“Word and sacrament piety” is perhaps an expression with which you are unfamiliar. It is a shorthand way of saying that the way God has ordained to work in the lives of his people is through the ministry of the Word, chiefly the preaching of the gospel (since that is the instrument he uses to bring his elect to new life and true faith) and the ministry of the holy sacraments (since that is a major instrument he uses to encourage and strengthen the faith of his people).
We have already considered how the Holy Spirit uses the Word to bring his people to faith, so now we turn to the sacraments, a word that may be unfamiliar or misunderstood. It is derived from the Latin noun sacramentum, which, in the classical period, could refer to “the sum which the two parties to a suit at first deposited” in a lawsuit, or in a military context it could refer to “the preliminary engagement entered into by newly-enlisted troops.”1 More generally it referred to a solemn oath. In Christian use it referred generally to something to be kept sacred and specifically was used in the Vulgate, the received Latin Bible of the West, to translate the Greek term mysterion (mystery), and came to be used widely for the covenant signs and seals of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In the late thirteenth century, the medieval church elevated the popular five ecclesiastical practices into sacraments, a move that the Reformed churches rejected.2
The word sacrament itself does not commit one to any particular view of baptism and Communion. The question before us is how the Reformed churches understand sacraments generally, and baptism and Holy Communion specifically. We characterize them as signs and seals. The first part is easy. A sign is something that points to something else. Words are signs. The words blueberry pie are not themselves a pie. They signify a pie. A stop sign tells us that we must use the brakes to make the car stop moving, but a stop sign is not what it signifies.
Sometimes when people hear the word seal in connection with sacraments, they think it means that we are saying the sacraments are magic. We are not. On my study wall are some diplomas. At the bottom of these diplomas are marks that have been pressed into them by a tool. These marks are seals. The promise to anyone who sees them is that the documents are genuine. They signify that the owner completed a course of study.
Seals are more important than it might seem at first. We live in an age of AI-generated fakes. Thirty-six months ago, we treated most charming internet videos as probably real. Today, when we see a charming video of a line of red pandas marching like little soldiers, we know it is probably fake. We are now on guard for telephone calls purporting to be from children or grandchildren that are actually AI-generated fakes. We do not need anyone to show us the importance of something that validates a promise as genuine because we experience the need for genuine promises daily.
In Reformed churches, the minister stands in the pulpit week by week announcing the bad news of our sin, death, and judgment and the good news of Jesus’s obedience in our place—his death, resurrection, ascension, and return. To confirm the message of the good news, Christ instituted sacraments, signs and seals: holy baptism and Holy Communion.
To be sure, various Christian traditions have different understandings of the sacraments. In some traditions the sacraments are said to become the things they signify.3 So in the Roman Catholic tradition, baptism is said to confer new life and initial justification to everyone who receives it. In the Lutheran tradition, baptism is said to confer new life to everyone who receives it. In the Baptist tradition, baptism is administered only to those who have given a credible profession of faith so that it becomes a testimony of the believer’s new life.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, the elements of Holy Communion (bread and wine) at consecration are said to become the literal body and blood of Christ. In the Lutheran tradition, the literal body of Christ is said to be in, with, and under the elements of bread and wine at consecration. In the low-church evangelical traditions (e.g., Baptist, Pentecostal, and Bible church), Communion is regarded principally as a memorial of Christ’s death.
The confession of the Reformed churches is distinct from these traditions. We understand from Scripture that the sacraments do not become the things to which they point, or they would no longer be sacraments. We recognize that Scripture speaks figuratively about the sacraments, sometimes attributing to them what they signify and seal. This figurative of speech is a sacramental union. For example, in 1 Peter 3:21, Scripture says, “An antitype, baptism, now saves you” (my translation).
If we pay close attention to what the apostle Peter says before and after these words, we can see that he is speaking figuratively. In Scripture, the connection between the thing signified and the sacrament is so close that the two can sometimes be figuratively said to be the same thing. We speak this way regularly in daily life. When we call someone a monster, we do not mean to say that person is literally a monster. We might mean that he is fearsome, or perhaps he is physically imposing. When someone speaks this way, we recognize immediately that he is speaking figuratively. So it is in 1 Peter 3:21. Consider the whole verse: “An antitype, baptism, now saves you, not the washing of the flesh but the pledge of a good conscience unto God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (my translation). Who has a good conscience before God? The one who has new life and true faith in Jesus, who was raised from the dead. After all, Peter calls baptism an antitype of the flood. Whom did the floodwater save? No one. It was the ark that saved believing Noah and his family (Heb 11:7; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:5). The water was a judgment on the unbelieving world (2 Pet 3:6). The flood was a type and illustration of judgment. Baptism corresponds to it.
The first thing to notice is the odd word antitype. What is that? It is something that is “represented by a symbol.”4 The word antitype is the first signal that Peter was speaking figuratively and not literally. We might even say he was speaking sacramentally. Almost as soon as he says the word baptism, Peter qualifies what he means when he adds that it is not the act of putting water on someone but something else altogether that is saving. Baptism is a sign of a pledge of a good conscience before God.
Noah’s baptism, if you will, was a sort of ritual death through which, by the grace of God, believing Noah and his family passed in the ark (Christ) through faith. Circumcision was also a ritual death. We know this not only from the nature of the act of circumcision but also from Paul’s explanation in Colossians 2:11–12, where he appeals to circumcision as an illustration of mortification, the dying to sin, which is the first part of sanctification. Then he appeals to Christ’s circumcision, and then to baptism. For Peter and Paul, baptism is an identification with Christ’s death (Rom 6:4). This is why Peter closes his thought by turning to Christ’s resurrection. In baptism we are identified with death, but Christ’s resurrection testifies that just as he lives, we who believe have new life and right standing with God.
For us baptism is not only God’s gracious promise to believers and their children, but it is also a formal recognition of entrance into the Christ-confessing covenant community (the church). As we understand Scripture, the promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 17:7, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to” believers and to their children is still true. This is why the apostle Peter said in Acts 2:39, “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off and to all who are far away, whomever the Lord our God calls” (my translation).
God has known, loved, and elected unconditionally his people from all eternity. The Father gave the elect to the Son. The Son agreed to represent and redeem the elect. The Spirit applies Christ’s benefits to the elect, and he does so by bringing them to new life and true faith through the preaching of the good news. Through the holy sacraments the Spirit comforts and reassures believers that what they heard with their ears is really true and true for them personally. Baptism is the once-for-all sign and seal of initiation into the visible covenant community.
In the next installment we will see how the Lord’s Supper is God’s repeated reminder and reassurance that Christ really is for us and that we really are being nourished by the Lamb of God for our daily pilgrimage toward the heavenly city.
Notes
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, Latin Dictionary (Harper & Brothers; Clarendon Press, 1891), under “sacramentum.”
- Thus, with the other Reformation churches we reject as sacraments confirmation, penance, holy matrimony, holy orders, and extreme unction.
- See Heidelberg Catechism 78.
- This is the language of the New Oxford American Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2023), under “antitype.”
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
RESOURCES
- Subscribe To The Heidelblog!
- Download the HeidelApp on Apple App Store or Google Play
- Browse the Heidelshop!
- The Heidelblog Resource Page
- Heidelmedia Resources
- The Ecumenical Creeds
- The Reformed Confessions
- The Heidelberg Catechism
- The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, & Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2025)
- Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008)
- Why I Am A Christian
- What Must A Christian Believe?
- Heidelblog Contributors
- Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to
Heidelberg Reformation Association
1637 E. Valley Parkway #391
Escondido CA 92027
USA
The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
More by R. Scott Clark ›