The Criteria of Communion Part 1

Alright, so what we're going to do today, we're going to talk about, we're going to do a little mini study on the

Lord's Supper and what is it that makes it the Lord's Supper. So you're going to note something, we

Lutherans, we are in the unenviable position, it seems like, to be somewhere between Rome and evangelicalism.

It's kind of weird, we condemn them both and we'll have to explain why we do that. And we'll take a look at some biblical texts and then talk about what is it, you know, how does one have a valid consecration, what do

Lutheran confessions say in this regard. So we're going to be doing some very scandalous teaching today, so brace yourselves, best way

I can put it. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we open up your word and consider the sacrament of the altar, we pray that through your scriptures, through your word, we may rightly believe, confess, and do according to what you have revealed there, so that we may take comfort in the gift that you have given us in the

Lord's Supper. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, now real quick. Uh -oh,

Bruce has a question. Bruce Burns is in the house, my apologies, we may not be getting to this until next month.

Yes, Bruce. Okay. In today's sermon...

Yes, in today's sermon. Well, he wasn't reincarnated.

He had the spirit of Elijah, you can talk about that. Right. No, he says no.

Right. Right. Okay, so the idea here is that the prophecy in Malachi, the

Italian prophet, I believe is regarding the idea that John the

Baptist comes in the spirit of Elijah. Yes. Okay, let's use some of the NAR terminology, he had

Elijah's mantle. Anointing. Jesus loves you unconditionally.

I think I just caused too much brain pain for Bruce. The idea here is that the scriptures are very clear that it is appointed once for man to die.

Once. Now, granted, Elijah didn't. But that doesn't mean that John the

Baptist is literally the reincarnation of Elijah. That's not the right way of putting it. Does he come in the same spirit, the same power as Elijah?

Yes. Yes. In fact, you'll note that Elijah's garb that he wears is practically the exact same uniform that John the

Baptist wears. The connections and callbacks are for sure. This is part of the reason why the people of Israel are saying he's

Elijah. Now, if by Elijah you mean reincarnated, no. Does he come in the spirit of Elijah?

You betcha. Okay. And so I think that's kind of the imagery that we get then.

If you remember, it was Elisha who received Elijah's mantle.

And this is a biblical concept. And so he asked for a double portion of it, and he received it.

And so the idea here is that the same power and the same spirit that Elijah operated on is shown in the

Old Testament to be something that is transferable. But it's transferable only when God transfers it to another person.

So it's in the spirit of Elijah that John the Baptist comes. And Jesus is even cautious.

He says that if you're willing to accept it, that's kind of the Roseboro paraphrase, he is the

Elijah who was to come. That's the point. That doesn't mean that we're teaching reincarnation. And that was my reference.

But by the way, great question. Great point. It wasn't the spirit of Elijah. What's the spirit by which

Elijah operated? It's the Holy Spirit. That's the idea. And you'll note that John the

Baptist, unlike Elijah, was not a miracle worker. John the Baptist performed no signs, no wonders, none.

I'm with you on that one. So Marilyn pointed out that the fact that he was able to eat locusts is a miracle, one that we pray never to have to be repeated in human history again.

Although I will say this. In Asian countries, they sell bags of locusts like we sell potato chips.

Yeah, so if you're into that, if you're into strange forms of the keto diet, just to let you know.

All right. So let's talk. Yeah, Ezekiel bars.

Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, that's a whole other story. I mean, years ago,

I was very, for a time in my life, I was very prolific in putting out exhibits in what we call the

Museum of Idolatry. And putting those things out was just so, it's another version of the swamp of sadness is the best

I can put it. But one of the things that was, I mean, this thing that happens that Christians think they have to come up with their own

Christian products all the time. And so somebody thought it would be a great idea to come out with what they call

Ezekiel bars. No, no. Bread, bread. No, we were the ones that came up with the Ezekiel bars.

Because Ezekiel had to cook his food.

Yeah, but it turns out to be, it was real. What we put out initially as a spoof, why don't you make

Ezekiel's bread because you have to cook it over poop. Turns out there is an actual bread product called

Ezekiel bread. And their big marketing point is it's the same recipe that's given in scripture.

Is it cooked over manure? I pray God, no. I think that they would end up breaking a lot of laws if they ended up cooking it over manure.

And the thing is, is that when you read the prophet Ezekiel, God initially required him to cook it over human excrement.

And Ezekiel complained and said, no. And God said, all right, well, you can use cow patties instead.

Well, thanks God. That's a big improvement.

Having worked with both. So it's really not authentic Ezekiel bread unless it is actually cooked over excrement.

So it's just weird when you think about it. And so I will never purchase

Ezekiel bread. I can't do it. Right. All right.

Let's talk about, let's do a little bit of reminder work here. So reminding you of our covenants, the noadic covenant, what is the sign of the noadic covenant?

Rainbow. What is the promise of the noadic covenant? Not to flood the earth.

