Thoughts
on Devotions – LD29
Q.
78
Do the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ? Q.
79
Why then does Christ call the bread his body and the cup his blood,
or the new covenant in his blood, and Paul use the words, a sharing
in Christ's body and blood?
DeYoung,
in The
Good News We Almost Forgot,
titles
this chapter “A Real Presence?” He says that not only is the
Lord's Supper a memorial with which we remember Christ's sacrifice
and proclaim his death, but it is a “communion.” He quotes 1
Corinthians 10:16 which calls it a “participation” (or koinonia)
in the blood and body of Christ. He says that in communion we have
fellowship with the body and blood of Christ and that we are joined
to Christ in a spiritual koinonia.
He goes on to say that even this does not exhaust the meaning of the
Lord's Supper – we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes,
participate in the benefits of Christ's death and gain spiritual
nourishment. It also gives us unity as believers as we gather around
the “family table” where “we enjoy fellowship with each other
and partake of the rich feast of blessings purchased for us at the
cross of Christ.”
Monday:
In
the Lord's Supper the bread and wine (or juice) represent Jesus' body
and blood – they do not actually become flesh and blood. Jesus was
using a metaphor when speaking of the elements of communion.
Matthew
26:26-29
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he
broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat, this is
my body.” And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to
them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the
blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I will not drink of this
fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my
Fatherʼs kingdom.”
Tuesday:
Again,
a sacrament's physical properties symbolize a spiritual reality.
Putting our faith in Jesus is as necessary for spiritual life as
eating is for physical life. Without the sacrificial death and
resurrection of Christ that we remember in the Lord's Supper we would
not have the promise of his benefits.
John
6:47-51
I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. I
am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness,
and they died. This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so
that a person may eat from it and not die. I am the living bread that
came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live
forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my
flesh.”
Wednesday:
When
we eat the bread and drink the wine, we are assured that we become
one with Christ, just as the elements become one with us. Jesus was
God and man – he was able to fulfill the law and was able also, as
a human, to suffer the wrath of God against our sin.
Hebrews
5:7-9
During his earthly life Christ offered both requests and
supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to
save him from death and he was heard because of his devotion.
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he
suffered. And by being perfected in this way, he became the source
of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
1
Peter 3:18
Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust,
to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being
made alive in the spirit.
Thursday:
We
feel sorrow and fear when we think of our own sin – and we doubt
that God will really accept us as we are. God's promise is that we
can come to him clothed in Jesus' righteousness and that we can never
come in our own righteousness – it is a comfort that we can rest in
this promise. We are assured that we can not come to God on the basis
of anything we “earn” and we have assurance that in Christ we
have been adopted and are so united with Christ that it is as though
we had never sinned.
2
Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ controls us, since we have concluded this,
that Christ died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for
all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but
for him who died for them and was raised.
Friday:
We
remember Jesus' suffering and death at the Lord's Supper – it makes
us sad and should make us hate our sin. We proclaim what
Christ's death means for us and what it has accomplished. We also
proclaim the Lord's return – Jesus said to eat and drink at the
Lord's table until he returns. He is coming again and will judge
those who do not trust him.
1
Corinthians 11:23-26
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and
after 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, every time you drink it, in
remembrance of me.” For every time you eat this bread and drink the
cup, you proclaim the Lordʼs death until he comes.
Saturday:
In
the Lord's Supper we participate in the body of Christ. What he
accomplished in his body is ours. Where he now is, we one day will
be. We are members of others who are part of his body (the church).
The prophet Zechariah promised a fountain that would cleanse us from
sin – the Lord's Supper assures us that the fountain, Christ's
blood, cleanses us completely from sin.
1
Corinthians 10:16
Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in the blood of
Christ? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in the body of
Christ?
Zechariah
13:1
“In that day there will be a fountain opened up for the dynasty of
David and the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and
impurity.
Reading
between the lines...
Christians
need to recognize their weakness and lack of faith. All Christians
struggle with a combination of confidence and uncertainty. To claim
that we do not have doubt/unbelief is to claim that we are sinless,
and claim a self-reliance. Relying on our own faithfulness is the
opposite of belief. The father's prayer needs to be our prayer.
Keller paraphrases Luther: “Under every sin is the act of idolatry,
and under every act of idolatry is a disbelief in the Gospel.”
Luther in his commentary on Galatians says “the article of
justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the
frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly
and to believe it with all our hearts. We constantly need the Gospel
because we are imperfect believers – doubting, trying to add to and
staying from the promise of God. Faith is not relying on some inner
quality of belief; faith is confessing my weakness and relying on
Jesus. We can't drum up faith within ourselves. Instead it is pulled
out of us by the Gospel promises of Jesus. Faith does not originate
in us, it is “in Jesus' hands” - he generates faith within us
revealing more of his trustworthiness in the Gospel. We come to him
in weakness and he reveals himself to be trustworthy. We need to pray
“Lord I believe, help me overcome my unbelief.”
Mark
9:22b-24 But if you are able to do anything, have compassion on
us and help us.” Then Jesus said to him, “ʻIf you are able?ʼ
All things are possible for the one who believes.” Immediately the
father of the boy cried out and said, “I believe; help my
unbelief!”
Romans
14:23 But the man who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he
does not do so from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin.
