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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology. We'll be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's Word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters. We continue working our way through the doctrine of the Church. We've been looking at the sacraments. There's so much to cover here, but one week on baptism, and all we really have time for is one week here on this massive topic of the Lord's Supper, with the possible exception of the doctrine of justification. I said before that the Reformers wrote more about the Church than anything else, and in particular, they wrote about the Lord's Supper. In fact, some of the most heated polemics come on this doctrine of the Lord's Supper, not just against Roman Catholics, but but against each other. And we can be thankful that maybe some of the temperature has been turned down. And there's a way, especially as Protestants, to understand different positions and agree to disagree on certain things. And yet that's not all for the good. If it means that we devalue the sacraments and we don't think as much or as highly of the Supper as we should. There is a way that the Supper can displace and the primacy of the word preached in the service. But there's also a way in which we can devalue the Lord's Supper as an actual means of grace. We see the Lord's Supper comes at the command of Jesus, at his example in the Last Supper, and then the explicit instructions handed down to us in 1 Corinthians 11. It too, like baptism, is a sign and seal of Christ's death, his resurrection, the. The life that we have by faith. It's a family meal. This is really important. I make this point often in our services that this is a table, not an altar. An altar is where sacrifices take place. It's a big difference between a Protestant Catholic understanding and a Catholic understanding. And it's even why in the iconography they will have not a cross that's empty, but a cross with Christ hanging there, which is part of their understanding that Christ is now they wouldn't. I want to be fair. They wouldn't say an official doctrine that Christ is re sacrificed because they know that Hebrews says the sacrifice was once for all. I'm not sure if that distinction is lost on the average worshiper at Mass. But they would say he is represented, it is not now in an unbloodied manner. It is one and the same sacrifice that took place, pulled into the present, this one and same sacrifice of Christ on the cross. But they would say it is a sacrifice that takes place in the Mass. Therefore, it is an altar. And I want to argue, according to Scripture, that it is a table, that the priestly work of sacrifice is done, that atonement is accomplished. The priestly work continues now with applying that in his intercession. But it's a table. You gather around a table for a meal where Christ is the host. He's the one who feeds us. He gives us physical bread, physical drink. But it's to strengthen us spiritually. There is a vertical and a horizontal dimension to the Lord's Supper. It orients us vertically as we remember the body and blood. We give thanks for his sacrifice. We commune with Christ by faith. We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. That's all vertical, but there's also a horizontal dimension. We're moved in grace toward our fellow believers. We discern the body of Christ, which I think can have both resonances. We discern the body of Christ, that is, we understand what this supper is about and we discern the body of Christ our fellow believers remember in Corinthians, one of the issues is there's squabbles and there's class divisions. And some people are even coming drunk. They're not having an understanding of the body. This is a meal for fellowship. I love that First Corinthians talks about a koinonia in his body and blood, that word fellowship, participation, communion. So we believe in Reformed theology in a real presence. That's one of the major, maybe the most central debate in the Lord's Supper, what kind of presence. And the majority reform view has been. We don't gather to celebrate the Lord's absence. It's not merely to reflect and say, something happened. There is that element. Do this in remembrance of me. We recall something, but it's not just to think of something that happened in the past. And now we have Christ's absence. There is a real presence, but it's not a local bodily presence. It's not a transubstantiation where the substance becomes the body and blood of Christ. But yet as we are joined with Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are raised to the heavenly places with Him. There is a real presence. He is with us to nurture us, to strengthen us. Who should come to the Lord's Table? A lot of things we can talk about here, but maybe this we can land here and think about who should come. The language that is in the PCA liturgy says those who come must be sincere, instructed and accountable. Those are three good words. We can sort of unpack those by walking through some points that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 11. So he says one partaking in communion requires an act of remembrance on the part of the recipient. Do this in remembrance of me. There is a mental cognition. Two in eating the bread and drinking the cup, we proclaim the Lord's death. So this implies a personal, self conscious intention. 3 the elements can be consumed in an unworthy manner. 