SACRAMENTS

The sacraments are visible means through which we and Christ commune. They encourage us to be like Christ in all His holiness. The grace received through the sacraments is no different from that received through the Word. Both convey the same Christ.

Joel R. Beeke

Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 121.

While we do not get a better Christ in the sacraments than in the Word, sometimes we get Christ better.

Robert Bruce

The ordinances are the dramatic presentations of the Gospel. They are the moving pictures that represent the spiritual realities of the Gospel, written and directed by Jesus Himself… The ordinances, then, are where we see the Gospel enacted, and our participation in it dramatized. They are where the word of God’s promise is spoken to us in tangible form – we touch and taste the bread and wine; we feel the waters of baptism. They are means of grace instituted by Jesus that God uses to assure His people of the trustworthiness of His Gospel and the reality of our participation in it.

Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

Broadly speaking, baptism tends the front door of the church, while the Lord’s Supper tends the back door. Properly administered baptism (i.e., baptism of believers only upon a credible profession of faith) helps to ensure that only genuine believers are admitted into the membership of the church. Properly administered communion (i.e., communion given only to members in good standing of evangelical churches) helps to ensure that those who are under church discipline for unrepented sin do not scandalize the church or eat and drink judgment to themselves by partaking of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:29).

Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

There should be no sacraments except those found in the Bible: I can find only two, the Lord’s Supper and Baptism.

Martin Luther