Luke 22:19
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
One of the benefits of corporate worship we have observed in this series is the way in which it brings us back into the story of God's redemption. It “restor(i)es” us one author says.[1] Pastors and theologians throughout history have agreed that perhaps no other part of the corporate worship service does that better than the Lord's Supper. Over the last three weeks, we have observed how we might rightly prepare for the Lord's Supper, and in this post, I want to show you some of the ways church fathers have noted its benefits to us as a dramatic event that restor(i)es us as we take part.
This theme on the Supper as a dramatic event runs from Calvin through the Puritans. This idea that the Supper enacted a drama posited several audiences for God’s play. First, these fathers of the Church understood the Sacrament to be a dramatic display of the Father’s love to the Church itself. Owen said that love is the “moving cause” of the Supper. Out of this love, the Father himself dramatically spreads the table for the Church’s nourishment.[2]
Next, Calvin taught that the Supper was a public and dramatic statement to the world that God has satisfied his justice in the death of Christ. Richard Vines reflected Calvin’s influence by teaching that the Church makes a public statement to the world by means of the sacrament that in Christ “God hath transferred the curse of the law to another, who underwent it.”[3]
In addition, the drama extends beyond the visible world to the spiritual world. The Reformers said that the Church also makes objective profession to the watching world and God’s cosmic enemies. John Owen preached, “In our celebration of the death of Christ, we do profess against Satan, that his power is broken, that he is conquered, – tied to the chariot wheels of Christ, who has disarmed him.”[4] Finally, John Cotton viewed the Supper as a type of the Last Judgment, a foreshadowing of the final defeat of Christ’s enemies, the ultimate crushing of the Serpent’s head.[5]
According to Calvin, there are other actors besides God in this drama. They are the participants. Not only is God displaying the reality of his mercy in the Lord’s Supper, but the Church is publicly declaring its confidence in the Lord’s death, as worshipers with one voice “confess openly before men that for us the whole assurance of life and salvation rests upon the Lord’s death, that we may glorify him by our confession, and by our example exhort others to give glory to him.”[6]
John Cotton (1584-1652) also carried forward Calvin’s emphasis on the Eucharistic nature of the Sacrament as opposed to an occasion of mournful regret for past sins. Cotton was committed to an appreciation for the drama of the sacramental occasion:
Through the words of institution, the Eucharistic prayer, and the symbolism of the bread and wine the people were led once again through the stages of the redemptive drama revealed in the world of Christ. The Lord’s Supper was occasion for renewed repentance followed by the experience of union with Christ. In a visually and verbally explicit way it reminded believers of the order of redemption that sustained their lives. Christ himself was present offering that salvation to them.[7]
Like Calvin, Gilbert Tennent viewed the Supper as a dramatic demonstration of God’s revelation concerning redemptive truths like love, grace, judgment, and atonement. For instance, in his sermon, “The Preciousness of Christ,” Tennent proposed the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace to strengthen the believer for overcoming the world. That strength, he said, comes to the faithful communicant through the “precious pipe” of the sacrament.[8]
But just how is the believer to access these benefits within the sacrament as a means of grace? Tennent taught that it required a sanctified imagination. The communicant must focus his mind in the Supper (“attend upon the Word and Ordinances of Christ”) in order to appreciate the drama of the event. To obtain the “exercise, increase and assurance of faith” necessary to overcome the world one must realize that when he observes the minister serving the elements he actually observes “God the Father giving his only begotten son with all the purchase of his blood to us: And in our receiving them, we shou’d labour to receive Christ with them in our hearts.”[9] Further he observed the interest of Christ in the same who offers to “seal to you by his blood and Spirit in this solemn ordinance” his “obedience and sufferings.”[10] Thus, like the Puritans, Tennent saw every action of the Supper to be a divine drama.
[1] James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love (Brazos Press), 78-79.
[2] “Discourse #2,” Works, 525.
[3] A Treatise of the Institution, Right Administration, and Receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords-Supper (2nd edition, London, 1660), 169.
[4] Owen, “Discourse IV,” Works, 543. Cf. Discourses II, III, X.
[5] Holifield, 166.
[6] Institutes 4.17.37
[7] Cotton, True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church Proved by Scripture (1642, reprint New York: Arno Press, 1972), 7.
[8] “Preciousness of Christ,” 258. Cm. a similar image in “The Legal Bow,” wherein Tennent calls the Supper a “Golden conduit,” 202.
[9] This may reveal another influence by Calvin who recognized that “blessing” in the Bible mostly refers to the redemptive presence of God. Therefore, the fact that Paul alludes to the Supper by the phrase “the cup of blessing which we bless” (1 Co. 10:16), implies that the believer experiences the redemptive presence of God in communion. For stimulating discussions of the biblico-theological significance of the benediction and its implications for ecclesiology see, Vernon Kleinig, ‘‘Providence and Worship: The Aaronic Blessing: Numbers 6:22-27,’’ Lutheran Theological Journal 19 (Dec. 1985): 122 and Kelly M. Kapic, Receiving Christ’s Priestly Benediction: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Exploration of Luke 24:50-53,” Westminster Theological Journal 67 (2005): 247-60.
[10] “Preciousness of Christ,” 273, 274.