The Church and the sacraments

The other sacraments and mysteries

Confirmation, marriage, ordination and anointing - and why the four traditions count differently.

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A sacrament is an outward, physical sign, instituted by Christ, through which God actually gives grace. Not a picture of grace: a means of it. The Eastern word is mystery, which carries the same content with less legal precision.

All four traditions agree on two: baptism and the Eucharist. These are instituted by Christ in as many words, commanded to the Church, and necessary.

Beyond those two, the counting differs, and the difference is partly about definition rather than substance.

Catholic: seven - baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, matrimony. Fixed at the Council of Florence and defined at Trent.
Orthodox: the same seven are customary, but the number was never dogmatised and is a borrowing from Western scholasticism; Eastern theology is content to call many things mysteries, including monastic tonsure and the blessing of water.
Lutheran: two properly - baptism and the Supper - with absolution sometimes counted a third. The others are honoured as good rites without the promise of grace attached to a divinely instituted sign.
Anglican: two sacraments of the Gospel, and five commonly called sacraments which Article 25 says have not like nature of sacraments with baptism and the Supper. Anglo-Catholics treat all seven as sacraments in practice.

Notice what is actually at issue. Nobody denies that marriage is holy, that ordination confers a real office, that the sick should be anointed, or that the baptised should be sealed with the Spirit. The dispute is whether these carry the same divinely instituted promise as the water and the bread.

What makes something a sacrament

The classic Western definition has three elements, and understanding them explains the whole disagreement.

An outward sign. Something physical and perceptible: water, bread and wine, oil, hands laid on, words spoken, vows exchanged.

Instituted by Christ. Not devised by the Church. This is the contested criterion

everyone agrees baptism and the Supper were commanded in the Gospels in as many

words; whether the other five were instituted by Christ is precisely what is disputed.

Conveying the grace it signifies. The sign is not decorative. The water does what washing pictures; the bread gives what feeding pictures.

Behind all three lies the sacramental principle: God uses matter to give grace. This is not a concession to human weakness but the logic of the incarnation itself. A God who was a foetus in a womb and a corpse in a tomb is not fastidious about water and oil.

Pause and thinkPause: an evangelical friend says sacraments are "just symbols" and that God works directly on the heart, without needing physical things. What is the deepest problem with that?

The five

Confirmation, or chrismation

Anointing with consecrated oil and the laying on of hands, sealing the baptised with the Holy Spirit. The scriptural anchor is Acts 8:14-17, where Peter and John come to Samaria and lay hands on those already baptised, and they receive the Spirit; and Acts 19:6 at Ephesus.

In the East it happens immediately after baptism, including for infants, by a priest using chrism consecrated by the bishop. In the West it was separated from baptism as dioceses grew and bishops could not attend every baptism, and it is now conferred at an age of discretion.

Marriage

The union of a man and a woman, which Christ treats as instituted at creation and indissoluble, and which Paul calls a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). The Latin sacramentum in that verse translates the Greek mysterion, which is part of how marriage came to be counted among the seven in the West.

Note who the ministers are. In Western theology the couple confer the sacrament on each other, and the priest is the Church's witness; in the East the priest's crowning is the sacramental act. The section on marriage treats the substance.

Holy orders

Ordination to the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate by prayer and the laying on of hands. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery (1 Timothy 4:14). Catholic and Orthodox teaching holds that ordination confers an indelible character - which is why a laicised priest's sacraments remain valid, and why ordination is not repeated.

Anointing of the sick

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him (James 5:14-15).

This is the most explicitly commanded of the five, with matter, minister, action and promised effect all specified in a single passage - which is why its status is awkward for traditions that count only two sacraments.

For centuries in the West it contracted into extreme unction, administered only at the point of death. The Second Vatican Council restored its wider use, and it is now given to the seriously ill at any stage. The East never narrowed it: the mystery of holy unction is administered freely, and in Greek practice to the whole congregation on Holy Wednesday.

Penance

Treated fully in the section on repentance and forgiveness.

