Ordinances of the New Covenant

If you will turn with me, please, in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28. We'll be looking at numerous texts and sources in the course of our study this day, but Matthew chapter 28 verse 19 would be a good place to start, give some form to our study this day.

Before we begin to look at the Word of God, let us pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, we do confess that without your Spirit we can do nothing. And we would ask that you would bless your people this day that have gathered in this place.

Lord, that as we consider your truth, as we consider what you've called us to do as servants of Christ, you would meet with us by your Spirit, that you would lift us up, that you would give us an understanding heart, an understanding mind.

Lord, that you would be honored and glorified in what takes place in this room this day. We pray in Christ's name. We know the text very well. We know the commission that is given. We have only recently examined it together, but once again I would remind us of the commissioning of the Lord after he has said that all authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth.

He says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

You may recall that we have considered these words within the context of the authority of Jesus Christ, within the context of the fact that he is the risen Lord, that the disciples have come to meet him and they have recognized that he is in fact risen from the dead.

There have been those who have worshipped, others have doubted. But in the midst of that, Jesus gives what we might call marching orders to his church. And he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Now you may be aware of the fact that last Lord's Day evening we partook of the Lord's Supper. And I hope you still remember that. I hope it is not merely an already distant memory, one that has faded into the fog of the week that has followed and all of the activities that have been ours over the past number of days.

But I hope you recall the partaking of the bread, partaking of the cup, the examination that was ours, the proclamation, because we are told that in the Lord's Supper we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

And this evening, as you know, as the bulletin lets you know, and as I can tell because of all the preparations, we will have a baptismal service this evening. And so why do we do these things? For most people it's just simply tradition.

It's just, well, it's what I grew up with or once I joined the church, it's just what they did. And obviously for many people the reasons that we do certain things and the way we do them, it's just simply absorbed.

You come to the conclusion that what is being taught in the church is sound and biblical and so therefore that must be the sound and biblical way of doing things. And for many people we've never really given much thought to the reasons why we do what we do.

Now if you're a former, for example, Roman Catholic, you know that, well, us Baptists, we're pretty simple because within Roman Catholicism you have a number of what are called sacraments. And marriage is a sacrament and holy orders and there's just all sorts of things.

There's all sorts of reasons to put on robes and light candles and do all sorts of fancy stuff like that. And so you become a Baptist and you go, boy, you guys must not be able to keep up with the liturgical calendar and all the clothes changing that's required.

Certainly we can understand why Pastor Fry wouldn't be into all that kind of stuff. But you guys, you just simplified things, right? Well, simplified in the sense of going back to what the scriptures teach, yes.

Because even the more honest Roman Catholic historical sources will admit that all of the various sacraments except for two, developed over time. That when you go back into the earliest church, in the earliest writings that exist outside of the New Testament, you will discover that those individuals had no idea of what would eventually develop as the form of worship within the Roman Catholic communion.

But even after the time of the Reformation, there was a great deal of controversy about these things called sacraments. Now, we generally do not use the term sacrament. The 17th and even in the 18th century Baptists did not have a problem with the term.

Primarily because in those early years, especially as our London Baptist Confession in the late 17th century was being forged and written, the primary concern of those men in England was to communicate with and to affirm their orthodoxy in light of discussions with the larger church in England, which was not the Roman Catholic Church.

And so primarily with the Presbyterian form of church government that was popular at that time, the Church of England obviously very popular at that time as well, depending on where you were in England, Scotland, so on and so forth.

It's a complex situation. But the point being the term sacraments was just simply understood to refer to those things that Christ had commanded to be utilized and to practice them in the church. But as that conflict minimized and became less predominant, the conflict with Rome became much more the focus of much of the apologetic argumentation that would be going on.

And so obviously we know that that term sacrament comes from sacramentum, the Latin term. And that particular term is certainly used within Roman Catholicism in a way that we do not understand it to have that meaning for us in any way.

We don't find it to be a biblical understanding. Specifically, the idea that a particular action by its very performance is a channel or a means, a mysterious means by which grace is communicated to the soul.

Now, of course, those of you who have been in Sunday school when I've taught through church history and things like that, and we've brought this up a number of times since then, know that there was great conflict in the history of the church as to even how those sacraments worked, even in the ancient world.

There were some who said, well, the one performing the sacrament, for example, the ordination is a sacrament. And so the one performing the sacrament, when a number of different men would lay their hands upon the head of a man and ordain him as a bishop, for example, if one of those men was an apostate, a secret heretic, a person whom, for example, in the history of the church had given up scriptures to the Romans during persecution, this led to entire schisms in the church because the theology of many was if anyone who was involved in performing the sacrament was not in the right relationship with God, the sacrament had no power.

