Communion - LBCF Chapter 30

Paragraph 7 of chapter 30, and it pairs nicely with paragraph 8, Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly, by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death, the body and blood of Christ, being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. this paragraph in summary is telling us that when you partake of communion you are in a very real way partaking of jesus christ in his body and in his blood albeit in a spiritual and not literal way it is so so the the one extreme that we find that that caleb really was kind of just explaining is this extreme that this is like this totally physical experience where christ has become physically manifested and transubstantiated the bread into his body and and then the the incorrect response to that is the, this is nothing but a memorial approach where all we have are pieces of bread and cups of probably Welch's grape juice in this case, and we just drink it down and we eat it and it's nothingness. It's a non-efficacious in every single way type of experience and and it's that attitude that that some churches you probably know of today have and that will lead you to things like monthly and then quarterly communion because there's really no reason to do it very often if if it's meaningless in that sense and I know people wouldn't agree that that it's meaningless that that run it that way but compared to the way I understand communion now, that's really meaningless. So what this paragraph is saying is that there's a very real event occurring where we are feeding upon Jesus Christ.

And when we say feeding upon, we think about what happens when you feed upon something. You chew on something, you digest it, it provides nutrients and nourishment to your body. So when you chew on Jesus Christ, And when you digest Jesus Christ, you are thinking about his sacrifice on your behalf. You're meditating upon what he's done, the scriptures that point to that.

And in a very real spiritual way, you are being nourished. This is part of your sanctification. We often forget that there are spiritual disciplines that we are to engage in that really do feed our souls. and so most people agree oh well we should wake up and pray and we should read the word and we we actually we don't believe in salvation by works and we believe christians can be very weak in their faith and fail a lot and still make it to heaven and praise god for that because none of us would have a chance if not for those facts but we also believe that if you wake up every day and you diligently are trying to read your Bible and commune with God in prayer, that you're going to grow.

And you're going to grow as a Christian. If a guy walks in your office and says, hey, I'm having a lot of trouble. I can't stop looking at pornography and thinking about doing violence to my neighbor. You're not going to tell him, okay, we'll stop doing that and then come back next week and let's talk about it. You're going to tell him things like, well, Let's pray more.

Let's study the word. So, you know, we all understand that there's a process to really building up our faith. And so we understand that spiritually our faith will be built up, as Caleb even pointed out in the previous paragraph, by partaking in this sanctifying work, which is one of the good works that God has preordained that you should walk in when he elected you before the foundation of the world.

And so we don't deny that Jesus is present spiritually just because some people have made much of his transubstantiated presence. We also don't make such a big deal out of it that we become some kind of spiritists about it. now first corinthians 10 16 is one of the proof texts and it really gives us an indicator of what they were looking at here it reads the cup of blessing that we bless is it not a participation in the blood of christ the bread that we break is it not a participation in the body of christ and so one of the points here and we're going to talk about this more in the next paragraph is that when we're partaking in any kind of religious ritual in that sense, we're participating with the gods of that ritual, or in our case, the god of that ritual. And so just like people that worship demons through idolatry and going to pagan temples and various means of worshiping demons, this is a way that we worship Christ, and it's very real communion with him. and because of the communion we have with Christ in a very real way.

When I say real, I mean supernatural and spiritual and real, not literal. We have to understand what all these words mean But that also is how we end up having the communion with our fellow believers that we get It not just that I in the same room with you and we all eating a little wafer and drinking a little cup, and we heard a little sermon or whatever. We are actually participating together in a very spiritual endeavor, as 1 Corinthians 10, 16 talked about.

And then in 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 26, this is the communion passage that a lot of people would read at church even. Paul says, 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. Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. do this as often 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 what we're reminded of, hold on, my tabs are off now. So what we're reminded of there is that Jesus himself uses the phraseology, this is my body and this is my blood.

And he's in line with what we said in paragraph five. They are sometimes called by the names of the things they represent or signify would be another word for represent. Albeit in substance and nature, they remain truly and only bread and wine as they were before. So we just see this language that people can easily be confused by. In some cases, it could be, you know, you could even argue that it's a judgment on those who are unworthy, that this language is so easy for them to twist into evil means.

But so by faith, those of us who are believers, worthy receivers, when we outwardly partake in the elements, it's as real of a spiritual nourishment to us as the outward elements would be to our physical selves. All right, I heard no comments. I had to get up, but I can still hear if anybody's talking. Robert? I would just say that it seems like we don't need to say it, but this is really the only picture that we have of Jesus Christ.

We shouldn't have any other pictures of Jesus Christ. It's just the bread and the wine. No pictures in any books. you know I guess we haven't really talked about it but the movies anything hanging on the wall but this should be the only picture of Jesus Christ that we that we really have I guess that's really the only comment that I have amen yeah a good a good question to ask yourself so not to get off topic but uh is you know are you as zealous about like what Robert just brought up as you are about other things in your life.

