Sacramentology

The Doctrine of the Ordinances — A Position Paper

Bruce Mitchell

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A Brief Statement

I hold that the Lord Jesus instituted two ordinances for His church — baptism and the Lord’s Supper — and only two. They are not means of saving grace, conferring salvation by their mere performance, but appointed signs that proclaim the gospel, picture our union with Christ, and serve the faith and obedience of His people. Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — a once-for-all confession of a faith already received, picturing union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper is the repeated meal in which the church remembers Christ’s death “until He comes” — a memorial, yet far more than an empty symbol: a true communion in which, by faith and by the Spirit, the believer feeds upon Christ and is nourished and renewed.

On the points where Christians divide, my convictions run along baptistic lines — believer’s baptism by immersion, and an open table for all who truly trust Christ — but I hold them not as the badge of a denomination, for I am non-denominational by conviction, but as what I take to be the plain teaching of Scripture. I ground them in the distinction between Israel and the church rather than in the covenant continuity that yields infant baptism, and I prize them not as channels of grace but as the gospel made visible — preached, as Augustine said, to the eye. I hold these convictions firmly and my paedobaptist brethren warmly, for here we differ as those who share one Lord, one faith, and one baptism into Him.

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A Detailed Exposition

Ordinance or Sacrament?

A word first about the word. The older term is sacrament, from the Latin sacramentum — a soldier’s oath of allegiance — which the early Latin church used to render the Greek mystērion, “mystery.” In careful hands, “sacrament” means simply a sacred sign, and the Reformers used it of a sign-and-seal of the covenant of grace. But the word has long carried the freight of grace conferred by the rite itself, and for that reason, I prefer the term ordinance — that which the Lord ordained and commanded — which says what these acts are without implying what they are not.¹ I grant “sacrament” in its proper, non-conferring sense, and use “ordinance” throughout. By either name, I hold there are two and only two: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Each was instituted by Christ Himself, joins a visible sign to the gospel, and was commanded to continue in the church. Foot-washing, though our Lord performed it and bade us follow His example (John 13:14–15), is an enacted lesson in humility, not a third ordinance; it lacks the institution and the abiding gospel-sign that mark the other two.²

The Nature and Purpose of the Ordinances

What, then, do the ordinances do — and what do they not do? They do not save. They do not work grace automatically, by the mere doing of them — the error the medieval church fixed in the phrase ex opere operato, “by the work worked.” Baptism does not regenerate, and the Supper does not feed the soul apart from faith; a sign is not the thing signified, and to confuse the two is the root of much error.³ What they do is preach. They are, in Augustine’s fine phrase, the visible word — the gospel set before the eye as the sermon sets it before the ear. They proclaim Christ crucified, buried, and risen; they picture the believer’s union with Him; they are the appointed badges of confession and belonging; and they point forward to His return. Their benefit is real, but it comes through faith, as the believing heart lays hold of the Christ they display. The sign profits when it is joined to the Word and received in faith; otherwise, it is but water, and bread, and wine.

Baptism: Its Meaning

Baptism, in the New Testament, is rich with meaning, and at its center is union with Christ. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead … we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3–4; Colossians 2:12). The believer going down into the water and rising again pictures Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and the believer’s share in all three. It pictures, too, the washing away of sins — not the effecting of it, but the sign of a cleansing already received by faith (Acts 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21).⁴ And it is an act of obedience and confession: the risen Lord commanded that disciples be made and baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), so that baptism publicly marks a person out as Christ’s and joins him visibly to His people.

Baptism: Mode and Subjects

Two questions follow: how, and for whom. As to mode, I hold to immersion. The Greek baptizō means to dip, plunge, or immerse; the New Testament pictures it so — John baptized at Aenon “because water was plentiful there” (John 3:23), and Philip and the eunuch “went down into the water … and came up out of the water” (Acts 8:38–39); and only immersion enacts the burial and resurrection that Romans 6 says baptism portrays. Sprinkling and pouring, whichever is more convenient, lose the picture.⁵ As to subjects, I hold to believers only. Everywhere in the New Testament, faith precedes baptism: “repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38); “those who received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41); they were baptized “when they believed” (Acts 8:12); “believe in the Lord Jesus … and he was baptized at once” (Acts 16:31–33). Baptism is the confession of a faith one already has, and so it belongs to those old enough to believe and to profess.⁶

