Truth We Can Touch: How Baptism and Communion Shape Our Lives
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Many Christians often feel confused about the sacraments of baptism and Communion. What is happening when someone goes down into the water in baptism? What’s the significance of eating bread and wine together as a church on Sunday mornings? In this book, Tim Chester makes a compelling case that God has given us truth we can touch for a reason: the sacraments embody the promises, grace, and presence of Christ. He looks throughout the Bible to explain how the sacraments are intended to actually shape Christians’ lives by giving us physical bread, wine, and water we can point to as an expression of our union with Christ. The aim is to help readers treasure baptism and Communion and approach them rightly so churches can receive the full benefit God intends them to physically bring us.
- Helps readers understand and enjoy baptism and the Lord’s Supper
- Explores biblical passages to explain how the sacraments are intended to shape Christians’ lives
- Addresses the primary theological focus of baptism
- Introduction: Why Water, Bread and Wine?
- Enacted Promise
- Enacted Grace
- Enacted Presence
- Enacted Memory
- A Baptized Life
- A Baptized People
- Conclusion: Re-Enchanting the World
Top Highlights
“The gospel is God’s promise. It’s the promise that the death and resurrection of Jesus have dealt with the problem of sin and judgment—if we put our faith in Jesus. Baptism is that promise in physical form. Marcus Peter Johnson puts it this way: ‘Baptism is not something other than the gospel, it is the gospel in three-dimensional form, the experience and assurance of which we live for the rest of our lives.’1 Baptism is God’s promise that we have been saved ‘through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’ (v. 21).” (Page 29)
“Likewise, baptism through water makes someone a Christian only when someone responds with faith to the promises embodied in baptism, and only in the context of a baptismal ceremony conducted by the church. In that wider context we can appropriately say that baptism saves you, especially if you remember that being baptized was the way people responded to the gospel in the apostolic era.” (Page 30)
“Gentiles had not been part of the nation that had passed through the waters of the Sea with Moses, nor through the waters of the river with Joshua. So they had to pass symbolically through water to join God’s people—a kind of accelerated catch-up.” (Pages 25–26)
“So God in his kindness, knowing how frail we are, knowing how battered by life we can be, has put in place memorials—including water, bread, and wine—so we never need feel forgotten by him. We are reminded that he remembers.” (Page 119)
“Today, the communion hardly features as a matter of significance. It is seen as an optional extra” (Page 20)
In this delightful book, Chester reminds us that baptism and Communion are God’s gifts to us that convey the gospel and grace in powerful ways. As a Baptist I would put some things differently, but I celebrate and rejoice in the main thesis set forth by Chester. Baptism and Communion are central in the New Testament, and something is wrong if they are neglected or ignored by us. Take up and read and be instructed, challenged, and—most of all—encouraged by the gospel, which is displayed so beautifully in baptism and the Eucharist.
—Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
The sacraments are integral to the history of redemption, yet the evangelical church has tragically neglected them as secondary and nonessential. Tim Chester sets baptism and the Lord’s Supper vividly in their biblical and historical contexts. Superbly written, easily accessible to a wide readership, rooted in Scripture and the theology of the Reformation, this book can be a catalyst for widespread recovery of the supreme blessing God gives through his appointed signs.
—Robert Letham, Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Union School of Theology
In Truth We Can Touch, Tim Chester makes a compelling case for evangelicals to recover an understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as God’s promise that comes to us in physical form. Deeply biblical and yet eminently practical, this book provides an alternative to a theology of the word limited to our heads. God’s word in Christ comes to us not only in preaching but also in baptism and at the table. As embodied creatures, we embrace God’s promises in touch and taste, with delight and praise. This accessible and winsome book is a joy!
—J. Todd Billings, Gordon H. Girod Research Professor of Reformed Theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan
- Title: Truth We Can Touch: How Baptism and Communion Shape Our Lives
- Author: Tim Chester
- Publisher: Crossway
- Publication Date: 2020
- Pages: 176
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Sacraments
Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is a faculty member of Crosslands and a pastor with Grace Church, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire. He is an author or coauthor of over forty books, including A Meal with Jesus; Reforming Joy; and, with Michael Reeves, Why the Reformation Still Matters.