I know people who will go to war with a kid at a grocery store over wearing a mask, but they're not going to open their mouth about blasphemy, about images of Jesus, about idolatry, about girls wearing skimpy outfits walking around the same store. So we fight the battles we want to fight. and I realize we can't fight every battle all the time, but I think some of us have to think about, am I really fighting the Lord's battles or did I just find one that feels like the Lord's, but it's also one I like also. There's an inconsistency there in our hearts that we should all recognize and be able to think through.

I agree with you, Michael. I think that's a very fair question we should ask ourselves And but I guess answer a question with a question. Why do you think particularly among those of us who really are believers, why is it that it's so hard for us to fight the right fight? Why is it that we get bogged down in what maybe you classify as the wrong fight?

Do we take our eyes off or what is it ultimately that you see in your experience? I think I think there's two answers to that that are the obvious ones. at least there may be more, but one of them is that deep down inside, we really love ourselves and not Christ. And we'll fight for what's important to us. You know, most guys would eventually get to the point where they'd beg their wife for sex, but not to pray with them.

So some things we just feel are more important and that's what we fight for. The other thing is, I think there's a very real spiritual opposition that happens to people who are trying to do things for the Lord. I guess some people could disagree. I think there's demonic powers and principalities and rulers and things like that in the forces of darkness.

And so it is a lot harder to open your mouth and share the gospel than it is to open your mouth and tell people that the restaurant down the street was really good. Even though you're doing the same thing. You're just recommending something to someone, right? So there is a battle to be waged, and most of us don't take Ephesians 6, putting on the armor of God for that battle very seriously.

And so we get into the battle, all of a sudden it's hard, maybe something happens, like you get sick, or there's all sorts of things that seem to happen to people in these battles, and then we just kind of give up easily. The solution, of course, is we all have to be committed members at a local church that's preaching God's word and discipling one another and that's how we get that kind of strength and learn about our gifts and stuff like that I would I would add that we're we're probably lazy too we just lazy so we don want to we don want to battle it easy not to battle it just easy to to say oh I should have gotten up or I should have witnessed to that person And, you know, they go, oh, yeah, I should have witnessed to that person that I that I saw a week ago. I don't normally see people, but I saw a person a week ago and I should have I should have said something to him.

But it's real easy to just continue on and not and not not battle or go to battle. Agreed. There's a reason, you know, Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself. That's the first thing he says in that verse. It's like Luke 9, 24 or something like that. And we have to deny ourselves.

And it's just, it's not natural for us. And laziness is a sin that is real tempting. Good. Well, it's good. I think we're all trying to grow together, and I think there's hope for guys that want to talk about these things. Chapter 30, paragraph 8.

I'll move on. Feel free to comment on the last paragraph if you think of something later. So the previous paragraph talked about worthy receivers. So just to introduce this paragraph, it's like the other side of the coin. People who are supposed to receive communion are believers. There is nobody who is outside of Jesus Christ who is authorized in any reasonable sense to receive the body and blood of Christ.

This is part of where it gets important. It's not just bread and wine in that sense, that there is a spiritual reality to it. In paragraph eight, it says, all ignorant and ungodly persons. As they are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, so 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.

So the first verse that's listed here is 2 Corinthians 6.14, which says, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? And then 15, what accord has Christ with Belial or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? And usually we use those verses to explain to Christians that they should not participate in idolatrous worship.

You know, we would if your Christian friend came to you and said he was going to go to a Catholic mass and worship with the Christians there. I would hope that your response would be oh no we you cannot do that I think it'd be one thing to observe for an academic purpose that you know that might be different but but if somebody said no I'm going to go worship that's where I'm going to worship this week we would tell them no you can't do that you're worshiping with idolaters but in this case this the verse is being explained in almost the opposite fashion that as we cannot have fellowship with evil because we're in Christ, those who are evil or ignorant and ungodly people don't have fellowship with Christ, and thus they cannot mix with Christ either. And so because these, now we're going to start with the concept of unbelievers.

So in particular, we're talking about unbelievers, or I should, not in particular. In one case, we're talking about unbelievers. There's also a type of believer that I think fits in this paragraph mold too, but we'll talk about that in a second. So unbelievers are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, it says at the beginning, meaning that they have no fellowship with Christ spiritually.

They are not in Christ. They've not been baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit. They haven't been granted faith and repentance by God. And so they are unworthy to partake of the sacrament of communion because it represents their communion with Christ that they don't have. So how could they possibly take the sacrament? So by doing so, they actually commit great sin against him.

And then it says, while they remain such. So this to me is an indicator that we don't give communion to non-believers until they become a believer. So that would include a little baby that was baptized at a Presbyterian church and considered part of a covenant community. That little baby is unfit because he remains such as ignorant or ungodly at that time.

