Christ’s Presence in the Lord’s Supper

Christ Proclaimed

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“The Lord’s Supper: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered” is a sermon preached from Selected Scriptures, by Michael Beatty, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin – a confessional Reformed Baptist church subscribing to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Opening Prayer

Our Father, we thank You for Your kindness toward us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We would ask that You would help us this morning and that You would, by Your grace, provide us with what we need that we might rightly understand Your Word. We would ask that You would help us to better understand the visible signs and seals You’ve given to us in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, that we might make appropriate use of them, and that in doing so we might all the more look to Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

In His name we pray. Amen.

Signs, Seals, and Delivery

What we’ve seen over the last few weeks about the Lord’s Supper and baptism can really be summarized—like the famous saying goes—as “signed, sealed, and delivered.”

The Sign: There’s a physical picture that points us to something profound.
- In baptism we have the sign of being buried with Christ in His death and raised in newness of life, as we saw in the Scriptures.
- In the Lord’s Supper, we have the wafer and the cup. The wafer points us to Christ’s body, which was broken for us; the cup points us to His blood, which was shed for us.

However, we saw that the Scriptures also say there’s something that goes beyond an intellectual sort of activity. In other words, it’s not merely that when I go into the waters of baptism I’m thinking about being buried with Christ and raised into His life—although we certainly are—but that there’s something more than just an intellectual activity.

So too in the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” there is certainly an intellectual or mental component, but there’s also something that goes beyond that.

The Seal: There’s something God is doing, using those visible elements to bring His people into further conformity to Christ.
- In baptism, we saw that it seals to us the promises of the gospel, as we observed in various passages.
- We’ll see today that the Supper does the same—it provides all the things it promises to do.
Delivered: It is simply providing grace to God’s people.

So we can think “signed, sealed, delivered” with these ordinances—or sacraments, or whatever type of language we’d like to use for them. I’ll use ordinance and sacrament interchangeably. Some people don’t like that or prefer one over the other. You can put that in the Q&A if you’d like at some point or ask me about it, but I do use them interchangeably—just so I don’t confuse anyone as we go along.

Is Christ Present at the Table?

This morning I want to look at the Lord’s Supper, dealing with the seal, beginning with 1 Corinthians 10.

As you’re turning there, the real question comes down to this: Is Christ present at the table with His people in any meaningful sense? By meaningful sense, I mean beyond just a figment of our imagination. Does it go beyond simply thinking about Jesus?

In other words, is the Supper like the type of meal we might have after a funeral? After the graveside service, at least in my family—we’d always come back, share a meal, and remember the person who had just died. That person wasn’t there—only in our minds and hearts.

So I’m asking: is the Lord’s Supper just that sort of post-graveside meal? Or is Jesus present there in a way that goes beyond the hearts and minds of His people?

My answer is yes—He is present. And we’ll see that from Scripture.

Participation in Christ

Look at 1 Corinthians 10:16–17:

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

And then drop down to verse 21:

“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?”

Immediately we see Paul describing something at the table that goes beyond a merely intellectual exercise—namely, that we are participating in the body and blood of Christ.

How that participation occurs is an important question, but first we simply note that Scripture says it is happening.

The level of participation is such that it is a great sin to partake of the cup of demons and the cup of the Lord. We can’t serve two masters. God takes this very seriously. Elsewhere we read that some had fallen asleep because they partook of the table in an unworthy manner.

So we can ask: Is Christ present there? And we can answer: Yes—preliminarily, He is present. We are partaking of His body and His blood.

Our Union with Christ

Let’s also look at 1 Corinthians 6.

In this series of verses, Paul gives a reminder about our bodies. I want to highlight this because I think this is what’s being spoken of in 1 Corinthians 10, when Paul warns about provoking the Lord to jealousy.

Start at verse 13:

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.” (vv. 13–17)

And then down to verse 19:

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”

By way of analogy, since in 1 Corinthians 10 Paul uses the same language of being joined to Christ, I think the reason we cannot partake of the cup of Christ and the cup of demons is because we are joined to Christ—and we cannot join ourselves to another.

Furthermore, in partaking of the wafer and of the cup, we ultimately become one flesh with Christ, as 1 Corinthians 6 shows us.

Mystical Union, Not Mere Memory

So what does this mean?

It highlights that the Supper has something beyond a mere intellectual activity—though that certainly is a component. Ultimately, it emphasizes that we have become one with Christ in a mystical sense.