It had no efficacy. It would be invalid. And over against that perspective, which we would see in someone like the martyr Bishop Cyprian in Carthage in the middle of the 3rd century, you had Augustine, and Augustine was the great developer of the concept that the sacrament itself contains its own efficacy and it does not matter who performs it.

And so even if one person were to be a secret apostate, it was the sacrament of ordination that carried the grace of God, not the individuals who performed it. And so really, in the end, that type of perspective gave the idea that you could be validly baptized by a Buddhist.

You could be validly baptized by a Muslim. I don't know if any Muslim would ever do that, but it's a theoretical thing anyways. And so as long as they got the words right, as long as it was done in the name of the triune God, it was a valid baptism and the state of grace, the proper relationship between the person performing the sacrament and God, that just doesn't matter because the sacrament is the channel itself.

Well, obviously, later Reformed Baptists preferred the term ordinance.

Why?

Well, what does ordinance mean? Well, an ordinance is something that is ordained, commanded by God, specifically by Jesus Christ for his church. And so when we talk about the ordinances, we ask ourselves the question, well, what did Christ command his church to do?

And in fact, at the time of the Reformation, there was a great dispute about, well, how do you even recognize the true church? And it was an important question when you think about it because what the Reformers were saying was, well, we need to take this stand.

There has been such a dilution and, in fact, it's become a denial of the gospel that we cannot any longer stand under the authority of the Bishop of Rome and things like that. And so people had an honest question, well, then how do you recognize the true church?

Because, well, in the memory of our fathers and our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers, there was just two, really. There was the Eastern Orthodox that everybody in the West agreed was heretical and the Western church, everybody in the East believed was heretical.

And it was rather simple, pretty straightforward.

So, now that there are other options, how do you decide what the true church is? And there was much discussion of the fact that in the true church you have the proclamation of the Word of God and you have the operation of the ordinances that Christ gave to his church being rightly administered.

And so, rather than all of the strange medieval accretions that had come into the Lord's Supper, with transubstantiation and all the stuff that came from that and withdrawing the cup from the people in the pew because, well, now that it's God, basically, we can't spill it.

And if it's spilled, then what do we do with God on the floor? And all the stories about how, you know, one guy had stolen one of the consecrated hosts and he had hid it inside of a beehive. And when he came back to get it, lo and behold, the bees had built a shrine to it and they were all bowing down and worshipping it.

And these are the kinds of stories that were going around. And so, now you had to really protect the consecrated hosts because, you know, they had magical properties and some of them would bleed and, you know, all this kind of stuff.

Because of all that strange stuff that had developed, there had to be some discussion as to what the right administration of these ordinances that God had given the church to be and how many there were.

Well, as we look very carefully at Scripture, we see very much right here in Matthew chapter 28 that baptism is commanded by Jesus Christ. As you go, go therefore and disciple the nations, baptizing them in the Trinitarian formula, in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I commanded you,.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Well, what is involved in teaching? What is involved in communicating everything that Christ had commanded us to observe? Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. What is involved in that? Well, in this very Gospel, only a matter of pages earlier, we had read about the institution of the Lord's Supper and we had Jesus specifically saying, as often as you do this, and it was that breaking of the bread, it was the drinking of the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

And so there is to be this observance that we call the Lord's Supper, the giving of thanks, Eucharistia, the Eucharist, which unfortunately is a beautiful word stolen from us by the abuse of that term within Roman Catholicism.

I certainly don't have a problem trying to steal it back. But for many people who have just heard it repetitively used of something that's false, it can be a bit of a stumbling block along those lines.

But we have the command that we are to partake of the bread and drink of the cup and that this is representative of, because this was done during the context of the Passover meal, in the sense of there's already all this symbolism, everything on the table represented something about Israel's experience and their deliverance and everything that God had done for them.

Within that context, as the disciples would have heard Jesus' words, this is my body, this is my blood, they wouldn't have sat there and whipped out their copies of Aristotle and go, ah, transubstantiation, yes, we understand it.

It still looks like bread, but you see there's this thing called accidents and substance. The substance has been changed, but the accidents say the same. That's not what the disciples would have been understanding as they sat there at the table where everything, the bitter herbs representing their suffering of the people of Israel and Egypt and all the rest of it.

That's not what they would have understood. What they would have understood was that just as everything on the table represented the reality of what God has done, now Jesus was establishing something where this simple meal, this simple meal of bread and the cup would represent what he was about to accomplish because he said this is the new covenant in my blood.

