Sacraments necessary?

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John 6:28-29 says

“Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Jesus also said in John 15:15

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

I understand Jesus advocates the Sacraments.

And even said Eucharist and being “born again of water and the Spirit” (baptism) are seemingly necessary. But why did He not tell us straight up “The sacraments are necessary for salvation. “ if they are.

Also what about Confirmation to be a part of the Church? Is this biblical? And why did Jesus never say “confess your sins to a priest” He only said “confess your sins to one another” which could be interpreted as to confess to other lay people. He gave the apostles the right to forgive sins but didn’t say if someone confessed straight to God and not a priest they aren’t forgiven? Are the Sacraments actually necessary for salvation? Because Catholics also hold that Protestants are “separated” brothers and sisters, but still in Christ? And they may not have done all of the Sacraments?
 
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Yes, Jesus said that sacraments are necessary, He commanded us to eat His body and blood.

Yes, He said that baptism is required, and commanded the apostles to go out to all the world and baptize.

Perhaps you need to limit your thread to a question or two, rather than a basketful of them.

Deacon Christopher
 
Jesus may have specifically said, “ The sacraments are necessary for salvation. “ We don’t know because even Scripture tells us that not everything He said and did were recorded. But either way the Church was given the faith, and the way to practice it, at the beginning. The sacraments are just simple physical means of living out the life of grace, of experiencing critical spiritual truths and acting on them.

Jesus told us we must be Baptized in order to become just and enter life; Jesus told us we must remain in Him and He in us, that we must partake of Him, to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood in order to nurture and keep that life. And that we can lose that state of justice or righteousness by turning away from Him again, returning to a life of sin, living in the flesh, in which case we must have a change of heart and repent, confess, and be reconciled. We can break communion with God IOW such that we need to be reconciled before any meaningful and authentic communion can take place again.

Correct Christian theology is “concretized” in these sacraments so to speak, such that the simplest and most illiterate people down through the centuries could know God’s will in the most basic ways, and live it out.
 
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230. For what reason are the sacraments necessary for salvation?
1129
For believers in Christ the sacraments, even if they are not all given to each of the faithful, are necessary for salvation because they confer sacramental grace, forgiveness of sins, adoption as children of God, conformation to Christ the Lord and membership in the Church. The Holy Spirit heals and transforms those who receive the sacraments.
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Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html#top
 
_jesus_is_god said:
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Catechism
1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.
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So God has an opinion on what’s necessary for Salvation:

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

1 John 5:12-13 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

Romans 10:9-10 If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord ,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved . For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

The two sacraments shared in the NT have value in the church, but there is no biblical mention of a sacrament requirement for Salvation.
 
The word “sacrament” is just a name. Baptism is washing, cleansing, dying and rebirthing, formally and publicly professing ones faith in the manner that He modeled and commanded. His command to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood is all about the completely gratuitous gift of partaking of Him, of communing with God as is the right order of things for man-and then also of refraining by acknowledging our separation from Him if we’ve returned to sin in some grave manner. Basic, true, solid, Christian teaching in a form that lays it down for all to observe and live out to the extent that they’re willing. No need to be a bible scholar or armchair theologian. Most believers down through the centuries were illiterate for that matter. And it’s never been about faith, alone, anyway, even though all sacraments involve and express faith, if they’re to have any value for the receiver:

"Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." Rom 8:12-13

“If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’and ‘love your neighbor as yourself." Matt 19:17-19

"But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matt 6:15

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." Rom 2:7
 
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Thanks, I’m guessing you’re agreeing that the Sacraments are not needed for Salvation.

What I’m not clear on is your comment “His command to eat of His flesh and drink His blood”. That passage wasn’t literal. One place that confirms that is the Levitical laws of the time…

Loved your passages… just wasn’t sure what the relevance was to salvation… Keep in mind Scripture can’t contradict… so finding the exegesis for those will show the author’s intent…
 
“Do this” (eat My Body, drink My Blood) at the last supper is a command. Not forgetting here John 6.

The laying on of hands:
Acts 8:17
Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit .
Acts 19:6
And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
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Appears to be rather biblical- even if one lives solely by the book.
 
