WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.600 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:45.040 Mahler. And I'm still woe. 00:00:45.040 --> 00:00:45.360 On 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:49.440 today's Stone Choir we're going to be discussing communion or the sacrament 00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:52.000 of the altar or the Eucharist. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.320 We are doing kind of a collection here. 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.000 Uh we began with baptism about a month ago, about two weeks 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:00.160 ago we did the Reformation episode. 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:03.360 And we thought that we would end up that sort of grouping 00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:08.640 with a discussion of communion because they all go together and we'll 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.280 explain kind of how that works historically. 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.920 I mentioned in the Reformation episode that there are effectively four distinct 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:20.480 groups that emerged from the Reformation, at least by Lutheran standards. 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:24.080 There are obviously the Roman Catholics who remained Roman Catholic, their doctrine 00:01:24.080 --> 00:01:25.840 really didn't change much at Trent. 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:27.600 It did change, but not much. 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:31.120 You have the Lutherans who emerged from out of the Roman Catholic 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.800 Church, you have the Reformed and you have the Anabaptists. 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:39.200 And the reason that we divide everybody else, including ourselves into those 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:43.920 four distinct groups, has to do with the nature of the arguments 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:45.680 in the Reformation itself. 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:50.960 So obviously, the Reformation principally was kicked off based on disagreement about 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:54.800 justification. So on one side, you have Rome with one approach to 00:01:54.800 --> 00:01:59.120 justification, and on the other side you have the Protestants with a 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:03.600 different version of justification, effectively faith alone, grace alone. 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:08.560 As soon as the Reformation kicked off, there were immediately additional arguments 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:12.240 within the Protestant camp about a bunch of other stuff. 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.920 Because as we said in the Reformation episode, like the gates were 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:19.920 open. Once people started asking the question, what did the Roman Catholic 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:20.560 Church get wrong? 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.800 Get wrong, it became a matter of concern. 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:28.000 Well, you know, did how many things did they get wrong? 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:34.880 And unfortunately, a lot of people reflexively went way too far in 00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:38.880 rejecting things that were not distinctives of the Roman Catholic Church, but 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:43.120 in fact just been traditional Christian doctrine in the East and the 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:46.720 West, going back to the very beginning of the Church. 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:52.000 So the initial division was on justification. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:57.200 The substantial immediate divisions after that were about the sacraments. 00:02:57.200 --> 00:03:01.920 The two principal sacraments that the Lutherans recognize are baptism, which we 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:04.560 did an entire episode on, and communion. 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.640 And as we mentioned in the baptism episode, Lutherans and Roman Catholics 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:12.000 are more or less in agreement on almost all baptism. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.560 There's a small matter of disagreement surrounding original sin as it interacts 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:20.720 with baptism, but otherwise we're pretty much on the same page. 00:03:20.720 --> 00:03:26.080 And when you look at communion, there are very significant differences between 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:30.000 Lutheran and Roman Catholic doctrine that were initially part of the arguments 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.560 of Luther and the other Lutheran reformers had against Rome, but almost 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:38.160 immediately all of the other people who had also left Rome but 00:03:38.160 --> 00:03:40.560 didn't agree with the Lutheran position 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:48.400 went so much further that looking backward today, Lutherans effectively get lumped 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:51.120 in with Roman Catholics in terms of communion. 00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:53.680 You know, a lot of people if they're coming from, you know, 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:58.480 certainly like a Baptist upgr upbringing, when you look at r Lutheran 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:01.840 doctrine on baptism and communion, you're gonna say these guys are just 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:04.240 papists. these guys are Catholics. 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:08.720 And And there like you said, there's significant disagreements on communion, but 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:13.040 there's so much more significant between Lutherans and the Reformed and the 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:15.600 Baptists that they're kind of right. 00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:18.560 And so there's not a clean division of three and one anymore. 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:22.240 It's almost kind of one and one and a half and then 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:23.280 the other two. 00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:25.840 And so we'll talk a little bit down the road about in 00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:32.480 the Lutheran confessions, initially, what became as us disputing with Rome very 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:37.280 quickly became a four-way fight with what the confessions call the Sacramentarians, 00:04:37.280 --> 00:04:41.440 today it's the Reformed, and the Anabaptists, which today are Baptists. 00:04:41.440 --> 00:04:45.120 And those four distinct bodies, the reason we consider those distinct is 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.600 that none of them agree on both sacraments. 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.960 They'll fall into one camp or the other on either of them, 00:04:50.960 --> 00:04:55.760 such that there's no possible substantial agreement about doctrine among any of 00:04:55.760 --> 00:04:56.160 them. of them. 00:04:56.320 --> 00:05:00.720 there cannot be any sort of unity until we overcome those disagreements 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:02.160 about the sacraments. 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.880 So that's why they're foundational issues. 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:07.440 And that's it's probably why we're going to do this episode. 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:09.520 As we said before, we don't do too many episodes. 00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:11.360 They're kind of systematic theology. 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:13.360 And we're not trying to sell Lutheranism. 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:16.160 Obviously, we're Lutheran, we think it's important, but we had a lot 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:16.960 of questions about it. 00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:21.600 And it's like I said, it really nicely bookends the Reformation episode 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:25.920 with the baptism episode in terms of like, here's it, here's why 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:27.200 we have these different groups. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.280 why did I mention in the Reformation episode that Lutherans just kind 00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:34.400 of laugh when reform guys think that we're part of the same 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:37.440 camp? Like it seems alien to us. 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:39.440 And it has to do with communion. 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:40.800 Doesn't have to do with baptism. 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:42.320 It has to do with communion. 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:46.000 And so working through these issues, at least explaining them. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.520 Like I'm this is an episode that I said earlier on Twitter 00:05:49.520 --> 00:05:53.360 teasing it that this is gonna make everybody mad because what we 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:57.200 say is going to disagree with everything that everyone else believes unless 00:05:57.200 --> 00:05:57.920 you're Lutheran. 00:05:57.920 --> 00:05:59.920 And even some of the Lutherans gonna get mad at some of 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:02.560 the things we say because a couple things we say disagree with 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:07.120 Luther, but don't disagree with the confessions because they weren't always completely 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:10.080 aligned. And it's not something to worry about, but like it's just 00:06:10.080 --> 00:06:12.560 it's how things play out in history. 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:17.680 So to begin, we're gonna dig in in John 6. 00:06:17.840 --> 00:06:21.680 This is one of the first areas where we uh don't agree 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.280 with some of what Luther ended up saying down the road. 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:29.040 John 6 is the chapter that begins with the feeding of the 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:33.280 5,000, and then it's what's called the bread of life discourse. 00:06:33.280 --> 00:06:33.600 And 00:06:34.640 --> 00:06:36.000 it's a beautiful chapter. 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:38.640 It's a very long chapter in John. 00:06:38.640 --> 00:06:42.080 And there's so much theology packed into it. 00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:45.600 The reason we want to begin there is that our view, in 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:49.600 distinction from Luther's, but again, as I said, not in distinction from 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:56.160 what the confessions say, John 6 is fundamentally Jesus catechizing the disciples 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.040 and the assembled crowd about communion. 00:06:59.040 --> 00:06:59.920 It's about faith. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.320 It's about the entire Christian faith, but specifically dealing with some of 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:07.600 the particulars of communion in such a way that later on when 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.760 we address the other verses that deal specifically with the words of 00:07:11.760 --> 00:07:16.000 institution on the last at the last supper, and then subsequently when 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:20.400 Paul reiterates them, there's a short version there at the time, but 00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:24.240 the long version is found in John 6. 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:29.200 And so it's important because this framing of the discussion of communion 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:31.440 really lays bare all the disputes. 00:07:31.440 --> 00:07:34.240 Every single disagreement that you will have with us and that you 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:37.200 all have with each other in different denominations, that we we all 00:07:37.200 --> 00:07:42.160 are mutually incompatible in terms of how we view communion, it boils 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:45.600 down to the short version in first Corinthians eleven and the long 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:47.360 version in John six. 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:49.280 So we're gonna read all and then go through some of the 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:50.560 particulars because 00:07:51.520 --> 00:07:56.480 the divisions are clear in Jesus teaching, including the responses from both 00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:00.400 the Pharisees and the crowd, who had the very same responses two 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:04.480 thousand years ago that we see today in these discussions. 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:09.280 Two quick points before I get into reading the long passage from 00:08:09.280 --> 00:08:10.560 John 6. 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:14.880 First, to be entirely fair to Luther, he did affirm both that 00:08:14.880 --> 00:08:20.400 John six is catechesis on the Lord's Supper, and that it deals 00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:25.520 with faith, which is the position of the confessions, the Lutheran confessions. 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:29.680 He did emphasize the faith aspect in dealing with the reformed in 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:32.640 part because he was simply tired of arguing with them. 00:08:32.640 --> 00:08:36.880 I'm sure that even some of our reformed listeners can commiserate with 00:08:36.880 --> 00:08:38.320 Luther on that one. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:45.200 And the second point is Woe mentioned that these divisions in the 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:49.840 church really center on the sacraments, which is absolutely true. 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:54.000 And I just want to read Article seven of the Augsburg Confession 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:57.760 because it really points out this has been the nature of things 00:08:57.760 --> 00:09:00.560 from the Reformation forward. 00:09:00.560 --> 00:09:03.760 And so Article seven defining the Church. 00:09:03.760 --> 00:09:07.600 Our churches teach that one holy church is to remain forever. 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:11.040 The Church is the congregation of saints in which the gospel is 00:09:11.040 --> 00:09:14.480 purely taught, and the sacraments correctly administered. 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:17.600 For the true unity of the Church, it is enough to agree 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:21.680 about the doctrine of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. 00:09:21.680 --> 00:09:25.680 It is not necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies 00:09:25.680 --> 00:09:28.720 instituted by men, should be the same everywhere. 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:33.760 As As Paul says, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:35.360 and Father of all. 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:38.560 Ephesians four five through six. 00:09:38.560 --> 00:09:43.920 And so clearly, given the definition of the church, unless we can 00:09:43.920 --> 00:09:47.760 agree on the sacraments, we can't have that full unity. 00:09:47.760 --> 00:09:50.320 That doesn't mean we can't agree on many things and get along 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:51.440 and work together. 00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:55.280 It just means we can't have the full unity of full communion 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:57.520 without agreement on the sacraments. 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:02.480 And so I will read now from John VI. 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.280 the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of 00:10:05.280 --> 00:10:08.400 the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:11.600 that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, But that 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:13.760 his disciples had gone away alone. 00:10:13.760 --> 00:10:17.440 Other boats from Tiberius came near the place where they had eaten 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:19.840 the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:23.040 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:27.600 disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and went to Capernaum seeking 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:31.440 Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:34.640 they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? 00:10:34.640 --> 00:10:36.160 Jesus answered them. 00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:40.960 truly I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:44.480 saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:47.280 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food 00:10:47.280 --> 00:10:50.800 that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:55.120 to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal. 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:58.160 Then they said to him, What must we do to be doing 00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:02.560 the works of God Jesus answered them, This is the work of 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:05.840 God, that you believe in him whom He has sent. 00:11:06.400 --> 00:11:09.760 So they said to him, Then what sign do you do, that 00:11:09.760 --> 00:11:11.440 we may see and believe you? 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:13.120 What work do you perform? 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.480 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:18.960 He gave them bread from heaven to eat. 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:23.360 Jesus then said to them, truly I say to you, it was 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:26.720 not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father 00:11:26.560 --> 00:11:29.840 gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God 00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:32.880 is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the 00:11:32.880 --> 00:11:37.280 world. They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. 00:11:37.280 --> 00:11:41.360 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, whoever comes 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:44.640 to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never 00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:48.160 thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:49.920 yet do not believe. 00:11:49.920 --> 00:11:53.120 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.560 comes to me I will never cast out, for I have come 00:11:56.560 --> 00:11:59.680 down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will 00:11:59.680 --> 00:12:02.960 of Him who sent me, and this is the will of Him 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:06.000 who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.200 has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.480 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:16.000 looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:18.640 and I will raise him up on the last day. 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:22.240 So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:24.960 bread that came down from heaven. 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:29.200 They said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:30.640 and mother we know? 00:12:30.640 --> 00:12:34.000 How does he now say I have come down from heaven? 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:38.640 Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves, no one can come 00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:42.000 to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.080 will raise him up on the last day. 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:47.360 It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:48.480 by God. 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:52.320 Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:55.440 Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from 00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:57.840 God, he has seen the Father. 00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:02.240 truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:03.920 I am the bread of life. 00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:07.520 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 00:13:07.520 --> 00:13:10.240 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one 00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:12.800 may eat of it and not die. 00:13:12.800 --> 00:13:15.520 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. 00:13:15.520 --> 00:13:19.040 If any one eats of this bread he will live for ever, 00:13:19.040 --> 00:13:21.280 and the bread that I will give for the life of the 00:13:21.280 --> 00:13:23.120 world is my flesh. 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:27.280 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give 00:13:27.280 --> 00:13:28.640 us his flesh to eat? 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:33.200 So Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you, unless you 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.080 eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:37.680 you have no life in you. 00:13:37.680 --> 00:13:42.000 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:44.640 and I will raise him up on the last day. 00:13:44.640 --> 00:13:49.440 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:53.760 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, 00:13:53.760 --> 00:13:57.520 and I in him, as the living Father sent me, and I 00:13:57.520 --> 00:14:00.960 live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:03.200 will live because of me. 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.320 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:08.400 bread the fathers ate and died. 00:14:08.400 --> 00:14:11.920 Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. 00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:16.160 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. 00:14:16.160 --> 00:14:19.440 When many of his disciples heard it they said, This is a 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.920 hard saying, who can listen to it? 00:14:21.920 --> 00:14:25.920 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, 00:14:25.920 --> 00:14:28.880 said to them, Do you take offense at this? 00:14:28.880 --> 00:14:31.520 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending 00:14:31.520 --> 00:14:33.120 to where he was before? 