Written by Dr. Kiefer Likens, Th.D.
Let’s cut the fog. Literally. The modern church is addicted to spectacle. Lights. Lasers. LED walls. Worship sets that look like a Coldplay concert. And yet somehow, amidst the haze and the hype, the church has never felt more spiritually thin.
Why? Because somewhere along the way, we traded the means of grace for the means of emotion. We started chasing spiritual fireworks instead of submitting to God’s appointed tools.
But God has always been clear: He works through ordinary things—preaching, sacraments, and prayer. Nothing flashy. Nothing market-tested. Just His Word, rightly preached. His ordinances, rightly administered. And His people, rightly humbled.
So what are the means of grace?
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q88:
“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 that sink in. God uses means. Instruments. Tools. Not because He has to—but because He delights to. He condescends to work through weak vessels to pour out strong grace.
This blog is a tour through the biblical theology of the means of grace—and a brutal critique of how various traditions have either hijacked them, hollowed them, or hyper-emotionalized them. We’ll look at:
And yes, we’re going to name names. Because God’s glory is at stake. And because how you believe grace is delivered affects everything else you believe about God, worship, and assurance.
So buckle up. Toss out the fog machine. Let’s return to the means God actually promised to use. And let’s recover the beauty of God meeting His people through ordinary, extraordinary grace.
If the gospel is a feast, Rome turned it into a franchise. Welcome to the world of seven sacraments, priestly gatekeeping, and grace dispensed like soda from a machine—just insert your ritual, and out pops salvation.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that grace is communicated ex opere operato—“by the work worked.” In other words, the sacraments confer grace by simply being performed, regardless of the faith of the one receiving them. The priest does his bit, and boom: grace.
Let’s break down their sevenfold menu:
Sounds comprehensive, right? Problem is, it’s a graceless system dressed in piety.
Let’s be blunt: the Roman Catholic sacramental view turns Christ into a divine pharmacist, and the priest into His front-desk clerk. You need your sin forgiven? Get your prescription filled at the confessional. Want to be right with God? Take the Eucharist. Want to avoid purgatory? Better rack up those indulgences and prayers to Mary.
Where in the New Testament is any of this modeled? Where is penance prescribed as a pathway to restore grace lost by mortal sin? Where is the Mass described as a perpetual, unbloody re-sacrifice of Christ?
Hebrews 10:14 puts the entire Roman system on trial:
“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Single. Offering. Perfected. For all time. No repetition. No priestly theatrics. No re-crucifixion. Just one cross, one Savior, one finished work.
The Roman system doesn’t clarify grace—it obscures it. It doesn’t assure—it manipulates. And it doesn’t exalt Christ—it puts Him behind the veil again, hidden beneath layers of Latin, liturgy, and law.
By requiring the sacraments for salvation, the Church of Rome denies the sufficiency of Christ’s once-for-all work. It denies sola fide by making grace contingent upon participation. It denies sola scriptura by erecting a mountain of tradition alongside the Bible. And it ultimately denies assurance, because you can never be sure you’ve done enough, confessed enough, or received enough.
Rome built a kingdom of rituals where grace is controlled, dispensed, and revoked—like heavenly tokens at a theological Chuck E. Cheese. But the gospel is not a vending machine. It’s a proclamation.
“It is finished.” (John 19:30)
There’s your means of grace: the cross. The Word. The Spirit. Not wafers turned into flesh. Not priests in golden robes.
In contrast, the Reformed view affirms that the sacraments are signs and seals—not sources—of grace. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper don’t infuse grace; they point to the One who does. They nourish the faith God has already granted—not manufacture it through ritual.
So if you’re stuck in the Roman system, endlessly cycling through confession and communion like a hamster on a wheel, hear this: Christ is not re-sacrificed. He is reigning. His grace is not administered in doses. It is poured out in full.
And the means He chose to deliver it? Preaching. Water. Bread. Wine. Prayer. The Word.
Ordinary things.
Extraordinary grace.
Next stop: the Eastern Orthodox labyrinth of mystery and icons.
If Roman Catholicism built a sacramental machine, Eastern Orthodoxy built a fog-drenched cathedral where mystery reigns supreme and clarity is considered a Western neurosis.
The Orthodox Church doesn’t so much define the means of grace as it immerses you in them—icons, incense, chant, liturgy, fasting cycles, and sacramental acts layered in tradition. There’s beauty, yes. Aesthetic wonder, yes. And enough mystery to make a Gnostic jealous.
