Dennis Tuuri

This is that day that God has brought us together to know these pleasures in a concentrated sense to be built up in the knowledge of them to be fed by the stream of grace culminating as our worship day shall today at the table of our Lord where we eat that spiritual food which is Jesus Christ and drink the true spiritual drink and are empowered with grace from on high that grace might flow out from us rivers of water coming out of our bellies to water the earth.

Let us stand for the scripture sermon. We’ll be reading Ephesians 5:29-33. Ephesians chapter 5 beginning at verse 29. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.

This is a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for the Holy Spirit who indwells us on the basis of our Savior’s finished work and of your will and your decree. We pray that the spirit might do his job now and that he might take these words and illumine them, brighten them, shine them, Lord God, for understanding that we may understand the spiritual truths contained in them, we might reform our lives.

We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. The scripture I just read is not normally read in the context of the sacraments, but I do think they’re very applicable for a reason I shall talk about in a few minutes. I do want to begin, however, this sermon with a review of what we said last week. This really builds on what we began to talk about last week, and this will be the second of this two-part series on communion with the body of Christ and the presence of Christ in the sacrament of communion.

Now what we said last week by way of review is that the sacraments which is what we’re discussing when we talk about communion we gave a little overview of what they are the sacraments as opposed to ordinances or of empty memorial are a sign they are also a seal and they are since they are a seal and a sign a means of grace to us. Romans 4:11 is the verse you want to always maintain in your mind for the picture of sign and seal where it talks about the circumcision that of the Abrahamic covenant being the sign and seal of that covenant of grace which justification Abraham had before the giving of circumcision.

And so they are signs but they are also seals. They are not empty memorials. Rather they are a means of grace. But if they’re a sign and a seal of the covenant then we had to talk about covenant a little bit. And what we said was that covenant theology as distinct from dispensational theology is based first of all it is an understanding of God based upon the concept of covenant. Now we said last week that some of the traditional ways that the church has used to talk about covenants is that you have parties involved in a covenant you have obligations of the covenant you have a blood oath that is entered into in other words there are blessings and cursings attached to that and that is a legitimate way of looking at the covenants that God made with men in the context of history. However, we shall at the end of this sermon today offer a little different perspective on how we might look at that covenant.

Another facet of that we might want to look at it in. Now, we talked about the fact that covenant theology that is based upon an understanding of God that is based upon the covenants of scripture. We said that covenant theology also stresses the unity of the covenantal word that there is only one essential covenant. So, the unity of the scriptures is portrayed in covenant theology as opposed to dispensational theology which tries to separate up the Bible not just into two parts but into a number of distinct and separate dispensations and specifically in terms of how salvation is entered into the original forms of dispensationalism which are you know very short lived in the history of the church only 100 or so years old different means of salvation for each of those different dispensations but we see the scriptures talk about the covenants of promise in the book of Ephesians so that all the covenants are covenants of promise.

They’re of grace. There is not a covenant of works in the sense of it was given as a means to obtain life with God. That is not true. So, covenant theology stresses the unity of the covenantal word and it stresses in the context of the development of that covenant unity, the essential base for all other covenants is the eternal covenant of God. We said the covenant of redemption. In this covenant of redemption that occurs in the context of the trinity before creation, we see that there is a relationship between the father and the son and the spirit in which the father makes certain promises as it were to the son.

The son makes certain promises to the father. The father would prepare the son a body. Luke 1:35 and Hebrews 10:5. The father would give the son the spirit without measure. It’s from Isaiah 43 and Isaiah 61. The father would support and comfort and console the son depicted in Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 49. That is the son and his in flesh. The father would deliver the son from the power of death. Psalm 2.

The father would bring to the son all whom the father had given him. John 6 and John 17. Remember no man comes to the father but comes to me rather but the father draw him. And so the father is the one who brings us to the lord Jesus Christ. And God would give to the son a particular number of redeemed men that no man could number. However that there would be a large vast number. Psalm 22 and Psalm 72.