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Christianapologist said:
“His command to eat of His flesh and drink His blood”. That passage wasn’t literal. One place that confirms that is the Levitical laws of the time…
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Then why did many of His followers leave? And He let them leave, He did not say “Look, I am not being literal!”

Also 1 Peter 3:21 is pretty clear.
 
Christianapologist said:
so finding the exegesis for those will show the author’s intent…
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Yes, that is a worthy and valuable goal-and one which is very often elusive even with theological and biblical language backgrounds, etc, which is why erudite scholars often disagree over these matters. Without an actual lived experience or history that connects us back to those times we cannot always know the intent as Scripture can be vague- or seemingly even ambiguous or contradictory at times… As it is the eastern and western ancient churches have no squabble with anyone over the meaning of Jesus’s words in John chap 6, no controversy to bother settling whereas Protestants and other Sola Scriptura adherents sometimes disagree with each other over those passages-and of the related doctrine sometimes known as the Real Presence.

Anyway, I was describing, for all practical purposes, the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist in the first paragraph of my last post. And then in the rest of the post I was emphasizing that God is already expecting more from us than mere faith alone to begin with.
 
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If you look at the context, eating flesh in John 6 was never meant to be literal…
  1. Jesus later explains he was talking “figuratively”… John 16:25
  2. Jesus was standing right their… they obviously cannot eat His flesh.
  3. Everyone at the last Supper was aware of the Levitical law forbidding eating flesh…
  4. Jesus three times identifies Himself as that spiritual bread [John 6:35]. And twice He emphasizes faith (a spiritual action) as the key to salvation.
 
Are those the only Sacraments, you want to know about? You mentioned 2, I believe there are a total of 7. Dont you want to know if the other 5 are also biblical?
 
Jesus uses several “crowd thinners” in Scripture. He knew those who wanted Spiritual food, and those who wanted something else… Only those who genuinely want to follow and obey Jesus remain…

And …
If you look at the context, eating flesh in John 6 was never meant to be literal…
  1. Jesus later explains he was talking “figuratively”… John 16:25
  2. Jesus was standing right their… they obviously cannot eat His flesh.
  3. Everyone at the last Supper was aware of the Levitical law forbidding eating flesh…
  4. Jesus three times identifies Himself as that spiritual bread [John 6:35]. And twice He emphasizes faith (a spiritual action) as the key to salvation.
 
Good thoughts, and I actually agree with you on the elusive meanings within some biblical interpretation.

What is clear, is that God wants us to have the meaning of each passage… (2 Timothy 3:14–17) Some are easy to understand and others take some work: historical reference, literary type, cultural background, close context, broad context, Greek word study… etc… And the greatest aid to understanding Scripture is Scripture itself… One proof of that is looking at the hundreds of prophesies explained later in the NT.

Thanks also for your mention of Baptism and the Eucharist… but neither are a requirement for Salvation. God’s expectation is that we certainly need to be “born again”, but not by physical water, i.e. Abraham, the thief on the left, and those in the Hebrew’s “hall of faith”, and on and on… By grace, through faith, through Christ are we saved… Romans 3: 27-30
 
The debate over the number of sacraments has been long standing… The question is, does “God say” we need to participate in the sacraments to be saved… Roman’s 10: 9-10, or even John 3:16 would easily dismiss that. Scripture overtly explains that Grace, through faith, through Jesus Christ is the path to Salvation.
 
Well, so much for Sola Scriptura. There’re many who share your allegiance to and dependence on the doctrine who would disagree with you, about Baptism, for one. But maybe you have sort of gift. Infallibility? You seem to be quite sure of yourself anyway. :roll_eyes: 😊
 
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16:25 in figurative language. The word means “veiled, pointed statement” that is pregnant with meaning, i.e., something that is obscure. What seemed hard to understand for the disciples during the life of Jesus would become clear after His death, resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit (see vv. [13], [14]; [14:26]; [15:26], [27]. They would actually understand the ministry of Christ better than they had while they were with Him, as the Spirit inspired them to write the Gospels and Epistles and ministered in and through them.
 
You know, that would have been a great spot to show how God intended the sacraments were needed for salvation… don’t you think…? But instead…
 
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