Where the four traditions stand

Catholic

Seven sacraments, defined at the Council of Florence (1439) and dogmatically at Trent (1547), grouped as sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist), of healing (penance, anointing of the sick), and of service (holy orders, matrimony). Three - baptism, confirmation and orders - confer an indelible character and cannot be repeated. Catholic theology teaches that the sacraments work ex opere operato, by the work worked: their efficacy comes from Christ's action rather than from the worthiness of the minister or the recipient, though the recipient's disposition determines the fruit received. This is not mechanical, and it is not magic; it is a guarantee to the faithful that the sacrament does not depend on the state of the man administering it - which is Augustine's answer to the Donatists, turned into doctrine.

Orthodox

Orthodoxy customarily lists the same seven mysteries but has never defined the number dogmatically, and Orthodox theologians regularly point out that the count of seven entered the East from Western scholasticism in the thirteenth century and sits awkwardly there. Eastern theology resists drawing a firm line between what is a mystery and what is not: monastic tonsure, the great blessing of water at Theophany, burial and the consecration of a church are all spoken of in sacramental terms. The whole life of the Church is mysterious in the technical sense - the created order becoming a vehicle of the uncreated. The three sacraments of initiation are kept together for all, including infants. Chrism is consecrated by the patriarch or senior hierarch and distributed to the churches, which makes each chrismation a visible link to the whole body.

Lutheran

The Apology of the Augsburg Confession is the key text and is more flexible than Lutherans are usually given credit for. It states that if sacraments are defined as rites having the command of God and a promise of grace attached, then baptism, the Lord's Supper and absolution are truly sacraments. It then adds that ordination may be called a sacrament if it is understood as the ministry of the word, and that confirmation and extreme unction are rites received from the Fathers which the Church does not require as necessary to salvation, because they lack a divine command. Marriage is honoured as a divine institution but as an order of creation given to all mankind rather than a sacrament of the New Testament - Luther called it a holy estate and wrote warmly about it while denying it the sacramental title. The governing criterion throughout is the promise: where God has attached a promise of grace to a physical sign, there is a sacrament; elsewhere there are good and useful rites.

Anglican

Article 25 sets out the position with care. There are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, baptism and the Supper of the Lord. The five commonly called sacraments - confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony and extreme unction - are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not like nature of sacraments with baptism and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. Note the precision of the phrasing: it denies them like nature, not all efficacy, and it concedes that some are states of life allowed in Scripture. The Prayer Book provides full rites for all five, and the Catechism teaches that a sacrament has an outward visible sign and an inward spiritual grace. In practice the Anglo-Catholic wing treats all seven as sacraments and speaks of the five as sacraments of the Church rather than of the Gospel; the evangelical wing holds to two. Both are working within Article 25.

Where modern denominations differ

Who differs: Baptist, Pentecostal, non-denominational and most Reformed churches typically recognise two ordinances - baptism and the Lord's Supper - and the change of word is the whole argument: an ordinance is something Christ ordered us to do, not something through which He gives. Marriage is a covenant blessed by the church; ordination is the congregation recognising a calling; anointing the sick is practised in some charismatic churches with a strong expectation of healing but not as a sacrament.

What they hold: That grace comes through faith alone and cannot be attached to physical objects without slipping into superstition; that the seven were a medieval accretion, not apostolic; that the ex opere operato principle makes salvation mechanical; and that a church which controls the sacraments controls access to God, which is the abuse the Reformation existed to end.

How to answer:

On matter conveying grace, go straight to the incarnation. The whole question is whether God will use physical means, and Christianity's central claim already answers it: the Word was made flesh. God chose to redeem the world through a body. He healed with mud and spit. He commanded a bath and a meal. If matter cannot carry grace, then the incarnation is an embarrassment rather than the heart of the faith.

On medieval accretion, distinguish the number from the practices. The count of seven is indeed medieval - the East says so too, and cheerfully. But the practices are not. Anointing the sick with oil by the elders of the church is commanded in James 5:14 with more procedural detail than almost any other rite in the New Testament. The laying on of hands for the Spirit is in Acts 8 and 19. Ordination by the laying on of hands is in 1 Timothy 4:14 and 2 Timothy 1:6. Absolution is given in John 20:23. A tradition that keeps only two has to explain why it does not do the things that are commanded in these texts.

