Remembering the LORD at His Table

Introduction: The Centrality of Remembrance at the Lord's Supper

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, February 1st, 1987, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 For everyone gathered in this place tonight who has any acquaintance with the biblical teaching concerning the ordinance of the Supper of Remembrance, the concept of remembrance, this do in remembrance of me, is very central to our understanding of that ordinance. In the passage most frequently read when we come to the table, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, our Lord himself was very explicit in the directives which he gave to the Apostle Paul, who in turn wrote those directives to the church at Corinth. For we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and beginning with verse 23, For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you, this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup. After supper saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood,

1:42 this do as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he come. And so the concept of remembrance is central to the very institution and rationale for the Supper. And the concept of remembrance is central to the very institution and rationale for the Supper.

2:07 And the concept of remembrance is central to the very institution and rationale for the Supper. And the concept of remembrance is central to the very institution and rationale for the Supper. And the concept of remembrance is central to the very institution and rationale for the Supper. That remembrance is, of course, a remembrance both of Christ's person, this do in remembrance of me, and also of his death.

2:20 This is my body which is for you. This is the blood of the covenant. In taking these emblems, you proclaim the Lord's death until he come. So it is not a remembrance of his person in abstraction from his death, nor is it a remembrance of his death in abstraction from his person, but it is the remembrance of his person and of his death on behalf of sinners.

A Necessary Caution for Remembering

2:55 Now, in order to assist us all in our efforts to do precisely what we are commanded to do at the table, namely, to remember him, to remember him in his person, to remember him in his death, I want to set before you this evening three very simple, three very basic exhortations, all focusing upon the remembrance of the Lord himself.

3:30 And as I set these exhortations before you, I want to do so, with a very necessary word of caution. I am not at all suggesting that here, in the half an hour or forty minutes that we will actually spend at the table, that you consciously and deliberately remember every single facet of the various exhortations that I bring before you. That would be mentally impossible for most of us, and frankly, would be spiritually unprofitable. In seeking to remember so many things, we would probably not remember any one thing with sufficient depth to feel its penetrating weight and its sanctifying influence upon the soul. But in giving this exhortation, I'm attempting to set before you, as it were, a broad spectrum of the various aspects of what is, a legitimate expression of remembering the Lord at his table, so that this night, and in subsequent gatherings to the table as the Lord is pleased, to spare us and bring us together, there may be, on another occasion, a differing facet of remembrance

4:54 which would be more suited to your need as a child of God at that particular time. And knowing that there are not a few, sensitive consciences among us, I would not be guilty of laying a burden upon any conscience that would turn the supper of remembrance into a supper of incurred guilt, because somehow you assume that I was saying that the Bible teaches that you must remember all of these facets of the Lord's person and of his work each and every time we come to his table. Now, with that word of explanation and caution behind us, let me give you the three very simple exhortations. And in the interest of time, for I am a man under authority, and I am conscious that I should be done the meditation by five after the hour, rather than turning to a number of the passages, I'll be quoting probably between twenty and twenty-five verses. I will give you the references, so that those of you who are interested, those of you who are taking notes can jot them down, and perhaps meditate upon them in greater depth at your leisure. First of all, then, as we come to the table of remembrance, I would entreat you as the Lord's people

Exhortation 1: Remember the Precise Identity of the Person Who Died

6:18 to remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died. I would entreat you to remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died. I would entreat you to remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died. I would entreat you to remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died.

6:38 As we come back to the cross again and again, we must come back to reflect repeatedly on the question that is raised in one of the hymns that we frequently sing, Who is this who hangs dying upon the tree? Who is this? Hold him, shedding drops of blood upon the ground. Who is this?

7:10 Despised, rejected, mocked, insulted, beaten, bound. Who is this that hangeth dying while the rude world scoffs and scorns, numbered with the malefactors, torn with nails and crowned with thorns? Who is it that dies? Who is it that hangs upon an instrument of Roman execution, with flesh torn, with body bruised, with his soul tortured, feeling the very fiery pangs of the hell of divine desertion? Who is this that hangs dying while the rude world scoffs and scorns, numbered with nails and crowned with nails, numbered with the malefactors, torn with nails and crowned with nails, numbered with the malefactors, torn with nails and crowned with nails, who is this that shouts when the world scoffs and scorns? Who is this who is going to drink as listing from the Teutonic temos, giving up, changing our ways by taking the bread, taking the cup in remembrance of Him, I entreat you, if I remember afresh His precise identity, and what is that identity?

