The following message was recorded at Antioch Presbyterian Church, an historic and charter congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, ministering to upstate South Carolina since 1843. Come and visit us at the crossroads of Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Experience our past and be a part of our future. For more information, visit AntiochPCF.com. Our Father and our God in heaven, we thank you for the gift of the Lord's Supper, and we pray that as we consider one eminent divine's teaching regarding keeping the institution of it, that you would give us a deeper appreciation for it, a deeper understanding of it, and delight in Christ who is offered to us in it. Lord, we revel in the fact that we get to be fellow banqueters with Christ, our Savior, who instituted this meal and serves it to us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. What is the purpose of the Lord's Supper? Something of a theme today, isn't it? Well, Burroughs puts it well in his book. He says, it is the proper end of the sacrament to seal up our salvation. It is a proper end of the sacrament. That is, it is the proper purpose of the sacrament to seal up our salvation. However, this is a common sense condition. There is a common sense condition for this very uncommon and holy meal of consecrated elements for a consecrated people belonging to a holy God. Burroughs provides, you might say, the caveat or the condition for observing the Lord's Supper. He says, it is the proper end of the sacrament to seal up our salvation, but... If we do not sanctify God's name, it will seal up our condemnation. You can hear the echo of the theme verse of this whole book, Gospel Worship, from Leviticus 10 verse 3, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me. And it's a very interesting thing that Burroughs does, perhaps not atypical of Puritans, He has a book called Gospel Worship, the gospel is good news, but then the whole prompt and theme is one that's rather sober and perhaps even a bit stern, this warning, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, that come near to me, that draw near to me, that accept my summons, that heed it, and come to my table from Leviticus 10. over the course of two chapters in this book that you've been studying, that I'm just filling in on today, Burroughs gives ten requirements for properly sanctifying God's name in the proper observance of the Lord's Supper. He's being very careful here. That's because the stakes are high. God will be sanctified by those who draw near Him if we do not sanctify Him as we ought. If we don't sanctify His name, then this supper, which is meant as a seal for our salvation, will be a seal of our condemnation instead. Chapter 12 has the first nine requirements. I want to review them very briefly and succinctly for you. Here they are. First, knowledge of what it is we're doing in the Lord's Supper. Second, brokenheartedness over our sin. Burroughs says, making my peace with God cost more than 10,000 worlds is worth. Notice that's how grievous our sin is, that it takes the death of Christ. So we should be brokenhearted over sin. Cleansing of the heart from sin, by which is meant sincere repentance and true hatred of the sin that slaughtered Christ your Lord. Fourth, hungering and thirsting of the soul after Jesus Christ. Fifth, exercise of faith. activating it, really putting it to work, seeing with eyes of faith, receiving with the hand of faith Christ himself from the Father. And this exercise of faith is also a recommitment to Christ, but he'll get into that a little bit later. Requirement for sanctifying God's name rightly in the Lord's Supper. Spiritual joy in union and communion with Christ. Recognizing what one of the proper ends or purposes of the meal is and the use of the meal. This is a meal of fellowship with Jesus. This is where we meet with Him. Seventh. Thankfulness. It's a Thanksgiving meal. So we return thanks when we take it. Eighth, willingness to renew your covenant unto actually renewing your covenant with Him. So when you come to the table, you must be willing to renew because that's what's going to happen at the table. You will actually renew covenant with God. And then ninth, he says, quote, There is required a renewing of love, coming with lovely dispositions, and the renewing of the grace of love, not only towards God, but towards our brethren. For it is the feast of the Lord, and it is an act of communion, communion not only with Christ, but with His churches, with His saints. This is such a glorious reality for us in the Lord's Supper that we enjoy communion with one another. And that shouldn't be glossed over or put down. It's not just you sitting alone with Jesus, like so many evangelical devotionals seem to really press upon you to do. This is us sitting with Jesus and celebrating him together and growing in love for one another as our love for him and appreciation of him is deepened. It's kind of like my go-to prayer for married couples, or for couples who are about to be married, that God would draw them nearer to each other as He draws them nearer to Himself. At the point of a triangle. In this week's chapter, we're given a tenth requirement for