On ex opere operato - this is usually the sharpest objection and it rests on a misunderstanding worth clearing up. The phrase does not mean the sacrament works automatically regardless of the recipient; Catholic teaching is explicit that the fruit depends on the recipient's disposition and that a sacrament received in bad faith is received to judgement. What it means is that the grace does not depend on the minister's worthiness. Its origin is Augustine against the Donatists, who claimed baptisms performed by clergy who had failed under persecution were void. Augustine's answer was pastoral: if the sacrament's validity depended on the minister's holiness, nobody could ever be certain of anything, because nobody can see another man's soul. That is a doctrine protecting the laity from the clergy, not the reverse.

On clerical control, concede the historical abuse plainly and then note that the four traditions themselves have limited it in ways worth knowing. Anyone at all - including an unbeliever - can baptise validly in an emergency. Marriage in Western theology is conferred by the couple on each other. These are not the provisions of a system designed to ration access to God.

And a question to return, asked without edge: if baptism and the Supper are ordinances that convey nothing, why did Christ command them at all? Something that only symbolises could be done in any number of ways, or not at all. The New Testament treats them as necessary, and the four traditions think that is a clue.

Work with it

Check yourself

What is the classic definition of a sacrament in the Western traditions?

Check yourself

What does the phrase ex opere operato actually mean?

Check yourself

Which of the five disputed sacraments has the most explicit New Testament command, specifying matter, minister, action and effect?

Objection drill

The seven sacraments are a medieval invention. You will not find the number seven anywhere in Scripture or in the Fathers - it was fixed in the twelfth century by Peter Lombard and then made dogma at Trent to defend it against the Reformers. Christ gave us two ordinances. Everything else is the Church accumulating power over people's lives from cradle to grave.

Write your answer first. You will remember it far better than one you only read.

A model answer

The historical claim in the first half is accurate, and it should be granted cheerfully, because granting it clarifies what is actually in dispute.

The number seven is indeed medieval. Peter Lombard's Sentences in the 1150s is where it is first systematised; Florence in 1439 and Trent in 1547 formalised it. And this is not a Protestant discovery: Orthodox theologians say the same thing, often with some impatience, noting that the count entered the East from Western scholasticism in the thirteenth century and does not fit Eastern thought, which is happy to call the blessing of water or monastic tonsure a mystery.

So the four traditions do not all claim that Christ handed over a list of seven. What they claim is that certain practices were given, and the number is a later attempt to organise them.

Which turns the argument to the practices themselves - and here the position is reversed. Take them one at a time.

Anointing the sick. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick... and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. James specifies the matter, the ministers, the action, and the effect - including forgiveness. There are few rites in the New Testament described with that much procedural detail. A church that practises only two ordinances has to explain why it does not do what James commands.

Laying on of hands for the Spirit. Acts 8: the Samaritans are already baptised, and Peter and John come down and lay hands on them, and they receive the Spirit. Acts 19 at Ephesus, the same pattern. Whatever one calls it, something is happening there that is distinct from baptism.

Ordination. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery (1 Timothy 4:14). Paul says a gift was given through a physical act performed by the church's ministers.

Absolution. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them (John 20:23), said by the risen Christ to the apostles.

Marriage. Instituted at creation, confirmed by Christ as indissoluble, and called by Paul a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church.

Every one of those is in the New Testament. None was invented in the Middle Ages. What was invented in the Middle Ages was the decision to count them and stop at seven.

On accumulating power, the historical grievance is real and should not be waved away - sacraments have been withheld, sold and used as leverage, and the Reformation was reacting to something. But look at what the traditions themselves have built in against it. Anyone at all, including an unbeliever, may baptise validly in an emergency. In Western theology the couple confer marriage on one another, with the priest as witness. Augustine's ex opere operato, so often cited as the height of clericalism, exists precisely to tell ordinary Christians that they need not assess the priest's holiness before trusting what God has given.

And the closing question, which is the one worth leaving with them. If baptism and the Supper convey nothing and merely picture what has already happened, why did Christ command them at all, and why does Paul say people were dying for misunderstanding one of them? The moment you allow that those two do something, you have accepted the sacramental principle. After that, the argument is only about how many - which is a smaller and much more interesting conversation.

Memory work

Turn each card over, then say honestly whether you knew it. Cards you miss come back sooner.

I have worked through this section