The Orthodox view includes the same seven sacraments as Rome, though they call them Holy Mysteries and refuse to tie them down with technical definitions. In fact, if you try to pin down Orthodoxy too precisely, it tends to slip through your fingers like censer smoke.
What’s their claim? That through these Mysteries—especially the Divine Liturgy—the faithful participate in the divine energies of God. They would never say you become God in essence, but you are being divinized (theosis) in a mystical communion with the Triune God.
Sounds rich, right? The problem is this: while the Orthodox view upholds a high view of the church and worship, it tends to leave the gospel itself obscured beneath layers of ritual, symbolism, and silence.
Ask the average Orthodox adherent: How is a sinner made right before a holy God? You’ll likely get a poetic answer about transformation and union—but no clear doctrine of justification by faith alone. Ask for assurance of salvation, and you’ll be told it’s presumptuous. Ask what role Scripture plays, and you’ll be referred to tradition, liturgy, and the Church Fathers.
Scripture, though honored, is not the final authority. The gospel, though proclaimed in symbols, is rarely explained in words. And grace, though everywhere hinted at, becomes something more caught than taught.
This emphasis on mysticism leads to several problems:
Here’s the real issue: Orthodoxy confuses reverence with opacity. Just because something is ancient doesn’t make it accurate. Just because it feels transcendent doesn’t mean it’s the gospel.
Contrast that with Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:2:
“We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”
The means of grace are not supposed to be mysterious mechanisms of transformation hidden in incense and repetition. They are supposed to be clear, public, ordinary: the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, the prayers of the saints.
And yes—God meets His people in worship. But He does so through His Word and by His Spirit—not through a curated aesthetic or a curated theology that mistrusts clarity.
To be clear: Orthodoxy has preserved many beautiful aspects of historic Christianity. Their reverence, their seriousness, and their commitment to liturgical worship should humble many in the West.
But beauty without gospel clarity is just noise in stained glass. And a means of grace that doesn’t drive you to the finished work of Christ is a means of confusion.
God does not whisper grace through mystery. He proclaims it through the cross.
To the untrained eye, Lutheranism might look like Reformed theology’s slightly more liturgical cousin. They preach the Word. They administer the sacraments. They even affirm justification by faith alone. Sounds solid, right?
Well, mostly.
Martin Luther was a firebrand who rightly recovered the gospel from Rome’s iron grip. He nailed the 95 Theses, stood against papal tyranny, and proclaimed that sinners are justified by grace through faith. In many ways, he lit the torch the Reformed carried forward. But when it comes to the means of grace, Lutheranism takes a couple of detours.
First, the good:
All that earns a standing ovation from the Reformed pews.
But now, the twist: Lutherans believe the sacraments actually convey grace—not just as signs and seals, but as instruments that accomplish what they signify, regardless of the recipient’s internal faith.
Lutherans teach that baptism regenerates. Infants, when baptized, are united to Christ, justified, and adopted. In their view, baptism is not just a sign of what God has done—it’s the moment when He actually does it.
This is problematic. Scripture presents faith as the instrument by which we receive justification—not baptism (Rom. 5:1). Baptism is a sign and seal of the righteousness that comes by faith (Rom. 4:11), not a substitute for it.
Yes, Peter says, “Baptism now saves you” (1 Pet. 3:21), but he immediately clarifies: “not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.” In other words, it’s not the water—it’s the faith behind it.
Luther’s attempt to safeguard the objectivity of the gospel ends up assigning to the sacrament a power Scripture never gives it.
Lutherans also differ from both Rome and the Reformed on the Lord’s Supper. They reject transubstantiation (Rome’s view that the bread and wine become Christ’s literal body and blood), but they affirm consubstantiation—that Christ’s body and blood are “in, with, and under” the elements.
In other words, they believe in a real, physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Not symbol. Not spiritual presence. But physical.
The Reformed position, rooted in Scripture and articulated by Calvin, affirms a real spiritual presence—that believers truly feed on Christ, but by faith, through the Holy Spirit, not through chewing.
Jesus said, “This is my body.” Yes—but He also said, “I am the door,” and nobody’s out here sanding splinters off their Savior. The language is covenantal, not chemical.
Lutherans rightly cherish the preached Word and the sacraments as means of grace. But their sacramental theology too easily conflates the sign with the thing signified. In trying to uphold God’s objectivity, they risk downplaying the necessity of personal faith.
The result? Confusion. Assurance rooted in the rite itself, rather than in Christ. A theology that says, “You’re saved because you were baptized,” instead of, “You’re saved because you believe in the Christ to whom your baptism points.”