8:33 God is though he never were a man. And the Apostle Paul in one of the great passages focusing on the person and work of Christ begins on that note in Philippians chapter 2, who being in the very form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but emptied himself taking the form of a man. And then as he describes those successive steps of downward and deliberate march to the humiliation of the cross, we must never detach the words he humbled himself becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. We must never detach them from the first strands of thought in that passage which are the words of the Apostle Paul. Which set him before us as the one who was in the very form, the very morphos, the morphe of God. He is truly God.

9:45 When the Word became flesh, all that he ever had been as the eternal Word, he did not cease to be in the old Christological formula. When he began to be what he had never been, that is a man. He did not cease to be what he had always been, very God of very God. And yet we must reflect that the one who dies in his identity is not only truly God, but he is truly man.

10:23 Man with all of his dependent-ness, man with all of his vulnerability, man with all of his dependence, man with all of his weakness. The writer to Hebrews in chapter 2 and verse 14 says, for as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same. He took upon himself not manhood in some kind of superhuman exalted state, but manhood in all of its dependent-ness and weakness. That's why he was eminently a man of prayer.

11:06 He had to come to his heavenly Father and as a man seek direction and counsel and guidance. And I say it reverently, as he came to the actual experience of the cross, he had to wrestle with the aversion of a holy humanity against abandonment and suffering to the point where he felt to the motions of a contrary human will. And he cried out, Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. And one of the most amazing statements in the Passion account, when he was in the agony of Gethsemane, that shadow of Calvary and Golgotha, the Scripture tells us that an angel came and strengthened him. Think of it. The Creator of the myriads, what we read in the book of the Revelation, the thousand times ten thousands of angels, He who created them in real human weakness needs the succor of an angel.

12:30 A group of Scottish divines were on one occasion talking about a man who had a very strange subject. The subject was who was their favorite angel.

12:42 And old Rabbi Duncan said, My favorite angel is that unnamed angel who visited my Lord in Gethsemane and strengthened him that he might go through the ordeal of Golgotha, that I might have a Savior. That's the angel I want to see when I get to heaven and thank him for his ministry to my Lord. It was true. It was real.

13:11 It was weak. It was vulnerable, dependent humanity. And as we come to the table, we take bread that symbolizes a body, a body that was immolated upon the cross, a body that was given up in death, that was bruised, the flesh of which was torn. And I entreat you, dear people, of God, to remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died.

13:45 Truly God, yes, truly man. But thirdly, he was sinless man. For we read he died the just for the unjust. In Hebrews 7.26, he is described as holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21, he who knew no sin. That is, who knew no sin by personal defilement. Who knew no sin by personal commission of that sin. He knew sin by exposure to a sin-cursed world.

14:30 He knew sin by imputation when he was made sin for us. But in terms of, by personal defilement and commission of sin, in spite of the reality, the true humanity of our Lord, it was sinless humanity. Therefore, when we take the cup and remember the blood poured out, it is the blood of the spotless Lamb of God who is able to die for the sins of others, for he has no sin of his own, for which to give his life. So I entreat you tonight as we come to the Lord's table, remember afresh the precise identity of the person who died. And if as you sit here, the particular state of your own mind and heart is one in which you feel unusually borne down and pressured with some remaining lust, with some form, with some form of sin that seems mightier than all of your efforts to conquer, then my dear Christian brother or sister, focus particularly upon the fact

15:53 that your Redeemer is mighty to save. He is El Gabor. He is the mighty God. And meditate upon the great reality of the might and the power that is his as God.

16:09 It may be that your particular frame of mind and heart is one in which you have felt the disappointment and the grief of forsakenness by close friends, people who once walked with you, who have turned their backs against you, and you feel the pangs of loneliness and rejection. Then meditate particularly upon the reality of his humanity. He knew what it was to be a man of God, He knew what it was to be a man of God, He knew what it was to be a man of God, He knew what it was to be a man of God, He knew what it was to be utterly forsaken of man and of God. And in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor those who are tempted. Remember that particular aspect of the identity of his person, which is particularly suited to your need in your earthly pilgrimage. But then secondly, I entreat you tonight as we come to the Lord's table to remember afresh the precise nature of the death that he died. We must not only remember the precise identity of the person who died, but remember the precise nature of the death that he died.

