What We Believe About The Lord's Supper (Part 2)

The Lord's Supper as a New Covenant Sacrament

We began this morning by looking at the Old Baptist Catechism and question number 104. What is the Lord's Supper? The Lord's Supper is a sacrament of the New Covenant wherein, by giving and receiving bread and fruit of the vine, according to Christ's appointment, his death is shown forth, and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.

We noted that there were two texts that were provided in support of this assertion. The first was 1 Corinthians chapter 11, one that we're very accustomed to hearing on the night of the Lord's Supper.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me.

In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant of my blood, this do as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 16, which we looked at this morning in its context, The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

The Question of How We Treat the Supper

And so this morning we began asking the question, if you did not have the opportunity of being with us, we began asking the question, exactly what do we believe on the subject of the Lord's Supper? We are celebrating the Supper, the elements are before us this evening.

I doubt that there is anyone here who has not participated in the Lord's Supper before. We have seen it many, many times. But what exactly do we profess is taking place? Is it just something that we tack on to the end of a Sunday night service once a month?

Is it just that once a month thing where we're out a little bit later on Sunday night, maybe they'll get quite as much sleep before the next Sunday morning? Is it just something we just tack on to a service?

Or should it be something that we look forward to? Something that we circle the date on the calendar? Something that that week before especially we are thinking about and looking forward to? I mean we all have certain dates we look forward to.

I think a lot of people really look forward to birthdays until you get to a certain point and then you don't really look forward to them quite as much as you used to. And certainly as a younger person you did, and there were certain holidays, whether it be Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever else it might be, you really look forward to those things.

Some people are very involved in sports and so there are certain sporting events where you really look forward to those things. And you just automatically think about it and there's a longing in your heart.

When you think about what we have the privilege of doing this evening, is there a longing in our hearts to partake of the Lord's Supper? Is it something we look forward to? Is it something that we can look back upon or do we just very quickly forget it?

How many times, I'm not asking for any responses to this by the way, but how many times have we gone through a week after the Lord's Supper without ever once thinking about it until, well, the next Lord's Supper arises?

These are questions that I think if we take seriously what we just read from 1 Corinthians, if we add to that the narratives in Matthew and Luke especially, that on the very night of His betrayal, the very night when the Son of God was going to take on the sins of all of His people.

He was going to be betrayed and that next day He was going to be nailed to a cross. That night He established for His disciples this meal. That means it was very important to Him. How important is it to us is the question.

Is it something that we truly honor in the way that it should be honored and realize the great privilege that is ours or do we just sort of stumble through it? That is the question that I think each one of us needs to consider.

I certainly have been considering it in my reading through the Scriptures and in the Confession of Faith. Now this morning we looked through, if you want to look again, at the London Baptist Confession of Faith found in the back of your hymnal at page 686 if you wish to see the specific section that we're looking at, chapter 30.

And we worked through the first number of sections making comments as we went along. And we likewise went all the way through section 6. And I noted that unfortunately due to the fact that the church exists in a fallen world and due to the fact that there is false teaching, just as we have in the New Testament, we have here in the Confession correctives, negative sections.

It would be nice if we didn't have to have negative sections. It would be nice if all we had to do was to speak the truth. But, A, that would not leave people properly prepared to be able to explain their faith, especially if they are living amongst people who hold two different views.

That's not a good thing. But, B, let's be honest with ourselves. Sometimes we see the brightness of truth most clearly against the dark backdrop of error. I mean, you have heard me, and I sometimes feel sorry for you folks, I truly do.

But you have heard me hammering away, as we've gone through the book of Hebrews, on one Greek term, hapox, or in its emphasized form epipox, once for all. And I've been hammering away on it. Why? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is some of you have actually sat in debates that I have done against Roman Catholic priests and apologists on the subject of the Mass.

And you know, as I outlined for you this morning, what Rome teaches on that subject. And so, would we really have as strong a desire to understand the once-for-allness of the sacrifice of Christ if we did not have maybe that dark backdrop against which to see it?

I mean, certainly, we look at Hebrews and we look at the early Jewish Christians and their backdrop was the sacrifices in the temple and things like that. But that's no longer our context at all. And so, especially at the time of the Reformation, and as represented here, and I would argue that really not much has changed, even in the 300 plus years since then, it's still our context today that there are many people who teach a gross falsehood about the subject of the sacrifice of Christ, and as a result, the subject of what is broadly known in Christendom as the Eucharist.