And so this is one of the arguments, for Baptistic polity, right? But so in 1 Corinthians 11, 29, it says, anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. So Paul's telling us that if we partake in the Lord's table and we're not understanding what we're doing, if we're just doing it because, well, we're part of the community our parents are in and they're telling us to do it and everyone else does it, that's not the way that we partake of communion.

We're supposed to do it knowing what we're doing. We know we're communing with Jesus Christ, that we're being nourished by this good work, in a sense, that we're doing. And so it says that we are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment to themselves. And so you can read the rest of 1 Corinthians 11 to kind of see how that plays out And Paul even says that because some people were eating unworthily that why people were even sick and dying in the Corinthian church And so it's a very serious thing.

And in Matthew 7, 6, we have a really neat verse that's kind of out in the middle of nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount, it might seem like. But Jesus says when he's teaching the people about how to judge and how to judge righteously, he says, do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. And this verse is actually used very early on in church history in a document called the Didache to say that the communion table should be withheld from dogs or nonbelievers.

That it is a serious enough thing that the church should not admit people there unto to have communion without the church believing that they are worthy receivers. And so, excuse me. And so, is it a forgivable sin to partake of communion unworthily? Well, yes. It's not the unforgivable sin. And so if you took communion before you became a believer, all that judgment that 1 Corinthians 11 says that you actually took upon yourself and drank and you're guilty of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus paid for that.

And so if you are a Christian now, and so switching gears, if you're a Christian and you are in a circumstance in your life, where you are not living in the way you ought to live. You may be subject to a type of church discipline where they're working with you on sin in your life, and people are starting to challenge you to repent of known sin. And your elders of your church may decide, hey, you know, you're not acting like a person that's in covenant. with us right now, and they may say they want to keep you from taking communion because of the fact that you need to repent.

Or, of course, if you were excommunicated as the result of your discipline, you could be told you're no longer allowed to take communion at this church. If you showed up at my church just out of the blue. You don't get to just take communion. We try to be sure that we are looking at people who are not ignorant and ungodly persons, but are worthy receivers.

And the way we do that is by a recommendation from your church. Just, you know, a little note that says, yeah, Caleb's a Christian and he's not in any trouble, you know, and we'd let you have it. We don't make too big a deal out of it, but we want a local church to authenticate your belief. So churches, I think, may differ on how they end up controlling this aspect of it.

And even a person who is under some form of the disciplinary process, churches, I think, may differ on how they would maybe handle whether that person gets communion or not. But the point is, is that if you're not a believer, it's not for you. And what's more important than you participating in the good work of communion that Christians are to participate in is that you come to faith in Christ in the first place and really deal with that aspect first.

So you get the spiritual communion first, then you get the physical communion. And so I will stop there and let you guys hash that out. for those of you pastor one thing i've always wondered about what let's say uh you're you're having communion on a particular sunday and you notice that someone or some people do not take communion what becomes your responsibility at that point as a pastor do you ask yourself I mean obviously if they have not been to the church before you know that they are a visitor I guess the question maybe it's a two-fold question if it's a visitor do you make it a point as you've minimally noted that they didn't partake in communion that you should get to you know get to the heart of who they are and what their purpose is there you know in other words where where they are in their processes and then secondly if they are a member or they are a regular attendee, how would you treat it at that point? At our church, we practice what's called members-only communion.

And so if you're a visitor, you're not getting communion. And I don't want to say I don't care, but it doesn't matter to me why you're not getting it at that point. If you visit enough times and you express a desire to want communion, I'll say, well, we need to prove you're a Christian. And you do that by joining this church or showing me the church that you've joined that says, yes, this is a Christian and he's got some authority in his life and accountability.

If it's a member of my church who's supposed to be taking communion, who chooses not to, I'd probably just ask them why. Try to see what they're thinking. I think some people have been taught what I think is wrongly that they should abstain from communion because they have some subjective sense that there's sin in their life that needs rooted out or something and I think I think that's actually part of how you fight your sin is the means of grace provided by the church where you repent mentally while you're in that of examining yourself and then taking the communion and being reminded of what Christ did for you, that actually should help you in your fight with sin.

And that's distinct from a guy that's totally unrepentant and the church is dealing with it. And we know that, hey, we kind of want you not participating now for fear that you're actually unworthy. But I would more than likely guess that the reason that they didn't partake is a misunderstanding, like Michael said, that you must be basically sinlessly perfect to partake.

And so we try to be extremely clear on that every time as well. We read Heidelberg Catechism, question 81, who is worthy to partake the Lord's Supper? Those who are displeased with themselves because of their sins. So, well, in summary, communion is extremely important and very serious. And I think we all believed that before, but I think going through this chapter has reinforced that and maybe enhanced it.

Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us, and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net. you can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.