Just as he called the world into existence by the power of his Word (Psalm 33:6-9; Hebrews 11:3), from the same God, his church exists by the power of the gospel call (2Q 2:13 – 14; 1P 2:9-10). Such a call calls us to union with Christ through faith, as a people under the God of the Trinity (Ephesians 4:4-6). The Church is defined by our call to communion with Christ and with one another, as Paul reminds the Corinthians: “To the Church of God in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy. [?] Faithful is God, by whom have you been called to the communion of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord?(1Co. 1: 2a, 9; and throughout the chapter).
Communion with God in Christ is at the heart of empirical Christianity. The fulness of the joy of the Church is to have fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3-4). Because of our union with Christ as members of his body, the church (Ephesians 1:22-23), the Spirit of Christ who lives in Christ as his head, dwells in all its members (Romans 8:9).
- The inner Spirit is the essence of our communion with the Father and the Son (2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 2:18).
- John Calvin said.
- “Is the Holy Spirit the bond by which Christ effectively unies us to himself?”(Institutes 3.
- 1.
- 1).
- How are you husband and wife?Are we? a spirit? with the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:16-17).
- Imagine how close you’d be to a friend if your own soul could inhabit it.
- Such is the intimacy of Christ with each of its members through the intimacy of the Holy Ghost.
- This same Spirit baptizes us in one body of Christ.
- United in faith.
- Worship.
- And service (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Belgian confession.
- Article 27).
It is therefore no surprise that the sacraments of the Church confirm and manifest our union with Christ and among us. Galatians 3: 26-28 says:
For you are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; because all of you who have been baptized in Christ of Christ have put them on. So there can be neither Jewish nor Greek; neither slave nor freed; neither male nor female; because you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26 clarifies that we are saved by faith, not by any of our works, whether moral works such as keeping the Ten Commandments or ceremonies such as circumcision, baptism, or the Lord’s food (see also 2:16; 5: 2). However, verse 27 says that those who have been baptized have clothed the thee with Christ and are therefore “one in Christ”. How do we understand that? They should regard their baptism not as a cause, but as a sign of their union with Christ by faith and, in it, among them. In his Catechism of 1545, Calvin establishes this definition:
What is a sacrament? A test of God’s grace that, by means of a visible sign, represents spiritual things to print God’s promises more firmly in our hearts and make us safer (Q. 310).
If the sacrament of baptism itself uneded us with Christ and saved us, would it be inconceivable for Paul to write it, why did Christ not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel?(1Co. 1:17). Why preach the gospel if the desired results could be achieved simply by baptizing everyone?Is the gospel, not baptism, God’s power for salvation?(Romans 1:16). Calvin said:
We must not take the earthly sign to seek our salvation, nor imagine that it contains a particular power, on the contrary, we must use the sign as a help, to take us directly to the Lord Jesus, so that we can find in Him. our salvation and [?] our happiness (Catechism Q. 318)
Therefore, Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 that we can receive the sacraments while remaining unbelievers, uninstored, and finally rejected by God:
Now, brethren, I do not want you to know that our parents were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea, having all been baptized, both in the cloud and at sea, in relation to Moses. He ate spiritual nourishment and drank from the same spiritual source; because they drank from a spiritual stone that followed them; And the stone was Christ; However, God was not satisfied with most of them, so they were prostrate in the wilderness.
Notice how he alludes to the sacraments of the new covenant as he speaks of baptism, food, and drink. The sacraments cannot and cannot save.
Does this mean that baptism and the Lord’s food are mere ceremonies of remembrance?I don’t think so. The Apostles have often urged believers to look back at their baptism as a sign of their union with which he died and was resurrected (Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 5: 25-26; All2: 12; 1P 3: 21-22). The bread we break and the cup we bless are the communion of Christ’s body and blood (1 Corinthians 10:16). Used in faith, they are a way of approaching Christ, of accessing the benefits of his atoning work by applying it to ourselves, and finding the grace to live for God (Romans 6:1-14).