You know, the entire earth again via flood. K, the Abrahamic covenant. What is the, what is the promise of the

Abrahamic covenant? The seed of the

Jesus, the, the, the, the, through Abraham's descendant is seed. The whole world would be blessed.

What is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant? Circumcision. Mosaic covenant.

It's a land lease agreement. So God promises that you can stay in the land if you obey.

So it's like a, it's a, it's a tenant agreement. What is the sign of the mosaic covenant?

Sabbath, Shabbat. All right. New covenant. What is the promise of the new covenant?

Forgiveness of sins. God remembers to forget your sins. What is the sign of the new covenant?

Body and blood. Body and blood of Christ. The Lord's Supper. Every time we have the Lord's Supper, you visibly see bread and wine, and we recognize that it is what

Scripture says it is, what Christ says that it is, the body and blood of Christ, and the Lord's Supper is established then as a covenantal meal, and the body and blood of Christ are the signs of the new covenant, and when you see the signs of the new covenant, you remember that God remembers to forget your sins, but more importantly,

God sees the signs of the new covenant, and He remembers to forget your sins. That's kind of the gist of how that all works.

So we recognize, first and foremost, that the Lord's Supper is a covenantal meal.

Now Lutherans, we get shot at from two sides. It's just loads of fun.

And so if you think about evangelicals, if you were to ask the average evangelical, somebody who attends some strange, bizarre, freedom -ish,

Gracie church, vague names that they have now, the Church of the

Narcissistic, me, myself, and I, what do they say that the

Lord's Supper is? Huh? It's a symbol.

Okay? So the bread and wine, they what? They symbolize the body and blood of Christ.

According to them, and there's varied opinions on this, what does it mean to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner?

Unconfessed sin, yeah. So if you have unconfessed sin in your life, then you can't have the Lord's Supper. Yes, James?

It's just grape juice and gluten -free bread. So grape juice and gluten -free bread, right. And then you'll note that in some weird instances, they think it's okay to have the

Lord's Supper with Doritos and Coca -Cola.

Cheetos and Dr. Pepper. Cheetos and Dr. Pepper. Bruce, Bruce, stop the self -harm.

They don't get actually used to with the actual Fathers in the Holy Spirit, they'll do it with something like this.

And oftentimes when they have the Lord's Supper, they don't even say the words of Christ.

They'll say, we're going to have communion together right now, we've set up stations, and as you feel led by the

Spirit, come up and consume the elements. And the emphasis is on what?

Do this in remembrance of me. And so the focus is on remembering Jesus' suffering and what he did.

Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, if you think about it. But that's actually kind of missing the whole point of what remembrance is.

So the reason why I mention the covenants first is because in the Gnoadic covenant, we see kind of the first example of a covenant as it's laid out.

It's between two parties. God in the Gnoadic covenant, he's a unilateral covenant.

And covenants always have promises or curses. They don't all have curses. But they do all have signs.

And the signs invoke the promises of the covenant. And the idea then is that when something is done in remembrance in a covenantal context, it's always to remember the promises of the covenant.

So it is absolutely true that we remember that Christ suffered. In fact, in the liturgy, there's what's called an anamnetic prayer as part of the communion liturgy where we walk through the different sufferings, the different pieces of Christ's passion and suffering for our sins.

And there's an absolute concept, anamnesis means to remember, an anamnetic concept regarding it.

But all that being said, the real action though is at what it is. So we've talked about the evangelicals, it's pure symbol.

All right, what about Rome? What are you getting in the Lord's Supper in Rome, in the mass? Yes. The actual...

Is there bread and wine still there? No, it changed. Okay, it's transmo...

No, it's transubstantiate. I wanna say transmogrified. Okay, so in Rome, the

Roman belief is that you only receive the body and blood of Christ and they're gonna use

Aristotelian logic and philosophy to basically say it tastes like bread, it feels like bread, it tastes like wine, it feels like wine, but it's not.

That the texture and the taste are what are called accidents. Not that they're something that's accidental.

They're called accidents. And the idea behind an accident is that that is an attribute of it that is there, but it's not at the core of what it is.

So it accidentally, not because it's an accident, it smells, tastes, feels like bread and wine.

And so irony of ironies, we're closer to Rome than we are the evangelicals, but we still actually condemn

Rome for a few things on this as it relates to scripture because when we look at the biblical text, if you were to tally it up, we don't receive two things in the

Lord's Supper. We receive four. And so we will say to the evangelicals, you're not listening to Jesus and what the church has always understood.

And then we'll say to Rome that you've taken Thomas Aquinas' philosophizing and dogmatized it.

Because at the end of the day, it's Christ that makes it the Lord's Supper, not me, not anybody else.

And the best that we can come up with is, and you'll see this as we explain it.

So all that being said, let's take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and we're gonna look at the presenting problem.

If you've ever read 1 Corinthians, then you're gonna note the church at Corinth was really messed up. I mean, they were abusing the gifts of the spirit, misusing them.

The rich people in the congregation were keeping the poor from having the Lord's Supper because to eat a meal with somebody who's of a lower class than you puts them on the same level as you and that's scandalous for the rich.