That’s not a small distinction. That’s the difference between confidence in Christ and confidence in ritual.
So let’s honor Luther for lighting the match. But let’s also thank the Reformers who carried the flame further, refining our understanding of the true means of grace: Word preached, sacraments rightly administered, and faith stirred—not by ritual power, but by the Spirit.
The Anglican View: A Liturgical Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
If Roman Catholicism is a ritual machine, and Eastern Orthodoxy is a haze of mystery, Anglicanism is a beautifully bound book of choose-your-own-theology—with stained glass windows.
The Anglican tradition is like a theological chameleon. Depending on which parish you walk into, you might find:
And they all use the same Book of Common Prayer.
Let’s give credit where it’s due: The Anglican tradition retains:
The English Reformation produced gems like the Thirty-Nine Articles, which are surprisingly Protestant on many points. Article XVII even affirms predestination. Article XI upholds justification by faith.
But here’s the problem: Anglicanism never fully broke from Rome. It tried to find a via media—a middle way—between Protestant theology and Catholic structure. So while the documents may lean Reformed, the practice often bends Catholic.
Anglicans affirm two dominical sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), but they also recognize five other “sacramental rites”—confirmation, ordination, marriage, penance, and anointing the sick. These aren’t quite sacraments, but they still carry grace in a secondary way.
This opens the door to confusion. Are these grace-giving or not? Necessary or optional? Are they signs, seals, symbols, or something more?
On the Lord’s Supper, you’ll find everything from real presence to memorialism to borderline transubstantiation depending on which bishop you ask.
On baptism, some Anglicans teach regeneration. Others call it covenantal. Others say it’s merely symbolic. Again—it depends on the flavor of the week.
It’s not just lack of clarity—it’s lack of consistency. Anglicanism tolerates so many divergent views that the means of grace become ambiguous containers, shaped by whatever the local priest believes.
This has real consequences:
When everything is allowed, nothing is certain. The pulpit becomes a theological slot machine. You might get the gospel, or you might get a moralistic homily about loving your neighbor and recycling.
Paul told Timothy to guard the good deposit (2 Tim. 1:14). Anglicanism, while noble in form, often leaves the deposit unguarded—its content redefined by clerical preference.
This isn’t just a liturgical issue. It’s a pastoral one. God’s people need to know:
When your system can’t answer that with clarity and certainty, it’s not a means of grace. It’s a means of guesswork.
Reformed theology doesn’t play liturgical dress-up. It identifies the means of grace as:
These are not optional accessories. They are God’s ordained channels of blessing. And they are never left to the whim of the individual minister.
The result? A clear path to spiritual nourishment. Not a guessing game.
So yes—Anglicanism has rich liturgy, beautiful prayers, and historic roots. But unless those forms are filled with biblical clarity and gospel-centered preaching, they’re just echoes in a cathedral.
Next: the chaotic wilderness of modern evangelicalism, where grace comes by fog machines, feelings, and your favorite Hillsong bridge.
Welcome to the land of fog machines, tear-jerking bridges, skinny jeans, and theological mush. Here in American evangelicalism, the means of grace have been replaced by the means of emotional manipulation. You don’t need preaching. You need a “talk.” You don’t need sacraments. You need a Spotify playlist. You don’t need reverence. You need relevance.
Modern evangelicals, especially of the megachurch and seeker-sensitive stripe, have effectively abandoned the historic means of grace in favor of a DIY spirituality powered by atmosphere and anecdote. Why bother with baptism and the Lord’s Supper when you’ve got branding and a bumping bass line?
Let’s start with the obvious:
Instead of ordinary means of grace, you get:
It’s the spiritual equivalent of surviving on microwave popcorn and Monster energy drinks. You might feel full. You might feel a rush. But it’s not nourishing your soul.
When you remove God’s ordained means of grace, people begin to think grace is either:
The result is a Christianity that’s fragile, self-centered, and exhausted. When the music stops and the goosebumps fade, so does your assurance. Because if grace comes by emotion, what happens when you don’t feel it?
It’s no wonder so many evangelicals bounce between churches, looking for the next spiritual high. They’ve never been taught the ordinary faithfulness of God through the ordinary means of grace.
The Reformed tradition rejects this rollercoaster religion. It points us back to:
These aren’t flashy. But they are effective, because God promised to use them.
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17)
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
That’s the model. Not smoke and lights. Not curated vibes. Not a personal playlist and a motivational podcast.
The gospel is not a mood. Grace is not a feeling. God doesn’t need production value. He meets His people where He promised to: in His Word, around His table, through prayer, among His gathered saints.