The son’s part was to assume human nature to become incarnate in the flesh. The son was to live a life under the law and to bear the sins of his people. Now those last two points are pretty important. And I want to just mention there we say that the son was to live a life under the law. What we talk about there is the act of obedience of Christ in the flesh. The requirements of perpetual fellowship, eternal relationship with God are perfect life lived in conformity to the law.

We know that violation of the law is death. We know that death has been atoned for through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, justification is not just as if I never sin. Justification is just as if I never sin because Christ’s blood has made atonement. But it also means that we have a positive righteousness before God by which we have fellowship with him. That positive righteousness is not our own righteousness.

It’s the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to our account, legally declared to our account. He doesn’t infuse it into us. It is a righteousness outside of ourselves. It exists in the person of Christ and it is a righteousness that was manifested in the context of his life on earth in the human flesh. He walked in perfect obedience to the law of God for the years that he sojourned among us. That perfect obedience to the law is his one of one of the things that he had covenanted to do with the father to provide for us to live a life in the context of the law perfect lawkeeping for us and impute to us his act of obedience on the cross as our righteousness before God in eternity.

And so this eternal covenant of redemption has to do with this relationship between the father and the son and the spirit who brings these things to pass. We affirm that there is only one covenant of grace that the Old Testament and the New Testament are the same covenant under different administrations not dispensations. We could use that word but it has bad connotations because we don’t want to say that there was a different means of salvation.

Let me give you a couple of quotes. John Calvin said this. The covenant made with all the fathers in so is so far differing from ours in reality and substance that it is altogether one and the same. Still the administration differs. William Hendrickson said this, “The one covenant of grace is identical in both dispensations. Both old and new testaments reveal to us one and the same covenant of grace.” Lewis Ruff said this, “At the heart of covenant theology is the understanding that there is continuity between the old and new testaments.

There is only one way of salvation for both Abraham and I because there is only one covenant of grace in all ages. The Bible should not be regarded and this is from Geerhardus Vos wrote this. The Bible should not be or should excuse me I’ll start all over again. Vos said this. The Bible should be regarded not as separate covenants made by God with mankind but as records of the way in which the one covenant was administered in two different ways for necessary reasons.

Talking there about the old and new covenant. We could say that in several different ways if we wanted to separate up the different covenants made with men in the context of the old covenant revelation. So we believe that covenant theology of which the sacrament is a sign and seal is a picture a sign and seal or the sacraments rather a sign and seal the one covenant of grace that goes from the beginning of time to the end of time.

And that what we have in the context of the world and in the revelation of God is different administrations of the same covenant of grace. So we have basic continuity in terms of one word from God given to us and that is seems apparent in the clear teaching of scripture from beginning to end. And that way you don’t have to try to come up with reasons for the disparities that seem to exist. If we’re separate from the old covenant, why are we talked about in terms of having signs and seals applied to us of baptism being children of Abraham whose children ye are?

Paul said, “Well, it’s because it’s the one covenant of grace that’s being talked about from beginning to end. Now, I will have more to say about this as we reach the conclusion of today’s talk. But what I said last week was that the all the other covenants are subsumed under this one eternal covenant of redemption. Now the way men talk about this is a little bit different. The way some covenant theologians talk about it is that you have the Adamic covenant logically first by which things are promised to Adam on the basis of obedience and then after Adam’s disobedience and the fall of humankind into sin and misery that then this eternal covenant is spoken of between the father and the son.

Now we know that temporally or in terms of a of a chronological sequence time that God’s covenant with between the father and the son is everlasting or eternal and did not follow the adamic fall was before creation even but some people talk about it logically after Adam’s fall. Now I know this probably going over your head just a tad but it is important to make this distinction. I don’t want to try to you know overlook the fact that some covenant theologians talk about the Adamic covenant and then the covenant the eternal everlasting covenant and then the manifestations of that with uh Noah, Abraham and Moses.