They are not interested in that. And of course you had that guy who was sleeping with his dad's wife and they were, praise the

Lord. Isn't the grace of Jesus great? And Paul's like, ugh. Yeah.

So here we've got the presenting problem. 1 Corinthians 11, 17. In the following instructions,

I do not commend you because when you come together, it is not for the better, it is for the worse.

From the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. I believe it in part for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

But when you come together, it's not the Lord's Supper that you eat. In eating, one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk. Okay, what's going on here?

Not grape juice. Huh? Not grape juice. Well, yeah. So note

I highlighted, good point, James. Yes, it's not grape juice. You can't get drunk on grape juice.

Yeah. Yeah. So here you've got a faction within the church who is making it so that people are going hungry because they're not getting any of the

Lord's Supper and other people are actually consuming the consecrated wine in such copious amounts they're actually getting drunk at church.

These are clearly not Norwegians either. So... Sorry, I always have to take a swig.

Okay, so you get the idea here. And yes, you can point out that, yes, it was actually, you know, wine.

You know, it doesn't matter how many glasses of Welch's you have. And by the way, grape juice did not exist.

That was not a thing until pasteurization. Because if you've ever looked on the outside of a grape,

I mean, just, you know, this is the time here in North America. Grab some grapes. Look on the outside of the grape.

What do you got there? You got that white little frosty thing on the skin. That's the actual fungus.

That's the, you know, what... Huh? It's yeast. It's yeast. It's what...

So when you smash up grapes, all that yeast is released into that high sugar content juice and the fermentation process begins immediately.

And that's how that works. It's just... And so that yeast is going to gobble up the sugars.

And when it's done gobbling up the sugars, you know, what the yeast puts out after it's gobbled up the sugar is the alcohol.

And carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide. That's right. So you do not want to ferment your wine inside of a pressure cooker.

So that would go poorly. Okay. Yeah. But the idea then is until the pasteurization process was invented, there was no way to stop the fermentation process.

None. There was no way to do it. So, you know, is drinking alcohol a sin?

No. And anyone who says it's a sin is not correct. Is getting drunk a sin? Oh, you betcha.

Okay. Absolutely. So it's a gift that we are given that we must use responsibly the way

God intends and not to our destruction. But in this particular case, you have people getting drunk on the communion wine and Paul just goes, what?

Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Do you despise the Church of God? And watch what they're doing.

Humiliating those who have nothing. So the rich are humiliating the poor.

And that's kind of the big scandal of Christianity because when we come to the Lord's Supper, do the rich get served first here at Kongsvinger?

Are the poor excluded? Do we have anybody who's rich here? Think about it.

If anyone shows up who has actually some money. So never mind.

We don't have anybody like that here. We're all happily in the lower middle class.

Anyway, all right. But the point is that you'll note that historically and to this day, the wealthy like to put on airs as if somehow their wealth makes them better than other people.

But in a Christian church, everybody comes to receive the Lord's Supper as equals, as sinners saved by the grace of Christ.

The spiritually poor and destitute, bankrupt if you would.

But here, the wealthy of the Roman Empire, and in this time period, the middle class as we know it really wasn't that strong of a thing.

You either had money or you didn't. You either were wealthy or you weren't. And most of the people in the lower classes are going to be slaves anyway.

So as Paul says, what shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. So what's the problem here?

And this is where Paul's going to get at the nubbins. It's time to go back to catechism class. And we're going to have to work out what the problem is.

And the problem is that they are treating the bread and wine as common things, not seeing them as the sacred things that they are in the context of the

Lord's Supper. So going back to his catechism, Paul says, For I received from the

Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said,

This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now I'm not going to get into the finer points of how predicate nominatives work, but just understand that when

Christ says, this is my body, that's a predicate nominative construct. And the question is, what does

Jesus mean by that? That's the question. This is my body. This is my body.

What does he mean? Jesus could have used the word symbolize because that's a completely legitimate word in Koine Greek.

He could have talked about how it was an archetype or a type of shadow or an anti -type.

He could have used symbolic language in this nature, but he didn't. He just straight up says, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. So in remembrance here, so it's anamnesis.

This is, again, that concept of, you know, this is the remembrance in a covenantal context, and you'll see this in the next part of it.

In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant. There it is.

In my blood, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

So now the question is, what does Jesus mean? This is my body. This is my blood. Does he really mean that?

And what has the church historically said? Yeah. Okay, the church has historically said that's exactly what it means.

And so the church historically has always believed that they are consuming the body and blood of Christ when they have the

Lord's Supper. Now, Thomas Aquinas came up with a theory as to how it becomes the

Lord's Supper, and his theory is based upon Aristotelian logic, and it's, you know, it's the concept of transubstantiation.

Rome has dogmatized that theory, but Scripture doesn't give us anything like that. But here's the other issue.

So the question now is that if this is truly the body and blood of Christ, immediately we're going to ask the question, well, how does it become so?

