Place/Purpose of 2nd Coming in the Lord's Supper

Introduction: The Lord's Supper as Retrospective and Prospective

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, November 1st, 1998, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now before we turn to the Word of God, just a word of explanation for those who are visiting with us. It is our ordinary practice that when we come to the Lord's table, that the ministry of the Word of God will be preparatory for coming to the Lord's table. Now, ordinarily, the expositions of the Word in this place will generally take about 50 minutes to an hour.

0:44 However, in coming to the table, those of us who preach are asked to limit ourselves closer to half an hour, 35 minutes, not to skimp on the ministry of the Word, but that we would not be excessively weary mentally and spiritually when we come to the table itself. And in keeping...

1:04 In keeping with those directives that have been established by the leadership here, I would like for our communion meditation to direct your attention to what are very familiar words in our coming to the Lord's table, that I trust God will be pleased to shed some fresh light upon them. And I'm referring to the words of 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 26. Often, these are the last words that are quoted. When we come to the Lord's table, whoever of the elders distributes the cup will often, in conjunction with that distribution, read as his part in the service these words, As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he come. You proclaim the Lord's death till he come. Now, when the minds and hearts of God's people are being regulated by the Scriptures as they come to the Lord's table, they must engage in what we might call the retrospective look upon Golgotha.

2:23 That is, they must of necessity look back and remember afresh what our Lord did when, in the giving up of His body to the cruel death, He died that vile in death, the righteous for the unrighteous. And when we take the cup that symbolizes His blood, surely there must be a looking backward in reflecting upon the pouring out of His life's blood as the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. If ever it was appropriate to sing the hymn, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, it is when we come to the table and take that backward look, remembering our Lord Jesus, particularly in His dying love, the act of His giving Himself a ransom for sinners. However, the text read in your hearing underscores that we are not only to have our minds engaged engaged in action. Active contemplation of the Lord's death for us, but that in doing this, we are consciously to remember that as oft as we drink this cup

3:48 and as oft as we eat this bread, we are proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes. So that there is not only to be the retrospective gaze, the looking backward, but the prospective. The perspective gaze, the looking forward until He comes. And in a very real sense, this table is the link between the upper room in Palestine and the parting heavens and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God when our Lord Jesus shall come again.

The Place of the Second Coming in the Words of Institution

4:28 And it is right that in coming to the table, we should keep before us not only the reality, not only the realities of the past, those events that our Lord was about to experience when He instituted the Supper, but that we look forward to the consummation of His redemptive work when He comes in glory and power at the end of the age. And so for our time together tonight, I want you to think with me on the place and purpose of the second coming in the Supper of Remembrance. The place and purpose of the second coming of our Lord in this Supper of Remembrance. Consider with me, first of all, the place of the second coming in the words of institution. If you are familiar with your New Testament, you know that in the gospel records, the Synoptic gospels, that is Matthew, Mark and Luke, we have three accounts of the institution of the Lord's Supper. And in each one of these accounts, the Lord Jesus not only makes clear to His disciples that they are to continually remember Him in this newly instituted supper of remembrance by the breaking of bread and the drinking of the fruit of the vine,

5:54 but He points forward to a time when He will drink with them new in the kingdom of God. In the passage that Pastor Smith read in your hearing from Matthew chapter 26, we find this clear statement of our Lord coming at the culmination of the institution of the supper. Verse 29 of Matthew 26, But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's. And you find similar words in Mark 14 and verse 25 and in Luke chapter 22 and verse 18. So it should not surprise us when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 that after the Apostle has quoted what the Lord Jesus revealed to him concerning this supper, that beginning in verse 26, Paul gives apostasy, apostolic pastoral guidance to the church at Corinth, and this is his comment upon this supper that the Lord has instituted.

7:14 For as oft as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He come. Now whether the Apostle was familiar with the words of institution as recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one cannot be certain. But one thing is clear, that in the words of institution as recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the words of institution as they are given to us here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, there is an intimate connection between the table of the Lord and the second coming of the Lord Himself. He Himself says that He will no longer henceforth drink of the fruit of the vine, until He drinks it new with His people in the Father's kingdom, in the kingdom of God. So that when we transport ourselves backward to that initial band of the apostolate, as they would find their way into the will and purpose of God in gospel endeavors, as the foundation stones of the church shaping and molding the contours, of New Testament church life, they would, with the Apostle Paul, in establishing the churches,

8:40 in integrating the churches into a life pattern that was pleasing to the Lord Jesus, they would be careful to impart to the early disciples this connection between the supper of remembrance and the second coming. They could never forget the words of their Lord, uttered in that first, Lord's Supper, that He would not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine, until He drank it new with them in His Father's kingdom. They would, in looking back upon the events that would soon transpire, and did transpire, they could never look back in that retrospective look, without also looking ahead in that prospective look, that their Lord, had promised, as surely as He instituted the supper, a time was coming, when He would again drink with them in the Father's kingdom. A day was coming, when they would enter into the consummate blessings of the very salvation, that He was about to purchase with His own blood. The salvation they were to remember, when they instituted, and would pass on,

10:03 to others this supper as part of the ordinary life of the new community formed by the Lord Jesus. And so this connection between the Lord's Supper and the second coming is established by the words of institution, as they are recorded in the Gospel records, and as they are recorded here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Well, that leads us then to ask, very naturally, this question. What is the purpose of this focus upon the second coming, in connection with the supper of remembrance?

