BY THE LATE REV. PROFESSOR JOHN DUNCAN, LL.D., EDINBURGH.
* By the kindness of a relative of the late worthy Miss Robertson, who was housekeeper to Rev. Dr. Duncan, we have obtained the use of MSS., containing Addresses and Sermons, taken down by Miss Robertson from Dr. Duncan’s lips, and hitherto unpublished. We are confident that our spiritual readers will peruse these valuable Communion Addresses, etc., with much interest and appreciation, and also, by the divine blessing, with much spiritual edification. We feel grateful to God for the privilege of being instrumental in publishing for the first time these Spirit-taught utterances of His eminent servant, John Duncan, who “being dead, yet speaketh.”—Ed.
TABLE SERVICE No. I.
(Address before Distribution of Elements.)
THREE years had now elapsed from the time when Jesus, who had grown up before Jehovah as a tender plant and a root out of a dry ground, had been manifested to Israel, and solemnly recognised at His baptism by a voice from heaven—”This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” During these three years, years the most eventful that ever occurred in the history of this world, or in the history of all worlds, many glorious and gracious words had fallen from the lips of Jesus, many glorious and gracious works had been performed by Him. Before the Gospel was preached even, a few beheld His glory, those whom He had chosen to be witnesses of all He spake and did, and also of His death and resurrection.
And now the time came, when they commemorated the deliverance from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage ; that deliverance which was followed by the legislation and the covenant which God made with Israel in Horeb. But God had said, “Behold, the days come, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts ; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord ;’ for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Now, the first covenant was not ratified without blood ; but the new covenant had to be ratified with better sacrifices than these. Jesus is Himself the Mediator of the new testament.
And now at the expiry of the public ministry of our Lord, Jesus was calling His disciples to commence a new ordinance, the solemn commemoration of the sacrifice by which the new covenant is sealed. He said, taking bread, “This is my body which is broken for you, eat ye all of it,” and, taking the cup, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, shed for many for the remission of sins.” Oh, what words ! Oh, what a scene ! Who is He that presides ? Who are they that sit at meat ? What are the viands ? At what cost is this feast prepared ? What will be the consequences of it to Him ? What the consequences to them ?
Who is He that presides ? It is Jehovah, Israel’s own God, come as the messenger of the covenant, who here presides. It is Jehovah. It is the Son of the living God, the Word that “in the beginning was with God, and was God,” and it is the Word made flesh. It is the only begotten Son of the Father, the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person, who is in the Father and the Father in Him ; who, because the children were partakers of flesh and blood also Himself likewise took part of the same—very God and very man—the Son of God, and the Son of man ; who is not ashamed to call us brethren. At this table He presides.
And who are they that sit there ? “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” They are indeed the holy apostles of the Lord—but sinners. “Shed for many for the remission of sins, drink ye all of it.” He, knowing them to be such, eats with sinners the bread of heaven ; not with holy angels, but sinners He calls to eat ; yes, sinners. Ah ! how does He appear at that table, when we think that He receives sinners, and eats with them ! But they were sinners of whom He spake to the Father. “They have known that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me.” “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them.” Perhaps their faith at this time was going no further than the knowledge of His person, and the knowledge that He had the words of eternal life which He had brought from the Father’s bosom. And now He gives them more deeply than ever before the words of eternal life. “This is my body broken for you, this is my blood shed.” This Man gives them His flesh to eat—”my body”—the body and blood of the eternal Son of God, body and soul. Jesus had given them both His body and mind and soul before; they had heard Him; they had conversed with Him; they had listened to His words; they had received them as the words of eternal life; they had received Him as the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel. Now it is not merely Christ, but a broken and bruised Christ. He gives them His body and blood, His body broken and His blood shed. Ah! we may learn a lesson of what God is as a just and holy God, and of what we are as guilty sinners, deserving to be eternally bruised, covered with shame, under God’s curse. And what a lesson of the Father’s infinite love, of the Son’s free love! “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” “I lay down my life.” In this death His soul was put to grief; in this death there was the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood. Ah, there is something deeply mysterious in it! He gives them this bread to eat, this cup to drink, this cup of salvation.
