C. O. Buchanan
“Sacrament”
Sacrament (Lat.
sacramentum, military oath) has been commonly used by the Christian church to denote rites or ceremonies used in Christian worship, which have both an outward sign and an inner signification. It is not a word used in Scripture, or one with a settled meaning in the early church. It has come to denote a distinctive class of ceremonies, though there has also been disagreement on how the distinctiveness should p 607 be defined. The original definition of a sacrament is attributed to Augustine, summed up in
The Book of Common Prayer as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’. Augustine’s categorization included, however, around thirty ceremonies as
sacramenta, among which were, for instance, the making of the sign of the cross as well as baptism and communion.
The number of the sacraments was systematized by Peter Lombard in his
Libri Quattuor Sententiarum. The fourth book distinguishes between sacraments, of which there are seven, and ‘sacramentals’ which are lesser rites with some sacramentality about them. The seven became the norm for medieval Christendom, and were further systematized by Thomas Aquinas. They were: baptism; confirmation, communion, matrimony, penance, (extreme) unction (see Anointing), and ordination (see Ministry). These varied somewhat between themselves and it was not at all clear whether there was in truth an outward sign in penance, or
what it was in confirmation and ordination, or whether it was a
churchly ministration in matrimony.
The Reformers viewed these definitions as encrusted by a traditionalism which cried out for reform. Thus the definition was sharpened by the addition to the definition of ‘ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel’ (
cf. Article XXV of the Thirty-nine Articles). This established baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the only two ‘sacraments of the gospel’—the only two rightly called sacraments. The other medieval sacraments were downgraded as ‘those five commonly called sacraments’. The two remaining sacraments had explicit command of Christ (
cf. Mt. 28:19–20; Lk. 22:19–20), and were thus clearly differentiated from the five. They corresponded to circumcision and the passover in the old covenant, one once-for-all-for-life sacrament of initiation, one repeatable sacrament of consolidation and growth. On this analogy the two also have a complementary role in relation to each other, in which baptism may be regarded as admitting to communion (
cf. Acts 2:37–47; 1 Cor. 10:1–2), although in Protestantism practice has rarely been so straightforward (see Confirmation).
The Reformers not only corrected the medieval systematization, but also revised the understanding of the means by which God works through the use of sacraments. They denied the doctrine of
ex opere operato (the understanding that God works simply through the act or deed of administering the outward element) and laid greater emphasis upon the efficacy of a sacrament depending upon its being received with faith. The medieval doctrine was, of course, always qualified by the proviso ‘unless the recipients present a barrier (
obex) to God’s grace’—which may actually lead to a doctrine nearer to the Reformers’ understanding than either side would have been happy to concede. The Reformers compared sacramental efficacy closely to that of the ministry of the word, which enabled them to ascribe power to the ministry of the sacraments as being akin to the ministry of the word. The more rigorous Reformers confined the ministry of both to the ordained ministers of the church because they saw correspondence between the two kinds of ministry of God’s grace or found them linked in Mt. 28:19–20. And the Reformers generally retained a ‘high’ view of the benefits conferred by God in his sacraments, varying from the medieval and Counter-Reformation authors not so much in this question as in the setting out of the conditions under which God might be expected to confer that grace. Particular issues arose about the two sacraments separately, such as whether infants should continue to be baptized (see Baptism), and what the Lord meant by ‘this is my body’. Many such issues have relevance to general questions about the sacraments (
e.g., their relation to OT ordinances).
In recent times the liturgical movement and the ecumenical movement have both emphasized a factor which is present in the 16th-century discussions, but not to the forefront of them. This is the sacraments’ ecclesial significance, particularly in the face of an unbelieving world. The sacraments incorporate believers into the visible people of God (see Church) and sustain them in that membership. They thus represent to the recipients their calling to fulfil the loving, peacemaking, missionary and other tasks of God in the world. Their significance is impaired in a divided church, but they stand as a witness to the catholic and undivided character of the people of God in the scriptural revelation against which we have to measure ourselves. They are understood by being done, and it is in the context of obeying the Lord’s p 608 commands and celebrating the liturgical acts—in other words, in our sacramental worship—that we may expect to be led into a true understanding of the sacraments.
Bibliography
D. Baillie,
The Theology of the Sacraments (London, 1957); G. C. Berkouwer,
The Sacraments (Grand Rapids, MI, 1969); J. Calvin,
Institutes IV. xiv–xix; N. Clark,
An Approach to the Theology of the Sacraments (London, 1957); P. T. Forsyth,
The Church and the Sacraments (London, 1917); B. Leeming,
Principles of Sacramental Theology (London, 1956); O. C. Quick,
The Christian Sacraments (London, 1927).
[footnoteRef:1] [1: C. O. Buchanan, “Sacrament,” in New Dictionary of Theology, eds. Sinclair B. Ferguson and J.I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 606–608.]