Purpose 1: Christ's Coming Will Consummate the Design of His Death

10:43 Surely our Lord did not do this in an arbitrary way. And I would not profess to know all the reasons for which our Lord made this connection, all the reasons why the Apostle, under the guidance of the Spirit, made the connection. But let me suggest at least two, very basic things that are clear from the unanimous testimony of the Word of God. What is the purpose of this focus upon the second coming, in connection with the supper of remembrance?

11:17 Well let me suggest as I've indicated these two things. Number one. His coming will consummate the design and purpose of His death. It is at His second coming that our Lord will consummate the design and the purpose of His death.

11:39 And this is extremely important to our Lord. In Isaiah 53 and verse 11 we are told that the suffering servant of Jehovah will see of the travail of his soul and he shall be satisfied. In other words, the Lord Jesus will not be a disappointed suffering servant. All that goes into the travail of his soul, and in Isaiah 53 we are given some details as to what was involved in that travail, being bruised for our iniquities.

12:18 It pleases the Father to put him to grief. And we are told that in so pouring out His soul, understand, after death he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. In other words, everything he died to accomplish will be accomplished. Well, what was the heart of the design and purpose of his death?

12:46 We turn to a passage such as Ephesians chapter 5, and we are given a very clear answer. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse, verse 25b. Husbands are directed to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Now here are the words.

13:08 And gave himself up for it, in order that he gave himself up for it to this end, in order that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, in order, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Here in unmistakable clarity, the apostle states that the design and purpose of the death of Christ, the conscious goal that beat within his, his own breast when he went to the cross was that he might have a bride here called the church presented to himself cleansed and purified a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. This is why he died. Not to have a people who could say, the guilt, the guilt of my sin is removed.

14:32 The threat of impending judgment no longer hangs over me. I am free from condemnation. I am safe with regard to the just penalty of my sins. That's the beginning, middle and end of my concern with the saving work of Christ.

14:52 Not at all. He died that he might ultimately present to himself out of that mass of guilt, by helpless humanity, a church, a bride that would be utterly and completely spotless without wrinkle or spot or any such thing, but holy and without. ไร It should not surprise system. When we come summation of redemption is lightened in revelation 19, two wedding feast, And in that marvelous passage, we read the following words, Revelation 19, and beginning with verse 6. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders. Think what this meant for John, who hears these sounds and sees these sights. And he says the sound of what he heard was like many waters, the crashing of a thousand waves upon the shore, mighty thunders, one thunderclap rolling in upon another.

16:13 That's what these voices sounded like. And what was the voice of the voices saying? Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad.

16:28 And let us give glory unto Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready. All of this thunderous praise has to do with the consummation of redemption. When the Lord Jesus comes to take the bride to Himself, the bride that He purchased with His own blood, the bride that He purchased with His own blood, with the end in view that He might present it to Himself, holy and without spot or blemish. Here, the Lord Jesus will sit down on this festive occasion with all of His redeemed, and He will again drink of the fruit of the vine in the company of all His people. And that promise, given that original night of institution, I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of the vine, until, until this self-imposed prohibition has a terminus, it has an end. I will not drink until, until the Kingdom of God, until the Kingdom of my Father.

17:46 And that Kingdom will come in its consummate glory, when the Lord Jesus at His second coming resurrects all those who have died in Him, will in an instant and a moment of time transform living believers and with glorified bodies and utterly spotless spirits forever united in the integrity of what man was supposed to be. The Lord Jesus takes of all of His people unto Himself, His bride, spotless and without wrinkle. Do you see why? At least one of the reasons the Lord in the original institution points beyond what was to happen in the next few hours. Yes, this is my body which is for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for many. But He looks beyond the events of the next hours and He looks down to the end of time and the consummation of the age and He says, Because of what I...

