In Defense of the Memorial Position

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No, please remain standing for the reading of God's Word.
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Open your Bibles with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
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We're going to be reading verses 23 to 26 over the past several months.
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We've been in an exposition of 1 Corinthians and we've already looked at verses 17 down to 34.
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But today we're going to focus in specifically on the words of institution from Jesus Christ in verses 23 to 26.
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For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me.
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In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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Father of mercies and Lord of all glory, we come to you in Jesus name.
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And I ask, Lord, that now, as I'm given this opportunity to preach, that first and foremost, Lord, that you would be glorified, that I would be filled with your Holy Spirit, that I would be kept from error and that I would be able to physically and mentally get through what you have planned for me to preach today.
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I pray also for those who will hear what I have to say.
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First, for the folks in this room, Lord, that their ears would be opened, that their minds would not wander, that the truth of God would be written on their heart.
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Lord, for the believer, let him be encouraged in his faith to draw closer to Jesus Christ in conformity to him and through sanctification, draw closer to that conformity, Lord.
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And for the unbeliever that is among us, Lord, there may be many.
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And Father, sometimes there are those who think they're believers and are not.
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Lord, let today be a day where false conversion is brought to light, where unbelief is brought to the surface and where men and women cry out for the salvation which comes through true faith in the true Christ alone.
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Father, may your word go forth, may it be mixed with faith, and may it do what only it can do, and that is change the lives and hearts of men and women in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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Well, this is, as I mentioned earlier, a part of a larger series in our study of 1 Corinthians.
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And last week we discussed verses 18 and 19 in Paul's statement that there must be divisions in the church because divisions show the genuine from the counterfeit.
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Truth cannot coexist with error.
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There is no unity in falsehood.
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And that was our subject last week.
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Well, this week we've come to the section of Scripture which has arguably created more division than any other in the last 2,000 years of the church.
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Paul says, there must be division among you to show those among you who are genuine.
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Oh, and by the way, now we're going to talk about the part that's going to bring the most division.
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Verses 23 to 26 of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, along with the harmonious passages which exist in all the Gospels, the statement of Jesus on the night before the crucifixion, particularly these words, This is my body, those four words, uttered from the mouth of Jesus Christ, have divided churchmen, have divided theologians, have divided believers for centuries.
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The great theologians of the Reformation, who I have talked about many times, Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli, were united on almost every point of faith.
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When they came together at the Marlboro, not Marlboro, the Marlburg Colloquy, that's funny.
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When they came together, they had 15 points of doctrine that they disputed over.
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They agreed on 14.
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There was one, though, that they could not agree on, and it was the interpretation of Jesus's words.
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This is my body and the Lord's Supper.
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And they divided so violently that Luther would go on to use very ugly terms to describe Ulrich Zwingli.
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Luther was sort of a bombastic personality, and he used words that probably today we might even call curse words sometimes as he described other people.
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And he described Zwingli in such a way that it would indicate that he wondered if Zwingli was even a Christian.
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So when I say this text divides people, I'm not exaggerating.
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And yet today, even though this subject divides many people, I find within the church, as it is with so many subjects, there is tremendous ignorance regarding what the conversation is even about.
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Most people that I talk to only understand two views, two positions.
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In fact, I tested this on my children last night.
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My children have been here longer than most of you.
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Well, not all of you, of course.
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Some of you have been here longer than me, but my children have been here for the last 13, 14 years.
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And they've heard me preach many, many times on this particular subject.
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And I sat them down last night, and I said, okay, what are the views of communion? And they said, well, there's the Catholic view and the right one.
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That was pretty much their answer, right? There's the view the Catholics hold, and then there's our view.
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I said, that's it? Well, I think so.
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And I told my kids I was going to tell the story.
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I said, I'm not impugning you.
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I said, you represent the vast majority of the church.
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Because the vast majority of the church would say there's only two positions.
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There's the view that's held by Rome.
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And then there's the view that's held by the Protestants.
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And that's the two positions.
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And that just ain't so.
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It's not right to say there's only two positions.
