Sacraments & Ordninances
Rediscovering the Meaning Behind Baptism and Communion
There is something quietly alarming about a generation of believers who have become strangers to their own inheritance. We have access to more Christian content, more teaching, more music, and more resources than any generation before us, and yet many of us could not articulate why we do what we do when we gather together on Sunday mornings. We sing, we listen, we leave. And somewhere along the way, two of the most profound acts Jesus ever prescribed for his church have been reduced to monthly rituals we perform out of habit, or skip altogether without a second thought.
That drift is worth examining. And the place to begin is with a simple, clarifying question: what are we actually doing when we are baptized, and what are we actually doing when we take communion?
Order Is Not the Enemy of Life
Before we can answer those questions well, we need to dismantle a false assumption that has taken root in modern church culture. Many of us have unconsciously come to believe that structure and spiritual vitality are opposites. That liturgy, order, and established practice are the territory of cold, lifeless religion, while true spiritual energy is spontaneous, unscripted, and feeling-driven.
The apostle Paul wrote to a church in Corinth that was defined by chaos. They were divided, morally compromised, litigious among themselves, and disorderly in worship. Into that mess, Paul issued a command that still carries weight today: let all things be done decently and in order, as stated in 1 Corinthians 14:40. The point was not to suffocate the Spirit with bureaucracy. The point was that God is a God of peace, not confusion, and that the order he prescribes for his church is designed for the blessing and flourishing of his people. A trellis does not compete with a vine. It gives the vine something to grow on.
Two Ordinances, One Foundation
Protestant and evangelical Christians generally recognize two ordinances given to the church by Jesus himself: baptism and communion. These are not sacraments in the traditional Catholic or Orthodox sense, meaning they are not channels through which grace is mechanically dispensed, and they are not requirements for salvation. We are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the grace of God alone. Any teaching that adds a ritual act to that equation as a condition of salvation has crossed into a different gospel entirely.
Instead, these two ordinances are expressions of faith that already exists. They are outward signs of an inward transformation that the Holy Spirit has already accomplished. The believer is the actor. God has already done the saving work. Baptism and communion are our response, our declaration, our act of remembrance and identification.
Baptism: You Have Been Marked
Baptism did not appear out of nowhere when John the Baptist arrived at the Jordan River. Its roots run deep into the Old Testament, into the ceremonial washings prescribed in Leviticus, into the prophetic promise of Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God spoke of cleansing his people with water and placing his Spirit within them. It connects to the very mark of covenant identity.
In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign that a man belonged to the covenant people of God. In the new covenant, sealed by the blood of Jesus, that sign has changed. Paul makes this connection explicit in Colossians 2:11-12, explaining that believers have been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, having been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.
Baptism, then, is not merely a public profession. It is a declaration of death and resurrection. The old self goes down into the water. A new person comes up. It symbolizes what has already happened in the spiritual realm, that those who belong to Christ have been united with him in his death and raised to walk in newness of life, as Paul describes in Romans 6. And it marks you as belonging to Christ. That identity does not stay at the church building. You carry it into your workplace, your home, your relationships. Your worth, your place, your sense of belonging does not come from your career, your appearance, your past, or your possessions. It comes from the fact that you have been marked as belonging to him.
Communion: You Have Been Redeemed
The night before his crucifixion, Jesus sat down with his disciples for the Passover meal. This was not an arbitrary setting. The Passover was one of the most significant events in Israel's entire history, rooted in Exodus 12, when God delivered his people from Egypt through the blood of a lamb applied to the doorposts of their homes. That blood covering meant life. The death angel passed over every household marked by it.
Jesus took that ancient meal and reinterpreted it entirely around himself. He is the Lamb. His blood is the covering. His death is the redemption. And when he told his followers to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 11, he was inviting them into the same act of commemoration that Israel had practiced for centuries, now fulfilled and transformed by his sacrifice.
But communion does not only look backward. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11 that every time believers eat and drink together, they are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. There is a forward longing embedded in every communion table. We are not just remembering a past event. We are anticipating a future one, the return of the King and the fullness of his kingdom.
Come to the Table
These ordinances are acts of obedience, identification, and participation. They are not optional footnotes to Christian life. They are central to it. The early church understood this, gathering every Lord's Day and regularly sharing the Lord's table together as one of their defining practices.
The invitation standing before every believer is simple and serious. Stop identifying yourself by the marks the world has placed on you. Return to your baptism. Return to the table. Remember who you are and whose you are. And do so in community, because you were never meant to do this alone.
There is something quietly alarming about a generation of believers who have become strangers to their own inheritance. We have access to more Christian content, more teaching, more music, and more resources than any generation before us, and yet many of us could not articulate why we do what we do when we gather together on Sunday mornings. We sing, we listen, we leave. And somewhere along the way, two of the most profound acts Jesus ever prescribed for his church have been reduced to monthly rituals we perform out of habit, or skip altogether without a second thought.