18:55 Because of what I am about to do, there will be a kingdom in its consummate glory and you, my disciples, will be there with me and when all that I now am about to undergo has come to its full fruition, I will drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. His coming will consummate the design and purpose of His death. Surely then it is appropriate at the time of my death not only to look back and to review afresh in our mind's eye all that He voluntarily underwent to purchase our redemption, but to look forward, to look down through whatever time is yet marked out in the eternal counsels of God and to envision that scene described by John when all of the people of God shall sit down and feast with their glorified Lord at the marriage supper of the Lamb. But then I suggest this second reason as to why there is this connection between the Lord's table and the second coming and it is this. His coming will not only consummate the design and purpose of His death, but His coming will consummate the desire and the purpose in the heart of every child of God.

Purpose 2: Christ's Coming Will Consummate the Desire of Every Child of God

20:25 His coming will consummate the desire and purpose in the heart of every child of God. What is the desire and purpose in your heart as a Christian?

20:41 You say, I want to please God. Yes. I want to do the will of God. Yes.

20:45 But ultimately put all of those together and is it not this that the purpose for which God set His love upon you might be realized even that you might be conformed to the image of His Son, Romans 8, 29, whom He did foreknow, then He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. And in the heart of every child of God, if you can dig down through all of the layers of the remaining sin and the narrow perspectives and at times the dull sensitivities, you will find beating in the deepest recesses of the heart of every child of God a desire and purpose that lines up with God's design in redemption. He is committed to restore all those upon whom He set His love into the very image of His Son that they will know in their experience that utter eradication of every vestige of sin in their souls and that they will know the eradication of every effect of the fall of the world. All in their bodies. When with hearts that will love Him without distraction, when with spirits that run out to Him without any intermittent dullness and slacking of the affections,

22:14 and with bodies resplendent with resurrection life and power and vigor, no aching joints, no signs of age across the brow, no grave that waits to consume us, they will be made into the very likeness of the glorified Son of God. Forever creatures in all of the limitations of creaturehood. He forever the unique God-man. We will never cross over the line and become little gods.

22:47 But the Scripture says in the scheme of redemption He will be the firstborn among many brethren. This is what John refers to in 1 John 3. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called sons of God. And such we are.

23:07 But it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear we shall be. We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. And what's the next verse say?

23:28 And every one that hath this hope in Him goes on purifying himself even as he is pure. God's purpose to make us like Him becomes our settled desire and purpose. But surely brethren what a far cry we are now from what we shall be. We come to the table tonight perhaps some of us the memory of the sins of the past week.

24:03 Crippling our spirits that unkind word that unchaste thought that insensitive deed perhaps that angry word whatever the sin may be and we say O God how long must I carry about with me that which I loathe and hate and in the language of Romans 7 the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do O wretch wretched man that I am who should deliver me from the body of this death? Some of us with advancing years and some not so advanced in years sit among us whose bodies are a constant burden. They must be strapped into their wheelchairs. Their bodies are a burden to them from their youth. Others among us who feel the effects of sin upon this corporeal part of us. There are times when everything in us longs to be stirred up to seek God to serve God with abandonment but we are very very conscious that this outward man is indeed decaying.

25:22 It is marked for the grave and the seeds of death begin to sprout in an alarming rate and where once we gave very little thought to our bodies except to throw them into bed for a few hours of sleep and to stoke them with food several times a day we did not have to organize our lives around the next visit to the doctor around the next regimen of pills to keep us going. But that's the reality with which we live now.

25:54 What a sorry bunch we are.

25:57 But brethren the last chapter has not been written about us.

26:03 We come to the table and what does our Lord want us to do? He wants us to remember Him. Yes, remember Him and all that He wants us to do He was willing to do when He laid down His life for us. A body given up in the death of a sacrificial victim.

Partaking with Joy, Confidence, and Holy Longings

26:20 Yes, His blood poured out on our behalf but He wants us to look forward and to, as it were take afresh by the hand of faith and in the language of one of our hymns they seize the prize with their eye. Let your eyes seize what we shall one day be as the fruition of the dying love of our Savior. His coming will consummate the desire and purpose in the heart of every child of God and it is as certain that we shall be like Him as it is that He died and rose again from the dead on behalf of His people. So then, dear brothers and sisters let me urge you this night to partake with joy and with confidence as you come to the Lord's table He who has begun a good work in you shall perfect it until when? The day of Jesus Christ. God does not begin the work only to have monuments of unfinished business. What He begins He will complete.

27:39 He who has begun the good work in us will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. In the language of the hymn writer more happy but not more secure the glorified spirits in heaven. The work which His goodness began the arm of His strength will complete.