The
Pharisees and teachers of the law have set up a situation in order to
trap Jesus – will he side with Moses at the risk of getting in
trouble with the Romans, or will he dismiss the teaching of Moses? It
is clear that they are not particularly interested in the woman and
also not particularly interested in the details of the law (they do
not hold the man to account). Jesus avoids their trap and does what
the law was meant to do, holding up a mirror to our own guilt and not
as weapon to harm others. Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the
accusers, but they do not repent, instead they retreat further into
the darkness. The woman is left with Jesus – he is the only one who
really could cast a stone; he does not condemn her, but tells her to
go and sin no more. The accusers are shamed and she is justified. The
judge has become her savior; she has been saved from sin. When we
read the story we must put ourselves in the role of the woman – He
is accused so that I can be acquitted. The one without did not cast
the first stone, but spoke salvation. Today he speaks to every guilty
sinner who casts themselves on his mercy, “I do not condemn you,
you are free, go and sin no more.”
John
8:6-7
(Now they were asking this in an attempt to trap him, so that they
could bring charges against him.) Jesus bent down and wrote on the
ground with his finger. When they persisted in asking him, he stood
up straight and replied, “Whoever among you is guiltless may be the
first to throw a stone at her.”
The
darkness we confront is 1) ignorance of God; 2) where we hide from
God, our rebellion; 3) death. Jesus is the light of the world. He
says that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness, but have
the light of life. We cannot illuminate our own lives, but Jesus is
the brightness of the Father's glory. The Father has a radiance and
glory; Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. We are dark by nature
and helpless, but when we hear the Gospel of the glory of Christ who
is the image of God, then light shines into our darkness and gives us
knowledge of God and his salvation. When we feel the darkness of our
circumstances around us we need to look to Jesus, the light of the
world. Whoever follows him will come out of darkness and have the
light of life.
John
8:12
Then Jesus spoke out again, “I am the light of the world. The one
who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light
of life.”
Hebrews
1:3
The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his
essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and so when
he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high.
2
Corinthians 4:6
For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness,” is the one
who shined in our hearts to give us the light of the glorious
knowledge of God in the face of Christ.
“You
shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” - assumes
that we do not know the truth and that we are not free. Jesus
assessment of humanity is that we are liars and we are slaves –
that is why we need that truth that will set up free. Why do we sin?
Because we are enslaved to it. We don't just make bad decisions, and
we think that we are in charge of our behavior, wishes and thoughts –
but actually our sin is in charge of us. We need redemption and
deliverance if we hope to leave slavery. If we want true change we
need to cry out to our redeemer – but we are reluctant to do that
and we don't like to think of ourselves as helpless. In thinking
ourselves free, we flee from the truth. Dr. Ashley Null: “What the
heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.” We choose
what we desire and then use our intellect to justify ourselves. We
desperately need the truth to set us free. Jesus is the Truth that
sets us free – we must go to him in honest repentance and he will
set us free.
John
8:32
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John
8:34
Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who
practices sin is a slave of sin.
John
8:35
The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains
forever.
Jesus
is the good shepherd – the OT uses the symbol of the good shepherd
in several places as the one who cares for God's people. Jesus
promises to be the shepherd and in that claims to be the Messiah. How
does Jesus prove his claims of being King? By dying for his people –
the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He proves his
deity by dying. Calvary is the heights of divinity and the depths of
godhood. On the cross we see the true God who would be torn apart to
rescue the flock.
John
10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep.
Ezekial
34:1-2 The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy
against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them - to the
shepherds: ʻThis is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the
shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not
shepherds feed the flock?
Ezekial
34:11-12 “ʻFor this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I
myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd
seeks out his flock when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will
seek out my flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they
have been scattered on a cloudy, dark day.
Psalm
23:1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
We
think of a “millstone around our neck” as a burden, but the
millstone that Jesus spoke of was a death by drowning that was
preferable to the punishment that one would receive for “causing
one of these little ones to stumble.” It demonstrates his
protective for his children. He calls us to follow him as a little
child, and likewise to welcome other children into the kingdom. In
this discourse Jesus is talking with his disciples who have been
discussing which of them is the greatest and have been preventing
children to come to him. The warning is especially to leaders,
teachers and those who seek to have status in the kingdom. If we
raise ourselves up, we will be cast down – instead, to become a
great one we must become a little one.
Matthew
18:6
“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to
sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around
his neck and to be drowned in the open sea.
“Do
not mess with this” might be a contemporary translation regarding
the marriage union. The verse assumes that something has already
happened – God has united the couple. The union is not primarily in
the couple's hands; it is in God's hands. The human union is
enjoyment of the fact of what God has already done. Bonhoeffer, in a
wedding sermon wrote, “it is not your love that sustains the
marriage, but the marriage sustains your love.” Even the marriage
partners may not always be totally focused on maintaining their
union, but God has established it. Focusing on the oneness can
further promote the oneness. The picture of the marriage union also
teaches us of our union to Christ – it is God's work. We just need
to recognize it; we enjoy it as we recognize the fact of it. We need
to have a conviction regarding the strength of the union – God has
joined us to Christ. The union does not depend on our faithfulness or
feelings. It is as strong as God's faithfulness. Our love does not
sustain our covenant union with Jesus, it is our covenant union with
Jesus that must sustain our love.
Mark
10:6-9
But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female. For
this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and the two will
become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore
what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