Okay? And then Christ is the fulfillment of that. Now I’m going to say that to be consistent we want to place this covenant of redemption prior to the Adamic covenant. And I’ll talk about that at the end of the talk today another way to look at this suggested by a man named Herman Hoeksma that will help you to understand a little bit of how these things all flow out of this eternal covenant of redemption and yet the fact that Adam stood for all mankind in his failure to keep covenant with God.

Okay. So for now and I’m just reminding you that what we said is there’s one covenant of redemption or grace ultimately that manifests itself in various covenants that culminate in the covenant being fulfilled by Jesus Christ in his humanity 2,000 years ago. And that is what we are signing and sealing in the sacraments including communion. We have said also then that this theology of covenantal theology stresses the continuity of the church from the old testament into the new testament.

It is always the church. Now it’s in a fuller sense realized in the new testament since the coming of Christ but it is not differentiated. And so this is the basis for infant baptism from the continuing validity of the law and for a institution. sense as well. We’re going to talk about the civil government. It is only reformed theology ultimately that sees covenantal institutions, okay? That the covenant is made with representatives of people.

It’s not made individually. There is an individual aspect to it, but there is also a corporate aspect to covenant. When we take communion, we do it covenantally as a group. If you go to a Baptist church, that’s sort of acknowledged, but really it’s you and Jesus. Now, it is you and Jesus, but there’s also us and Jesus. When the New Testament talks about the church being the tabernacle or temple of God, it says that in the singular that you are the temple of the living God.

But it also says that you in the plural, the church is the temple of the living God. And this has implications is what I’m trying to say. We talk about political action in a couple of weeks. We’re going to say that reformed people with a covenantal theology have more of a correct understanding of that because we see the institutional state as a covenantal ity that is redeemable so to speak that has a relationship with God and its particular function as well created by God and so there is an importance to these institutions okay I’ll talk about that more in a couple of weeks but it does have an implication covenantal theology does in terms of how we approach political action and I’m going to hand out today some rough draft copies of the ballot measure voters’s guide and you’ll see three pages of reformed confessions there relating to the civil government and they make a distinction between a reformed view the civil government and almost every one of them says that we reject the Anabaptist notion that Christians shouldn’t participate in government.

The Anabaptists were radical individualists. They rejected covenant theology and as a result they rejected the institution of the state. Now that may not be obvious to you why that works. I’ll try to explain it more in a couple of weeks. But understand for now that it does work that way and the historic documents that you can get today from me will hand out will show you that was the common understanding of the reformed church at that point in time.

Okay. So, this continuity of the covenants has a relationship to what we how we actually live our lives in every area including the church and the state. This is a theology that stresses the centrality of the savior from beginning to end. And that then we talk about communion that the covenantal presence of God is attested to or affirmed in the context of the scriptures. We looked at John 6. We looked at the gospel accounts and we looked at 1 Corinthians 10:11.

And we see repeatedly that Jesus said that in eating his flesh we receive nourishment that he doesn’t give us an empty sign and a seal. Calvin put it this way. He said that he said that there are some who think that to eat is merely to believe. Well, I maintain that the flesh of Christ is eaten by believing. See, if you don’t believe that the sacrament is a sign and a seal has efficacious in terms of the administration of grace and Christ himself to us and its benefits, then you think that eating is simply to believe.

But Calvin said that indeed that the flesh of Christ is eaten by believing. When we believe, when we understand the context of this sacrament, we take it appropriately that as we believe that God will surely give us the nourishment of the Lord Jesus Christ, so he gives us that very thing. So there is spiritual grace to the meal of the Lord’s supper. We said on the other hand, however, we want to differentiate ourselves from those that say that it’s an empty ordinance, that it’s an empty sign and seal.

It’s just something to cause us to remember stuff. There’s a good point to be made that when we read that it is a memorial of Christ. Do this in memorial of me that it’s not a memorial preeminently to us but to God. The rainbow is placed in the heavens as a sign of that covenant that God would look upon it and remember. Now God doesn’t forget. But the idea is that we want to hold up to God as it were and ask him to treat us according to the work of the savior represented in the elements.

