Are there supposed to be any rituals in Christianity?

I learn that the Lord has left two rites, or ordinances, both significative of His death; one initiatory, the other of continual observance in the church of God — baptism and the Lord's supper.17

Baptism and the Lord’s supper are the two ordinances connected with the Christian religion, and they both witness to the death of Christ. Indeed, the whole working arrangement of Christianity, as set up by Scripture, and practised by those who bow to it, affords testimony under this head.

There are but two ordinances connected with Christianity—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both stand in relation to the death of Christ. Baptism, an act, has no meaning or virtue in itself, but is symbolical of that which should powerfully affect the believer’s life every day and all the days. It sets forth the identification of the believer with the death of Christ, that it is his privilege to die practically to all that Christ died to. The world that crucified Him and the flesh that clamoured for His crucifixion are to be judged and set aside. The believer henceforth is to walk “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

There are two rites or ordinances in Christianity: (1) Baptism, which puts the baptised person on ground of profession; (2) the Lord's Supper on the line of privilege. The truth of the latter was clearly given to Gentile believers through the Apostle Paul, "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you" (1 Cor. 11:23), It is primarily a memorial feast, having its inauguration and type in the memorial and ordinance of the Passover. In Exodus 12. we get the type; the slain lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs speak of the character of the passover feast; while the girded loins, shoes and staff set forth the pilgrim features of the participators. It would seem that it was the custom of the Jews to "break bread" and "drink of the cup of consolation" for their departed parents (Jer. 16:7; also Deut. 26:14; Job 42:11, and Hosea 9:4). This "mourning feast" would have significance to a godly Jew familiar with the Hebrew scriptures.

There were directions for order, and simple ordinances clearly referred to, as two, baptism and the Lord's supper; both telling of Christ's death (one initiatory, the other continual), of man judged, for Christ had been rejected, and of redemption accomplished in His death. I refer to them now simply to shew that I acknowledge them fully and their value.

Christ has left us two signs: one of His death and resurrection, baptism; the other, the memorial of His death, the breaking of bread. It is sad that it is called an ordinance if more is meant than the Lord's institution. When Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of me," surely He meant that it should be done; but by these words He only gave a motive, and did not establish an ordinance.

There are two divinely appointed symbols, which mark, one the individual Christian, the other the fellowship of the body the Church as in due time was clearly explained in 1 Cor. 10.

There are two divinely appointed symbols, which mark, one the individual Christian, the other the fellowship of the body the Church as in due time was clearly explained in 1 Cor. 10.

IT is most distressing to one who has revelled in the grace of God for years, but has recognized on the other hand that grace produces loving obedience in the heart of the believer, to read the puerile and childish diatribes of the ultra-dispensationalists, as they inveigh against the Christian ordinances as though observance of these in some way contravened the liberty of Grace. Insisting that Paul had a new ministry revealed to him after Acts 28, and that this ministry is given only in the so-called prison epistles, they make a great deal of the fact that in these epistles we do not have any distinct instruction as to the baptizing of believers, or the observance of the Lord's Supper. We have already seen, I trust clearly, that Paul himself disavows any new revelation having been given him after his imprisonment, but insists that the mystery was that very message which he had already made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. It was but part of that whole counsel of God which he had declared to the Ephesians long before his arrest. These brethren, by a process of sophistical reasoning, try to prove that baptism belonged only to an earlier dispensation and was in some sense meritorious, as though it had in itself saving virtue, but that since the dispensation of grace has been fully revealed, there is no place for baptism, because of changed conditions for salvation. To state this argument is but to expose its fallacy. Let one point be absolutely clear: No one was ever saved in any dispensation on any other ground than the finished work of Christ. In all the ages before the cross, God justified men by faith; in all the years since, men have been justified in exactly the same way. Adam believed God and was clothed with coats of skin, a picture of one becoming the righteousness of God in Christ. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Nevertheless, afterwards he was circumcised; but that circumcision, the apostle tells us, was simply a seal of the righteousness he had by faith. And throughout all the Old Testament dispensation, however legalistic Jews may have observed the ordinance of circumcision and thought of it as having in itself some saving virtue, it still remained in God's sight, as in the beginning, only a seal, where there was genuine faith, of that righteousness which He imputed. The difficulty with many who reason as these Bullingerites do, is that they cannot seem to understand the difference between the loving loyal obedience of a devoted heart, and a legal obedience which is offered to God as though it were in itself meritorious. No one was ever saved through the sacrifices offered under law, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. Nevertheless, wherever there was real faith in Israel, the sacrifices were offered because of the instruction given in the Word of God, and in these sacrifices the work of Christ was pictured continually. When John the Baptist came in the way of righteousness, he called on men to confess their sinfulness and their just desert of death by baptism, and so we read that the publicans and sinners "justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John." There was no merit in the baptism. It was the divinely appointed way of acknowledging their sinfulness and need of a Saviour. Therefore it is called a baptism "unto repentance for the remission of sins." They were like men in debt, giving their notes to the divine creditor. A note does not pay a debt but it is an acknowledgment of indebtedness. Christ's baptism was simply his endorsement of all of these notes. When He said to John, who would have hindered Him from being baptized, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," it was as though He said, "In this way I pledge Myself to meet every righteous demand of the throne of God on behalf of these confessed sinners." And this is surely what He had in mind when, three years later, He exclaimed, "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12: 50). On the cross He met the claims of righteousness and thus fulfilled the meaning of His baptism. Christian baptism has its beginning in resurrection. It was the risen Christ about to be glorified who commissioned His apostles to go out, not simply to Jews, observe, nor yet to proclaim a second offer of the kingdom, as some say, but to carry the Gospel to men of all nations, baptizing those who professed to believe, in (or, unto) the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This we see them literally doing throughout the early days of the Church, as recorded in the Book of Acts. Wherever the Gospel is preached, baptism is linked with it, not as part of the Gospel, for Paul distinctly says, "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel," but as an outward expression of faith in the Gospel.

If by organization He means baptism and the Lord's supper, it is a proof that as He instituted them, such organization did not exist before, and it was when the Holy Ghost came they were carried out. Baptism to Christ's death could not be till He had died, and the Lord's supper is a symbol of the unity of the body of which an exalted Christ (Eph. 1:19-23) is the Head.