What Are the Sacraments, and Why Do They Matter?

Sacraments

One of the vital vital points of church life is the celebration of the sacraments—the Lord’s Supper and baptism. However regardless of this significance, there may be a lot misunderstanding concerning the sacraments amongst believers. Hopefully by the top of this dialogue you should have a greater understanding of the which means and significance of the sacraments in your life as a Christian and as a member of Christ’s common and native church.

We’ll begin by looking for to outline what the sacraments are and the aim they serve throughout the church and the lives of believers.

Definition. The phrase sacrament actually means “holy factor.” So once we speak concerning the sacraments, we’re speaking about worship practices which can be holy—set aside in a particular means for God. As Christians take into consideration the Lord’s Supper and baptism as sacraments, they imply the next:

• These practices have been instituted by Jesus in a really particular means—not like some other a part of company worship.
• These practices are particular methods through which the Holy Spirit guarantees to work within the lives of his folks within the church.
• As a result of these are holy practices instituted by Jesus, he has “hooked up” his presence to them in a particular means.
• These practices are methods through which God communicates his grace to his folks within the church. This isn’t his “saving” grace; baptism can’t save an individual from sin! However God’s gracious presence and blessing is given to his folks via these sacraments in a really actual and particular means.

So we will outline a sacrament as a bodily signal of an invisible actuality of God’s Holy Spirit.

Establishment and function of the sacraments. As a result of the sacraments have been instituted by Jesus Christ, we see that they got by him to his followers, who would observe them mainly within the context of the neighborhood of believers in Jesus Christ—the church. We due to this fact imagine that the Lord’s Supper and baptism are supposed to be practices which can be achieved within the church—underneath the rule of elders and pastors, and within the context of an area church neighborhood. The aim of the sacraments is to function indicators of non secular realities to God’s folks within the church. They’re additionally very actual methods through which God seals the work of perception, by his Holy Spirit, in his folks’s hearts.

The Lord’s Supper

The primary of the 2 Protestant sacraments that we are going to contemplate is the Lord’s Supper.

From 1 Corinthians 11:23–34 and from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s final meal along with his disciples, we all know that the Lord’s Supper is a particular non secular meal that Jesus instituted (or established) for the great of his folks. As Scripture teaches us, the Lord’s Supper is:

• a symbolic—not literal—meal of bread (which symbolizes Jesus Christ’s physique) and wine (which symbolizes Christ’s blood)
• a meal that’s to be recurrently celebrated by Christ’s followers
• a sacrament to which Christ has hooked up himself in a particular means
• one thing that’s to be taken very significantly, since it’s a very actual partaking—“feasting”—by religion on the physique and blood of Jesus
• a meal that’s to be taken solely by Christians, who’ve put their religion in Jesus and are a part of the church

Native church buildings of Jesus Christ all around the globe have fun the Lord’s Supper, though totally different church buildings distribute and observe it in numerous methods. It is very important understand that whereas the truths concerning the Lord’s Supper that now we have simply described are central and vital, neither Paul nor Jesus defines precisely how the Lord’s Supper is to be celebrated. The Bible doesn’t insist, for instance, that you just use bread and never crackers, or wine and never grape juice. However the centrality and significance of this sacrament within the lifetime of the native church is extraordinarily apparent from the Bible. It’s a means for God’s folks, within the context of the native church, to recollect Jesus’s dying and partake—by religion— in his physique and blood. On this, God offers actual grace to his folks as they observe him.

One of the vital vital points of church life is the celebration of the sacraments—the Lord’s Supper and baptism

Baptism

The opposite Christian sacrament, along with the Lord’s Supper, that Jesus Christ gave to his folks is baptism. Whereas there are assorted convictions and opinions about how this sacrament is to be practiced and utilized within the church in the present day, there is no such thing as a doubt that baptism is a crucial signal of Christian religion and worship.

What does baptism imply? What does it signify? What does it accomplish?

By way of bodily “washing” with water, baptism is a visual image and signal of the washing of sinners with the cleaning blood of Jesus. It additionally is an indication of the Holy Spirit cleaning God’s folks and making them new.

Within the Previous Testomony, the signal of circumcision was positioned on each male who entered God’s neighborhood, in line with God’s regulation. This was the signal that they belonged to the folks of God, although circumcision didn’t, in fact, assure their private religion in him Most Christians agree that baptism is the brand new covenant signal of belonging to the household of God—the church.

There are two main views on how we’re to grasp baptism within the Protestant church in the present day:

• Credobaptists (those that maintain to believers’ baptism) see baptism as an indication that ought to accompany the doorway of an individual into the invisible church via a career of religion in Jesus Christ. Those that maintain to this place wait to conduct a baptism till an individual has confessed Jesus as Savior and expressed a need to be baptized and observe him.
• Covenantal paedobaptists (or those that maintain to toddler baptism) see baptism because the covenant signal that needs to be placed on any baby of believing dad and mom who’re a part of the seen church. Whereas they don’t imagine that baptism saves the toddler or takes away sins, they do imagine that it marks the kid as a covenant baby and is an actual technique of grace in that baby’s life as she or he grows up within the covenant neighborhood—the church.

It doesn’t matter what one believes concerning the mode and timing of baptism, there are some vital factors about this sacrament which can be demanded from Scripture. These are:

• Baptism is to be administered solely as soon as. In contrast to the Lord’s Supper, this can be a one-time sacrament within the lifetime of an individual within the church.
• Baptism is to be achieved within the title of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in line with the command of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is to be administered with water, which is the bodily signal that the Bible offers us for this sacrament. Whereas some advocate for various methods through which the water is utilized to the one being baptized, the precise signal of water is totally essential, because it signifies the cleaning blood of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is extraordinarily vital. It’s the signal and seal that Jesus Christ himself commanded to be hooked up to all members of his physique, the church—whether or not as infants or as professing believers. It’s a holy observe—a sacrament—that he has dedicated to his folks for his or her profit and use.

This text is tailored from Understanding God’s Fact: An Introduction to Systematic Theology by Jon Nielson.

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