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:36.320 It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:37.040 at all. 00:14:37.040 --> 00:14:40.000 The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life, 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.360 but there are some of you who do not believe. 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:46.720 For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:50.800 believe, and who it was who would betray him, and he said, 00:14:50.800 --> 00:14:53.280 This is why I told you that no one can come to 00:14:53.280 --> 00:14:56.080 me unless it is granted him by the Father. 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:59.520 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked 00:14:59.520 --> 00:15:00.160 with him. 00:15:00.160 --> 00:15:03.440 So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:04.320 as well? 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:08.080 Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go? 00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:11.760 You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and 00:15:11.760 --> 00:15:16.160 have come to know that you are the holy one of God. 00:15:17.040 --> 00:15:20.080 That's obviously a very long passage and I recommend you go back 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:21.920 and reread it yourselves. 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:26.320 It's beautiful, it's straight from the mouth of God and it's it's 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:32.560 vital to understanding the theology of both faith and communion. 00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:34.960 There are a couple interesting things in there that I want to 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:35.600 tease out. 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:40.880 Obviously, there's extensive discussion of eating flesh and drinking blood. 00:15:40.880 --> 00:15:43.520 And when you look in the Greek words that are used for 00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:45.200 flesh, it's it's sarks. 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:47.680 It's the it means actual flesh. 00:15:47.680 --> 00:15:51.040 As in, you know, if you were to find roadkill and cut 00:15:51.040 --> 00:15:54.640 a piece off, that's what it's you're talking about, that type of 00:15:54.640 --> 00:15:57.600 flesh. It's not any sort of metaphorical version. 00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:01.120 It's the real material version of the thing. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:02.000 And so 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.600 the historic disputes about this have been, well, this can't possibly be 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:14.480 true because from the post-Reformation era, we have faith alone, precluding all 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:20.240 works. And so there's the passage where Jesus says, whoever feeds on 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:23.520 my flesh and drinks on my blood has eternal life, unless you 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:25.520 eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, 00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:27.840 you have no life in you. 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:34.480 If you misunderstand faith alone, grace alone, you will not understand that 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:36.320 this is not a work. 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:38.480 And that's one of the problems that we addressed in the in 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:40.160 the baptism episode at some lengths. 00:16:40.160 --> 00:16:44.960 We're not going to repeat the arguments about how sacraments interact with 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:46.000 human action. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:49.440 I mean the short version is when God says to do something 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:52.880 and you receive his gift when you do it, and then you 00:16:52.880 --> 00:16:56.160 do it, that's not a work in the sense of us affecting 00:16:56.160 --> 00:16:59.120 anything. That is us receiving God's gift. 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:02.880 It's like going to church and hearing the word of God. 00:17:02.880 --> 00:17:07.520 Yes, going to church is obedience, but the hearing is passive, it's 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:12.640 receptive. So when it discusses us eating and drinking from Christ's body 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:14.800 and blood, it's receiving something. 00:17:14.800 --> 00:17:16.480 It's not doing something. 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:18.960 And we'll we'll get to that elsewhere in this episode. 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:22.080 But it's just important that this is one of the distinctions of 00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:26.560 a sacrament, that if you misplace the action as oh, well, I'm 00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:32.000 doing this, and therefore any passage that says do something must necessarily 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.720 mean that it can't be salvific. 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.680 You're missing out on a lot of scripture because there's stuff that 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:40.080 God says to do that's clearly not us saving ourselves. 00:17:40.080 --> 00:17:42.160 I mean there's there's nowhere in scripture where God says you can 00:17:42.560 --> 00:17:46.000 save yourself, yes, there's many places in Scripture where God says to 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:46.880 do stuff. 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:50.720 And in particular when the sacraments are delivered by God to us, 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:54.080 as in the case of baptism and in the case of communion, 00:17:54.080 --> 00:17:58.080 what we receive is the very forgiveness that God promised to deliver 00:17:58.080 --> 00:17:59.680 from the cross. 00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:02.960 I think the strongest argument to be made for how none of 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:05.840 this can be taken entirely as allegory. 00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:07.840 Obviously, it's describing faith. 00:18:07.840 --> 00:18:11.760 You know, there's faith is absolutely an inextricable faith is how we 00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:14.240 receive salvation, no doubt about that. 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.280 Faith is how we receive the gifts in the sacraments. 00:18:17.280 --> 00:18:21.280 God is pouring out his abundance of his grace to us through 00:18:21.280 --> 00:18:22.480 the sacraments. 00:18:22.800 --> 00:18:25.920 And the fact that there's a physical means with it doesn't change 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:30.720 the equation apart from giving us a physical touchstone in history, in 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.680 time, in a place, that we can point to and say, yes, 00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:36.480 right here, God is giving me his stuff here. 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:39.200 And whatever he promised to be be to be attached to the 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:41.360 stuff, I will also receive. 00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:46.240 And so the physical presence of elements is part of God's reassurance 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.600 to us that he's keeping all the other promises. 00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:52.880 And you know, the the argument from the Jews, they disputed him 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:55.360 and said, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 00:18:55.360 --> 00:18:59.200 Well, that's one of the arguments that is used against this passage 00:18:59.840 --> 00:19:03.440 possibly being about communion. 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:04.640 Because how can that be? 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.760 You know, one of the arguments is that, well, God is he's 00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:09.600 stuck at the right hand of the Father. 00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:13.600 He has a corporeal body, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, 00:19:13.600 --> 00:19:17.120 can no longer do what he could do when he was 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:19.920 not corporeal. 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:22.880 And so how can this man give us his flesh to eat 00:19:23.120 --> 00:19:28.160 is I think critically set in the context of this this passage, 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:32.320 which, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's immediately after the feeding 00:19:32.320 --> 00:19:33.680 of the five thousand. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.240 So the day before they had all sat down and they had 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:40.720 the five loaves and the two fishes, and Jesus performed the miracle, 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:44.160 and they got back twelve baskets full after everyone had been fed, 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:47.280 five thousand men and women and children beside. 00:19:47.280 --> 00:19:51.520 So right in the very context of him saying this and the 00:19:51.520 --> 00:19:53.920 Jews saying, how can this be that he could give us his 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:55.520 flesh to eat? 00:19:55.520 --> 00:20:01.120 The very context of the miracles demonstrates that God was showing how 00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:01.760 he does it. 00:20:01.760 --> 00:20:03.680 He says, I'm going to do it, and he does it. 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:04.640 And it's miraculous. 00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:09.600 Like it's it is outside of the material world that five loaves 00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:11.280 and two fishes could feed everybody. 00:20:11.280 --> 00:20:12.320 It's impossible. 00:20:12.320 --> 00:20:13.600 But Jesus did it. 00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:16.160 And it was it was just as plain as day. 00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:18.880 There was there was no magic, there was no moment, there was 00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:19.920 no flashes. 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:21.600 He just said pass it out. 00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:22.480 And they did. 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:25.360 And they got back so much more than they had handed out 00:20:25.600 --> 00:20:28.560 that it was clear to everyone that a great miracle had been 00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:32.080 performed. And that was his introduction to saying, Here is how I 00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:33.520 will feed you. 00:20:33.520 --> 00:20:38.080 And then when he finished, the disciples heard it and they grumbled. 00:20:38.080 --> 00:20:41.040 They said, This is a hard saying, who can listen to this? 00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:43.040 And many of them grumbled and they walked away. 00:20:43.040 --> 00:20:44.800 They abandoned him on the spot. 00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:49.120 Now, this is critical because if this passage in John six were 00:20:49.120 --> 00:20:52.240 just about faith, which they understood, you know he'd been talking about 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:56.320 faith, even the Jews who were not believing understood faith. 00:20:56.320 --> 00:21:00.960 They understood the concept of believing and then receiving things from God. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.880 If it had been clear from Jesus' teaching that day, the text 00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:07.200 that we just read, if it had been clear that this was 00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:12.240 only about faith and not about something more immediate, more material than 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:14.800 that, they wouldn't have been confused. 00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:16.480 They wouldn't have said this is a hard saying. 00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:18.480 And if they had, he was said, no, wait, come back, come 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:19.280 back. I didn't mean that. 00:21:19.600 --> 00:21:20.240 it's all spiritual. 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:23.120 It's it there's no there's nothing physical here. 00:21:23.120 --> 00:21:25.280 And instead he said, Do you take offense? 00:21:25.280 --> 00:21:28.240 What then what are if you are seeing the Son of Man 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:29.920 ascending to where he was before? 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.480 He's saying to them, if you don't believe the small thing that 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:35.760 I'm telling you, how you will you believe the greater things? 00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:38.320 And then they wandered off and I think one of the most 00:21:38.320 --> 00:21:40.480 beautiful parts of this and the reason that we we let that 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:45.040 passage go long was Simon Peter's confession at the end, after the 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:48.080 some of the other disciples had wandered off because they were offended 00:21:48.800 --> 00:21:50.880 Jesus said, You know, what do you believe? 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:52.080 Will you go away as well? 00:21:52.080 --> 00:21:55.920 And Peter fame famously responded, Lord to whom shall we go? 00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:57.760 You have the words of eternal life. 00:21:57.760 --> 00:21:59.120 He didn't say, Yeah, I get it. 00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:00.080 It makes perfect sense to me. 00:22:00.080 --> 00:22:01.680 He said, Where else are we going to go? 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:07.040 And I think this is a perfect example of proper faith when 00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:08.480 receiving hard teachings. 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.240 And this is a hard teaching. 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:13.920 We've said in a past episode, there are a few places in 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.440 scripture where our reason collapses. 00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:21.920 You have the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ being fully God and 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:22.880 fully man. 00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:25.840 How can there be two 100 percents in one thing? 00:22:25.840 --> 00:22:29.760 What sort of analogies can you invent to try to explain that? 00:22:29.760 --> 00:22:33.360 And effectively every every anima analogy that men have invented in the 00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:38.160 past has effectively created some sort of heresy because it's irrational. 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:40.320 You know, it's not two boards glued together. 00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:42.000 It's not two halves in a cup. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:43.280 It's not a mixture. 00:22:43.280 --> 00:22:47.440 There's no comparison for when Jesus Christ is fully God and fully 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:48.640 man. It's impossible. 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:49.920 It doesn't make sense. 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:54.160 And yet that is the essential predicate for the entire Christian faith 00:22:54.320 --> 00:22:58.320 that this man who was incarnate is also fully God. 00:22:58.320 --> 00:23:01.760 And so the same is absolutely true when we're looking at communion. 00:23:01.760 --> 00:23:04.320 When Jesus said they didn't know yet what was going to happen 00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:04.960 with communion. 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:08.640 It wasn't until later at on the last supper when he actually 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:09.520 instituted it. 00:23:09.520 --> 00:23:12.800 So again, this was a this was a teaching moment to explain 00:23:12.800 --> 00:23:14.320 the theology behind it. 00:23:14.320 --> 00:23:16.640 And as we'll get to in a in a bit, when they 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:20.320 received that teaching on the the night he was betrayed, there was 00:23:20.320 --> 00:23:21.200 no argument. 00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:24.640 All the all the questions went away because they received it the 00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:25.280 same way. 00:23:25.280 --> 00:23:27.200 I don't think they understood it any better. 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:30.480 But when he said this is my body given for the forgiveness 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.200 of your sins, it wasn't out of left field because they'd heard 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:33.920 it before. 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:37.200 They had heard it here at this moment, the day after the 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:38.960 feeding of the five thousand. 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:42.080 Whatever questions they may have had, whatever doubts they may have had, 00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:43.360 he had catechized them. 00:23:43.360 --> 00:23:47.120 And so when he said it, when it was finally being instituted, 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:49.840 they just received it, and they ate and they drank and they 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:51.120 gave thanks. 00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:55.040 I think that this is a good point to define a few 00:23:55.040 --> 00:23:58.960 terms to go over some things that are frequently cleared Confused. 00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:04.560 Two of the most important terms here are sacrament and sacrifice. 00:24:04.560 --> 00:24:10.640 It is important to understand the distinction Between these two things, because 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:14.240 this is where the Roman error creeps in. 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:20.800 Rome wants to turn the sacrament of the altar into a sacrifice, 00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:24.480 which it is not in the sense that they use it, but 00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:27.520 I'll define the terms first so that we are on the same 00:24:27.520 --> 00:24:29.040 page as it were. 00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:33.280 A sacrament is a ceremony or work in which God presents what 00:24:33.280 --> 00:24:36.560 the promise of the ceremony offers. 00:24:36.560 --> 00:24:41.360 For Christians, well as Lutherans we are not going to quibble over 00:24:41.360 --> 00:24:42.480 the number of the sacraments. 00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:45.600 We're very explicit in our confessions and elsewhere that we're not going 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:46.560 to do that. 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:49.680 Rome insisted we had to recognize a certain number of sacraments, we 00:24:49.760 --> 00:24:52.320 said there are most certainly two. 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:54.560 We're not going to debate whether there are more. 00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:58.640 If you want to call marriage a sacrament, have fun. 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.160 And other things as well. 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:04.960 But obviously the two core sacraments on which Christians cannot disagree that 00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:10.240 these are sacraments would be baptism and the Lord's Supper. 00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:13.360 And so you cannot call these a work, and the reason you 00:25:13.360 --> 00:25:17.280 can't call them a work in terms of human beings doing the 00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:21.600 work is because these are God's work, and so you cannot steal 00:25:21.600 --> 00:25:22.720 from God. 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:26.720 To call baptism or to call the Lord's supper a human work 00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.400 is to say that a human being is doing God's work. 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:36.800 Now certainly, God uses the hands, the mouth of the pastor, as 00:25:37.040 --> 00:25:42.160 means to deliver his work, to deliver his blessing, his promises to 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:44.240 those who receive them. 00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:46.960 That does not make them the work of the pastor. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:49.680 They are still God's work. 00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:54.000 And now a sacrifice, a sacrifice, contrary to a sacrament, is a 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:58.240 ceremony or work that we give to God in order to provide 00:25:58.240 --> 00:25:59.280 him honor. 00:25:59.280 --> 00:26:03.040 Now notably, there are two kinds of sacrifice, and it is important 00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:06.240 to know both of them, because one of them is in play 00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:08.240 here and one is not. 00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:14.000 with regard to those of us mortals who are partaking of the 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.120 Eucharist. And so one of those is in fact the Eucharistic sacrifice. 00:26:19.120 --> 00:26:23.040 This does not merit the forgiveness of sins or reconciliation. 00:26:23.040 --> 00:26:27.280 It is practiced by those who have already been reconciled. 00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:30.640 This is so that we may give thanks or return gratitude for 00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:34.720 the forgiveness of sins that has already been received, or for other 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:39.520 benefits. The other kind of sacrifice there has been one in the 00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:42.960 history of the world, that is an atoning sacrifice. 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:47.040 That is a work that makes satisfaction for guilt and punishment. 00:26:47.040 --> 00:26:51.280 Obviously there has been only one, that is Christ's sacrifice, that is 00:26:51.280 --> 00:26:53.280 the Atonement. 00:26:53.280 --> 00:26:53.920 And so 00:26:54.800 --> 00:26:59.040 Rome's error when it comes to the Lord's Supper, is that they 00:26:59.040 --> 00:27:06.240 believe that each time the priest oversees the Lord's table, oversees the 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.680 sacrament, he is re-sacrificing Christ. 