Grace. God's grace. Give me grace. Grace alone. We use this word so often, but what does it actually mean? What is grace (aside from my cute, feisty 11-year-old daughter)? How we answer that question will impact a variety of other theological topics, including soteriology, sanctification, and the sacraments. It is the last subject that I want to highlight today. The Reformed Tradition commonly refers to the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) as means of grace . The Westminster Confession Faith makes it clear that they are "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace." (27:1) The Belgic Confession insists that "they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us," but, as the 39 Articles says, they are "effectual signs of grace." The Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments (not simply Transubstantiation, but the sacerdotal, meritorious system as a whole), but they r...