The Criteria of Communion Part 3

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Sunday school from July 25th, 2021

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The Criteria of Communion Part 4

The Criteria of Communion Part 4

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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word and we consider what you have revealed there, we recognize that it is only through the
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Holy Spirit that we can understand these things. And so we ask, humbly, that you would grant us to rightly understand your word, so that we may correctly believe regarding who you are and what you've done for us, and that we may walk according to what you have revealed there, forsaking our sin and walking in godliness and the call that you have called us to in Christ.
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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. OK. Now, I'm going to open it up for questions first.
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So a little bit of a longer sermon. That was intentional. And the idea was
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I really wanted to drill in into, really, what the flood is all about. And also, you'll note, we took a swipe at some of the bad preaching that is out there regarding the flood.
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I assure you, God's not going to ask you to build an ark. That's not what he's going to do.
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Instead, this is a story about salvation by grace through faith for all of us. So again, you're always welcome to ask questions.
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But seeing none, we're going to then continue on the study that we began. Oh, there's a question. Mark, I didn't see you.
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Sorry. Now, when someone's hearts were hardened, that means they're condemned.
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Yes. Now, in the last verse of our gospel passage, you said that the disciples in the boats, their hearts were hardened.
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Right. So in scripture, when God hardens somebody's heart, then that is a form of condemnation.
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In the gospel text today, at the end of our gospel reading, it said that their hearts were hard. And so you'll note, if you think back to the
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Exodus account, Pharaoh hardened his heart. And his heart was hardened against what
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God was saying. And then eventually, God hardened his heart. So with the case of the disciples, this is where Christ finds us.
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He finds us all with hardened hearts, hearts of stone. And he replaces it with the heart of flesh.
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And so as Jesus is working with his disciples, they're clearly still in need of their hearts being broken by Christ properly.
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They were hardened. They needed to be softened. And so Christ is chipping away at that, because they saw the miracle.
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And they still couldn't connect these things. And that's the idea. And the reality, that's all of us, too.
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And I'm not talking about us seeing miracles, but we reading through the scriptures, we should be able to connect these things, and we don't.
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And so God has to soften our heart. God has to give us repentance. The Holy Spirit has to grant us to rightly understand his word.
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So that's the idea. But good question, by the way. All right, Jen says, so off the subject, uh -oh, is
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Jen going to become the new Bruce Burns? That's our question today. Pastor, can you tell where in the
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Bible it plainly states that believers are not to worship with non -believers? Or is that stated in the
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Bible? OK, now, so let's define our terms here.
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So for instance, if an unbeliever came to Congsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota, would we say, no, you've got to stay out in the foyer.
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You cannot come into our property. We're going to be worshiping God. You're not allowed to worship with us. Would we say that?
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No. OK. No, we don't say it. All are welcome.
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All are welcome to come and hear the gospel. We'll note that not all are invited to Lord's Supper.
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You know, you've baptized is a vital thing. You know, examine themselves rightly, believing what you're receiving.
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But as far as worshiping with them in the sense of they want to come onto our turf and hear the gospel, though they are welcome.
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Now, and what's really funny is that early on as a pastor, I had to kind of wrestle through this because, you know, as a
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Lutheran pastor, we believe what Christ said, that the sins we forgive are forgiven, the sins we retain are retained.
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And always at the beginning of a service, I give a blanket pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins for everybody who's here and everyone who's listening.
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And I realize that's not an issue because if you don't have faith, you don't believe that your sins are forgiven.
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You think I'm acting like an idiot, you know? So, you know, and you might think that I'm acting like an idiot.
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You may be right, but not regarding the forgiving of sins. I act idiotically in other ways. But the point is, is that I don't have a problem pronouncing a general absolution due to the fact that ultimately the way the verbs work, the sins you forgive, will have already been forgiven as the way it says it in John, which means that Christ is the one doing the forgiving, not me.
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And because Christ has bled and died for the sins of the whole world, that doesn't mean that everybody's saved.
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So the question is, do you believe these words? And so somebody who's coming to hear the gospel or explore what
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Christianity is all about, and we have people like that show up from time to time, that they are welcome to do so.
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And I don't have a problem pronouncing an absolution because if they don't believe in Christ, they don't believe that they're receiving the forgiveness of sins.
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And they might think I'm behaving in a weird way. But on the other end, then, the question then comes up, what do we do about people who are apostates or fallen?
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And this is where, let me find a verse along these lines because you asked regarding what the
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Bible says. And so we've got to talk about this. I'm going to look for idols.
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Hang on a second here. Not the American kind. Hold on a second. And I need this in the epistles.
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All right. All right, and I think maybe in the passage, one of the passages, we know that an idol is nothing concerning food sacrificed to idols.
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All right, so let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 8. And there may be another text that we want to pull into this in this regard.
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1 Cor 8. And this is a vital text, by the way. This is super importante as it relates to what
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God has revealed regarding other religions. Now, concerning food offered to idols.
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All right, now, a little bit of a note. We have this wonderful meat store here in town, in Grand Forks.
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It's called L &M Meats. If any of you, while you're visiting, want to have some barbecued bison or something like that, we can make this happen.
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We can go to L &M. All right, and then, oh man, they're beef jerky sticks and just.
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Anyway, this place fell from heaven. I'm telling you. It's the first meat store from the
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New Jerusalem that has landed on earth. Clemons looking at me.
