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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. We want this podcast to equip Christians with a better understanding of the rich theology that undergirds our faith. And hopefully along the way, we'll be looking at some that have even been misunderstood or maybe threatened in the Church's history. We'll point out the biblical evidence, the arguments, and work together to reshape our thinking, be transformed by the renewal of our minds with scripture and reason as we think theologically together. Because, as the title of the podcast tells you, Doctrine Matters. We continue with our study through ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, and we come this week to the doctrine of the sacraments. When you think about the Reformation, we know that the doctrine of justification was a key, maybe the key controversy. But with that possible exception, there was more written about the sacraments than anything else. And you could make the case that nothing animated people's spiritual, emotional, intellectual life with more passion, both between Protestants and Catholics and between different groups of Protestants, more than the doctrine of the sacraments. A sacrament. Here's what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers. If you want a simpler version, we could say a sacrament is a sign and seal of the covenant. Blessings we receive by faith. Sign, seal, covenant, blessings we receive by faith. Or something shorter still Augustine's often cited definition. A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace. Let's go back to that middle definition that I gave you. A sacrament is a sign. So God gives us pictures, not. Not ever to replace the word, not to supplement, but to complement the spoken gospel. So the word adapted to the ear, sacrament adapted to the eye. So sacraments are signs. We see something. Sometimes people will say, well, Protestant worship lacks the spectacle and the awe and the adornment of Catholic service. Or sometimes people in Protestant services will say, oh, we've been too focused on. We have these bare walls. We need drama, maybe literal drama. Or we need movie, we need clips, we need dance. We need something. We just have so many words. Well, that's to miss the divine drama that God has given us. Yes, we are people with. With more than just a sense of hearing. Let's have visuals in worship for sure. Let's have more drama. Let's stick to the visuals, however, and the drama that the Lord instituted. He gave us sacraments. He gave us the pictures, the visuals that he wants us to see, smell, taste, touch these signs of the gospel promise. A sacrament is also a seal. So a seal on a document, for example, or, you know, today we have stamps that you've been to the notary public, or you have some insignia on a legal document. So that kind of seal stamp, it authenticates. So it shows where this has come from. There's a legal authority to do this. It also confirms the arrangement between these parties. So every time I've had to buy or sell a car here in the state of North Carolina, and you have to sign the title over, you have to get somebody to notarize it, you got to go to the UPS store or you got to find a friend who went through the whole thing. And it's a big thing, I gather, to get your. Your license and, and all for somebody who's been authorized to do this and watch you sign this together and then give you that stamp, that seal to say, this is for real, this is authentic. So signs and seals. This language comes from Romans 4:11. Paul describes circumcision as a sign of the covenant and a seal of the righteousness that Abraham had by faith. So as signs, sacraments point us to spiritual realities and promises. As seals, they presuppose a covenant transaction, an arrangement between God and then the one who participates in the sacrament. They're confirmations, attestations of God's grace. Now, this is important, the last part of that definition. Signs and seals of covenant, blessings received by faith. So sacraments must be received by faith. That is, for the spiritual signification to be real, to be fully experienced, you must be received by faith. Now, this is anticipating a discussion we'll come to with baptism, because in my tradition, and I'll make a case for it, Presbyterians, Reformed Christians baptize infants. And Calvin absolutely ties faith to the reception of the sacraments. But his point is one need not have faith operative at the time of receiving the sacrament. Now, in order to receive what is truly signified, it must be received by faith. So we don't believe that just a divine vending machine. And you put in, and you put in your token and you go to the ritual and you have the grace, you must receive these in faith. And yet you can receive the administration without at that time coming into the fullness or the complete experience of all that is sealed and signed in the sacrament. And you say, well, that seems like kind of special pleading, just trying to make a way for your pedo baptism to come through. But without even talking about baptism, just think about that language in Romans 4. Because the language of sign and seal comes from Paul, and he says this circumcision was that sign and seal to Abraham. And what did it seal? A righteousness that comes by faith. And yet we know that Abraham was told then to give that same sign of circumcision to his eight day old sons. And in time that sign would be applied to Ishmael and then to Isaac, one of whom was child of the promise and one of whom was not. So that sign, which Paul says was absolutely a spiritual sign, not a mere ethnic boundary marker, it was a sign and seal of justification. That's exactly what he says. And it was to be given to Abraham upon entering the covenant, and then also to his children, which is why I make the point that these are received by faith. And yet faith may or may not be operative, or faith may be operative and we can't witness it at the time when the sacrament is applied. Sacraments are underappreciated, almost certainly in most of our churches. This is not the way it has been throughout church history. It is true. We can't ascribe too much significance to the sacraments. We can make them necessary for salvation. We can assume they work like magic. Rituals or churches, in an effort to rightly celebrate the sacraments can end up minimizing the preach word. And the pulpit literally gets put off to the side and the table is right there in the middle. So yes, it is possible to. To put them in a place where they don't belong. Yet for many of us, probably the danger is ascribing too little importance to baptism and making the Lord's Supper too unimportant. We don't look for assurance or comfort or strength, that we don't see them as God's ordinary means of grace, that anything is happening. It's just a nice ritual and picture and reminds us of some things rather than God is ministering to us through these sacraments. Going to spend some time