Ordinance
Term
A rite Christ commanded His church to observe; Baptists commonly use the word for baptism and the Lord's Supper, stressing obedience to Christ's appointment.
Also called: ordinances
What it means
An ordinance is something ordained, appointed by authority. Many Baptist and free churches call baptism and the Lord's Supper ordinances rather than sacraments, to stress that we keep them because Christ commanded them, and to avoid any suggestion that they work automatically.
The 1689 London Baptist Confession calls them "ordinances of positive and sovereign institution, appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in His church to the end of the world". Yet it also teaches that in the Supper believers "spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified", so the word does not by itself mean a church holds a merely memorial view.
The difference between "ordinance" and "sacrament" is often more about emphasis than substance. What matters is what a church teaches happens in them, which the site records under baptism and the Lord's Supper.
In Scripture
Christ commands baptism and teaching His disciples to obey all He commanded, to the end of the age.
Jesus commands His disciples to do this in remembrance of Him.
Paul praises the church for holding to the traditions as he delivered them.
The Supper is to be kept until the Lord comes.
Where it comes up
Confessions: LBCF 1689 28.1; LBCF 1689 28.2
Related terms
SacramentTerm
A holy sign and seal instituted by Christ, in which visible elements represent and confirm to believers the promises of the gospel; Protestants recognize two, baptism and the Lord's Supper.
CredobaptismA view held among orthodox Christians
The teaching that baptism is for those who personally profess repentance and faith in Christ, normally by immersion.
MemorialismA view held among orthodox Christians
The view that the Lord's Supper is chiefly a memorial meal, in which believers remember Christ's death and proclaim it, without any special presence of Christ in the Supper.