Word of Salvation – Vol.34 No.21 – June 1989

 

The Sacraments

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 25(b).

Reading: Judges 6:33-40, Matt. 26:26-29;28:16-20.

Singing:

Ps.H.483:1,2; Ps.20:6,7,8; Ps.H.483:3; Ps.H.:48; BOW (H) 818:all vss; Ps.H.160:2,3.

 

The Spirit of God strengthens Faith through the Means of Grace:
II The Sacraments.

When a sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, and by nature rebellious against God, is made alive in Christ and receives all the riches of salvation in Christ, then we call that grace.  Grace points to the undeserved goodness of God given by God to the Sinner.

But how does God reach the Sinner with his grace?  Well, through His Word, God calls the sinner to repent of sin and believe in Christ as Saviour.  The Spirit of God, by means of the Word, works that repentance and faith in the heart of the sinner.

But faith, thus produced in the sinner and now characterising him as a believer, needs strengthening.  The strengthening of faith is also done through the Word of God by the same Spirit.

But alongside the Word, the Spirit of God also uses the sacraments of Baptism and Lords Supper to strengthen faith.  Thus God’s Spirit uses both the Word and sacraments to strengthen faith.

Faith is needed by the sinner to accept and believe the grace of God, and the Word and the Sacrament are the means to get that faith up and moving.  The Church, therefore, has always referred to the word and sacraments as the “means of grace.”

They are the channels through which God connects us to Christ and His salvation blessings.  Lord’s Day 25 of the Catechism deals with the “means of grace” but it speaks more of the sacraments than of the Word.

It is very necessary however, that we today continue to see the importance of the Word of God.  And so last time we gave our attention to the way God uses His Word to produce and strengthen faith.

In picturesque speech Isaiah the prophet said that like the rain and snow that come down from the sky to water the earth.  They make crops grow and provide seed for sowing and food for eating (Is.55:10).  Something good comes from it.

In a similar way God’s Word, when God reaches people with it, will cause something to happen.  God’s Word is effective.

Like the wind catches the sails of a ship and forces it forward, so also does the Word of God take hold of our lives and drive us on where he directs us.

A book lies passively on a shelf and does nothing for us unless we pick it up and read it.  The computer remains inactive and helpless until we code in just the right command or question.  But God’s Word is an active force, an aggressive power.

It questions our assumptions, forces us to change our thinking, and it makes us look with new eyes at our self, the world, and God.  In short, God’s Word, as the Holy Spirit uses it, produces faith and strengthens it.

But now the sacraments.

Why are the Lord’s Supper and Baptism there as the second means of grace?

1.         Let us give our attention to that now and in the first place we want to see how and why the Spirit of God strengthens faith by means of the sacraments.

Because God’s Spirit does not use the sacraments to cause faith to begin in the sinner, the church, therefore, must not give the sacraments to unbelievers.

What unbelievers need when they are still dead in trespasses and sins, is the Word of God.

The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make sinners turn to Christ.  But when the unbelieving are believing then God nourishes their faith with both the Word and sacraments.

You may recall from last week when we referred to Lydia, how the Lord opened her heart as she heard the Word of God from Paul, and how the same thing happened to the jailer in Philippi when he also heard the Word from Paul and Silas.

What the Bible further tells us is that both Lydia and the jailer were baptised.  So here were two people who were made aware of their sinful condition through the Word of God, came to faith in Christ by that same Word, and then as believers receive the sacrament of baptism.

Baptism followed immediately.

It was the same with the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8.  He came to believe in Christ as his Saviour from sin through the Word of God that Philip spoke to him.  And then we read that when Philip and the Ethiopian came by some water, the two got out of the chariot and into the water and Philip baptised him.

Having thus drawn your attention to these happenings in the early church, you are probably wondering why we do not immediately baptise and admit to the Lord’s Supper those who come to faith in Christ.  Our practice is to keep the young baptised members from the Lord’s Supper until they have reached the age of discretion and are thus able to give a meaningful expression to their faith.  And people, who as a result of evangelistic work start coming to church to hear the word, also have to wait for baptism and Lord’s Supper until they have been sufficiently instructed with the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Why has the church been doing it that way when in the early church the sacraments were given immediately after the sinner came to faith?

You are aware, no doubt, that some members in the church today believe it is right to have young children of believers and new converts participate in the Lord’s Supper immediately and not wait with this, as we have been doing.  We will have to give our attention to these issues later on when in subsequent Lord’s Days the question of who may receive the sacraments is dealt with.

Right now we have some other questions.  What does the word “sacrament” actually mean and where does it come from, for as you may know, it does not occur in the Bible?  It is a Latin word and was used as a technical term in legal matters and in the Roman army.