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And so what I decided to preach on today is what are the historic positions on the table? And which one do we hold to as a church? And why? So if you want to outline the back of your bulletin, you'll say, what are the positions? What position do we hold? And why? And by the way, when I say we, this church, I understand there are differences of backgrounds in this church.
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But as a church, we have elders.
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And the elders are the ones who are responsible for the teaching of the church.
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And so when I say we, ordinarily, I'm referring to the fact that the elders have said, this is what we believe and what we teach.
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And it is in line with what our doctrine and statements of our faith say.
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So as you understand, I'm not saying that everybody in this church understands it the exact same way.
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But this is what we teach.
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You understand? You may have come from a different background and you may not have yet arrived where we are.
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That doesn't mean you can't be among us.
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But you have to understand this is where we are.
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And so that's what we mean.
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If you want to write down the four positions, I will say they're not.
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I wanted to come in this week and put them on the screens or put them in the bulletin.
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We've had crazy computer problems this week and wasn't able to do it.
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But the four positions are these.
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The four historic positions that are held.
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First is transubstantiation.
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It's a big word.
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If you think of the word trans and substance, put them together and adiation on the end and you got it.
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So transubstantiation is that really long one.
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That's the position of Rome.
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If it's easier, just put the Roman Catholic position.
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That's the first one we're going to discuss.
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After that, we have a position called sacramental union, sometimes called consubstantiation.
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I'll explain what that means in a minute.
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But the two that we're going to look at first, transubstantiation, the position of Rome or sacramental union, which was the position of Luther.
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Luther took a very unique position that's still held among Lutherans today.
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And it's not the same as Rome, but it's not the same as Calvin or the reformers either.
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So you have to understand there was a difference.
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The third position is known as spiritual presence.
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And that's the Calvinistic view.
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That's the position that most of the reformers held to.
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It's what's taught in the Westminster Confession, spiritual presence.
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The fourth position was the position that Zwingli took, and it was the position that ultimately caused him to be on the outs with Luther.
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And that is the position simply known as memorial, the position of the memorial.
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OK, so that's the four we're going to look at.
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I'm going to try in my time allotted.
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And I know you say, oh, just go as long as you want.
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I'm going to test you on that one day because I can go a lot longer than I do.
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But for the sake of the mind only being able to bear what the seat can endure, we'll try to be reasonable in our time together.
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And we're going to go through these and hopefully will help you understand.
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Transubstantiation is number one.
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This is the Roman Catholic view.
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And transubstantiation means this trans means to change such as like transform means to change form to trans.
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That prefix means to change and substance means a change of substance.
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So the belief among Roman Catholics is that when the priest offers up a prayer of consecration, when he says the Latin Hoc est corpus meum, which is where we get the phrase hocus pocus, by the way, it was it was considered to be a mystery and a magical thing.
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And so when the priest would say Hoc est corpus meum, this is my body.
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There was a belief that something magical took place, something spiritually powerful has happened.
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And so that term would later become hocus pocus.
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And we use it for magic tricks and what have you.
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But when he says those words, there is a change in the bread.
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The bread is no longer bread.
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The bread becomes physically and materially the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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The cup, which is filled with wine, is no longer wine, but the wine becomes physically and materially the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But there's a problem.
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There's a problem in that it still tastes like bread and it still tastes like wine.
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And so there was a question in the Roman Catholic Church.
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Why is it that when the priest makes the prayer of consecration, this is my body? This is my blood.
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Why is it still tastes like bread? It looks like R.C.
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Sproul said this.
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If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, talks like a duck.
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If it looks like bread and it tastes like bread and it feels like bread, why is it no longer bread? And so they came to the conclusion, based on a philosophical principle of existence, that there was a division between something called the substance and the accidents.
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The substance is what something really is.
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And the accidents are how you how you experience that thing.
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Like if I said to you, Chris, what is a rose? You would say, well, a rose is red.
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It's soft and it smells good.
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I would say, no, that's not what a rose is.
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That's the accidents.
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That's how a rose is experienced, right? It's experienced as red.
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It's experienced as soft.
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It's experienced with a perfume.