Exhortation 2: Remember the Precise Nature of the Death He Died

17:32 From the human standpoint, it was an unjust death. It was a cruel crime. It was an unjust crime. It was an unjust crime.

17:39 death, but in the purpose of God, in what we may rightly call inter-Trinitarian action and co-action within the councils and fellowship and communion of the Godhead. It is in that that the nature of the death of Jesus Christ is truly to be understood, and we must, as we come to His table, to remember Him afresh. We must remember the precise nature of the death that He died. And let me just give you four key words and a verse or two under each one.

18:23 We must remember that in its nature it was a voluntary death. You and I will be overpowered by death, against God, against our wills. He voluntarily submitted to death in the full consent of His holy will. You'll remember when they came to apprehend Him in the garden, and they said, We seek Jesus, and He said, I am He.

18:54 And there was some kind of an outshining and an outputting of divine power and majesty that struck His would-be captors to the ground. And after they rise, up from the ground, then it is evident that He goes off to trial, to judgment and to death, not against His will. For did He not say repeatedly in John 10, verse 15, 17, 18, No man takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself.

19:29 I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again. And then He follows in, the latter part of verse 18 with these words, This commandment have I received from my Father. And His death in its nature was voluntary.

19:50 It was a death He chose to die out of love to His sheep and out of love to His Father. That the Father would know that He loved Him, He said, Let us go hence. And off He went. To garden agony and struggle and ultimately to the rejection and to the horrible ordeal of Golgotha.

20:17 Having loved His own, He loved them even unto the end. It was a voluntary death. But secondly, it was a substitutionary death. It was a death died in the room instead and on behalf of others.

20:37 The language of Scripture is profuse at this point. He lays down His life for in the place of the sheep. Peter said He died the just for the unjust. The Scripture says He died for our sins.

20:57 He gave Himself a ransom for many. This is my body which is for you. This is my blood which is for you. You, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

21:14 So the whole concept of substitution is stamped upon the very face of the doctrine of the death of Jesus in the Word of God. He took the death we deserved. Voluntarily, yes. But having voluntarily given Himself up to that death, it was a death.

21:37 Death died in the room instead of specific sinners. A great multitude of sinners whom no man can number but God can number for He has marked them out in His own eternal sovereign electing grace and has given them to His Son as the Son Himself records in John 17. And it is on their behalf in their room and in their sleep. Instead that He dies, we love to sing it in our most familiar hymns that focus upon the cross.

22:15 In my place condemned He stood. Sealed my pardon with blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior!

22:30 But then thirdly, the precise nature of His death is to be understood not only as a voluntary, a substitutionary death, but a propitiatory death. A propitiatory death.

22:49 Romans 3.24 says, whom God set forth to be propitiation through faith in His blood. 1 John 2.2 And He is the propitiation for our sins.

23:06 1 John 4.10 He has...

23:10 He has been the great demonstration of divine love in that God has given Him to be propitiation. And what does that big word propitiation mean? Well, the meaning is very simple. It means to turn away divine wrath.

23:28 It means to appease the divine anger. To placate the divine pure and holy agitation against human sin.

23:40 And though the word, 1 John 4.10, the word propitiation is not found in Galatians 3.13, it is perhaps the most simple description of its essence. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

24:01 For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. The very method chosen in the divine decree for the death of man and the death of Christ was chosen that we might ever remember if we have any contact with the biblical witness that the very nature of that death was not to be understood primarily as an exemplary death that is a good man dying for a good cause at the hands of injustice and unprincipled men. No, it is to be understood primarily and essentially as a propitiatory death. He died under the curse of Almighty God and his very hanging upon a tree is the constant monument to the fact that the death of Jesus in its nature is propitiatory. God has a controversy with men. To put it bluntly, God has a controversy with all of His elect which if not resolved with the death of Jesus, it would go to hell. If I can state that will shock you into thinking God's purpose of elect

25:23 must be vexed this must be satisfied.