This is the new covenant in my blood. This do is off as ye drink it in remembrance of me. And so when we obey Christ's command, we're going to baptize, we're going to teach people everything that he has commanded us to teach them about what we are to observe.

And so when we study the New Testament, then we come to the conclusion that we in fact have two ordinances that God has given to his church, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And so as we think about our own experience within this context, there are a couple of things that we might want to give consideration to as we think through the relationship of the Lord's Supper and baptism.

Specifically, what is the audience of each and what specifically do they mean to us?

What is the audience?

And I'd like to begin with what we did last Sunday evening. Now, if you weren't here, I apologize, but I want to sort of go with what we have already experienced in light of what we're going to experience this evening in having baptism this evening.

Last week, we gathered together and we had the Lord's Supper. Now, the last two Lord's Suppers have been a little unusual for us. Yes, yes, there have actually been people who partook of the Lord's Supper sitting in these pews over here.

Now, I'm going to tell you something. Last Sunday night when Pastor Fry told us to stay over here, my daughter was here. And she looked at me with the most shocked look I think I've ever seen on her face.

I mean, the entire foundations of Western civilization were shaken for my daughter. And I tried to calm her and assure her, we did this last time too. It's happened twice now, it's okay, it's all right.

The world did not end last time either.

As most of you know, we generally are very consistent in what we do and how we do it. And that's what happened in that situation. But we, for a few moments, I mean, how long might it last?

Fifteen minutes?

I've never bothered looking at my watch or anything like that. But maybe it might have been 15 minutes, something along those lines, that we took to consider those things. So it didn't take a long period of time.

But who participated? I mean, this was a big issue. This was a big issue back in the day. In fact, isn't it interesting that when you think about the Reformation, Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, and they're having their conversations.

They didn't agree on baptism. They had some differences. But they were able to get close enough. What was the one thing, the one thing they could not agree on? It's the Lord's Suffering. And yet today, how many people even give it a second thought?

How many people who would call themselves Protestants give a second thought to the issue of the Lord's Suffering? Now, when you come to this church, we do something that's rather unusual today. It's not unusual in the past, but it's unusual today.

And that is, we'll have a little something in the bulletin. And certainly from the front, we give warning to people that this is something very serious. And that there is to be a discernment exercise by each and every individual that partakes of the Lord's Suffering.

Where do we get that from? Well, we get that from what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapters 10 and 11. Why don't you turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And let's, now this isn't the normal place you're thinking about going to.

Your fingers are automatically going to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll get there, but there is an in-passing reference in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning of verse 14, that I think is very, very important.

Notice what Paul says, Therefore my beloved, flee from idolatry. So he's talking about, he's talking to the Corinthians. The Corinthians experienced a tremendous amount of idolatry around them. Corinth was filled with temples and pagan idols and all sorts of things like that.

I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Now that term sharing, we all know, well most of us know, is koinonia.

That was just, I don't know why, but when I was young, that was one of the favorite words that you were supposed to use, especially in youth groups, was koinonia, sharing, fellowship. Why is it that Paul says what he says here?

He says, Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?

What do I mean then?

That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say the things which Gentiles sacrifice is sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers in demons.

What is this all about? This is not some extended discussion of the nature of the supper or anything like that. It's used as an example, and we know what the conflict was. The conflict was the fact that there were still some people in the church in Corinth that thought it was okay to participate in these pagan festivities.

There was issues regarding eating of things sacrificed to idols and causing people with a lesser faith to stumble, and almost all the meat in the meat market had at some point been offered in sacrifice to idols.

And so Paul's talking about issues of having the proper relationships with each other in the church and not causing the brother to stumble, all these things. But now he's going against idolatry, and he's saying, look, you can't take your freedom and go off and join yourself to an idol.

You are either the worshipper of the one true God or you're going to be a worshipper of idols, and the example that he uses is, look, if you go into the pagan ceremony and you partake in this supper or in this meal, you're joining yourself to that idol just as, in our experience, when you partake of the one bread, this brings us all together because we are, in obeying Christ, we are showing our membership in His body.

So there's something more than just a brief, oh, eat a little bread, drink a little cup, all over with. There's something more here because there is a communication that takes place. You are saying something in your participation.

Just as you go into the pagan idol, you are saying something about who you worship and who you have communion with. And the basis for that is, well, because in the supper, you are saying something. Yes, you're saying something to the world, you're proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes, but more than that, there is a fellowship, there is a partaking in Christ that the whole body as one partakes of, and Paul says, you don't want to do that with an idol.