Why Not Infant Baptism

My paedobaptist brethren — whom I honor, and from whom I have learned — baptize the infants of believers, and they argue ably. Baptism, they say, has replaced circumcision as the sign of the covenant (Colossians 2:11–12); the children of believers belong to the covenant community as Israel’s children did; whole households were baptized in Acts; and so the sign belongs to the children too.⁷ I cannot follow them, chiefly because I read the covenants and the church differently (see my papers on Covenants, Dispensationalism, and Ecclesiology). The New Covenant community, unlike national Israel, is presented as a regenerate people — “they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31:34) — and the church is not simply Israel continued, so that I cannot move from infant circumcision to infant baptism as though the two stood in a straight line. The household baptisms presume household faith (the Philippian jailer’s house “rejoiced … having believed,” Acts 16:34), and nowhere does the New Testament record or command the baptism of an infant. So I baptize believers only — holding this as a settled conviction, but not as a wall between me and those who love the same Lord.⁸

The Lord’s Supper: Its Meaning

The second ordinance is the Lord’s Supper, instituted by Christ on the night He was betrayed and delivered to the church by Paul as he had received it from the Lord (Matthew 26:26–29; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26). Its meaning is gathered in our Lord’s own words. The broken bread and the poured cup signify His body given, and His blood shed for sinners. “Do this in remembrance of Me” — it is a remembrance (anamnēsis), a calling to mind of His sacrifice, that we might never drift from the cross that saves us.9 “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” — it is a proclamation, a preaching of the gospel, and a looking forward to His return. And it is a communion (koinōnia): “the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). It is the meal of the new covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20; see my paper on Covenants), the family table of the people of God.¹⁰

The Presence of Christ at the Table

How is Christ present at His table? Here, the church has long been divided, and four answers may be named. Transubstantiation (the Roman view) holds that the bread and wine are changed in substance into the actual body and blood of Christ. Consubstantiation, or sacramental union (the Lutheran view), holds that Christ’s body and blood are present “in, with, and under” the elements. The spiritual presence view (Calvin and the Reformed) holds that Christ is truly, though spiritually, present in the Supper, which is a means of grace by which the believer is fed. And the memorial view (held by Zwingli and most Baptists) holds that the Supper is a remembrance, with the elements remaining bread and wine and signifying, not containing, the body and blood.¹¹ I hold the memorial view — but not the thin, bare version of it that has sometimes gone by that name. The Supper is no empty ritual and no mere aid to memory. It is a true communion and a real means of blessing: as the believer eats and drinks in faith, remembering and trusting his Lord, the Spirit feeds his soul upon Christ — the feeding our Lord spoke of in John 6, which is the work of faith and not of the teeth. The blessing is genuine, and it is great; but it comes through faith’s remembrance and the Spirit’s work within the believer, not through any presence of Christ in or under the bread. Christ meets His people at His table as He has promised to meet them — and meets them there, I think, with particular grace.¹²

The Table: Its Practice

Who, then, may come to the table? I hold to an open table: it is open to every person who truly trusts the Lord Jesus, whatever local church he belongs to and however he was baptized. The table is the Lord’s, not the local congregation’s, and to fence it by church membership or by mode of baptism is to bar guests the Master has welcomed. I would require only what Scripture requires: a credible profession of faith in Christ.¹³ Yet the table is not for everyone indiscriminately. Paul warns sharply against eating and drinking “in an unworthy manner” — carelessly, irreverently, without “discerning the body” — and bids each one “examine himself” before he eats (1 Corinthians 11:27–32). This is no call to sinless perfection, which would empty the table forever; it is a call to come in faith and repentance rather than in presumption. So the table is fenced, but fenced against unbelief and unrepentance, not against fellow believers; and the unbeliever and the openly unrepentant should be lovingly warned not to partake until they come in faith.¹⁴

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Practical Implications

Ministry Emphasis: The Gospel Made Visible in the Church

First, the ordinances are the gospel preached to the eye, and I would have the church recover their weight. In an age that treats them as quaint formalities to be hurried through, baptism and the Supper still proclaim Christ crucified, buried, risen, and returning — more vividly, sometimes, than many a sermon. I want to administer them with reverence and joy, and to teach my people what they are seeing, so that the font and the table preach.

