empty; can it please the King of heaven to see His own people not taking their place at His table? No doubt they feel real difficulties before them, but is this to give the sacraments their due place in worship? For some,
2Larger Catechism, Ans 163.
3Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, P & R Publishing, 1997, vol 3, p 341.
perhaps more attention should be given to Christ’s command and less to their own weakness.
Because the sacraments are part of worship and governed by the regulative principle, they are to be dispensed precisely as Scripture requires. We must be careful to give them the same place in our practice that Christ has given them in His command. Any deviation from Scripture will jostle the sacraments from their right place in worship. Regrettably, such deviations have abounded. Popery has added spittle and oil to the water of Baptism, replaced the bread with wafers, refused to give wine to the laity, and turned the Supper into the blasphemy of the mass. Many Evangelicals have substituted unfermented juice for the instituted wine in the Supper, and dispensed it in individual cups instead of a communal cup. Baptists have refused to baptise infants. In such ways the sacraments have been denied their instituted place.
Secondly, the sacraments are signs. The Shorter Catechism calls them “sensible signs”, meaning that the bodily senses can observe them. They can be seen, tasted, touched and felt. The Catechism states: “By sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented”. Baptism is a “figure” of salvation (1 Pet 3:21), and in the Supper we “shew” the Lord’s death (1 Cor 11:26). In a figurative way, the sacraments show forth, display and commemorate the grace of God in Christ.
The Larger Catechism explains this symbolism when it says that “the parts of a sacrament are two; the one an outward and sensible sign, used according to Christ’s own appointment; the other an inward and spiritual grace thereby signified” (Ans 163). The sign can be perceived by the external senses of the body, especially the sight. It comprises both the material elements – water in Baptism, bread and wine in the Supper – and the physical actions, applying the water to the body in Baptism; and breaking, pouring, distributing and receiving the elements in the Supper. The “grace thereby signified” – being “inward and spiritual” – can be perceived rightly only by faith.
The relationship between the sign and the grace signified is called the sacramental union. There is of course a natural likeness: water is used everywhere for washing, so it naturally signifies cleansing. Bread and wine were used in Israel for food and drink, so they naturally signify that which sustains the soul. But the point is: the Lord of heaven has expressly appointed these particular signs to picture His grace. The “spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified”24 is grounded on this appointment of Christ in the Word, not on the natural analogy. Only Christ can make these signs to be sacraments, which He does by the power of His Word. To give these signs their right place in worship requires more than recognising
24Westminster Confession 27:2.
a picture; it requires a lively believing in the divine appointment of them to be that picture.
The word “shew” in 1 Corinthians 11 is more often translated as “preach”. As a visible sign rather than an audible word, the Supper proclaims Christ’s death. Likewise, Baptism as a sign proclaims the cleansing and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. This is preaching, but it is preaching by sight, not by sound. Following Augustine, Turretin calls the sacraments “the visible word.”5 What the Word says through the ears, the sacraments say through the eyes. In the Word, God addresses our minds through hearing, but in the sacraments through our other senses, especially our sight; they are “a parable to the eye.”6
And this is God’s mercy to us! What condescension in God, to teach us by eye-gate as well as ear-gate, thus accommodating His teaching to our weakness! Matthew Henry writes: “Because we find it hard to look above the things that are seen, we are directed in a sacrament to look through them, to those things not seen, which are represented by them.”7
What J C Ryle wrote about the Supper may be applied to Baptism also: “The Lord Jesus Christ well knew the weakness and infirmity even of the holiest believers. . . . Therefore, He did not merely leave them promises on which their memories might feed, and words which they might call to mind, He mercifully provided an ordinance in which true faith might be quickened by seeing lively emblems of His body and blood, and in the use of which believers might be strengthened and refreshed.”8
It is thus a very precious place that the sacraments have, because in them the Lord in love has remembered our human infirmity. Since the Most High, out of tender care for our welfare, has included symbols in the solemn worship of His great name, surely our hearts should be suitably affected. What a place we should give to the sacraments! They are for us, fashioned according to our needs! To undervalue them is to despise the riches of divine goodness.
To give these ordinances their visible place in worship, we need to use our eyes: whenever possible, to watch the water being sprinkled and the bread being broken. If we shut our eyes and only listen, we alter their place from visible symbolic worship for eye-gate into more conceptual truth only for ear-gate. How ungrateful! Rightly does the Larger Catechism state that “it is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, that, during the time of the administration of it, with all holy reverence and attention they
5Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol 3, p 341.
6Matthew Henry, The Communicant’s Companion, in Works, vol 1, p 285.
7The Communicant’s Companion, in Works, vol 1, p 285.
8J C Ryle, Knots Untied, p 166.
wait upon God in that ordinance, [and] diligently observe the sacramental elements and actions . . .” (Ans 174).
In contrast to the worship of the Old Testament dispensation, which was full of symbols, New Testament worship is “administered with more simplicity and less outward glory.”9 In this plain worship the sacraments have a unique place: they are the only symbols now appearing. This is where so many have gone wrong. They have multiplied symbols for New Testament worship. Popery and Episcopacy have led the field, but others are not far behind. The garments, the processions, the crucifixes, the crosses, the statues, the pictures, the altars, the candles and so on, are all supposed to represent and symbolise spiritual truths. But God never commanded them!
God has only instituted two pictorial signs: Baptism and the Supper. Concerning the latter, Matthew Henry wrote that it cannot be “any honour to Him, or advantage to ourselves, but on the contrary, a dishonour to Him, and an injury to ourselves, to represent by images and pictures, the same things which this ordinance was to be the representation of. . . . Infinite wisdom thought this sign sufficient.”10 What place can crosses and crucifixes have in worship when the death of Christ is already represented and signified in the Supper? To use them is to say that the Supper is an insufficient sign! The place of the sacraments is subverted when uncommanded symbols are imposed onto worship.