A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, Sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Let us start with a definition. The means of grace are instruments that God uses to communicate his grace to us. That means that it is the ordinary way we come into contact with salvation in Christ to begin with, but then afterwards, the Holy Spirit builds our faith through these means; and our catechism answer lists the main examples: the Word, sacrament, and prayer, though one could be more exhaustive in adding elements such as singing praises to God, our confession of sin, church discipline, and service to each other, etc. But here, the main ones are in view—those that the Scripture most explicitly puts front and center. 

When one does these things corporately, it is in keeping with the statement of Jesus:

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Mat. 10:32-33).

Confessing Christ is more than doing so in one’s local church, but it is not less. This is the bare minimum. But you can’t argue the maximum against the minimum! You can’t say, “Oh, it’s easy for you confessional churches to huddle together and yet not go out and do this or that in the world!” if you will not even do the same in the first few baby steps. 

The Matter of the Means of Grace

Two words are used here that point to what is naturally unimpressive—OUTWARD and ORDINARY. One of the common criticisms that modern experientialist groups will make of older church traditions is the charge of formalism. “We ought to expect the same extraordinary things present in the book of Acts.” Now I will grant that the Holy Spirit certainly did continued to perform miracles through the Apostles as Christ Himself had done. But leaving aside the unique place that miracles had in establishing the church, one of the most striking things about the book of Acts is its descriptions of what the Christians (including the Apostles) themselves did. With the exception of waiting at Pentecost for the initial promise, you won’t find them doing the extraordinary in order to bring down the Spirit; but rather a handful of very outward and ordinary things. So Luke wraps up that chapter recounting Pentecost by taking a view of the day to day life that began to emerge:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers … And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42, 46-47).

Note that God conitnued to do the extraordinary—through ordinary means. God added to their number—the first Christians taught and learned, fellowshiped, broke bread, and prayed. 

It is important to note that the “matter” of these means does not transfer the power of efficient causality to nature. The Holy Spirit makes these things, in a secondary sense, holy. God did that with ground in Exodus 3 and with utensils in the Tabernacle, and so the idea of Him doing so with human propositions and ink and pages and a preacher’s voice and bread and wine and the kneeling and bowed heads in prayer—this idea ought to already be familiar to us. Beyond that, as Shedd writes, “The means of grace are means of sanctification. They suppose the existence of the principle of divine life in the soul.”1

But again, it starts with being saved to begin with. Paul says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). We have emphasized the effectual call of the Spirit, but He uses soundwaves and ink patterns—physical phenomena—in the gospel call. So in that same context we read, 

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15)

The same instrumentality is in view here: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth” (Jas. 1:18).

Usually the material cause of a thing is the nature of the thing being changed. So the nature of marble is the material cause of a sculpture; and so the renewed human nature is the material cause in sanctification. So when Peter says, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18), this assumes, first of all, that grace can grow in us; but then also, secondly, that we who are being changed are also a change agent. So Paul says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for ihis good pleasure” (Phi. 2:12-13). 

The Form of the Means of Grace

That these main means are given to the church is God’s design. And it is a design that cannot fail, as it comes both with Christ’s promise and His presence:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20).

Note that in the Great Commission, the baptizing and teaching are the means by which disciples are made. To put it another way, these are the form of discipleship and so, because these are the same as those added to the kingdom, these are forms of grace saving souls. 

A crucial idea here is that of the nourishment of souls. Peter compares the word to milk in this sense: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2-3). Heidelberg Catechism, Question 65 asks: “Since, then, faith alone makes us share in Christ and all his blessings, where does that faith come from?” Answer: The Holy Spirit creates it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.” Note the words SHARE and CREATES and CONFIRMS. These are actions. These are things happening. One lesser known Puritan commentator, John Trapp, said: “Means must be neither trusted nor neglected.” And Calvin added that, “God is not bound by them; but we are.”2

The Confession uses the language that runs contrary to the independent mindset of modern Evangelicalism: 

“The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law) consists of all those, throughout the world, that profess the true religion, and of their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”3

This carries on a teaching that orthodox theologians have always found to be true from Scripture, in the famous works of Cyprian: Extra ecclesiam nulla sallus—“Outside of the church there is no salvation.”4 Or, to put it in Augustine’s practical language, “Whoever is without the Church will not be reckoned among the sons, and whoever does not want to have the Church as mother will not have God as Father.”5 This may be figurative language, but it is a figure that the Bible itself uses: “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26).

Calvin and Turretin each echoed this same idea, but further unpacked it so as to settle the suspicions that might naturally arise from those who would swing the pendulum away from Roman tyranny to libertinism. For the sake of time, I will cite only Calvin here.

