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Baptism and the seven sacraments

Does baptism save and should babies receive it, and are there seven sacraments or two?

The passage it turns on

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls.

Acts 2:37-41In context. Pentecost, after Peter’s sermon: the crowd asks what to do; Peter says repent and be baptised ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ and receive the Spirit, and about three thousand are baptised.

Peter answers “what shall we do?” with baptism “for the forgiveness of sins” and says the promise is for their children: forgiveness through baptism, offered to whole families. Lutherans, Anglicans and the Reformed read it with Catholics on this point.

The ones baptised are those who received the word, after repenting; faith comes first and baptism seals it. “Your children” is followed by “all who are far off, as many as the Lord calls”, which is about reach, not infants. Baptists read it so; the Reformed say the covenant always included children.

Press a reading to put the lamp behind the words that side leans on. The passage does not change.

What each side holds

Catholics count seven sacraments instituted by Christ (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, marriage) and hold that they give grace by the rite itself when received without obstacle. Protestants keep two, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as the only ones Christ commanded with a visible sign, and divide among themselves on what baptism does and to whom it is given.

This is the page where the Protestant side is least one voice: Lutherans and Anglicans baptise infants and speak of regeneration; the Reformed baptise infants as children of the covenant; Baptists baptise only those who profess faith. Each is given its own say below.

The points people make

Does baptism save?

Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.

1 Peter 3:18-22In context. Peter on Noah’s flood as a picture: eight were saved through water, and baptism, ‘not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God’, now saves through Christ’s resurrection.

Scripture states it. Peter writes of “baptism, which now saves you”, and says at once what saves: “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. Scripture states that baptism saves in that sense. How much the washing and the faith that answers God each carry is where the sides differ.

The Catholic reading

Jesus says one must be born of water and Spirit, Paul calls salvation a washing of regeneration, and Peter writes “baptism now saves you”. Baptism is where the new birth happens, by Christ’s power not the water’s, and the Church has read it so since the second century.

“By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1263

The Protestant reading

Peter adds at once that it is not the washing of the body but the appeal of a good conscience; the saving thing is Christ’s resurrection, held by faith. The thief was saved unbaptised and Cornelius received the Spirit before baptism. Lutherans and Anglicans say baptism truly gives what it signifies, to faith; Baptists say it pictures what faith has received.

“It is not the water indeed that does them, but the word of God which is in and with the water,”

Luther, Small Catechism, on Baptism, 1529

Baptising babies

He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house. He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household. He brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his household, having believed in God.

Acts 16:29-34In context. The Philippian jailer, after the earthquake: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus’; he and all his household hear the word and are baptised the same night.

Scripture is silent on it. Scripture shows whole households baptised and never names an infant. It is silent on baptising babies, which is why Christians on both sides still differ.

The Catholic reading

Whole households were baptised in Acts, children were brought to Jesus, and circumcision, given to eight-day-old boys, is set beside baptism in Colossians 2. Infant baptism is attested by the end of the second century; Tertullian advised delaying it, but it was not widely disputed until the sixteenth.

“If Paul meant to exclude infants, he would not have chosen circumcision as a parallel for baptism.”

Catholic Answers, Infant Baptism, 2023

The Protestant reading

Reformed Protestants baptise infants for exactly those reasons. Baptists answer that every baptism the New Testament describes follows a profession, that no household text names an infant, and that Crispus “believed in the Lord with all his house” (Acts 18:8). Both sides are reading silence.

“If children, why not grandchildren?”

Gavin Ortlund, Themelios, against infant baptism, 2020

Grace by the rite itself

in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Colossians 2:11-12In context. Paul to the Colossians: believers were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, buried with Christ in baptism and raised ‘through faith in the working of God’.

Scripture is silent on it. Paul says believers were buried with Christ in baptism, “in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God”. Scripture joins the rite and faith; it is silent on grace given by the rite apart from faith.

The Catholic reading

A sacrament works by Christ’s act, not the minister’s holiness or the recipient’s feelings, which is why a baptism by a bad priest is still a baptism, and why Protestants, too, do not rebaptise. Grace is offered objectively; what is received depends on the heart’s openness.

“God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1257

The Protestant reading

Protestants agree a sacrament’s validity does not rest on the minister. They deny that a rite confers grace apart from faith; the word and the Spirit give grace, and the sign seals it to believers. Trent’s “by the work performed” sounded to them like grace on tap.

“grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it”

Westminster Confession 28.5, 1646

Seven sacraments or two

Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly; because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the assembly. Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:28-33In context. Paul to husbands and wives: a man is to love his wife as his own body; Genesis 2:24 is quoted and Paul says ‘this mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly’. The Latin Bible’s word for ‘mystery’ here is sacramentum.

Scripture is silent on it. Scripture does not count sacraments. Seven and two are both definitions brought to it.

The Catholic reading

Christ instituted all seven in substance: he breathed the Spirit for forgiveness, sent the disciples to anoint the sick, laid hands on, raised marriage to a covenant, and the apostles laid on hands for the Spirit and for office. The number was fixed in the twelfth century; the practices are apostolic.

“has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1601, on marriage

The Protestant reading

Only baptism and the Supper have a command of Christ joined to a visible sign and a gospel promise. Marriage is good and older than the Church; anointing and laying on of hands are real but not sacraments in that sense. Augustine himself used the word for far more than seven things.

“There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, baptism, and the Supper of the Lord:”

Westminster Confession 27.4, 1646

Anointing the sick

Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

James 5:14-15In context. James: the sick are to call the elders, who pray and anoint with oil in the Lord’s name; the prayer of faith will heal, and sins will be forgiven.

Scripture states it. James says the sick should call the elders to pray over them and anoint them with oil, for healing and forgiveness: “the Lord will raise him up”. Both sides have the command.

The Catholic reading

James commands exactly what the sacrament does: elders, oil, prayer in the Lord’s name, healing and forgiveness. The Church did this for the dying for centuries as extreme unction and, since Vatican II, again for anyone seriously ill.

“However, the apostolic Church has its own rite for the sick, attested to by St. James:”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1510

The Protestant reading

Protestants have often neglected this command, and many now practise it. They read it as the church’s prayer for the sick with oil, as James says, without an ordained priest being required, and without it being a channel of grace distinct from the prayer of faith.

Watch

One talk from each side, chosen for making its own case well. Each loads from YouTube only when you press play.

The Counsel of Trent. 30 min. Trent Horn’s case for infant baptism, in reply to Gavin Ortlund. Open on YouTube
Gavin Ortlund. 59 min. Gavin Ortlund, a Baptist, on how infant baptism began; Lutheran and Reformed Protestants baptise infants and would answer him differently. Open on YouTube

Sources on this page

Every quotation above, with the page it comes from and the day it was read. Primary documents first where a side has one.