REFLECTIONS

“Seven Supernatural Virtues in Christ’s Blood

That we may set the higher value upon the blood of Christ, I shall show you seven rare supernatural virtues in it:

1. It is a reconciling blood. “You that were sometime alienated, and enemies, yet now hath He reconciled through death” (Colossians 1:21). Christ’s blood is the blood of atonement. Nay, it is not only a sacrifice but a propitiation (1 John 2:2), which denotes a bringing us into favor with God. It is one thing for a traitor to be pardoned, and another thing to be brought into favor. Sin rent us off from God; Christ’s blood cements us to God. If we had had as much grace as the angels, it could not have wrought our reconciliation. If we had offered up millions of holocausts and sacrifices, if we had wept rivers of tears, this could never have appeased an angry Deity. Only Christ’s blood ingratiates us into God’s favor and makes Him look upon us with a smiling aspect. When Christ died, the veil of the temple was rent. This was not without a mystery, to show that through Christ’s blood the veil of our sins is rent which interposed between God and us.

2. Christ’s blood is a quickening blood. “Whoso drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” (John 6:54). It both begets life and prevents death. “The life of a thing is in the blood.” (Leviticus 17:11). Sure enough, the life of our soul is in the blood of Christ. When we contract deadness of heart, and are like wine that has lost the spirits, Christ’s blood has an elevating power; it puts vivacity into us, making us quick and lively in our motion. “They shall mount up on wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31).

3. Christ’s blood is a cleansing blood. “How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience!” (Hebrews 9:14). As the merit of Christ’s blood pacifies God, so the virtue of it purifies us. It is the king of heaven’s bath. It is a laver to wash in. It washes crimson sinner milk white. “The blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all our sin” (1 John 1:7). The Word of God is a looking glass to show us our spots, and the blood of Christ is a fountain to wash them away (Zechariah 13:1).

But this blood will not wash if it is mingled with anything. If new go to mingle anything with Christ’s blood, either the merits of saints or the prayers of angels, it will not wash. Let Christ’s blood be pure and unmixed, and there is no spot that it will wash away. It purged out Noah’s drunkenness and Lot’s incest. Indeed, there is one spot so black that Christ’s blood does not wash away, and that is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Not but there is virtue enough in Christ’s blood to wash it away, but he who has sinned this sin will not be washed. He condemns Christ’s blood and tramples it under foot (Hebrews 10:29).

4. Christ’s blood is a softening blood. There is nothing so hard but may be softened by this blood. It will soften a stone. Water will soften the earth, but it will not soften a stone; but Christ’s blood mollifies a stone. It softens a heart of stone. It turns a flint into a spring. The heart, which before was like a piece hewn out of a rock, being steeped in Christ’s blood, becomes soft and the waters of repentance flow from it. How was the jailer’s heart dissolved and made tender when the blood of sprinkling was upon it! “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). His heart was now like melting wax. God might set what seal and impression He would upon it.”

-From Thomas Watson’s (1620 – 1686) ‘The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper’ based on Matthew 26: 26-28  Printed by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA  1997 Pages 148-150

REFLECTIONS

“This do in remembrance of Me.” 1 Corinthians 11:24

“The Duty To Partake Of The Lord’s Supper

IV. In the next place are to be considered the persons obliged, and those are the Church of Christ, as far as by scriptural qualifications they are capacitated to participation therein, who are:

1. Those who can discern the Lord’s body in this supper. The lack of this the Apostle gives as the reason of unworthily receiving it, and tells us that they eat damnation to themselves (1 Corinthians 11:29). Now, there are two ways wherein the Lord’s body may be said to be discerned in this supper:

(1) When the understanding is spiritually enlightened to perceive the true nature and ends (purpose) of this supper. And thereby the understanding is enabled to see a greater difference between this and our ordinary meals; for he who shall, for lack of knowledge therein, come to this table with no better preparation, or to no other intents, than when he goes to his own table, certainly perverts the ends of the institution and profanes the ordinance; and therefore he cannot help but incur the great displeasure of God for so doing.

(2) But there is another way of discerning the Lord’s body in this supper, and that is by spiritual taste and relish. For the palate does not have a greater ability of discerning the different relish in the variety of meats man feeds on than the soul of man that has its spiritual senses exercised has in tasting the things of God and judging the different sweetnesses thereof. This is the spiritual faculty that Jesus Christ speaks of when He tells Peter that he savored not the things that are of God, but those that are of men. (Matthew 16:23). Now, this you must well observe, you who partake of this supper, whether you relish the love of the Lord Jesus in His dying for sinners, and for you in particular. Is this great love of Christ sweet to your souls, sweeter than honey or the honeycomb? Can you admire the heights and depths of this love, and wonder that the Son of God should take a body to be bruised, wounded, and slain for the vilest of sinners, among whom you reckon yourself as one? Do you find this love of His for you drawing your hearts to a love of Him, and a readiness to part with all for Him? This is, indeed, to discern the Lord’s body in this supper; and, by this, you are enabled to see a vast difference between this supper and all the feasts of fat things that ever you were at in all your lives. If it is so with you, then you are qualified for this supper, and are, by Christ’s command, obliged to partake thereof.

2. Those who have fellowship with God in Christ are those whom Christ has obliged, by His command, to partake of this supper.

This is another qualification which the Apostle gives us in 1 Corinthians 10:18-21 where, discoursing of the nature of divine and likewise of diabolical sacrifices, and of the reason for the priest’s and people’s eating some part thereof, he also shows the reason for our partaking of the Lord’s Table which, though it is not properly a sacrifice that is there offered, yet holds some resemblance to the sacrifices of the law and to the people’s eating thereof, inasmuch as it is a commemoration of that one sacrifice which Christ offered up to the Father for our sins; of the benefits of which one sacrifice those who commune at the Lord’s Table as effectually partake as if Christ was offered up as often as you eat and drink… Thus, the Apostle, having illustrated the meaning of eating the Jewish and the Gentile sacrifice, proceeds to accommodate those notions to that of the Lord’s Table in in verse 21: “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s Table, and of the table of the devils.” You cannot serve two such contrary masters as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, and devils also; for, if you eat of the idols’ feasts, you thereby declare that you own the devils as gods; and then, coming to the Lord’s Table, you thereby declare that you acknowledge only the true God to be your God in and through Jesus Christ, your Sacrifice and Mediator, which practices are very absurd and contradictory.

The conclusion is this: those who partake of the Lord’s Table are such who from the heart take the God of that Christ whose death is remembered in that supper to be their God, and who believe that God is really reconciled to them by that sacrifice; and they declare, likewise, hereby that they will worship and serve this God in this Christ, and Him only. Now, if any of you are engaged to God in this spirit, you have fellowship with Him, and you are those who have the right to partake of this supper.”

-From the Puritan Thomas Wadsworth’s It Is Every Christian’s Indispensable Duty To Partake of the Lord’s Supper from The Puritan’s on the Lord’s Supper  Published by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA 1997  Pages 63-67.