“There is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, [and] nourish us at her breast....[A]way from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation.”6

In his Commentary on that Galatians 4:26 passage, Calvin said this: 

“The heavenly Jerusalem, which derives its origin from heaven and dwells above by faith, is the mother of believers. For she has the incorruptible seed of life deposited in her by which she forms us, cherishes us in her womb and brings us to light. She has the milk and the food by which she continually nourishes her offspring. This is why the Church is called the mother of believers. And certainly, he who refuses to be a son of the Church desires in vain to have God as his Father. For it is only through the ministry of the Church that God begets sons for Himself and brings them up until they pass through adolescence and reach manhood. This is a title of wonderful and the highest honor.”7 

Paul’s own rational was that the church is made steward of the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15, 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:14), guarding its deposit and channelling its purity in forms that will strike the soul with a clarity that would otherwise be diluted. Perhaps we have all had the experience of sitting under a master of some subject, or else being in a study-group with others who are all incentivized to achieve the same goal of mastering the subject. Both of those conditions—mastery and community—are forms that exist in the church in a unique way. 

The Effectual Communication of Grace

If these are indeed God’s means, then they work. So even if you are not sure about all that is meant by EFFECTUAL, start with that. And as I have already mentioned, this starts with the beginning of salvation itself. Peter says, “It shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). Now this calling is a means. It is understood to be prayer, but obviously it is presupposed that there is some initial belief in the gospel, such as we have already seen is caused by the Spirit. Nonetheless, these passages teach that calling on the name of the Lord is made effecacious. To cite another example, the object that one holds in their hands in communion and tastes is called “the cup of blessing” (1 Cor. 10:16).

Objection 1. This sounds Roman Catholic!

Reply to Obj 1. We mean this very differently than Roman Catholics do. For Rome, the Church is the dispenser of grace, and thus a portion the efficient cause and the instrumental cause becomes confused. The church is not the initiator of those means of grace, but rather God the Holy Spirit builds our faith through these. And beyond that, it matters what forms are called “sacraments” to begin with, and what place the word has, and who all is being prayed to and what for. By their particular sacramentalism, Rome actually poisons all the means.

And I would add that most of the catholic tradition before the late Middle Ages did not believe such a strict sacramentalism. For example, as late as the thirteenth century, Bonaventure said, “But material signs, considered in themselves, cannot produce any effect in the order of grace, although by nature they do bear a remote representation of its nature.” And he further says,

“The sacraments are called ‘vessels of grace’ and the ‘cause’ of grace. This is not because grace is substantially contained in them or causally effected by them, for grace dwells only within the soul and is infused by none but God. Rather, it is because God has decreed that we are to draw the grace of our healing from Christ, the supreme Physician in and through these sensible signs.”8

Objection 2. Ah, but you admit there are other means beyond the church!

Reply to Obj 2. It is true that there is a primary sense of God's means of grace, such that there are “means” in a more common sense outside of the church. But it is not God’s design to have anyone settle for those, as if those could work indefinitely in isolation from the church. For instance, the prayers of a parent, or the character example of a Christian co-worker, or good theology books, can all be means of grace in that lesser sense. However there are all kinds of snares of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that these lesser means are frankly no match for—if made into an alternative to God’s design—and which it would be testing God to prefer against the clear testimony of his word.

Now is it possible for God to providentially prevent a Christian from having access to something necessary for a Christian to grow, like the Scriptures or the participation to a local church, and yet still nourish them? Yes, it is possible, though it is not the norm. We can be sure that if and when He does, that He will provide an alternative that he is more than able to work through, such as in Philip being sent to the Eunuch, or any other number of biblical examples. Even in the case of that Eunuch, there was, we are told “the passage of the Scripture that he was reading” (Acts 8:32). So even here, one does not really get away from the idea of the means. In such cases, one can also ask how they might be called of God to obtain those resources for those who are similarly isolated, or to prepare for ministry themselves.

The author of the Heidelberg Catechism, Ursinus, dealt with the very heart of the objection that would minimize either extreme—either God’s spiritual power or else the forms He gives us. So it states the objection: 

“Obj. But it is said that the Holy Ghost and the word produce faith in us, and that the sacraments strengthen it. In what, therefore, do these three differ from each other? 

Ans. They differ very much. 1. The Holy Ghost works and confirms faith in us as the efficient cause, whilst the word and sacraments do this as instrumental causes. 2. The Holy Ghost can also work faith in us independent of the word and the sacraments, whilst these, on the other hand, can effect nothing independent of the Holy Ghost. 3. The Holy Ghost works effectually in whomsoever he dwells, which cannot be said of the word and sacraments.”9

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1. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 809.

2. Trapp and Calvin quoted here by Scott Swain in his Systematic Theology III lectures on Ecclesiology and the Sacraments (2016), 42

3. Westminster Confession of Faith, XXV.2

4. Cyprian, Letter to Jubaianus [Letter LXXII].

5. Augustine, On the Creed: A Sermon to Catechumens, IV.13

6. Calvin, Institutes, IV.1.4.

7. Calvin, Commentaries: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians (Eerdmans, 1974), 87-88.

8. Bonaventure, Breviloquium 6.5

9. Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism,