The Second Helvetic Confession - Chapter 21
Of the Holy Supper of the Lord
The Supper of the Lord. The Supper of the
Lord (which is called the Lord's Table, and the Eucharist, that is, a
Thanksgiving), is, therefore, usually called a supper, because it was instituted
by Christ at his last supper, and still represents it, and because in it the
faithful are spiritually fed and given drink.
<The Lord’s Table is similar to the Passover of the
Old Testament because as the Jewish Passover was constituted to bring to
remembrance to the Jewish people God’s grace in passing over them during the
plagues on Egypt as well as God’s mighty work of redemption in leading the
Jewish nation out of slavery in Egypt to freely serve God before Mount Sinai; so
Jesus Christ became the Passover lamb for the Christian Church redeeming the
elect from the bondage of sin. >
The Author and Consecrator of
the Supper. For the author of the Supper of the Lord is not an angel or any
man, but the Son of God himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, who first consecrated it
to his Church. And the same consecration or blessing still remains along all
those who celebrate no other but that very Supper which the Lord instituted, and
at which they repeat the words of the Lord's Supper, and in all things look to
the one Christ by a true faith, from whose hands they receive, as it were, what
they receive through the ministry of the ministers of the Church.
<This was covered under the sacraments in general and
baptism. Nonetheless, let us once more declare that the outward signs in the
serving of the table or concerning the person who serves have nothing to do with
the efficacy of the supper, but Jesus Christ who instituted the supper alone
give it benefit and power, to those who come in true faith alone. >
A Memorial of God's Benefits.
By this sacred rite the Lord wishes to keep in fresh remembrance that greatest
benefit which he showed to mortal men, namely, that by having given his body and
shed his blood he has pardoned all our sins, and redeemed us from eternal death
and the power of the devil, and now feeds us with his flesh, and give us his
blood to drink, which, being received spiritually by true faith, nourish us to
eternal life. And this so great a benefit is renewed as often as the Lord's
Supper is celebrated. For the Lord said: Do this in remembrance of me. This holy
Supper also seals to us that the very body of Christ was truly given for us, and
his blood shed for the remission of our sins, lest our faith should in any way
waver.
<Here is a sign and seal of the entrance into the
covenant of grace, made by God before the foundation of the earth with Jesus
Christ on behalf of the elect. In the supper the elect have union with Christ,
which is the full benefit of Christ’s death and resurrection.
>
The Sign and Thing Signified. And
this is visibly represented by this sacrament outwardly through the ministers,
and, as it were, presented to our eyes to be seen, which is invisibly wrought by
the Holy Spirit inwardly in the soul. Bread is outwardly offered by the
minister, and the words of the Lord are heard: Take, eat; this is my body; and,
Take and divide among you. Drink of it, all of you; this is my blood. Therefore
the faithful receive what is given by the ministers of the Lord, and they eat
the bread of the Lord and drink of the Lord's cup. At the same time by the work
of Christ through the Holy Spirit they also inwardly receive the flesh and blood
of the Lord, and are thereby nourished unto life eternal. For the flesh and
blood of Christ is the true food and drink unto life eternal; and Christ
himself, since he was given for us and is our Savior, is the principal thing in
the Supper, and we do not permit anything else to be substituted in his place.
But in order to understand better
and more clearly how the flesh and blood of Christ are the food and drink of the
faithful, and are received by the faithful unto eternal life, we would add these
few things. There is more than one kind of eating. There is corporeal eating
whereby food is taken into the mouth, is chewed with the teeth, and swallowed
into the stomach. In times past the Capernaites thought that the flesh of the
Lord should be eaten in this way, but they are refuted by him in John, ch. 6.
For as the flesh of Christ cannot be eaten corporeally without infamy and
savagery, so it is not food for the stomach. All men are forced to admit this.
We therefore disapprove of that canon in the Pope's decrees, Ego Berengarius (De
Consecrat., Dist. 2). For neither did godly antiquity believe, nor do we
believe, that the body of Christ is to be eaten corporeally and essentially with
a bodily mouth.