1 Corinthians 11:27 this suggests an active participation in the Supper. I said last week that the very act of baptism in the Lord's Supper, maybe it was two weeks ago, signifies something different about these two sacraments. Baptism is a naming rite, an initiation rite. We are passive when we are, when we receive a name at our birth, where the other Lord's Supper is active. So you don't just you get a name once, but you eat all the time. You have a meal for fellowship, you have a meal for strength, for nourishment. And so we see that there is an active dimension, not merely passive reception, for the person who eats and drinks must examine himself. This is why most older liturgies call for a due season of self reflection. Often the liturgy would say, we're celebrating the sacrament next week. Use this week to examine yourselves. Now it was not meant to be as developed. Unfortunately, in some traditions that that period of self examination meant virtually no one came to take the supper. It was seen as an act of presumption. Who are you to think you deserve the Lord's Supper? Of course none of us deserve it. The line I say almost every time we celebrate the sacrament, I say, this is not a meal for perfect people, but for penitent people to come sick of your sin, looking to Christ alone for forgiveness. And then a fifth observation from 1 Corinthians 11 anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body brings judgment upon himself. So you pull this together, we can see 1 Corinthians 11 presumes a certain level of maturity for those who come to the table. This is not A converting ordinance. This is not for those who simply have an interest in learning more about Jesus or you ought to come, because this is. We are so inclusive. Everyone should come and you should taste something of the grace of God in this meal. No, Paul is very clear. Bad things like illness and death can happen when we eat this in an unworthy manner. So we don't partake of the Supper lightly. Death and judgment are at stake. Berkhof says three kinds of people are excluded from the Lord's Supper. The sacrament is not for children, not for unbelievers, not for hypocrites. Some Reformed Christians argue that the requirements in 1 Corinthians 11 are for adults only. But we're not meant to keep children away from the table. And they insist, okay, well, maybe that's just thinking of adults, but that doesn't mean that you can't have children. And they would say, look, if children partook of the Passover under the Mosaic Covenant, they should not be excluded from the Lord's Supper under the New Covenant. Now that may sound like really being truly reformed and taking the sacrament more seriously and wanting to honor the covenant community more fully, but there are several problems with this practice, often called pedo communion, Pedo baptism, baptizing infants and small children, pedo communion, welcoming small children to the table. For starters, let's just talk about the Passover. It's not clear at what age children partook of the Passover. Certainly nursing infants did not participate in a meal that included roast meat, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. So right there, there's a difference between an eight day old son being circumcised and children at Passover. Moreover, those who believe in a fundamental continuity between the Old and New Testaments still must allow for areas of discontinuity. Surely it is significant that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper not as a part of a family meal in Bethany, but in the upper room with his disciples. There's something there could have wanted to say. This is a meal for all of the kids and everybody. He could have done it in a different way, but he did it there deliberately with his grown disciples. More importantly, arguments for pedo communion misunderstand the nature of the covenant and the nature of the two sacraments. Yes, of course, Reformed theology teaches children are included in the covenant in both Testaments. I know my Baptist friends would word that differently, but Reformed theology teaches that. But there's a distinction between the covenant as a legal transaction or a legal relationship and the covenant as communion of life. Children are heirs to the promises of God, so they receive the initiatory sign of baptism. But apart from faith, they are not heirs of salvation, of which the Lord's Supper is the sign and seal. So the two sacraments are not identical. When we welcome same people under the same conditions, we are flattening the sacraments. Why have I guess you could say, well, the Lord's Supper is frequent, but why have an initiatory sign and then a repeated sign if they're really the same thing and the same people come, but they're not identical? One is the sacrament of naming and inclusion, passive recipients, the other remembering and renewal. Active Participants we recognize and honor the nature of baptism when we administer the sign to believers and their children. We we recognize and honor the nature of the Lord's Supper when we welcome to the table only those who feast on Christ in repentance and faith. Thanks for listening to Doctrine Matters with me. Kevin DeYoung Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to doctor Matters through Spotify, Apple Music or however you listen to your podcasts. And if you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book, Daily Doctrine, which is available in print or audio@crossway.org until next week. Thanks for being with us.