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:10.880 And that's false. 00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:16.000 Christ's sacrifice was once for all, one atonement. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.840 That is why Christ said from the cross, it is finished. 00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:23.360 This is not something that plays out again on altars across the 00:27:23.360 --> 00:27:26.800 world through all eternity, or at least until the end of the 00:27:26.800 --> 00:27:33.200 world, once for all, what we are doing is one, in remembrance 00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:40.320 of Christ, two, receiving the benefits of Christ, and three, giving thanks 00:27:40.320 --> 00:27:42.320 for those benefits. 00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:46.000 What we are doing is a Eucharistic sacrifice, it's a sacrifice of 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.640 praise. All we're doing is using a Greek term for that in 00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:52.880 essence. And so it's important to keep in mind these moving parts, 00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:57.200 the difference between a sacrament and a sacrifice. 00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:00.080 The Lord's Supper is a sacrament. 00:28:00.080 --> 00:28:03.360 It is God bringing his gifts to us. 00:28:03.360 --> 00:28:07.840 We in We in turn, after partaking of the sacrament, and in 00:28:07.840 --> 00:28:13.040 fact in partaking of the sacrament, give a Eucharistic sacrifice, a sacrifice 00:28:13.040 --> 00:28:14.160 of praise. 00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:17.920 We are praising God for the gifts He has given us. 00:28:19.040 --> 00:28:23.200 These have to be kept distinct, because we cannot steal from God 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:24.640 that which is properly His. 00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:28.320 We cannot claim to be the one doing His works, because they 00:28:28.320 --> 00:28:30.160 are His works. 00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:33.920 There's no good in an atoning sacrifice if it is made by 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:35.680 a mere man. 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:41.520 The atoning sacrifice required the God man who is Christ. 00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:45.440 Because, again, as we have said many times before, the debt of 00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:52.400 sin being infinite required, demanded an infinite atonement, and the only possible 00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:55.760 infinite atonement is Christ. 00:28:55.680 --> 00:29:00.000 And so one of the fundamental problems here, if you get the 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:06.800 theology wrong, the doctrine wrong, on the sacrament, on the Lord's Supper, 00:29:06.800 --> 00:29:13.760 is that you are implicitly denied denying the unio personalis, the personal 00:29:13.760 --> 00:29:17.520 union of God and man in Christ. 00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:24.480 Because many of the arguments, supposed arguments, against the sacramental union, the 00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:30.560 sacramental presence of Christ, Christ being actually present in the sacrament, in 00:29:30.560 --> 00:29:32.560 with and under the bread and wine. 00:29:32.560 --> 00:29:34.160 One of the most common arguments against that 00:29:35.840 --> 00:29:37.680 is that how can this be? 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:42.240 It's a argument based in reason, obviously, and human reason does fail. 00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:43.120 It has limits. 00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:46.720 It's the misuse of reason that is at issue here. 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:54.160 The difference between reason as magister or master and reason as servant. 00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:57.920 Reason is a servant you use to understand things. 00:29:57.920 --> 00:30:01.040 Reason is not the master of the universe that determines what is 00:30:01.040 --> 00:30:08.960 real. If you look at it top down as reason imposing reality, 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:10.080 that's incorrect. 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:12.160 That's reason as Magister. 00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:17.280 If you are looking at it instead as reason as one of 00:30:17.280 --> 00:30:22.560 your interpretive lenses to understand reality, that's reason as minister, reason is 00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:25.280 servant, that is the correct use of reason. 00:30:25.280 --> 00:30:28.880 But when you attempt to apply reason as a master to these 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:33.680 things, particularly the mysteries of God, you are not going to be 00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:36.000 able to understand them in that light. 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:40.080 You have to understand them from what God has revealed about them, 00:30:40.080 --> 00:30:43.360 and what God has revealed about them we'll get to in Christ's 00:30:43.360 --> 00:30:48.160 words and Paul's explanation of those words. 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:51.600 But when God speaks, what he says is true, and you simply 00:30:51.600 --> 00:30:52.480 believe it. 00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:56.400 You do not have to subject his words to your reason to 00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.000 prove that they are true. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:05.200 And then I would also like to expand on the issue of 00:31:05.360 --> 00:31:06.560 what is a work? 00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:10.000 Is this faith plus works? 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:14.080 And the answer to that, the second question is no. 00:31:14.080 --> 00:31:18.320 This is not faith plus works, as we have highlighted before, particularly 00:31:18.320 --> 00:31:24.720 in the baptism episode, but also elsewhere, the Spirit uses means to 00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:28.000 create faith and to strengthen faith. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:33.040 Baptism is one of the primary means, the word being the other. 00:31:33.040 --> 00:31:36.160 Of course the word flows through all of this because a sacrament, 00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:40.160 another way of defining it is simply the word plus an element, 00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:43.120 the word plus a sign, a physical thing. 00:31:43.120 --> 00:31:47.120 That is one of the traditional or classical definitions of a sacrament, 00:31:47.120 --> 00:31:49.840 and so the word is always present, but you have word and 00:31:49.840 --> 00:31:54.800 baptism to create faith, and then you have word and supper to 00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:56.560 strengthen faith. 00:31:56.560 --> 00:31:59.120 That is the way that things are supposed to go. 00:31:59.120 --> 00:32:02.640 That is the way that God has ordained it. 00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:08.240 And as I've mentioned before, we being spiritual and physical, being spirit 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:11.200 and body, will set aside the issue of mind and such matters 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:16.480 for now, but the fact that we have these dual natures 00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:21.520 God reaches out to us where we are and how we are 00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:22.800 what we are. 00:32:22.800 --> 00:32:26.480 We have the word which reaches the spirit. 00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:29.280 Yes, it also reaches the physical ear. 00:32:29.280 --> 00:32:31.760 But you have also the physical signs. 00:32:31.760 --> 00:32:34.320 The body can understand the physical signs. 00:32:34.320 --> 00:32:38.960 The part of you that is physical can understand water, can understand 00:32:39.760 --> 00:32:42.560 bread, can understand wine. 00:32:42.560 --> 00:32:47.760 God uses these to strengthen your faith, to reach the totality of 00:32:47.760 --> 00:32:51.920 who and what you are, not just the Spirit. 00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:56.240 Because you are not a spirit riding around in a meat suit. 00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:58.400 That's a mischaracterization. 00:32:58.400 --> 00:32:59.760 You are your body. 00:32:59.760 --> 00:33:01.200 You are your soul. 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:02.800 You are both of those things. 00:33:02.800 --> 00:33:05.840 And so there's some bit of understanding you can have, if you 00:33:05.840 --> 00:33:10.640 can grasp that to a certain degree, of the personal union. 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:14.240 But to get back to that original point, if you deny that 00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:23.200 you can have bread and body, wine and blood, simultaneously present. 00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:28.320 You are tacitly saying that the personal union cannot be possible. 00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:31.600 And you may think, well, the difference is that the one is 00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:34.400 God, the one is Christ, and the other is bread. 00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:38.800 No. Because you have Christ's word saying that it is bread and 00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:41.280 that it is body, saying that it is wine and that it 00:33:41.280 --> 00:33:42.160 is blood. 00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:45.360 You also have his word about the personal union in a number 00:33:45.360 --> 00:33:47.040 of places in Scripture. 00:33:47.040 --> 00:33:48.480 God does not lie. 00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:50.240 God always speaks the truth. 00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:54.000 God always speaking the truth, we have to believe what he has 00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:56.320 told us. 00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:00.720 And then to emphasize woe's comment about the right hand of the 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:04.720 Father, because this is an issue that comes up constantly in this 00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:09.360 area, and it is vitally important to understand this, to get this 00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:15.520 right. because theological and doctrinal errors flow from this left, right, and 00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:21.120 center. The right hand of the Father is not a physical location. 00:34:21.120 --> 00:34:23.200 How do we know this? 00:34:23.200 --> 00:34:25.680 The Father is spirit. 00:34:25.680 --> 00:34:29.600 The Father does not have a right hand. 00:34:30.080 --> 00:34:33.760 The right hand of the Father is not a physical location, because 00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:38.000 again, the Father is not physical. 00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:39.200 Scripture is very clear. 00:34:39.200 --> 00:34:42.240 Scripture says this in a number of places. 00:34:42.240 --> 00:34:45.360 The Father and the Spirit, obviously, one would hope that Hope that 00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:48.320 with the Spirit this is obvious, but the Father and the Spirit 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:54.080 being spirit, being not corporeal, do not have right hands, and so 00:34:54.080 --> 00:34:58.320 their right hands cannot be a physical location. 00:34:58.320 --> 00:35:02.160 The right hand of the Father is a position of power and 00:35:02.160 --> 00:35:05.920 authority. When Scripture speaks of the right hand of the Father and 00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:11.040 Christ being there, think of it as a right hand man, or 00:35:11.520 --> 00:35:16.960 historically, many kings would have a vizier or equivalent, someone, some minister 00:35:16.960 --> 00:35:20.480 who was very high ranking, who acted as his right hand, and 00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:22.640 was called his right hand. 00:35:22.640 --> 00:35:25.920 That is what scripture is saying when it says Christ is at 00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:28.080 the right hand of the Father, it is a matter of the 00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:30.720 exaltation of Christ. 00:35:30.720 --> 00:35:34.000 It is not a matter of a physical occasion. 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:39.120 So no, he is not physically limited to some specific small place 00:35:39.120 --> 00:35:39.840 in heaven. 00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:41.520 That is not how this works. 00:35:41.520 --> 00:35:45.760 Also notably heaven, not a physical location. 00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:49.360 But that's a point for another time. 00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.720 Before we conclude with John 6, I just want to provide a 00:35:52.720 --> 00:35:55.360 warning to the folks who are still shouting at us. 00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:58.320 That can't possibly be about the Eucharist. 00:35:58.320 --> 00:35:59.680 It can't be about communion. 00:35:59.680 --> 00:36:02.640 I want to reread a small portion. 00:36:02.640 --> 00:36:06.720 Jesus says, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is 00:36:06.720 --> 00:36:07.680 true drink. 00:36:07.680 --> 00:36:11.680 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks on my blood abides in 00:36:11.680 --> 00:36:13.760 me and I in him. 00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:16.640 The reason that this is important is that if you say, well, 00:36:16.640 --> 00:36:22.320 that can't possibly be about communion, because that's tying your salvation to 00:36:22.320 --> 00:36:27.280 a work, any argument along those lines that anyone would make, including 00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:33.920 some Lutherans, Against John 6 being Eucharistic must necessarily and absolutely apply 00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:36.480 to baptism now saves you. 00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.560 And see, this is something that astonishes me. 00:36:38.560 --> 00:36:42.720 There's some folks who agree that baptism can be salvific 00:36:43.600 --> 00:36:47.120 and they can maybe agree the communion is salvific, but they will 00:36:47.120 --> 00:36:52.640 sternly argue against John 6 being about the Eucharist, specifically because of 00:36:52.640 --> 00:36:55.360 this language that Jesus uses that's conditional. 00:36:55.360 --> 00:37:00.160 Well Well, if baptism now saves you, then it's obvious that if 00:37:00.160 --> 00:37:02.880 you reject baptism, you're rejecting salvation. 00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:04.560 And we talked about in the baptism map. 00:37:04.560 --> 00:37:08.400 So it says nothing about someone who's unable to be baptized. 00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:10.080 You know, it's not a question of rejection. 00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:14.640 If it's a question of the absence of the opportunity, that is 00:37:14.640 --> 00:37:17.200 not something that's going to separate you from Christ, because it is 00:37:17.200 --> 00:37:18.720 faith that saves. 00:37:18.720 --> 00:37:20.320 And that's crucial in all this. 00:37:20.320 --> 00:37:23.440 Faith undergirds salvation, period. 00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:30.080 And there is faith in baptism, and there is faith in communion, 00:37:30.080 --> 00:37:34.560 and there is faith in the forgiveness of sins, the confession, absolution 00:37:34.560 --> 00:37:35.680 of sins. 00:37:35.680 --> 00:37:38.640 Again, this is all God pouring out his gifts to us in 00:37:38.640 --> 00:37:40.320 all these myriad ways. 00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:43.760 And so just when you read the text of this, if you're 00:37:43.680 --> 00:37:49.280 like that can't possibly be because there's this conditional here, try the 00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.960 same let that same logic that you're applying to this to baptism 00:37:53.040 --> 00:37:56.800 so now saves you, and see if baptism survives as a sacrament. 00:37:56.800 --> 00:37:58.800 What you will find is that it doesn't. 00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:04.960 If you remove John six as being also about communion, the logic 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:08.000 by which you do that is going to nullify baptism. 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:11.520 I think that's one of the strongest pieces of evidence that this 00:38:11.520 --> 00:38:12.240 must be. 00:38:12.240 --> 00:38:14.560 It's the same type of thing. 00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:18.720 Another piece of evidence for it is back at the beginning, Jesus 00:38:18.720 --> 00:38:25.600 directly makes the manna in the desert typologically pointing towards the bread 00:38:25.600 --> 00:38:28.400 of life, which is him, which is his body. 00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:30.560 And how do we receive his body? 00:38:30.560 --> 00:38:34.560 If it's spiritual, if it's by faith, then we're not receiving anything 00:38:34.560 --> 00:38:36.880 physical. And the type would fall apart. 00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:38.640 Because they were given manna in the desert. 00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:42.800 There was actual bread that fell from heaven, physical bread. 00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:45.600 They gathered it up in baskets, and they ate it, and as 00:38:45.600 --> 00:38:48.160 he said, it sustained them, but they still died. 00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:51.520 The same is true of all the sacrifices in the Old Testament. 00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:55.120 Blood was shed, but it always pointed towards what? 00:38:55.120 --> 00:38:58.800 The actual shedding of Christ's blood on the cross. 00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:01.920 See this is how the typology in the Old Testament always plays 00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:04.240 out. You have the smaller version that's a physical 00:39:05.520 --> 00:39:10.880 object that points toward the final anti-type of the thing, and that 00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:12.400 is also physical. 00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:15.360 So it would not be possible if if Jesus is making the 00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:20.800 comparison between physical manna from heaven and himself as manna from heaven 00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:22.320 coming from God. 00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:24.720 That doesn't then become allegorical. 00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:28.320 He's still talking about his flesh, as he says over and over. 00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:33.040 He gets he gets gratuitous and commutive in the passage where he's 00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:36.080 talking about his blood being true food, etc. 00:39:36.080 --> 00:39:40.640 So don't ignore that typology as being a necessary part of this 00:39:40.640 --> 00:39:44.240 being sacramental catechesis. 00:39:44.240 --> 00:39:47.120 And I can tell you just from personal experience, there are multiple 00:39:47.120 --> 00:39:51.680 Baptists I know who, when they read this, they cease to be 00:39:51.680 --> 00:39:56.480 Baptists because they realized they precluded that view of the sacrament. 00:39:56.480 --> 00:40:00.160 They realized that they were Lutheran when they actually believed what John 00:40:00.160 --> 00:40:02.560 VI said about communion. 00:40:02.560 --> 00:40:06.720 Now, I find it terrifying that there would be then anyone, but 00:40:06.720 --> 00:40:09.200 especially Lutherans, to come along and say, no, no, no. 00:40:09.200 --> 00:40:11.120 Well that's not about communion. 00:40:11.120 --> 00:40:15.760 If it is having this efficacious and beneficial outcome in the faith 00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:20.000 and the souls of men to realize that a false confession needs 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.720 to be reoriented in a way that is Lutherans, we're like, yes, 00:40:22.720 --> 00:40:25.920 absolutely, that is correct to then say, well, but not that text, 00:40:25.920 --> 00:40:27.280 that can't be it. 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.640 That's judge the tree by its fruit. 00:40:30.640 --> 00:40:34.080 And when men read John 6 and they become Lutheran, please don't 00:40:34.080 --> 00:40:34.880 argue with them. 00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:36.720 Please just don't do that. 00:40:36.720 --> 00:40:41.360 You know, the same sort of typology incidentally is used by Jesus 00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:43.760 elsewhere, again pointing physically. 00:40:44.080 --> 00:40:47.760 We always quote John three sixteen and sometimes seventeen and eighteen, but 00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:51.760 John three fourteen says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in 00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:55.040 the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that 00:40:55.040 --> 00:40:57.760 whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:00.800 Now it's if you remember that story, they were being they'd been 00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:04.000 cursed by God, they were being bitten by poisonous snakes and dying. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.360 God told Moses to craft a bronze serpent, put it up on 00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:08.000 a pole. 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:11.920 Whoever looked, whoever gazed upon that serpent, would be saved from the 00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:15.600 poison. He did it, and many of Israel lived. 00:41:15.600 --> 00:41:20.880 And Jesus himself says in John 3: This is typological of me 00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:23.200 hanging on the cursed tree of the cross. 00:41:23.200 --> 00:41:28.960 The bronze serpent was a typological pointer to Christ's sacrifice when he 00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:30.560 was crucified. 00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:33.280 Again, there's physical on both ends of that. 00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:37.920 You will not have typology where the physical version then just sort 00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:40.000 of falls off into what? 00:41:40.160 --> 00:41:41.680 It It doesn't just vanish into space. 00:41:41.680 --> 00:41:43.600 It can't just float away. 00:41:43.600 --> 00:41:46.320 It has to point to something physical. 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:51.440 So please you know one of the interesting things about the reason 00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:55.680 that Luther doesn't necessarily go as hard as we do with this 00:41:55.840 --> 00:42:01.280 is that John 6 is not necessary for the Lutheran view of 00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:02.800 the Sacrament of Communion. 00:42:03.040 --> 00:42:06.640 if John VI were not present, we would still have much the 00:42:06.640 --> 00:42:07.920 same understanding. 