That drift is worth examining. And the place to begin is with a simple, clarifying question: what are we actually doing when we are baptized, and what are we actually doing when we take communion?
Order Is Not the Enemy of Life
Before we can answer those questions well, we need to dismantle a false assumption that has taken root in modern church culture. Many of us have unconsciously come to believe that structure and spiritual vitality are opposites. That liturgy, order, and established practice are the territory of cold, lifeless religion, while true spiritual energy is spontaneous, unscripted, and feeling-driven.
The apostle Paul wrote to a church in Corinth that was defined by chaos. They were divided, morally compromised, litigious among themselves, and disorderly in worship. Into that mess, Paul issued a command that still carries weight today: let all things be done decently and in order, as stated in 1 Corinthians 14:40. The point was not to suffocate the Spirit with bureaucracy. The point was that God is a God of peace, not confusion, and that the order he prescribes for his church is designed for the blessing and flourishing of his people. A trellis does not compete with a vine. It gives the vine something to grow on.
Two Ordinances, One Foundation
Protestant and evangelical Christians generally recognize two ordinances given to the church by Jesus himself: baptism and communion. These are not sacraments in the traditional Catholic or Orthodox sense, meaning they are not channels through which grace is mechanically dispensed, and they are not requirements for salvation. We are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the grace of God alone. Any teaching that adds a ritual act to that equation as a condition of salvation has crossed into a different gospel entirely.
Instead, these two ordinances are expressions of faith that already exists. They are outward signs of an inward transformation that the Holy Spirit has already accomplished. The believer is the actor. God has already done the saving work. Baptism and communion are our response, our declaration, our act of remembrance and identification.
Baptism: You Have Been Marked
Baptism did not appear out of nowhere when John the Baptist arrived at the Jordan River. Its roots run deep into the Old Testament, into the ceremonial washings prescribed in Leviticus, into the prophetic promise of Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God spoke of cleansing his people with water and placing his Spirit within them. It connects to the very mark of covenant identity.
In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign that a man belonged to the covenant people of God. In the new covenant, sealed by the blood of Jesus, that sign has changed. Paul makes this connection explicit in Colossians 2:11-12, explaining that believers have been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, having been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.
Baptism, then, is not merely a public profession. It is a declaration of death and resurrection. The old self goes down into the water. A new person comes up. It symbolizes what has already happened in the spiritual realm, that those who belong to Christ have been united with him in his death and raised to walk in newness of life, as Paul describes in Romans 6. And it marks you as belonging to Christ. That identity does not stay at the church building. You carry it into your workplace, your home, your relationships. Your worth, your place, your sense of belonging does not come from your career, your appearance, your past, or your possessions. It comes from the fact that you have been marked as belonging to him.
Communion: You Have Been Redeemed
The night before his crucifixion, Jesus sat down with his disciples for the Passover meal. This was not an arbitrary setting. The Passover was one of the most significant events in Israel's entire history, rooted in Exodus 12, when God delivered his people from Egypt through the blood of a lamb applied to the doorposts of their homes. That blood covering meant life. The death angel passed over every household marked by it.
Jesus took that ancient meal and reinterpreted it entirely around himself. He is the Lamb. His blood is the covering. His death is the redemption. And when he told his followers to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 11, he was inviting them into the same act of commemoration that Israel had practiced for centuries, now fulfilled and transformed by his sacrifice.
But communion does not only look backward. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11 that every time believers eat and drink together, they are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. There is a forward longing embedded in every communion table. We are not just remembering a past event. We are anticipating a future one, the return of the King and the fullness of his kingdom.
Come to the Table
These ordinances are acts of obedience, identification, and participation. They are not optional footnotes to Christian life. They are central to it. The early church understood this, gathering every Lord's Day and regularly sharing the Lord's table together as one of their defining practices.
The invitation standing before every believer is simple and serious. Stop identifying yourself by the marks the world has placed on you. Return to your baptism. Return to the table. Remember who you are and whose you are. And do so in community, because you were never meant to do this alone.
Posted in The Church Defined
Posted in #Sacraments, #Ordinances, #Baptism, #Communion, #Lord\'sSupper, #ChurchHistory, #Orthodoxy, #Orthopraxy, #Remember, #NewCovenant, #Grace, #Liturgy, #Discipleship
Posted in #Sacraments, #Ordinances, #Baptism, #Communion, #Lord\'sSupper, #ChurchHistory, #Orthodoxy, #Orthopraxy, #Remember, #NewCovenant, #Grace, #Liturgy, #Discipleship
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