And so it is a memorial in that sense and it is efficacious. We do also however want to separate ourselves off from the Roman Catholic position or the Lutheran position that this stuff becomes the body and blood of Christ. There’s a covenantal presence. So, we deny the Baptist belief that this is simply an ordinance. There’s no grace attached to it. Christ surely promises us his flesh and his blood and he gives us to us covenantally and we are strengthened.

On the other hand, it doesn’t is not transformed in the physical body and blood of Christ because he has told us that he’s not here. He said that in his body, he sits at the right hand of the father. You know, it’s not a spiritual body in a sense it is a spiritual body but it is a flesh it is physical body as well and so that in that physical body which is a spiritual body in its ultimate sense he sits at the right hand of the father he is present with us he has said lo I’m with you to the end of the age but that he is present in our hearts by the spirit the scriptures affirm in Ephesians chapter 3 that Paul prays it may be strengthened with might by the spirit and the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

My faith because he has said repeatedly and we looked at these verses last week. John 14, I go and prepare a place. Luke 24, excuse me, John chapter Colossians chapter 2, that Christ is seated at the right hand of the father. Matthew 26, the poor you have always with me, with you rather, but you do not always have me with you. He will be absent. And so until his return, he is absent from us in the physical or ultimate corporeal sense but he is with us covenantally and that particularly in the context of the communion service.

Okay. So we have differentiated ourselves in both the Baptist position of ordinance the Roman Catholic position of transubstantiation that the flesh of Christ actually become the bread becomes transformed into this in the context of the prayer of institution. Calvin speaking of the presence of Christ in his providence. He says in regard to his indelible and invisible grace, it is fulfilled what he said.

Lo, I am with you always, even under the end of the world. But in regard to the flesh, which the word assumed, in regard to that which was born of the virgin, in regard to that which was apprehended by the Jews, nailed to the tree, suspended on the cross, wrapped in linen clothes, laid in the tomb and manifest in the resurrection. Me ye have not always with you. So this is by way of review. Let me read a couple of other quotes here from Calvin.

He said that and we said this last week that ultimately well I’ll just read what Calvin says here. He’s quoting from Augustine who said that the other disciples ate bread which was the Lord whereas Judas ate the bread of the Lord. So when evil men come to the table, they do not eat the bread which was the Lord, but rather they eat the bread of the Lord. And so they do not have in that sense the communion that we have with the body and blood of Christ.

And as a result in the Genevan church of order for instance under Calvin they had this in their church order to the reader a note of explanation. When we read the words of the Lord’s supper we read curse them not because they should change the substance of the bread or wine or that the repetition thereof with the intent of the sacrificers should make this sacrament as the papist falsely believe. They wanted to go out of their way and we need to go out of our way as we move from a from a non-sacramental view of the sac of the sacraments of grace to a sacramental view not to ultimatize them or make them magical somehow to us.

It’s not magical. It is the believing in faith that is efficacious to the nourishment of our soul. It is not magic. The Protestant Reformed Church in one of their studies on this doctrine said that what are the sacraments seal that the believer by faith is righteous before God in Christ and are the sacraments grace for all those who receive them? No, but only for such as receive them by a true and living faith.

And so by those it is grace from God. And it is a seal of that righteousness which we have by faith in Christ. Now I wanted to read the Belgic Confession again by way of review their article 35 of the holy supper of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe and confess that our savior Jesus Christ did obtain and institute the sacrament of the holy supper to nourish and support those whom he hath already regenerated and incorporated into his family.

which is his church. Now those who are regenerated have in them a two-fold life. The one corporeal and temporal which they have from the first birth and is common to all men. The other spiritual and heavenly which is given them in their second birth which is affected by the word of the gospel and the communion of the body of Christ. And this life is not common but is peculiar to God’s elect. So there’s two different kinds of life.

A corporeal or bodily life which we share with all men. A spiritual life which we share only with the elect. In like manner God has given us for support of the bodily and earthly life, earthly and common bread, which is subservient thereto, and is common to all men, even as life itself. But for the support of the spiritual and heavenly life, which believers have, which you have, for the support of your life, this confession is saying, he have sent a living bread which descended from heaven, namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and strengthens the spiritual life of believers when they eat him.

