The same night that the Lord Jesus established the Lord’s Supper, Matthew tells us that He sang with His disciples before He went to His betrayal. Because He established the Lord’s Supper at a Passover Seder, we know that He sang the Hallel Psalms (113-118). This means that He sang Ps. 116, which contains these words. “I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord” (v. 13). And again, “I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (vv. 14-15).
Jesus is the preeminent holy one, the preeminent Saint, and His death was precious in the sight of God. His death was a substitution for all His people, and because of this, He is now present with us, cup of salvation in hand. He is with us, having paid all His vows in the presence of all God’s people.
This means forgiveness. Not forgiveness as a word you hear at church. Not forgiveness as a doctrinal category is somebody else’s catechism. Not forgiveness as an abstract ideal. Not forgiveness for everybody in a vague corporate way. No, this means forgiveness for you, now, and for the specific sins you have committed this last week.
When God’s covenant people shy away from receiving this absolute cleansing, this hot, soapy bath for the soul, the result is accumulating and accumulated guilt. And guilt must always be addressed, either through the gospel or through the conflicts of paganism. When guilt goes unaddressed in a church for any length of time, the result is conflict, moral crusading and posturing, scapegoating, and more. When the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is neglected through unbelief, the result is a corporate crisis, a sacrificial crisis. And that is the condition of the Church at large today—we are in the midst of a sacrificial crisis. And the only gospel that can really resolve such a crisis is the gospel proclaimed in this bread and wine.