00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:10.400 And that's part of why he was he just didn't want to 00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:12.000 fight with the reformed anymore. 00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:15.040 At the end of his life, he was sick of constantly doing 00:42:15.040 --> 00:42:18.880 the same battles over and over again. 00:42:18.880 --> 00:42:22.560 That fact that a man a man would make a concession so 00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:25.440 as not to have to keep getting beaten about the face and 00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:29.040 head doesn't mean that it doesn't apply. 00:42:29.040 --> 00:42:32.160 It just means that sometimes you're gonna if you have the argument 00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:36.720 nailed down elsewhere, you don't need additional evidence. 00:42:36.720 --> 00:42:39.280 But we have the luxury, you know, like certainly Corey and I 00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:41.360 have the luxury if no one's yelling at us because you don't 00:42:41.280 --> 00:42:44.320 have mics, you you're you're yelling, but we can't hear you, so 00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:46.640 we can just go on and on. 00:42:46.640 --> 00:42:50.400 When we point to this, it's because it's all it's all what 00:42:50.400 --> 00:42:51.280 Jesus said. 00:42:51.280 --> 00:42:54.640 This is by far the richest and most fleshed out, I'm not 00:42:54.640 --> 00:42:58.720 saying that ironically, version of catechesis. 00:42:58.720 --> 00:43:01.760 And so as we get into the actual words of institution, just 00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:05.360 keep in mind the reaction that the apostles had, you know, the 00:43:05.360 --> 00:43:09.360 disciples and they're gathered in the upper room on Monday, Thursday. 00:43:09.360 --> 00:43:10.480 There was no arguing. 00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:12.800 There was no saying, how can this be? 00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:17.760 There was nothing except for acquiescence because their teacher had already explained 00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:18.800 it to them. 00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:22.960 And this is something that I think it's an important thing when 00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:26.560 you're reading the New Testament, particularly when you're reading the Gospels and 00:43:26.560 --> 00:43:28.960 then move to Acts and beyond. 00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:34.480 Prior to Pentecost, these twelve men, you know, eleven survived because Judas 00:43:34.560 --> 00:43:36.880 obviously apostatized and was killed and then replaced. 00:43:37.040 --> 00:43:39.920 He killed himself, self-murdered. 00:43:39.920 --> 00:43:44.400 These men went to seminary with God for three years, three and 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:45.200 a half years. 00:43:45.200 --> 00:43:47.360 Jesus taught them every day. 00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:49.840 They lived together, they ate together morning till night. 00:43:49.840 --> 00:43:53.840 They They were constantly discussing these things and he was constantly teaching 00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:59.120 them. in many places it's recorded, Jesus telling them you basically you'll 00:43:59.120 --> 00:44:00.080 understand later. 00:44:00.080 --> 00:44:03.600 And they understood later at Pentecost, when they received the gift of 00:44:03.600 --> 00:44:09.760 the Holy Spirit, this teaching, this the catechesis in the seminary education 00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:15.200 that they received at Christ's feet was unlocked by the Holy Spirit. 00:44:15.200 --> 00:44:19.760 And so I think one of the things that's I think we 00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:23.040 kind of just assume today, we kind of read into the text 00:44:23.040 --> 00:44:28.160 of Acts and beyond, well, the apostles were special and they were 00:44:28.160 --> 00:44:31.600 inspired by God and we just kind of assume that what they 00:44:31.600 --> 00:44:37.440 say in Acts and beyond was new revelation from God directly. 00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:40.720 I think it's a much more natural reading, particularly when you look 00:44:40.720 --> 00:44:43.200 at what happens, you know, from the end of you know especially 00:44:43.200 --> 00:44:46.080 the end of Luke to Acts, which is effectively part one and 00:44:46.080 --> 00:44:47.840 part two of the same book. 00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:52.480 I wish John came first and then Luke and Acts were bookended. 00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:55.840 Because when you look at that, Peter in particular, you know, Peter's 00:44:56.080 --> 00:44:58.400 like the Kool-Aid man of theology. 00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:04.800 he's boisterous and he's enthusiastic and he just crashes through walls and 00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:06.000 he's like, What's up guys? 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:09.840 I'm I'm gonna be the loudest, most confident man in the room, 00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.080 even if he has no idea what he's talking about. 00:45:12.080 --> 00:45:13.280 And God bless him for it. 00:45:13.280 --> 00:45:17.040 Because many of his confessions, even when he didn't understand something, he 00:45:17.040 --> 00:45:18.160 still got enough right. 00:45:18.240 --> 00:45:22.480 He's like, yeah, that's that is a good model for our faith. 00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:25.680 And yet what do we see immediately after Pentecost? 00:45:25.680 --> 00:45:28.960 He's the man who stands up and just unloads this sermon out 00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:30.800 of nowhere that's beautiful. 00:45:31.200 --> 00:45:33.440 it's rich, it's it's textural. 00:45:33.440 --> 00:45:37.040 There's so much theology and scripture that he pulls in. 00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:39.600 And in some cases, it is new teaching. 00:45:39.600 --> 00:45:44.000 But I think that if you understand that the Holy Spirit unlocked 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:49.680 the seminary education that had been locked away behind blinders, it makes 00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:51.760 a lot more sense where all that stuff came from. 00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:54.800 And so as these men, as the apostles who had lived with 00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:57.920 Jesus for three and a half years, as they go on on 00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:01.120 with the rest of their lives in their ministries, they certainly did 00:46:01.120 --> 00:46:03.040 receive direct revelation. 00:46:03.040 --> 00:46:05.920 Paul in particular did not have the benefit. 00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:07.920 So he was talking to God directly. 00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:09.520 God communicated with him. 00:46:09.520 --> 00:46:11.520 Something that does not exist for us today. 00:46:11.520 --> 00:46:14.560 So I'm not minimizing the fact that they did in some case, 00:46:14.560 --> 00:46:19.120 you know, John obviously with his revelation, the apocalypse, that was all 00:46:19.120 --> 00:46:21.440 new. That was directly coming from God. 00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:24.240 That wasn't something the book itself says this was a a direct 00:46:24.720 --> 00:46:27.680 revelation, it wasn't something that Jesus told him. 00:46:27.680 --> 00:46:33.760 So they absolutely did in some cases receive new inspired teaching. 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:38.000 They were inspired, but much of what they were inspired by was 00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:43.760 not immediate, but it was uh through their seminary education with Jesus. 00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:45.760 And so just keep that in mind as as you look at 00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:48.720 the things that they say in Acts and beyond, and even as 00:46:48.720 --> 00:46:52.080 the the passages we're about to read on the night of the 00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:57.520 last supper, and then what Paul says about the same moment, the 00:46:57.520 --> 00:47:01.440 fact that they just sit sat there and received it faithfully with 00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:03.920 no argument, they're short, they're brief scenes. 00:47:03.920 --> 00:47:06.000 It's obviously a very short scene that were given. 00:47:06.160 --> 00:47:08.000 It was an entire night. 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:11.440 But the fact that God doesn't say anything about them arguing or 00:47:11.440 --> 00:47:16.160 grumbling or doubting or anything is a clear indication that they'd heard 00:47:16.160 --> 00:47:17.040 this before. 00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:20.080 They'd heard it at the feeding of the five thousand. 00:47:20.080 --> 00:47:21.840 And so it wasn't new information. 00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:24.880 It was the fulfillment of what had already been taught. 00:47:24.880 --> 00:47:28.000 That's exactly how catechesis works in churches today. 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.640 Almost every church, whatever their views of communion, there's sip typically some 00:47:32.640 --> 00:47:35.680 form of teaching before communion. 00:47:35.680 --> 00:47:37.280 That's it's the same thing. 00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:39.120 You teach and then you deliver. 00:47:39.120 --> 00:47:43.440 So the disconnection temporally from you know, the feeding of five thousand 00:47:43.600 --> 00:47:47.520 to later on in the upper room when they actually received first 00:47:47.680 --> 00:47:51.200 communion, the first communion, it makes perfect sense. 00:47:51.200 --> 00:47:54.320 It's the same model that we have followed ever since. 00:47:54.320 --> 00:47:57.680 You teach someone what it is, and then you give it to 00:47:57.680 --> 00:48:00.320 them, just as Jesus did for the apostles. 00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:02.960 It's been passed on to all of us as well. 00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:08.240 Before we get into the passages dealing with the words of institution, 00:48:08.240 --> 00:48:10.240 and we'll really deal with just two of those. 00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:11.680 They're a couple of parallel ones. 00:48:11.680 --> 00:48:15.040 We'll mention the parallel ones, but not read them into the episode 00:48:15.120 --> 00:48:16.480 as it were. 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:20.400 I want to address promise and typology. 00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:21.680 First promise. 00:48:23.360 --> 00:48:27.680 Promise is a central concept to everything we're discussing here, and indeed 00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:32.480 to the Christian faith, and the reason for that is how do 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:35.440 you receive a promise? 00:48:35.440 --> 00:48:38.800 Because what is promised here in the Lord's Supper is the forgiveness 00:48:38.800 --> 00:48:39.280 of sins. 00:48:39.280 --> 00:48:41.600 We'll get into that with the words of institution. 00:48:41.600 --> 00:48:46.320 What is promised in baptism is forgiveness of sins. 00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:48.960 But how do you receive a promise? 00:48:49.200 --> 00:48:53.680 If I promise you that I will do something, the only way 00:48:53.680 --> 00:48:58.480 that you can receive that promise from me is to believe what 00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:01.200 I've said. 00:49:01.200 --> 00:49:04.880 You have to believe that I will do what I have said 00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:06.000 I will do. 00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:10.320 It's faith, it's belief, that is how you receive a promise. 00:49:10.320 --> 00:49:13.200 And so all of these things, the core of the Christian faith, 00:49:13.200 --> 00:49:18.560 the things we are dealing in here Are promises. 00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:21.360 You receive those via faith. 00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:25.280 And so when someone tells you that, oh well, this teaching means 00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:26.960 there's works, no, it doesn't. 00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:29.520 This has nothing to do with human works. 00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:33.360 It has everything to do with Christ's work. 00:49:33.360 --> 00:49:38.720 But it is not a human work that receives the promise. 00:49:38.720 --> 00:49:43.040 It is faith, and faith is the free gift of God. 00:49:43.040 --> 00:49:48.400 And so God gives you the capacity, the attribute, the thing that 00:49:48.400 --> 00:49:49.360 receives 00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:52.480 the promise, and that is faith. 00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:55.680 And so there's no work here on your part. 00:49:55.680 --> 00:49:59.200 It is all from God, because He gives you both the capacity 00:49:59.200 --> 00:50:02.400 to receive the promise, and then He gives you the promise as 00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:07.200 well. And the second point I wanted to make is the issue 00:50:07.200 --> 00:50:09.520 of typology. 00:50:09.520 --> 00:50:13.600 We've spoken of typology a fair number of times in this podcast, 00:50:13.600 --> 00:50:16.000 and we will continue to do so. 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:22.560 I find it very unfortunate that many modern Christian denominations have essentially 00:50:23.120 --> 00:50:24.560 jettisoned typology. 00:50:24.560 --> 00:50:29.040 It's no longer taught, it's no longer used, it's ignored. 00:50:29.040 --> 00:50:34.160 And that is deeply unfortunate because Scripture is incredibly rich, and a 00:50:34.160 --> 00:50:39.520 great deal of that richness comes from typology, because typology flows from 00:50:39.520 --> 00:50:42.880 the beginning of Scripture all the way to the end. 00:50:42.880 --> 00:50:47.120 And just as one example of that, you have the tree of 00:50:47.120 --> 00:50:52.000 life standing in the New Jerusalem in Revelation, but you also have 00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:54.320 the tree of life all the way back in Genesis in the 00:50:54.320 --> 00:51:00.480 garden. But you also have the tree of life in Christ. 00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:02.480 Christ is the tree of life. 00:51:02.480 --> 00:51:06.720 It is his flesh that is given for food to the world, 00:51:06.720 --> 00:51:12.480 to the elect, and it gives us eternal life, it gives us 00:51:12.480 --> 00:51:18.080 salvation. Now to be clear, that salvation is offered to everyone. 00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:19.440 Scripture is incredibly clear. 00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:23.040 Tan cosmon, it is cosmos, the universe, it is all things that 00:51:23.040 --> 00:51:24.560 are redeemed in Christ. 00:51:24.560 --> 00:51:28.720 It is the elect, and only the elect who benefit from it 00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:33.760 the difference between the objective and the subjective justification. 00:51:33.760 --> 00:51:36.880 But typology flows throughout Scripture. 00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:41.280 You have typology of Christ's sacrifice and of our worship in the 00:51:41.280 --> 00:51:43.760 Old Testament sacrificial system. 00:51:43.760 --> 00:51:48.240 You have the typology of Christ as the rock with the rock 00:51:48.640 --> 00:51:52.560 in the Old Testament, out of whom out of which, depending on 00:51:52.560 --> 00:51:56.720 your emphasis there flows living water, water of life, that keeps the 00:51:56.720 --> 00:51:59.680 ancient Israelites alive in the desert. 00:51:59.680 --> 00:52:03.760 And speaking of flowing waters, I will make one sort of tangential 00:52:03.760 --> 00:52:06.800 point here right before I get into Matthew. 00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:13.600 We see both sacraments flowing directly from Christ on Golgotha. 00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:18.880 When his side is pierced by that spear, what flows out? 00:52:18.880 --> 00:52:21.600 It is water and blood. 00:52:21.600 --> 00:52:23.360 So what do you have present there? 00:52:23.360 --> 00:52:27.680 You have his body, you have water, and you have his blood. 00:52:27.680 --> 00:52:28.560 Well that's baptism 00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:31.760 and that's the sacrament of the table. 00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:32.800 That's the Lord's Supper. 00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:41.600 You have both sacraments, typologically and physically present, there on the cross. 00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:45.840 But now I'll read from Matthew twenty-six the words of institution. 00:52:45.840 --> 00:52:49.280 I said I would give the parallel chapters as well, the parallel 00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:53.680 sections. Those would be Mark 14 and Luke 22, but we'll be 00:52:53.680 --> 00:52:55.120 reading from Matthew 26 00:52:56.480 --> 00:53:00.240 Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it 00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:04.640 broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, 00:53:04.640 --> 00:53:06.160 this is my body. 00:53:06.160 --> 00:53:08.720 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he 00:53:08.720 --> 00:53:12.000 gave it to them, saying, Drink of it all of you, for 00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:14.880 this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for 00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:17.120 many for the forgiveness of sins. 00:53:17.120 --> 00:53:19.680 I tell you that I will not drink again of this fruit 00:53:19.680 --> 00:53:22.880 of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with 00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:24.960 you in my father's kingdom. 00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:25.600 There 00:53:25.680 --> 00:53:28.800 are a few important parts of this that uh we didn't already 00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:30.800 cover in John six. 00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:36.080 One he specifically says, This is my blood of the covenant which 00:53:36.080 --> 00:53:39.600 is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 00:53:39.600 --> 00:53:45.760 Now this is crucial because he's saying that communion does something. 00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:46.800 What does it do? 00:53:46.800 --> 00:53:48.560 It forgives sins. 00:53:48.560 --> 00:53:51.680 Again, there's no work here of any man. 00:53:51.680 --> 00:53:53.520 The work is of God. 00:53:53.520 --> 00:53:56.000 The deliverance is through means. 00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:59.280 We receive those means of grace, and they are indeed means of 00:53:59.280 --> 00:54:03.520 grace. And this is a this is a point where thankfully the 00:54:03.520 --> 00:54:08.480 Reformed, the Lutherans, and the Roman Catholics all agree that communion does 00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:10.560 deliver the forgiveness of sins. 00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:15.760 Baptists, the Anabaptists stand alone in rejecting that because they 00:54:16.640 --> 00:54:19.760 do not understand what sola fide means. 00:54:19.760 --> 00:54:24.160 They think that anything that any man does can't possibly have anything 00:54:24.160 --> 00:54:26.960 to do with forgiveness of sins because that would be us taking 00:54:26.960 --> 00:54:30.720 credit. Jesus, God everywhere says the opposite. 00:54:30.720 --> 00:54:33.840 There's a whole bunch of stuff where God tells us where he's 00:54:33.760 --> 00:54:35.840 going to deliver the forgiveness of sins. 00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:37.600 Baptism now saves you. 00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:42.000 This blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins, just as 00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:45.200 his body was sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins. 00:54:45.200 --> 00:54:50.000 And again, typologically, that was the essence of the sacrificial system. 00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:55.760 There were blood offerings and there were meat offerings that were typologically 00:54:55.760 --> 00:55:00.240 pointing forward to the cross, to the final, the ultimate, the the 00:55:00.240 --> 00:55:04.160 pure, the only sacrifice that actually mattered. 00:55:04.160 --> 00:55:09.840 Because it says elsewhere in the New Testament that those sacrifices couldn't 00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:11.840 do anything by themselves. 00:55:11.840 --> 00:55:13.680 They were an expression of faith. 00:55:13.680 --> 00:55:18.720 They pointed to Jesus, perfect sacrifice, once and for all time. 00:55:18.720 --> 00:55:22.640 So So the words of institution when it talks about the forgiveness 00:55:22.640 --> 00:55:27.600 of sins, it's not simply talking about Jesus' blood was shed on 00:55:27.600 --> 00:55:29.280 the cross for the forgiveness of sins. 00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:32.240 Remember, this is take eat, this is my body, drink of it 00:55:32.240 --> 00:55:34.800 all of you, for this is the blood, my blood of the 00:55:34.800 --> 00:55:40.160 covenant. This is how the forgiveness of sins is delivered, which is 00:55:40.160 --> 00:55:43.280 precisely what Jesus said in John 6. 00:55:43.280 --> 00:55:48.080 He said, Whoever has true flesh and and drinks true blood is 00:55:48.080 --> 00:55:50.480 going to receive eternal life. 00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:52.160 That was the whole point of that. 00:55:52.160 --> 00:55:55.440 And that's why people got annoyed and they wandered off. 00:55:55.440 --> 00:55:56.880 Like that can't be. 00:55:57.200 --> 00:56:01.360 they were confused and they were annoyed because they took it literally. 00:56:01.360 --> 00:56:03.600 They listened to John 6 literally. 00:56:03.600 --> 00:56:04.720 He didn't correct them. 00:56:04.720 --> 00:56:05.840 He didn't say, no, no. 00:56:05.840 --> 00:56:06.480 It's figurative. 00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:07.120 If Don't worry about it. 00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:11.040 It's not actually about blood and body and you know there's nothing 00:56:11.040 --> 00:56:11.600 gross here. 00:56:11.600 --> 00:56:12.480 It's okay. 00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:13.920 He didn't say that at all. 00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:16.880 He's let him go and asked the disciples, and you know the 00:56:16.880 --> 00:56:18.160 twelve, what do you think? 00:56:18.240 --> 00:56:20.240 You can leave too. 00:56:20.240 --> 00:56:24.560 So So again, this is why it is a sacrament to us 00:56:24.640 --> 00:56:27.520 and really to everyone, except the Baptist. 00:56:27.520 --> 00:56:29.840 And if you're Baptist and you reject that, I'm we're not trying 00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:30.640 to pick on you. 00:56:30.640 --> 00:56:36.240 We're trying to clearly delineate the substantial distinctions among us and the 00:56:36.240 --> 00:56:41.440 reasons why we're not the same denomination, why until such disputes rooted 00:56:41.440 --> 00:56:46.320 in scripture are resolved, there can't be complete unanimity on what the 00:56:46.320 --> 00:56:47.120 faith means. 