That is to say, when they apply and receive him by faith in the spirit of Christ, that he might represent unto us his spiritual and heavenly bread, hath instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body, and wine as a sacrament of his blood, to testify by them unto us, that as certainly as we receive and hold this sacrament in our hands, as surely as you hold it in your hands, and eat and drink the same with our mouths, as surely as that, by which our life is afterwards nourished, we also do certainly receive by faith which is the hand and mouth of our soul, the true body and blood of Christ our only savior in our souls for the support of our spiritual life.

Now as it is certain and beyond all doubt that Jesus Christ has not enjoined to us the use of his sacraments in vain. So he works in us all that he represents to us by these holy signs, though the manner surpasses our understanding and cannot be comprehended by us as the operations of the Holy Ghost are hidden and incomprehensible. In the meantime, we err not when we say that what is eaten and drunk by us is the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ, but the man of our partaking of the same is not by the mouth, but by the spirit through faith.

Thus then, though Christ always sits at the right hand of the Father in the heavens, yet doth he not therefore cease to make us partakers of himself by faith. This feast is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself with all his benefits to us and gives us there to enjoy both himself and the merits of his suffering and death. Nourishing, strengthening, and comforting our poor, comfortless souls by the eating of his flesh, quickening and refreshing them by the drinking of his blood.

Thus far, my reading of the Belgic Confession. The Belgic Confession is unlike the Westminster Confession. The Westminster Confession was written by a body of divines and as such it is the finest articulation of all the points of doctrine contained in the faith that we believe the scriptures represent. The Belgic Confession was penned primarily by a single man Peter de Bray who went to the cross as it were.

He went to martyrdom to the death by torture of himself after a long period of imprisonment for the sake of these truths. And he wrote this confession and this particular section on it is important to try to convince the Catholic ruler at the time that his positions were constant with the holy scriptures and a differentiation the reformers made from the Catholic Church was in this very area in which we speak over to a radical rejection of scripture based on the error of Rome but they differentiated themselves this Belgic Confession as the Heidelberg Catechism was a more devotional use the Belgic Confession also is a highly devotional confession and here at one might say the heart of it in Peter de Bray’s confession before a Catholic king his perception of the sacrament of the savior his founding of this based upon the sure word of god which was later adopted that the Canons of Dort for all reformed churches to subscribe to here is an important article of faith that we must hold as a church as we build upon the scaffolding that the reformed church gave us at the cost of their lives frequently and certainly in the case of Peter de Bray this is the truth of holy scripture and Peter de Bray is one of the great men of history who went to the cross for such truths and we must do all that we can to comprehend these truths and apply ourselves to them and so de Bray said that as surely as we eat the sacrament so we receive grace although it’s not transformed into the mystic into the actual corporeal flesh of Christ and his Institutes said this he said that such I say is the corporeal essence presence which the nature of the sacrament requires what we’ve been reading about and which we say is here displayed in such power and efficacy that it not only gives our minds undoubted assurance of eternal life but also secures the immortality of our flesh since it is now quickened by his immortal flesh and in a manner shines in his immortality.

Christ breathes his life into his soul and diffuses his life into ours. Now I want to in this brief in this not so brief review I want to sum up what I said last week at the end of our talk that this is a truth that is incomprehensible in many ways to us and I want to quote again from Calvin’s Institutes he said now should anyone ask me as to this mode I will not be ashamed to confess that it is too high a mystery either for my mind to comprehend or my words to express and to speak more plainly I rather feel than understand it John Calvin writing truth of God therefore in which I can safely rest I here embrace without controversy.

He declares that his flesh is the meat. His blood the drink of my soul. I give my soul to him to be fed with such food. In his sacred supper, he bids men take, eat, and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I have no doubt that he will truly give and that I will truly receive. In another portion of the Institutes, he said, “Whenever the subject is considered after that I have done my utmost, I feel that I have spoken far beneath at its dignity.