sanctifying the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Because, quote, the sacrament is a duty of worship that is only by institution, End quote. That is, it's not by nature, it's not a natural duty, but it's a duty only by positive command of God. We must, in the 10th place, observe it according to Christ our Lord's institution of it. Burroughs presents three scriptural points pertaining to and explaining this requirement of keeping the institution of the Lord's Supper, and follows up with ten poignant truths about Christ and His great work of salvation as meditations we should chew on pun intended, chew on in the keeping of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. With Matthew 26, 26 to 30 fresh on our minds from this morning's sermon, we can somewhat quickly dispatch the three straightforward scriptural points about how to keep the institution. of the Lord's Supper. And you all understand what I mean by the institution of it. Not just the generic, hey, we're having communion with Jesus, we're drawing nigh unto God, but specifically keeping the very mechanics of what He's instituted. that we don't just come to him to play a game of basketball or kickball or to knit together or to do a book club together, we're actually coming to him for a meal which he has instituted, a meal of bread and of wine. So first, we note This, that when Christ instituted the Lord's Supper, He did so while He was eating with His disciples. And the sacrament was eaten by them together. He was both instituter and communicant, as I mentioned in the sermon. He served the meal to them and He shared it. with them. And so we are to eat the meal together after his institution as both a memorial meal but also as a social communion, as a covenant meal, as a community meal. That is in the words of Mr. Burroughs, quote, every communicant must be where he may behold what is done, end quote, in order to remember Christ's death and to think on it in the meal, we must see the sign given to our senses for remembering. And in order to eat together, we must be seated in such wise as we can say that we are together. Now, Mr. Burroughs had in mind the old Scottish practice, the old Puritan practice of long tables and everybody being seated at the table together. There's only one church in our presbytery that does that for the Lord's Supper, that's Fairview Presbyterian Church, but that's not required of us. What is required though is that the elements be displayed in such a place, presented really is a better word, in such a place that everyone can see them. that they can be a sensible sign to everyone. And one of the things that we do at Antioch to accommodate our arrangements here in our setting is we ask everyone to refrain from partaking, eating and drinking, until the elements have been distributed to everyone. That way we can take together as this community meal. You have to understand something of the liturgical background of pre-Reformation European Christianity to really get at why this statement needs to be made so much of and why Burroughs makes so much of it himself. The Supper, which before the Reformation and even today in the Roman Catholic Church is called the Mass, had become performative. in the Roman Catholic Church, but in a most ironic sense. Not only did the people not participate in what had become a spectacle as the priest went about his ritualistic performance in front of them, but he frequently did so in such a way that they couldn't even really see what was going on. For much of it, his back was to them and he was doing things on the altar, the table up front, and making motions and movements that they couldn't even see what he was doing. And they would have been set back from him by not just feet, but yards of distance. It was a mystery, not because of some spiritual reality, but because I have no clue what that guy is doing up there. I just know he's doing something that needs to be done. That was the sense of ignorant, medieval, Roman Catholic Christianity. Now, since Vatican II in the 1960s, many of the rites and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church have been democratized quite a bit, but not for any biblical impulse. but just simply for a modern impulse. And we're not going to get into examination of all that. But that's what Burroughs is really pushing back against as he makes his first point. The priest was far away. The people approached him one by one to take the bread wafer, even as the cup was withheld from them entirely, lest drops of Christ's blood spill onto the ground by accident. And so if we're going to return to the scriptural biblical, Christ-instituted practice of observing the Lord's Supper, we need to draw nigh unto Christ, we need to open our eyes and inspect the elements, and we must see Christ in them with the eyes of faith, for he is with us. That is the first, perhaps the most obvious point. We need to see what is going on and we need to see together what is going on. And the second point that he makes, the minister who is serving the supper is to take each of the elements, the bread, and the wine, and in turn present them and oversee the distribution of them to the congregation, after which