<At
the time of Christ’s temptation Christ said to Satan, “Man shall not live by
bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The words of
Christ in reply to Satan were not new; Christ repeated the words of the Father
in the Old Testament.
Christ as the divine Logos recognized by John in the Gospel of his name
is the Word of God.
Likewise Christ said to his disciples in the Gospel unless they ate of this
flesh and drank of his blood they had no life in them.
This makes the sacrament of the Lord’s Table the most spiritual thing
available to man. The Spirit of Christ isn’t in the miracles, signs, or any
other thing of the earth or church. In that Christ is the Word and Christ is the
substance of life, we also see here why the sacrament is not to be separated
from the Word, and again why the title attached to God’s ministers is Word and
sacrament. In this sense Christ is the sacrament, and more so with the Lord’s
Table. >
Spiritual Eating of the Lord. There
is also a spiritual eating of Christ's body; not such that we think that thereby
the food itself is to be changed into spirit, but whereby the body and blood of
the Lord, while remaining in their own essence and property, are spiritually
communicated to us, certainly not in a corporeal but in a spiritual way, by the
Holy Spirit, who applies and bestows upon us these things which have been
prepared for us by the sacrifice of the Lord's body and blood for us, namely,
the remission of sins, deliverance, and eternal life; so that Christ lives in us
and we live in him, and he causes us to receive him by true faith to this end
that he may become for us such spiritual food and drink, that is, our life.
<Again the sign of the sacraments, the outward sign,
points to the inward faith and substance of Christ. There have been many
variations on the bread and wine mystically changing form such as noted above.
This is pure nonsense and of no use at all. The elements are those used by
Christ, bread and wine. There has been much debate through the ages concerning
what is in the cup and if the bread is leavened or not. Do we think it was wine
or grape juice in the cup handled by Christ?
I think all but the most profane would say it was wine. Is grape juice
the same? I say yes, both are fruit of the vine, and depending on how early in
the harvest or how heavily the wine had been watered down, the alcohol content
may have been quite insignificant. The Bible doesn’t say it must be wine as in
fermented or alcoholic substance. Likewise, when we consider the bread, was it
unleavened? Most likely it was unleavened but this depends on this last supper
being the Passover supper. There is debate about it being the actual Passover
supper but part of the longer preparation for the Passover.
These are trivial concerns at best and not essential elements.
There are many in the Reformed churches that will argue these points, and
decry the error I teach here. They do depart from the tradition of the
reformation not I. I but share the sentiments of Calvin who taught in a similar
fashion concerning the actual elements used in the Lord’s Supper.
>
Christ as Our Food Sustains Us
in Life. For even as bodily food and drink not only refresh and strengthen
our bodies, but also keeps them alive, so the flesh of Christ delivered for us,
and his blood shed for us, not only refresh and strengthen our souls, but also
preserve them alive, not in so far as they are corporeally eaten and drunken,
but in so far as they are communicated unto us spiritually by the Spirit of God,
as the Lord said: The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my
flesh (John 6:51), and the flesh (namely what is eaten bodily) is of no avail;
it is the spirit that gives life (v. 63). And: The words that I have spoken to
you are spirit and life.
<In other words as bread, meat, and other earthly foods
nourish the physical body so do the elements of the Lord’s Table nourish your
soul. To neglect the Table of the Lord is to neglect the lifeblood of the soul
and flee from the comfort and protection of God. All men seek peace on earth.
Yet, there can be no peace while Christ is absent. Likewise there is no peace of
soul when the means of grace provided in the Lord’s Table are neglected. One
can only sit in amazement at the lack of fear of God and foolishness of the
modern church that struggles to find a place in their busy schedule to serve the
table of the Lord. In many churches many consider a quarterly celebration too
often. Should we wonder then why the church as a whole is so beggarly and lacks
power against the prince of this world? Our forefathers found it fit to serve
the table as often as the church gathered. The fathers of the Reformed church
transformed the whole world. >
Christ Received by Faith.