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Yeah, there's an emergency. Rosa has lost his mind.
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Anyway, I digress. But my point is this, is that meat stores like this did not exist in the ancient world.
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At the time of the Apostle Paul, if you wanted to have a good steak, where did you go to buy it? Answer, the
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Temple of Apollo. You go to the Temple of Apollo or you go to the
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Temple of, no, I don't think Pluto would count. He's the god of the underworld.
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But yeah, Apollo would be one of the places that you would go to. And so the idea then is that people purchased their meats because what they did with them, they sacrificed them to a false deity.
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And then the priests in those false temples took the meat and put it out in the
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Agora and made it for sale. And so this became an issue of conscience for Christians. Can I eat a steak that the cow that died for this steak was offered as a sacrifice to Apollo?
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That's a legitimate question because the question is, am I by default worshiping
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Apollo by eating this steak? And so this is the question that Paul is bringing up.
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Okay, so now concerning food offered to idols. And so some Christians, they don't have any problem with this. Other Christians do.
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We know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. So if anyone imagines that he knows something, he yet does not know what he ought.
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But if anyone loves God, he's known by God. Therefore, as to eating of the food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, none, and that there is no
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God but one. Although there may be so -called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods, note the scare quotes the
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ESV uses, that's the idea. There are many gods and many lords. Yet for us, there is one God, the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist.
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And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge, all right?
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Some, through former association with idols, they eat food as really offered to an idol.
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So they're having a hard time jettisoning this whole thing of, oh wait, Apollo doesn't really exist.
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Zeus is really, you know, a false god. And what's behind all of this?
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The demonic. The demonic. And I want you to consider like an ancillary concept here.
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I've been kind of vocal about the fact I've been doing a lot of research lately on conspiracy theories, the
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Templars, the Illuminati, and the Masons. And as I've been studying Freemasonry, I'm not a
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Mason, will never become a Mason, but as I've been studying Freemasonry, one of the things that has really struck me is that Freemasonry is its own religion.
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And this is a religion built on the concept that all religions are true except for one, and that is
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Orthodox Biblical Christianity. And let me explain what I mean by this. Is that in Freemasonry, they will allow
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Christians in the lower levels, and they'll even allow them into the higher levels, but the issue is that everything that they do in their rites, in their practices, in the things that they hold secret, which really aren't secrets.
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You can actually buy, purchase books and learn what their secrets are. I know their secret handshakes now, I know their symbols, and I know what their rites are that they do, at least in the
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Scottish rite. And I also have a book on the Royal Archmasons as well, that they have seven degrees, whereas the
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Scottish rites have 33. But the point is is that if you were to go to Washington, D .C.,
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the Masonic Temple in Washington, D .C. allows tours. You are allowed to go on a tour there.
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You can Google this. Just type in Washington, D .C., Masonic Temple, and look at the altar in the center of their lodge.
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It has a Bible, it has the Old Testament, it has the Quran, it has the Kabbalah, and they consider them all to be valid.
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And Masonry teaches you that you cannot, when you're among Masons, you don't end prayers with in Jesus' name.
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They won't allow that, that's offensive. And then in the Scottish rite, I believe it's for those who are above the 14th degree, on Maundy Thursday, they have a rite that they do.
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It used to be required, it's not required. But on the Maundy Thursday rite, they enact their own version of the
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Lord's Supper. And as part of the rite itself, all the men are wearing black capes with hoods, which is really weird.
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And then as part of it, they, as part of their liturgy and the ritual itself, they claim that it is not for them to say whether Jesus rose from the dead or not, that's not for them to decide.
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And so they basically, as part of their communion, they say, take some bread, have some, and share it with some others.
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Take some wine, have some, and share it with some others. And the whole thing itself is geared to really undermine biblical
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Christianity. And so this is a religion that takes all of the religions defeated by Christ, puts them under one roof, and Christians are welcome, but they are forbidden and shunned if they are dogmatically holding to Christianity being the only true religion.
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So everything in masonry is designed to basically say, let's go back to the pagan religions. And in the
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Scottish rite, several pagan religious stories are reenacted and taught as part of their different levels, including the story of Osiris and Isis, the death and resurrection of Osiris, and Isis' role in gathering up the pieces of his body and all this kind of stuff, which is an old pagan fertility religion.
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And then, funny enough, the mysteries of Demeter. If you've ever heard of Dionysus and Demeter, and also
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Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, these are all big things in masonry.
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And so they've basically created a religion that includes religious rituals, prayers, secret handshakes and blood oaths and things like this that embraces all of these religions.
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And as a Christian, we know that these idols have no existence and what was behind them are demonic.
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And so they are, if you would, a place where these old mystery religions of the ancient world have found a home, are embraced and confessed as having elements of truth in them, which is kind of frightening when you consider all this.
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So all of that being said, as a Christian, Christ says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. We're not to take oaths.
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And then the masonic oaths require somebody to basically agree to be murdered if they reveal the secrets.
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The commandment thou shalt not murder is still in play. All right? So there's all kinds of stuff here.
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So if you really wanted to dig a little deeper on where can we find examples of the mystery religions still living on today, they're embedded.
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They're embedded in Freemasonry. And I know that there are Christians who are Freemasons and I would ask you to humbly reconsider that because when you really look at what
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Masonry teaches, it's incompatible with Christianity. It's a different religion altogether. And Freemasonry considers those who are not initiated into their ranks as perverse, as those who are in darkness.