point everyone will take of them corporately in turn, one at a time. This is by Christ's institution. That is, first the bread all together and then the wine all together. They're not to be mixed up together. The distribution is best done by the elders of the church who know those who are to receive and those who are not to receive the elements. Though I think perhaps Burroughs overstates the case a bit, it is certainly helpful that the minister being best situated, especially in larger congregations, to oversee everything, that the minister present the elements and then, quote, distribute them generally, that is, give them to the elders to then distribute particularly so that he can kind of oversee the orderly distribution of everything and not get bogged down in the particular distribution. Again, I think Burroughs overstates that point a bit, but it is a helpful practical reality and it is likely the case that Jesus presented the bread and the wine and then passed them around rather than going to each disciple and giving to each. The third point now shifts. From the outward mechanics of serving the Lord's Supper according to Christ's institution, to the spiritual purpose of the Supper according to Christ's institution. Christ instructed his disciples, do this in remembrance of me. Therefore, there should be no action intermingled in the time of receiving the sacrament, nothing but minding the work that you are about, which is to remember the death of Jesus Christ and to discern the body of the Lord." End quote. That's Burroughs' understanding of what was going on. Thus, this is a sober meal. It's one that is observed with moments of silence. It's also a joyful meal as we consider Christ's sacrifice and His victory in redeeming us from sin and presenting us to the Father as a people consecrated to Him. Maintaining the focus on these spiritual realities, especially as the elements are being distributed throughout a large room, is much easier said than done. We only have moments of silence here at Little Antioch, but in the church where I intern, where there are hundreds of people gathered, it's a long time before everybody receives the elements, even as they have maybe eight men distributing them rather than two. But Burroughs gives us an organizing principle for our thoughts. He says, quote, consider that these outward elements signify and seal the great benefit of the covenant of grace. In the supper, you draw nigh to God. Thus, you are to sanctify His name and delight yourself in His life-giving grace. And you have an opportunity to do that as even they're being distributed. His holiness is showed forth in the bread and the wine, symbolizing the bloody death of Christ, which the holy justice of God required for the remission of our sins, and which Christ voluntarily subjected Himself thereunto for our sakes and for God's glory. And we're not embarrassed about that. As you take and eat the bread and drink the wine, through faith in Christ, you are receiving spiritual nourishment you cannot get anywhere else or by any other means. The bread and wine are given to you as seals, guarantees, and pledges of that eternal inheritance that awaits you in glory. You have so much to think about. as you take the elements and receive them. Believer, the elements as seals of the covenant of grace are more sure than any signature or pledge or deed you've received in this life for houses, for cars, for boats, or any material thing. And you can think on that as well. Perhaps remarkably, the instruction to do this in remembrance of me is given not only to each of us, but to all of us as we are gathered around his table. And so we meditate together on Christ himself as our mediator, as our head of the church, and on his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his present heavenly intercession on our behalf, and with sure hope in His future return to gather us and to claim us as His own. What this practically means for Burroughs, what this practically means is that we shouldn't mix the presentation and distribution of the elements in the Lord's Supper with any other activity. It should be done in silence, is what he's getting at in this book. Therefore, we don't sing a song. We don't have an instrumental interlude, we don't recite a prayer together, we don't have a responsive reading, we don't have a liturgical dance, we don't have a children's message, you know, whatever. Rather we sit in silence, apart from the explanation and the direction given according to Christ's institution at the proper points. Consider what Burroughs says of this, quote, His point being that there is a beauty, not an awkwardness in the silence, but a beauty in the simplicity of the regulative principle of worship as we keep the institution as Christ has given it to us, rather than trying to get creative and inventive with things. We follow the rule instituted by Christ for the worship of His church in the New Covenant. And that principle I can sign off on without any problem. And so, when we sit in silence receiving the elements. And I'm fine with that. I'm not as hardline as Burroughs against some instrumental music during it. I think that can actually help with meditation. But