There are acts absolutely necessary for salvation… the fullness of Acts 2:38, for example, must be obeyed in letter and deed.
Then there are acts that are necessary as adjutants to salvation or, simply put, acts that spring forth from a sanctified life…communion and foot washing, for example.
There are FIRST things of salvation–the initial requirements that make possible the New Birth experience…. and then there are the secondary things of salvation (or post New Birth experience) which transpire BECAUSE OF the sanctified life of a saint of God, these things are things such as tithing, praying, a living sacrifice, outward holiness, etc. Communion and foot washing, along with other Biblical traditions, are meant to be symbolic of our salvation in both the means of and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our sainthood experience is a composite of those things which are inwardly experienced, the matters of the heart, and outwardly portrayed –the matters of witness and remembrance.
Saying that “communion and foot washing” are not essential to salvation is really a moot debate because the things “which accompany salvation” are a hand in hand matter (Heb 6:9). It is like saying only inhaling is necessary for oxygen intake… which is true…. but exhaling is just as necessary for the experience known as “breathing” and continuation of life. Genuine salvation is always accompanied by visible evidence.
“This do in Remembrance of Me…” is much more than a mere command, it is a divine injunction set forth to those which have experienced the work of Calvary both in obedience and in spirit and invigorates, in a continual manner, that self same experience–“till He come!”
–jlg–