A week usually holds much of difficulty and trial and temptation, and some of the dust of the world will settle on even a soul that has acquitted itself creditably during that space. In a week a man can become proud and independent. In a week a man can get discouraged even unto death. In a week a man may lose faith, hope, and love. It was the Lord's special object in giving us the bread and cup for a keepsake, that each time we partake of it we might remember him--his gentle forbearance; the unfailing care; the deep, true affection; and, above all, the fact that he gave his all for us and to us. Therein lies not only grateful remembrance of his deed; but it is, when rightly observed, the antidote for the world's poison, and all our sin, grief, and discouragement. It reassures us of that unchanging love that shrank from no extent of sacrifice. It bears to our souls the inevitable conclusion that having done us such supreme kindness at such tremendous cost when we were yet in sin and rebellion, he will much more now care and work for us and do all a true Savior can do, that he may save us from the wrath to come. We are prone to forget it. We are always ready to measure God's love and good will by our own--than which man never did a poorer thing. But before this memorial feast the false doubts and fears and [270] distrusts that trouble and ruin our souls must flee as the returning sunlight chases the evil birds of the night.

      Our comforts and hope and assurances God gives us make us wellsprings of blessing to others. There seems to be a law in the spiritual world that whatever good thing is done to a man, he must go and do that same thing to others. Carnegie builds libraries; but the secret of it is that when Carnegie was a poor boy he derived much pleasure and help from being permitted the use of a library. So forevermore, if he follows out the true impulse of his heart, he must give libraries and make access to libraries possible to young and old. A certain man relates that when he was little more than a boy, and alone, penniless, not knowing whither to turn next, a gentleman unasked and generously gave him a dollar to meet his immediate need. "How many dollars I have handed out on the strength of that one, I could not begin to tell." There is a real force in this, and many a man has felt the tugging of this principle at his heartstrings. Now a realization of God's great gift and sacrifice for us results similarly; and so certainly does this law operate that if a Christian fails to show compassion and self-sacrifice for his fellow-men, there are but two possible explanations: either he has never had due realization of what he was and what God did for him (for he "to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little"), or else he has simply forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore the Lord's "Do this in remembrance of me" makes us on the first day of the week again sensible of what creatures of God's grace we are; how Jesus' unbounded mercy redeemed us from an awful state and fate, at the expense of his lifeblood; and not only does it so remind us and [271] comfort and assure us, but it ends in our being constrained by the love of Christ to live henceforth no longer unto self, but unto God and for the blessing of the perishing souls, even as Jesus gave himself up for us, a sacrifice unto God.

      We have just begun to see the depth of meaning and power hidden in this simple memorial appointment of the Lord, and the manifold riches of it grow more wonderful as we proceed. Beyond the things referred to above, it has another quite distinct meaning: it keeps alive the church's expectation of the Lord's return. It looks forward as well as backward. It reaches across the interval between his first and second coming. No less than a marble monument commemorating some historic event does this memorial bear its silent testimony to the occasion of its institution--that awful night when Jesus, already in the shadow of the approaching Gethsemane and cross, cheered the hearts of his own (for he loved them unto the end) over his impending departure and promised to return to receive them unto himself. (John 14:1-3.) And this Supper is the bridge whose beginning, resting upon that night and the events immediately succeeding it, spans the gulf of the years of his absence; and the further extremity shall surely rest upon the glorious event of his "coming again." For thereby do we show forth the Lord's death until he come. Thus does the church bear witness to its faith and its hope. And as Israel still chants in their passovers in the countries of their dispersion, mindful of a promise of God that yet awaits its fulfillment, "This year we eat it here; the next, in our own land"--so may we say, "Today we eat it here, in the assembly of the saints, in dim discernment and in [272] hope; next Lord's day, if God will, anew with him in the Father's kingdom, in the clear vision of his glory and in hope's glad fruition."