How does ordinary bread and wine cease being ordinary bread and wine, but now also have attached to it somehow the body and blood of Christ?

Rome's answer is quite unique, and it has to do with what they call the sacrament of ordination.

And they overtly teach that when a man is ordained into the priesthood, that by virtue of the sacrament of ordination that there is an indelible change in his character.

And according to that indelible change in his character, he now has been granted the power to basically create the mystery, so that when he speaks the words of institution, then by the change that's been changed in the pastor and the priest, that he now has that power to turn ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

Yes, sir? Okay, I'm going to tweak your question because the ordained pastor doesn't create the sacrament.

Our confessions are clear that Christ creates the sacrament. But the question is that why in the

Lutheran church is it only the pastors who can preside over the Lord's Supper? So two passages, or two concepts in particular.

Number one, Scripture is clear that it is the presbyteroi who along with the apostles are the stewards of the mysteries.

Alright? And so that's one aspect. But the word steward is your big picture there.

The reason being is because as part of the understanding of the office of the keys being publicly practiced by the pastor.

The keys belong to the church but are publicly practiced by the rightly called pastor.

Because when somebody receives the Lord's Supper they receive an overt absolution for their sins.

It falls under the office of the keys. And so my job as the pastor is to make sure that Christians who should be receiving the

Lord's Supper are and those who are under discipline or who have been excommunicated or who are not baptized or who do not rightly believe or confess what the

Lord's Supper is that they should not receive it or it should be withheld. Yes sir?

And yet it has been publicly the hands of the clergy passed the elements along it is not communicated.

Yes, okay, you're getting way ahead of me. By the AALC. Yes, you're getting way ahead of me.

You're getting way ahead of me. We're going to address this. So the point was this and that is that there has been, how shall we say public argumentation by some within the leadership of the

AALC that it's not a valid sacrament unless the pastor physically holds the elements.

Sometimes it has been And there has to be

There has to be an alter. That's a whole other issue. You're getting way ahead of me. But we'll address this.

I'm looking at my time. What was that? It doesn't. And so you're going to note here is that we're immediately going to take note that people who make a requirement that the pastor must physically touch the elements.

Scripture doesn't say that, nor do our confessions. And we will note that during COVID we practice no -touch communion.

In fact, there are churches within the association, our association who not only practice no -touch communion, they actually to make sure that no diseases were spread they handed out the elements in boxes that can only be described as lunchables.

As people were coming into the congregation, and at no time were they ever on an altar or touched by the pastor.

And yet the pastor never said, that is the body of Christ. He always said this. So we'll talk about this.

Let's just put it this way. There are certain people who for whatever reason seem to have very strong personal opinions that they're exalting into dogmas in relation to the

Lord's Supper. And I would admonish them to come back to what the Scriptures say in our confessions.

Yeah, I am. I'm absolutely not even suggesting. I'm overtly admonishing, beseeching that we stay with Sola Scriptura.

How traditional of you. Okay. Alright. Alright.

Now we continue then. Note here Christ says, this is my body, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And we noted, remembrance is an invoking of the covenantal promise.

You'll find that promise in Deuteronomy chapter 31, where God promises that in the new covenant

He will remember our sins no more. So the sign of the new covenant is the body and blood of Christ.

And so every time we have the Lord's Supper, it's a covenantal meal. And then Christ says, as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the

Lord's death until He comes. And everyone says, Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Right? Okay.

So you'll note then, there's something more going on there. And then here's where He talks about what it means then to take the

Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the blood, the body and blood of the

Lord. Now this is an important an important aspect here. So we say to the evangelical you have not gone far enough because scripture says this is my body.

And if you take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner, you're actually guilty of sinning against the real body and blood of Christ.

How does one do that if they're not present? Okay. And this is what they were doing then.

They were not recognizing that Christ's body and blood are truly present and as a result of it, they were treating the holy as unholy.

And thereby they were sinning against the very body and blood of Christ. And in the Rome we say, but watch what it says.

Therefore whoever eats the what? Bread. Okay. If transubstantiation were true then why does scripture tell us that there's bread present?

So the Lutherans here's where we go with this, and this is an important bit, is that because this is a mystery that's what a sacrament is.

That's what sacrament means. It's a mystery. Because this is a mystery, we recognize that somehow when we consume the bread and we drink the wine, that we are also receiving the body and blood of Christ because they are what

Christ says they are. And so we don't know how the attachment works per se.

So what we do is we just throw a bunch of prepositions onto it. And so here's the prepositions we use.

In, with, and under. Alright. Well which is it?

Well, pick one. Use them all. Okay, the point is you are actually consuming, receiving in your mouth bread, wine, body, blood.

Importance, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

That's the whole point. And so this invokes faith in the promises.

And so you'll note the Lutherans run the Lord's Supper through the gospel, not the law. Alright, so in the

Baptist churches the Lord's Supper is called what? Ordinance. And ordinance has to do with law.