And what are the consequences of it to Him? From the sacramental table we follow Him to Gethsemane. He had given them the cup to drink. Then, in our stead, in order that He might give the cup of salvation, He was to drink the cup of curse and condemnation. Jesus had already, as it were, pledged Himself. Now, not only was it sure in the purpose of Jesus, not only was it sure in the covenant of the Father and the Son, with the Holy Spirit’s consent; not only was it sure by His incarnation and coming into the world for this very purpose; but, as it were, the former bond was renewed, for already He had given a cup of salvation into the hands of His disciples, already said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for many for the remission of sins.” Now, it is altogether impossible that this cup should pass from Him. They have, first, the precious security; He has pledged Himself to these eleven men, pledged Himself by that cup of salvation. And now let us see how strict divine justice is. He leaves the three chosen disciples behind to watch and pray. He advances a few steps before them, and there falls prostrate on His face, His sweat, like great drops of blood, falling down to the ground; and He cries, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Three times over He prays the same words, yet saying, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Yes, He knew what was in the cup, and His holy humanity shrank from it with a holy dread. But He had engaged—He had put into their hands the cup of salvation—and it was not possible that this cup should pass from Him, and His promise to them be fulfilled. He is now alone in Gethsemane, and there are no mockers here, no high priests, no Scribes and Pharisees, no cross—He is alone with the Father, and there He takes the cup. In one sense, in covenant engagements from eternity, and actually at His incarnation, it was taken; but now, more specially, the imputation of guilt is brought home, all that divine justice required Him to take out of the hands into which He has put the cup of salvation. And from Gethsemane to Calvary, where He is crucified in weakness. It is said an angel appeared, strengthening Him, strengthening the Mighty One, and so He is crucified in weakness. The Almighty! but it is in weakness that He is crucified, it is in weakness that He cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And such is the cup in which, O blessed be God! He did not leave one bitter drop for us, but drank it to the dregs; and, instead, He puts into our hands the cup of salvation. But oh, with this cup of salvation there is ever the acknowledgment that Christ got that cup of wrath which was ours, that we might have this cup; and there is bitterness mixed with its sweetness when we look upon Him whom we have pierced, and are in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.
“On that night in which our Lord was betrayed.” . . .
(Address after Distribution of Elements.)
Now “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father—to him be glory and dominion throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
After supper is ended comes the garden, Gethsemane’s garden. And from it comes a lesson, a lesson which is best learned just in Gethsemane itself, where its strongest motives are, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.”
Jesus, when about to enter this garden, took three of the disciples with Him, Peter and James and John. He told them before He took a few steps forward from them, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and wanted them to watch till He came. And all the three fell asleep. We are not to be harder on them than Jesus Himself was concerning this. He said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to put Him to grief; and the very atmosphere perhaps, with the excessive sorrow after great joy and long watching, overcame them. They had not forsaken Him, as they did afterwards; but still they were not awake. He sought comforters; He sought them to watch and pray; but they did not. Oh what reliance shall we put on the intercession of the saints, when Peter, and James and John fall asleep, while our Lord goes alone to bear our burden and drink our cup? Not the zeal of Peter, not the integrity of James, and not the bright, burning, pure love of John, can keep them awake.
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” Temptation will come after the supper—it came to Judas, and it came to Peter—and we are called to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation.
To watch—”Watch with me”—let us watch in Gethsemane, let us watch with Christ. And to pray, let us learn to pray from Him—to pray; then to pray as in an agony, a prayer that terminates with this, “Thy will be done.” He has taught us to say, “Thy will be done,” and the saying of it will not cost thee so much as it cost Him.
“Ye do shew the Lord’s death until he come.” “I will make Thy name to be remembered in all generations,” and this day, hearing His word, and sitting at the table, we are witnessing the fidelity of God to Christ in this promise.
“Till I come.” Then this cup shall be drunk new in the Father’s kingdom at the marriage feast of the Lamb, when there shall be the realising of these words, “The Lamb shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”
We are reminded very solemnly this day how short our time is, how the day is far spent. The night is not far off in the course of nature to some of us—and none of us know how near it is. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;” and how shall we die in the Lord? Paul says, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “Present in the body, absent from the Lord, wherefore we labour that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.” Meanwhile, He hath said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.”
Go from the table of the Lord, and may He be with you according to His faithful word.