I'm fine with the silence. And that's probably what I prefer, especially in a smaller congregation. One way to help cope with it if it's uncomfortable for you, and this is a very practical point here, is don't think of it as empty of ornamentation so much as this, full of gospel light. Full of gospel light where you're given room to breathe in the aroma of Christ and in the busyness of your life, Take just a moment to meditate upon him. Toward that end, Burroughs gives us 10 Christian doctrines upon which we, as communicants in the supper, should meditate as we receive and take the bread and the wine, our Savior's body and blood. But again, I do want to make the point here. You go into a Protestant worship hall like this one, the walls are white, they almost seem, in the words of one teacher I had in high school who was Greek Catholic, so Roman Catholic, but like a Greek order of it. He said, Protestant churches are so bare. They're so empty. They're cold and sterile. Rather than thinking of it that way, think of it in the terms of those that actually designed them this way. They're full of light. They're not dark and crowded and distracting, but they allow you the space to clear your mind and be filled with Christ and thoughts of Him. And I find many Roman Catholic cathedrals beautiful. I was admiring the work they did on Notre Dame and its restoration, but I would have a hard time worshiping in any of those places because I'd be so distracted by the artwork. Oh, what does that mean? Oh, what is that for? And so that's what Burroughs is getting at. And while I might quibble with him and not take so stern a line against having some soft, contemplative music, even tunes of familiar hymns of Christ's Passion playing in the background, I've seen that done well and helpfully. Yet, I do sign up for the principle he gives here in that we should remove distraction in order to be able better to meditate upon Christ. So toward that end, he gives 10 meditations. These are doctrinal points that he lists in this book, and I'm going to present them to you with key words that hopefully will be somewhat helpful. I don't expect you to remember all these. I prepared this lesson this week and I was trying to bring them up to my mind even while the elements were being distributed and a few of them I remembered and it was it was helpful but I wasn't going to come up with all 10 from memory anyway but hopefully it's helpful to you. First, He gives this doctrine, mediator. Christ is mediator. He says, quote, the way of salvation is by a mediator, end quote. A fitting doctrine upon which to meditate during the Lord's Supper. And what a mighty mediator indeed we have. The Lord Jesus Christ, who alone could redeem us and has accomplished our salvation, reconciling us to God by the shedding of his blood, something Moses could not do, though he offered to try. Moses, who reflected the glory of God off his face. Jesus, who manifests the glory of God from within his essential being. What a mediator we have. Secondly, The humanity of Christ is presented to us in the supper and worthy of our meditation. Burroughs says, quote, this mediator who stands between God and us is verily and truly man. And quote, this lends a great nobility to our human nature. And as we take Lord's Supper to strengthen us in our journey and in the fight of faith and in our sanctification, we see the human nature, quote, so nearly united to the divine nature, end quote, in the person of Christ. Therefore, let us honor him by recommitting ourselves to live honorably ourselves in union with him. That's the point of the meditation here upon the humanity of Christ. He will give the Holy Spirit power as we need, and he'll do it through the means he's appointed, including the Lord's Supper. Mediator, humanity of Christ, the work of Christ, the work of Christ. Burroughs writes, here is presented to us what this mediator has done to reconcile us to God. And quote, he was willing to die for us. He shed his blood for us because the Father loves us and sent him. Therefore, meditate on this question. What are you willing to sacrifice and to suffer for him? He blesses. we praise. He gives, we give in response. He suffers, we suffer with him and joyfully so with thankfulness even after the pattern that he's instituted for us. For his work is perfect indeed for our salvation and for our imitation. Fourth, divine blood, divine blood. He says, Burroughs says, quote, we are saved by the blood of God. It is the blood of God, end quote. Now, that's biblical language. It's from the Book of Acts. And you might think, well, but there's no confusion of Christ's deity and humanity. They're united without being commingled or confused or composed or something like that. But yet. Because of that hypostatic union, the blood which Christ shed is, in that spiritual sense, God's very blood shed for you and for me and for many. The efficacy of Christ's sacrifice comes from the fact of that hypostatic union. by which He is impeccable, and unable to sin, and perfect in all His ways, and fulfilling all righteousness, the union of two natures in one person, which makes His blood God's blood, and able to satisfy divine justice. We cannot