A beautiful word that has been stolen from us. It's been stolen from us. Eucharistia means Thanksgiving. It's a wonderful word, but since it has been so closely associated with all of the myths and mythology around the papal mass, and the concept of a man who calls himself an alter Christus, another Christ, who has some type of sacramental power whereby he is able to bring Jesus' body, soul, blood, and divinity down out of heaven and render him in wine and wafers, to be a propitiatory sacrifice that perfects no one.

Because that has become such a widespread thing, the word generally isn't used amongst us because of the connotations that it has, and that is a shame. And so we saw that it was necessary to provide correctives, and the last section we read was section 6 of chapter 30.

That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood, commonly called transubstantiation by consecration of a priest or by any other way, is repugnant not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason.

Overthroweth the nature of the ordinance, and hath been and is the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries. And most assuredly that is the case. If any of you have traveled down to Mexico, for example, into the heavily Roman Catholic areas where, by the way, believing evangelicals are often persecuted in those areas, you will see the priest carrying the host elevated in procession, and all the people stopping and bowing, and just a tremendous number of superstitions and gross idolatries that are perpetrated.

You've heard of the bleeding hosts. I mean, I could start telling you stories. Believe me, I have debated this issue a number of times. One of my favorites, I'll just tell this to illustrate it, was a story from, I believe, the 12th century, where it was said that someone had stolen a consecrated host because they believed it had healing powers to it.

And then they had become guilty, and they felt people were following them, so they had hidden the host, and the bees found the host, and they took the host into their hive. And when the priest came looking for it, he looked into the hive, and the bees had placed the host in the center of the hive, and in ranks they were bowing down in adoration of the host.

I'm not sure if they were producing much honey in the process, but this was the kind of thing, the stories that were being told. Bleeding hosts, because it had been turned into the body and blood of Christ, and all the rest of these things, very, very common, even up to the time of the day of the Reformation.

You may not have heard of these things as much today, but certainly in Roman Catholic countries, you would hear of those things. And so, corrections have been offered. But then we have two more sections to look at this evening before we actually partake of the supper.

Spiritual Communion with Christ in the Supper

Section 7. And I would say that section 7 is probably what sets our confession of faith apart from the large majority of our fellow Baptists. If there is any mention of the Lord's Supper in the confession of faith of most Baptist churches, it's going to be, we believe in the Lord's Supper, or something that in-depth.

It's not going to be eight paragraphs. We Reformed Baptists tend to be that way. But if they were to write out something, it would probably be this seventh paragraph that would be the most different. And we touched on it briefly this morning.

We need to touch on it again this evening. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, that is not in a fleshly sense, but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all the benefits of his death, the body and blood of Christ, being then not corporally or carnally, notice how often this is being repeated, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

Now, I think probably right here is where most people coming to the confession will go, well, that's not what I'm used to, unless you come from Presbyterian churches and churches like that. But if you're coming from a fully Zwinglian background, that's where it's different.

Now, already we noted that in reference to sacrifice, section two, nor any real sacrifice made at all for the remission of sin, but only a memorial of that one offering up of himself by himself upon the cross once for all.

Well, I mean, the English is almost stilted because of the tremendous emphasis in saying we are not saying there is a sacrifice taking place. This is not some kind of quote-unquote sacrament that functions as a channel of grace that you can turn on and turn off.

We are rejecting that kind of theology and that kind of ecclesiology in practice. It's already been said, and here in 7, not carnally, not corporally, not corporally or carnally. At least they've changed the order of the words.

But it's repeated over and over again. We're talking about something that is spiritual here. There is no transubstantiation. There is no offering of a sacrifice for sin. That was done once for all in time on the cross of Calvary.

It is a finished work. We are looking back upon that. We are not re-presenting it in any way, shape or form. And yet, we remember those words of 1 Corinthians chapter 10. There is a fellowship in that cup of blessing with the blood of Christ.

There is a fellowship. And fellowship is personal. Fellowship is real. I mean, I hope when you hear, when you talk about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, that that's not just a, you don't view that as just some type of emotional thing.