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Christ is the light, not Freemasonry. So keep that in mind. You just have to be invited to join.
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I think they've changed the rules lately. You do here in higher level.
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No, no. So you have to be invited to the 33rd degree, but in Freemasonry, they are so firm right now on free will that the rule is that if somebody asks what do
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I have to do to be a Freemason? You have to ask. All right? Now you have to meet certain qualifications, but the first qualification is you have to ask.
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You can be recommended, but at the end of the day, you have to ask. So, you know, but it's really interesting.
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But I might end up doing a series of videos on the stuff that I'm learning because there's some really interesting narratives as it relates to that.
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And I'm off on a tangent, but that's how I go. All right. So. Yeah. Bruce Burns is not even here.
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What am I? What's happening here? Who's responsible for this? Anyway, you know, I have to blame somebody.
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Maybe I should blame myself. All right. Anyway, so we continue then. So, however, not all possess this knowledge.
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Some, through former association with idols, they eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience being weak then is defiled.
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So food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
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For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged of his conscience this week to eat food offers to an idol?
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So by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed, and the brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brother.
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And wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.
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So this is one of those things where, you remember the question that Cain asked, am
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I my brother's keeper? The answer is yeah. You betcha. You are your brother's keeper. So when it comes to things that we have liberty, so Paul is saying in the ancient world, you have liberty to go ahead and eat food that's offered to an idol because an idol has no existence with an asterisk, and the asterisk is only if doing so is done in a way where it's not gonna offend the conscience of somebody who hasn't yet put that all together, kind of an uninitiated, still baby
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Christian who hasn't properly been catechized and who cannot firmly go, oh yeah, Zeus doesn't exist,
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Demeter is a lie, you know, all this kind of stuff. So there's part one of the issue, and I think in 1
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Corinthians 10, I'm gonna do this from memory, we have another part of this. Let's see here.
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All right, yeah, here it is. Okay, so, and this was brought up last week. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
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I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
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Yes, it is. The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Yes, it is. So because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
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So consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? You betcha.
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So what do I imply then, that food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God, and I don't want you to be participants with demons.
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You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
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Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than him? So here's kind of the general principle then.
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People are, unbelievers are welcome to come and hear the word as we worship God. We're not gonna bar them.
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And we do not have freedom then to worship people with, worship with those who have strayed into idolatry or things like this.
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So, and I would just say practice this carefully, with something. So I, my wife and I, when we were doing research on Mormonism in the early years of our marriage, we actually went to a
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Mormon steakhouse and wanted to see what their religious, what their worship was all about.
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And you can do things like this, or if you were invited to the funeral of a friend or a family member and it's in an odd, weird place, go, go.
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There's no sin in that. And even if a friend invites you to church, you know, to come see what it's all about, come and see.
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And if you're not comfortable with the worship, don't raise your hands, don't sing. Take notes and have an interesting conversation over lunch.
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You know, and bring up the things that made you uncomfortable, that you felt were contrary to scripture. We have freedom in that sense.
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But scripture tells us very clearly when it comes to false religion that we are to come out of those. We are to flee idolatry, we are to flee apostasy.
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And when a pastor refuses to preach the truth, get rid of him and get one that does. You see what
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I'm saying? Because scripture wills that those who are teaching falsely are to be silenced. That's Titus chapter one.
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All right, let's take a look here at other questions here. All right, hi everyone. Can you please explain about the wine and the bread, what it becomes?
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My internet reception is horrible today. Okay, we'll talk about that in just a minute. And it remains bread and wine, all right?
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In the Lord's Supper, it remains bread and wine, and it also has, connected to it, the body and blood of Christ.
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It is what Christ says it is. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, the bread that we eat, is it not a participation?
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Yes, it is. Actually, the bread that we bless, we just saw that. Is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
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Yes, it is. The cup that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? Yes, it is. So the idea is that when we have the
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Lord's Supper, and it's according to what Christ has instituted, do this, that we are confident then that we are consuming bread, we are consuming wine, they are present, and that Christ's body and blood are truly present there.
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And this is, I explained this last week, that the Lutherans, they throw on a bunch of prepositions to just basically make it clear, this is what you're receiving in your mouth.
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So we say Christ's body and blood is in, with, under, you know, 220, 221, whatever it takes.
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It's there, that's the idea. And so we receive four things in the
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Lord's Supper. And the second part, Christ is the one who adds those extra elements, not me.
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I do not have any magic formulas, incantations, or rituals that I am capable of doing to conjure those things up.
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It is Christ who puts them there. And he always does that when it is observed according to his command to do this.
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And so that's the short answer to your question. All right, Stephen Adelaide says he's in. Barbecued bison, yeah, that's right.
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I remember a story, this is totally off topic. I remember a story that the Queen Mary, you remember that ship?
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It was a very famous ship, you know, transported troops during World War II, but it was a very luxury liner, transatlantic work.
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And it was famous for, the cooks there kind of bragged about the fact that anybody can ask them for anything that isn't even on the menu, and they'll find a way to get it to them.
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And somebody tried to stump them and challenge them, and they ordered ostrich, and they received an ostrich burger.
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They were able to conjure that one up. Somebody ordered alligator, got that as well. The only menu item that they were ever stumped on was some guy from Texas was on the
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Queen Mary, and he asked for rattlesnake, and they couldn't find it. They couldn't actually conjure it up. So he's the one who won.
