How You Can Know What You Are Getting - The Validity and Efficaciousness of the Means of Grace

It’s in Membership Classes or in our Confirmation classes -- our adult Discover 101 Class, or our “in school” confirmation classes -- that numerous questions arise regarding our practice of close communion.  It goes further when the questioning steers toward our members attendance at other churches. 

“Should I commune there if the church doesn’t believe the same things we do?”

The questioning continues like this, “And if they don’t believe like we do, Pastor Maier, why can’t we still commune there with our ___________ (you fill in the blank with friends, relatives, neighbors, etc.)?  I mean, I know what I believe, even if they’re mistaken.  I can still take it for my forgiveness.”

My short answer is, “You can’t put medicine in a placebo.”

Then I get to explain.  Almost always I begin teaching about the validity and efficaciousness of the means of grace, and how and when they are effective.  Although 'big' words, they are concepts that can be understood.  In other words, “they teach.” 

I was privileged (long ago it seems now) to sit in a number of classes with the now sainted Dr. Howard Tepker (1911-1998).  In one particular class, The Church and Christian Hope, in my fourth year (1982) at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, I began to wrap my own understanding more completely around the answer to the above question.

In that class Dr. Tepker shared a marvelous handout entitled, The Validity and Efficaciousness of the Means of Grace.  It is a handout that I retyped years ago (so although not an ‘autograph’ or ‘original’ … it is very close, I’m sure) and have handed out quite often. I have included it below because I have been asked for it again.

I hope your reading of it encourages you to know where, with certainty, you will find and receive God’s grace freely given through His means of grace.

THE VALIDITY AND EFFICACIOUSNESS OF THE MEANS OF GRACE

1.    A definition of terms.  A sacrament is valid when it is a true and genuine means of grace.  It is efficacious in the sense that it possesses, through the Holy Spirit, the power to turn the hearts of men to God in faith.  A sacrament is effective when it accomplishes the God-intended results, its benefits being received by faith.

2.    The validity and efficaciousness of the means of grace are derived first and foremost from the fact that God is gracious to the sinner for the sake of Jesus Christ who suffered and died for the world upon the cross.  Without Calvary there could be no valid means of grace.  (2 Corinthians 5:18-19; Luke 24:46ff.)

3.    The validity of the means of grace is derived from the fact that Christ specifically instituted the sacraments as means by and through which He bestows His grace upon us.  If Christ had not commanded us to baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and if He had not promised us His grace through these means, then these acts would be neither valid nor efficacious.  (Mark 16:15ff.; Matthew 28:19; Luke 22:15-20)

4.    The validity and efficaciousness of the means of grace are derived from the fact that God’s Holy Spirit accompanies the use of these means thus giving them the power to turn the hearts of the sinner to God in repentance and faith, and working in them the desire and the ability to serve God with their lives.  (Romans 1:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; Titus 3:5)

5.    The validity and efficaciousness of the means of grace depend upon whether they are administered as Christ instituted them.  If other elements are substituted for the water of Baptism, or for the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, this renders the sacraments uncertain and perhaps invalid.  If the meaning of the words of institution is changed so that the words are understood to mean something different from what Jesus said, then the sacraments are rendered uncertain.  It is then doubtful whether they are indeed sacraments at all.

6.    The meaning which a church body gives to the words of institution is determined by its public profession or confession.  A pastor may use the words of institution at the altar as they are found in the Bible, but if the church’s public profession explains these words in a way which is different from the clear words of Scripture, then that sacrament is uncertain and in all probability invalid.  On the other hand, if a church body in its public profession declares its belief in the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament, then neither the unbelief of a pastor nor of the communicant can invalidate it.  Thus we believe in the objectivity of the means of grace.  (1 Corinthians 10:14-17)

7.    Christ gave to His church on earth the task to administer the sacrament.
A baptism performed by an anti-trinitarian church or by a religious body which denies Christ is not a true baptism.  This implies that when adults enter our confirmation classes wanting to join our church, if they were baptized in an anti-trinitarian church, their baptism is not valid.  They must be give Christian baptism.

Whether or not a church is to be regarded as Christian is determined by its public profession of faith.  This is not always the same as its traditional confessional writings.  Often its faith is determined by its constitution in which there is often the most current statement of its official doctrinal stance.

8.    A baptism performed by a Christian church (that is, a church which publicly professes faith in the Triune God) is considered by us to be a valid baptism, provided, of course, that it does not change the meaning of the word of institution.

We accept the baptism of other Christian denominations even though they may not believe that baptism washes away sin since the words of institution require only that baptism be performed in the name of the Triune God.  (Matthew 28:19)

However, church bodies which deny the saving benefits of the sacrament of baptism do not receive from it the forgiveness of sins, even though they may have a true and valid baptism.  In other words, such baptisms are valid (and efficacious) but not effective.  Therefore, when adults who have been baptized in other Christian churches come to us, we should accept their Trinitarian baptism, but we should then also instruct these adults and lead them to receive by faith the forgiveness being offered in the sacrament.

9.    The ordination of the pastor does not affect the validity of the sacraments which he administers.  But this does not mean that a non-ordained man has the authority to administer the sacraments in a Christian congregation.

The authority to administer the sacrament in the church is derived from the call by the congregation.  Ordinarily an individual may perform a baptism or administer the Lord’s Supper only when he has been called by a congregation to do so.  (See Smalcald Articles, Of the Power, 24, p. 511 in the Triglot; also 69, p. 523.)

Bibliography

    Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, III, pp. 262; 365-373; 440-443.

    Abiding Word, II, pp. 371-379; 450-451.

    Edward Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, pp. 198-199; 255-256.

    John H. C. Fritz, Pastoral Theology, pp. 105ff.; 107-108; 145-146.