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It smells good.
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And so that's the accidents.
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But that's not the substance.
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In Roman Catholic theology, the belief was the substance changed, but the accidents remain.
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The substance becomes the body, but the accidents are still bread and wine.
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And so we experience them as bread and wine.
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But what they really are is the body and blood of Jesus.
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There's a change, but it's imperceptible.
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To us, and thus they call it a twofold miracle.
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Not only is it a miracle that it changed, but it's a miracle that you couldn't tell.
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There's two miracles.
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It changed and it changed in such a way that you don't notice the change.
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Frank Sheed, a Catholic theologian, said this.
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He said, we look at the bread and the priest uses in the sacrament is white, round and soft.
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The whiteness is not the bread.
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It's simply a quality that the bread has.
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The same is true of the roundness and the softness.
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There's something there that has these and other properties, qualities, attributes.
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The philosopher called them accidents.
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And that's what you're experiencing when you eat.
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But what it really is, is the body and blood of Christ.
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It physically has changed.
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And by the way, the same view is held by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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But there is a slight modification.
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They both believe in transubstantiation.
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But the Eastern Orthodox Church is willing to accept the mystery without trying to explain the mystery.
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Roman Catholicism tries to explain it through the philosophy of substance and accidents.
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The Eastern Orthodox Church, which is much more mystical than a lot of people realize in their understanding of things like icons and such as that, they take it just it is.
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And we don't have to explain how or why it is.
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It just is the body and blood of Christ.
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But they both believe that upon the consecration of the priest, the bread is no longer bread.
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Whatever it looks like, whatever it tastes like, whatever it feels like, it's no longer bread.
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It is now the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ.
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So we call that transubstantiation.
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Does that make sense? I didn't say if you believe it.
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I said, does it make sense? OK, because I want to make sure I'm being fair.
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Because one thing I don't think is fair when some people come up and they say, well, the Catholics believe that the bread is really Jesus's body.
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Well, they do, but not understanding why and how they believe it sort of is a little unfair to their position because they really have thought about it.
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They've given it at least some thought as to why it is and why it isn't this or that.
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Transubstantiation is first.
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The second one, Luther's position.
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When Luther was across the table from Zwingli, he pounded his fist.
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According to historians, he pounded his fist on the table because Zwingli was saying that it wasn't the physical body and blood of Jesus.
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And Luther was having none of that.
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He, Luther, again, a bombastic personality.
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I tend to connect with people of that, you know, like Peter was my favorite apostle.
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Luther is my favorite reformer.
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You know, I kind of I don't know why.
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Maybe I'm a little loud and bombastic myself.
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But he was just a presence, you know, and he beat on the table and he said, Hoc est corpus meum.
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This is my body, very, very firm.
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If Jesus said it is, who am I to say it ain't? I don't think he said it that way, but that's that was his idea.
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All right.
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And so Luther believed that the bread is the body and blood of Christ or the bread in the cup of the body and blood of Christ.
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But he did not accept the position of Rome because the Roman position carried within it the concept of propitiation.
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Because when Rome says that's Jesus's body and that's his blood, what they're saying is that that is a sacrifice.
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That's why they call the table an altar.
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That's why the priest is a priest, not a pastor, because he's performing a sacrifice.
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He is renewing the sacrifice of Christ or what they call representing.
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The sacrifice of Christ.
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Luther didn't believe that, but he still believed Jesus was there.
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He believed Jesus was present.
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And so he came up with a position known as sacramental union.
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By the way, the word sacrament, you may hear me say that sometimes.
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Nordinarily in Baptistic churches, you won't hear the word sacrament.
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You hear the word ordinance.
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Sacrament is found.
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You'll hear it in Presbyterian churches.
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You'll hear it in other churches.
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And really, the difference is minute, but there should be at least mentioned.
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Ordinance means something that is commanded like a local ordinance, right? We say there's only two ordinances in the church.
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Christ commanded that we be baptized.
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Christ commanded that we take the Lord's Supper.
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And so those are two commands or ordinances of Christ.
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The word sacrament is Latin.