As such it has nothing to do with the Christian Church of course.  The very early church did not ever have a common term for baptising and Lord’s Supper.  But in the 2nd century the word “sacrament” came into use as a word that translated into Latin the Greek word for “mystery”.  The word “mystery” is found in the N.T. and it refers to doctrines and facts which were seen as holy and had a deeper and, sometimes, hidden meaning.  Gradually Baptism and Lord’s Supper were included in this for they were Christian rites that also had a deeper and hidden meaning which only the believers knew and understood.

In time the church came to use the word “sacraments” exclusively for baptism and Lord’s Supper.  Although in the twelfth century some people in the church thought they could find about 30 sacraments in the Bible, others only seven, and eventually the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages accepted seven.  The Reformation, however, going back to the early church, found that only two sacraments could clearly be traced in the N.T. and these were baptism and Lord’s Supper.

Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper on the eve of His sacrifice for sine on the Cross.

He gathered His disciples around Him in a Passover meal and then indicated, as he took the bread and broke it, that His body would be given over to death for the salvation of sinners.  Likewise, the wine was poured out and it spoke of His blood being shed.  It was a great solemn moment and all Christ’s followers were to regularly participate in the Supper of the Lord until he comes again at the end of time to gather His church into heaven.

In an equally solemn moment, the Lord, just risen and prior to His Ascension to heaven, gave His disciples the order to go out into the world and make followers of Christ and all those who would come to faith would have to be baptised.

Baptism and Lord’s Supper, therefore, are commanded by Christ.

The Lord gave them to the church, wants all disciples to observe them but why do believers need them?

From what Jesus said about them, the sacraments are obviously visible symbols of God’s act of salvation.  What saves a sinner from the justice of God with regard to his sin?  It is the death of Christ of course.  God lets His judgement, due, to us, fall on Christ.  He dies and the sinner, when he looks to God for salvation, may go free.  The death of Christ, being of such great important to the sinner, is described in the Bible in much detail.

What stands out so clearly is the brokenness and bleeding of His body.

Thus the bread being broken and the wine poured out before our eyes in the Lord’s Supper clearly and dramatically symbolises Jesus’ death.  Whenever we see it in the Lord’s Supper the act of eating and drinking, then we cannot help but think back on Christ’s death and its meaning for us.

But to believe in Jesus’ sacrificial death is to belong to God’s church.  The Church is really nothing more than all of Jesus’ followers seen as one body.

How did we get to become part of that body of Christ?  By being washed clean of all our sins through Jesus’ blood of course.  To belong to Christ, who is holy, is to be made holy yourself through Jesus’ blood.  Thus the sprinkling with water, or washing with water, as the Bible calls it, in the sacrament of Baptism, clearly and drastically symbolises cleansing from sin through Jesus’ blood.

Whenever we see a baptism then we cannot but help thinking that, when we were baptised, then, for us too that sprinkling with water symbolises entry into the body of Christ through His blood.

The Sacraments are, therefore, very visible signs of God’s act of salvation in Christ.  The word of God, when preached to us, comes to us through hearing but the sacraments impart their message as we see and feel them.

This must strengthen our faith a great deal.

Through the Word as it is proclaimed to us Sunday by Sunday, our faith is directed to God’s gospel promise which says that He forgives us our sin and gives us eternal life by grace alone because of Christ’s one sacrifice finished on the cross.

This gospel promise has to be believed by us, and the Word of God frequently reminds us that it is very true.

The church proclaims the Word from this text and then from that text constantly using the teachings, events and people described in the Bible, to help us understand the death of Christ and the blessings it has for those who believe in its purpose.

Are yet believers experience doubts and misgivings.  With fearful and anxious hearts they look for assurance of salvation, wanting to be certain that what God has said about them, now that they are in Christ, is true indeed.

It is even doubted sometimes that they are God’s children at all.  They believe in Christ, yes, trust that only through his death can they be right with God and, yet, still have difficulty in accepting that they are truly saved.

Now it is to help us overcome such doubts and struggles in the faith that God has given his Church the sacraments.  It is as if God says, “Come my struggling child, you of little faith, and see; touch the sacraments, and again thus with your senses know that what you heard me say through my Word is true indeed.”

The Sacraments are thus given by Christ as holy signs and seals for us to see.

In this connection the experience of Gideon is sometimes referred to.

In the O.T. book of Judges you come across the person of Gideon whom God used to save His people Israel from her enemy, the Midianites.  God instructed Gideon to gather an army and attack and defeat Midian.

In what seemed a last minute doubting that it all would go as God said it would, Gideon asked God for a sign.  You know, just to be sure.

And so Gideon requested God to confirm His Word to Gideon by letting the morning dew not come on anything else but on the bit of wool fleece that Gideon had placed on the threshing floor.  God was not angry with Gideon because of his doubting the Word of the Almighty.  He did as Gideon had asked.  On the morning the ground was dry and the wool fleece so wet that Gideon filled a bowl of water when he squeezed it dry.

Now Gideon could march into battle, for surely he was convinced now that God would give His people victory.