There is a spiritual reality. And the interesting thing to me is when I look back in church history, you can find some very strong statements, especially beginning in the 3rd and 4th centuries and beyond that, speaking of Christ's presence with his people spiritually in the supper.

Now, Rome looks back at those and looks back anachronistically and reads her dogma back into those things and says, see, they believed in the real presence of Christ. Well, they did. But you see, they felt that the spiritual presence of Christ with his people was far more real than any physical presence ever could be.

They were a persecuted church. And what could mean more to them than for Christ to be present with them spiritually, even in the midst of their sufferings, even as the world looked down upon them and castigated them and persecuted them.

What could be more of a benefit to them than to see, especially in this special time, an opportunity to experience in a very personal way, union with Jesus Christ. Indeed, Augustine, a man well known to those who read the early church writers, strongly taught that the physical body of Jesus Christ had been removed from this earth and was in heaven and would stay there.

He talked about how we have been deprived of the physical presence of Jesus, which was why his spiritual presence when his people gathered in obedience to his command to do exactly what he commanded them to do as an act of obedience and worship was so special to him and to the church at that time.

And so, I think that section 7 reflects most closely the writer's attempt to capture what Paul meant when he talked about the fellowship, the koinonia, the cup of blessing. Is it not a fellowship in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship in his body? Are we not all one because there is only one bread? Now, there's actually a couple of different loaves down here for this evening. So, what does it mean that there's only one bread?

What does it mean that there's only one cup? He doesn't say cups. He says cup. He says bread. He says it's one. How can there be just one? I would suggest that when my faithful brothers and sisters, and again I mention places that I've gone to, and I haven't gone to a lot of places, but I've had an opportunity to go to a whole lot more places, and I think my mom ever thought I'd get a chance to go to, that's for sure.

She used to keep a map of all the states she had visited, so she'd try to get all 50 states someday. Going outside the United States really wasn't something she was thinking about ever doing. As you know, I get to travel a lot.

Lord willing, this September I'll be in Canada. Does Canada really count as a foreign country? I'm not really sure, but I'll be in Canada this week, and then hopefully, Lord willing, in September going to be going back to Ireland and the United Kingdom and to Germany this time as well.

And every time I get to go there, I am struck by the unity we have, the unity and the fact that we're all involved by the same Holy Spirit, the same confession of faith we have, but once in a while I get to be there when they have the Lord's Supper.

And I am reminded by the same confession of faith. I am reminded by the same object of worship, that there is indeed one cup, there is indeed one bread, because indeed there is one Lord. We have one Lord.

We have one confession of faith in Him. And the unity that we experience, the fact that I can go there, they can come here, and there is that sameness in our love for Christ, in our grace, in our reflection upon the fact that apart from His work we would have nothing.

I think that is the unity that Paul is referring to there. And that spiritually is what our union is. I mean, what really binds us all together? Why are we one body with people who dress differently and speak differently and live in completely different circumstances than we do?

Speaking completely different language, and yet once we get a translator going, we find out how closely our hearts are actually knit together. What binds us all together? Well, the Scriptures are clear.

It's the Holy Spirit of God. If you belong to Christ, the Spirit of God indwells you. And so when we gather by and through the presence of the Holy Spirit in this place to do what the Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to do, then we not only have the horizontal fellowship of oneness together in our profession of faith, but we also have that vertical fellowship.

A spiritual feasting upon Christ. I don't think John chapter 6 is about the Lord's Suffering, by the way, but it's very relevant in the sense that what Jesus said there was, I am the only source of spiritual life.

And that's what was so offensive to the Jews. How can we eat your flesh and drink your blood? That's terrible. That's horrible. Well, didn't God send down the bread from heaven? I am the bread that has been sent down from heaven.

I am the one and the only one in whom you can find spiritual nourishment. If you're looking to anything else other than to find in Christ your all in all, as a Christian, you'll go hungry. You already know this world can't satisfy your longings.

I don't care how much of the world's stuff you gather together, you can never satisfy your heart's longings with stuff. In fact, generally the stuff will end up getting in the way. You can look and look and you can go to isms and schisms and everything else.

There is only one place that the Christian is going to find satisfaction and spiritual nourishment, and that is in Jesus Christ. And so when we look to the bread, we think of the broken body of Christ.