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But what they ended up doing was cooking a really nice steak for him, and they put a baby rattle on it. So, it's a great story.
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It has nothing to do with the Bible, but it's a good story. Okay, never tried bison, neither have
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I. I'm actually really excited to do that someday. Definitely channel Bruce today, got it. Okay, it was something my brother last night that made me ask pastor so we can, all right, all right, got it.
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Okay, so we're gonna blame it on your brother. That's hilarious, okay, all right. So, all of that being said, let's come back and just do a little bit of review.
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We've been working through a document that I put together a while ago, and these are theses that are drawn from scripture as well as the
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Lutheran confessions, basically explaining how consecration works, what makes a valid sacrament, and then the implication is this.
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This has to do, and the bigger question then, of can Christians who are gathered in their homes and then gathered into a bigger assembly via the medium of the internet, do they meet the qualifications for Jesus's do this?
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So you know that this is heading somewhere, and so we noted that in thesis two of my document,
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I pointed out that there is only one verba, and the verba are the words of institution. There is only one verba that, according to the
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Lutheran confessions, and I think they're right here, that affects consecration in the narrow sense. So in the wide sense, my words do bless the elements, all right, and I'll talk about what that means in a minute, but in the narrow sense where now
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Christ's body and blood are truly present and we are hanging on those words, this is the body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of our sins, this is the true blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, that there is only one verba that actually makes that change, and as I said last week, there's one verba to rule them all, kind of a funny way to put it, but you get the idea, and the formula of Concord puts it this way.
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The true and almighty words of Jesus Christ, which he spoke in the first institution of the supper, were not only effective in the first supper, they remain so, and this is so helpful because now it's not up to a pastor, it's never been up to a pastor to make it the
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Lord's supper, all right? I do not have magic powers. I do not have some indelible change that happened to me because somebody laid hands on me and put a stole over my neck at my ordination service.
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No, I do not make it the Lord's supper. Your faith doesn't make it the Lord's supper.
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Christ does. That means his intellect, his present active presence and intellect are involved in this.
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This isn't some, we're not invoking a far -off Jesus and saying,
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Jesus, come, send us your body and blood. No, wherever two or more are gathered, Christ is present, and where he is present, he is present in will, he's present in mind, he's present to save.
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He's truly present, and so you'll note then that we really truly believe that in every church service that we have, they begin in the name of the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is not a throwaway phrase. In fact,
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I remember years ago, I had a, I was attending Faith Lutheran Church in Capistrano Beach, and we had a guest speaker, a fellow who had left the
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ELCA because of their liberalism and was helping to form a church body that didn't have the apostasies of the
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ELCA, and he was invited to speak to our Missouri Synod Church, and his entire
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Sunday school lesson was walking through the scriptures as it relates to one part of the liturgy, the invocation, and his point was, this is everything.
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If Christ isn't present with us, then we're lost, was kind of his point, and I thought that was actually a compelling argument that he put together, and so you'll note, every divine service begins with these words, in the name of the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We now have confidence.
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Who's present? Christ. Can you see him? No. If he were to visibly appear,
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I'm gonna sit down. Does that make sense? Okay. Because my job as pastor, in some senses, and you're gonna note this, during the liturgy here at Kongsvinger, there are times when
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I am facing the altar, and there are times when I am facing the congregation.
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And so the phrase we use, and the phrase we use is that when a pastor is speaking on behalf of, or by the authority of Christ, he's facing the congregation, and in those instances, then,
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I'm a stand -in for Jesus, and so the phrase we use, persona Christi, I'm standing in the place, the person of Christ, which, when you think about it, makes sense, then, part of the reason why, one of the implications why we don't have female pastors.
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All right? If you have a female pastor standing in the place of Christ, that creates gender issues regarding Jesus, okay?
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And that's a little weird to put it that way, but I think that's correct. So, yeah, there's enough of those already, yeah.
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And I'll tell you, I recently upset a very notable feminist theologian,
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I'm putting that in scare quotes, because I reprimanded her, because she was on this down -with -the -patriarchy thing, and I basically said, so what do you do with the fact that, with Psalms that says, why do the nations rage, and the peoples plod and bane?
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The Lord has installed His Holy One, His King, on His holy hill, right?
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Jesus is a king. The universe is run by patriarchy. And then
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I pointed out that not only is Jesus a king, He's circumcised. And she held my tweet up for derision for the people in her, who follow her, and it was hilarious watching some of these people going, what's the information on the status of the circumcision thing, is it true?
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Who knows this? How'd they find this out, you know? It's like, it's in the Bible, okay?
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You're gonna have to get over this. It's like, these women are gonna have a tough time dealing with the fact that they're gonna be judged by a man who's circumcised.
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This is gonna be a very ugly day for them. Things are not gonna go well. But all that being said then, the invocation, we know that Christ never lies,
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He is truly present, and then you'll note that it's His word, His original verba, that makes all observances of the
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Lord's Supper to be the Lord's Supper. And we are all separated by, from that first verba, by a huge amount of time and a bazillion miles of space.
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All right? All of us are, and I mean a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, okay? So coming back then, the true and almighty words of Jesus, which
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He spoke in the first institution were not only effective in the first supper, they remain so, and they retain their validity and power and are still effective so that in all places, is it some places or all places?