comprehend how this works. Great is the mystery of our salvation, and worthy of our meditation as we take the supper. Fifth, And notice how these all kind of flow one from another. Fifth, God's dreadful justice. Quote, that should require such sufferings even from His Son. End quote. God's justice being dreadful is awful. That is, it's full of awe and the weight of eternal majesty and glory. And that should be top of mind for us at the supper. Not to suffocate us, but rather to lend gravity to the occasion and solemnity to the occasion. Sixth, the cost of salvation, putting more of a I hate to say positive spin on the same doctrine, but it's another angle on this diamond that we're considering. Quote, here I see presented to me what every soul that shall be saved cost. End quote. Christ's life is of inestimable value and worth. Of His blood, we say, quote, every drop of which was more precious than 10,000 worlds. End quote. What wonder would you feel if someone took a bullet and died for you? Now, consider that the Lord of glory, by whom all things were made, who ordered light out of darkness, took a cross and carried it for you, hung on it for you, suffered all the pain and indignities of that instrument of torture and humiliation for you. Jesus didn't just take a bullet for you, as amazing as that would be, but he carried and hung upon a cross for you and was separated from the love of God for you in a mysterious fashion so that we would live and experience that love and not have it extinguished. That's the cost of our salvation. Seventh, related to that, sin's evil. Sin's evil. Eighth, God's infinite love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. John 3, 16. It's for the Father's love and for his justice that Christ came to satisfy divine justice and even more profound than that, to manifest the love of God for us. Not to secure it, not to win it for us, but to shower it upon us, to give it to us. For the love was unconditional in eternity past. Indeed, it was infinite. Ninth, Preserving nourishment. Preserving nourishment. Not that the nourishment is preserved, but that it is a preservative. Burroughs writes, quote, those who are believers shall be nourished to eternal life so that there is no fear that a believer should ever quite fall off from God and die in his sin. End quote. Nothing can snatch me out of his hand, not height or depth, or things present, or things to come. Nothing can snatch me out of God's hand. And in the Lord's Supper, we experience our union and communion with Christ our Savior. And it is our union with Him that is the guarantee of our everlasting communion with God the Father through Him. As we feed upon Him, through faith we are nourished unto the salvation of our Souls and thereby we are strengthened for the journey as I said in the sermon. This is a pilgrim meal that strengthens us when we are weary heals us when we are wounded and encourages us when we are weak and scared and frightened I Don't know about you But if I don't eat, I get upset. I get hangry. Isn't that the word? Hangry. I get hangry. I get hungry and angry. But as soon as I eat, everything's OK. Crisis averted. I'm at peace. And I'm strengthened. I'm able to do what it is that God would have me to do. If I spend a morning working, and I didn't eat breakfast, and I'm exhausted by lunchtime, but as soon as I eat, my strength is renewed and refueled, as it were. And same thing. with the Lord's Supper. We need this in order to be strengthened so that we can persevere in the good work that He's given to us and in the pilgrimage that we find ourselves on, on the way to our eternal rest in glory. The tenth meditation now, New Covenant of Grace. It's the 10th meditation. Burroughs says, quote, meditate on the whole new covenant, the covenant of grace, which God has made with sinners, end quote. In this meal, there is a spotlight shining on Christ and all the benefits received in him that we attain in him, that we have in him. The Old Testament is a dark room, rich with furnishings, suddenly lit up in the light of Christ at this meal, as I said, referring to B.B. Warfield's famous quote. And the New Covenant shines forth with all of its simple splendor and glorious grace. Not like an ornate carving upon a wall or a beautiful oil painting with depths and shades, but like a brilliant diamond simply set upon a pillow of black velvet with a light shining on it. Simple, splendid, brilliant, and beautiful. There's one more matter to address which Burroughs tucks in here at the end of the chapter after these three scriptural points and ten biblical doctrinal meditations for the Lord's Supper and keeping the institution of it. He writes, quote, "'Tis not enough that you are a believer. but your faith must act at that very instant." Now that sounds a little provocative. Because by grace you have been saved through faith, that is, through your belief. This is not of yourself, it is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. There's no works that we do for our justification. the living out of our salvation, there is an activity of faith. Our faith is not inactive, or passive, or slumbering, or slothful. It's active, it moves, and we're told in the