June 24 – LD 25, Day 7: The Lord’s Purpose in the Sacraments
by Rev Arie den Hartog
Read: Hebrews 9: 23 to 28
The Heidelberg Catechism
teaches us that both the preaching of the Word and the sacraments are ordained
and appointed of God for the purpose of directing our faith to the sacrifice on
the cross as the only ground of our salvation.
By His once and for all
sacrifice on the cross, Jesus fully and perfectly
accomplished all of our salvation. Nothing else need be or even can be added to
the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. To suggest that something needs to be
added to the perfect sacrifice on the cross is really blasphemy, for this
suggests that somehow the sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient, something
else was needed.
One of the ways in which
the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice has been denied in the church is through
the misuse of the sacraments, a strange thing indeed. When one has a false
understanding of the sacraments, especially in imagining that the sacraments
have somehow in themselves the power to save us, we begin to trust in the
sacraments themselves rather than Christ Jesus, the only hope of our salvation.
When God gave the two
sacraments to the church, He Himself intended to direct our faith and trust in
the one sacrifice of His Own dear and eternal Son on the cross, and to remind
us of the absolute sufficiency of this amazing and wonderful sacrifice. The
whole of our salvation was accomplished by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
cross. This truth must be maintained in the church. God then gave the
sacraments in order that by the proper use of them, we might glory in Christ
Jesus alone, and find all our hope and assurance of salvation in His cross
alone.
The apostle Paul wrote
about the great importance of this in the book of Galatians. He makes his own
confession to be our example when he writes in the concluding chapter of this
book, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I
unto the world.” Gal 6:14.
The proper use of the
sacraments involves then the important issue of glorying in Christ alone and
our trusting in none other than in the cross of Christ for our salvation. No
wonder the great men through whom God brought about the Reformation of the
Church were so earnest and zealous about the proper use of the sacraments and
why there was such a lengthy debate regarding the proper administration of the
sacraments. As we said in an earlier meditation, this explains why there is
such a lengthy section in the Heidelberg Catechism on the sacraments.
Let me offer one closing
thought. The proper use of the sacraments is maintained in the church when the
proper relationship between the preaching of the Word and the observance of the
sacraments is maintained. The sacraments should not be administered
independently from the church and the preaching of the Word. Whenever the
sacraments are being administered, the preaching of the Word continually
explains to the church the true meaning of the sacraments. The church must
never be confused about this.