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It means mystery.
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All right.
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So the idea of a sacrament is this is a mysterious thing that's been given.
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And it's come to mean more than that.
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But oftentimes the two sacraments are referred to as these are the mysterious ways in which God does work in us and through us.
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It's means of grace, right, where God's working among his people.
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And so when Luther talked about the sacramental union, he was saying this.
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He said, yes, Jesus' body is in the bread.
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His blood is in the cup.
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But there isn't a change.
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There's a union.
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It's a difference, right? One says the change occurs.
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The other says you have the bread.
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And the reason why it still tastes like bread and feels like bread and looks like bread is because it's still bread.
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But Christ's body is joined to it.
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Lutherans you'll hear use the phrase over, around, under and through.
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Meaning they believe that the presence of Christ physically is all in, around and through the substance of the bread.
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But it didn't change the bread.
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Sometimes this is called consubstantiation.
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The prefix con means with.
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So rather than transubstantiation, which means a change of substance, con means with substance.
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Christ's presence is put with the bread.
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All right.
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And so now you have a different view.
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But essentially the same issue you've got.
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Christ is physically there, right? Years ago, I have to tell this story.
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Only a few of you will remember these people.
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But there was church members here that had come from the Lutheran background.
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They were with us for a few years.
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I don't remember why.
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I think they came because the church closed.
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They ended up coming here.
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It was when the pastor before me was here.
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I was the youth pastor.
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But they were Lutherans.
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And they would serve communion at times.
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You know, he'd come up and help serve.
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And he would always do this.
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He would go hand the bread.
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And he would look at the person eye to eye.
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And he would say, the body of Christ broken for you.
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And he would hand it like that.
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He would always say that.
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He would hand it that way.
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And I never understood why.
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But then I realized he's coming from the Lutheran background.
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There is a belief.
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This is the body of Christ.
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It's here in this bread.
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So take it.
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So you understand the difference.
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But it's still a belief in the real physical presence of Christ in the bread.
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Okay.
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Have I lost you guys? You hanging with me? I got a couple more to go.
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And then I'm going to wrap.
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I promise we're going to get to a sermon.
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This is all lesson.
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I get to a sermon in a minute.
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But this is drawing to it.
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Because this is important.
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Because where I'm going to the end, I hope shows you why this is important.
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Because the third position is John Calvin's position.
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And I want to explain this.
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Because transubstantiation and consubstantiation.
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The Lutheran view and the Roman Catholic view hold one thing in common.
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They believe the physical body of Jesus is in the bread.
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But Rome and Luther, while they were concerned with the physical presence of Jesus.
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They were concerned with the corporeal part of Jesus.
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That to Calvin was something that he couldn't take.
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Here's why.
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Because Calvin made the argument that at the Council of Chalcedon.
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Which had happened many centuries before the Reformation.
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That the church had understood that Jesus.
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And proclaimed that Jesus was one person but had two natures.
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Jesus has two.
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Do we all agree with that? Will we affirm the Council of Chalcedon that Jesus is one person.
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And he has a divine nature and a human nature.
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And Calvin's argument was this.
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The human nature of Jesus is still a body.
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And that body is at the right hand of the Father.
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And that body, though Christ's spirit is omnipresent.
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His body is not.
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And so to argue that his body is in the cup.
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Or that his body is in the bread.
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Rather is to argue that Jesus is coming down off that throne.
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And so Calvin said we can't have none of that.
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But we can believe Jesus is there.
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Calvin's argument.
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Because we can believe he's there spiritually.
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Not physically.
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But spiritually.
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So at least Calvin considered the ancient teaching of the church.
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At least Calvin's dealing with something that's very important.
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He's saying we can't have this physical idea.
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So Jesus's spirit.
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Jesus's divine nature is universal.
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So can we say Jesus's divine presence is there? Calvin says yes.
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And I know what some of you are thinking.
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Well, Pastor, we know you tend to lean Calvinistic on certain things.
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Does that mean that's what you believe? Well, I'll tell you in a minute.
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As I haven't gotten to the last one yet.
