What Is a Sacrament?
The word, sacrament, is not found in the Finnish Bible. Nevertheless, “sacrament” is deeply Bible based. In the Latin Bible, the word, sacramentum, corresponds (for example in Eph. 5:32) with the word mysterion—mystery—in the Greek Bible. Mystery is connected to sacrament, the mystery of faith. We cannot understand it to its depths, but regard it with childlike timidity and humbleness, for God has ordained it.
Christian doctrine speaks of the instruments of grace, of the Word and sacraments. There are two edges to God’s Word, the Law and the Gospel (Heb. 4:12). The task of the Law is to awaken a person to see his condition. The gospel awakens faith and bestows forgiveness of sins to the penitent (1 Pet. 1:23–25). God has given the sacraments to those who have been helped unto faith as a support in their endeavor.
Christian doctrine defines sacraments as follows: “the sacraments are the sacred acts of the congregations, which Jesus Christ himself has established. Christ is himself present in them and distributes to us by visible materials His grace. In the sacrament, the Word of God is joined to the visible—to that which can be touched by hand, so that we would be convinced again and again of how real the grace of God is toward us.”
Sacraments Are God-Given Signs
The Augsburg Confession teaches of the use of the sacraments as follows: “Our churches teach that the sacraments were instituted not merely to be marks of profession among men but especially to be signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us, intended to awaken and confirm faith in those who use them. Consequently the sacraments should be so used that faith, which believes the promises that are set forth and offered, is added” (Augsburg Confession XIII). The sacrament concerns the covenant God made with man in the Old and New Testaments and the promise He made in connection with it. God has placed the sacraments as a sign to remind of the promise. Faith clings to God’s promise; the sacrament supports and strengthens faith.
There Are Two Sacraments
The Roman Catholic church has seven sacraments. During the transition period of the Reformation discussion arose about the number of sacraments also. The stand of Luther and his friends was based on this, that sacraments were acts, which were founded on God’s command. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (XIII:4) reveals the matter as follows: “The genuine sacraments, therefore, are Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and absolution, which is the sacrament of penitence.” Absolution was left out of the sacraments because therein God’s promise was not linked to visible materials, but to the Holy Spirit. Did not the Risen Christ say to his disciples: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:22,23). Sacraments have not been established by men or the church but by God.
In Christianity it has always been understood, according to the Augsburg Confession (VIII:1) that the value or effect of the sacrament does not depend on the performer’s state of mind or faith, as in them [the sacraments] God has joined His Word to the visible and not to whether the ones who perform them have the Holy Spirit or not.
The Correct Use of the Sacraments
In 1520 Luther wrote the book The Church in the Captivity of Babylonia. In it he directed his criticism against the Catholic church’s doctrine of the sacraments. With the book’s name he wished to show the church of Christ fallen to “the captivity of Babylonia” for its wrong doctrine of the sacraments.
Among other matters, we therein find that: “The sacraments, on the contrary, are not fulfilled when they are taking place, but when they are being believed. It cannot be true, therefore, that there is contained in the sacraments a power efficacious for justification, or that they are ‘effective signs’ of grace. All such things are said to the detriment of faith, and out of ignorance of the divine promise. Unless you should call them ‘effective’ in the sense that they certainly and effectively impart grace where faith is unmistakably present. But it is not in this sense that efficacy is now ascribed to them; as witnessed by the fact that they are said to benefit all men, even the wicked and unbelieving, provided they do not set up actual resistance—as if such unbelief were not in itself the most obstinate, the most hostile of all obstacles to grace.”
“Christ says: ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.’ Thus he shows us in this word that faith is such a necessary part of the sacrament that it can save even without the sacrament, and for this reason he did not add: ‘He who does not believe, and is not baptized.’ (Luther’s Works 1959 Vol. 36 pages 66, 67).
The significance of the sacraments is also spoken of in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (XIII:18–20): “It is much more necessary to know how to use the sacraments. Here we condemn the whole crowd of scholastic doctors who teach that unless there is some obstacle, the sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, without a good disposition in the one using them. It is after all Jewish thinking to believe that we are justified by a ceremony without a good disposition in our heart, that is, without faith. Yet this ungodly and wicked notion is taught with great authority throughout the papal realm. In opposition to this, Paul denies that Abraham was justified by circumcision, but says that circumcision was a sign given to exercise faith. Thus we teach that in using the sacraments there must be a faith which believes these promises and accepts that which is promised and offered in the sacrament. The reason for this is clear and well founded.”
It is sorrowful that the Lutheran Church has adopted more and more the Catholic understanding of the sacraments, except with regard to the number of them. The sacraments have not been established for receiving faith, but for strengthening faith. The correct use of the sacraments requires faith.
Living faith does not feel itself to be strong; regardless of the fact that Jesus said that it can move mountains (Matt. 17:20), and John says that it will overcome the world. Faith, however, feels weak and doubts surround it. No one needs to think that the sacrament does not belong to him due to weakness of faith or doubts. It especially belongs to weak faith. Through the sacrament God wishes to strengthen weak faith and show that His strong promises are in force.
Juhani Uljas
Translated from Siionin Lähetyslehti no. 6, 1997