00:56:47.120 --> 00:56:48.480 Because this is big ticket stuff. 00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:52.960 This the remember the the night the words of institution given on 00:56:52.960 --> 00:56:54.800 the night in which he was betrayed. 00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:56.400 That was his very last act. 00:56:56.400 --> 00:56:59.520 Everything else was him being taken in the garden and then executed 00:57:00.080 --> 00:57:04.640 and rising and it was this was his last act of ministry 00:57:04.720 --> 00:57:09.520 effectively. Everything after this was leading to his death and resurrection. 00:57:09.520 --> 00:57:12.800 I'm not saying that's not ministry, but this was his last teaching 00:57:12.800 --> 00:57:16.480 moment. Everything he said afterwards is like look, I'm fulfilling what I 00:57:16.480 --> 00:57:19.360 came to do, I did it. 00:57:19.360 --> 00:57:21.360 The other thing I want to point to is that he says 00:57:21.520 --> 00:57:24.000 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of 00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:26.480 the vine until that day when I drink it with you new 00:57:26.480 --> 00:57:27.840 in my father's kingdom. 00:57:27.840 --> 00:57:31.120 For Fruit of the vine is synonymous with wine. 00:57:31.120 --> 00:57:33.840 It's used in lots of different places in scripture. 00:57:33.840 --> 00:57:35.600 There's only one thing that it means. 00:57:35.600 --> 00:57:40.080 It means alcoholic wine, which is itself redundant. 00:57:40.080 --> 00:57:42.720 There's no such thing as non-alcoholic wine. 00:57:42.720 --> 00:57:43.680 Now I'm doxxed. 00:57:43.680 --> 00:57:45.920 I can say I started a distillery. 00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:49.360 I produced hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol. 00:57:49.360 --> 00:57:53.280 And both as an industry expert and as someone who could do 00:57:53.280 --> 00:57:56.640 this very experiment that you could do in your garage, if you 00:57:56.640 --> 00:58:00.880 take a pail and you mash up a bunch of grapes and 00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:03.600 you put a lid on it and you put something on it 00:58:03.600 --> 00:58:06.480 to kind of seal it in and you it's called a bubbler. 00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:08.720 You can put something that will kind of make just a one-way 00:58:08.880 --> 00:58:12.240 passage where you put a little water in it so gases can 00:58:12.240 --> 00:58:15.600 escape, but nothing can get in, and just let it sit for 00:58:15.600 --> 00:58:16.320 the weekend. 00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:19.920 When you come back several days later, it's going to be bubbling. 00:58:19.920 --> 00:58:22.400 And the reason it's going to be bubbling is that you've now 00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:23.760 produced alcohol. 00:58:23.760 --> 00:58:28.000 All you did was squished some grapes through in a bucket and 00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:29.520 you've produced alcohol. 00:58:29.520 --> 00:58:35.520 Why? Because there's everywhere in nature, in what certainly, absolutely everywhere in 00:58:35.520 --> 00:58:39.120 nature in Jesus' day, yeast is on everything. 00:58:39.120 --> 00:58:42.720 Natural yeast is on all the fruit in the universe. 00:58:42.720 --> 00:58:43.920 It's just there. 00:58:44.320 --> 00:58:45.360 it's regional. 00:58:45.360 --> 00:58:48.160 It's specific to different types of plants. 00:58:48.160 --> 00:58:51.520 It's specific to parts of the country, parts of the world. 00:58:51.520 --> 00:58:53.600 There's always yeast on stuff. 00:58:53.600 --> 00:58:59.360 Yeast in the presence of sugar with the right, you know, pH 00:58:59.360 --> 00:59:05.120 and the right temperatures is going to produce two things. 00:59:05.120 --> 00:59:08.240 It's going to burp carbon dioxide, which is why you would get 00:59:08.240 --> 00:59:11.200 bubbles coming out of your little bubbler if you seal this package 00:59:11.200 --> 00:59:15.280 up. And it's going to excrete ethanol, which is alcohol. 00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:17.520 This is how God made the universe. 00:59:17.520 --> 00:59:21.280 It's not like man used some sort of alchemy to begin, you 00:59:21.280 --> 00:59:25.120 know, demons didn't need to teach anybody how to make alcohol. 00:59:25.120 --> 00:59:28.960 You accidentally get alcohol if you just mishandle fruit. 00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:31.680 The Mongolians they had fermented yaks milk. 00:59:32.080 --> 00:59:36.160 they things get alcoholic very easily. 00:59:36.480 --> 00:59:40.240 Now, the degree of alcohol that's present can vary, but when Jesus 00:59:40.240 --> 00:59:43.200 says fruit of the vine, he's only talking about one thing. 00:59:43.200 --> 00:59:47.360 He is talking about real natural wine with alcohol, and not just 00:59:47.360 --> 00:59:48.880 a little bit either. 00:59:48.880 --> 00:59:52.080 You know, he's it the the very first miracle that he did 00:59:52.080 --> 00:59:56.560 at the wedding of Cana produced a huge volume of alcohol. 00:59:56.560 --> 00:59:58.160 Why? Because it was a party. 00:59:58.160 --> 00:59:59.120 And what does he say? 00:59:59.120 --> 01:00:00.880 There's gonna be wine in heaven. 01:00:00.880 --> 01:00:03.040 Alcohol is part of creation. 01:00:03.040 --> 01:00:04.960 It is not a part of the fall. 01:00:04.960 --> 01:00:08.080 It is how God made everything to work. 01:00:08.080 --> 01:00:13.040 And so it's notable that you know today there are denominations that 01:00:13.040 --> 01:00:18.000 reject near their teetotalers either entirely or they simply reject wine in 01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:24.240 the sacrament, one that is completely in violation of the words of 01:00:24.240 --> 01:00:29.200 institution. If you are not using wine, you are not having communion. 01:00:29.520 --> 01:00:31.440 Because God says to use wine. 01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:36.480 You know, the Trayvon Martin communion with Skittles in the Arizona iced 01:00:36.480 --> 01:00:39.600 tea, that's the kind of theology that you're employing if you think 01:00:39.600 --> 01:00:41.840 you can just start substituting stuff. 01:00:41.840 --> 01:00:43.760 And notably grape juice. 01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:46.640 People like, oh, we you juice grapes and you can have no 01:00:46.640 --> 01:00:48.240 alcohol. No, you can't. 01:00:48.240 --> 01:00:52.800 The reason that grape juice exists today is that a Wesleyan Methodist 01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:59.440 named Welch denied communion and wanted to produce non-alcoholic wine so that 01:00:59.440 --> 01:01:03.680 his abolitionist teetotaling Methodist congregation could 01:01:05.040 --> 01:01:08.000 practice communion as they thought they were, they were not. 01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:10.080 It was, it was a it was a farce. 01:01:10.080 --> 01:01:16.000 But the very existence of pasteurized grapes and grape juice, it's a 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:20.080 modern scientific synthetic rejection of scripture. 01:01:20.080 --> 01:01:22.240 That's the only reason it exists today. 01:01:22.240 --> 01:01:26.400 It was created for the purpose of denying what God said to 01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:29.120 do. And so today you go to the story, like you have 01:01:29.120 --> 01:01:31.280 the wine aisle and you have the juice aisle. 01:01:31.280 --> 01:01:32.800 And you think, oh, this is all just natural. 01:01:32.800 --> 01:01:36.000 You know, you can, you know, the it it seems obvious when 01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:40.160 you're at the grocery store that obviously juice is the natural product 01:01:40.320 --> 01:01:43.360 and then wine is the special product that you know the bad 01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:45.600 the bad boys make if they want to make alcohol Alcohol. 01:01:45.600 --> 01:01:46.880 It's the other way around. 01:01:46.880 --> 01:01:48.880 All you get in nature is alcohol. 01:01:48.880 --> 01:01:52.400 You have to work really hard to actually just make juice that's 01:01:52.320 --> 01:01:53.600 never gonna grow anything. 01:01:53.600 --> 01:01:56.320 That is a much more unnatural product. 01:01:56.320 --> 01:01:59.840 So when Jesus says fruit of the vine, elsewhere he says wine, 01:01:59.840 --> 01:02:02.400 he's talking about alcohol. 01:02:02.400 --> 01:02:06.160 Alcohol is not only a gift from God, but it is explicitly 01:02:06.160 --> 01:02:09.440 commanded of us for the purpose of communion. 01:02:09.440 --> 01:02:11.200 Even if you don't want to drink it anywhere else, you must 01:02:12.080 --> 01:02:15.920 drink wine at communion because that's what God instituted. 01:02:16.080 --> 01:02:17.200 I think one of the 01:02:18.480 --> 01:02:22.240 one of the disputes that has sort of evolved over time is 01:02:22.240 --> 01:02:26.560 after the Reformation, when we started everyone started getting really fiddly in 01:02:26.560 --> 01:02:32.480 introspective with the sacrament, there became this impulse to try to create 01:02:32.480 --> 01:02:34.320 the minimum viable communion. 01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:38.960 What is the smallest set of operant conditions we can have where 01:02:38.960 --> 01:02:40.800 it's still communion. 01:02:40.800 --> 01:02:45.200 And I I personally despise this impulse in so many people because 01:02:45.200 --> 01:02:47.360 it's just do what God said. 01:02:47.360 --> 01:02:48.320 What does he say? 01:02:48.320 --> 01:02:50.240 He says, take, eat. 01:02:50.240 --> 01:02:51.520 Here's Here's what it is. 01:02:51.520 --> 01:02:54.800 Say this, do this, eat it, receive it. 01:02:54.800 --> 01:02:55.760 That's it. 01:02:55.760 --> 01:02:57.040 That is communion. 01:02:57.040 --> 01:02:58.640 The whole thing is communion. 01:02:58.640 --> 01:03:01.520 If you don't have wine, you don't have communion. 01:03:01.520 --> 01:03:06.080 If you consecrate it, and then instead of eating it, you put 01:03:06.080 --> 01:03:09.280 it in a monstrance and you parade it around. 01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:10.960 That's not communion either. 01:03:10.960 --> 01:03:14.880 It you're taking something that God intended for one purpose and saying, 01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:17.760 I'm not gonna do what you said, I'm gonna do something else. 01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:19.840 This is one of this is one of the reasons I mentioned 01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:21.520 the Reformation episode. 01:03:21.520 --> 01:03:26.480 The Lutheran confessions in some places refer to the Roman Catholic Mass 01:03:26.480 --> 01:03:28.240 as the abomination of the Mass. 01:03:28.240 --> 01:03:30.720 This is one of the reasons, is it when they consecrate the 01:03:30.720 --> 01:03:35.520 bread and wine, one, you know, in the words of institution, Jesus 01:03:35.520 --> 01:03:39.200 and Paul both clearly say eat and drink. 01:03:39.200 --> 01:03:42.080 One of the things that Rome has long done is denied people 01:03:42.080 --> 01:03:46.080 the if you call it right, they're denied the wine. 01:03:46.080 --> 01:03:47.920 They're only given the bread. 01:03:47.920 --> 01:03:52.000 And there's a logical construction there that well, if because the bread 01:03:52.000 --> 01:03:55.920 is the body, which is true, and the body must necessarily have 01:03:55.920 --> 01:03:56.720 blood in it. 01:03:56.720 --> 01:03:59.680 They're already getting blood, so they don't need the wine. 01:03:59.680 --> 01:04:01.360 That's not what God said to do. 01:04:01.600 --> 01:04:03.040 why are you trying to logic this? 01:04:03.040 --> 01:04:05.120 There's what problem are you trying to solve? 01:04:05.120 --> 01:04:07.360 Just do what God said to do. 01:04:07.360 --> 01:04:11.120 And And one of the other abuses that occurs in Rome is 01:04:11.120 --> 01:04:11.440 that 01:04:13.360 --> 01:04:18.320 they will consecrate the bread, they will say that it has transubstantiated 01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:21.920 into Christ's flesh, and then rather than eating it, which is what 01:04:21.920 --> 01:04:26.480 God said to do, at some point they decided, you know what, 01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:27.040 we got God. 01:04:27.280 --> 01:04:28.800 Right here, we got God on a plate. 01:04:28.800 --> 01:04:30.480 And as I said, they have these monsters. 01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:36.560 There's monstrances are very fancy presentation cases where they will preserve and 01:04:36.560 --> 01:04:42.400 parade around the body of Christ, the host, to to adore it. 01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:46.160 Now not only is this an abuse of what is actually directed 01:04:46.160 --> 01:04:50.240 in scripture, which says nothing of the sort, but it also is 01:04:50.240 --> 01:04:55.520 a direct corollary to the events of the Old Testament where you 01:04:55.520 --> 01:04:59.760 know we mentioned the bronze serpent that Moses created at God's command. 01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:02.480 God said, Create this image of a serpent, put it up on 01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:06.080 a on a wooden pole, everyone who looks upon it will be 01:05:06.080 --> 01:05:09.680 healed, they will be saved, they won't die from the poison. 01:05:09.680 --> 01:05:14.080 They did that, they obeyed, and then that bronze serpent shows up 01:05:14.080 --> 01:05:19.120 later in the Old Testament as a false idol named Nehushtun. 01:05:19.120 --> 01:05:23.440 They saved the serpent because, like, well, God did this one good 01:05:23.440 --> 01:05:25.360 thing with it, it's pretty cool. 01:05:25.440 --> 01:05:27.200 Yeah, we we spent some time on it. 01:05:27.200 --> 01:05:27.920 We got this. 01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:30.080 Let's see what else we can do with it. 01:05:30.640 --> 01:05:35.440 they saved something that God gave for a good purpose, and they 01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:37.760 started worshipping it. 01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:41.920 They named it Nehushton, and they worshipped the bronze serpent as an 01:05:41.920 --> 01:05:45.760 idol. They took the very thing that God had provided according to 01:05:45.760 --> 01:05:50.080 his good will as a salvific means of the flesh, not of 01:05:50.080 --> 01:05:55.360 the soul, and they they they turned it into idolatry. 01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:59.120 This is exactly what the Roman Catholics do with their corpus christi 01:05:59.280 --> 01:06:03.600 parades. They were given something for one purpose, they abuse it, they 01:06:03.600 --> 01:06:06.720 rip it from that purpose, and they parade it around and they 01:06:06.720 --> 01:06:07.600 worship it. 01:06:07.600 --> 01:06:09.120 It's Nahishtan worship. 01:06:09.360 --> 01:06:11.520 it's it's an abomination. 01:06:11.520 --> 01:06:16.080 And so on one hand, they had the obedience to believe and 01:06:16.080 --> 01:06:20.160 to do everything up until eating or drinking, where they deny the 01:06:20.160 --> 01:06:21.680 drinking uh to some 01:06:23.200 --> 01:06:25.280 just just do what God said. 01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:27.840 And so I think that's one of the key distinctives when you're 01:06:27.760 --> 01:06:32.880 looking at some of the variations in different denominational treatments of this 01:06:32.880 --> 01:06:37.360 stuff, how closely are you following what God said to do? 01:06:37.360 --> 01:06:39.440 If he says wine, you're like, no, I don't want wine. 01:06:39.440 --> 01:06:41.440 No, I you know, I think it's sinful to drink. 01:06:41.440 --> 01:06:46.480 Well, crucially, not only does God not say that it's sinful to 01:06:46.480 --> 01:06:52.080 drink alcohol, God commands the drinking of alcohol for the forgiveness of 01:06:52.080 --> 01:06:57.360 sins. And just as one last aside here, makes me incredibly, incredibly 01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:03.520 angry when there's someone who's an alcoholic who is told, No, it's 01:07:03.520 --> 01:07:07.520 okay if you don't drink any wine in communion because I understand 01:07:07.520 --> 01:07:10.320 that you're forbidden to ever have any alcohol again. 01:07:10.320 --> 01:07:11.440 One, that's not true. 01:07:11.440 --> 01:07:12.960 That's not what AA teaches. 01:07:12.960 --> 01:07:16.080 And even if it were, that would make AA a false cult 01:07:16.240 --> 01:07:18.000 in opposition to Christianity. 01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:21.360 And to whatever extent that might be true, it's neither here nor 01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:23.840 there, they do a lot of good, but there's also some very 01:07:23.840 --> 01:07:25.200 weird stuff about it. 01:07:25.200 --> 01:07:28.640 The simple fact is that if someone else teaches you, you will 01:07:28.640 --> 01:07:32.880 sin by drinking alcohol when God says this alcohol is for the 01:07:32.880 --> 01:07:37.840 forgiveness of sins, if you believe the man, you're denying God. 01:07:37.840 --> 01:07:38.560 You're sinning. 01:07:38.560 --> 01:07:40.480 You're violating the first and second commandments. 01:07:40.480 --> 01:07:41.840 You're calling God a liar. 01:07:41.840 --> 01:07:44.400 God says to do something like no, God, I can't do that. 01:07:44.400 --> 01:07:46.160 You said it's to forgive my sins. 01:07:46.160 --> 01:07:48.160 I would sin if I did that. 01:07:48.160 --> 01:07:52.880 And just as a mathematical question, the amount of alcohol in a 01:07:52.880 --> 01:07:58.160 small sip cannot possibly raise your blood alcohol whatsoever. 01:07:58.160 --> 01:07:58.480 So 01:07:59.760 --> 01:08:02.240 I understand that there are people who struggle with addiction. 01:08:02.240 --> 01:08:03.920 I have friends who struggle with addiction. 01:08:03.920 --> 01:08:06.320 I understand. 01:08:06.320 --> 01:08:11.600 This one specific case must be the exception. 01:08:11.600 --> 01:08:16.880 If you sincerely believe that you are going to sin by obeying 01:08:16.880 --> 01:08:19.840 God, you shouldn't communing anyway. 01:08:19.840 --> 01:08:22.720 Not until you get straightened out to the fact that God is 01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:24.880 saying this is for the forgiveness of sins. 01:08:24.880 --> 01:08:26.080 You must believe that. 01:08:26.320 --> 01:08:30.320 If you can't believe that, that would be unworthy receiving, which is 01:08:30.320 --> 01:08:32.160 the next thing we're going to get to. 01:08:32.160 --> 01:08:35.280 But there's just there's so many of these small variations where we 01:08:35.280 --> 01:08:39.040 start fiddling with what God said to do when it's so simple, 01:08:39.040 --> 01:08:39.680 it's so simple. 01:08:40.560 --> 01:08:44.480 What God did in the upper room on Monday Thursday is as 01:08:44.720 --> 01:08:45.680 as simple as it could be. 01:08:45.680 --> 01:08:46.640 It's a meal. 01:08:46.640 --> 01:08:49.760 Eat the bread, drink the wine, and yes, it must be real 01:08:49.760 --> 01:08:50.640 bread too. 01:08:50.640 --> 01:08:52.960 It doesn't matter if it's leavened or unleavened, but it has to 01:08:52.960 --> 01:08:53.600 be bread. 01:08:53.600 --> 01:08:57.600 Can't be potato chips, can't be Skittles, it has to be bread. 01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:00.000 Why? 'Cause that's what God said. 01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:00.960 That's it. 01:09:01.280 --> 01:09:04.240 we don't need to try to reverse engineer it and find the 01:09:04.240 --> 01:09:08.160 minimum viable communion so that we can get away with getting God's 01:09:08.160 --> 01:09:10.000 gifts by some other means. 01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:11.200 That's not Christianity. 01:09:11.360 --> 01:09:14.400 what what are people doing when they go down that path? 01:09:14.400 --> 01:09:16.480 It it's not a path of faithfulness. 01:09:16.480 --> 01:09:19.760 And it inevitably leads to worse consequences. 01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:21.520 It's not just one small abuse. 01:09:21.520 --> 01:09:24.320 It will get worse and worse because you can't mess with God's 01:09:24.320 --> 01:09:27.840 things and call him a liar and come out of it okay. 01:09:28.320 --> 01:09:34.960 Before we get to additional theology and doctrine here we'll read one 01:09:34.960 --> 01:09:39.360 more section of scripture dealing with a number of other issues related 01:09:39.360 --> 01:09:44.880 to the Lord's Supper, and also recounting again the words of institution, 01:09:44.880 --> 01:09:45.280 this time 01:09:46.800 --> 01:09:50.960 the reading is from first Corinthians, first Corinthians eleven. 01:09:50.960 --> 01:09:54.400 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, 01:09:54.400 --> 01:09:57.520 that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took 01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:01.120 bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and said, 01:10:01.120 --> 01:10:05.120 This is my body, which is for you, do this in remembrance 01:10:05.120 --> 01:10:06.080 of me. 01:10:06.080 --> 01:10:09.680 In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, 01:10:09.680 --> 01:10:12.320 This cup is the new covenant in my blood. 01:10:12.320 --> 01:10:16.400 Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. 01:10:16.400 --> 01:10:19.680 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, 01:10:19.680 --> 01:10:22.720 you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 01:10:22.720 --> 01:10:26.000 Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord 01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:29.760 in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood 01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:30.800 of the Lord. 01:10:30.800 --> 01:10:34.240 Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread 01:10:34.320 --> 01:10:35.840 and drink of the cup. 01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:39.520 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and 01:10:39.520 --> 01:10:41.760 drinks judgment on himself. 01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:44.880 This is why many of you are weak and ill, and some 01:10:44.880 --> 01:10:46.160 have died. 01:10:48.160 --> 01:10:52.240 Before we get into the specific matter of what it means to 01:10:52.240 --> 01:10:56.800 eat and drink in an unworthy manner and the consequences of doing 01:10:56.800 --> 01:11:00.400 that, I want to highlight one of the words here that often 01:11:00.400 --> 01:11:06.560 comes up in arguments against understanding the Lord's Supper simply as Christ 01:11:06.560 --> 01:11:08.480 has presented it to us. 01:11:08.480 --> 01:11:12.080 And that word is remembrance. 01:11:12.080 --> 01:11:15.920 Now I said earlier that one of the points of this sacrament 01:11:15.920 --> 01:11:19.280 is in fact to remember Christ, and that is simply what scripture 01:11:19.280 --> 01:11:20.560 teaches here. 01:11:20.560 --> 01:11:26.160 But we need to know what it means to remember Christ. 01:11:26.160 --> 01:11:32.240 To remember Christ means something specific in this context. 01:11:32.240 --> 01:11:36.560 The reason for that is that simply noting historical facts 01:11:37.440 --> 01:11:41.040 avails nothing that's worth nothing to you. 01:11:41.040 --> 01:11:45.920 Demons have that knowledge, as scripture points out, and as is pointed 01:11:45.920 --> 01:11:51.760 out by basically every Christian theologian down through time. 01:11:51.760 --> 01:11:55.440 Demons have knowledge, it doesn't save them. 01:11:55.440 --> 01:11:58.480 This comes back to something we have discussed previously. 01:11:58.480 --> 01:12:03.760 There are three kinds of belief or knowledge that are at issue 01:12:03.760 --> 01:12:05.680 when we discuss theology. 01:12:05.680 --> 01:12:09.840 That would be notitia, ascensus and fiducia. 01:12:09.840 --> 01:12:12.080 These are just the Latin terms. 01:12:12.080 --> 01:12:14.480 Two of them you can certainly understand immediately. 01:12:14.480 --> 01:12:22.480 Noticia is just notice, ascensus is ascent, and fiducia fiduciary trust. 