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It's all. In all places in which the supper is observed, a note then, according to Christ's institution.
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And we'll talk about, what does that mean? Then His, and His words are used, the body and blood of Christ, and are truly present.
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They are distributed, they are received on the basis of the power and the might of the very same words that Christ spoke in the first supper.
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Okay? Now that's by way of review. Let's go on to the next thesis then. Okay, and then you'll note then,
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I'm really highlighting, for wherever what Christ instituted is observed, wherever, okay, and His words, they are spoken over the bread and the cup, and wherever the consecrated bread and cup are distributed,
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Christ Himself exercises His power. Note those words. Christ Himself, He exercises
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His power through the spoken words, which are still His words, by virtue of the power of the first institution.
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In other words, like I said, the present active Christ, He is here.
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He is now acting. He is the one who makes it what it is.
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Full stop. This is not magic. This is the present
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Jesus at work. Okay? Now the formula of the concord then goes on to say, in Solid Declaration 776,
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Christ, as Christosom says in his sermon on the passion, Christ prepares this table Himself.
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He blesses it. No human being makes the bread and the wine which are set before us the body and blood of Christ.
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Rather, Christ Himself who was crucified for us does that.
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Who does it? Jesus does it. He's present. The words are spoken by the mouth of the priest.
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In this particular case, we'll just say pastor because priest is always one of those words that makes everyone go, yeah. And I really hate that word being used for Christian pastors.
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I really do. That's not even a biblical phrase. It's not a biblical word at all. Priests are Levites of the
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Old Testament. And in the New Testament, you have your episkopos and your presbyteroid. Those are not priests, right?
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So when the words are spoken by the mouth of the priest, but when he says, this is my body, the elements have been presented in the supper.
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They are consecrated by God's power and grace through the word, just as the saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth was said only once.
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And humanity has no problem obeying that one. Yet it is continually effective in nature, causing it to grow and multiply.
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So these words were said once, but they are powerful and they do their work in our day.
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And until his return, so that in the supper, as celebrated in the church, his true body and blood are present.
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God blessed them. God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
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Again, so the idea then here is that we blame it all on Jesus, okay? And just like the words in Genesis were spoken, be fruitful and multiply, said once,
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God isn't coming to each generation going, could you guys be fruitful and multiply? No, it's still happening now.
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In the same way, Christ's first verba is still effective. And you'll note that the formula of Concord absolutely explicitly teaches that it's the present
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Christ who actively is the one who makes it the body and blood of Christ, or adds those elements to the
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Lord's Supper, okay? Which then only begs one question, what is necessary to do this?
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That's the only question, and that's the idea. Because it doesn't matter if you do it, how did that go, green eggs and ham?
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Sam, Sam, I am, right? Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?
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Would you eat them on a train? Would you eat them in the rain, right? I will not eat them here or there, I will not eat them anywhere.
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I will not eat green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam, I am, right? Okay, so the thing is is that when it comes to the
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Lord's Supper, it doesn't matter if you're in a box with a fox, in a train or in the rain, in a catacomb, in a nice church building, in a closet, in an upper room, hiding in a cave or in a tomb, it doesn't matter,
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Christ is with us wherever we gather. So thesis 2C, it is not our work, it is not our speaking, it is the command and ordinance of Christ that make the bread and the wine, the blood, and beginning with the first Lord's Supper, okay, the bread, the body, and the blood, beginning with the first Lord's Supper and continuing to the end of the world, okay?
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So it is not our speaking, but the command and ordinance of Christ that make the bread and body, the wine, beginning with the first Lord's Supper, we got that.
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And then here's thesis 3, so the verbat that the pastor speaks, and here's an important word, it's not performative, it's an important bit, okay?
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So when we talk about a performative word, let me give you an example that we all recognize, all right, have you ever asked yourself the question, why is it that when there is a movie depiction of a wedding, all right, so for instance, like the
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Princess Bride, right? Marriage, marriage is what brings us together today.
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Marriage, that blessed institution, right? Yeah, you get the idea, right? Okay, and then the guy says, get on to it, get on to it, get on with it, same man and wife, same man and wife, man and wife, right, okay.
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Why is it that when there's a movie depiction of a marriage that that doesn't count?
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Because in some movies, they actually, so do you take this person to be your lawful wedded wife, da da da da da da,
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I now declare you man and wife, how come that doesn't work? Because it's actually not a performative word when it is done in the context of a reenactment or a theatrical performance, and the law recognizes that distinction.
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But when somebody is a rightly called or has the proper authority given by the state, because the state gives us authority, when they perform a marriage ceremony, when they say,
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I pronounce you man and wife, that has bonafide legal ramifications, and it can only be undone in a divorce court.
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Those words spoken by a pastor or an officiant are performative, right?
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Maybe you just tied that to the state. Well, I'm not licensed by the state.
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In my particular case, we always tell, you deal with the state on your own terms. We're dealing before God and before the church, right?
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So the idea, and I'm talking in a broad category here, not necessarily about myself. So when a pastor presides over a wedding ceremony and he has all those authorities, when he says,
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I pronounce you man and wife, that's a done deal. It's performative.
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But when a pastor says the words of institution, it is not performative.
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It is not a magic formula. They are spoken in obedience to Christ's command to do this.
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The performative word was spoken by Jesus 2 ,000 years ago in an upper room. So the verb that the pastors speak is not performative in and of itself.
