By Andrew Thomson, D.D.*
Questions Nos. 29 to 55
(some of which have been edited)
- Q. Why should we partake of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper?
A. For several strong and important reasons.
- Q. What is your first reason or motive?
A. Christ, to whose authority we are subject, has commanded us to do this in remembrance of him, and it is in our interest, as well as our duty, to obey Him in every particular.
- Q. What is your second reason?
A. We should love Christ; and partaking of this ordinance is an expression of love to Him, inasmuch as it is complying with His injunction; for He Himself hath said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments;” (John 14: 15); and inasmuch as it is bearing our testimony to His goodness and mercy in dying for His people.
- Q. What is your third reason?
A. This ordinance is one great means of keeping up the remembrance of Christ in the world and in our own hearts; and He deserves, in an eminent sense, to be held in everlasting remembrance.
- Q. What is your fourth reason?
A. The Sacrament of the Supper is an excellent opportunity of professing, publicly and solemnly, our faith in Jesus, and our attachment to His gospel.
- Q. Are believers bound to make a public profession of their faith?
A. Yes: our Saviour has said strongly, “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven;” (Matthew 10: 32, 33).
- Q. Why is the ordinance of the Supper peculiarly fitted for the purpose of professing our faith?
A. Because the eye of the world is then more particularly upon us: and because, by eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table, we give our assent to the doctrine of the cross, which lies at the very foundation of the gospel, and is the chief cause of offence to its adversaries.
- Q. What is your next reason?
A. The Sacrament of the Supper is a powerful means of strengthening and improving the most important graces of the divine life.
- Q. How does it operate in strengthening our faith?
A. It strengthens our faith by giving us a lively representation of the great and interesting doctrine of the atonement, which makes Christ so worthy of our unreserved confidence.
- Q. How does it improve the grace of repentance?
A. By showing in the strongest manner possible, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, which God would not pardon without the sacrifice of His own Son; and by thus naturally leading us to hate it with a more perfect hatred, to feel a greater sorrow on account of having committed it, and to be more determined to avoid it in our future conduct.
- Q. How does it improve our love and gratitude to Jesus Christ?
A. By setting Him forth as voluntarily dying to avert the divine displeasure from our souls, and to restore us to the favour and friendship of God.
- Q. How does it improve our love to our fellow believers?
A. By reminding us of the value of the human soul, manifested in the sacrifice which Christ offered for its salvation; and by associating us together in an ordinance which exhibits, “the great love wherewith God hath loved us;” (Ephesians 2: 4). for, “if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” (1 John 4: 11).
- Q. What is your next reason for partaking of the Lord’s Supper?
A. It is a source of great consolation under all the afflictions to which we are subject in this state of sin and imperfection.
- Q. How does it comfort us under the consciousness of guilt?
A. It sets before us that perfect sacrifice which Christ offered, and God accepted, for our sins, and on which, therefore, we may safely depend for pardon and reconciliation.
- Q. How does it comfort us under a sense of our spiritual weakness and danger?
A. We see in the symbols of Christ’s broken body and shed blood, a solemn pledge or promise that He who thus died for us will never forsake us, that He will help our infirmities, that He will defend us from our enemies, and conduct us in safety to His heavenly kingdom.
- Q. How does it comfort us under the burden of temporal distress?
A. We behold in the bread and wine, as emblems of our Redeemer’s sacrifice, the seal of that gracious covenant by which God, the disposer of every event, is our compassionate heavenly Father, who will make the afflictions of this life, “work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” (2 Cor 4: 17).
- Q. What is your next reason for partaking of the Lord’s Supper?
A. It is an appointed token of our acceptance of the Gospel, and of God’s favour to us; if our acceptance is sincere: for Christ said, when He gave the wine to His disciples, “This cup is the New Testament, [or as it might be translated, the New Covenant] in my blood.”
- Q. How do you explain yourself, when the Gospel is considered as the Testament, or last will of our Saviour?
A. In this case the sacramental wine represents the blood or death of Christ the Testator, with which He purchased the blessings that He bequeaths; and when we partake of the wine, we declare at once our firm belief in the merits of His death, and our cordial reception of the blessings that He conveys to us by His Testament or Gospel.
- Q. How do you explain yourself, when the Gospel is considered as a Covenant?
A. In this view, the blood of Christ is the seal by which the new Covenant is ratified; and when we drink the wine, as representing the blood of Christ, we declare our acceptance of that Covenant, and bind ourselves to fulfil all the engagements under which it lays us.
- Q. Were not these engagements entered into when you were baptized?
A. Yes; by having the sacrament of baptism administered to me, I was solemnly and truly engaged to be the Lord’s; but as, on account of my infancy, I could not give my own consent to what was done, I partake of the Lord’s Supper to renew my baptismal engagements by a conscious and voluntary dedication of myself to God through Jesus Christ, into whom I was baptized: And this renewal of my baptismal engagements I make as often as I partake of the Lord’s Supper.
To be continued