June 22 – LD 25, Day 5: The Sacraments as the Secondary Means of
Grace
by Rev Arie den Hartog
Read: Romans 4: 1 to 11.
The preaching of the
Word is the chief means of grace. God has added to the preaching a secondary
means of grace, the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. There is a
reason why they are properly called the secondary means of grace. The
sacraments do not have any magical power in themselves to work faith. They can
only strengthen the faith that by the grace of God is already in the heart of
those who receive the sacraments.
One lesson we can learn
about the history of the Protestant Reformation is that God used this mighty
movement to teach us the right understanding and use of the sacraments. The
proper administration of the sacraments is one of the marks of the true
Scripture teaches that
the sacraments are of benefit only to believers. So true is this that, wrongful
use of the sacraments adds to the condemnation of those who partake of them
without repentance and faith in their hearts. Read I Cor 11: 18 - 34. The church must forbid unbelieving and
unworthy people from receiving the sacraments. The sacraments must be kept holy
in the church. The honor and glory of Christ is maintained when the church is
faithful in this regard.
But when the holy sacraments
are properly received with faith and reverence for their intended meaning, they
are a great blessing to the church and great
encouragement and comfort to the believer.
We limit the sacraments
strictly to the two which Christ instituted in the church. Sacraments are not
human inventions. They are not even mere traditions that originated from the
church herself. They were given by Christ to His church. Christ Jesus Himself
operates in connection with the sacraments which He Himself has ordained in the
church and works in the hearts of believers through them.
We only need the two
sacraments which Christ has instituted in the church because they signify and
seal to us all the blessings of salvation. Baptism signifies and seals to us
the washing away of all our sins. The Lord’s Supper is a spiritual sign of our
daily communion with Christ and of our being partakers with Christ of all the
benefits which He has merited for us by His sacrifice on the cross.
If the sacraments are to
be of spiritual benefit to us, we must be very careful that we do not have any
superstitious ideas regarding their power and significance in our lives. We
need to have a good spiritual understanding of the meaning of the sacraments.
This is the reason why there was so much debate about this at the time of the
Reformation and why the Heidelberg Catechism has such a lengthy section on the
sacraments.