And as we must by eating receive food into our bodies in order that it may work
in us, and prove its efficacy in us - since it profits us nothing when it
remains outside us - so it is necessary that we receive Christ by faith, that he
may become ours, and he may live in us and we in him. For he says: I am the
bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me
shall never thirst (John 6:35); and also, He who eats me will live because of me
. . . he abides in me, I in him (vs. 57, 56).
<Can this be worded more clearly?
I think not! The last comet gives us pragmatic proof from the life and
experience of the church that this is truth. The Bible gives us proof from the
Word of God. One can only wonder then why the table is neglected or fought over
instead of set before the congregation that all might grow in faith and grace.
>
Spiritual Food. From all
this it is clear that by spiritual food we do not mean some imaginary food I
know not what, but the very body of the Lord given to us, which nevertheless is
received by the faithful not corporeally, but spiritually by faith. In this
matter we follow the teaching of the Savior himself, Christ the Lord, according
to John, ch. 6.
<This seems redundant, however, the problems the church
faces today are not new, and the problems have existed from the birth of the
church and in many ways before in the synagogues of the Jewish people. Man does
it his way, and chides all that do not agree with him. Every person strives to
be first or higher, or superior to all others. Pride and ego go before the fall.
We see the same thing in the argument among the inner circle of Christ just
before Christ gives Himself as the perfect sacrifice.
When will we understand the Word and sacrament are one, and this is
indeed the bread of life? Is this so hard to understand or accept? >
Eating Necessary for Salvation.
And this eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the Lord is so
necessary for salvation that without it no man can be saved. But this spiritual
eating and drinking also occurs apart from the Supper of the Lord, and as often
and wherever a man believes in Christ. To which that sentence of St. Augustine's
perhaps applies: "Why do you provide for your teeth and your stomach?
Believe, and you have eaten."
<Here I disagree most heartily with my learned
forefather in faith. It is true that the soul of the regenerated will thirst and
hunger for this very food, but it is not so tied to the order of salvation as to
preclude salvation. This would leave in man’s hand that which could set aside
the election. Not to be! God has made the decree and it will be. I accept lesser
lines here, as in this is normally a part of salvation, when explained in proper
order of salvation. I disagree none can be saved apart from the supper. A man
can neglect the Lord’s Table and have no affect on his eternal resting place.
He will reap the whirlwind so to speak in his inner life and know the turmoil
and confusion of the devil during his earthly life, but it will not set aside
the election of God. Nonetheless, in agreement with the author here, Word and
sacrament cannot be divided and in the sense that salvation is by the Word of
God I come to some point of agreement. For this very reason we have systematic
theology, whereby things spiritual are set into a supposed order or sequence of
events. For the most part this is an attempt to divide things so the finite mind
of man can grasp and understand them. The truth is most are so closely tied
together such divisions do not exist. This is not unlike the war that has raged
for centuries concerning justification by faith alone where many attempt to pit
Paul against James and argue that it isn’t faith alone, but faith and works,
or at least the two connected together. The error here is that it is stated most
clearly that salvation (justification) is by faith.
However, it is a truth as James notes that the faithful will produce good works.
Three times the Bible says the just shall live by faith. To live is to work and
therefore to be just is to work. The Ephesians two passage clearly teaches that
God prepared these good works before the foundation of the world for the
faithful to walk in. Likewise we
can say that the saved will not neglect the table but I do not think we can say
to neglect the table means a person cannot be saved since only the saved that
has properly examined himself should be at the table.
Sacramental Eating of the Lord.