Why do you have the Lord's Supper? Because Jesus said to do this. Okay. And you'll note when you take it and you turn it into law, are you prone to wanting to have the

Lord's Supper very often? Not really. It becomes a work. Right? And so you'll note that when you're running it in this connection then, the tendency is to have the

Lord's Supper with very limited frequency. Several times a year. Once a month. Or something like this.

When you run it through the law, it's the work that you've got to do. And then what happens is that you'll note that in some pietistic settings, then people who are considered unworthy of having the

Lord's Supper, the people who are not holy enough, they're sat down or they're encouraged.

If you have any unconfessed sin in your life, you have to exempt. We'll do why. I don't know. I don't know. You shouldn't have it. Okay? It's like...

Okay. Yeah, we're all unworthy. So how is one worthy to take the Lord's Supper?

When you recognize you're a sinner. And that Christ has bled and died for your sins because this is

His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Right?

Yeah. It's like, I need this bad. Okay? And you'll note that at the beginning of every divine service, how do we begin?

By confessing our sins. And hearing in absolution. That's the truth.

So do we have to worry about unconfessed sin? No. So what happens is every time we have the

Lord's Supper, that is a wonderful, wonderful personal experience, if you would, of the forgiveness of sins.

Now granted, it tastes like, you know, some really cheap, super sweet wine. You know, such as Moog and David.

And then I like the wafers we use here at Kanzinger because there's a little substance to them. I mean, have you ever been to a church where they're super wispy and as soon as it hits your tongue it melts and you don't even know if you had it or not?

You know? The what? The paper wafer.

Right. Okay. I know somebody who says it's easier to believe that the Lord's Supper is the body and blood of Christ than it is to believe that that thing is actually bread.

You know? It's just, as soon as it hits your tongue, it's gone.

It's like, you know. But the thing is that what you're experiencing when you have the

Lord's Supper is an individual absolution by Christ. Because Christ is saying to you, this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you'll note that in the context of when I speak the general absolution to all who are present, that sometimes sin, death, the devil, our own flesh, the world gets the better of us.

And it's easy for us to sit there and go, yeah, I wonder if that absolution applied to me today. Because, you know, if the pastor knew what

I was doing, okay, yeah, I know what you're doing. You're sinning every week. So, that being the case, what the

Lord's Supper allows is for you to receive that absolution where you can tell the devil to just take a hike because the devil will always come along, you really think you're a

Christian, you really think you're saved, you really think Jesus forgives you, well, yeah, didn't you hear? That was the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of my sins.

Not everybody's, mine in particular. And so, we oftentimes, just like in Romans 6, we use our baptism as a weapon against the devil, so the

Lord's Supper then, the promises of the covenant and the forgiveness of sins are used as a weapon against the temptations to despair of Christ's mercy that the devil throws at us.

Because you are individually receiving this forgiveness. Yes, Michael? I just have one disciple sit on.

Yes. There weren't priests and stuff, and yet the people themselves were, then get to the point where, let's say

I'm going to get shipwrecked.

Three hour tour. You're showing your age, Mike. There is no pastor there, but yet we want to have communion.

Great questions. Number one, I have to challenge your history. I'll challenge your history because there's something that I would argue biblically is incorrect about your statement.

And that is that the apostles explicitly set up both presbyteroi and episkopos.

And so, episkopos are bishops and presbyteroi are your pastors. Now, they get called priests, but I'll show you this from the epistle of Timothy.

We're going to need our Greek for this. That's got to be bigger because my eyes are getting older. Watch what

Paul says to Timothy. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders, presbyteros, in every town as I directed you.

If anyone is above reproach and the husband of one wife, children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery and subordination.

For an episkopos, note that he uses the word interchangeably here. Presbyteroi and episkopos.

So, Titus has an apostolic authority given to him by Paul to remain in Crete for the purpose of, if you would, appointing the ground floor of the priesthood, of the pastors, who are going to be moving forward with the death of the apostles, responsible and tasked with the job of preaching the word and correcting those and rebuking those who contradict it.

Here's how this works then. He appoints the overseers and the bishops.

They're on the ground level. Here's then how the church continues it. You can see this in the writings of the church fathers.

There were bishops who were also pastors who appointed pastors over smaller congregations.

What ended up happening is within each city there was a seat of the bishop, if you would. What would happen upon the death of the bishop, the individual congregations would vote one of the men who was the pastors of the smaller congregations in the city to become the bishop.

There was this wonderful symbiotic relationship that existed all the way going, and you can trace this back really far, into the early first, actually early second century, late first.

Here's how it worked then. They were initially appointed using apostolic authority and then upon their deaths the bishops were chosen by the congregations.

You always get this wonderful symbiotic thing. What they would do is then appoint the pastors.

They were in charge of training. They were in charge of watching over the doctrine and theology of the pastors.

Then upon their death of the bishop the congregations would appoint from among one of them who the next bishop would be.

It's not a perfect thing. You're going to note in that particular ecclesiology, and we can see this clearly laid out in the

New Testament, the head of the church is Christ. We recognize then that the bishop of Rome, that was a legitimate bishop, seat of the bishop that was established in the times of the apostles.