28:04 Jude could write unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding great joy. He is able to present us faultless before His presence with exceeding joy. It is right for us at the table to have fresh dealings with our Lord about our sin, about our failures and to look afresh to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness but never never allow your thoughts to terminate upon that dimension of vital Christianity. Christian experience look beyond it to the day when praise will still be part of your privilege as a child of God. Worship and adoration will be your privilege and your duty but repentance will be done forever. Grief and mourning for sin forever past. The weariness of an external temple that will not keep pace with the desires of a renewed heart forever put aside and this mortal shall have put on immortality. The body

29:19 sown in weakness shall be raised in power. This is the prospect of the child of God. In the light of that and in the light of the fact that these blessings are secured not by our effort and our endeavors but by the work that Christ has accomplished for us. Let us come with joy and confidence to the table but then let us also partake with holy longings. You know the last prayer in the Bible even so come Lord Jesus even so come Lord Jesus the longing of the church through the ages even so come Lord Jesus you've occasionally come across that strange word at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 16 after Paul pronounces a gospel curse if anyone love not if anyone does not have a fond affection for our Lord Jesus let him be accursed and then in a very curse word that is really a brief sentence in Aramaic the language in which the gospel perhaps would often have first been preached in

30:36 the center of Palestine as it spread out to the Greco-Roman world. It became one of the watch words of the early Christians and was carried over from the Aramaic into the Greek speaking world even as the word Abba, Father Maranatha. What does it mean? Our Lord come or O Lord come Our Lord come believers would meet one another and say Maranatha Our Lord come. They sought to view themselves and view life in the light of that holy longing and that confident expectation of the coming of their blessed Lord. As I said at the outset of our brief meditation the link between the upper room and the night of his betrayal and his coming in the clouds is the gathering of his people to this table. Here we look back and with fresh actings of faith we feed upon Christ and his dying love and his work of salvation for us. But we also look forward to the consummation of that work that

31:51 will be our experience when the heavens open when we hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God and the scripture says every eye shall see him. Driving here tonight as I was meditating upon that verse in Revelation 1 in verse 6 every eye shall see him. I said Lord give me to believe with fresh confidence and expectation that these eyes that are following the contours of Changebridge Road or Horseneck Road these eyes will gaze upon the very Lord who instituted that supper. These eyes, not another set of eyes, long after they may be eaten by the worms reconstituted a continuity between the body that is and the body that shall be. It's true. It's true. And we need as we come to the table to recognize this coming to the table is that great link between the upper room and its institution and that next gathering of all disciples around the table that our Lord himself will spread as he the bridegroom takes his bride to himself without blemish and without spot.

The Parallel with the Passover

33:15 There is a wonderful parallel between the significance of the Passover and the significance of this supper. When the Jews would celebrate the Passover according to God's very strict directives, they were doing basically two things. They were looking back on that great deliverance out of Egypt. You remember what God said when your children ask you in time to come, what does this mean?

33:38 He said you tell them what it means. It points back to that marvelous deliverance when the angel of death passed over those houses where he found the blood upon the doorpost and the lentils. It was a Passover. It was a remembrance of God passing over his people and delivering them out of Egyptian bondage.

34:05 But it also pointed forward to that one whom John identified as the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. Paul can say Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed for us. The Passover supper looked back and looked forward. It looked back upon a deliverance accomplished. It looked forward to a deliverance yet to be accomplished. Now what does the Lord's Supper do? It looks back upon the redemption accomplished when Christ died the just for the unjust. But it too looks forward not to a sacrifice, yet to be made, but the consummate blessings flowing out of that sacrifice in which the Lord Jesus shall see of the travail of his soul and be fully satisfied. Child of God

35:04 at times we have to say it sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? That you and I will be part of that which satisfies the Son of God.

A Warning and Invitation to the Unconverted

35:17 My unconverted friend,

35:20 aren't you jealous?

35:23 Pastor Jeff prayed, I believe, tonight, oh God, make unconverted people jealous for what we have in Christ. What hope do you have? What prospects are yours? You play Russian roulette with your never-dying soul. No vital interest in the Savior. No confidence of the glorious realities which are the portion of the people of God. May God grant that even here in this place tonight as you see those visible emblems of his body given and his blood shed that you would lay hold of the Christ who is offered to you in the gospel and that you would then know the blessed reality of looking forward to that coming which otherwise can only be a source of dread and of horror. For 2 Thessalonians 1 says that with respect to the unconverted he will come in flaming

Closing Prayer

36:26 fire taking vengeance on all those that know not God and obey not the gospel. May God grant that you will lay hold of this Christ and know the blessedness of his salvation. Let us pray. Our Father we thank you for your word and we thank you especially for this simple supper of remembrance and we pray that your Holy Spirit would come and take these emblems of the dying blood of Jesus Christ.

37:07 May the love of our Savior and set before our hearts with fresh power the realities to which they point. We thank you that we eat the bread and drink the cup until he come. Oh Lord may that hope burn within our hearts and may each of us find himself earnestly praying even so Lord Jesus continue with us then and may your name be praised and our hearts be refreshed as we come to this table we ask in Jesus name. Amen.