Baptist Distinctives: Two Ordinances — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

Text: Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

Theme: Baptists believe in two ordinances; baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Date: 07/9/2023 Title: BaptistDistinctives_04.wpd ID: NT01-28

Baptists have been called The Thorough Reformers. The Protestant Reformation of the early 16th -century went a long way in recovering the original gospel of the 1st -century church that, for the most part, had been lost in the rise and domination of Roman Catholicism in the western half of the old Roman Empire and the Orthodox Church in the eastern half of the empire. And though the recovery of the gospel and biblical truth was significant, it wasn’t until two hundred years later in the early 18th -century when a people calling themselves Baptists arose in England. John Smyth, an English Separatist, in 1608, published The Differences of the Churches, in which he explained the characteristics of a biblical church. He fled to Holland where he met Thomas Helwys who also was a Separatist and pastoring a small church. They began an intense study of the New Testament and came to the following conclusions:

• 1st, that only those willfully and consciously professing faith in Christ should be baptized, and that baptism should be by full immersion.

• 2nd, that true worship comes from the heart and that there should be no books other than the Bible in worship. Praying, singing and preaching should be the primary elements of worship.

• 3rd, that there should be a twofold church leadership, that of pastor and deacon.

• 4th, that the financial support of the church should come only from the members and not from the government, because that would mean giving them control over the church.

Now I ask you ... does or does not that sound like a Baptist? Since there was no other minister to administer baptism, Smyth baptized himself in 1609, then he baptized Thomas Helwys and the rest of the congregation. In 1612 Helwys and most of the congregation returned to England to found the first permanent Baptist church.

It was Baptists, therefore, who took the reformation to it’s ultimate theological conclusions. For example, the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone was recovered by Martin Luther and other reformers, but it was Baptists who took the doctrine to its logical conclusion — that only those who had made the conscious decision to come to Christ by faith should be baptized. This excluded the baptism of infants and very young children. And Baptists insisted on full immersion. Baptists said, “Look, if you’re attempting to recover the faith and practice of the Church in the Book of Acts then we’ve got to baptize by immersion. That’s what the word means and that’s what the early church practiced.” This was radical for the day considering that all other Protestant churches — Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Swiss Reformed — all baptized infants.

It was Baptists who said that the church should be made up only of professing believers who had been baptized. And if Christians possessed the priesthood of believers, then congregations had the right to be independent, calling their own pastors and deacons, and being free from outside coercions of the state or an ecclesiastical authority. This was radical for the day considering that all other Protestant churches were state churches, receiving support from the state, and to some degree, being controlled by the state.

The most well-know early Baptist was a Tinkerer named John Bunyan. He was arrested multiple times for preaching “without a licence” and spent 12 years in the Bedford County Jail because he refused to give up preaching.

Four-hundred years later there are an estimated 100 million Baptists worldwide. Forty-seven million live in the United States. There are approximately 50 separate Baptist groups, but 92% of Baptists are found in five “conventions” or “fellowships” — the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC); National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (NBC); National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; (NBCA); American Baptist Churches in the USA (ABC); and the Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI). Regardless of the type of Baptist we all believe that there are two and only two ordinances of the church — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Here is what our Baptist Faith and Message says about them:

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.

Let me walk you through some of the fundamental things we believe about these two ordinances.

I. 1st, THEY ARE ORDINANCES — NOT SACRAMENTS

1. this distinction is the first great distinction between Baptists and almost everyone else when it comes to our theology behind Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

a. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestant denominations such as Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Moravians all use the term sacrament to describe Baptism and Communion

2. a sacrament is a religious rite believed to be efficacious — that is that the actual participation in the rite has the means of securing God’s grace, either for salvation or for sanctification

a. Baptists insist that a person gets all the grace they will ever need for their salvation and sanctification at the moment of their regeneration by the Holy Spirit

1) the word Jesus used of that regenerating moment is new birth

ILLUS. This regeneration is wonderfully illustrated in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In the end, when the son comes home, the father runs to meet him, greets him with a kiss, covers him with a rob, puts a ring on his finger, and exclaims, “And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:23–24, ESV)

c. we do not believe that God parcels out grace piecemeal or that he dribbles it out over a lifetime

1) if salvation is by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit who come into our lives, than we have all of God in us at the moment of our salvation

2) whether you’re five or fifteen or fifty when that happens, you get all of the Spirit, not just a part of the Spirit

3. an ordinance is not considered a conduit of grace but simply a practice — or religious rite if you desire — commanded to be performed by the Lord as symbolic of the grace that has come into one’s life by the Spirit at the new birth

a. in other words, those Christian groups that practice a sacramental formula of religious life, believe that participation in the act of baptism or the act of communion, involves a supernatural work of God that procures grace through the action

b. an ordinance is simply an act of obedience to God by a Christian in a rite the commemorates the grace freely given by the Spirit

A. THE ORDINANCES ARE NOT ESSENTIAL FOR SALVATION

ILLUS. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament”

1. in their system, what we call ordinances are absolutely essential for salvation

ILLUS. Their Catechism states: “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.”

a. and the church, of course, controls the sacraments which ultimately means the church has the power to give grace or to deny grace