The bishop of Rome, and we'll note that historically you can make the argument that Peter was the bishop of Rome and that the apostle

John became the bishop of Ephesus. Very strong cases in both cases.

The point is this, where Rome has erred, and you can see this creeping in at the time of Gregory the Great, was to assert that the bishop of Rome had dominance over the other bishops.

They wanted to create a primary bishop. That was a big problem. The nice thing is that early on, that the bishop of Rome, he was a really powerful bishop, but so was the bishop of Alexandria, so was the bishop of Ephesus, so was the bishop of Antioch.

Those guys were constantly fighting all the time. What's funny is that the bishop of Alexandria, the bishop of Antioch, and the bishop of Ephesus, they were also called papas.

Which is exactly what a pope is. But there was no head over them. What the apostles established was an ecclesiastical order, if you would, that really had a symbiotic relationship.

The congregations had absolutely a say in who their bishop was, and the bishop, once appointed and elected by the congregations, he would then send pastors into congregations, and if a pastor was sinning or misbehaving or teaching heresy, he'd yank them out.

He would discipline them, and that was his job. But that's how this was set up in the early church.

Does that make sense? So in my scenario, Skipper could be the pastor if the people on the island voted in sadness.

Yes. Now, and here's the thing, Augustine says this very thing, and this actually is in the Lutheran Confessions, this particular story is alluded to.

So Augustine, in talking about this ecclesiology, makes it clear that wherever two or more are gathered, you have a church, and the church then can appoint somebody to be their pastor.

And so he gives an account of two Christians who were on a long sailing journey, and they were both sailors, and in this journey, one of them, actually, they started out with only one

Christian, he preached the gospel to one of the fellows, to different sailors, and one of them became a

Christian. He baptized him, and then, between the two of them, that guy who was the new

Christian called him as his pastor, and he was then able to absolve him and other things like this, and when they got to shore, then what happened is the

Christian who was the mature Christian, who was called to be the pastor in this scenario, he went and talked to the bishop and said, is this legit?

And the bishop said, absolutely. Every one of your absolutions stood. And so the idea then here is that we recognize then that where you have a congregation, and the only number required is two.

So in your S .S. Minow, in your S .S. Minow analogy, right, so we'll say that who would be the

Christian among them? Gilligan? God chooses the foolish things of the world, right?

To shame the wise. So Gilligan is your Christian, he preaches the gospel to the skipper, the skipper becomes the

Christian, and between the two of them now, they're able to call one of them as the pastor. And that's how this works.

Okay? And so, yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. Right. And so the idea then here is that you recognize where two or more are gathered, you've got a church.

Right? You're sitting there going, it's a pretty sparse church. Okay? What if it's two women? No? No pastors then.

You've got to talk one of the men into, you know... Yeah. But the important thing here, if you have a congregation of two women, the office of the keys can still be exercised between Christians.

You can still absolve each other. But there are certain things you can't do in that regard.

Yeah? You said but, that means you're going to.

Okay. Alright. Got it. Alright. So does this answer your question then?

Okay. Good. How are we doing on time? Wow. Terrible. Okay. We're going to end up, this is going to be a multi -week thing.

Okay. This is part one. So then, if you were, in fact I have to kind of land the plane here because I've got another church to serve.

So here's the idea then. When we talk about the Lord's Supper, the Lutherans, there's a term that we loathe when it's used for us because it doesn't quite capture it.

So if transubstantiation is the term used for Rome, it's transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

And the Evangelicals and the Reformed, it's just a symbol. You know, people have described our position as consubstantiation, but every time you hear it, we just go, okay.

Okay. It's because con means with. It's not the proper way to describe it.

So we prefer to refer to it as the doctrine of the real presence. That Christ's body and blood are truly present in, with, under, we don't know how it works, bread and wine.

That's the doctrine. It's the doctrine of the real presence. And here's the fun part, is that when you do the historical work on this, you'll note that the early

Christians all describe what we believe. And it wasn't until later, philosophical and theological developments, that you end up having some kind of a dogmatic concept as to what it is.

Christians just, for centuries, for millennia, easily disbelieved. I'm receiving the body and blood of Christ, and oh yeah, there's bread and wine there, so I don't know how it works.

It's a mystery. That's what a sacrament means. Okay. Given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

So we're not Rome. We do not believe in transubstantiation. But we're also not Reformed. We don't believe it's mere symbol.

And so, coming back then to our text, we'll answer the question then.

So whoever drinks the cup of the Lord and eats the bread or drinks the cup, notice it's bread and still wine, drinks the cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of Christ.

So here's the answer to the question. What does it mean to do that? So let a person examine himself. And this is an important part of it, is that you're going to note then that this idea of self -examination being an important part of having the

Lord's Supper, this is why historically we do not commune infants, because an infant is not capable of this.

But I would note, I do not personally agree with the practice of waiting until somebody has finished, you know, eighth grade catechism to be communed either.

