CHAPTER 1: The All-Sufficient Sacrifice of the Divine Lamb
CHAPTER 2: The Divine Repentance of the Spirit
CHAPTER 3: The Weekly Continuance of Divine Communion
CHAPTER4: The Eucharist of Thanksgiving and God’s Work
CHAPTER 5: Christian Responsibility and God’s Divine
Presence
CHAPTER 6: Access to the Father through His Son
CHAPTER 1: The All-Sufficient Sacrifice of the Divine Lamb
What is the Eucharist all
about? It’s about remembering the Lord Jesus Christ’s all-acceptable,
all-sufficient, all-pleasing sacrifice that He accomplished once-and-all.
The Eucharist is a treasure; a gift of
blessedness; and the riches of heaven on earth, because in the Divine Eucharist
we partake and taste of heaven.
The once-and-for-all atonement of
the Lamb of God is the means by which God’s people are freed from their sin,
and are given the Son’s immaculate righteousness by the mechanism of faith
alone. Only the Divine Lamb redemptively
sacrificed Himself for the spiritual acceptability of His people.
The Cross is where I become right
with God. The Cross is where the sinner
lays his burdens down, and he is accepted in the beloved. The Cross is apprehended by the grace of
faith, and we demonstrate that faith
by partaking of the Most Holy Eucharist.
The Son came in the inspiration of
God the Spirit with the Father’s approval.
The Son committed Himself to a holy submission to the Cross, because He
was meant to endure the unendurable as He is the righteous for the unrighteous;
the just for the unjust; the sinless for the sinner. He is
the One who paid the price for the sin of His people, and through the Cross we
are perfected.
The Sacred Eucharist shows us that Jesus’ body
was broken for us, because His Cross actually
saves His people. Jesus says that
the Eucharist is Him: His body, O that
blessed Son who came and died for His own; whose body was broken so I would be
rescued from divine wrath and that hellish home! O the depths of sorrow! O the depths of that thorny crown!
On the Cross alone He took upon our sin, and
wore that crown of thorns for me, and
for you: the ones whom He died partake of
His Heavenly broken side by the water of the divine Word in all faithful
acceptance, and His blood is what washes us from all sin because it alone is of
God and has the divine power to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We partake of His body by the visibility of
unleavened bread, and wine. O His sacred body and blood! Given for me so I know His took my
place!
Do I approach the body and blood of Christ by
dirty hands? In the Old Testament
someone saved the Ark of the Covenant from hitting the mud, but his hand was
more corrupt than that mud, and God
struck him dead. So to we ought to
apprehend Christ in the Eucharist by faith, and understand that our hearts
ought to be cleansed, because dare we approach His body and blood with dirty
spiritual hands, minds, mouths and deeds?
Truly, truly, by nature we are more
corrupt than the mud, but we now come by faith to receive the Omnipresent
Christ, because Jesus says it’s Him.
Indeed,
heaven has come down to proclaim His death of deaths so that by it and the
application of God the Holy Spirit to us we can benefit in all spiritual
acceptance.
Here, now, is the Christ of the
Eucharist who was broken for us! Yea, so
we would remember His death as our exclusive
way of reconciliation with God the Father.
And as we partake, the angels praise God for our remembrance due His
name!
CHAPTER 2: The Divine Repentance of the Spirit
What comes with partaking of the
Eucharist? It’s all about a broken and contrite heart before God in faithful
repentance by an honest searching of our hearts before God, and a proper
recognition of the reality of the Cross-work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Eucharist points us to the Cross of the
Lamb of God alone; because He alone is the sole Savior and Redeemer of His
elect people alone. What does Peter say
about Christ? It is through the Cross of Christ alone (Acts 4:12) that we obtain forgiveness by a
God-approved repentance in light of particular sins.