Word to stir up the gift that has been given. And that indeed is what Burroughs is getting at here. Now, when you take the Lord's Supper, yes, you're receiving something passively, but it's different than baptism. In baptism, the passivity is almost utter, especially for babies. They're not doing anything. Hopefully they're not crying. All they're doing is being baptized. But in the Lord's Supper, we put out our hand and receive and take to our mouths and into ourselves the bread and the wine. There's an activity there that pictures the spiritual activity of our faith in the Lord's Supper as well. You must stir up the grace that is within you, that you've already received from God, and that is being renewed by Him, that He renews in you by the means that He has appointed. In this sense, taking the Lord's Supper is very much like hearing the Word preached. From the outside, it might look very passive. You're being served, things are being distributed to you, you're not getting up and coming forward, you're remaining in your seats, you're not speaking, you're hearing the Word preached, and yet there's an active involvement in this stirring up of the grace that you've received that is within you. That's what Burroughs is getting at here. It's a curious statement he makes in reference to partaking of the elements of the supper. And he gives two parts to it as he explains his meaning in just a few paragraphs at the end of this chapter that we've been considering. The first point is spiritual hearing, and then faithful grasping is the second point. Spiritual hearing, that is, when you hear the elements offered, You hear Christ offering them from heaven to you with the ears of faith. Now, you've heard of it, the eyes of faith, seeing with eyes of faith rather than with eyes merely of sight. But I put to you, you must hear with the ears of faith. Just as preaching by a lawfully ordained minister who is an ambassador of Christ and preaches truly the Word of God is indeed the voice of Christ speaking to you from heaven, so too when the elements are offered to you, when the Lord's Supper is offered to you according to Christ's institution, your role in keeping the institution then is to hear offering those elements to you, rather than merely surmising that this is something that the pastor's doing. Secondly, having heard his voice with spiritual hearing, faithful grasping is the second thing that Burroughs sets before us. That is, take the bread and wine with your physical hands and with the hands of faith. faith being the hand of the soul, receiving not just bread, but Christ into your very soul, even as you receive the elements into your body. Burroughs talks about renewing, that wonderful act of, as the Puritans put it, rolling yourself upon Jesus Christ. Did you see that phrase there in the last couple paragraphs? Rolling yourself upon Jesus Christ. It's an image that they used for conversion and regenerating grace. That moment when the lights come on and you see Jesus Christ not just as the Savior of sinners, but as your Savior. and the one who paid the penalty for your sins and who rescued you from darkness and death and brought you into marvelous light, that moment they describe as rolling or throwing yourself on Jesus. It's as if, I've heard Dr. Piper use this illustration many a time and it's a good one, it's as if you walk through the front door of your house after working all day in the shop or in the field or whatever and you throw yourself onto the couch or your bed or your favorite recliner and you just rest, being upheld by something else. Burroughs says, renew the same work of faith that you found in your very first conversion, and thereby you shall come to have renewed comfort in the renewing of that act, end quote. Comfort here being not just feeling comfortable and nice, but also strength and refreshment. He could receive and uphold you then for your rebirth in the past, is the logic. And so, He can receive and uphold you now for your renewal of strength along the way. And the Lord's Supper is one means of grace for Him to do that. Now, that concludes my digest of the chapter and leaves us some time then to have any questions or discuss anything that has been brought up. I tried to, and Burroughs makes it relatively easy, but I tried to make this consideration of the mechanics of the Lord's Supper more spiritual than mechanical, but it really is concerned with what I called in the sermon the conscientious keeping of the institution. That is, Going to the word and studying our commander's intent is what I think they call it in the Navy when you get a mission brief, your commander's intent. Studying that so you know what exactly it is you're supposed to do, both the goal but also the required actions that are involved. He doesn't tell us we need to have a fold-up table or a solid oak table. He doesn't tell us to have pews or chairs or sit on the floor. But what He does tell us to do, we must follow. And blissfully, thankfully, it's rather straightforward, isn't it? So, any questions or comments? Thank you for listening to this message from Antioch Presbyterian Church. For more information about Antioch, visit us at our website at antiochpca.com.