I really would like to see that change. And some of my brothers that are confessional pastors, when a child is able to explain and understand what they're receiving in the

Lord's Supper, this sometimes happens as early as age 5, 7, 8, something like this, and they're able to really say that is the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.

They're capable of that examination, and those pastors do not bar them from the Lord's Supper.

So, and I would note that historically the practice of waiting to commune somebody until they've finished catechism class, you always run the risk of making the child think they've graduated from Christianity.

That's a real practice. I remember the first year that I was here in 2014, it was after a

Sunday school and a barn swallow, somebody had opened the door and a barn swallow got into Kongsbinger and was circling in here, and a bunch of guys were trying to get that thing out, and Isla Lynn shouted out, confirm it, because once you confirm it it'll never come back.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They're not discerning this, right? This is what you need to discern. They're discerning it in an unworthy manner.

Yeah. They don't know what it really means. Well, for a lot of these kids, the parents are like, you must be catechized.

The parents seem to think that, oh, the kid's catechized, they're good now. Yeah, yeah, and that's and James will tell you that's what

I drill into his head You're not graduating from Christianity. You've just got the basics. You know, you know, you're getting to full membership

So then watch what the text says if anyone for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning

Diacrino here You could you could make a case that Diacrino could be translated as recognized

Some translations will translate it that way That's not quite the gist of Diacrino But for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself

So no, it doesn't say unconfessed sin that makes you take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner.

It's not recognizing It's not discerning not understanding that that the body and blood of Christ are present

And that's exactly what the Church of Corinth was doing the rich in the Church of Corinth We're treating these things as rather than sacred

They were sinning against the body and blood of Christ by not recognizing that these elements now being used in this context

They that they that the body and blood of Christ are present And then he says that's why many of you are weak and ill some have died

And so you'll note that God took vengeance on the people on some of these rich people for this great

Humiliation of the poor but also by sinning against the very body and blood of Christ But if we judge ourselves truly we would not be judged

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world So kind of step one in a right understanding of the

Lord's Supper is staying within the bounds of scripture and letting the scripture tell you what it is and Don't don't let your reason rob you of what it is

Because it is what Christ says it is Straight up. All right. Now, let's check questions here.

It's a frozen break I've Seen it in stores. Okay, man

Okay, what's the deal with Rome's former belief that spilling the Lord's blood the wine was blasphemy

They only served the lay people the body for centuries. Yeah, that's true. They did I think it had less to do with spills and more to do with the fact that in medieval times wine was really expensive

Yeah, and I know the Lutheran confessions condemn that practice and serve both elements What do Lutherans believe about spilling the wine with regard to being the

Lord's blood so it's real simple We we basically say that and here's the important part.

I want you to just consider the question for a second This is not a magic trick

We always talk about Consecration in terms that almost turns it into a hocus -pocus

Abracadabra magic trick you you snap your finger you say the words and blammo whammo.

It is this. Okay. Here's the thing Yeah, I know that's why

I used them Okay, here's the issue. Is that when you understand the scriptures you cannot have the

Lord's Supper a Part from the not only the presence of Christ, but also his active and in the moment will

So the thing is is that the person who makes it the Lord's Supper isn't the pastor it's

Jesus and Because Jesus is actively and involved in it.

We're two or more. He is gathered You know two of my gathered he's present Then let's stop talking about the

Lord's Supper as if somehow what happens if I spill it Because now you're thinking you're gonna sin against the body of Christ Do you think for a second that the

Lord Jesus Christ is going to allow his? His body and blood to be spilled on the floor

No It's not how this works so we always recognize that it that it is the body and blood of Christ within the context of the supper and Accidents happen.

So, you know what happens here at Kong's vinger It happens sometimes somebody hits one of the shot glasses and a little bit of wine spills out on you know

On the rail of the altar, you know what I do. I grab a paper towel and I wipe it up Okay, I don't get down on all fours and look it up like a dog or something

Oh, no, the body of blood of Christ have fallen, you know, you know And I and I would note then, you know

Rome they're really weird on this, you know, so I Always refer to this.

I won't tell the whole story now, but when my grandmother who was an Irish Catholic was We when she had a funeral mass

Which was really weird because they decided to have the funeral mass at st Hedwig's in New Hyde Park in Long Island, which is a

Polish Parish the Polish priest who was there. I mean he was kind of old -school

VAT before Vatican to kind of legalist, you know comes to these things and When it came time for the

Lord's Supper, he'd already chewed us out a few times during the my grandmother's funeral mass But what happened is is my uncle when he went up to receive the elements

He had his granddaughter on his hip and she was three years old And so he held out his left hand to receive the the body of Christ and the the female

Deaconess who was distributing at that time put the wafer on his hand and he basically took his hand and rolled it up and grabbed

It with his thumb and went to put it in his mouth. And then when the priest saw that he lost his mind He goes no

You don't flip Jesus, you know, you could drop Jesus on the floor, you know

It's like oh man, so here's here's the thing is that We recognize that Christ's active

Involved will is involved Okay, he makes it the body and blood of Christ And if somebody is misusing and abusing it or drops it on the floor

Jesus just is able to say that Yeah, well, it stops making it what it is All right, you cannot discuss these things as if somehow you know, we're dealing with a magical worldview

No, you were dealing with an active present Jesus and I think that gets lost in this conversation a lot

All right And if Christ is actively present with us

He's always the the guest who is with us and he's the host at the table.

