Communion in Christ

|0 be one with the Lord Jesus is to be one with “Him which is, and which was, and which is to come” Of that threefold cord of our union with Him then, Faith, Hope, and Charity, no part can be spared, but in order to unbroken communion each ahke must be strengthened and nourished: Faith, that links us to Him which was, and Love, that links us to Him which is, and Hope, that links us to Him which is to come. And can we fail to note the careful emphasis which the sacraments lay upon each of these relations.’’ Baptism, the sacrament of union with Christ, declares by one comprehensive symbol our partnership in his sacrificial death, and in his risen life, and in his coming glory. The Supper, the sacrament of communion with Christ, exhibits the 1 Rev. i. 4.

same truths in perpetual rsuind. And so at each communing we traverse the whole extent of the redemption, and are joined in equal fellowship to every part of his life who, from being the I Am oi Eternity, has by his incarnation conjugated his existence, if we may say so, to our human terms of was and is and is to come.

Thus, in the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine, we have the suffering Christ presented to us; and entering by a uniting faith into fellowship with his sufferings, we can say anew, “I have been crucified with Christ.” In the separation of the elements, the blood, in which is the life, from the body which it animates and vivifies, we are reminded that death has taken place. And thus we behold the dead Christ. But an eager faith has only time to pronounce its confession, “If we be dead with Him,” before the commemoration has become a feast. The emblems of suffering and death are eaten, and being assimilated with our bodies become life-giving; and now we realize the risen Christ, and own ourselves “alive with Him from the dead.” But while love is exulting in a present Lord, his words are heard kindling hope, and leading us onward to yet greater blessing.” Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him tip at the last day!’ Thus by a single sacrament we are carried back to the cross and sepulchre; thence onward to join our risen Lord, and be quickened by the mighty pulse of his glorified life, and thence forward still to the redemption of our bodies at his coming. The Memorial of Faith has passed into a Feast of Love, and the Feast of Love into a Prophecy of Hope.

It is obvious then that the ordinance of the Supper was designed to be a perpetual tie for binding together the two great parts of Redemption lying respectively in the first and in the second advents of our Lord. ‘*This do in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord’s death //// He comer And as partaken by the believer it realizes and confirms his union with his Lord alike in

1 I Cor. xi. 26.

The rite was not a memorial of death simply, but of death conquered by life. The seal of the efficacy of the death of Christ was given in the Resurrection; and the limit of the Oommeraoration of his Passion was looked for in his Return. — Westcott, both. The soul being nourished by spiritual bread, exults anew in its redemption fronx the curse; and the body revived by material bread, receives a sensible foretoken of its redemption from the grave. And so, as having died in Christ, and as being alive in Christ, and as to be raised up with Christ, the communicant holds fellowship with every element of his redeeming work who saith: “I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of death and of the grave.”

But is it not possible now that through a recoil from the Romish error of the real presence on the one hand, and through that slumber respecting her blessed hope into which the Church has fallen while the Bridegroom has tarried, on the other, we have well-nigh shut ourselves up to a single office of the Supper, the memorial t This were enough indeed, were there no other. To cherish a holy keepsake from our ascended Lord, and to recount, if only by a” lifeless mnemonic!’ as the Protestant communion has been disparagingly called, the scenes of his bitter agony and death, were a most worthy service.

1 Rev i. 18.

But Still we do not forget that memory is but a servant of love, given to minister, and not to be ministered unto; and that in its tireless excursions to the cross and garden, it is only gathering food for communion with the present, living Christ. In that deep abiding in the vine on which our life depends, it is given us to hold fellowship both with the root that twines itself about the cross, and with the tendrils that stretch upward into glory, that we may draw through both the nutriment of present life and growth. And the evidence of a real interior union with the Lord is found in the constant flowing into us of the life that is in Him and the death which He died.

To this end was the Supper ordained.

The bread, in reminding us of Christ’s wounded body, becomes a bread of sacrifice for feeding in us the spirit of self-denial. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ,” even of his dying body, through partaking of which we are made strong to “bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jeus “? But as a symbol of present nourishment it is none the less the bread of life for feeding our spiritual hunger, “that the life abo of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

And the wine, as the memorial of that blood by which we are redeemed, is the cup of suffering with Christ. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ,” even of that blood of sacrifice which pledges us as we drink it to the martyrdom of daily dying with Christ? But as the synonym of life, this blood is not less truly also the pledge of our kindredship with Jesus in glory, the quickener and nourisher of that divine nature which we share with Him.

And these elements, eaten and assimilated, become the aliment of that twofold growth in which our sanctification consists — the growth from life to life in the new man, and the growth from death to death in the old man.

Is there then a real communication of Christ to the believer through the sacrament y Even as there is through the word when appropriated by faith.