You cannot do these things. I want you to avoid idolatry. And so he uses it as an example, and in the process, we see something very important about the supper that then becomes even more clear, obviously, when we look at the words of the institution of the supper.

In the very next chapter, chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, we know the words by heart, For I see from the Lord which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body.

What?

Which is for you. Now, I mention that, and I emphasize that, for what reason? Well, we believe that God's truth is a whole, and we believe in something called particular redemption. We believe that the death of Christ is consistent with the eternal God's purposes in redemption.

It's not something that's just over here someplace.

It just does its own thing.

That there is perfect unity between the will of the Father, and the will of the Son,.

And the will of the Spirit,.

And there is an eternal people that God has chosen from eternity past, and the death of Christ is specifically and purposefully for the redemption of these individuals. And so, when you have this kind of language, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. We hear what that's saying. We hear what the background is. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Now, if that's not ringing all sorts of bells and setting off whistles and lights and everything else, it should, because that phrase, new covenant, is not a real common term.

And when you go back and look at its Old Testament roots, you look back at Jeremiah, you look back at some of the images found in Ezekiel, all of these things are coming together now. And he says, this is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you, this is for you, as you drink it, in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And so, clearly, we have salvific language here.

Clearly, there is connection here to the death of Christ, and it is for a specific people. And the disciples are to understand this. Therefore, verse 27, Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

But a man must examine himself. In so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Now, we've talked about this a number of times. There is everything right in self-examination in the supper.

We take time to do that. But don't miss that one, that one, in fact, I would say the primary area of examination is not so much ourselves as our relationships with others in the body. We're to examine ourselves, and are we bringing, are we bringing divisions and hard feelings and disruptions within the body?

Are we causing schisms within the body? We're to examine ourselves before we partake. Because, you see, we're all partaking together. We're so individualistic here in the West. You know, it's just me and there's nobody else.

No, we're doing this as a group. We're doing this as a body in this place. We have to see both the individual and the corporate as they are held together in Scripture. And so, but what's the point? You have to be able to examine yourself.

You have to be able to have the ability to discern, to partake at the supper. And so we ask people, we guard the table. Now, there's different ways of doing that. There's some, unless you're a member of the church, you cannot possibly partake, and we're not that strict.

What we do is we ask you, are you a Christian? Have you bowed the knee in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ? Have you been baptized? And the big one that makes people go is, are you under discipline from another church of like form and governance?

And what we mean, why do we do that? Well, if someone's a member of a church over in the East Valley and they get themselves excommunicated, they get themselves put under discipline, what keeps them given the way that we can transport ourselves long distances from just coming on over here and coming in and saying, oh well, so much for that, we'll just partake the Lord's Supper here.

Well, we ask and we want to honor the actions of our sister churches when it comes to this particular issue. The point is this. The Lord's Supper is to be given to those who are in the new covenant. It's the new covenant in His blood.

Now, if you believe in some type of general theory of atonement, where the blood of Christ is just indiscriminately shed, I don't know why you'd still believe in substitutionary atonement, because they really go together.

Substitutionary atonement is a reformed doctrine. The idea that Christ dies in the place of individuals, so that it's a personal union, that requires that those people be known and that flowed out of an understanding of God's sovereign grace and election and all the things that are associated with that.

Thankfully, blessedly, we have brothers and sisters. Yes, they are brothers and sisters who are inconsistent on these matters. And so there are those who will say, oh no, that terrible, horrible L, I just can't, no, that L, I just don't see it.

It's for the whole world. And yet, at the same time, they believe that Christ dies, His death can't be improved upon, can't be added to, it's all of grace. And we go, have you noticed that the dots aren't connecting in your chart there?

But no, they don't notice that. And you can pound your head on the table and pound your head on them or pound their head and say whatever you want to do. It's not going to change anything because, as we all know, it takes the work of the Spirit of God to get us to go, I think I should connect my dots.

Because there are some people that just love a messy, messy, unconnected bunch of dots. And until the Lord works in your heart to make you go, I'm really wondering if that's really honoring to God. Until you see that, I know them, you know them too, you know those folks and you can tell they love the Lord, but you just wouldn't want them teaching the Sunday school class to anybody, including the kids.

You know what I'm talking about. And so, if you put the dots together, what you see is that this is the New Covenant meal and it is for whom? It is only for those who can discern the body and blood of Christ.

I remember a meal under the Old Covenant. I remember a meal that took place at Passover.

And everybody was to partake of it.

There wasn't anything about discerning anything, was there? There seems to be something more intense about the New Covenant that therefore requires, in regards to participation in this meal, that a man, that a participant, must examine himself and in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

There's to be an acknowledgement, an understanding of what I'm doing. Now, some of you, obviously, most of you, are sitting there going, hmm, yeah, a lot of you have Presbyterian brothers and sisters in the Lord.

