He said to eat the bread and wine in remembrance of Him. Jesus knew His people; He knew what we were like, that sometimes our faithfulness to Christ is only as intense and as strong as the vivacity of our recollection of our most recent blessing at the hands of God.
But we come down from those mountaintop experiences and we tend to forget what God has done for us in the past. The sacraments represent the Lord accommodating Himself to this weakness of ours in order to assist us in remembering what He has done for us. We are weak, sinful people who need all the assistance we can get in order to remember what the Lord has done for us. If we neglect the sacraments He has given His people and fail to understand the importance of the sacramental aspects of our faith, we are turning down precious helps that provide additional confirmation of His promises.
When joined to the Word of God, the sacraments strengthen our faith, further our sanctification, and assure us of the Lord's unwavering faithfulness to us—His forgetful and often unfaithful people. This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.
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Concerning some of the sacraments Confirmation, for example He probably left it to His Church, the keeper and the giver of His sacraments, to specify in detail the broad matter and form assigned by Christ.
First and most important of all, they give sanctifying grace. They deepen and intensify the spiritual life of sanctifying grace which already pulsates through the soul. As each additional sacrament is received and repeated, when it can be the level of spiritual vitality rises in the soul—somewhat as the brightness of a fire increases as you add more fuel. If each sacrament gives or increases sanctifying grace in the soul, then why did Jesus institute seven sacraments?
Yes, one sacrament would have been enough, if sanctifying grace were the only kind of grace God wanted to give us. But God did not choose simply to give us spiritual life and then let us fend for ourselves.
God gives us the spiritual life which is sanctifying grace, and then does all that He can short of taking away our free will …. So in addition to the sanctifying grace which is common to all the sacraments, each sacrament also gives the sacramental grace of that particular sacrament.
These are other special helps which God wills to give us, helps keyed to our particular spiritual needs and our particular state in life. In Baptism we receive sanctifying grace and also a continuing chain of graces enabling us to preserve and extend that grace by the practice of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Confirmation increases our basic vitality sanctifying grace but also establishes a permanent fund of actual graces sacramental grace upon which we may draw in order to be strong and active and productive exemplars of Christian living.
The Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in sickness or prepares us to meet death with confidence. Its sacramental grace comforts us in our sufferings and, by supporting us in any final temptations that may assail us, enables us to face eternity unafraid.
The Holy Eucharist, whose special sacramental grace is growth in supernatural charity love for God and neighbor. The Sacrament of Reconciliation —inoculation against sin—whose special sacramental grace is to cure us of the spiritual illness of sin and to help us resist temptation. There are also the two great states in life which impose upon us grave responsibility for the souls of others: the priesthood and marriage.
The two sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony give to their recipients each its own sacramental grace, which will enable priests and spouses to discharge, creditably before God, the sometimes heavy burdens of their state in life. This is because Jesus attached grace to the outward sign, so to speak, so that that outward sign and grace always go together. But our own attitude does matter. The sign does not become the reality, as Roman Catholicism teaches. Nor are the sacraments merely a sign or memorial as many evangelicals teach.
There is rather, as J. Vos teaches, a symbolic union between the two so that the sign represents the reality, and an instrumental union by which Christ really uses the outward means to convey his grace, by the Spirit, to the believing recipient.
They are outward signs to our senses of spiritual realities. The water in baptism symbolizes the washing of regeneration by the Spirit Tit. But we use this kind of language in a symbolic way all the time. In the same way, sacraments represent the realities that are behind them. They do more than represent—they are a means of grace that God uses to apply the salvation Jesus has purchased to his people.
They are not bare signs. So, when the Bible tells us that baptism saves 1 Pet. If this were so, we need only go out to the street and preach, and all who heard would be saved.
In the same way, the Bible does not teach that the sacraments automatically convey the grace they signify, yet they are a means of grace which God uses to apply salvation to his people.
By them he feeds our souls, strengthens our faith, and enables us to die to sin and live to God. Paul speaks in this way of circumcision in Rom. A seal is the official stamp a king or government would place on a letter that would identify his official and legal authentication.
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