But no, Gideon, was still not sure.  Hoping desperately that God would not run out of patience and be angry with him, Gideon asked if God would reverse the whole thing.  This time let the wool-fleece be dry and everything else wet with the dew.

In His goodness and loving kindness God did as Gideon had asked.  Gideon could doubt no longer that God would do as He said he would.  Finally Gideon’s faith in God remained strong and convinced.

Now what God did for Gideon He does for us in the sacraments.  Gideon was no hero in the faith.

He was an ordinary Israelite who was called by God to do a mighty big job.  Gideon was scared and did not feel up to it.  In his weak and struggling faith he had a hard time and put requests before God which were not really necessary, considering how faithful God had already proven Himself to Israel in their deliverance from Egypt and coming through an inhospitable desert into the rich land of Canaan.  But how well did Gideon know all this?  Israel’s faith at this time was at a low ebb.

So God knows then how frail we are and that we are but dust.  Therefore to strengthen our faith, He has, in addition to His Word, given the Lord’s Supper and Baptism.  They are signs to us that Christ’s death really took our sins away and that we truly belong to Christ’s body.

In fact, the sacraments are so convincing in their aim and purpose that they are not only signs but seals as well.  Seeing that wet wool-fleece one morning and then dry the next, sealed for Gideon the fact that God would do what He said He would.  Seeing the broken bread and poured-out wine in the Lord’s Supper, and the water in Baptism, seals for us the fact that Christ’s death made us right with God indeed and that we are members of Christ’s church for sure.

2.         Then secondly and briefly, it is necessary for us to remember that the sacraments are there, not to point to themselves, but to Christ.

In themselves the sacraments do nothing and are nothing.  They have no message of their own.  What God says in His Word about Christ’s sacrificial death is what He emphasises through the sacraments.  It is in what Christ has done on the cross that we will become certain of our salvation not in the sacraments themselves.

All of us might well respond to this by saying – well, of course we look to Christ and not to the sacraments themselves in order to be certain that we belong to God.  Yet in practice it does not always seem so.

There are still those who believe they are Christians because they have been baptised and participate in the Lord’s Supper.  It must be a common tendency in our human nature to look for certainty and assurance in ourselves.

We are, in fact, taught to do that by the world around us.

When you apply for a position then it helps if you can produce a string of certificates and qualifications, all signs and seals of what you have accomplished and how good you are.

Even in the church we use the ways of the world.  The church needs a new preacher and the search is on for someone who has a good voice, is reasonably trained to put a sermon together; preaches not too long or too short; can get on with the old and the young and communicates well.  Seldom is the question asked: Can he point the unbelieving and believing to Christ?

Never mine so much about all those other things people want to see in their minister.  The first and most important question is: Can he point the way to Christ?

In the church and Kingdom of God we should not be emphasising the experiences and confidences of people.  What is so important about being baptised if the words God spoke at your baptism have not brought you to faith in Christ?  It is meaningless to think that your regular attendance at the Lord’s Supper gives you a good standing in the church, if your faith in Christ is not made deeper and stronger by it.

And what is so significant about nonparticipation in the Lord’s Supper when you want to say by your absence that you are not good enough?  Is anyone ever good enough to come to the table of the Lord?  And what unbiblical thinking is used when people refrain from participation in the Lord’s Supper because they do not want to join all those hypocrites they feel are there but shouldn’t be?  And what unholy reasoning do some use to justify not coming to the Lord’s Table because they feel everyone ought to be left free to make up their own mind about whether or not to participate?  Why has God bothered to give His church elders if there is to be no spiritual supervision?

In many subtle ways the sacraments can be turned by us into credentials and badges certifying that we have faith and that it is a pretty good faith.

Op we turn the sacraments into tough examinations that we just can’t even enter because we feel we are not good enough.  It wouldn’t be the first time that someone says: “Sorry pastor, I cannot attend the Lord’s Supper coming Sunday because something happened this week.  And please don’t ask why because I can’t tell you.”  Or in a twist to that version: We’d better go to Lord’s Supper on Sunday, for if we are not there then people will be wondering.

But God never intended the sacraments to make us do all those unbiblical things.  The sacraments are these for one reason only to focus our faith on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation.

Clearly and pointedly the sacraments are to make us look to Christ and to be strengthened in our faith in Him by the Holy Spirit of God.  We must, therefore, turn away from all ungodly thinking, protests, excuses and whatever else.  We must be obedient to Christ and use the sacraments properly for He instituted them to help us.  Not to drive us away from him as though we are sinners without a hope.  Nor to make us feel proud because we’re good enough.  And neither as a weapon with which to attack the church as an institution and its people as members.

The Sacraments are given to the Church because Christ knows how weak and frail our faith can be and He loves His own so much that He wants to help us believe more The Spirit never meant the sacraments to be a problem but a joy, a comfort, and a means of strengthening the faith of God’s dear children who are often weary and in need of renewal.

AMEN