Sacraments/Ordinances of the Church

[NYCGuy]

What are the sacraments or ordinances practiced in your church? Why does your church do them? What, if anything, do they "do"? Is there Biblical evidence and/or other ancient evidence for those individual sacraments being performed in the New Testament and early post-New Testament church?

 

[High Fidelity]

MOD HAT ON

Moved to relevant forum

MOD HAT OFF
​

 

[EvangelCatholic]

Lutheran accept Baptism, Absolution, Eucharist. The actual number of sacraments can include ordination and anointing, per Augsburg Confession. Lutherans view Confirmation as an extension of Baptism.

 

[Liberasit]

What are the sacraments or ordinances practiced in your church? Why does your church do them? What, if anything, do they "do"? Is there Biblical evidence and/or other ancient evidence for those individual sacraments being performed in the New Testament and early post-New Testament church?

Anglican here -

We have two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. We do them because Christ commanded us to.

Baptism is how we are permanently marked as God's, and the Lord's Supper is where we remember what Jesus did for us on the cross, and it brings us into relationship with him and other Christians.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

Infinite . . . but including baptism, chrismation, eucharist, anointing, marriage, ordination . . .

Mary

 

[PaladinValer]

What are the sacraments or ordinances practiced in your church? Why does your church do them? What, if anything, do they "do"? Is there Biblical evidence and/or other ancient evidence for those individual sacraments being performed in the New Testament and early post-New Testament church?

Anglicanism officially recognizes by name seven sacraments, two of them normally required for salvation:

1. Holy Baptism
2. Holy Communion

The others are:

3. Holy Confirmation/Chrismation
4. Holy Reconciliation
5. Holy Unction
6. Holy Matrimony
7. Holy Ordination

By definition of what a sacrament is (outward, visible sign of inward, spiritual grace), these seven are not the only ones possible according to Anglicanism, but are listed for their historic nature.

 

[Liberasit]

What are the sacraments or ordinances practiced in your church? Why does your church do them? What, if anything, do they "do"? Is there Biblical evidence and/or other ancient evidence for those individual sacraments being performed in the New Testament and early post-New Testament church?

.

 

[rockytopva]

Sacraments and ordinances are dear I believe to the heart of God.

28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. - 1 Corinthians 11

Did you catch that? The reason why some of the Corinthians were weak, sickly, and in the grave was because they were not mindful of the ordinance of communion.

When I fell in with the Pentecostal Holiness I remembered being worried when it came to them serving communion. Thankfully it was all nicely prepared on the trays, plates, and covered with a brass cover with a cross on top. And the people would pause and discern the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do approve of the way Catholics do up communion by the way. I think that this is one ritual that must be observed properly. I believe there is a danger in that we do not get too sloppy in the ordinances of the church.

As far as Baptism we still go down to the river. And if we feel the old man is not totally dead we will hold him under until sure of it.

 

[Bob Crowley]

There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

I lifted the quote above from Wikipedia, and it's accurate as far as I know.

At it's heart, a Sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace, and always takes the form of a ritual of some kind - the familiar spectacle of Baptism whether by sprinkling or immersion, the marriage vows, Eucharist or Communion, Holy Orders etc.

The Protestants generally only have two - Baptism and Communion / Eucharist, stating that they do these two only because Christ told them to.

But if we take the definition of "a visible sign of an invisible grace", then Holy Orders must surely qualify, as does marriage, since Christ was at some pains to point out how much God hates divorce.

If Holy Orders (Ordination of a priest, pastor, bishop, deacon etc.) does not qualify as a sacrament, then what is effectively being said is that when a man swears under oath (whatever the wording is) to be one of God's pastors, priests, deacons or bishops, then God is not in the least involved. No grace is present whatsoever, and it is entirely a human work.

But if God is present, and surely He would have a keen interest in the ordination of the workers in His Church, then His grace is involved. And if His grace is involved, then the ordination ritual becomes a visible sign of an invisible grace.

Otherwise it is merely a human work, of no more spiritual significance than someone else signing on the dotted line to be a garbage collector.

As far as I'm concerned, the Protestant definition of a sacrament is too narrow.

 

[Albion]

Looks like a misunderstanding of what's meant by "an invisible grace."

It doesn't mean that God approves or is present or something else like that.

 

[Cappadocious]

I've never seen this so-called invisible grace.

 

[Albion]

That might be why it's called an invisible grace.

 

[Philip_B]

Sacraments are the liturgical expression of the meeting of time and eternity, or of our encounter with the divine. Sacraments are by their very nature eschatological.

There are two 'dominical' sacraments, being Baptism and Eucharist. We have the scriptures to support Jesus being Baptised, and the Institution Narrative for the Eucharist.

The next five, often called lesser sacraments, are Orders, Unction, Penance, Marriage, and Confirmation. They all teach us about God's teaching, God's healing, God's forgiveness, God's love, and walking in the way of God.

It is possible to see the sacramental in a whole lot more of life than this, and indeed we are called to live as eschatological people, as people in whom something of the love and grace of God can be ascertained.

Thankfully this grace is invisible, and humility is one of its great markers.