Sacraments are ways in which Christ, through his Spirit, offers himself to us to be received by faith Is that why Paul speaks of receiving food and drink?From Christ (1 Cor 10:3-4), to be baptized by the Spirit and drink of the Spirit (12:13), as well as to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).
Calvin wrote, “If the Spirit is lacking, the sacraments cannot do anything” (Institutes 4. 14. 9). And more:
The Spirit is truly the only one who can touch and move our hearts, enlighten our minds, and animate our consciousness; that all this may be judged as his work, that only he may be given praise; however, the Lord himself uses the sacraments as inferior instruments as he sees fit, without undermining the strength of his Spirit (Catechism Q. 312).
When the Church gathers in the name of Christ and celebrates Holy Communion in her memory, we have true communion or spiritual communion with Christ. Do you notice the repetition of the word? (from Greek koin?nia:?communion, participate or share in common?) in various ways in 1 Corinthians 10: 16-20:
Isn’t it the cup of blessing that blessed the communion of Christ’s blood?Isn’t it the bread that we break the communion of the body of Christ?For, although there are many of us, we are one bread, one body; because we all participate in the same bread. Consider Israel according to the flesh; Isn’t it certain that those who feed on sacrifices are participants [koin?Noi] of the altar?Rather, I say that the things they sacrifice are the demons that sacrifice them and not God; and I don’t want you to become a partner [koin?us] of demons.
What did Paul mean when he said that sharing bread and cutting is a communion of the body and blood of Christ? In part, he meant that we are united as “one body” (v. 17). We are in communion with each other, but there is more. Calvin said: “But where, I ask you, this koin? Does Nia (communion) come, if not for the fact that we are united with Christ?” (Comment on 1Co. 10: 16).
Does Paul use the same language as koin? Nia as far as Old Testament worshippers are concerned; when they ate the sacrifices, they communicated at the altar; they shared a meal with God on the basis of blood sacrifice and through an ordained priesthood; the church shares a meal of the covenant with the Lord, feasting in his presence by the grace bought with blood.
Paul also used the same language for the pagan faithful: they have fellowship with demons, they love him in the presence of unclean spirits. Paul says that worshippers connect with the fallen beings they worship. If we share with demons, it is a form of spiritual adultery that provokes God’s jealousy (v. 22). Obviously, such communion is a spiritual reality of great importance. Paul defines this pagan cult in direct contrast to the Lord’s Supper, obviously wanting us to see them as parallels (v. 21).
Thus we see what Paul means by “the communion of the blood of Christ”. We renounce Satan’s powers and have spiritual communion with Christ Himself, crucified by us, and now resurrected and exalted as our spiritual leader and high priest. the benefits of his atoning death and the power of his infinite life. Calvin said that the Last Supper is a “spiritual feast, in which Christ claims to be the bread that gives life, in which our souls feed on true and blessed immortality [John 6:51]?(Institutes 4. 17. 1).
Let us value the sacraments as? To be used by faith in Christ. If we use them as “hypocrites, in which the simple symbol prides,?Our confidence is put in the wrong place and the physical symbols are empty. But if we receive them” as those who are united to Christ by true faith, do we see the promises they manifest by the grace of the Holy Ghost?(Calvin’s commentary on Galatians 3:27), and by faith, Christ will dwell more and more in our hearts. (Ephesians 3: 16-17).
This article is part of the February 2013 edition of Tabletalk magazine on “Union with Christ”.
Translation: Alan Cristie, Faithful Ministry © all rights reserved. Original: Signs and seals of union (Joel Beeke)
Authorizations: You are authorized and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that the author, his ministry and translator are no longer no longer modified and not used for commercial purposes.
Note: Joel Beeke adopts a sacramental/Presbyterian position of dinner and baptism, not necessarily fully shared by this blog. An in-depth analysis on the subject can be found in good systematic theologies (Franklin Ferreira and Alan Myatt in their systematic theology give a good historical and theological approach).