The sacraments as God's arrow down

Glen Scrivener comments that Mike Reeves says that "the sacraments are not our 'arrow up' to God and the world. They’re His 'arrow down'. His promise to us, not our promise to Him." I was reminded of that comment when reading Melanchthon today who writes in his Loci Communes (1543):

Profane people think that the sacraments are signs of profession which distinguish us from other people [...] or are symbols of certain functions regarding other people [...] But although many purposes have been ordained for the sacraments, yet far at the head of all of these must be placed this chief purpose, namely that they might be signs of God's will toward us, that is, added testimonies of the promise of grace [...] These rites are not human spectacles like the tragedies of the Greeks, which were set up so that some kind of commemoration of things done might be handed down to posterity; but they have far higher purposes. (p.139)