(Original posting 12/19/2015) Mere symbols. That’s how a Baptist might typically describe baptism and the Lord’s Supper. However, reading the New Testament one would get the impression that these are something more than that. For their first two hundred years, Baptists thought of these ordinances as more than symbolic. Perhaps they were onto something? Here’s a paper I presented for Baptist Heritage this summer (2015) arguing that what Baptists call ‘ordinances’ are not mere symbols, but, ‘mighty signs’.
