The Lord did not leave it to the apostles to institute the Lord's supper after His departure. He rather regarded it as so important that by his own authority, while yet present, He instituted it in the most solemn manner on the night of His betrayal, immediately before going out to the garden. The bread and wine selected as emblems of His body and blood, were designed to impress upon His disciples (& us) with the persuasion, #1 that His body was the true Paschal sacrifice; #2 that His blood was the true sacrificial blood by which the New Covenant was constituted, more perfect by far than the Covenant at Sinai. The elements were signs of a reality, pledges in hand, that as surely as they took the sign into their hands, they by faith received the thing that was signified; for they were seals and pledges as well as signs.
The Covenant is founded simply on the bloodshed of One for many for the remission of sins, without any other element, whether in the form of supposed merit, or moral improvement, or services performed as the procuring cause. The cup of Thanksgiving was thus the evidence of our participation by faith in the blood of Christ and the bread that participation by faith in the body of Christ, as our only acceptance before God. The sacrament of the supper loudly proclaims this great truth to all time, and all ages must hear it. Till the Lord come, His atoning death must be proclaimed with festive Joy at this supper, as often as it is deemed proper to celebrate it. Of how great importance must that truth be which Jesus so vividly portrayed, and the perpetual memory of which He has so carefully secured! This shows what a supreme place belongs to His atoning sacrifice. It is the principal thing of the Gospel; nay, it is the Gospel. Take it out of the Gospel and it ceases to be the Gospel.
George Smeaton, from The Doctrine of the Atonement According to the Apostles.
The Covenant is founded simply on the bloodshed of One for many for the remission of sins, without any other element, whether in the form of supposed merit, or moral improvement, or services performed as the procuring cause. The cup of Thanksgiving was thus the evidence of our participation by faith in the blood of Christ and the bread that participation by faith in the body of Christ, as our only acceptance before God. The sacrament of the supper loudly proclaims this great truth to all time, and all ages must hear it. Till the Lord come, His atoning death must be proclaimed with festive Joy at this supper, as often as it is deemed proper to celebrate it. Of how great importance must that truth be which Jesus so vividly portrayed, and the perpetual memory of which He has so carefully secured! This shows what a supreme place belongs to His atoning sacrifice. It is the principal thing of the Gospel; nay, it is the Gospel. Take it out of the Gospel and it ceases to be the Gospel.
George Smeaton, from The Doctrine of the Atonement According to the Apostles.
RSS Feed