Second, the table is a place of comfort for the doubting and the broken. The men I long to serve — wounded by their own sin or another’s — are fed there not by their performance but by remembering a finished work: “this is My body, given for you.” The Supper is for sinners who trust Christ, and it renews their assurance (see my paper on Eternal Security). And baptism stands behind them as a once-for-all anchor: you were buried with Him, and raised; your identity is settled in Christ, whatever you feel.

Third, the open table proclaims a precious truth: all who belong to Christ belong to one another. When I welcome to the Lord’s table every believer who trusts Him, I tear down a wall the Lord never built, and I confess the one body of Christ across the lines that divide His people. I would hold my convictions about the font firmly, and my fellowship at the table with the widest charity the gospel allows.

Finally, the ordinances mark the path of discipleship. Baptism is the new believer’s first act of obedience and public confession, and I would press it upon every convert as Christ commanded — not as an optional extra but as the appointed first step of a follower. Here doctrine becomes practice: at the font the disciple confesses his Lord, and at the table he remembers Him — until He comes.

Not channels of grace, but the gospel made visible — Christ’s death shown forth, until He comes.

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Biblical, Exegetical, Theological, and Historical Notes

1. The Latin sacramentum (a soldier’s oath of allegiance) was used by Tertullian and the Latin fathers to translate the Greek mystērion (μυστήριον), “mystery.” The Reformers retained “sacrament” in the sense of a divinely instituted sign and seal, but because the word came to connote grace conferred by the rite, most Baptists and other free-church believers prefer ordinance — from the Lord’s having ordained it (Matthew 28:19–20; 1 Corinthians 11:23–25). I use “ordinance” throughout while granting “sacrament” in its proper, non-conferring sense.
2. The two ordinances meet three marks: each was instituted by Christ personally, each joins a visible sign to the gospel it portrays, and each was commanded to continue in the church. Foot-washing (John 13:14–15) is an enacted example of humble love, not an ordinance in this sense; it lacks an abiding sign of the gospel and a command to perpetuate it as a rite, and the church has rarely treated it as a third ordinance (some Anabaptist and Brethren bodies excepted).
3. The phrase ex opere operato (“by the work worked”) expresses the view that the ordinance confers grace by its proper performance, apart from the faith of the recipient. Against this, the Reformers insisted that the ordinances profit only through faith. A sign is not the reality it signifies; baptism does not regenerate (the thief on the cross was saved unbaptized, Luke 23:43), nor does the Supper nourish apart from faith. The benefit is real but instrumental, received by faith in Christ; the sign displays.
4. Baptism signifies union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3–5; Colossians 2:12), the cleansing from sin already received (Acts 22:16; Titus 3:5, of the reality and not the rite), and incorporation into His body (1 Corinthians 12:13, of Spirit baptism, which water baptism pictures). It is a confession of faith and an act of obedience to the risen Lord’s command (Matthew 28:19). 1 Peter 3:21 (“baptism … now saves you”) is at once qualified by Peter as “not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience” — it is the faith baptism expresses, not the water, that saves.
5. Baptizō (βαπτίζω) means to dip, plunge, or immerse, and baptisma the act so performed. The New Testament depicts immersion (Matthew 3:16, Jesus “went up from the water”; John 3:23, “much water”; Acts 8:38–39, “down into” and “up out of” the water), and only immersion enacts the burial-and-resurrection symbolism of Romans 6:4. Affusion (pouring) and aspersion (sprinkling) arose later; I regard immersion as the biblical mode, while not unchurching those who practice otherwise.
6. In every clear New Testament instance, baptism follows repentance and faith: Acts 2:38, 41; 8:12, 36–37; 16:14–15, 31–33; 18:8. Baptism is the confession of a faith already exercised, and so its proper subjects are those who can and do believe. The “household” baptisms (Acts 16:15, 33; 1 Corinthians 1:16) neither state nor imply the presence of infants, and at least two are expressly connected with faith in the household (Acts 16:34; 18:8).
7. The paedobaptist (covenantal) argument runs as follows: circumcision was the sign of the covenant applied to believers’ infant sons; baptism is the new covenant’s corresponding sign (Colossians 2:11–12); the children of believers remain members of the covenant community (Acts 2:39); and whole households were baptized. On this basis, the Reformed and Lutheran traditions (and, on other grounds, the Roman and Anglican) baptize infants. The argument deserves respect and a careful answer.
