The central point of the Lord’s Supper is union with Christ. If we want to be nourished in our understanding of this, and indeed in our experience of it, we have to distinguish between the instrument for receiving this grace, and the means of receiving it.
The ground of your justification is the work of Christ on the cross, culminating in His resurrection and ascension. That is the ultimate foundation.
The instrument of your justification is your faith, but which is only yours because it was granted to you as a gift by the Spirit of God. God gave you a new heart, a heart that was capable of believing Him. In fact, the new heart that He gives is incapable of not believing Him.
And last, and most varied, there are various means of God’s grace to us. These are presented to us, in line with God’s Word, and if we have true, evangelical faith, we use such means to strengthen and nourish us in our union with Christ. Such means of grace would be worship, listening to sermons, improving your baptism by faith, singing and praying, and coming to the Lord’s Table. So Christ is objectively offered here, but the only way to receive Him is through the subjective experience of trusting Him.
Some have made the mistake of thinking that because such faith is essential, it can therefore operate all on its own—without any need for preaching, or music, or prayer, or sacraments, and so on. But this is foolish—the verb believe requires a direct object. When we believe, we must believe God, and if we believe God, then we have to believe that He will in fact present Himself to us in those places where He promised to meet us.
The ground is Christ Himself. The instrument is living faith. The means are before you now.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
So many wonderful truths here it makes me want to cry. The idea that God gives us a heart incapable of not believing is my own experience. So I really appreciate the focus on the miracle of the new birth. But I believe the New Testament draws a line between the new birth and everything else. There is no “membership” outside of union with Christ, and that union is willing identification with the blameless sacrifice, a voluntary “leaning.” This means that paedosacraments cannot unite anyone with Christ, unless they constitute another Gospel. I wrote this http://bit.ly/1GVj9Jj over the weekend. It… Read more »
It’s true, Mike — babies can’t willingly identify or lean on Christ — unless, of course, they too are given that believing heart you want to cry about.