ILLUS. And if the church somehow gets it wrong, your eternal salvation could be in jeopardy. Earlier this year, a Catholic priest in Phoenix resigned from his position after an investigation by the diocese found he had been incorrectly performing baptisms over his 20-year career — rendering the rite invalid for thousands of people. Rev. Andres Arango would say, "We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." According to Catholic liturgy, he should have said "I baptize." And getting that one word wrong nullified all of the baptisms he performed using that language. The diocese has announced, “If your baptism was invalid and you’ve received other sacraments, you may need to repeat some or all of those sacraments after you are validly baptized as well,”

a. in Roman Catholic theology it means thousands of parishioners have been deprived of the fundamental means of grace

1) I don’t mean to make light of this, but wow, imagine standing before God on judgment day and finding out that your pastor used one wrong word, and now you’re eternally doomed!

2. our own Baptist Faith and Message says of both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, “It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus”

a. do you hear the difference?

1) one says, Do these and be saved

2) the others, Be saved and then do these

3. the Bible tells us that grace is not given through outward symbols, and no ritual is “necessary for salvation”

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4–7, ESV)

a. grace is the blessing of God, freely given to the undeserving

b. they are signs and signifiers of grace already received

4. rather than being requirements for salvation, ordinances are visual aids that help us better understand and appreciate what Jesus Christ accomplished for us in His redemptive work, and they are testimonies that we indeed believe in Christ

5. The Ordinances Are Not Essential for Salvation

B. THE ORDINANCES ARE COMMANDED BY CHRIST

1. as a people called Baptist we believe ordinances are determined by three factors:

a. were they were instituted by Christ?

b. were they were taught by the apostles? and

c. were they were practiced by the early church?

2. a thorough study of the New Testament reveals that only Baptism and the Lord’s Supper meet all three criteria

a. and because they were commanded by Christ, we practice them

II. 2nd, THERE ARE ONLY TWO ORDINANCES — NOT MANY

1. this is the second great distinction between us and almost everyone else

a. even among those denominations that practice sacramental rites, not all agree on how many sacraments there are

1) Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have seven sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Ordination and Matrimony

2) Anglicans have two sacraments — Baptism and Communion alone were ordained by Christ and are necessary for salvation, but they practice five more Sacraments that are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel

a) Confirmation, Ordination, Confession and Absolution, Matrimony and Anointing the sick

3) Lutherans have three sacraments — Baptism, Communion, and Holy Absolution

4) Methodists have two sacraments — Baptism and Communion

A. BAPTISTS PRACTICE ONLY TWO ORDINANCES

1. even though we consider baptism and communion as only ordinances, does not mean we take them lightly (as some have accused us of)

a. they are a significant part of Baptist practice and worship

2. though baptism and the Lord’s Supper are symbolic, their proper practice is important

a. baptism symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that has made possible our salvation

b. baptism also symbolizes that a person, through faith in Christ, has passed from death to life and that this person has identified with Christ’s death and resurrection

c. only the total immersion of a person in water adequately symbolizes this death, burial and resurrection

3. likewise, using the correct elements in the Lord’s Supper with a biblical understanding of them is important

a. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper at his last meal with his disciples as part of the Jewish Passover

1) unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine were part of the meal

b. Jesus indicated that the bread was symbolic of his body and the fruit of the vine symbolic of his blood

1) the unleavened bread symbolizes the purity of Christ, for he was without sin and thus his body was an unblemished sacrifice for our sins

2) the juice from crushed grapes symbolizes the blood that Christ shed for us

4. in partaking of the bread and the cup, Christ’s disciples are to remember his sacrifice on the cross of Calvary as he gave his body and shed his blood for our sins. Baptists believe the Bible teaches that the elements used in the Supper are not literally the body and blood of Christ

a. they are symbols of his body and blood

b. in eating the bread and drinking from the cup, a person does not actually partake of Christ’s flesh and blood (the doctrine of Transubstantiation)

c. rather, it is an opportunity to obey a command of Christ and to recall his sacrifice for us, his presence with us and his certain return

B. WE PRACTICE TWO ORDINANCES OF DIVINE ORIGIN

1. they are important because of they were given to the Church by Christ himself

a. they are not human creations but given by God to assist us in declaring and sharing the gospel and motivating us to live the Christian life

2. the act of baptism affords opportunity for a person who is being baptized to testify publicly that he or she has trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior and experienced forgiveness of sin

a. the person doing the baptizing can utilize the experience to explain the nature of salvation and the meaning of baptism

3. the Lord’s Supper provides an opportunity for both evangelism and Christian growth

a. the Supper movingly emphasizes the love of God that led Jesus to give himself a sacrifice for sin

b. for believers, the Supper affords a time for special communion with the Lord, expressing thanks for his sacrifice that enables us to be forgiven of our sin

c. thus the Lord’s Supper is also referred to as Communion

Conclusion

Baptists believe that Jesus gave two ordinances to be carried out by a church: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Each of these is both symbolic and highly significant because each symbolizes the Christian message of grace and salvation and relates to other major Baptist doctrines.