When we look to the cup, we think of the life that He gave voluntarily. He gave Himself so that I might have life. My creator, my maker, the one who gives me every breath of my mouth and beat of my heart, He gave Himself.

As I hold that cup, I think of the life, that precious, perfect life that was given voluntarily in my place. When I break that bread, I think of that man who truly was a man, who was born, who lived and gave Himself, beaten and bloodied upon that tree.

And He did it for my freedom. He did it for my forgiveness, my justification. And so there is a reception and a feeding upon Christ crucified, all the benefits of His death. We are torn away from looking to ourselves.

There is a balance in the supper because we do examine ourselves. But we should never let the supper become merely a time of introspection. The introspection and the confession of sin must always lead us to look away from ourselves and to look to Christ.

It must. If it doesn't, then you're missing it. We should be rejoicing as we leave because we are considering what Christ has done for us. But there's one more section. Section 8. All ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table and cannot, without great sin against Him, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto.

Yea, whosoever shall receive unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment to themselves. Now that sounds like a rather downer note to conclude the section on. But once again, what we're really saying is this is a corrective.

It may not have been a big problem at that time. It certainly is today. That many in the church do not give any consideration to what it means to partake of the supper and therefore they just say, hey, we don't care where you're from, who you are, or anything else, just go ahead and partake.

And the problem with that is we are not discerning the body and blood of the Lord in the sense of recognizing that the only way that these things can have meaning to me is if I am in Christ, if I recognize that He has given Himself for me, that His body was broken for me, His blood was shed for me, and I have bowed the knee in repentance and faith to Him and therefore am united with Him.

That's what makes these things what they are. Nothing else. And to just simply willy-nilly give these out is to say it doesn't really matter if you know Christ. We're just doing something religious here anyways.

But that's not what we believe. Now, the corrective, likewise, raises a question. And that is there will be people who will observe the Lord's supper this evening but will not partake. Because they have not yet made that profession of faith and been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Now, in the ancient church, those who had not yet made a profession of faith, those who had not yet been baptized, were dismissed. Mithah was a point in time in the service where they were dismissed, which became mass.

That was the development of the terminology over time, if you've wondered where that came from. You hear dismissal and you take it back into Latin, so on and so forth. And yet we don't dismiss anyone.

I mean, if someone is visiting and they haven't talked to the elders, something like that, obviously when everybody over here moves over there, which I'm not really sure why there are more of you over here than over there tonight, but anyway.

During that period of time, people sometimes will leave. But what about the people who stay? Some of the young people. You might ask yourself the question, why should I bother? Why don't I just skip Sunday nights?

Well, first of all, hopefully there is instruction provided on Sunday nights that is of great use to you. Especially as we go through the Old Testament. I think one of the most ignored elements of biblical revelation in the modern day church.

But I do believe that there is something worthwhile in your reverently observing what the rest of us are doing. First of all, if you've been listening to me, then you know that we believe what we're doing is in obedience to the command of Christ.

And hopefully when you see our reverence for this, you will see that we do not take this lightly. And that therefore you should know that Christ commands you to repent and to believe and to be baptized.

I don't think it should necessarily be something that I wouldn't want to use the term incite jealousy in you. But I think there is something good that when you see something that is godly, see something that is right.

See something that people are doing out of obedience to Christ's command. That it should be something you should desire that. If the Holy Spirit of God is working in your life and you have a desire for truth.

And you recognize there's something about this revelation of God in Christ. What this should do is cause you to consider ever more deeply during the time of the supper. Did he really give himself for me?

If so, I must give myself to him. What indeed could be stopping any one of you? When you look at the love that is shown so clearly in the cross of Christ symbolized in these elements. Could anything else prove to you more fully?

God's love for you. What else could? And if your heart senses that and sees that, then get serious. About your relationship to Christ. Make that profession of faith. Talk to the elders about baptism. Make that commitment.

Say to the world, I am going to follow Jesus Christ. I am not going to be a secret disciple. I'm going to say to the world, I have died with him. I've been buried with him. I've been raised with him. I walk in newness of life.

Give consideration to those things as you observe what is taking place. And so we do believe that it is vitally important to give instruction. And before each during as a part of each Lord's Supper, we give instruction as to what the purpose of the supper is and who is to participate in it.