And though the mind is more powerful in thought than the tongue and expression, it too is overcome and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the subject. All then that remains is to break forth in admiration of the mystery which it is plain that the mind is inadequate to comprehend or the tongue to express. God calls us to consider such things in our minds and he calls us to speak of such things in our tongues one to the other.

But he calls us to do that humbly before him. That is a tremendous condescension of God to enter into relationship with us and then to cause us to eat the resurrected humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ and be fed with grace from on high. Now, I want to then move to the text in Ephesians that I mentioned earlier and I want to look at a couple of others briefly and say that it is an ironic fact of history that this particular truth that we’ve been discussing for the last two weeks is one that divided the church tremendously coming out of the reformation.

It properly caused the reformers to split with Rome over their heresies in terms of the perpetual sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not sacrifice Christ at communion and that is a idolatrous and blasphemous thing to assert. The work is finished 2,000 years ago. Period. The benefits accrue to us but we do not resacrifice them. These things are not transubstantiated. It was proper to break. But then the reformed church itself continued to break splinter and divide and in many cases over this particular issue Luther broke with Calvin and Zwingli and there was all kinds of disputes in the context of the reformed church over this doctrine and the sad part about that is that this doctrine has as its central core the unity of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We read the text from Ephesians. Look at it again with me if you will. Ephesians chapter 5. Now I know that the context of this is Paul talking about the responsibilities that husbands has for wives and husbands as you feel convicted by this text. I don’t want to do anything to lessen that conviction and the wives as you feel convicted when it says that husband should reverence her husband. I don’t want to take away your conviction over that truth.

But I do want you to see something else in this text that isn’t normally looked at. Ephesians chapter 5:29. He’s he’s talking about the way, you know, we’ve heard this from you all kinds of times, right? Adam guarded nurture. We’re going to hear it again in a next week about political action, the guarding role of the church or the guarding role of the state, the nurturing role of the church. etc. But in any event, no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

The analogy there, the logical pairs is the man to his flesh and the Lord to the church. There’s a correlation made in that to the church, the flesh of Christ. And that’s really what we’ve been talking about last week is when we partake of communion, we partake of the flesh of Christ and we become one. as it were with Christ in his resurrected humanity. It is identification with the Lord Jesus Christ that is ultimately at the core of our justification by faith and the signs and seals of justification by faith.

Baptism is identification with Christ is being clothed in Christ’s name. Identification and that is pointed out here that the Lord Jesus Christ compares the church to his own flesh which is nourished and cherish cherished for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh.

This is a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ in the church. He’s transcended the argument. You see, he’s talking he brought up an occasion to talk about the responsibility of husband and wife. But he leaped into a discussion of a man and his body which led him to talk of Christ in the church. And then he stays up there. This is the great mystery is the unity between the Lord Jesus Christ and the church.

And the church being the flesh, the body, the bones of the Lord Jesus Christ, the identification, the unity that’s produced and particularly through our election, the application of salvation to us, but pictured and also built up and developed in the context of the communion meal. Now, turn with me, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. This isn’t new for some of you, but it’s important to remember these things.

1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul says, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant. How all our fathers under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses and the cloud in the sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink ate the same spiritual meat rather, but they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.

With many of them God was not well pleased. These things happen as for our example. Now, just by way of comment. we have there the assertion of infant baptism and infant communion. the identity that we talk about the covenant theology produces between the church in the wilderness and the church today is seen here and pictured here. And what he tells us is that he’s going to talk to him about communion.

He’s going to talk to him about the Lord’s supper. And he talks to them about on the basis of the communion that they had in the Old Testament with the two covenantal signs and seals of baptism and the nourishing or ordinances here spoken of in terms of the meet and drink in the in the wilderness. And what he’s saying is that they all were baptized. They weren’t flooded by immersion. They were sprinkled probably, so to speak, by the their symbolic entrance through those waters.