Repentance is a holy gift of the Holy Spirit,
because only God the Spirit could produce spiritual life out of spiritual
death. We know of the Blessed Eucharist
by the Blessed Word of God, because the Spirit superintended the words of holy
men of old. When we approach the Holy
Eucharist, we ought to examine ourselves in light of the Ten Commandments, and
the New Testament Commands of the Lord Messiah.
Does anyone dare think they ought
to approach the Bible-based Eucharist with corrupt, spiritual hands? Indeed, we ought to be cleansed of our
sin, before we behold Christ.
The Holy Word teaches repentance
unto remission and life: confession of
sin to God the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Who is our great High Priest? Perish
the thought that it is any other except Christ and Him crucified. The Lord Christ continues His work of
intercession for those whom the Cross was intended. Therefore, Christ intercedes for those whom
the Spirit applies the work of His Cross.
Let us live our days in the doctrine
of repentance: repentance ought to be
what we are about because we desire to live for holiness in every right
way. In a sense, God is always
before us, because we live in His presence, but when we approach that Holy of
holies as Christ Himself in the Eucharist we ought to come with a heart of
repentance.
CHAPTER 3: The Weekly Continuance of Divine Communion
What is weekly communion all
about? The man Luther was the theologian
of the Cross, and he wanted to know nothing but Him and Him crucified. That is what a crucifix reminds us of: His all-perfect death, because in it is
life. We must worship Christ and Christ alone, but we can remember His work
by the Divine Eucharist and Crucifixes that show His the spiritual life that He
gives us by His death in what He has done for us.
We must partake of the knowledge of His Word by
reading the Word, and meditating on His divine truth. When we partake of the Divine Communion by
faith, we ought to know that the act of the Cross alone was a propitiatory
sacrifice (that is, it satisfied divine justice of God the Father), and the
expiation of what the Cross provides is removing our sins as far as the east is
from the west.
God is a just God: He is holy and we are not. However, by His grace we can grow in
holiness, because Peter commanded that we would be holy as God is holy. The reason why Christ satisfied divine
justice was because the Father had to punish sin, but instead of punishing sin
in the persons of elect sinners, He graciously
provided the due punishment of our sin in Christ. That is, He was broken for us; He was wounded
for us; He was torn asunder through crucifixion, because of the determined
counsel of God for the purpose of spiritual redemption.
As often as we partake of the Divine
Eucharist, we remember the death of deaths of the Son. It is a
blessing of blessings to partake of the Christ-centered Eucharist; because in
it alone do we remember the death of the Blessed One.
The Bible calls us all to righteousness, but
those who do not have the blessing of Christ in administering the Eucharist do
not have the legitimacy of being an instrument of God through Holy
Communion. We ought to take spiritual
pride in the faithful obedience of
our leaders, and we should question why there is lawlessness, because Christ
commanded that at His name: all must
depart from evil. There is a serious
cosmic problem if the leaders do not have the approval of Christ but the
approval of Judas.
If what Jesus did was all about
righteousness as He submitted to the Cross, isn’t it right that we ask our
leaders to be about righteousness?
Let Holy Communion bring to our
remembrance that source of all spiritual blessing through the Cross alone,
because in the work of Christ we have His righteousness accounted to us by
faith alone, and here, my beloved, is the way of God-designed peace. It is
through Christ and Him alone that we have peace by the actuality and truth of
how we become right with God. Blessed
Communion reminds us of this peace, because it tells us of the Cross: yea, His
body and blood.
CHAPTER4: The Eucharist of Thanksgiving and God’s Work
What is the meaning of the
Eucharist? It is about thanksgiving because we must to be grateful for the God-man
and what He has done because of God’s blessed work in awakening us by His Spirit
and His Word.
May we approach His table with
thanksgiving! Upon what basis? Upon the
basis of Christ alone, and the work He did for us. We ought to remember His work, because by His
holy character, we have the justified reason
to be thankful. God ordains all things
for our good, and how much more the Holy Communion!