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But I do want to make a point about the first three.
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All three positions.
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Rome, Calvin, and Luther.
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Are all unified by one idea.
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When Jesus said this is.
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He meant it literally is.
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The fourth position takes a radically different view.
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The fourth position says this.
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When Jesus said this is.
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He intended the word is.
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And we're not just splitting linguistic hairs.
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He intended the word is to be understood as representative.
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Rather than literal.
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Here's how that works in our life.
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Mike, if I pull out my wallet, which I left in my office, I can't do this.
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But if I pull out my wallet and I walk over and I take out a photograph.
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And I say, Mike, this is my wife.
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Isn't she pretty? Now, I know you would agree.
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But you would if I said this is my wife.
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He would know that I don't mean this little card with ink on it.
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And in the paper is literally my wife.
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He would know that that's a picture.
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And it represents my wife.
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And it looks like her because it represents her.
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And I wouldn't have to explain that to you.
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I would just say this is my wife.
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And Mike would say, she's pretty.
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You understand? I hand him the picture.
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This is my wife.
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I don't have to explain that.
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Jesus is holding bread on the night of the crucifixion or the night before the crucifixion.
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Rather, he's holding bread in his body.
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His hands are holding the bread.
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And he said, this is my body.
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And nobody said, oh, your body's holding the body.
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That doesn't work.
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Some people believe that that bread became the body of Christ.
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Some people believe that consecrated moment when Jesus said, this is my body, that happened.
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The memorial view understands the bread and the cup as being symbols of the body and blood of Jesus.
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Not the physical, nor truly the spiritual, but the memorial to Jesus's crucifixion.
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And for some people, this becomes what is known as the low view.
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You understand why people would say it was the low view, right? Because these other views seem to be much more exaltative.
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It is the body or it is the spirit.
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And we're saying, no, it is not.
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Thus, we're the low view.
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And often, and this is how, this drives me bonkers.
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Because I'll hear Christians who believe the memorial view and they'll say, it's only a symbol.
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Or it's just a memorial.
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Let me tell you from my perspective, don't use the word only and just because you're buying into the lie.
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You're buying into the lie that it's the low view.
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I don't believe it's the low view.
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Because I believe in the Bible, throughout the Bible, God gives memorials for the purpose of reminding of His faithfulness.
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And it's never considered a low thing.
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It's always considered a great thing.
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When God put the rainbow in the sky, that's a great thing to remind us that He will never again destroy the world.
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By a worldwide flood.
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And thus, it's a great reminder of His faithfulness.
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When the people of Israel went through the sea and they came out on the other side.
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And Moses commanded them to go back out and take stones and pull those stones.
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That's where Joshua said, go take the stones and put them on the land.
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Those stones will be a memorial to you, to remind you of the faithfulness of Almighty God.
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There is nothing low and nothing demeaning about a memorial.
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Whatever one may think of the memorial position, one must never consider it the lesser view.
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In fact, I'll now tip my hand if I haven't already.
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It just happens to be the view we take.
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And so because of that, I would say it's not only not the low view.
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I would say it's the right one.
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Now you may disagree.
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Some of you may be upset that I don't take Calvin's view.
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There are a lot of things I disagree with Calvin on.
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Identifying as a Calvinist simply means we understand salvation is a work of God and not of man.
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It's something that God does to me, not by my approval.
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God saves me according to His will.
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And it's theological shorthand to identify someone as a Calvinist.
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The idea that Calvin got it all right is not where I stand.
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I think Luther got many things wrong.
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I think Calvin got some things wrong.
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And I think Zwingli got some things wrong.
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Historically, this church has held the memorial position.
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I have reconferred with our elders to ensure that that is correct.
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And if I am wrong, they will chasten me without end.
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But I believe I can confidently say that is the truth.
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But I also want to tell you who else held this position, just in case you feel like we're some Johnny-come-latelys that don't have any historic backing for this.
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You guys remember a little man by the name of Charles Spurgeon? I don't know if I call him a little man.
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He's probably about my size.
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But Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon notes on 1 Corinthians chapter 11, he wrote these words.