01:12:22.480 --> 01:12:25.520 Demons have notitia. 01:12:25.520 --> 01:12:28.240 They know that these things happen. 01:12:28.240 --> 01:12:30.560 These things happened in the past. 01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:32.640 Demons also have a sensus. 01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:35.280 They assent to the fact that these things happened. 01:12:35.280 --> 01:12:39.360 They don't contest that Christ died on the cross, they don't contest 01:12:39.360 --> 01:12:43.840 any of the narrative in Scripture, and so demons quite frankly have 01:12:43.840 --> 01:12:45.920 a better faith than many. 01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:49.760 But what demons do not have, and what is called for here 01:12:49.760 --> 01:12:54.240 in remembering Christ, because it's not mere or bare remembrance, it's not 01:12:54.240 --> 01:12:59.280 notitia, it's not even notitia and as sensus, it is fiducia. 01:12:59.280 --> 01:13:00.320 It is faith. 01:13:00.320 --> 01:13:04.960 What is called for is belief in the things that Christ said, 01:13:04.960 --> 01:13:06.480 in the things that He promised. 01:13:06.480 --> 01:13:08.160 That is what Christians have. 01:13:08.160 --> 01:13:12.240 That is what separates a believer from a demon, or an unbeliever 01:13:12.640 --> 01:13:14.960 hardly a difference in this case. 01:13:14.960 --> 01:13:19.760 And so to remember Christ is to remember his benefits, to remember 01:13:19.760 --> 01:13:22.400 what he has promised, what he has told us, what he has 01:13:22.400 --> 01:13:26.560 said will happen, what he has said that his supper does, that 01:13:26.560 --> 01:13:29.360 is what it means to remember Christ. 01:13:29.360 --> 01:13:33.760 A bare recounting of the facts is not what is in view 01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:37.520 here, that is not what a Christian does, because a Christian has 01:13:37.520 --> 01:13:41.920 more than just the belief that the thing happened, assent to the 01:13:41.920 --> 01:13:45.520 reality of the thing, a Christian has trust in it. 01:13:45.520 --> 01:13:48.240 And so that is what the word remembrance means. 01:13:48.240 --> 01:13:52.880 And so a focus by certain groups on the word remembrance as 01:13:52.880 --> 01:13:58.000 if that somehow undermines the totality of the teaching or changes what 01:13:58.000 --> 01:13:59.360 Christ is saying 01:14:00.960 --> 01:14:05.760 is just an abominable perversion of Scripture it is absolutely false. 01:14:05.760 --> 01:14:11.520 Calling to remembrance the work of Christ is faith. 01:14:11.520 --> 01:14:14.240 That is what is demanded of the believer. 01:14:14.240 --> 01:14:17.200 That is what is demanded for those who would approach the table, 01:14:17.200 --> 01:14:20.960 and that is part of what it means to approach in a 01:14:20.960 --> 01:14:25.200 worthy manner, because not to have faith in the reality of this 01:14:25.200 --> 01:14:30.720 sacrament is to approach the table in an unworthy manner. 01:14:30.880 --> 01:14:34.640 So that first Corinthians 11 passage is 01:14:35.600 --> 01:14:41.680 vital for our understanding of the doctrine of communion because in you 01:14:41.680 --> 01:14:46.640 know just two paragraphs it effectively chops chops up all the different 01:14:46.640 --> 01:14:50.480 denominations into all the buckets that we fall into today. 01:14:50.480 --> 01:14:55.760 Every single dispute is represented in this text. 01:14:55.760 --> 01:15:00.160 So you have the remembrance argument, as Corey just dispatched. 01:15:00.160 --> 01:15:01.680 That is the view of some. 01:15:01.680 --> 01:15:05.600 You know, the Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses say that there's nothing there. 01:15:05.600 --> 01:15:07.680 It's not a means of grace. 01:15:07.680 --> 01:15:12.880 It's literally just you do it and you remember Jesus and thanks 01:15:12.880 --> 01:15:15.600 for you know thanks for being Jesus. 01:15:15.760 --> 01:15:19.040 They're not that well, some of them are that sacrilegious fan, frankly. 01:15:19.520 --> 01:15:23.840 that's how the Arizona Iced tea and Skittles happened in the first 01:15:23.840 --> 01:15:26.720 place. It was it was that sort of view that if it's 01:15:26.720 --> 01:15:29.200 just, you know, remembering God, who cares? 01:15:29.520 --> 01:15:30.560 why would you need wine? 01:15:30.560 --> 01:15:34.000 It's how it's how Baptists can be teetotalers, 'cause all bets are 01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:37.600 off. Like it's just if you're just remembering God, if that's the 01:15:37.600 --> 01:15:39.600 important part, then doing what he said doesn't matter. 01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:43.600 Because frankly, if you do what God says, that makes you acting 01:15:43.600 --> 01:15:46.800 in earning your salvation and so you can't be Christian, right? 01:15:46.800 --> 01:15:49.840 Well, no, that's not we've said that's not how any of this 01:15:49.840 --> 01:15:52.800 works. You do what God says because he says to do it. 01:15:52.800 --> 01:15:56.640 No one no Christian thinks that doing stuff is gonna save you. 01:15:56.640 --> 01:15:59.600 I mean that's again that that was one of the divisions at 01:15:59.760 --> 01:16:02.720 the initial spark of the Reformation. 01:16:02.720 --> 01:16:06.480 You had the issues with indulgences and with pilgrimages and these other 01:16:06.480 --> 01:16:10.560 requirements that Rome said this is gonna earn you time off in 01:16:10.560 --> 01:16:13.840 purgatory. You can do this stuff and you're gonna earn some portion 01:16:13.840 --> 01:16:16.800 of your salvation, even if it's not the eternal part, you're like 01:16:16.880 --> 01:16:20.880 you're still gonna be stuck in kind of baby hell for a 01:16:20.880 --> 01:16:24.240 while. This'll help out. 01:16:24.240 --> 01:16:28.800 Part of the Reformation was a rejection saying that's contrary to all 01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:29.600 of Scripture. 01:16:30.320 --> 01:16:33.600 you're conflating works with justification. 01:16:33.600 --> 01:16:35.120 That's never permissible. 01:16:35.120 --> 01:16:37.920 And yet, once we get on the other side of that justification 01:16:37.920 --> 01:16:43.760 argument, there's still many places where individual denominations still try to bring 01:16:43.760 --> 01:16:47.680 that notion back into attack more things that are frankly just basic 01:16:47.680 --> 01:16:49.680 parts of Christian doctrine. 01:16:49.680 --> 01:16:52.160 So remembrance is right out. 01:16:52.160 --> 01:16:55.600 You know, eating the bread and drinking the cup, again, that that's 01:16:55.600 --> 01:17:01.120 something that Rome for a long time either restricted or forbade, or 01:17:01.120 --> 01:17:06.320 at least didn't offer to to the laity, so called. 01:17:06.320 --> 01:17:09.920 You also have the very interesting thing that I think it's it's 01:17:09.920 --> 01:17:13.600 worth reading that passage in Corinthians beginning with verse 23. 01:17:13.600 --> 01:17:16.880 Just read through it and note, pay attention to the nouns. 01:17:16.880 --> 01:17:19.760 Because what you will find is that when Paul is writing this, 01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:22.480 when the Holy Spirit is inspiring him to write this, I'm not 01:17:22.480 --> 01:17:27.200 attributing this argument to Paul, this is God, he uses bread and 01:17:27.200 --> 01:17:30.960 wine and cup and blood interchangeably. 01:17:30.960 --> 01:17:33.040 He just bounces between them. 01:17:33.040 --> 01:17:35.600 Why? Because it's the same thing. 01:17:35.600 --> 01:17:39.760 And this is one of the other crucial distinctions among the various 01:17:39.760 --> 01:17:46.800 denominations. When the Reformation occurred, there was already a strong 01:17:46.800 --> 01:17:50.480 push for rationalism that existed within Rome. 01:17:50.480 --> 01:17:52.640 The age of reason was dawning. 01:17:52.640 --> 01:17:55.360 People were trying to be more rational about things. 01:17:55.360 --> 01:18:00.160 You have Thomism, you have this vein of we need to make 01:18:00.160 --> 01:18:03.040 sure we do the math on this thing right. 01:18:03.040 --> 01:18:07.280 And so the reason that Rome ended up with the view of 01:18:07.280 --> 01:18:10.160 transubstantiation, which effectively says that 01:18:11.200 --> 01:18:15.680 when the bread and wine are consecrated, they effectively cease to be 01:18:15.680 --> 01:18:18.720 the bread and wine and they become the body and blood, and 01:18:18.720 --> 01:18:21.440 it's only the accidents that are remaining. 01:18:21.440 --> 01:18:24.400 So you it still looks like bread and wine, but that's not 01:18:24.400 --> 01:18:26.480 really the case. 01:18:26.480 --> 01:18:29.840 The reformed take the same logical position. 01:18:29.840 --> 01:18:32.080 They simply go in the other direction. 01:18:32.080 --> 01:18:35.760 They say that it can only be one of these things at 01:18:35.760 --> 01:18:36.320 a time. 01:18:36.320 --> 01:18:39.600 And obviously it's still bread and wine, which it is. 01:18:39.600 --> 01:18:41.200 It's obviously bread and wine. 01:18:41.200 --> 01:18:42.960 And Paul's words say that. 01:18:42.960 --> 01:18:44.720 He says bread, wine. 01:18:44.720 --> 01:18:46.560 Jesus says bread, wine. 01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:48.240 There's no doubt in scripture that that is completely 01:18:49.200 --> 01:18:54.320 true. The problem is that if you believe that the only thing 01:18:54.320 --> 01:18:58.320 that bread and wine can possibly be is bread and wine, well 01:18:58.480 --> 01:19:01.120 it gets back to the argument about the about the hypostatic union. 01:19:01.440 --> 01:19:04.720 This is the reason that Lutherans refer to this as the sacramental 01:19:04.720 --> 01:19:08.960 union, that it is both simultaneously, and we don't know how. 01:19:08.960 --> 01:19:14.160 We don't take the Catholic position of saying, well, it it's not 01:19:14.160 --> 01:19:14.960 bread and wine. 01:19:14.960 --> 01:19:17.200 It it's much more important for it to be the body and 01:19:17.200 --> 01:19:18.400 blood, which is true. 01:19:18.400 --> 01:19:20.400 Without the body and blood, there's no point. 01:19:20.880 --> 01:19:22.640 They're completely right about that. 01:19:22.640 --> 01:19:26.240 What they're wrong about is the rational conclusion that, well, we absolutely 01:19:26.240 --> 01:19:29.920 believe this Christ's body and blood, and therefore the bread and wine 01:19:29.920 --> 01:19:32.800 have to be gone, all but completely gone. 01:19:32.800 --> 01:19:38.400 And there's they're rational philosophical trash arguments to try to substantiate how 01:19:38.400 --> 01:19:39.280 that's okay. 01:19:39.280 --> 01:19:42.320 The Roman Catholics and the Reformed agree it can only be one 01:19:42.320 --> 01:19:43.280 or the other. 01:19:43.280 --> 01:19:46.800 The problem is that God says it's both. 01:19:46.800 --> 01:19:49.120 So eat the bread, drink the cup. 01:19:49.120 --> 01:19:52.960 Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body drinks judgment on 01:19:52.960 --> 01:19:55.040 himself. Which is it? 01:19:54.960 --> 01:19:57.280 is it the body or is it the bread? 01:19:57.280 --> 01:19:59.440 Yes. It's both. 01:19:59.440 --> 01:20:01.040 How? We don't know. 01:20:01.040 --> 01:20:02.400 That that's that's it. 01:20:02.400 --> 01:20:05.840 We have the same response to these texts that Peter had to 01:20:05.840 --> 01:20:07.680 the whole scene in John 6. 01:20:07.680 --> 01:20:10.160 His response when Jesus like, do you wander off? 01:20:10.160 --> 01:20:11.040 Do you not believe this? 01:20:11.040 --> 01:20:12.720 Like, Lord to whom shall we go? 01:20:12.720 --> 01:20:15.200 You have the words of eternal life. 01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:17.440 That is the Christian confession. 01:20:17.440 --> 01:20:20.880 God, I don't know what's going on, but I believe you anyway. 01:20:20.880 --> 01:20:24.080 You said it, I believe it, and try to understand. 01:20:24.080 --> 01:20:27.760 Like as we said, catechesis teaching around these things is important. 01:20:27.760 --> 01:20:29.600 Jesus spent time teaching. 01:20:29.600 --> 01:20:33.040 The church has always spent time teaching these things, and teaching before 01:20:33.040 --> 01:20:37.120 communion, because the other part of this passage is that there were 01:20:37.120 --> 01:20:38.400 people who died. 01:20:38.400 --> 01:20:42.000 They were killed by unworthy reception. 01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:46.320 And this goes to one of the errors and the crucial distinction 01:20:46.320 --> 01:20:52.320 between the Lutheran position and what our confessions call the sacramentarian position, 01:20:52.320 --> 01:20:55.120 which is effectively the reformed position today. 01:20:55.120 --> 01:20:58.800 And that is that they will say, and you'll you'll find this 01:20:58.800 --> 01:21:02.560 in in much reform, particularly some of the Presbyterians, sound just like 01:21:02.720 --> 01:21:05.040 Lutherans up to the very end. 01:21:05.040 --> 01:21:07.520 They will say that there's a real presence. 01:21:07.520 --> 01:21:12.320 And if you don't press, you will think that we're in agreement. 01:21:12.320 --> 01:21:15.120 But when you do press, when you ask the right questions and 01:21:15.120 --> 01:21:19.040 you narrow it down, what comes out is that there is no 01:21:19.040 --> 01:21:21.520 body and blood in your mouth. 01:21:21.520 --> 01:21:23.120 That's a crucial distinction. 01:21:23.120 --> 01:21:24.800 That's what makes it a sacrament. 01:21:24.800 --> 01:21:26.480 That's what makes it complete. 01:21:26.640 --> 01:21:29.440 That's what makes it the anti-type to the pipe type of the 01:21:29.440 --> 01:21:32.320 bread of the manna in the desert. 01:21:32.320 --> 01:21:36.560 Because if it's not actually Christ's body going in your mouth, though 01:21:36.640 --> 01:21:37.600 you're not receiving what God 01:21:38.480 --> 01:21:43.120 promised. And when we talk when Paul talks about discerning the body, 01:21:43.120 --> 01:21:46.720 eating and drinking judgment on himself, he means it. 01:21:46.720 --> 01:21:50.640 And so the the crucial distinction in the the sacramentary and reform 01:21:50.720 --> 01:21:54.960 position is that it is a spiritual mode of presence. 01:21:54.960 --> 01:21:57.360 They will say that they believe it, and I God bless them 01:21:57.440 --> 01:21:57.760 for it. 01:21:57.760 --> 01:21:59.360 I'm glad that they take it seriously. 01:21:59.360 --> 01:22:02.480 Thank you so much for not being Baptist, because that is a 01:22:02.480 --> 01:22:03.840 far worse error. 01:22:04.400 --> 01:22:08.880 However, the problem with this is that it also denies part of 01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:15.120 this passage because in order for the sacramentarian view that there is 01:22:15.120 --> 01:22:21.600 a physical oral reception of only bread and wine, and then we 01:22:21.760 --> 01:22:26.240 spiritually ascend to the right hand of God, where we receive his 01:22:26.480 --> 01:22:31.040 body and blood in a spiritual sense, in a heavenly sense. 01:22:31.440 --> 01:22:34.640 The problem with that is that that requires faith. 01:22:34.640 --> 01:22:38.640 And what is said here in Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 11 is 01:22:38.640 --> 01:22:41.760 that there are people who hate unworthily. 01:22:41.760 --> 01:22:44.880 And God makes clear what that they're guilty of the body and 01:22:44.880 --> 01:22:48.560 blood because they ate in an unworthy manner by not examining themselves 01:22:48.560 --> 01:22:51.440 and discerning the body and blood. 01:22:51.920 --> 01:22:57.920 This is this is crucial because if the reform to correct. 01:22:57.920 --> 01:23:02.000 And you can have communion and it's all faith based and it's 01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:03.520 all spiritual. 01:23:03.520 --> 01:23:06.240 There's no possibility for anyone to die, because if you don't have 01:23:06.240 --> 01:23:10.160 faith, you cannot spiritually ascend to heaven to receive Christ's body and 01:23:10.160 --> 01:23:11.280 blood there. 01:23:11.280 --> 01:23:16.960 The only way that that mode of thought can work is if 01:23:16.960 --> 01:23:21.520 the damned, if those without faith, can also ascend to heaven to 01:23:21.520 --> 01:23:24.640 receive Christ's body and blood, and then they're killed for it. 01:23:24.640 --> 01:23:26.480 They're killed by it. 01:23:26.960 --> 01:23:29.440 that necessarily makes no sense. 01:23:29.440 --> 01:23:34.240 There's no possible ascent into heaven spiritually for those unbelievers. 01:23:34.240 --> 01:23:36.320 And it is unbelief that's being described there. 01:23:36.480 --> 01:23:39.440 When you're guilty concerning the body and blood of Christ, because you 01:23:39.440 --> 01:23:42.080 don't discern it, it's a rejection of God. 01:23:42.080 --> 01:23:43.120 It's calling him a liar. 01:23:43.120 --> 01:23:45.760 It's saying that what you said is not true. 01:23:45.760 --> 01:23:46.640 And so 01:23:47.600 --> 01:23:52.240 the reason for the Lutheran position, it's literalist and it's mysterious. 01:23:52.240 --> 01:23:53.840 It's like, I don't know. 01:23:53.840 --> 01:23:56.800 I know this far and I know no further. 01:23:56.800 --> 01:24:01.680 And as we've said before, for me personally, that's always been enough. 01:24:01.680 --> 01:24:05.200 I don't feel the need to concern myself with trying to figure 01:24:05.200 --> 01:24:08.720 out the mechanisms and the math and the scales of all these 01:24:08.720 --> 01:24:13.040 things. When God says it, if I don't understand, like, okay, there's 01:24:13.040 --> 01:24:15.920 something I don't understand, add it to the list. 01:24:15.920 --> 01:24:18.320 I have a very long list of things I don't understand. 01:24:18.320 --> 01:24:22.800 And particularly when we're looking at things that are necessarily spiritual, they're 01:24:22.800 --> 01:24:23.760 necessarily 01:24:24.720 --> 01:24:27.600 supernatural. They're outside of the material world. 01:24:27.600 --> 01:24:28.720 That's what we're talking about here. 01:24:28.720 --> 01:24:31.600 And remember, that's that's the crux of this. 01:24:31.600 --> 01:24:36.000 Because it is outside of the material world, all bets are off. 01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:41.200 You can't rationally figure out that which is inherently irrational because it's 01:24:41.200 --> 01:24:43.440 outside of creation. 01:24:43.440 --> 01:24:46.880 This is something different that God is doing in a special way. 01:24:46.880 --> 01:24:50.800 And so this one passage when you look at all the various 01:24:50.800 --> 01:24:53.680 pieces of it, all the all the denominations are going to fall 01:24:53.680 --> 01:24:56.640 into their various buckets on one side or the other of these 01:24:56.640 --> 01:25:00.880 disputes. And I believe with a with a clean conscience that the 01:25:00.880 --> 01:25:05.840 only possible synthesis of this this passage and the other passages is 01:25:05.840 --> 01:25:09.440 a Lutheran one, that it is truly Christ's body and blood, physically 01:25:09.440 --> 01:25:11.040 present. We don't know how. 01:25:11.040 --> 01:25:14.400 And again, this is not one of the early episodes we did 01:25:14.400 --> 01:25:15.680 on the clarity of scripture. 01:25:15.680 --> 01:25:17.520 We go into this detail some more. 01:25:17.520 --> 01:25:21.600 We did about an hour specifically talking about this one debate around 01:25:21.760 --> 01:25:25.760 physical versus real because it blew up on Twitter nearly a year 01:25:25.760 --> 01:25:30.400 ago. There was a false teacher effectively spreading reform positions and pretending 01:25:30.400 --> 01:25:34.560 that they were Lutheran and causing Lutherans to abandon the Lutheran faith. 01:25:34.560 --> 01:25:37.360 Not that there's a difference in faith, but there's clearly a difference 01:25:37.360 --> 01:25:40.880 in belief and in practice. 01:25:40.880 --> 01:25:43.520 It's important to get this stuff right, and it's important to know 01:25:43.520 --> 01:25:47.360 clearly where the lines are because we all fall on one side 01:25:47.360 --> 01:25:48.240 or another. 01:25:48.240 --> 01:25:51.440 And if you hold a position contrary to what we're saying, you 01:25:51.440 --> 01:25:55.600 need to have an argument that stands up to effectively dismantling the 01:25:55.600 --> 01:25:56.160 one that we have. 01:25:56.160 --> 01:25:57.520 And I've I've read them. 01:25:57.520 --> 01:26:00.080 We're not we're not giving you a fair shake here today by 01:26:00.160 --> 01:26:04.800 reading off clearly all the other affirmative positions for what everyone else 01:26:04.800 --> 01:26:08.720 believes. Because we believe genuinely that there's no possibility for them to 01:26:08.720 --> 01:26:08.880 exist 01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:14.240 in totality with the very plain words of scripture. 01:26:14.240 --> 01:26:17.120 Again, there's there's a tremendous amount in the book of Concord that 01:26:17.120 --> 01:26:19.680 does deals with these debates in all directions. 01:26:19.680 --> 01:26:22.400 Deals with Roman Catholics, deals with the Reformed, deals with Deals with 01:26:22.400 --> 01:26:25.440 the Anabaptists at great length. 01:26:25.440 --> 01:26:28.880 We're not referring to those confessions, not because they're not good arguments, 01:26:28.880 --> 01:26:32.320 but because it's important to look at what God said, just as 01:26:32.320 --> 01:26:32.880 they did. 01:26:32.880 --> 01:26:36.160 They've made very good arguments in that confessional document. 01:26:36.160 --> 01:26:39.360 The argument The arguments are also from Scripture. 01:26:39.600 --> 01:26:44.720 And so I suppose that the reformed listeners have expected the following 01:26:44.720 --> 01:26:50.320 phrase from two Lutherans since starting this episode, so I won't disappoint 01:26:50.320 --> 01:26:53.840 you, is means is. 01:26:53.840 --> 01:26:56.800 And I would be remiss if I did not mention the Marburg 01:26:56.800 --> 01:27:01.040 colloquy in which Luther and Zwingli discussed the issue. 01:27:01.040 --> 01:27:04.160 It would probably be too charitable to say attempted to come to 01:27:04.160 --> 01:27:11.600 terms. But famously, at that debate, Luther carved into the table, 01:27:11.600 --> 01:27:14.080 we don't know if he carved it facing himself or upside down 01:27:14.240 --> 01:27:18.880 facing Tswingli, I happen to believe the latter is more likely. 01:27:18.880 --> 01:27:23.680 But he carved into the table hook est corpus meum, which is 01:27:23.680 --> 01:27:29.120 simply the Latin for this is my body. 01:27:29.120 --> 01:27:34.320 And that really is the simplicity of the Lutheran position. 01:27:34.320 --> 01:27:37.440 We take Christ at his words. 01:27:37.440 --> 01:27:42.720 When some will contend that they have a literal understanding of Scripture, 01:27:42.720 --> 01:27:45.760 I find a great deal of irony in that those who most 01:27:45.760 --> 01:27:52.480 vehemently insist they interpret Scripture literally never interpret the sacraments literally. 01:27:52.480 --> 01:27:56.720 They always reject at least at least almost always reject baptism and 01:27:56.720 --> 01:28:00.880 the Lord's Supper as being what Scripture very clearly says that they 01:28:00.880 --> 01:28:08.080 are. When Christ says, This is my body, this is my blood, 01:28:08.080 --> 01:28:09.840 well that's what he means. 01:28:09.840 --> 01:28:11.920 He said it, he means it. 01:28:11.920 --> 01:28:18.720 Christ most certainly knew the word for symbol or symbolizes, represents, or 01:28:18.720 --> 01:28:22.640 is an allegory of whatever term you want to use, he did 01:28:22.640 --> 01:28:24.720 not use those words. 01:28:24.720 --> 01:28:29.760 He said, This is my body, and that is why that is 01:28:29.760 --> 01:28:36.240 the teaching that Lutherans affirm now of course you've undoubtedly heard arguments 01:28:36.240 --> 01:28:41.920 related to other parts of scripture parables, where Christ taught I am 01:28:41.920 --> 01:28:46.640 the vine or I am the door or any various things like 01:28:46.640 --> 01:28:49.440 that, a number of different parables. 01:28:49.440 --> 01:28:53.520 I want to highlight a grammar point here, and grammar is not 01:28:53.520 --> 01:28:57.840 nitpicky grammar matters because grammar determines the meaning of the words you 01:28:57.840 --> 01:28:58.960 are using. 01:28:58.960 --> 01:29:04.560 The order of the words matters, the words you choose matters. 