In the sacraments God accommodates Himself to our weakness. When we hear the Word indiscriminately proclaimed, we may wonder: “Is it truly for me? Does it really reach me?” However, in the sacraments God reaches out and touches us individually, and says, “Yes, it’s for you. The promise extends to you.” (56)

The Bible does not teach this. Beeke made it up. It is unlikely that a person who doubts God’s word like this would really come to believe God’s promises through the sacraments. Moreover, one can doubt the sacraments and whether they apply to him just as easily as he doubts the word. In fact, he could more easily doubt the sacraments, since the sacraments do not use words to tell him that he is included.

But as Robert Bruce put it, “While we do not get a better Christ in the sacraments than we do in the Word, there are times when we get Christ better.” (88)

There is no biblical evidence for this. Also, what kind of Christians get Christ better through the sacraments than God’s word? If they are Christians at all, they must be very bad Christians. Bruce is saying that sometimes Christians would rather deal with mere symbols of Christ than the very words that come from this Christ. Beeke approves, and does not condemn such people. What kind of man would encourage such an evil doctrine?

Faithless religionists are obsessed with rituals and sacraments, and with holy days. Instead of receiving the real Christ by faith alone, they declare that the symbol is the real Christ. They are desperate to convince you that they stand for piety, faith, and love for God. They have none of that. The truth is that God disgusts the Faithless, and they prefer to deal with symbols and rituals. But they want you to think that they are spiritual, and so they spin out a theology that identifies the symbol with the reality. And before you can cry “Heretic!” they point to the Catholics and use them as their scapegoat, when their own theology teaches essentially the same thing.