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I want you to hear them.
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He said, "...men have made evil use of this most blessed ordinance.
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Yet they have no excuse from any obscurity of Scripture." Meaning there's no reason.
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The text isn't obscure, but people mess it up anyway.
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He goes on to say, "...nothing is said of a sacrifice or an altar, but everything is plain.
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The supper, as we find it in Holy Scripture, is a service of remembrance, testimony, communion, and nothing more." It is remembrance, testimony, and communion.
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That's what it's for.
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And I just, for that sake, I want you for a minute to look at the text with me, and I'll show you why we take this from the text.
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1 Corinthians 11, 23, "...for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you." Paul didn't make this up.
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Paul didn't come up with this on his own.
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This isn't the theology of Paul.
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I received this from the Lord.
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I'm giving it to you.
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I'm just a messenger.
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This is Christ's message.
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And by the way, as I've mentioned a few times, this is the first time this is written down.
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1 Corinthians came before Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John in the act of writing.
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It was probably written sometime in the early 50s.
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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, mid to late 50s, right? Or even into the 60s.
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So we know this is the first time the institution of the Lord's Supper is written down physically, written by the Apostle Paul.
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And he's saying, I got it from Christ.
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He gave it to me.
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This is what he said.
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On the night when he was betrayed, he took bread.
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And when he had given thanks, he broke it.
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And he said, this is my body, which is for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me.
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There's nothing in the text that would indicate, do this to bring me down from heaven.
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Do this to bring my spirit among you.
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Do this to implant my presence with you.
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No, do this in remembrance of me.
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Very clear.
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I mean, if you want to argue that Jesus is spiritually present in the believer, if you want to argue that Jesus is spiritually present in worship, we can have that conversation.
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But that's just not what's being taught in the text.
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Verse 25, in the same way, also, he took a cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
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He's saying the same thing.
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He says again, in remembrance of me.
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But here's the real, I think, nail in this conversation.
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The nail in the proverbial coffin of the entire conversation is verse 26.
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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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So the act of participation in the Lord's Supper becomes a proclamation of something done, not a re-institution of doing something again.
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This is a proclamation of something that has already taken place.
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It is a memorial to a once-for-all event, not a repeating of that event.
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And some people say, but wait, pastor, if you go back in the ancient church and you read the writings of the early fathers, you will see clearly that some of the early fathers talked about Christ being physically present in the bread and in the cup.
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And I will agree that you will find, in the first three centuries of the church, many different positions on the table.
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I would say as many different positions existed then as exist today.
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Maybe even more.
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You guys have heard me talk about the Didache, right? The Didache was one of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament.
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In fact, some of the earliest collections of New Testament books included the Didache among them.
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I don't believe it should have been included.
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I believe if it was, it'd still be there.
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But it was understood by the church that this was an important writing.
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The Didache means the teaching of the twelve or the teaching of the disciples, right? And in the Didache, you know what it says about the Lord's table being the body and blood of Jesus? Nothing.
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It says it's a memorial to the body and blood of Jesus.
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You want to go find this guy or that guy who says it was, I'll find you ten others that say it wasn't.
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As much disagreement as there is today, there's been disagreement down through the history of the church.
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But I want to ask you this.
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And looking at the positions and hearing what I said, what is it about the presence of Christ that makes this even an argument among believers if it is not the argument that somehow we need to have Christ among us more than he already is? What are we, what are we asking God to do? More than he's already doing.
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Roman Catholics argue for the physical presence of Jesus.
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Do you know why they do? Because they believe the sacrifice has to happen again.
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Let me repeat that because years ago, I had a Roman Catholic challenge me on this.
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We went back and forth.
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We're not re-sacrificing Christ.
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We're re-presenting his once for all sacrifice.
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I said, but why? He said, because people continue to sin and so they need their sins forgiven again.
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And I said, so what you're telling me then is that the once for all sacrifice wasn't once for all.
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It has to be repeated over and over and over again in an infinitum.
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It has to continue and continue and continue.
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And as Dr.