01:29:04.560 --> 01:29:08.800 All of these things contribute to the actual meaning that you intend 01:29:08.960 --> 01:29:12.320 and that will be taken away from what you have said. 01:29:12.320 --> 01:29:18.000 And so I want to highlight Christ says, I am the vine. 01:29:18.000 --> 01:29:20.560 He does not say I am a vine. 01:29:20.560 --> 01:29:25.200 There's a difference there, a very important difference, and yes, Greek can 01:29:25.200 --> 01:29:29.840 also distinguish between the definite and indefinite articles. 01:29:29.840 --> 01:29:33.760 So when Christ says I am the vine, he is in fact 01:29:33.760 --> 01:29:35.680 the vine. 01:29:35.680 --> 01:29:39.200 Now is he a literal vine? 01:29:39.200 --> 01:29:42.480 No, that's not what that is saying. 01:29:42.480 --> 01:29:47.120 It is saying that he is the vine, literal in the sense 01:29:47.120 --> 01:29:50.400 of being, yes, it's a metaphorical vine, and yes it does make 01:29:50.400 --> 01:29:54.560 sense to say something is literally metaphorically true. 01:29:54.560 --> 01:29:58.560 If on the other hand he had said I am a vine, 01:29:58.560 --> 01:30:01.600 that would have been him declaring that he is in fact a 01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:04.000 literal physical vine. 01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:08.640 In which case perhaps we have to raise Lewis's trilemma. 01:30:08.640 --> 01:30:10.800 He also does not say I am a door. 01:30:10.800 --> 01:30:13.200 He says I am the door, and he is in fact the 01:30:13.360 --> 01:30:17.600 door, because he is the only passage through which we can get 01:30:17.600 --> 01:30:18.640 to God. 01:30:18.640 --> 01:30:20.800 He is the only way to salvation. 01:30:20.800 --> 01:30:23.840 So he is, in fact, the door. 01:30:23.840 --> 01:30:28.240 So the contentions around those parables, those parabolic sayings 01:30:29.680 --> 01:30:35.520 Do not in any way argue against taking literally what Christ says 01:30:35.520 --> 01:30:40.000 about the bread and the wine in the supper. 01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:43.520 And so I want to read just four quick paragraphs here from 01:30:43.520 --> 01:30:49.520 the Lutheran confessions that state the Lutheran position on the Lord's Supper, 01:30:49.520 --> 01:30:51.680 that state very clearly what we believe. 01:30:51.680 --> 01:30:54.800 These are from the epitome of the formula of Concord. 01:30:56.640 --> 01:31:00.560 We believe, teach, and confess that in the Holy Supper Christ's body 01:31:00.560 --> 01:31:04.640 and blood are truly and essentially present, and that they are truly 01:31:04.640 --> 01:31:08.000 distributed and received with the bread and wine. 01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:11.920 We believe, teach, and confess that the words of Christ Testament are 01:31:11.920 --> 01:31:15.520 not to be understood in any other way than the way they 01:31:15.520 --> 01:31:17.600 read, according to the letter. 01:31:17.600 --> 01:31:21.360 So the bread does not signify Christ's absent body, and the wine 01:31:21.520 --> 01:31:26.240 his absent blood, but because of the sacramental union, the bread and 01:31:26.240 --> 01:31:29.600 wine are truly Christ's body and blood. 01:31:29.600 --> 01:31:33.680 Now about the consecration we believe, teach, and confess that no work 01:31:33.680 --> 01:31:37.440 of man or recitation of the minister produces this presence of Christ's 01:31:37.440 --> 01:31:40.400 body and blood in the Holy Supper. 01:31:40.400 --> 01:31:44.880 Instead, this presence is to be credited only and alone to the 01:31:44.880 --> 01:31:46.400 almighty power of our Volus. 01:31:46.400 --> 01:31:48.560 the Lord Jesus Christ. 01:31:48.480 --> 01:31:53.520 At the same time, we also believe, teach, and confess unanimously that 01:31:53.520 --> 01:31:56.800 in the use of the Holy Supper the words of Christ's institution 01:31:56.800 --> 01:31:58.800 should in no way be left out. 01:31:58.800 --> 01:32:02.640 Instead they should be publicly recited, as it is written in first 01:32:02.880 --> 01:32:07.280 Corinthians ten sixteen, the cup of blessing that we bless, and so 01:32:07.280 --> 01:32:13.360 forth. This blessing occurs through the reciting of Christ's words. 01:32:14.000 --> 01:32:18.320 And so those four paragraphs give a very brief statement of exactly 01:32:18.320 --> 01:32:20.400 what it is that Lutherans believe. 01:32:20.400 --> 01:32:23.600 Of course they're just a restatement of Scripture. 01:32:23.600 --> 01:32:28.880 We believe literally what the words of Scripture say, and it may 01:32:28.880 --> 01:32:32.000 seem like we mentioned that or repeat that ad nauseum, but it 01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:33.840 is simply the case. 01:32:33.840 --> 01:32:37.040 In fact it is one thing that annoys many about Lutherans. 01:32:37.040 --> 01:32:40.000 We are simply going to insist on what the words of the 01:32:40.000 --> 01:32:41.120 book say. 01:32:41.120 --> 01:32:43.920 Because they're the word of God, that's why we believe them. 01:32:43.920 --> 01:32:47.280 We don't believe them because we happen to like the book. 01:32:47.280 --> 01:32:52.080 We believe them because having been given faith, we believe the Word 01:32:52.000 --> 01:32:52.640 of God. 01:32:52.640 --> 01:32:58.080 We believe that what is contained in Scripture is true, because it 01:32:58.080 --> 01:33:00.160 is the inspired Word of God. 01:33:00.160 --> 01:33:05.440 And so when God says, This is my body, we say, Yes. 01:33:06.000 --> 01:33:10.160 But he also says, This bread is my body. 01:33:10.160 --> 01:33:12.080 Okay, he said two things there. 01:33:12.080 --> 01:33:14.240 He said this is bread, we believe him. 01:33:14.240 --> 01:33:17.680 He said the bread is his body, we still believe him. 01:33:17.680 --> 01:33:20.720 We do not have to understand, we do not have to subject 01:33:20.720 --> 01:33:24.640 it to human reason in order to believe it, because the ground 01:33:24.640 --> 01:33:26.720 of all truth said it. 01:33:26.720 --> 01:33:29.840 And if God says it, it's true. 01:33:29.840 --> 01:33:31.600 It's very easy to believe this. 01:33:31.600 --> 01:33:33.840 You can simply affirm the truth of it. 01:33:33.840 --> 01:33:38.240 You don't have to work out the philosophical minutiae, in fact you 01:33:38.240 --> 01:33:40.080 cannot do so. 01:33:40.080 --> 01:33:42.160 But you don't have to do so. 01:33:42.160 --> 01:33:47.680 This again comes back to something we've previously discussed. 01:33:47.680 --> 01:33:52.400 You don't believe the things in Scripture because you believe the things 01:33:52.400 --> 01:33:53.760 in Scripture. 01:33:53.760 --> 01:33:55.760 Let me clarify what I mean. 01:33:56.640 --> 01:34:02.160 You believe the things in Scripture, because having been given faith, you 01:34:02.160 --> 01:34:07.200 believe God is the author of Scripture, and God being God who 01:34:07.200 --> 01:34:10.880 does not lie, who cannot lie, you believe that His Word is 01:34:11.600 --> 01:34:16.800 true. Many reverse the order of operations there. 01:34:16.800 --> 01:34:21.520 They'll say, I believe Scripture, and therefore I believe in God. 01:34:21.520 --> 01:34:26.560 No. You believe God, therefore you believe in Scripture. 01:34:26.560 --> 01:34:28.640 It is the exact opposite way. 01:34:28.640 --> 01:34:32.080 Now, if you're arguing with someone who is an unbeliever, who is 01:34:32.080 --> 01:34:36.560 an atheist, yes, you can use secular reasoning to prove things in 01:34:36.560 --> 01:34:37.440 Scripture are true. 01:34:37.840 --> 01:34:41.120 You can use archaeology, history, etc. 01:34:41.200 --> 01:34:45.440 in order to prove scripture to tear down some of the barriers 01:34:45.440 --> 01:34:49.280 to that person hearing the Word of God and believing. 01:34:49.280 --> 01:34:53.200 But as a believer, you believe the Word of God is true 01:34:53.520 --> 01:34:59.360 because you believe that God is the one who inspired it. 01:34:59.360 --> 01:35:03.760 And just to emphasize, to go back to Wo's point about the 01:35:03.760 --> 01:35:10.480 difference between the Romans and the Reformed, conveniently both start with R. 01:35:11.760 --> 01:35:15.680 But the big difference between them as has been used many times 01:35:15.680 --> 01:35:21.920 before the example the illustration of falling off a horse the Romans 01:35:21.920 --> 01:35:24.880 fall off the right side of the horse. 01:35:24.880 --> 01:35:28.880 It's not that they take it too literally, it's that they ignore 01:35:28.880 --> 01:35:32.400 part of it, subject it to reason, and say well it must 01:35:32.400 --> 01:35:35.280 simply be his body, it can't be bread at the same time, 01:35:35.280 --> 01:35:37.440 so they fall off the right side of the horse. 01:35:37.440 --> 01:35:39.680 For many of them I am willing to concede they are trying 01:35:39.680 --> 01:35:42.480 to believe what God says. 01:35:42.480 --> 01:35:46.560 But the problem is they aren't believing what God actually said. 01:35:46.560 --> 01:35:48.480 You have to look at what he said. 01:35:48.480 --> 01:35:54.000 This bread, it's bread, is my body, it's his body, it's both. 01:35:54.000 --> 01:35:58.080 The reformed on the other hand, also subjecting the words of God 01:35:58.080 --> 01:36:02.080 to reason, fall off the left side of the horse, and say, 01:36:02.080 --> 01:36:05.680 Well, it's bread, it tastes like bread. 01:36:05.680 --> 01:36:07.840 When I eat it, it feels like bread. 01:36:07.840 --> 01:36:11.520 It has all of the accidents of bread. 01:36:11.520 --> 01:36:12.560 It must be bread. 01:36:12.560 --> 01:36:15.520 And yes, I'll hint there at the underlying philosophy. 01:36:15.520 --> 01:36:18.480 It's not really the point of this episode, but it is why 01:36:18.480 --> 01:36:23.520 we have some of these distinctions between the Romans and the Reformed, 01:36:23.520 --> 01:36:25.680 but so they fall off the left side of the horse and 01:36:25.680 --> 01:36:27.200 say It's bread. 01:36:27.200 --> 01:36:30.160 My senses all report that it is bread, I have to find 01:36:30.160 --> 01:36:33.840 some other explanation for God's words. 01:36:33.840 --> 01:36:37.360 Lutherans don't have this problem because God says it's bread, I eat 01:36:37.360 --> 01:36:38.960 it. It tastes like bread. 01:36:38.960 --> 01:36:40.000 Okay, it's bread. 01:36:40.000 --> 01:36:41.760 God says it's its body. 01:36:41.760 --> 01:36:44.240 If God says it's his body, I just believe it. 01:36:44.880 --> 01:36:48.800 So the Lutheran position is very simple. 01:36:48.800 --> 01:36:52.720 It is purely a matter of faith, of course, because you have 01:36:52.720 --> 01:36:54.480 to believe this in faith. 01:36:54.480 --> 01:36:59.280 You can't eat the bread and know with your senses that Christ 01:36:59.280 --> 01:37:00.880 is present. 01:37:00.880 --> 01:37:03.760 And the only reason he's present is because of his word, as 01:37:03.760 --> 01:37:07.280 I just read from the Book of Concord, that's what Lutherans affirm, 01:37:07.280 --> 01:37:10.160 he is present because of his word, and we know he is 01:37:10.160 --> 01:37:14.080 present because of his word, and so all of it flows from 01:37:14.080 --> 01:37:18.480 faith. And then I suppose I should address 01:37:19.360 --> 01:37:23.760 at least briefly the reformed contention that comes up 01:37:25.040 --> 01:37:29.440 throughout discussions of the differences between Lutherans and Reformed. 01:37:29.440 --> 01:37:33.520 And that is this is again a difference in the application of 01:37:33.520 --> 01:37:36.000 reason, as should be unsurprising. 01:37:36.960 --> 01:37:44.080 The reformed will assert finitum non capax infiniti, which simply means the 01:37:44.080 --> 01:37:49.680 finite is not capable of the infinite. 01:37:49.840 --> 01:37:54.320 We will avoid getting into some of the theological weeds as it 01:37:54.320 --> 01:37:59.360 were here, so the communicatio and such will leave aside to some 01:37:59.360 --> 01:38:00.160 degree, but 01:38:01.120 --> 01:38:06.560 the gist of the reformed position, the central contention, is that 01:38:08.800 --> 01:38:14.880 Christ cannot be physically omnipresent according to his humanity. 01:38:15.360 --> 01:38:22.560 Because the communication of the divine attributes is impossible in 01:38:22.560 --> 01:38:26.480 its fullness with regard to the human nature, because the human nature 01:38:26.480 --> 01:38:27.840 is finite. 01:38:27.840 --> 01:38:33.760 I believe that is a fair statement of what the Reformed believe. 01:38:33.760 --> 01:38:37.840 The Lutheran contention, and, quite frankly, to be blunt, the contention of 01:38:37.840 --> 01:38:42.800 Scripture, is that the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ. 01:38:42.800 --> 01:38:44.400 That's just a quote from Scripture. 01:38:44.400 --> 01:38:46.880 That's a verse. 01:38:46.880 --> 01:38:51.760 And so when Scripture says that, that necessarily means something, and so 01:38:51.760 --> 01:38:59.920 the personal union of God and man in Christ, is indivisible, inseparable. 01:38:59.920 --> 01:39:04.720 Where the divinity of Christ is present, the humanity of Christ is 01:39:04.720 --> 01:39:09.920 present, because Christ is an indivisible person, having assumed the humanity into 01:39:09.920 --> 01:39:17.120 himself. And so the humanity of Christ has and exercises the 01:39:17.120 --> 01:39:19.280 divine attributes of Christ. 01:39:19.280 --> 01:39:24.080 It does not have them in itself by its nature, because we 01:39:24.080 --> 01:39:26.960 do not teach that there is a mixing of the natures in 01:39:26.960 --> 01:39:28.400 the person of Christ. 01:39:28.400 --> 01:39:33.440 We went over this previously in other episodes. 01:39:33.440 --> 01:39:40.320 But Christ, even according to his humanity, is omnipresent, because of that 01:39:40.320 --> 01:39:46.720 communication of the divine attributes, omnipresence being properly an attribute of the 01:39:46.720 --> 01:39:52.560 divinity. But But because of the communication of attributes, being an attribute 01:39:52.560 --> 01:39:57.440 of the person, the person being the totality of Christ, fully God, 01:39:57.680 --> 01:39:59.120 fully man. 01:39:59.120 --> 01:40:04.320 And so the argument that the finite is not capable of the 01:40:04.320 --> 01:40:10.000 infinite is simply refuted by Scripture and refuted by not terribly complicated 01:40:10.000 --> 01:40:15.040 theology. Yes, a little bit, but not not horribly so. 01:40:15.040 --> 01:40:21.440 A simpler version of that argument that I think everyone will be 01:40:21.440 --> 01:40:25.120 immediately able to grasp, quite fully. 01:40:25.120 --> 01:40:29.280 To refute the idea that the finite is not capable of the 01:40:29.280 --> 01:40:33.920 infinite in this particular way, whatever it is in specifically the reform 01:40:33.920 --> 01:40:38.160 mean. The refutation is merry. 01:40:39.840 --> 01:40:42.160 And the reason for that is simple. 01:40:42.160 --> 01:40:49.760 Mary bore in her womb for nine months the infinite God. 01:40:49.760 --> 01:40:50.960 Could there be 01:40:51.920 --> 01:40:56.640 other than th the person of Christ himself, but this is even 01:40:56.640 --> 01:41:02.640 a more visceral and easier to grasp illustration of the principle, really. 01:41:02.640 --> 01:41:06.320 Could there be any more clear example of the finite 01:41:07.280 --> 01:41:14.080 holding, containing, being capable of the infinite, than Mary having Christ in 01:41:14.080 --> 01:41:15.440 her womb? 01:41:15.440 --> 01:41:17.280 I don't think there is. 01:41:17.280 --> 01:41:20.720 And so if Mary could have the Infinite God in her womb, 01:41:20.720 --> 01:41:24.640 then the Finite is most certainly capable of the Infinite, and the 01:41:24.640 --> 01:41:29.360 only way to reject that would be to reject the personal union, 01:41:29.360 --> 01:41:33.760 which would be rank heresy. 01:41:33.840 --> 01:41:37.520 I think everything that you just said is really boiled down by 01:41:37.520 --> 01:41:41.120 going back to a portion of the middle of that passage from 01:41:41.120 --> 01:41:42.400 John six. 01:41:42.400 --> 01:41:45.760 Jesus says again, I am the bread of life. 01:41:45.760 --> 01:41:48.800 Your fathers ate the mana in the wilderness and they died. 01:41:48.800 --> 01:41:51.680 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one 01:41:51.680 --> 01:41:53.440 may eat of it and not die. 01:41:53.440 --> 01:41:56.000 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. 01:41:56.000 --> 01:41:59.440 If any one eats of this bread, he will live forever. 01:41:59.440 --> 01:42:01.840 And the bread that I will give for the life of the 01:42:01.840 --> 01:42:03.840 world is my flesh. 01:42:04.080 --> 01:42:07.600 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give 01:42:07.600 --> 01:42:09.920 us his flesh to eat? 01:42:10.880 --> 01:42:13.600 That's really the whole argument. 01:42:13.600 --> 01:42:17.440 Because while these things will often boil down to well, what does 01:42:17.440 --> 01:42:21.040 the text say, which is always a good question, is Corey was 01:42:21.040 --> 01:42:26.160 dealing with right there at the end, the underlying question is can 01:42:26.160 --> 01:42:27.520 God do it? 01:42:27.520 --> 01:42:32.080 And they have first answered no God can't, and therefore they must 01:42:32.080 --> 01:42:36.800 find in a text some other version that lets God not being 01:42:36.800 --> 01:42:40.000 able to do something be in accord with scripture. 01:42:40.000 --> 01:42:44.400 Because if you simply believe what scripture says, you don't you don't 01:42:44.320 --> 01:42:45.440 have the problem. 01:42:45.440 --> 01:42:48.320 And you don't have to worry about John 6 being Eucharistic because 01:42:48.720 --> 01:42:51.680 it's all just it's all just figurative language. 01:42:51.680 --> 01:42:53.840 Well that's the same problem that the Jews had. 01:42:53.840 --> 01:42:56.160 How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 01:42:56.160 --> 01:43:00.160 Well exactly the same way that Jesus had done the day before 01:43:00.560 --> 01:43:02.720 With the feeding of the five thousand. 01:43:02.720 --> 01:43:08.080 Five loaves and two fishes turned into twelve baskets of leftovers after 01:43:08.560 --> 01:43:11.200 probably twenty thousand people had eaten. 01:43:11.200 --> 01:43:12.960 That's how God can do it. 01:43:12.960 --> 01:43:14.240 God works miracles. 01:43:14.240 --> 01:43:17.520 He works material miracles in the world. 01:43:17.520 --> 01:43:19.200 And we don't have to worry about it. 01:43:19.200 --> 01:43:23.920 His very demonstration of power, which is given incidentally by their demand, 01:43:23.920 --> 01:43:25.440 they said, give us a sign. 01:43:25.440 --> 01:43:29.360 They were constantly demanding signs for him to back up his teaching, 01:43:29.360 --> 01:43:30.960 and so sometimes he did. 01:43:30.960 --> 01:43:34.080 And the sign that he gave them on that day, he didn't 01:43:34.000 --> 01:43:37.360 cause, you know, a dove to appear, he didn't cause the clouds 01:43:37.360 --> 01:43:38.080 to part. 01:43:38.080 --> 01:43:39.120 What did he do? 01:43:39.280 --> 01:43:44.080 He took a small amount, a finite amount, and created in that 01:43:44.080 --> 01:43:46.080 day effectively an infinite amount. 01:43:46.080 --> 01:43:49.040 There was such a superabundance that there was more than they could 01:43:49.040 --> 01:43:51.200 have possibly eaten. 01:43:51.200 --> 01:43:52.960 That's how God does it. 01:43:52.960 --> 01:43:54.240 Is that an answer? 01:43:54.240 --> 01:43:58.640 No. It's it doesn't explain anything beyond just believing God and say, 01:43:58.640 --> 01:43:59.920 okay, he delivered. 01:43:59.920 --> 01:44:04.000 If he can feed 20,000 people with you know a basket full 01:44:04.000 --> 01:44:06.720 of food, I think I think he can deliver on this promise 01:44:06.800 --> 01:44:08.400 too. And what does he say? 01:44:08.400 --> 01:44:11.680 He says, My I am the bread of life. 01:44:11.680 --> 01:44:14.160 I will give for the life of the world. 01:44:14.160 --> 01:44:15.760 It's my flesh. 01:44:16.240 --> 01:44:18.000 it's the same thing. 01:44:18.000 --> 01:44:22.720 Communion is vital because it delivers the forgiveness of sins. 01:44:22.720 --> 01:44:25.680 Again, this wasn't, you know, the miracle that Jesus performed with the 01:44:25.680 --> 01:44:27.600 food was just to feed their bellies. 01:44:27.600 --> 01:44:30.000 But the very next day, all the teaching was this is not 01:44:30.000 --> 01:44:33.200 about feeding your bellies because we skipped, you know, a few verses 01:44:33.200 --> 01:44:35.680 at the beginning of that where they were they were demanding a 01:44:35.680 --> 01:44:38.720 bread king, like look, this this guy can do miracles, he can 01:44:38.720 --> 01:44:42.320 food feed everybody, put him in charge, no one will ever go 01:44:42.320 --> 01:44:42.960 hungry again. 01:44:42.960 --> 01:44:44.960 I want this guy to be my king. 01:44:44.960 --> 01:44:47.040 He's like, No, that's not why I'm here. 01:44:47.440 --> 01:44:50.240 your fathers were fed in the desert and they still died, even 01:44:50.240 --> 01:44:52.480 though the food they were giving was miraculous. 01:44:52.480 --> 01:44:57.040 This food that I'm giving you is a an even greater miracle. 01:44:57.040 --> 01:44:59.280 Those who will eat this food will never die. 01:44:59.280 --> 01:45:01.920 And yet what does he say even then? 01:45:01.920 --> 01:45:05.520 Jesus said a little while later, Whoever feeds on my flesh and 01:45:05.520 --> 01:45:09.440 drinks on my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him 01:45:09.440 --> 01:45:12.000 up on the last day. 01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:17.680 So note that he's talking both about eternal life and about corporeal 01:45:17.680 --> 01:45:20.080 death. The only reason that a man would need to be raised 01:45:20.080 --> 01:45:22.240 up on the last day was that he died. 01:45:22.240 --> 01:45:26.640 So this medicine of immortality, this eternal life that's being given by 01:45:26.880 --> 01:45:31.680 his flesh, by the bread, is not it's not the tree of 01:45:31.680 --> 01:45:34.480 life from the garden where a man lives forever. 01:45:34.480 --> 01:45:40.080 This is delivering forgiveness of sins, which is how God delivers the 01:45:40.080 --> 01:45:43.360 resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. 01:45:43.360 --> 01:45:47.840 See, forgiveness of sins, which is delivered through faith, underpins all of 01:45:47.840 --> 01:45:51.120 this. It's why it's not a memorial meal, it's a sacrament. 01:45:51.120 --> 01:45:53.760 It's delivering an actual means of grace. 01:45:53.760 --> 01:45:55.360 God's doing something here. 01:45:55.360 --> 01:45:58.560 And what he's doing is one of the most important things that 01:45:58.560 --> 01:45:59.600 he's ever done. 01:45:59.600 --> 01:46:02.960 He's taking the sacrifice on the cross once for all, and he's 01:46:02.960 --> 01:46:05.920 delivering it materially in our mouths. 01:46:05.920 --> 01:46:09.520 As we said and we emphasized for two hours in the baptism 01:46:09.520 --> 01:46:11.920 episode, it's for our comfort. 01:46:11.920 --> 01:46:15.920 When we receive the body and blood of Christ in our mouth, 01:46:15.920 --> 01:46:18.880 we know that God is delivering on his promises. 01:46:18.880 --> 01:46:22.160 Because yes, we have faith and we trust in God, and God 01:46:22.160 --> 01:46:23.200 knows we need more. 01:46:23.200 --> 01:46:26.080 He knows we need comfort, we need reassurance. 01:46:26.080 --> 01:46:27.680 He pours out more than we actually 01:46:28.560 --> 01:46:32.240 need because he's giving us everything everything we could possibly need or 01:46:32.240 --> 01:46:36.400 want. And so when the sacraments are given to us, not us 01:46:36.400 --> 01:46:41.200 doing them, but God giving them, he's delivering forgiveness, he's delivering faith, 01:46:41.200 --> 01:46:45.440 he's strengthening faith, and he's ensuring that no one has any reason 01:46:45.440 --> 01:46:46.320 to doubt. 01:46:46.480 --> 01:46:49.040 As we said in the baptism episode, even if there's a day 01:46:49.040 --> 01:46:52.480 where you doubt how hard you believe, how well you believe, how 01:46:52.480 --> 01:46:55.760 strong your faith is, if the only anchor that you have on 01:46:55.760 --> 01:47:00.000 that day is your confidence in your baptism, that's still it's an 01:47:00.000 --> 01:47:03.040 anchor. It's holding you fast to the cross. 01:47:03.040 --> 01:47:06.800 The forgiveness of sins delivered in communion is the same thing. 