Thursday, August 02, 2012
Communion
We celebrate the Lord's Supper this Sunday. We also refer to this sacrament as Communion,
because it is a symbol of our union with Christ. The Apostle Paul told us that the bread we break
is the communion of the body of Christ, and that we all are one body since we
eat of one bread.
In salvation we are united to Christ. We become one with Him in a mystical and
covenantal sense. He obeyed the Father
perfectly, and died for the sins of His people.
When we have faith in Him, we are united to Him, and these benefits
become ours. His perfect obedience is
counted for our obedience, and His death pays the price for our sins. That is true in a legal or covenantal sense,
but that union goes beyond the merely legal.
We are united to Him really and truly.
The Holy Spirit becomes the link between us and Christ, and by the
Spirit's power Christ's perfect human life is worked in us, so that we gain
access to His strength, knowledge and wisdom.
All of these things, by the power of God, are worked in the life of the
Christian. This is what it means to be
united to Him.
Communal
Participation
When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we celebrate this union
with Christ. It is a powerful symbol to
us of what it means to "eat" Christ, to lay hold of all of His
benefits by faith and to be sustained by His life. Further, it points us to the real communion
we have with each other. It is
impossible to draw close to Christ without also drawing close to all other
believers; as we eat of that living bread, we are transformed by it, and by
that transformation we gain more and more closeness to all others being
transformed in the same way.
Labels: sacraments, worship
Comments:
Post a Comment