I'm just a stand -in He's he's the he's the chef. I'm just the waiter

Okay, and so we recognize that Christ is present now But I will say this in this regard and we'll stop for today next week

We'll talk more about what it is that makes a valid sacrament That some people have said that it's required that the pastor hold the elements

No scripture says that and to say so invalidates every observance of the Lord's Supper during kovat.

That's ridiculous So we stay within the bounds of scripture And the other thing is is that some have argued that you have to have an altar in order to have a valid sacrament that's an actual public argument on a particular

YouTube video to which I would say I have yet to make a Portable altar to take with me when

I bring the Lord's Supper to visit people who are shut -ins or somebody who's in the hospital Okay, and nowhere in scripture does it say

I have to have an altar this is these are the traditions of men and Anybody who speaks this way needs to be rebuked that they are adding to the scripture and adding to our

Confessions as far as what is required to have a valid sacrament if you think you have to have an altar

Then you've got another thing coming All right Because I would like to know where where would it did the

Christians who worshipped in the catacombs when Christianity was illegal Did they have altars?

Yeah Yeah, they they actually are arguing for a physical altar being required

Yeah Yeah, I don't I don't recall

Jesus having an altar in that upper room. None is mentioned there were dining couches though, and they were reclining

Huh, I Have no idea Okay, we have I mean that that big large piece of wood out, you know in the center we call that the altar

Yeah, yeah, but there there is no required ecclesiastical furniture in the New Covenant Okay, there is no required ecclesiastical furniture

So that let's just put it that way. Let me check questions real quick here. So I used to dread the

Lord's Supper Yeah, I know I did too. I hated it to be honest with you Professor made communion wear out of coconuts

That's Interesting. I mean you could drink the Lord's Supper under the wine out of a coconut. That would be interesting Is it okay to commune with Rome?

Here's the issue. I Don't and I don't think it's wise because in Rome in first Corinthians 10 we learned that having the

Lord's Supper is a visible sign of unity with the church body and and so I Do not commune with Rome and when

Roman Catholics show up at Kongsvinger, I Politely request that they not have the Lord's Supper Same with the

ELCA. That's an apostate group If someone is an active member of the ELCA Then I I don't commune them if they've abandoned ship on the

ELCA and want to transfer their membership Then we have it then more than likely they're gonna have it.

So You know, so, you know, the idea then is is that you want to be careful in those regards that you're not

Telegraphing that somehow you're in unity with a group. That's apostate or you know conscious So since Rome is anathema ties the gospel,

I figure it's probably a bad idea to you know to show visible unity So whenever I'm in a

Roman Catholic mass, you know, I my wife and I we never go up So and no,

I did not have the Lord's Supper at my grandmother's funeral But I was quite concerned watching as my family was being chewed out

But that's a whole other story. The actual story is way worse than that. Okay, so let's see here

So our sacramentarians condemning themselves in mass in light of verse 29. So Eric the answer to the question is

In the broad sense is yes And then the immediate people are gonna ask the question then why doesn't

God strike him down? That's like asking the question. Why doesn't God send a meteorite destroy San Francisco?

Okay, the idea then is is that in Scripture when God strikes somebody down they stand as an example

For the rest even if God doesn't judge in that same way in the present or in the future The idea is is that their punishment is is a signal of what

God's going to do on the day of judgment So, you know, you'll note the San Francisco is quite a healthy city right now

And God hasn't struck it down like he did Sodom and Gomorrah, but Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example

So in the same way when God caused some to actually get sick and die by sinning against the body and blood of Christ It's not an ongoing threat per se

But it does express the seriousness of the sin It is a is a grave grievous thing that sin against the body and blood of Christ So, you know

We need to recognize that what it is what Christ says it is and so always and again when we have the conversation

Was with those who are denying it We let them know that that's actually what the text says It means to take the

Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and you should ask the uncomfortable question Doesn't it bother you that that's what you're doing?

Okay, and then let let that let them sit with that tension. Okay We're at alters for sacrifices.

Yes, they were they were which Which is part of the problem is is that sometimes what you call a thing can lead to theological confusion?

because in medieval Rome They actually believed that the the the

Lord's Supper was a re -sacrifice of Christ Okay They they've they've they've disavowed that Today, they don't they say they don't believe that but it's weird what they still believe.

So hey our island worked Okay. All right. Very good. Yeah, that's right the

Bennett's yeah, we had an altar at the house and we I was able to baptize Dana and Bryce and then we had the

Lord's Supper together and they had a kitchen island. So we use that as an altar Yeah, but it was more out of convenience though What was that What?

No, I've answered the questions So, all right, this is where I have to leave off because I have to go serve another congregation