What is a Sacrament?
Ken Hollis
The Church began in the east among Greek-speaking Jews, and so the
language of the ancient church was Greek. The rites of the Church, such as
baptism and the Eucharist, were called mysteries of the church, and they still are
in the Eastern Church. Mystery is a Greek word that was often used in
philosophical and religious discussions to refer to knowledge that was once
unclear, but is now revealed.
The actual Greek word is μυστηριον (mysterion) in the singular, μυστηρια
(mysteria) in the plural.
In worship, we still proclaim the mystery of our faith:
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Christ has died
Christ has risen
Christ will come again
The ancient church called this the mystery of our faith because they believed that
the Old Testament had been teaching these doctrines all along, but they were
only clear in Jesus Christ:
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the
Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their
minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old
covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it
taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their
hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are
being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which
comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:13-18)
As you can see in this passage, the ancient church believed that Christians are
gradually being transformed into the likeness of our Lord. Part of this
transformation is the way we live our lives as agents of God’s providence among
the people of the world, and part of it takes place in the rites and ceremonies of
the church. All of these rites and ceremonies reveal truth to us that was once
obscure, so they were called μυστηρια or, as we would say, mysteries.
By the end of third century, Latin had overtaken Greek as the language of
common people in the western half of the Roman Empire. Western clergy
preached in Latin, western theologians wrote in Latin, and western scholars
translated the Bible into Latin. Western Christians heard the sermons, read the
writings, and studied the Bible in Latin. The word μυστηριον was a problem.
There was no Latin word that corresponded to it. They could have transliterated
the Greek word into Latin as mysterium, and they often did that, but that did not
solve the problem so much as avoid it, because most Latin-speaking people still
had no idea what it meant. So western Christian scholars used the word
sacramentum to translate μυστηριον. These scholars included Tertullian, who
was one of the earliest Latin theologians, and Jerome, who translated the Bible
into Latin about a hundred years later.
But where did they get this word and why did they choose it? They borrowed it
from the Roman Army.
A recruit for the Roman army became a soldier by undergoing a sacramentum.
The sacramentum had two parts: the soldier took an oath of office, and the Army
branded him behind the ear with the number of his legion. The sacramentum
resulted in new responsibilities and new advantages. The soldier acquired the
responsibility for conforming to military discipline and obeying military
commands. He also acquired social and legal benefits, because living conditions
in the Roman Army were very good and veterans received special privileges and
benefits.
Ancient Latin theologians seized upon sacramentum as the best Latin equivalent
of the Greek word mystery when it referred to a church rite, because the church
rite is simultaneously spiritual and physical, and because the person who
undergoes the sacrament simultaneously receives new responsibilities and a
new spiritual status before God.
So that is how the word sacrament came into Christian theology in the west. For
many centuries, the secular and the theological uses of the word existed side by
side. By the time of the Reformation, it was solely a Christian theological term.
Now how do we determine which rites of the church are sacraments?
The Roman Catholic Church
Many Catholics are taught that a sacrament is: “An outward and visible sign of an
inward and invisible grace.” This is a phrase that goes back to St. Augustine, the
Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. He lived from 354-430 and was so influential in
western Christian thinking that during the Protestant Reformation, both sides
appealed to him.
By saying that the “outward and visible sign” (the physical act) goes hand-inhand with the “inward and invisible grace” (the spiritual reality), we can assert,
against the background of Platonic thinking, that physical acts and spiritual reality
are one and the same.
This is an excellent description of a sacrament, but it is a poor criterion for
settling any argument about which rites of the church are sacraments and which
are not. There are lots of “outward and visible signs” of “inward and invisible
grace” that are not sacraments, such as for instance the benediction at the end of
a service. Within the Roman Catholic Church, the debates about the sacraments
continued until the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, which was held in the years
1545-1563. This council settled the matter for Catholics. Their decision seems to
have been influenced by Jerome’s use of the word sacrament in the New
Testament and by the symbolism of the number seven.
The Protestant Movement
However, the questions still lingered for the Protestant movement, which began
before the Council of Trent. Is marriage a sacrament, as the Catholics decided?
A few would say that the marriage rite is a physical act that creates a new
spiritual reality. Others, such as Martin Luther – a Catholic priest at the time –
argued that marriage cannot be a sacrament for the simple reason that it is not
exclusive to Christians. And in fact, if you have a friend who is a Muslim, a Jew,
or a Hindu, they will not ask you what marriage is, and you do not have to explain
it to them in Christian terms.