in the weeks ahead on baptism and the Lord's Supper. There's a number of important questions for each, but with the remainder this week, I just want to think about why Protestants have two sacraments instead of seven. And it's important in order to answer that question to think again about what sacraments are. Because they're not just pictures of spiritual realities. So marriage is a picture of the gospel, not a sacrament. Roman Catholics say so. Protestants don't. They're not. Sacraments are not just powerful symbols. So foot washing, well, that was a picture of humble service in John's Gospel, not a sacrament. Now, sacraments are those ordinances, one instituted explicitly and directly by Christ, which two act as signs and seals of special grace. In other words, they are not just representations of grace, but actual means of grace. So we're not talking about lots of things that can be a picture of and a reminder of what God has done. A marriage is a picture of Christ in the Church, but they are actual means of grace and that we see Christ directly explicitly instituting them. So given these parameters, there are only two sacraments given by Christ to the Church. Baptism, which is clearly given by the Lord Jesus in the Great Commission in Matthew 28 that the disciples are told going they are to make disciples, teaching and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So they are told that is given to the disciples, I would say to the Church, to its ordained officers, and in particular the pastors. And then the Lord's Supper, First Corinthians 11. Paul makes very clear he is passing on what was received to him, that this Lord's Supper is celebrated often, maybe weekly, and this is instituted by the Lord himself from the Last Supper. So we see that clearly and every branch of the Church agrees on those two. What about the Catholic Church, which adds five more Roman Catholic practice? Confirmation is a sacrament of strengthening grace which is administered by the bishop when he lays hand on a baptized person who is at least 7 years old. Now, many churches may have a public profession of faith. We have a kind of confirmation class. We don't call it that. It's a communicants class. It is to become a communing member of the church. And so many churches may have that time when children grow up and are young people and they stand up and say, yes, I believe these things, so there's nothing wrong with that. But these should not be seen as somehow instituted by Christ as means of grace. It's better to understand a child's profession of faith as a means by which the promises of baptism are ratified, rather than a means of grace in its own right. There's just no indication in the New Testament that Christ instituted a public profession of faith or confirmation in this way. Second, Catholics would practice penance, offering forgiveness upon confession of sin, satisfaction of certain compensatory works assigned by the priest. Now, in many churches, mine included, every Sunday we have a confession of sin and assurance of pardon. So we want to be reminding ourselves of this gospel story in our lives. But these should be seen as applications of the Word, not a separate sacrament and not tied to indulgences or any kind of works. It's a gospel declaration, not a separate means of grace. Then Catholic Church has an elaborate system of ordination. So that's another sacrament. They have three degrees of holy orders, the diaconate, the presbuderate, and the fullest expression of the sacrament is the episcopate. Ordination is a New Testament practice. We see that Acts 6, 1st Timothy 4, Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 414 does tie it to spiritual gifts through you and by the laying on of hands. But ordination does not operate as a means of special grace available to all. That's another thing about the sacraments. They are available to all who receive them in faith. Ordination is something that is given to a few. According to Catholic teaching. The sacrament infuses a special character to the ordinan, making him qualitatively different from the rest of the baptized. As Protestants, we argue. We. You may not be a Protestant listening to this. I would argue that this is at odds with the priesthood of all believers and the nature of the sacraments as ordinary means of grace, not something reserved for only a few. We're almost done. And the. There is a sacrament called extreme Unction. Sounds very exciting. Or last rites. It's derived from James 5:14. The elders of the church are called upon to pray over the sick, anoint them with oil. We do that. We do that here. We have anointing services where people gather and the elders pray and we put some olive oil on their head as a symbol of the power of the Holy Spirit. But it would be strange for one verse from one apostle to introduce a new sacrament in this way. Especially when we don't find evidence of extreme unction. Extreme meaning just at the end of your life. An unction, anointing. We don't find this as a sacrament in the early Church. We don't find it practice in Christ's earthly ministry. And then finally, the Catholic Church considers marriage a sacrament. This is in part based on a mistranslation of the Greek word mysterion with the Latin word sacramentum in Ephesians 5. Now, marriage certainly can be a means of grace in a way that is just like parenting can be a means of grace. Our job can be meaning. God teaches us things in marriage that he uses to sanctify us. But that's what we mean by means of grace. We mean that through the thing itself, not just, well, yeah, in your marriage. You know, the Bible and God teaches you things about patience and about love and sacrifice. Through that, we mean the thing itself. Infuses grace to us. Marriage can be used as sanctifying element for sure, but it's never put forward in the Bible as an ordinary means of grace. In fact, marriage is a creation ordinance Genesis 2 shared in common with non Christians. So while the rights above these five other ones confirmation, penance, ordination, last rites, marriage, they all contain elements of biblical truth. We do believe in ordination. We believe in making a public profession of faith. We believe in forgiveness of sins. We believe in, as James says, to anoint people with oil, certainly believe in marriage. Yet baptism and the Lord's Supper are unique in that they are so obviously and directly instituted by Christ, and so to add to that number or subtract from them dishonors Christ, and it misses the grace that he means to give us in these two sacraments and only in these two sacraments of the Church. Thanks for listening to Doctrine Matters with me. Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to doctor Matters through Spotify, Apple Music or however you listen to your podcasts. And if you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini Systematic Theology book, Daily Doctrine, which is available in print or audio@crossway.org until next week. Thanks for being with us.