When Christ established His Church He provided it with both His teachings and a number of sacred rituals for its guidance. These rituals, sometimes called “sacraments” (from the Latin for “to consecrate”), sometimes called “ordinances” (from the Latin for “to put in order”), move the Christian faith out of the purely intellectual realm and into the embodied physicality of real life since they involve some material element. As such, just as Jesus was the incarnation of God, one could argue that the sacraments/ordinances are the “incarnation” of Jesus’ teaching.
In the medieval period the Western Church defined seven distinct acts as sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, penance, marriage, “Holy Orders” (the act of entering the clergy or para-clergy), and “Last Rites”. However, during the Reformation, many theologians questioned the sacramental status of some of these acts. While all (or at least most) of these practices could be supported biblically, some of them lacked a material component (i.e. penance and Holy Orders) and others were not specifically instituted by Jesus Himself (confirmation, marriage, and possibly Last Rites). As a result the Protestant reformers generally recognized only two rituals of the Church as sacraments/ordinances proper: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
As a second generation Protestant group, the Baptists inherited this more limited view of the sacraments. But at the same time Baptists have historically understood the two ordinances somewhat differently than most other Protestants. Specifically Baptists have embraced a view of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper that is decidedly more rationalistic and less mystical than most of their fellow Protestants.
Baptism
Baptists, like all Christians, view baptism as the definitive rite of initiation into the Christian Church. Like all historical Christians, Baptists believe baptism involves contact with water and the pronouncement of the Trinitarian formula recorded in Matthew 28:19. Additionally, Baptists have made a very serious point of imitating the New Testament practice of Baptism as closely as possible. This entails reserving baptism for only those with conscious faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. As such, Baptists do not baptize babies. Additionally, for most of their history, Baptists have baptized only by immersion, or, more specifically, by submersion—placing the entire body of the one being baptized under water. Again this is seen as an attempt to follow New Testament practice as closely as possible (Romans 6:4).
While there is uniform agreement on the regular method of baptism (believers, by submersion), a diversity of views exist regarding the question of whether rites called baptism which do not meet this standard may be considered valid—albeit irregular—baptisms. For instance, is the baptism of a five year-old child by submersion valid? Is the baptism of a believer by infusion (pouring) valid? On these issues Baptists disagree.
The Lord’s Supper
Baptists, like all Christians, view the Lord’s Supper as a repeated rite of Christian discipleship. Like all historical Christians, Baptists believe the Lord’s Supper involves the consumption of bread and the juice of grapes.
Interestingly though, while Baptists have been firmly committed to practicing baptism in strict accordance with the New Testament model, the same cannot be said regarding the Lord’s Supper. Whereas it appears that the Lord’s Supper was a part of normal weekly worship of the first Christians, many Baptist churches partake of the rite monthly and some churches do so only quarterly. Also, while the New Testament makes it clear that the Lord’s Supper was instituted using actual alcoholic wine (1 Cor. 11:21), beginning in the 19th century many Baptists in the United States began substituting non-alcoholic juice for the wine and most Baptist churches in North America have followed this tradition ever since.
As for the significance of the meal, most Baptists embrace what can be called a Memorialist or Zwinglian (after the Swiss reformer, Huldrick Zwingli) view: the meal is symbolic of Christ’s body and draws our attention to His death and coming return. It may be said that, in the Lord’s Supper, a real change takes place, but it takes place in the mind of the worshipper and not in the physical elements of the rite.