01:47:06.800 --> 01:47:11.360 In the beautiful distinction between baptism the sacrament in the sacrament of 01:47:11.360 --> 01:47:15.760 the altar is that this is something that's given for us weekly. 01:47:15.760 --> 01:47:18.400 Jesus says do this as often you eat as you drink of 01:47:18.400 --> 01:47:20.080 it in remembrance of me. 01:47:20.080 --> 01:47:22.000 It's to be a regular meal. 01:47:22.000 --> 01:47:23.760 It's not to be infrequent. 01:47:23.760 --> 01:47:25.440 It should really be every week. 01:47:25.440 --> 01:47:28.080 And frankly, if you can do it more often, that's good. 01:47:28.080 --> 01:47:31.280 If you do it less often, it's not that, oh well, you 01:47:31.280 --> 01:47:34.320 went beneath the threshold, so you can't be saved now. 01:47:34.320 --> 01:47:37.920 It's not like some drug dosage because again, as we said in 01:47:37.920 --> 01:47:44.000 the baptism episode and we'll save repeatedly because it's so vital. 01:47:44.000 --> 01:47:47.280 It is finished means that all of your sins are already paid 01:47:47.280 --> 01:47:50.160 for. The fact that you have faith to believe that means that 01:47:50.160 --> 01:47:53.200 all of your sins are paid for and delivered to you through 01:47:53.200 --> 01:47:54.960 faith in eternity. 01:47:54.960 --> 01:47:57.280 Your name is written in the book of life. 01:47:57.280 --> 01:48:01.520 Your name is tied to God's name in your baptism and He 01:48:01.520 --> 01:48:06.720 gives you forgiveness of sins in the blood and in the body 01:48:06.880 --> 01:48:10.320 through bread and wine, so that there's never any doubt, there's no 01:48:10.320 --> 01:48:13.520 room for doubt, even if you doubt yourself, even if you're having 01:48:13.520 --> 01:48:16.640 a really bad day, all these things that God pours out through 01:48:16.640 --> 01:48:22.240 the sacraments particularly eliminate the possibility for man to think, well, I 01:48:22.240 --> 01:48:25.360 don't know, maybe maybe I'm out, maybe this this is just I 01:48:25.360 --> 01:48:26.560 don't feel it anymore. 01:48:26.560 --> 01:48:28.800 I don't know if I can trust in God. 01:48:28.800 --> 01:48:31.760 Well, if you can at least trust in his promises, you can 01:48:31.760 --> 01:48:32.560 work your way back. 01:48:32.560 --> 01:48:33.520 He will work you back. 01:48:33.520 --> 01:48:36.240 He's using these to to hang on to you. 01:48:36.240 --> 01:48:38.080 And sometimes it's necessary. 01:48:38.080 --> 01:48:42.880 You know, this these this food, this medicine that's given to us 01:48:43.120 --> 01:48:46.320 preserves our faith and our health in God. 01:48:46.320 --> 01:48:48.560 And sometimes it's also a lifeline. 01:48:48.560 --> 01:48:52.160 But if we're being sustained regularly in the body and in the 01:48:52.160 --> 01:48:55.280 the word, we have more than we need. 01:48:55.280 --> 01:48:56.800 And so God keeps us safe. 01:48:56.800 --> 01:48:58.640 He keeps our faith preserved. 01:48:58.640 --> 01:49:02.000 And the reason that the sacraments are so important to Lutherans and 01:49:02.000 --> 01:49:06.560 should be important to everyone, we believe as Lutheran doctrine presents it, 01:49:06.560 --> 01:49:09.200 is that all of the other variations 01:49:10.080 --> 01:49:13.440 will sow doubt to some degree, some much more than others. 01:49:13.440 --> 01:49:16.800 There's we're not saying they're all equally incorrect. 01:49:16.800 --> 01:49:20.240 Some are a little bit off, some are very terribly off. 01:49:20.240 --> 01:49:24.000 But anytime you're giving up on any of God's promises, you're missing 01:49:24.000 --> 01:49:26.000 out. And that's that's the point. 01:49:26.000 --> 01:49:29.280 It's not it's not about winning this argument, it's not about changing 01:49:29.280 --> 01:49:32.320 minds or having you know more a higher score on the board. 01:49:32.320 --> 01:49:35.200 It's about making sure that all these things that God says are 01:49:35.200 --> 01:49:38.960 really important and these things that deliver immortality 01:49:40.160 --> 01:49:40.800 take it. 01:49:40.800 --> 01:49:41.680 It's a free gift. 01:49:41.680 --> 01:49:42.720 It's freely given. 01:49:42.720 --> 01:49:44.640 Just as our faith is freely given. 01:49:44.640 --> 01:49:46.400 All this stuff is poured out. 01:49:46.400 --> 01:49:50.640 And we need to just receive it in thanksgiving and in gladness 01:49:50.800 --> 01:49:55.440 and in faith and in taking it seriously, not not being dismissive 01:49:55.440 --> 01:49:56.080 of it. 01:49:56.080 --> 01:50:00.320 You know, when we're warned that we should examine ourselves before communing, 01:50:00.320 --> 01:50:02.240 we should take that seriously. 01:50:02.640 --> 01:50:06.000 it's something that I think if if some of the people who 01:50:06.000 --> 01:50:10.640 are causing problems in the world today inside the church actually reflected 01:50:10.640 --> 01:50:15.920 sincerely on the controversies that they've stirred up and the injury that 01:50:15.920 --> 01:50:21.360 they've done, they would repent before they communed, which is the goal. 01:50:21.360 --> 01:50:24.640 The goal is to instill repentance in us, for us to turn 01:50:24.640 --> 01:50:26.720 away from all of our wickedness. 01:50:26.720 --> 01:50:30.720 We're we all crucify Christ every day with our evil actions. 01:50:30.720 --> 01:50:33.680 And yet once for all it was paid. 01:50:33.680 --> 01:50:36.400 And when this stuff is given to us in scripture and it's 01:50:36.400 --> 01:50:40.400 given to us in physical means in the sacraments, it's to reassure 01:50:40.400 --> 01:50:43.280 us that God is going to keep every promise he's ever made. 01:50:43.280 --> 01:50:46.240 Because ultimately that is the only thing that we can actually count 01:50:46.800 --> 01:50:50.000 on. You can't count on the sun rising, you can't count on 01:50:50.000 --> 01:50:53.680 your family liking you, you can't count on your heart not stopping, 01:50:53.680 --> 01:50:55.440 but you can count on God. 01:50:55.440 --> 01:50:58.640 And when you count on that, the rest of those things, while 01:50:58.640 --> 01:51:02.000 they're still concerns, they can't they can't be worries. 01:51:02.000 --> 01:51:06.160 You can't worry when you have your faith rooted in all of 01:51:06.160 --> 01:51:07.520 God's promises. 01:51:07.520 --> 01:51:11.440 Everything else is it's highly desirable, it's nice to have, but it's 01:51:11.360 --> 01:51:12.640 no longer critical. 01:51:12.640 --> 01:51:15.280 You don't have to have the stuff. 01:51:15.280 --> 01:51:20.080 You have to have God's promises, and He gives those for free. 01:51:20.080 --> 01:51:20.320 And 01:51:20.320 --> 01:51:25.040 so we will close out this episode with three quotes: one from 01:51:25.040 --> 01:51:29.920 the large catechism, one from what was effectively Luther's last will and 01:51:29.920 --> 01:51:34.080 testament, as he intended it at any rate, and then one other 01:51:34.080 --> 01:51:35.280 quote, and then 01:51:36.960 --> 01:51:41.600 a little bit about the history, just some quick tidbits from the 01:51:41.600 --> 01:51:45.440 history of the beliefs of the church with regard to the Lord's 01:51:45.440 --> 01:51:50.880 Supper. And so first from the large catechism. 01:51:51.760 --> 01:51:55.680 Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 01:51:55.680 --> 01:51:58.480 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it 01:51:58.480 --> 01:52:03.120 to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which 01:52:03.120 --> 01:52:04.560 is given for you. 01:52:04.560 --> 01:52:07.360 This do in remembrance of me. 01:52:07.360 --> 01:52:10.880 In the same way also he took the cup after supper, and 01:52:10.880 --> 01:52:14.000 when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, Drink 01:52:14.000 --> 01:52:16.560 of it all of you, this is my blood of the New 01:52:16.560 --> 01:52:20.640 Testament, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, this 01:52:20.640 --> 01:52:24.960 do as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. 01:52:24.960 --> 01:52:28.400 Here also we do not wish to enter into controversy and fight 01:52:28.400 --> 01:52:32.800 with the defamers and blasphemers of this sacrament, but to learn first, 01:52:32.800 --> 01:52:36.800 as we did with baptism, what is of the greatest importance. 01:52:36.800 --> 01:52:40.960 The chief point is God's word and ordinance or command, for the 01:52:40.960 --> 01:52:45.680 sacrament has not been invented nor introduced by any man, without anyone's 01:52:45.680 --> 01:52:49.440 counsel and deliberation it has been instituted by Christ. 01:52:49.440 --> 01:52:53.520 The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed keep their nature 01:52:53.520 --> 01:52:57.760 and worth, even if you never keep, pray, or believe them. 01:52:57.760 --> 01:53:01.280 So also this honorable sacrament remains undisturbed. 01:53:01.280 --> 01:53:04.880 Nothing is withdrawn or taken from it, even though we use it 01:53:04.880 --> 01:53:07.040 and administer it unworthily. 01:53:07.040 --> 01:53:10.000 Do you think God cares about what we do or believe, as 01:53:10.000 --> 01:53:14.160 though on that account he should allow his ordnance to be changed? 01:53:14.160 --> 01:53:17.760 Why in all worldly matters everything stays the way God is created 01:53:17.920 --> 01:53:21.760 and ordered it, no matter how we employ or use it? 01:53:22.000 --> 01:53:25.840 This point must always be taught, for by it the chatter of 01:53:25.840 --> 01:53:29.760 nearly all the fanatical spirits can be repelled, for they regard the 01:53:29.760 --> 01:53:33.920 sacraments unlike God's Word, as something that we do. 01:53:33.920 --> 01:53:36.800 Now what is the sacrament of the altar? 01:53:36.800 --> 01:53:40.640 Answer It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus 01:53:40.640 --> 01:53:44.480 Christ, in and under the bread and wine, which we Christians are 01:53:44.480 --> 01:53:47.680 commanded by Christ's word to eat and to drink. 01:53:47.680 --> 01:53:51.520 Just as we have said that baptism is not simple water, so 01:53:51.520 --> 01:53:55.040 here also we say that though the sacrament is bread and wine, 01:53:55.040 --> 01:53:58.720 it is not mere bread and wine, such as are ordinarily served 01:53:58.720 --> 01:53:59.760 at the table. 01:53:59.760 --> 01:54:04.000 But this is bread and wine included in and connected with God's 01:54:04.000 --> 01:54:07.520 Word. It is the Word I say that makes and sets this 01:54:07.520 --> 01:54:08.880 sacrament apart. 01:54:08.880 --> 01:54:11.760 So it is not mere bread and wine, but is and is 01:54:11.760 --> 01:54:13.920 called Christ's body and blood. 01:54:13.920 --> 01:54:16.880 For For it is said, when the word is joined to the 01:54:16.880 --> 01:54:20.400 element or natural substance, it becomes a sacrament. 01:54:20.400 --> 01:54:24.160 This saying of Saint Augustine is so properly and so well put 01:54:24.320 --> 01:54:26.960 that he has scarcely said anything better. 01:54:26.960 --> 01:54:30.240 The word must make a sacrament out of the element, or else 01:54:30.240 --> 01:54:32.640 it remains a mere element. 01:54:32.640 --> 01:54:35.280 Now it is not the word or ordinance of a prince or 01:54:35.280 --> 01:54:38.880 emperor, but it is the word of the grand majesty, at whose 01:54:38.880 --> 01:54:42.800 feet all creatures should fall and affirm it as he says, and 01:54:42.800 --> 01:54:46.640 accept it with all reverence, fear, and humility. 01:54:46.640 --> 01:54:50.880 With this word you can strengthen your conscience and say, If a 01:54:50.880 --> 01:54:55.360 hundred thousand devils, together with all fanatics should rush forward crying, How 01:54:55.360 --> 01:54:57.840 can bread and wine be Christ's body and blood? 01:54:57.840 --> 01:55:01.680 And such I know that all spirits and scholars together are not 01:55:01.680 --> 01:55:05.360 as wise as is the divine majesty in his little finger. 01:55:05.360 --> 01:55:10.720 Now here stands Christ's word: take, eat, this is my body, drink 01:55:10.880 --> 01:55:13.520 of it all of you, this is my blood of the New 01:55:13.520 --> 01:55:15.280 Testament, and so on. 01:55:15.600 --> 01:55:19.440 Here we stop to watch those who will call themselves his masters, 01:55:19.440 --> 01:55:23.280 and make the matter different from what He has spoken. 01:55:23.280 --> 01:55:27.120 It is true indeed, that if you take away the word, or 01:55:27.120 --> 01:55:30.880 regard the sacrament without the words, you have nothing but mere bread 01:55:30.880 --> 01:55:31.920 and wine. 01:55:31.920 --> 01:55:36.000 But if the words remain with them, as they shall and must, 01:55:36.000 --> 01:55:39.760 then by virtue of the words, it is truly Christ's body and 01:55:39.760 --> 01:55:44.320 blood. What Christ's lips say and speak, so it is he can 01:55:44.320 --> 01:55:48.160 never lie, or deceive. 01:55:48.160 --> 01:55:55.440 The second quote is from Luther's Confession Concerning Christ's Supper. 01:55:55.440 --> 01:56:00.640 This one was effectively what Luther intended as his last will and 01:56:00.640 --> 01:56:04.720 testament, and you'll note that he concerned himself not with the disposition 01:56:04.720 --> 01:56:08.480 of his estate or any such matters, although they handled as well 01:56:08.480 --> 01:56:12.880 elsewhere. He concerned himself with the Lord's supper. 01:56:12.880 --> 01:56:18.400 That was how centrally important this was to the reformer. 01:56:18.400 --> 01:56:22.800 I see that schisms and errors are increasing proportionately with the passage 01:56:22.800 --> 01:56:25.840 of time, and that there is no end to the rage and 01:56:25.840 --> 01:56:27.280 fury of Satan. 01:56:27.280 --> 01:56:32.320 Hence, lest any persons during my lifetime or after my death appeal 01:56:32.320 --> 01:56:36.320 to me, or misuse my writings to confirm their error, as the 01:56:36.320 --> 01:56:40.480 Sacramentarian and Baptist fanatics are already beginning to do. 01:56:40.480 --> 01:56:44.320 I desire with this treatise to confess my faith before God and 01:56:44.320 --> 01:56:46.960 all the world point by point. 01:56:46.960 --> 01:56:50.320 I am determined to abide by it until my death and so 01:56:50.320 --> 01:56:54.640 help me God, in this faith to depart from this world, and 01:56:54.640 --> 01:56:58.320 to appear before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ. 01:56:58.320 --> 01:57:02.480 Hence, if any one shall say after my death, if Luther were 01:57:02.480 --> 01:57:06.400 living now he would teach and hold this or that article differently, 01:57:06.400 --> 01:57:09.920 for he did not consider it sufficiently, etc. 01:57:09.920 --> 01:57:13.120 Let me say once and for all that by the grace of 01:57:13.120 --> 01:57:17.600 God I have most diligently traced all these articles through the scriptures, 01:57:17.600 --> 01:57:21.600 have examined them again and again in the light thereof, and have 01:57:21.600 --> 01:57:24.720 wanted to defend all of them as certainly as I have now 01:57:24.720 --> 01:57:26.960 defended the sacrament of the altar. 01:57:26.960 --> 01:57:30.480 I am not drunk or irresponsible, I know what I am saying, 01:57:30.480 --> 01:57:33.920 and I well realize what this will mean for me before the 01:57:33.920 --> 01:57:37.280 last judgment, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 01:57:37.280 --> 01:57:39.760 Let no one make this out to be a joke or idle 01:57:39.760 --> 01:57:43.360 talk. I am in dead earnest, since by the grace of God 01:57:43.360 --> 01:57:46.080 I have learned to know a great deal about Satan. 01:57:46.080 --> 01:57:48.640 If he can twist and pervert the word of God in the 01:57:48.640 --> 01:57:51.920 scriptures, what will he not be able to do with my or 01:57:51.920 --> 01:57:53.920 someone else's words? 01:57:54.560 --> 01:57:58.400 In the same way, I also say and confess that in the 01:57:58.400 --> 01:58:02.240 sacrament of the altar, the true body and blood of Christ are 01:58:02.240 --> 01:58:05.920 orally eaten and drunk in the bread and wine, even if the 01:58:05.920 --> 01:58:09.440 priests who distribute them, or those who receive them do not believe 01:58:09.520 --> 01:58:13.920 or otherwise misuse the sacrament, it does not rest on man's belief 01:58:13.920 --> 01:58:18.080 or unbelief, but on the word and ordinance of God, unless they 01:58:18.080 --> 01:58:22.480 first change God's word and ordinance and misinterpret them as the enemies 01:58:22.480 --> 01:58:24.880 of the sacrament do at the present time. 01:58:24.880 --> 01:58:28.160 They indeed have only bread and wine, for they do not also 01:58:28.160 --> 01:58:32.240 have the words and instituted ordinance of God, but have perverted and 01:58:32.240 --> 01:58:36.160 changed it according to their own imagination. 01:58:36.160 --> 01:58:38.080 And for the third quote 01:58:39.040 --> 01:58:43.200 The amazing thing, meanwhile, is that of all the fathers, as many 01:58:43.200 --> 01:58:46.720 as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacrament 01:58:46.800 --> 01:58:48.640 as these fanatics do. 01:58:48.640 --> 01:58:52.240 None of them uses such an expression as, it is simply bread 01:58:52.240 --> 01:58:55.840 and wine, or Christ's body and blood are not present. 01:58:55.840 --> 01:58:59.360 Yet since this subject is so frequently discussed by them, them, it 01:58:59.360 --> 01:59:02.880 is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip 01:59:02.880 --> 01:59:06.720 such an expression as, it is simply bread, or not that the 01:59:06.720 --> 01:59:09.600 body of Christ is physically present, or the like. 01:59:09.600 --> 01:59:13.280 Since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people, actually they 01:59:13.760 --> 01:59:17.120 simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ's body 01:59:17.120 --> 01:59:18.640 and blood are present. 01:59:18.640 --> 01:59:23.600 Certainly, among so many fathers and so many writings, a negative argument 01:59:23.600 --> 01:59:27.920 should have turned up at least once, as happens in other articles, 01:59:27.920 --> 01:59:35.520 but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side. 01:59:35.520 --> 01:59:40.240 That quote is speaking of the Church Fathers, and in the Church 01:59:40.240 --> 01:59:45.760 Fathers, you will not find a denial of the real present, of 01:59:45.760 --> 01:59:48.720 the real presence, of the sacramental union. 01:59:48.720 --> 01:59:55.120 You will find affirmation after affirmation after affirmation of this teaching. 01:59:55.120 --> 01:59:56.640 And so to close out 01:59:57.760 --> 02:00:02.400 I will end with a bit of the history of this with 02:00:02.400 --> 02:00:06.240 regard to the early church, this ties into the fact that you 02:00:06.240 --> 02:00:10.640 will not find a different teaching on this subject in the Church 02:00:10.640 --> 02:00:16.240 Fathers, because this is the unanimous voice of the historic church. 02:00:17.280 --> 02:00:22.480 During the Roman persecution, the particularly heinous parts of the Roman persecution 02:00:22.800 --> 02:00:27.600 of the early Christians, of the early church, one of the charges, 02:00:27.600 --> 02:00:31.600 one of the common charges, was a charge of cannibalism. 02:00:31.600 --> 02:00:37.200 And that charge was levelled against Christians because of the teaching on 02:00:37.200 --> 02:00:39.200 the Lord's Supper. 02:00:39.200 --> 02:00:42.720 Now, you may think, well they would still say that because of 02:00:42.720 --> 02:00:45.120 the words even if no. 02:00:45.120 --> 02:00:49.520 They were given the opportunity to recant or to explain what they 02:00:49.520 --> 02:00:53.440 meant before they were sentenced to death typically thrown to the lions, 02:00:53.440 --> 02:00:57.440 although other punishments were also used depending on the emperor and the 02:00:57.440 --> 02:01:00.720 one passing judgment. 02:01:00.720 --> 02:01:05.040 If they had simply said No we believe in a spiritual presence, 02:01:05.040 --> 02:01:09.120 echoing the reformed, or if they had simply said, No, this is 02:01:09.120 --> 02:01:14.640 merely a memorial for Christ, echoing the Baptists, they would not have 02:01:14.640 --> 02:01:18.800 been executed for what they believed. 02:01:18.800 --> 02:01:24.160 Those in the early church who were subjected to persecution on account 02:01:24.400 --> 02:01:29.200 of Christ, on account of the teaching regarding the Lord's supper, were 02:01:29.200 --> 02:01:33.760 willing to go to the lions, were willing to die, rather than 02:01:33.760 --> 02:01:38.320 to affirm that any of the various false teachings that are today 02:01:38.560 --> 02:01:41.760 held by many traditions, many denominations. 02:01:41.760 --> 02:01:45.680 All they had to do was say, No, it's a spiritual presence, 02:01:45.680 --> 02:01:48.800 no it's a memorial, and they would not have been sentenced to 02:01:48.800 --> 02:01:51.920 death. Because if they had said that, they would have been just 02:01:51.920 --> 02:01:53.280 another mystery cult. 02:01:53.280 --> 02:01:55.920 The Roman Empire had plenty of those, those were normal. 02:01:55.920 --> 02:01:58.320 If you want to be weird in the corner, that's fine, you 02:01:58.320 --> 02:01:59.120 do that. 02:01:59.120 --> 02:02:03.920 It was the charge of cannibalism and the insistence of the early 02:02:03.920 --> 02:02:09.600 Christians that no, we consume the body and blood of our Saviour 02:02:09.600 --> 02:02:11.200 in this sacrament. 02:02:11.200 --> 02:02:13.360 That is what sentenced them to death. 02:02:13.600 --> 02:02:17.120 and they were willing to die for it. 02:02:17.120 --> 02:02:22.560 Because when you are called upon to affirm scriptural truth, when you 02:02:22.560 --> 02:02:29.360 are called upon to affirm right doctrine, even if failing to do 02:02:29.360 --> 02:02:34.240 so, even if denying those truths would save your life, you are 02:02:34.240 --> 02:02:37.680 required, and in fact you are probably more required in the case 02:02:37.680 --> 02:02:39.360 where your life is in jeopardy. 02:02:39.360 --> 02:02:42.800 You are required to affirm the truth and to die for your 02:02:42.800 --> 02:02:48.000 faith. That is what it means to suffer persecution gladly. 02:02:48.000 --> 02:02:52.160 It is when you are persecuted specifically for your faith that you 02:02:52.160 --> 02:02:55.600 stand up and declare the truth and suffer the consequences. 02:02:55.600 --> 02:02:59.280 It is not in regards to the left hand kingdom, in regard 02:02:59.280 --> 02:03:02.720 to politics and secular issues, that is a separate matter, and we 02:03:02.720 --> 02:03:05.600 have discussed that previously and will certainly get into it more in 02:03:05.600 --> 02:03:10.480 future episodes, but when it comes to the truth of the faith, 02:03:10.480 --> 02:03:14.160 when it comes to the Word of God, we are to affirm 02:03:14.160 --> 02:03:18.160 the truth, whatever the consequences may be. 02:03:18.160 --> 02:03:22.640 And that is what the early Christian Church did, when faced with 02:03:22.640 --> 02:03:29.280 the option of either deny the real presence, deny the sacramental union, 02:03:29.600 --> 02:03:33.200 that presence of Christ in the supper, in, with and under the 02:03:33.200 --> 02:03:38.880 bread and wine, deny it or die, they chose to die. 02:03:38.880 --> 02:03:42.560 Because that is how important the Lord's Supper is. 02:03:42.560 --> 02:03:47.440 Because, as stated before, there are two sacraments in the Christian religion, 02:03:47.440 --> 02:03:48.560 two core sacraments. 02:03:48.560 --> 02:03:52.400 Again, we will not argue, quibble over whether or not there are 02:03:52.400 --> 02:03:55.920 some other sacramental things or sacraments, but there is baptism and there 02:03:55.920 --> 02:03:57.920 is the Lord's Supper Proper. 02:03:57.920 --> 02:04:04.320 Baptism is the ordinary means in the sense of traditional or proper. 02:04:04.320 --> 02:04:07.600 It is the ordinary means by which one enters into the family 02:04:07.600 --> 02:04:08.400 of God. 02:04:08.400 --> 02:04:14.080 One enters into that covenant, one is given faith and salvation, and 02:04:14.080 --> 02:04:16.960 the Lord's supper is how that is strengthened, it is how you 02:04:16.960 --> 02:04:19.040 are kept in the faith. 02:04:19.040 --> 02:04:23.680 And of course both must be with the word, for a sacrament 02:04:23.680 --> 02:04:27.120 is a pairing together of an element and the word. 02:04:27.120 --> 02:04:31.280 These are the means of grace, these are the things instituted by 02:04:31.280 --> 02:04:34.000 God for the salvation of your soul. 02:04:34.000 --> 02:04:38.320 And so they are worth defending even unto death.