8. I dissent for reasons rooted in how I read the covenants and the church (see my papers on Covenants, Dispensationalism, and Ecclesiology). (1) The New Covenant community is described as regenerate — “all shall know Me” (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:10–11) — unlike the mixed national body of Israel. (2) The church is not simply Israel continued, so the move from infant circumcision to infant baptism is not as direct as the argument needs. (3) The household texts presume faith (Acts 16:34; 18:8). (4) No New Testament text records or commands the baptism of an infant. I therefore baptize believers only — a conviction held without rancor toward paedobaptist brethren, who are true brethren in Christ.
9. “Do this in remembrance (anamnēsis, ἀνάμνησις) of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25). The Supper is a memorial that calls Christ’s sacrifice vividly to mind — not a re-sacrifice of Christ (against the Roman Mass; cf. Hebrews 10:10–14, “once for all”), but a remembrance of the one sacrifice already accomplished. The Supper is also called the “Eucharist,” from eucharistia (εὐχαριστία), “thanksgiving,” as Christ “gave thanks” over the bread.
10. The Supper is a communion (koinōnia, κοινωνία) — a participation in the benefits of Christ’s body and blood (1 Corinthians 10:16) and a fellowship of believers with their Lord and with one another (1 Corinthians 10:17). It is the meal of “the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; see my paper on Covenants), proclaiming His death “until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26) and so reaching from the cross to the kingdom.
11. Four historic views of Christ’s presence: transubstantiation (Rome — the elements’ substance becomes Christ’s body and blood); sacramental union or “consubstantiation” (Lutheran — Christ’s body present “in, with, and under” the elements); spiritual presence (Calvin and the Reformed — Christ truly but spiritually present, the Supper a means of grace whereby the believer feeds on Him by the Spirit); and memorial (Zwingli and most Baptists — the elements signify rather than contain, the Supper being a remembrance and proclamation). The first two I regard as without warrant and, in Rome’s case, as compromising the once-for-all sufficiency of Calvary (Hebrews 10:10–14).
12. I hold the memorial view, but not in its thinnest form. The Supper is no bare sign or mere memory-aid; it is a true communion and a real means of blessing. As the believer eats and drinks in faith, the Spirit nourishes his soul upon Christ — the “eating” of John 6:53–58, which our Lord defines as believing on Him (John 6:35, 47), a feeding by faith and not “by the teeth.” The blessing is genuine and rich, but it is received through faith’s remembrance and the Spirit’s working within the believer, not through any presence of Christ in, with, or under the elements, which remain bread and wine. This differs from Calvin’s spiritual-presence view by locating the blessing in the believing recipient rather than in the elements as a means, yet it rejects the cold reductionism that makes the Supper nothing but a visual aid.
13. I hold to open communion: the table is open to all who make a credible profession of faith in Christ, regardless of local-church membership or mode of baptism. The table belongs to the Lord, who alone sets its terms, and the only requirement the New Testament lays on the participant is faith in Christ and self-examination (1 Corinthians 11:28). Close communion (restricting the table to those of like faith and baptism) and closed communion (restricting it to members of the local church) are held by many sincere Baptists; I regard them as fencing the table more narrowly than Scripture warrants, though I hold the matter with charity.
14. Paul’s warning (1 Corinthians 11:27–32) is against partaking “in an unworthy manner” — the Corinthians’ selfish, irreverent conduct that failed to “discern the body.” “Worthily” refers to the manner of partaking, not to a worthiness in the partaker, who is always an unworthy sinner saved by grace; the remedy is self-examination, faith, and repentance, not abstention by the troubled believer. The unbeliever and the openly unrepentant, however, should be lovingly warned not to partake, and persistent, unrepentant sin is a matter for the church’s discipline (1 Corinthians 5; see my paper on Ecclesiology).

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Select Bibliography

Armstrong, John H., ed. Understanding Four Views on Baptism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Armstrong, John H., ed. Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Beasley-Murray, G. R. Baptism in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book IV. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Jewett, Paul K. Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Mathison, Keith A. Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R.

Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology. Wheaton: Victor Books.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Matthew R. Crawford, eds. The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes. Nashville: B&H Academic.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Shawn D. Wright, eds. Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. Nashville: B&H Academic.