Besides the higher spiritual eating there is also a sacramental eating of the
body of the Lord by which not only spiritually and internally the believer truly
participates in the true body and blood of the Lord, but also, by coming to the
Table of the Lord, outwardly receives the visible sacrament of the body and
blood of the Lord. To be sure, when the believer believed, he first received the
life-giving food, and still enjoys it. But therefore, when he now receives the
sacrament, he does not receive nothing. For he progresses in continuing to
communicate in the body and blood of the Lord, and so his faith is kindled and
grows more and more, and is refreshed by spiritual food. For while we live,
faith is continually increased. And he who outwardly receives the sacrament by
true faith, not only receives the sign, but also, as we said, enjoys the thing
itself. Moreover, he obeys the Lord's institution and commandment, and with a
joyful mind gives thanks for his redemption and that of all mankind, and makes a
faithful memorial to the Lord's death, and gives a witness before the Church, of
whose body he is a member. Assurance is also given to those who receive the
sacrament that the body of the Lord was given and his blood shed, not only for
men in general, but particularly for every faithful communicant, to whom it is
food and drink unto eternal life.
<Notice the reference to the sign and seal of both
sacraments of the church. There is an outward sign and an inward seal of the
Holy Spirit. The sacraments are properly called means of grace because of the
testimony of the Holy Spirit to and with the spirit of man in the sacraments.
Man does grown in faith and spirit, grace is added in the sacraments. So thus it
is not only spiritual, but also a physical thing to the individual properly
coming to the Table of the Lord.>
Unbelievers Take the Sacrament
to Their Judgment. But he who comes to this sacred Table of the Lord without
faith, communicates only in the sacrament and does not receive the substance of
the sacrament whence comes life and salvation; and such men unworthily eat of
the Lord's Table. Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and eats and
drinks judgment upon himself (I Cor. 11:26-29). For when they do not approach
with true faith, they dishonor the death of Christ, and therefore eat and drink
condemnation to themselves.
<The Word is clear and to unworthily partake is to eat
and drink condemnation to self. End debate, God has spoken. Paul told the church
at Corinth that many of them were sick and some had died because of this
unworthy approach to the table. This is as true today as it was in the day of
Paul. We live in a natural world and the there are natural events and sicknesses
that lead to death. We do not want to fall into the error of the early Jews as
evidenced in the book of Job and blame all bad things that happen to faithful
people on their lack of faith or for having sin in their lives. Nonetheless it
is a great truth that to corrupt the table by coming unworthily does open this
box from hell so to speak and man will know disease and deaths that could have
been avoided. The actual wording of drinking and eating condemnation to self
however speaks of the eternal home of the soul more than the condition of the
physical body of this world. >
The Presence of Christ in the
Supper. We do not, therefore, so join the body of the Lord and his blood
with the bread and wine as to say that the bread itself is the body of Christ
except in a sacramental way; or that the body of Christ is hidden corporeally
under the bread, so that it ought to be worshipped under the form of bread; or
yet that whoever receives the sign, receives also the thing itself. The body of
Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father; and therefore our hearts
are to be lifted up on high, and not to be fixed on the bread, neither is the
Lord to be worshipped in the bread. Yet the Lord is not absent from his Church
when she celebrates the Supper. The sun, which is absent from us in the heavens,
is notwithstanding effectually present among us. How much more is the Sun of
Righteousness, Christ, although in his body he is absent from us in heaven,
present with us, nor corporeally, but spiritually, by his vivifying operation,
and as he himself explained at his Last Supper that he would be present with us
(John, chs. 14; 15; and 16). Whence it follows that we do not have the Supper
without Christ, and yet at the same time have an unbloody and mystical Supper,
as it was universally called by antiquity.
<Here is another redundant statement. However in the day
of Bullinger and the early reformers the beliefs and practices of the roman
Church was widely known and accepted. They constantly fought against this heresy
concerning the actual presence of Christ in or under the elements of the table.
In our day we have this same teaching in abundance, as the Roman Church remains
the largest and most widely spread of Christian Churches. We should not forget
that the reasons for the reformation of the sixteenth century have not
disappeared. To boldly hold and contend for this faith once delivered should be
as important to us today as then. It appears however that for the most part the
evangelical churches continue to divide over minor issues while these major
deficiencies for the most part go unattended. >
Other Purposes of the Lord's
Supper. Moreover, we are admonished in the celebration of the Supper of the
Lord to be mindful of whose body we have become members, and that, therefore, we
may be of one mind with all the brethren, live a holy life, and not pollute
ourselves with wickedness and strange religions; but, persevering in the true
faith to the end of our life, strive to excel in holiness of life.