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White asked one of the theologians in one of his debates, he said, is it possible that somebody could go to a thousand masses in their lifetime and still die and go to hell? And the answer was yes.
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It's still possible to die unclean even after taking the Lord's supper a thousand times, having the sacrifice of Christ a thousand times and you can still die unclean.
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That means it is not an efficient sacrifice or an effectual sacrifice.
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That's the danger folks.
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You want to take the Calvinist position that their spiritual presence, fine.
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I don't think it's necessary, but I don't think it's the issue.
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I think the danger would be if you took the position of Rome and that is the position.
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And I would say it's heresy to argue that in this table, there is a propitiation taking place.
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Because that's what Rome says.
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You know what propitiation is, right? Propitiation means to satisfy the wrath of God.
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The Bible says when Jesus went to the cross, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
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That means that when Christ was on the cross, all of my sins and people say, well, did Jesus die for your future sins? Well, at that point, all my sins were future.
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So yeah, that's the answer.
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Jesus died for every sin, not just up to today.
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So when he died on that cross, every one of my sins placed upon him and the Bible says he became sin for me and my sin was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.
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And here's what I want you to go in your Bible, this is where we'll draw to a close, because this is where I think really the rubber meets the road on all of this.
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Go in your Bible with me and I want you to see because I was going to take you to Council Trent and John O'Brien and all the things about reaching up into heaven and pulling Christ down.
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There's a lot of stuff in Roman Catholicism that teaches a lot of false things about the mass.
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But let me just get to the real heart of it because the real heart of it is this.
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Hebrews chapter 10, go to verse 10.
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Now we're picking up in the middle of a context here talking about the high priestly work of Jesus Christ.
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We could go back further, but I want to start at verse 10.
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It says, begins with the word and in the ESV.
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And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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Say that with me, once for all.
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Verse 11, and every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.
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All those priests of the Old Testament never took away sin.
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The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin, Hebrews tells us.
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All they did was put a marker in the ground and said, Jesus is coming.
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These sacrifices were a picture of what's coming and it was Jesus.
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And it says, verse 12, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet for by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
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Praise God, that's the answer.
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By one sacrifice, he has for all time perfected those who are being sanctified.
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If you're a believer, that's you.
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If you're a believer, you're being sanctified, but you're already perfect.
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You say, I don't feel perfect because your perfection, it was given to you.
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Your righteousness was declared because of the work of Christ.
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You see, he was nailed to the cross, right? God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that what? We might become the righteousness of God through him.
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God takes our sin and he nails it to the cross and the one who's on the cross has no sin.
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In fact, what he has is perfect righteousness.
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So God takes his righteousness and he covers me with it and he declares me.
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It's no legal fiction.
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It's no false statement from God.
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He says, because of Jesus's righteousness, you're righteous and that's once for all.
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It needs not be repeated.
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It needs not be done again.
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It needs not be represented.
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All it needs to do is be remembered and thus he says, do this in remembrance of me.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this opportunity to preach.
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How many times, oh Lord, did Jesus have to die for sins? The word of God says once and once only.
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But how often should we remember this? Every time we come together, we remember.
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Every Sunday, Lord, is a memorial day and it's to be kept perpetually.
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Father, may it be that we enjoy this memorial together to remember the once for allness of the sacrifice, to remember that that which happened once covers the sins for all time.
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And Lord God, in the blood of Jesus Christ, there's forgiveness for all who will believe.
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So let it be that today, if there's any who have come who don't believe, maybe that maybe they've come with a false teaching.
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Maybe they've come with some kind of misunderstanding.
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Maybe they've come trusting in their own righteousness.
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God, may it be that sitting here today that you would open their hearts and they would see the glory and the majesty and the beauty of Christ.
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And understand that in the once for all sacrifice, there is an offering that has been made that need not be repeated.
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But Lord, it does need to be received.
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May they receive it by faith.
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May they receive it by the opening of their heart, by the power of your spirit.
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May they receive it.
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And Lord, in receiving it, may they then share in the beauty of the table as a remembrance for that which is done once for all time.
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And we pray this in the name of Jesus.
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Amen.