So the Catholics who were about to become Protestants argued that a better
criterion for a sacrament would be a church rite that the gospel writers
explicitly depicted Jesus as instituting for all Christians during His earthly
ministry.
By this definition, they found fewer sacraments. By their reasoning, ordination
would not be a sacrament, because not every Christian is called to the ordained
ministry. Marriage would not be a sacrament, because it is not distinctly
Christian, Jesus didn’t require it or institute it, and not all Christians are married.
Anointing the sick with oil would not be a sacrament, because they didn’t see
Jesus instituting it in the gospels, and because healthy Christians do not receive
it.
Now what if Jesus instituted a church rite for all Christians, but the New
Testament records it only in the form of an apostle’s testimony rather than in a
description of Jesus actually instituting it. Is it a sacrament? Catholics would say
yes, but Protestants would say no.
So what are the sacraments for Protestants? At the beginning of his book, The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther argued that there were three: baptism,
confession, and the Eucharist, because Jesus commanded all Christians to do
these three. However, he did not feel that one necessarily had to confess to the
clergy, so it might be valid without being a church rite. So perhaps for that
reason, Luther settled on two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, by the time
he finished writing the book. (Luther demonstrates the value of proofreading: the
same book that begins by asserting that there are three sacraments ends by
asserting that there are two sacraments.)
The State of the Universal Church Today
The Roman Catholic Church has the most systematic treatment of sacraments,
so I am using them as a framework. They uphold the following rites of the church
as sacraments:
Baptism
Baptism is the initiation rite into the Christian faith and into the Christian
church. It is considered a sacrament by everyone who uses the word
sacrament.
Confirmation (in the east: Chrismation)
Confirmation is historically the second half of baptism. It got separated
from baptism in the west by historical developments. Today, when adults
are baptized, they are confirmed in the same rite. In churches that practice
infant baptism, confirmation can signify one or more of the following:
admission to the Eucharist for the first time, admission into full church
membership, graduation from Christian education, or prayer for the gift of
the Holy Spirit. In eastern Orthodoxy, this is called Chrismation, and even
though it is considered a separate rite, it immediately follows baptism and
is therefore not separated from it.
Penance (Confession)
Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Christians have a
special church rite available to them where they can visit a member of the
clergy to obtain an assurance that they are forgiven for the sins they truly
regret. The rest of us call it pastoral counseling.
The Eucharist
Eucharist, the Greek word for thanksgiving, is the original name of this rite,
which today is also called Communion or the Lord’s Supper. It was
originally a weekly event. Catholics only need to take Communion once a
year to be Catholics in good standing. The Protestant Reformers originally
wanted to restore weekly lay participation in Communion, but because of
clergy shortages during the 19th century in the United States, most
Protestant denominations have fallen into monthly or quarterly
Communion. The Eucharist is considered a sacrament by everyone who
uses the word sacrament.
Anointing of the Sick
Anointing and prayers for the sick comes from James 5. In the Roman
Catholic Church, it gradually became a death rite, but it has recently been
restored to its proper use. Orthodox churches and many Protestant bodies
anoint the sick for healing. Catholics, Orthodox, and many Anglicans
consider it a sacrament. Most Protestants do not.
Holy Orders
Holy orders is the rite of setting people aside as clergy; in other words,
ordination. All churches have a rite of this type, but not all of them
consider it a sacrament.
Marriage
All churches have marriage rites, but only Catholics, some Anglicans, and
some Orthodox refer to it as a sacrament.
Anglicans refer to Baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments, and sometimes
refer to the other five rites in the Roman Catholic list as “rites of the church
commonly called sacraments.” So for Anglicans, the word sacrament is a little
fluid.
Mainline Protestants generally only call baptism and the Eucharist sacraments.
Other bodies have historically avoided the term sacrament altogether. They have
referred to the rites or ordinances of the church instead. Their lists of ordinances
are not set in concrete, but they generally include equivalents of all the rites
above. Today the word sacrament is staging a comeback among them, because
the only reason they were originally allergic to the word sacrament was because
Catholics used it. Many people today don’t think that that is a valid reason to
avoid using a perfectly good word, because if we avoided all the words that
Catholics use, we wouldn’t be able to talk at all.
The Orthodox do not define sacraments in the way that Roman Catholics and
Protestants do. They refer to the mysteries of the church, and they have not
officially enumerated or defined them. They would consider all the sacraments in
the Catholic list to be sacraments, but they would not necessarily consider it a
complete list.
Copyright ©1995-2013 by the Rev. Kenneth W. Collins. Reprinted with
permission.