‘* I am the Life” S2iys ]qsms. Here Christ oflfers Himself to us in the symbols of human language, in the sacrament of the inspired letter. “He that believeth on me hath life!’ The eye sees or the ear hears the word, and faith that “cometh by hearing,” feeds upon the spirit and the life which it conveys, and

Christ is received into the soul. Thus through the medium of faith that union is begotten whereby Christ dwelleth in us and we in Him.i

But the Supper is only the same communication made in larger letters, embodied in a vivid sign language which addresses all the senses as the word addresses two. It is still faith and faith alone that eats of Christ, apprehending the invisible through the visible, the spirit through the letter; and so that union is realized and confirmed, — “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.” Whether then we speak of that first partaking of Christ by which the divine life begins in us, or of that repeated partaking by which it is perpetuated, it is faith, the mouth of the soul — apprehending by some human sense or senses, that receives Him; it is the Holy Spirit — “the Agent of love, of union, and of life which consummates itself through union” — communicating through some human sign or signs, that imparts Him.

If all this were real to us, would not our communions be more fruitful of spiritual

1 I lohn iii. 24. growth and blessing than they are? They would not be solely memorial. Faith would bring from the cross that uniting sorrow which makes us one with a present though invisible Redeemer. Hope, like the dove sent forth from the Ark, would fly across the unknown future, returning with its “Behold I come quickly,” that true olive token of the “new heavens and the new earth” for which we wait. And both Faith and Hope, deepening our intimacy and oneness with Christ, would be giving us that only preparation for his coming, — “And now, little children, abide in Him; that when He shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at his coming.”

Perhaps there is no complaint more constantly made among Christians than that of want of enjoyment and spiritual refreshment from the communion.

Is the fault generally that they eat and drink unworthily, or rather that having partaken in faith, they do not inwardly digest the food of God t If prayer and watchfulness and self-denial are not active to assimilate wdth the daily life that which faith has taken into the soul, there can of course be little profit in the bare sa,crament. The fellowship of Christ’s sufferings cannot be realized through a symbol received with the mouth merely, nor by a single apprehension of faith. There must be the prolonged exercise of the will in acts of self-surrender and sacrifice. Our cup can never be so bitter as our Lord’s, but it must be the same in kind as that which He drank in the garden when in agony and bloody sweat He thrice yielded up his zvill to his Father. To take the cup from the table of the Lord and drink it, is but a small thing of itself; to carry out what we pledge in the act, in a continued taking of our Lord’s will into our daily life, obeying joyfully its requirements and tasting with the same alacrity its sweetness and its severity, this is indeed to drink his cup.

And the bread of life is received after the same manner. “My meat,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Hi) Ji that sent me!’ Can ours be anything different t Can the mere symbol of the broken loaf nourish us, if there be in us no corresponding brokenness of the fleshly mind in obedience to the law of God? Nay, as Christ fed upon the Father by doing his will, we must in like manner feed upon the Son by doing his. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.”

So long as the emblems are looked upon as literal food, as by the Romanist, the Christian life will consist mostly in dead forms and ceremonies, with very little reference to the inward consecration of the mind and will. For “Man shall not live by bread alone,” even though it be consecrated bread, “but by every word that proceedcth out of the mouth of God!’ Obedience after faith, is the great principle of union, of love, and of growth. In this is the true community of life between the Head and the members. “If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

So long, on the other hand, as we Protestants look upon the elements as only shadows of Christ’s sacrifice, to be contemplated by faith, without also seeing in them the pledge and foreshadowing of a sacrifice in us to be realized by daily obedience and the continual offering up of ourselves to God, we shall derive hardly more spiritual benefit from the communion than the Romanist.

In other words, just as concerning the spoken word, it is not the hearers only but the doers that are blessed in it; so of the sacramental word: it must not only be contemplated and received, but it must abide in us in order to be real food to us. All its elements, both those of sacrifice and those of life, must be incorporated with our deepest spiritual nature, and so ultimately tell upon our outward activity as really and as perceptibly as the food of a laborer does upon his daily toil.

If the Supper is thus exacting in its claims upon our will and service, the form of its celebration is also beautifully suggestive of that rest of faith, that peaceful abiding in the Lord Jesus, which the believer enjoys. It is the true Passover,^ in which the Lamb without blemish is offered in symbol as the food of his people. But not like the first Passover is it to be” eate7i in haste,’’ while we stand with girded loins and staff in hand. We that believe have escaped the house of bondage. The waters of our burial with Christ stand between us and it to witness to our separation from its curse. We now sit down with Christ, in whom is no condemnation. He is our peace. We eat the bitter herbs of mortification and self-denial, in fellowship with his

1 Luke xxi. 13; Exodus xxii. ii.

death, and the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth in communion with his obedience; but we have something better for a troubled conscience and a trembling faith than these. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” His blood sprinkled on the lintels of our hearts answers every accusation of God, and may silence also every doubt and dark misgiving of our souls. Here faith rests on that word of God, that cannot pass away. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” And one with Christ in this communion, we realize our oneness with all saints, and call upon them to help us comprehend “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” For no one household of faith can take m the whole Lamby Each needs his neighbor in the kingdom and fellowship of Jesus Christ, to join him for the perfect communion of the redeemed. Only thus can we “grow up into Him in all things which is the Head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

Exodus xii. 3, 4.