Sacrament

The visible word

‘Sacrament’ comes from the Latin ‘sacramentum’. The Latin Bible often used it for the Greek mustērion (μυστήριον), ‘mystery’, as in "This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32). The Eastern churches still call the sacraments ‘mysteries’.

In Scripture God adds visible signs to his promises. Abraham "received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith" (Romans 4:11). Christ commanded his disciples to baptize in the triune name (Matthew 28:19), and on the night he was betrayed he gave the bread and the cup.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

1 Corinthians 11:26

Augustine, speaking of baptism, put it in a phrase: "Add the word to the element, and you have a sacrament" Augustine. A sacrament is a visible word: the gospel heard with the ear is received with eye and hand and mouth. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it:

A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 92

How many, and how they work

In the twelfth century Peter Lombard listed seven sacraments Peter Lombard, Sentences, and the Catholic Church defined them at the Councils of Florence (1439) and Trent: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and marriage. The Orthodox commonly speak of seven mysteries too, though some of their theologians do not fix the number strictly. The Reformation churches received as sacraments only the two Christ instituted in the gospel, baptism and the Lord's Supper; the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles do not count the other five as sacraments of the gospel Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 25.

Traditions also explain differently how sacraments convey grace. The Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments act by the very fact of the rite being performed, by the power of Christ, while their fruit depends on the disposition of the one who receives Catechism of the Catholic Church. Lutherans teach that God's word joined to the element gives what it promises, and faith receives it Luther, Small Catechism. Reformed churches confess the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace whose power lies not in themselves but in the Spirit working in those who receive them by faith. Many Baptists and free churches call them ‘ordinances’, acts of obedience, confession and remembrance commanded by Christ. Some, such as the Quakers and the Salvation Army, do not practise outward sacraments at all.

Still, nearly all churches agree that baptism and the Supper are the Lord's command, and, since the Donatist controversy, most agree that a sacrament's validity does not depend on the holiness of the minister (see Donatism). See also the lesson Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and What are baptism and the Lord's Supper?