And they all ate that food. And so we assert that today about children in terms of the covenant community of Christ. But in any event, to go on then what he goes on to say then dropping down to verse 14 where Therefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The cup which we the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we being many are one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of that one bread. And then as this works itself out, we read down in verse 24, “Let no man then seek his own, but every man another’s. wealth or well-being. That doesn’t mean seek another person’s wealth by stealing it. It means to seek their well-being. This text in 1 Corinthians 10 warns, it’s given there to warn the Corinthians against the improper use of the Lord’s table.

They were involved in sin. And he warns them that just because you get the sacrament doesn’t mean you get the grace. And it doesn’t mean you’re part of the eternal elect of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because there were people in the wilderness that ate and died. And there are people at church to eat the bread of the Lord like Judas did and die. So he warns them against an undue reliance upon the signs and seals very importantly for our wanting to differentiate ourselves from the Roman Catholic position as well as the Anabaptist position.

But my point here is that in the context of this he makes the assertion that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ is not the what he’s referring to here is the body of the church itself. He’s warning him against partaking. But then he tells them at the center of this what is going on in those verses we just read that we being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread. Now Paul will go on in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 turn over to verse 27 after the words of institution in 1 Corinthians 11.

He says wherefore who Whoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Paul in these writings identifies as the center of communion, the identification we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, but he does it in the context of declaring that the body he is getting them to try to discern better is the corporate body of Christ in the church. It is not the mystical body of Christ contained in the elements. That’s my assertion because he tells them here they’re not properly discerning the body and as a result of that judgment is coming upon them.

And all that he said up to now including the chapter earlier is to identify in their minds their sins against the body of Christ by sinning against the body of Christ. corporately. Now, you could make the case that, you know, one is an application of the other is if you fail to understand the body of Christ is represented in the communion elements, you’re also going to sin against the body. But either way, it doesn’t make any difference.

The application is the same. The point I’m trying to make here is that when we consider the communion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the real presence of Christ in communion, okay, not the Catholic real presence, but the covenantal presence of Christ in communion, it is in the context of the covenant community of God. And it is an amazing thing that the reformed churches splintered over this very picture of the unity that we’re supposed to have in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me read you some application of these truths and the reformed confessions and creeds that came out of the reformation. In question 162 of the Westminster Catechism, what’s a sacrament? Sacrament is the holy ordinance instituted by Christ in his church to signify, seal, and exhibit unto those that are within the covenant of grace, the benefits of his mediation, to strengthen and increase their faith.

We’ve said that, in all other graces, to oblige them to obedience, to testify and cherish their love and communion one with another, and to distinguish them from those that are without, to testify and to testify and cherish their love and communion, one with another they understood the teaching. The Westminster Confession of Faith has an entire section chapter 26 entitled of the communion of saints.

We read this all saints being united to Jesus Christ their head by his spirit and by faith have fellowship with him in his graces sufferings death resurrection and glory. That’s what we spoke about last week. And being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces and are obliged to performance such duties public and private as due conduct their mutual good both in the inward and outward man.

Saints by their profession are bound to maintain in holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God and in performing such spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification as also in relieving each other in outward things according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion as God offers opportunity is to be extended unto all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it goes on to cite other examples. You see, what I’m trying to get you to see is that the confessions and the catechisms of the Westminster divines clearly saw that to speak of somehow communion being our relationship with Christ and not at the same time stressing our relationship with each other in the body of Christ was wrong. It was a failure to comprehend the body of Christ corporately. It was a failure to discern the application of the body of Christ in the church.

We’ve talked about the tremendous blessings of Almighty God who deems to enter into covenant with us and bring us to himself and then to feed us with spiritual grace from on high. And think of the grace that is pictured in the fact that he calls us people here at RCC and with the extended church of Christ across the world. He calls us the body of Christ. The identification is sealed in that terminology and in those scriptures from Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 10 and 11.

Now the simple point I’m trying to make today, that’s it really. When we take communion, it isn’t just you and Jesus, folks. It’s you and Jesus. This particular local manifestation of the body of Christ. Now, it’s more than that. It’s with the church, our communion. And it’s also communion with the church in heaven. We see that in the book of Hebrews. It describes our convocation on the Lord’s day, but it all is worked out of the context of the local assembly.