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When spoken in the context of Christ's instituted supper, Jesus himself, and notice
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I made this big, because this is the actual verb that the Formula of Concord uses.
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Jesus himself attaches his verba and work to the minister's words, thereby the
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Son of God, not the pastor, nor his speaking, effects the presence of his body and blood in the supper.
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It is Jesus, not me or any pastor. So here the Formula of Concord says these words.
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Solid Declaration 7, paragraph 78. Likewise, here too, if I were to say over all the bread there is, this is the body of Christ, nothing would happen, nothing.
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But when we follow his institution, Jesus' institution and his command in the supper, and they say, and say, this is my body, then it is his body, not because of our speaking or because of our declarative word.
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I love this. The Lutherans are very keen on the idea, get away from those declarations, man, right?
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I decree and declare that you're gonna have a suddenly. You might need to get some Kaopectate for it, but you're gonna have a suddenly, right?
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I can't. Even the people online look terribly upset.
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They're gonna, I need to work on that. I don't think he was going for authenticity.
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No, no, I think I was going for more of a, you get the idea, right?
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So it is not because of our speaking or declarative word, but because of his command in which he has told us to speak and to do, and has, no, it's a form of concord.
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Christ has attached his own command and deed to our speaking, all right? So the fact that it's, everything hinges on the present
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Christ, he is the one that makes at the Lord's Supper, and so the easiest way to look at it then is that Jesus being present wherever Christians are gathered, wherever, whether you're in your home or anywhere else, wherever they are gathered,
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Christ is present with us. And so when his instituted Lord's Supper is followed the way he said, do this, then it's the
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Lord's Supper. He makes it so. So we just wanna make sure that we have what he's commanded us to do present.
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So now talking more about this. So the reasons why the verba must be spoken. And in certain settings, they can actually be sung.
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You know, like Divine Service setting three, if you were to look through the hymnal, then you'll note that the words of institution actually have a melody to them.
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And I need to refresh it because I had a pastor who sang it all the time, and he did just such a good job.
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But when it's sung, how does it go? Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread.
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And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take heed, this is my body, which is given for you.
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This do in remembrance of me. And then it goes into another verse kind of following that same melody. But you know,
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Jesus didn't sing it. And he didn't sing it in English, didn't speak it in English. Okay, uh -oh, yeah.
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Jesus' first verba, you know, I'm not even sure I could sort it out, was probably in Aramaic. Aramaic or Hebrew, you know.
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All of the gospel writers write it in Greek, and there's variations on how it's worked out. Okay, all of that being said, when
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I speak it, it's not performative. Okay, so the reasons why the verba must be spoken despite not being performative are, one, in obedience to Christ's command.
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This is part of the do this, right? Jesus said do this, this is part of it. Two, to arouse faith within the recipient.
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And three, for the purpose of sanctifying and consecrating the elements. So in this sense, we're gonna talk about sanctifying them in a broad sense, not the narrow.
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The narrow sense is Christ's body and blood being attached. The wide sense, then, is then for the purpose of faith within the person receiving the body and blood of Christ.
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That's the wide sense. So in the administration of the Holy Supper, this is what the Formula Concord says, the words of institution are to be clearly and plainly spoken or sung publicly in the congregation, and in no case are they to be omitted.
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The reason they can't be omitted is it's part of the do this. So this is done first so that Christ's command, do this, may be obeyed.
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Second, it is done so that Christ's words will arouse, strengthen, and confirm the hearer's faith in the nature and the benefits of the sacrament, that is, the presence of Christ's body and blood and the forgiveness of sins and all benefits that have been won for us by Christ's death and the shedding of his blood which are given to us in his testament.
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So note here that if we were to have the Lord's Supper here at Kongsvinger, and I decided
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I wasn't just gonna, I wasn't gonna say the verba. Yeah, I was just gonna, you know, put the elements in the back of the church, and you know, and during the normal time we'd have communion, if you feel like you wanna have the
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Lord's Supper, you can just get up whenever you want to, and I'll have Barb on the organ playing just as I am without one plea.
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Okay? Okay. Okay. Now, now at that point, you're immediately gonna ask yourself a question.
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Is that just crackers and, you know, crackers and wine that we just had, or is that actually the Lord's Supper? Okay, it's just crackers.
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Some people who don't understand how this all works, they're gonna have like doubts and anxieties about this, what was that,
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I'm not sure. So by not following Christ's command, what creeps in?
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Complete uncertainty, chaos, questions, right? So when you follow
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Jesus's do this, what it does is it gives you confidence. I'm receiving the very promises that Christ is promising in this meal, the forgiveness of my sins.
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And your faith hangs onto those promises, and by not wavering from his do this, then you're able to come to the table and have confidence.
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I need this, I need these promises, I need to be forgiven. And you come away going,
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I have them, I got them, they're in the bag, and all that other stuff, it's not even present in your thinking.
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So you'll note, sticking with the do this creates all kinds of confidence, right?
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So in the administration of the Holy Supper, the words of institution ought to be clearly spoken. So this is done so that we may obey
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Christ's command to do this, it's done so that the words will arouse and strengthen and confirm the hearer's faith in the nature and benefits of the sacrament, that is the presence of Christ's body and blood, and the forgiveness of sins, and all the benefits that have been won for us by Christ's death and the shedding of his blood, which are given to us in this testament.