The mystery of the Eucharist, is,
why the Triune Godhead would design a way at all to be saved. We can think this way in light of our
undeserving ways, and our sin. If we
think about it, because we have sinned, God is not obligated to give us
anything, but due to His gracious kindness He bids us repentance in
thanksgiving in recognition of His Cross.
As we approach the table of thanksgiving: we
approach the Cross. We partake of His
spiritual benefits throughout the day in the act of the Cross alone. The power is not in symbols but in the Cross
of the Lord Sovereign alone. If we are
true Christians, we must be about the power of the Cross. Yes, my friends, it alone is the cause of all
spiritual health; all spiritual profit; all spiritual wealth. We find true
cleansing of sin because of the Cross.
The Cross is all about divine righteousness: it is not about worshipping a symbol but
worshipping the Lord Christ. When we
kneel, we kneel to Christ. When we pray,
we pray to Christ. Why? We have
hearts of thanksgiving because we remember His historical and redemptive act of
the Cross, and when we approach the table we tremble at His awesomeness, but we
remember His mercy in the manifestation of His Cross. The presence of Christ in the Eucharist
militate our strictest devotion to practical righteousness in holy living. That practical righteousness is found in the
unified righteousness (His life and death).
The grace of imputation (or it being reckoned) is the way we are covered
by the robes of His righteousness by the sheer grace of faith.
Holy Communion should be accompanied by the
expository preaching of God’s Word in uplifting Christ alone as King Eternal!
O the
sweetness I know by His Cross! To this we now turn.
CHAPTER 5: Christian Responsibility and God’s Divine
Presence
What’s the responsibility of the
Christian in God’s presence? It’s all about the accountability we have
before God in the presence of the Triune King.
If we love the Eucharist because of
Christ and who He is, we will live in light of the Law of God under the Spirit
of God who gives us grace to obey. The
grace to obey does not add to His whole merit, but like our sufferings (as we
rejoice) it shows to whom we fight for. We
are called to live upright lives; we are called to live lives of righteousness;
we are called to live in all holiness.
If we love the Cross, we ought to live in light
of Jesus’ submission to the Father in fulfilling all righteousness. We ought to love the right way because we
truly love God, and we worship Him alone.
The Cross was the height of Jesus’ obedience to
the will of the Father, and we ought to live our lives in the height of the
obedience to the Father’s will. Do not
use the Cross for malice mischievousness, but use it to grow in holiness, but
whatever the sin of a true follower of Christ is, it is remittable by His
undying death: this means the Cross
itself is a source of life that ever provides me with spiritual
acceptance.
When we think of the Cross, we know
it is true, because we know of the certainty of His triumphant
resurrection. Christ’s blessed resurrection is a sign of the legitimacy of the
effectiveness of the Cross. Therefore,
we have no greater certainty of remission, cleansing and forgiveness of sin
than by His impeccable Cross.
CHAPTER 6: Access to the Father through His Son
What is access to the Father through the
Son? It’s
all about what the Son has done and it is through Him we have access to God the
Father.
We ought to approach His throne in prayer with
boldness: remember He freely died for His
people, and He wants us to be confident in Him (apart from blind
presumption). The Father does not redemptively work through another except
His Son alone, and here is the secret of eternal life.
The blessedness of the Son in His
sinless life and sinless death is for His intended
ones and we ought to regard His work as all-conquering
against sin, God’s wrath, and Satan.
We have access to God the Father: our sins are forgiven us by and through the
Son of God, because He is Truth itself.
We have access to God the Father: our prayers are heard before His throne
because it is through His Son whom He said “Follow Him.”
We have access to God the Father: our being is covered with His altogether
righteousness, and by it we can stand before the Blessed Father.
O
the sweetness of divine access: it is sweeter then sugar, and greater then
wealth, and it is of the Divine Savior who blesses us with Himself this day
through His general presence, and His unmistakable yet mystical presence at Blessed Communion.
Grant O God of heaven and earth that we would
have Thy Spirit to praise Thy character in the holiness of the triumphant death
of the triumphant Son! Amen.