Reformers understood this and they set the groundwork in those very confessions and creeds that came out of it for the resolution of the tremendous strife and difficulties and the splintering that’s happened since the time of the reformation. And it is ironic as I said that this splintering happened over this particular doctrine because this doctrine among all others that we teach talks about the need for the love and grace and commitment to one another In the context of the Lord Jesus Christ in his body here in this church in Mother Reformed confession, it says that in terms of coming to the table of preparation for it in a word, we are excited by the use of this holy sacrament to a fervent love towards God and to our neighbor.

The Westminster Catechism in question 171 in terms of how to prepare for receiving the Lord’s supper correctly, it says you are to examine the are to examine yourselves of your being in Christ of your sins and wants of the truth and inst and measure of your knowledge, faith, repentance, love to God and your brethren, charity to all men, forgiving those that have done them wrong of your desire your desires after Christ of the new obedience and by renewing the exercise of these graces by serious meditation and fervent prayer.

So to prepare for the Lord’s supper, they said you to examine yourselves in terms of whether you have been charitable to all men forgiving those that have done you wrong. Calvin said this in terms of the examination required for the table. By this I understand he means that each individual should descend into himself and I exhort you and I exhort myself that we descend into ourselves each Lord’s day and consider first whether with inward confidence of heart he leans on the salvation obtained by Christ and with confession of the mouth acknowledges it and second whether with zeal for purity and holiness.

He aspires to imitate Christ whether after his example he is prepared to give himself to his brethren and to hold himself in common with those with whom he has Christ in common. Whether as he himself is regarded by Christ, he in his turn regards all his brethren as members of his body or like his members desires to cherish, defend and assist them. And you when you come to the table today. Do you understand that part of your examination is to see how well you have followed the exhortation to cherish, defend, and assist your brothers and sisters who comprise or constitute the Lord Jesus Christ’s body.

Calvin said this at his Institutes as well. The Lord intended the communion of the Lord, the Eucharist, to be an exhortation, that which no other could urge or animate us more. more strongly both the purity and holiness of life and also to charity, peace and concord. For the Lord there communicates his body so that he may become altogether one with us and we with him. We’ve talked about that. Moreover, since he has only one body of which he makes us all to be partakers, we must necessarily by this participation all become one body.

This unity is represented by the bread which is exhibited in the sacrament as it is composed of many grains so mingled together that one cannot be distinguished from another sought our minds to be so cordially united as not to allow of any dissension or division. He says this I prefer giving in the words of Paul the cup of blessing which we bless and quote from 1 Corinthians 10 which we quoted earlier.

We shall have profited admirably in this sacrament if the thought shall have been impressed and engraven on our minds that none of our brethren is hurt, despised, rejected injured or in any way offended without our at the same time hurting, despising and injuring Christ. That we cannot have dissension with our brother without at the same time dissenting from Christ. That we cannot love Christ without loving our brethren.

That the same care we take of our own body, we ought to take of that of our brethren who are the members of our body. That as no part of our body suffers pain without extending to the other parts. So, every evil which our brother suffers ought to excite our compassion. Wherefore Augustine that inappropriately often terms this sacrament the bond of charity. That’s what Augustine called it. What stronger stimulus could be employed to excite mutual charity than when Christ presenting himself to us not only invites us by his example to give and devote ourselves mutually to each other but in as much as he makes himself common to all also makes us all to be one in him.

If you’ve understood this last week and today and rejoiced in God for the spiritual grace from on high of communion, understand that it is grace to serve the body of Christ and to become one in terms of your partaking of each other’s mutual cares and problems and doing whatever we can to assist each other in the maturation of faith. That’s what’s pictured in the Lord’s table. Now, I mentioned that I wanted to mention at the end of my sermon, which we now come to another view of looking at this covenant of grace per Herman Hoeksma talked about the fact that we think of the covenant as somehow these are the word.

And as much as we