Nonbelievers spend all their time in a life of death (Eph. 2: 1-2). They are dead in their trespasses and sins in which they live. Believers are privileged to be given a dying life, while the unbeliever has nothing but a living death. We are privileged to die that we might live, while they live in order to die.
This peculiar reality is set before us every week in this Supper. This is the gospel. Death and life come together in a way that always culminates in life. This is God’s order—death first, then life. The unbelieving heart seizes at life, grasps at life, and comes to the end of it, which is death.
There is a type of unbelieving religious behavior that tries to ward off this death—this is the technique of blaming others, and lifting yourself up high. Unbelief can use conservative religious terms to accuse others, quoting Scripture the entire way. Perhaps you look down on others who don’t have your gifts and graces. Their vices may need to die, but your virtues certainly do. Perhaps you have an unhappy marriage, and both husband and wife are absolutely convinced that the other person is 100% of the problem. Congratulations—you are both right. Perhaps you are involved in a business tangle, and you think your adversary is in league with the devil because he wanted ten percent off, and refused to give you ten percent off. How dare he want what you want?
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But how did God deal with the old you, back when you were first converted? Did He try to fix you? Did He try to patch you up? Not a bit of it—He summoned you to His cross. He invited you to a death, and the glory that follows it. His way of dealing with spiritual problems has not changed. Christ still invites you to the way of death that issues forth into life. Let go. Die.
What is before you? The bread is a body. The wine is blood. What does this mean? It means death. Whose death? Well, who is going to eat the bread? Who is going to drink the wine? When you eat and drink, you are taking a covenant oath, you are striking a pledge. You, by chewing and swallowing, are taking up your cross daily. Christ died so that you might die, and that you might die fruitfully in Him. So you are promising to do something, and what is it? You are promising to die, and after that, to live forever. Come then, and welcome.