      The import of the Lord's Supper is not exhausted in the word "memorial" and the command, "This do in remembrance of me." It has a further power. The Roman superstition of "transubstantiation--that is, the miraculous turning of the wine and bread into the real, actual body and blood of the Lord--a superstition which has resulted directly in idolatry (the adoration of the consecrated wafer) and in the performance called "mass," which is supposed to be a resacrificing of the body and blood of Christ with symbolic ceremonies--is refuted by the words of the Savior himself, who, after having blessed the cup, speaks of it as "this fruit of the vine." It would be a pity, however, did we allow our opposition to the perversions of Romanism to blind our eyes to a single point of truth. We partake of the loaf and cup in remembrance of the Lord. But, as the wines and meats of idol sacrifices established a communion between the participants of them and the demons (which under the cover of idols were really the objects of the heathen worship); so, Paul shows us, the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper puts us in real communion with the body and blood of the Lord; and he declares that we can not drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, nor partake of the table of the Lord and of demons. This language is rather remarkable. But the one point we would gain from the passage is that the partaking of the Lord's Supper is not simply a reminder of the Lord's death, but a real participation in the body and blood of Christ. This not because of any miraculous change in the bread and wine, but by [273] reason of the peculiar meaning of the institution and the renewal of faith it involves. In John 6, where Jesus indeed makes no reference whatever to the Lord's Supper, we find the principle on which the teaching of 1 Cor. 10:16 is based. The expressions, "Eateth my flesh," and "drinketh my blood," used by Jesus in John 6, are explained to be equivalent to "coming to him" and "believing on him." (John 6:35.) That is, the eating--that which satisfies hunger--is to come to Jesus; the drinking--that which satisfies thirst--is to believe in him. Now these things are done again in the faithful partaking of the Lord's Supper. We have in it the approval and the obedient faith that feasts on the Lord's sacrifice. And in this manner we receive again the benefit of his sacrificed body and shed blood; we eat and drink it spiritually, the while we physically eat the bread and drink the fruit of the vine.

      It is hard for men to shake off old, inherited notions. In some points the thought of Protestant Christendom is still tinged with Roman teaching; and in this case we hold the idea that the "communicant" must be in a state of perfect spotlessness, or else he commits a grievous sacrilege in taking the Lord's Supper. Now, strange to say, the word of God has nothing whatever to say of any moral qualification necessary to a valid coming to the Lord's table. There is no point, I think, in Christian worship, more thoroughly misunderstood than this. The eating and drinking referred to in John 6 is not at all for the saved, but to the unsaved a means of salvation. The Lord's Supper is for Christians, a memorial of the sacrifice that has saved them, and incidentally, by exercise of faith, a renewed communion with the body and blood of Christ for further salvation and supplying of our need. [274] No wonder, then, the Book makes no stipulation as to the character or state of the partaker. Granted he comes sincerely, the very partaking itself would, through the humble, obedient faith involved in the act, cleanse the man from sin by faith in the blood. We infer, to be sure, that in this, as in every other part of worship and service toward God, the worshiper is not false or hypocritical in his motive. But aside from that, God made no conditions as to the man's fitness to partake of the Lord's Supper acceptably.

      The condition God does lay down, and concerning which Paul warns us, is that we distinguish between this meal and common meals; that we discern the Lord's body in this, and eat and drink in remembrance of him, and not like the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:17-34), forgetting the difference between the holy and the secular, turn the Lord's Supper into a selfish and drunken feast. It is that point we must watch. It is in that respect that he wants us to solemnly discern and examine ourselves--not regarding the point of our own fitness (except as far as that should be in consideration in every other act of worship), but in regard to the manner in which we partake of this feast. For "whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." Fearful as such guilt would be, even that does not involve such final, utter condemnation as many think. For these Corinthians had done that very thing and incurred that guilt. Yet Paul does not speak of them or to them as hopeless cases; but all his exhortation proves that the Lord would not refuse his mercy to them. But this he says: "He that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto [275] himself, if he discern not the body." And yet--what does he mean by "judgment?" Final rejection? Eternal damnation? No. He proceeds at once to explain that this "judgment" is not at all condemnation, but the Lord's discipline that we may be saved from utter condemnation. "But if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world." (1 Cor. 11:31, 32.) It is a question of chastening, then--very severe, perhaps, yet salutary and kindly, with a view to our salvation, even at the very worst. Let us abandon, then, our false and foolish fears, and come with boldness to the throne of grace, and with true intent to the Lord's table, that there we may find mercy, grace, new hope and strength, and taste again the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

      January 27, 1910.

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