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Third, it is done so that the elements of bread and wine are sanctified and consecrated in this holy practice, thereby
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Christ's body and blood are offered to us to eat and to drink. As Paul says, the cup of blessing we bless, this, of course, takes place in no other way than through the repetition and the recitation of the words of institution.
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So the recitation of the words of institution by itself does not make a valid sacrament, they are spoken in the context of obeying
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Christ's command to do this, and they cannot be omitted, okay?
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Thesis five, so when the supper is observed as Christ has instituted according to his command to do this, we can have absolute confidence we are receiving the true body and blood of Christ because Christ remains truthful to his words, he cannot and does not lie, and he's present, right?
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So, but if the word remains as is right and necessary, then by virtue of them the elements are truly the body and blood of Christ, for as Christ's lips speak and say, so it is.
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He cannot lie or deceive. So in all the conversations that have been taking place that I've been barred from participating in, that's a whole other story, regarding the
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Lord's Supper and whether or not people who are gathered in their homes and gathered into a bigger assembly via the internet can have the
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Lord's Supper, I have yet to hear anyone actually confidently lay out what is it that actually makes a valid supper, and how we can have confidence that we're even receiving the body and blood of Christ.
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You have to begin with the affirmative, you have to defend, go down to what is it that defines these things, you have to define your terms.
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You can't talk about uncertainty apart from certainty. What is it that makes us certain, and then what would then legitimately cause uncertainty, okay?
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So our confessions in Thesis Six clearly identify those things that are necessarily prescribed in order to fulfill
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Christ's command to do this, and you're gonna be surprised at how short this list is. You need a Christian assembly.
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I think that goes without saying, right? Okay, you need a Christian assembly. This begs the question, those of you who are gathered together with others in your homes, is
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Christ present with you or not? Yeah, exactly, and like I explained last week, the medium of the internet is basically like the
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PA system here at Kongsbinger, and boy, today was one of these days when we really needed it. If you could have seen what
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I saw today, I mean, we had a church, everybody was sitting on two pews in the back, okay?
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And I'm pretty sure Clevin would have been sitting there too except he showed up late, right? Okay, Kongsbinger was in a papa wheelie, it's, you know, when you get in a ship, you have to like, or even on an airplane, you have to move people around to keep the things balanced.
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We're gonna break the foundation here. Anyway, it's gonna crack right in the middle. But the thing is is that there was nobody close to me.
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The closest was Mark, I mean, you know, and we'll forgive him, you know, for breaking the seating chart, but, you know, he's been in Florida, so that's had clearly a negative impact on him, but the idea here is is that without the
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PA system, nobody here would have been able to hear, okay? My voice doesn't carry that far that well, all right?
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And so no one complained about the fact that the only way they were able to hear me is because we use the church's
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PA system. The internet is a PA system, okay? We're joining multiple small congregations up into a bigger congregation.
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The medium of the internet is just an extension of our PA system, and the videos make that possible.
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And you'll note, you all have the ability to have an impact on our Sunday schools, our Bible studies.
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We were all worried and nervous that we weren't gonna get to our topic because of Jen's question at the beginning, you know.
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Ha ha ha ha, poor Jen. And Louise said, yes, you know, my lips hurt real bad.
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Anyway, sorry, but you get the idea. So you need a Christian assembly.
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So wherever you are, check, you qualify. Wherever two or more gathered Christ is there, you need bread and wine, all right?
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Now, you'll note that in our day, technology has made it possible to have a few variations on this theme, okay?
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For instance, all right, that there are some people who have difficulty or conscience issues as it relates to alcohol, or because they have abused alcohol in the past, for them, they can't engage in using alcohol without it becoming an issue of conscience for them, or potentially sending them on a bender.
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So that being the case, the churches in general, and I would say the
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AALC specifically, permits the use of an alternative to wine, and several alternatives.
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And let's talk about options that are available. You could have the option of grape juice. There is a type of non -fermented wine that is available now,
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I forget what it's called. But the other churches, what they do is they'll take drops of wine and dilute it with water.
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All of these for the people who then have conscience issues along these lines. All of them, you know, we're not gonna quibble on that.
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And then you'll note you need bread, okay? What is not permissible is something like, you know,
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Doritos and Cherry Cola. You know, you don't wanna stray so far from what
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Christ has instituted that now you start to bring in the uncertainty monster and you have issues.
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Well, is that a valid sacrament or not? So we like to try to keep things corralled in the bread and general wine -ish, grape -juicious kind of categories.
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And we note that technology has made this possible. Before, you know, pasteurization, grape juice was not a thing, all right?
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That was created by Welch. And that's specifically a 19th century technology that has been introduced into the churches.
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Prior to the invention of these individual little shot glasses, everybody drank from one cup.
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We don't require that, we just make it available as an option. So if shot glasses don't matter, common cup doesn't matter in the sense those are not the things that make it the
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Lord's Supper. So the idea then, bread and wine in the general categories to which they're assigned.
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And then you'll note, speaking, reciting, or singing the words of institution, that's part of it. The bread and wine then need to be distributed.
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And I'm gonna note here, there is no prescription on how or who distributes. There is no prescription in scripture or in the confessions on how or who distributes.
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By the way, here at Kongsvinger, who serves me? Me, okay,
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I serve myself. And so you'll note there, there is no, and then the bread and wine are consumed.
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Ta -da, you have a valid sacrament. Christian assembly, bread, wine, speak the verba, distribute, consume, that's it.