25:37 Blessed be God it is satisfied in the bloodletting of the Son of God under the fury of divine wrath and anger against the sins of men as we come to remember the Lord and His death I entreat you remember afresh the precise nature of the death He died it was voluntary out of love to you my fellow believer bound in love to you in the full knowledge of all use of rebellion constrained by love He went to the cross voluntarily He went there in our room instead He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died He died a propitiatory death but there's a fourth word that we must ever think upon when we remember His death it was efficacious it was efficacious when something's efficacious it effects the purpose for which it is done I right now am reaching out to take my glass of water because I'm thirsty

26:58 my reach was efficacious but I didn't reach it just to hold it I need to drink it my attempts to drink were efficacious I accomplished I effected the purpose for which I gave an illustration and got a drink both at the same time that was an efficacious act my dry mouth is no longer dry I hope you've seen the principle the death of Jesus is not only voluntary substitutionary propitiatory but it is efficacious it actually turns away the divine wrath it actually secures it actually secures and procures the salvation of all of God's elect of all ages for by one offering the writer to Hebrews says he has perfected forever those that are sanctified the cry that he uttered from the cross was tetelestai it is finished it is accomplished all of my work on behalf of sinners has been brought to its completion and His resurrection and His session were the validation of the efficacious nature of the death of Jesus so that when we come to His table to remember Him it may be again that in the particular present circumstances of your own soul

28:26 you need not so much to meditate upon the voluntary nature of Christ's death He loved me gave Himself voluntarily for me it may be that through a number of circumstances your reading in certain portions of Scripture your mind and spirit have been particularly sensitized in recent days to the horribleness of sin maybe through the studies in Hebrews and you've stood by Sinai and seen the thunder and heard seen the lightning and heard the thunder and seen the beast dropping dead if they touched that mountain and the thought that God is a consuming fire and sin is odious in His sight has filled I know at least one person spoke to one elder and said my body literally in that Sunday school class several weeks ago as you remember His death dear child of God you need to remember particularly it is propitiatory in nature every last gram of divine wrath for every sin was swallowed up in the bloodletting in the bloodletting of the Son of God He is the propitiation for your sins it may be that you wonder as your own mind

Exhortation 3: Remember the Precise Purpose of the Death He Died

29:55 reflects upon not deliberately but by law of association certain places certain people certain circumstances bring your sins to remembrance and what you need to remember is His death is efficacious the blood of Jesus cleanses cleanses from all sin but then I conclude in my remaining three minutes I entreat you I entreat you remember the precise purpose of the death He died and the purposes of His death are manifold in Scripture here I'll simply state them and give a text to turn away the curse of God from us Galatians 3.13 to procure a perfect righteousness for us 2 Corinthians 5.21 to open up in the way to God on our behalf 1 Peter 3.18 to secure the gift of the Spirit for us Galatians 3.14 to effect a radical break with self-centeredness as the pattern of life 2 Corinthians 5.15

30:59 to set us apart unto a life of real holiness Titus 2.14 Ephesians 5.25 and following to secure all things essential to our complete and final salvation Romans 8.32 He that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all how should He not with Him freely give us all things now that's not an exhaustive list that's just six or seven of the major purposes in the death of Christ and as we come to remember Him at His table we're to remember what His death has effected for us His people the curse of God is turned away a perfect righteousness has been wrought on our behalf the way of access to God is opened the gift of the Spirit has been secured for a total radical shifting from a self-centered to a God-centered life has been effected in the cross in conclusion I say to you who sit here tonight strangers to the power of Christ's cross strangers strangers to affection to Christ to die for sinners hear me now everything Christ is in His person

Conclusion: Call to Repentance, Faith, and Communion

32:27 everything He has done in His death all of the glow up in that death and sincerely and urgently offered to you in the gospel they're all available sincerely to you in the gospel why go to hell under divine wrath when He who was inundated by that wrath upon the cross bid you come to Him O sinner go to Christ as He's been preached in the Word as He'll be preached at the table go to Him with the feet of repentance and faith find Him to be all that we know Him to be and dear people of God it's a simple supper of remembrance ordinary bread the ordinary fruit of an ordinary vine but as we take in remembrance of Him I entreat you

33:54 remember afresh the precise identity of the one who died the precise nature of the death He died the precise purpose of the death He died and remember remembering Him with the remembrance mingled with renewed repentance renewed actings of faith renewed commitment in love to the Redeemer we shall go away from this table knowing that though we only handled bread and only handled the fruit of the vine Christ Himself was present and we've touched and handled things unseen and fed upon Christ crucified let us pray O our Father we thank You for the privilege of coming to this table thank You for the great realities that stand behind it realities that are revealed in the scriptures and we pray that in all of our acts of remembrance this night we may experience true communion with Your Son by the ministry of the Holy Spirit

35:24 for those who have never embraced Him as their own O God make Your word effectual that they may this night find Christ to be to them what He promises to be to every sinner who will but trust Him hear us and continue with us we plead Amen