<Not only are we called to remember who and what we are
in Christ and to live accordingly, we are enabled by the presence of the Holy
Spirit to more faithfully do these things. There is an ability connected with
the exercise of the faith given by God that not only works salvation, but also
enables man to do what God requires. Thus it is a truth that in Christ we can do
all things and apart from Christ we can do no good thing. As often as we confess
our sins, God forgives our sins. In this sense, having examined self in
preparation to come to the table we find we are at the most pure or perfect
condition we as humans can attain. In faith we can please God and know all these
benefits of being in Christ. It is written that without faith we cannot please
God. God does not leave man alone
in the performance of this most necessary soul searching and repentance in the
preparation for the table. God has promised that the Holy Spirit will pray for
us. The Holy Spirit will pray for those things we don’t know we need or how to
ask God for. It is a fantastic truth that God has never asked mankind for
anything that God did not first provide. >
Preparation for the Supper.
It is therefore fitting that when we would come to the Supper, we first examine
ourselves according to the commandment of the apostle, especially as to the kind
of faith we have, whether we believe that Christ has come to save sinners and to
call them to repentance, and whether each man believes that he is in the number
of those who have been delivered by Christ and saved; and whether he is
determined to change his wicked life, to lead a holy life, and with the Lord's
help to persevere in the true religion and in harmony with the brethren, and to
give due thanks to God for his deliverance.
<The note here concerning “with God’s help” is
crucial. In the flesh doubt and sin will cloud the perspective and man’s often
shortcomings would frustrate even the most faithful. As we remember Christ who
brought salvation to us by this very flesh and blood, we can also remember the
promises that accompany this great salvation. Left to self man will fail every
time. In Christ we are more than conquerors and cannot fail. >
The Observance of the Supper
with Both Bread and Wine. We think that rite, manner, or form of the Supper
to be the most simple and excellent which comes nearest to the first institution
of the Lord and to the apostles' doctrine. It consists in proclaiming the Word
of God, in godly prayers, in the action of the Lord himself, and its repetition,
in the eating of the Lord's body and drinking of his blood; in a fitting
remembrance of the Lord's death, and a faithful thanksgiving; and in a holy
fellowship in the union of the body of the Church.
<To which I add we are to remember the overall table
itself implies the mutual love, for Christ and one another. Calvin in the
reformation declared this truth. A truth that embraced will bring a halt to much
of the strife and division that face the evangelical churches today.
We therefore disapprove of those who have taken
from the faithful one species of the sacrament, namely, the Lord's cup. For
these seriously offend against the institution of the Lord who says: Drink ye
all of this (Matt. 26:27); which he did not so expressly say of the bread.
We are not now discussing what kind of mass once
existed among the fathers, whether it is to be tolerated or not. But this we say
freely that the mass which is now used throughout the Roman Church has been
abolished in our churches for many and very good reasons which, for brevity's
sake, we do not now enumerate in detail. We certainly could not approve of
making a wholesome action into a vain spectacle and a means of gaining merit,
and of celebrating it for a price. Nor could we approve of saying that in it the
priest is said to effect the very body of the Lord, and really to offer it for
the remission of the sins of the living and the dead, and in addition, for the
honor, veneration and remembrance of the saints in heaven, etc.
<It is the practice of the Roman Church to serve the
bread to the congregation, but withhold the wine for the clergy alone. There is
no Scripture to support this practice and though of ancient tradition, a most
horrid practice that withholds from the body of Christ the means of grace and
assurance that comes from properly observing the serving of the table as given
to us in the Word of God. The Reformed have always demanded that we only worship
God as God has commanded in the Bible. >