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You're missing something here, this isn't a Lord's Supper. So I remember a couple of years ago, came home from church, and there was the
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Roman Catholic Church down the street and they were all in a parade going down 17th
52:39
Avenue near my house. And they had this golden brass staff with a sunburst at the top of it with a consecrated wafer in the center.
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It looked like an oculus in the sun. And I knew immediately what that was.
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That's a Corpus Christi procession. They had taken consecrated elements from the mass, you know, a consecrated bread, put it in the center of this oculus thing, and they were parading the body of Jesus around Grand Forks.
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They didn't distribute it. Is that a valid sacrament? No, it's not, that's actually, that's not valid at all.
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And so you get the idea then. And so this is all that's prescribed. Full stop.
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Well, then what's the problem? Where all the action is right now is whether or not people who are gathered in their homes constitute a
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Christian assembly. Of course they do, otherwise Christ is a liar, you know?
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So, you know, I pointed out last week, somebody said, you know, well, the internet's not a place, and so it's not valid.
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No one says the internet's a place. The internet is a what? It's a medium.
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It's a medium that reaches people in the places that they are gathered. So that being the case,
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I told this person that I don't have to prove the internet's a place, they have to prove that Jesus isn't present with the people who are gathered in their homes, and the other people who've joined us via the medium of the internet while we're all assembled together in the name of the
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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. If you do not believe that Christ is present wherever Christians are assembled, then you can't do churchy things on the internet at all.
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All of it has to go away if you're consistent. So, all right, that's as far as we're going to get today.
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Let me check questions real quick, and then I gotta skedaddle down the road here. All right, so would you be able to get a copy?
54:55
So, yes, this'll be on the Kongslinger website sometime this week, okay? So, some argue there's a lack of community or union online.
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I strongly disagree. Jen, I totally disagree, too. I would note that some of the more meaningful church relationships
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I have are with people who don't even live in this country, okay? And that's to be expected, by the way.
55:17
You know, I'll be blunt, I mean, the people who attend Kongslinger, I love them all, but some of them I know better than others, and some
55:23
I get along with better than others, you know? Then there's Clevin, all right?
55:28
Then there's Clevin. Okay, you should see his nerdy T -shirt that he's wearing. Just so bizarre.
55:34
Anyway, all right, okay, and then Louie says, the Catholics call that the monstrance. They have that in the churches, too, to show that Jesus is present.
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Here's the thing. I know that Jesus is present because of the invocation, and I know that he's present, body and blood, in the
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Lord's Supper, because he promises to, all right? So, you know, parading him around like that makes no sense at all, and it really kind of makes the
55:59
Lord's Supper super creepy, you know? Parade Jesus! Yeah. Don't they also teach that just by gazing upon the
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Corpus Christi that you're receiving the sacrament? Yeah, so there's certain people that they can receive the benefit of the sacrament merely by their gaze.
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You think like, you know, numbers 20, by looking at the bronze serpent, and that somehow, you know, it really starts getting into the creepy weirdsville.
56:22
But, you know, we'll note that in order for it to be a valid sacrament, you need a Christian assembly, you need bread and wine, the words of institution are spoken, they're distributed, and they're consumed.
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And by the way, I would note, in super large churches, that there are interesting practices.
56:36
In Confessional Lutheran churches that are large, what they'll do is, so this is like a church like five, 600 people, you know, in one building.
56:44
There's just no way to distribute in a situation like this without a lot of help. So what they'll do is they set up stations at different portions of the congregation, sometimes in the choir loft or, you know, in the back rows or whatever, and those stations are never on the altar, ever.
57:01
One particular church in Orange County, California, St. John's, they have, for years they've had an overflow room that isn't even connected to their main sanctuary.
57:12
And they have a station set up there, and in that station, the only contact that those elements have with the rest of the congregation is through the video feed that's being projected in there.
57:26
All of that being said, no one ever questions whether or not these are valid observances of the sacrament because the elements were not on the altar, they weren't touched by the pastor.
57:34
You're gonna note, nowhere does it say the pastor has to touch anything. In fact, during COVID, I touched nothing, right?
57:40
Come on up and feed yourself. I treated you guys like cats, you know. But, Clevin's giving me one of those weird looks again.
57:53
And nobody ever questioned whether or not it was a valid sacrament. There is no prescribed distribution, and there are no prescribed words that have to be spoken during the distribution.
58:04
As our practice, I say these words, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ, given unto death for the forgiveness of your sins.
58:10
Take, drink, this is the true blood of Christ, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. But that's not prescribed. That's not biblically mandated.
58:16
If I wanted to, I could show my age, and I could say, shazbat, OK? Nanu, nanu.
58:22
Nanu, nanu. Anyway, I could say that, but it wouldn't be very beneficial. Yeah? By the way, the question about the
58:29
Corpus Christi goes back to the way they understood communication pre -1600s.
58:35
That's a talk all by itself. Yeah. And that's how stained glass comes into that conversation then, too.
58:40
Yeah, it goes into how they understood vision at the time, which is quite different from how we understand vision and communication today.
58:46
Yeah, that's a good point. I'll have to have you give a lecture on that. All right,
58:52
Mork and Minnie premiered two months before I was born. All right, Steven, yeah, I used to watch shows when they were brand new.
59:00
Anyway, that's a whole other story. All right, I've got to go. So Lord willing, we'll see you all next time.