You have family members. Maybe you once were a Presbyterian or a part of the various Reformed denominations that practice infant baptism, but right now you're thinking about some of the conflicts that existed amongst those groups in regards to paedo-communion.

There is something known as paedo-communion. Now, I came from a Baptist background, so the first time I heard about paedo-communion, I was like, come again, what?

What did you say?

I had no idea.

Most of our paedo-Baptist brethren are not paedo-communionists. It's interesting that the majority recognize the clear statements of Scripture, that this New Covenant meal, this blood of the New Covenant, this remembrance of that, this body which is given, this blood which is poured out, all of that, it's for those who can examine themselves and discern and understand and not drink and judgment and condemnation themselves.

And so they don't practice paedo-communion. And, in fact, they require some kind of a, and it differs from group to group and even from church to church really as to exactly how this is all worked out, but they require some kind of public profession of repentance and faith toward Christ.

Even if, one might argue, given the rest of their theology, they're sort of assuming that on the part of their children anyways. But there are those, there are those who say, no, no, no, no, no, we need to be consistent.

And, therefore, the giving of, since this is the New Covenant meal and baptism has brought my children into the New Covenant, then you just, you know, you break up that bread real small and let Junior gum it if you need to.

But, look, I've heard the sermons. How dare you keep them from that which Christ has provided for them in the Lord's Supper. How, then, does the discernment take place? Well, that's really then just put off onto the parents.

The parents would be, I'm not sure what they're discerning or how they're supposed to do this, but that's to be put off onto the parents. And so we have in one of the ordinances, we have in it clearly, given our theology, and if you're not coming from a Reformed background, I apologize.

I'm not trying to give an apologetic for Reformed theology or particular redemption or anything else today. This is sort of an in-house study here at the end of this year as to why we do what we do when it comes to the ordinances of the church.

The elders feel like it's an important thing that every once in a while we remind some of you and for others who are new, explain why it is that we do what we do along these lines. Now, you have in front of you a copy of our Confession of Faith.

I hope you all know that. And if you'll look in the back on page 685, you will see under chapter 28 of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Number one, Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of positive and sovereign institution.

Appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in His church to the end of the world. These holy appointments should be administered by those only who are qualified and thereunto called according to the commission of Christ.

So, you have the assertion made that the two ordinances are ordinances because of positive and sovereign institution. In other words, we're not going, well, you know, we sort of look at the New Testament and it seems like maybe, possibly, we ought to do this.

No, we are saying that they are positive and sovereign institution, that Christ has commanded that we do these things. And clearly, as we look at Matthew, as we look at 1 Corinthians, we see that this is the case.

And that they are appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only lawgiver, to be continued in His church to the end of the world. And so, they are not just simply for the early church. They're not something that we're to grow into over time.

Instead, they marked from the very beginning. Christians participate in Baptism and the Lord's Supper and to the very last generation, that will remain the case. That's sort of important because this evening, when we especially look at Hebrews chapter 8 and the nature of the New Covenant, a lot of our Presbyterian brothers and sisters will have to try to basically say that that New Covenant isn't fully there yet.

Some put it way off. Some say we're working on it. It's getting better. They have different views. But it would seem that certainly what we're saying is that since these are both ordinances of the New Covenant, it's not like we're going to outgrow Baptism.

It's not like we're going to outgrow the Lord's Supper. It is what has marked the church from the beginning and will all the way to the end. And so, when we speak of the Lord's Supper, you'll see there's a lengthy section on page 686, which we read through in Sunday School recently and discussed these particular issues.

You'll notice it's pretty long. But you'll notice section 8 says, Is all ignorant and ungodly persons that they are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, or are they unworthy of the Lord's table, and cannot, without great sin against him, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto?

Yea, whosoever shall receive unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment to themselves. Quoting directly from 1 Corinthians 11. And hence, once again, the affirmation of the audience of this particular ordinance.

Now, it's interesting that when we read the next section, it says the following. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized, a sign of his fellowship with him, and his death and resurrection, of his being engrafted into him, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life.

Now, I think I could defend that in the New Testament. I mean, when you look at the New Testament and what it talks about baptism, what do we gather from it in the big picture? In the big picture, whenever the apostles are addressing the people of God, it is assumed that those people are looking back upon their baptism.

They've all been baptized.

There's no addressing of anyone who has not been baptized. And because of that, they are to understand what that represented. They're to understand that they have been united with Christ. They've died to their old life.