The Lord's Supper as a Public Proclamation and Call to Faith

But I want you to think as we get ready to partake in the supper. I want you to think of the last great privilege I want to talk about. First Corinthians chapter 11 once again. We know that we do as often as we do this in remembrance of Christ.

And then this line, verse 26 of chapter 11. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Did you know that you become a preacher during the Lord's Supper?

You do? It says it right there. You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. You cannot help but do so. You may not open your mouth and say a word. But to anyone observing, to the angels in heaven, to your fellow brothers and sisters and anyone else who might be there.

By partaking of the bread, by drinking the cup, you are actively involved in proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. You might say, well I've just always viewed this as just something passive. I'm just a bump on a log.

And you know in many traditions, instead of having men bring the elements to you, you've got to get up and get the elements. You actually stand up and you go forward. Now there obviously isn't some kind of specific instruction in scripture as to exactly how this is to be done.

And I wouldn't have any problem with that because it at least would picture the fact that you are actively involved. But it doesn't matter whether you're sitting or standing. If you partake, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

Just as walking through these waters of baptism is a public proclamation of your faith in Jesus Christ. And anybody sitting in this room would know when they see you baptized, there is a person who says, I have been united with Christ.

I have died. I've been buried with him. I've been raised to newness of life in him. In the same way, every time we partake of the supper, we're saying the same thing. My life is dependent upon the broken body and shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My life, everything that I have, the forgiveness that is mine, my union with Christ, my adoption as a son or daughter of Christ, it's all because of him. And anything I will ever have in the future, my eternal life, it's all because of him.

I look away from myself. I'm not adding to what he's done. You brought nothing into the baptismal waters. You bring nothing to the supper. It's all Christ. None of it is my goodness, my works, my merit.

Now, is there room to reflect during the supper upon what has happened since the last supper? Is there room to cry out to the Lord, O Lord, I must confess that I don't see the growth in godliness that I need to see.

Yes, there is room for that. But I think the balance must be seen scripturally. Yes, we examine ourselves. There needs to be confession. But may I suggest most of that should be prior to the supper. I don't think it should be the essence of the supper.

That's why we let you know a week ahead of time, bulletin, reminder. Not like the third week, there's always a third week, doesn't matter which month it is. It's not like it sneaks up on us. I would suggest that preparation should be in the week before.

So that the emphasis in the supper is with an attitude of prepared repentance and submission. We can then look to Christ and truly be taken up in a consideration of the perfection of the provision that has been made for us.

So perfect, there's nothing we can add to it without destroying it. He did not make a way of salvation available. He actually saved. That veil that separates us from God has been torn asunder. He has made a way into that holy place and that way is his body.

And our minds surely should be taken away from anything of this world. We should be focused upon what really matters. What really matters is our union. And so I hope this evening, as we partake of the supper, that not in a surface level way.

Not in a way that says, well, you know, I think in light of all the talk we had about the supper today, I should really work hard tonight. I hope in an informed way that you have been challenged to think through what we believe we are doing in the course of the next few minutes.

And that God by his Spirit would be pleased to bless us because we're truly desiring to obey the commands of Christ. And we truly desire to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And we truly desire that by his Spirit we will be nourished often as I pray at the end of the supper.

Because normally the pastor will have me do that. I pray, let us not leave this place unchanged. And that's why I pray that prayer. May we never take this for granted. May it not be something we merely stumble into.

Because let me point one thing out. There are so many of our brothers and sisters this night around this world, that if you were to know them, would find them to be so sweet in their spirit. So gentle and mild in their character.

So reflecting the love of Christ. And you know what one of their greatest desires is this evening? To have the privilege of doing what you're about to do. Because they can't. They're either in prison, they're locked up in their homes, or they are separated from every other believer they know.

And oh, if they were to be given the opportunity, what they would say they would like to have most, what they would like to do most, would be to gather with fellow believers and sing hymns and partake of the Lord's supper.

When we think of that, how can we treat this indifferently? We must recognize the tremendous value of God's wisdom in giving us the Lord's supper. So with that, I'd like you to take your hymnals please, and turn to hymn number 542.

And as is our custom, while singing the first stanza of the hymn,.