This Table is what it is, and it does what it does. That is to say, it is the Table of the covenant, and it winnows out covenant keepers from covenant breakers.
Covenant keepers extend no hand to receive the elements but the hand of faith, and open no mouth to receive the bread and wine but the mouth of faith. And this is not faith in faith, it is not faith in our hand, or in our mouth. It is not faith in our heart or in our mind. Faith is a gift of God, and is a gift which He gives to enable us to receive Him. We do not receive our ability to receive; we receive Him.
Covenant breaking occurs here when anyone thinks to impress God by any means. He receives us, and gladly, but not because we in ourselves are impressive. His reception is all of grace; it is grace front to back, top to bottom. All grace. This is offensive to a certain kind of prim mind, and so efforts are made to combine what God offers here with something we can offer back, something we came up with on our own, and not simply what He has given in the first place. That is covenant breaking.
But we are convinced of better things concerning you. The warnings are there, and the warnings are real, but we have assembled here today in order to keep covenant, to meet with Christ, to trust in Him, and to proclaim what He has given us to proclaim.
And so we eat and drink, and consider it the ultimate eschatological toast—to the salvation of the world.