So if your Christian life feels like a hamster wheel of hype and disappointment, maybe it’s time to ditch the concert and return to the covenant.
Let’s put it plainly: the modern church has lost its mind.
We’ve traded the thunder of Sinai for TED Talks. We’ve swapped the Table of the Lord for shallow sentiment. We’ve turned the pulpit into a podcast, the sacraments into side shows, and prayer into a transitional moment before the next stage cue. We’ve baptized pragmatism, canonized consumerism, and now we wonder why the church feels hollow.
It’s because we’ve abandoned the very instruments by which God builds, nourishes, and strengthens His people—the means of grace.
Let’s be clear: the Reformed tradition doesn’t invent these means. It recovers them. It doesn’t add to Scripture. It submits to it. Because Scripture doesn’t leave us guessing. God has told us how He gives grace. And spoiler alert—it’s not through spectacle.
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
Not light shows. Not fog machines. Not vision-casting meetings or branding strategies. They devoted themselves to the Word, the Table, and prayer.
This is not optional. This is not secondary. This is Christianity 101, and if your church skips this—you don’t have a church. You have a spiritual improv troupe.
Scripture gives us a clear blueprint. Not suggestions. Not possibilities. Blueprints.
“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
What builds faith? Hearing the Word. Not visual stimulation. Not stagecraft. Not drama. Preaching. Heralding. Declaring.
“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:2)
Why? Because God has chosen to reveal Himself through His Word, and He’s chosen to change people through the proclamation of it.
Any view that reduces preaching to mere explanation or minimizes it to a TED Talk is not biblical. It’s entertainment with a Jesus bumper sticker.
The sacraments are not suggestions. They’re not just symbols. They are God’s appointed means to confirm the gospel to our senses.
“Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2:38)
Baptism doesn’t save—but it marks. It seals the covenant promises. The Lord’s Supper doesn’t re-sacrifice Christ—but it nourishes faith and proclaims the death of Jesus until He comes (1 Cor. 11:26).
The early church didn’t treat these like quarterly rituals. They were central. They knew that God meets us in the water and at the table—not because the elements have magic, but because God has attached His promises to them.
Rome made the sacraments into a mechanical system of grace. Evangelicals turned them into optional extras. But the Bible shows them as covenant signs—God’s visible Word.
You cannot have the means of grace without prayer. Corporate prayer. Intercessory prayer. Prayer of confession. Prayer of thanksgiving. Not five-second bumper prayers. Not polished transitions.
“Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17)
“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:16)
God has ordained prayer as both fellowship with Him and a means of transformation.
But modern churches have cut prayer down to a few polished phrases. No groaning. No tears. No pleading. No sense that we’re actually talking to the King of Heaven.
Why? Because prayer doesn’t fill seats. It doesn’t sell conferences. It doesn’t “scale.” So it’s sidelined—and so is God’s power.
Let’s recap the landscape:
In contrast, the Reformed view stands with open Bible in hand, crying:
“Thus says the Lord!”
That’s not arrogance. That’s clarity. It’s not about being “theologically elite.” It’s about being biblically obedient.
If Scripture is our only authority, then we don’t get to make up our own means of grace. We use what God gave us:
This isn’t an option. This is the blueprint.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3:16)
What more do we need?
Here’s the beauty: God isn’t asking us to chase Him through spiritual obstacle courses. He hasn’t hidden grace behind theological mazes. He’s placed it right in front of us—through the ordinary, consistent, trustworthy means He Himself ordained.
You want to grow in Christ?
You don’t need to chase mountaintop experiences. You need to eat the manna He gives. Sunday after Sunday. Bible after Bible. Knees bent, heart open.
Because the same God who split seas and raised the dead has promised to work through these things. Not because they’re flashy. But because He is faithful.
“It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Cor. 1:21)
Folly to the world. Power to the Church.
Come back to the old paths. Come back to the simplicity of grace. Stop chasing gimmicks. Stop gorging on junk food. Stop building your theology on vibes and volume.
Return to:
This is not just a better way.
It’s the only biblical way.
And it’s enough.
“Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” (Jer. 6:16)
Dr. Kiefer Likens, Th.D. is a Reformed pastor, author, and creative director based in Texas. He leads Redemption Ranch, a church committed to Scripture-centered worship, and holds a doctorate in Biblical Exposition. Kiefer is the author of For Christ and Covenant and Measured by Grace, blending deep theology with pastoral insight. He also runs a creative agency, specializing in design, branding, and web development.