By mystical, I don’t mean the way we normally use the term—like a Disney movie where some sort of smoke drifts across the screen. Rather, I mean mysterious, spiritual, and powerful.

There is real power expressed in the elements—the power of Christ—to cause each and every member of His church to partake of His body and His blood at the table, regardless of where we are on the globe. That’s mystical. And that’s powerful.

Time for Questions

I do want to look at John 6 shortly, but let me pause for questions here, because much of what I’m going to say next will build on what we’ve already covered.

Paul:
I guess my mind just goes to—if there’s something really happening in the Supper, rather than just reminding ourselves, then is there benefit to doing it more often? Is there a limit—too much or too little?

Response:
That’s a great question. Paul’s asking about frequency. Can we do it too little or too much?

Paul says what he received from the Lord was, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, do this in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:23–25). I personally think weekly communion is the norm.

I would also say it should always come in conjunction with the Word, as we already do. But I wouldn’t say we should do it twice if, for argument’s sake, we had two services on Sunday—morning and evening. I would see the Lord’s Day as one call to gather, even if at two times. So I wouldn’t do it more than once on a Sunday.

I do know of one Reformed Baptist church that does it at every service. They do that conscientiously, and I wouldn’t say they’re in sin. But I don’t think that’s the pattern we see in Scripture.

We can get too rigid either way. Some say, “If I do it every week, it becomes mundane, so I’ll just do it once a quarter.” Others might want to tack it on to Sunday school or an evening service. Both extremes can miss the point.

One other note, since it’s related: because the Supper is always tied to a worship service, I don’t believe in taking communion to a shut-in’s house unless we are going to have a service there. And I’m fine with doing that—gathering members, holding a normal service in their home. But I’m not in favor of simply carrying the elements to them.

The same with jails: some jails have clergy rooms with a little section for passing elements back and forth. I wouldn’t favor that, because the Supper is an expression of our unity as a gathered body.

So all that to say: I think once a week is the biblical norm.

Paul:
Do we lose out on anything if we do it less often? Are we harmed spiritually?

Response:
Yes, I would say if we believe the Supper is a means of grace, then we are missing out on the way God ordinarily works in His people when we don’t do it weekly.

Are we still a Bible-believing, gospel-preaching church if we do it less often? Absolutely.

But I’d frame the question this way: If something is truly a means of grace, why would we not want it as often as we gather?

Historically, the frequency of the Supper went down when people viewed it as more of a mental exercise, or when the priests performed it apart from the congregation. But biblically, if it’s more than mental—if it’s a means of grace—then why wouldn’t we want it every week?

The Different Views of the Supper

Ben:
Is it four or five views when it comes to the Lord’s Supper? I know there’s transubstantiation, consubstantiation, the simple remembrance, and then the view you presented—that Christ is actually present when we partake. Is there another one?

Response:
That’s a great question. Ben’s asking about how many views there typically are if we think of them as broad categories. I would say there are four main ones:

Transubstantiation (Roman Catholic)
- Oversimplified: the priest performs a miracle each week, sacrificing Christ anew.
- The wafer literally becomes the body of Christ. The cup literally becomes His blood.
- This is why Roman Catholics bow before the host.
Consubstantiation (Lutheran)
- Christ is in, with, and under the elements, but they do not become His body and blood.
- Still, they often treat it as if it were, because they have special places to dispose of the excess elements.
Mere Memorialism (often associated with Zwingli)
- We’re simply remembering something.
- Many argue about what Zwingli himself actually held, but in America this view has been popularized especially by the Methodists.
- Fun fact: the Methodist movement is also where Welch’s grape juice came in, replacing wine, along with those “Do this in remembrance of Me” communion tables and mini-cups.
- For clarity: I think they did these things out of piety, not just for money, so I’m not accusing them of sin.
Reformed / Mystical Presence
- This is the view I hold, along with our confession of faith.
- Christ is spiritually present at the Supper.
- Some put it this way: the Spirit lifts us up into the heavenly realms to partake of Christ.
- The Belgic Confession even uses the Latin word manducare—to “eat”—to describe what’s happening. It calls it a spiritual eating and drinking of Christ.
- In this sense, no blood or body gets “caught in the teeth.” But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 that we participate in His body and blood.

So those are the four main views.

John 6 and the Language of Eating

Let’s connect this with John 6 before we go further.

Look at John 6:32–35:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They said to Him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.”

Now drop down to verses 47–51:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

The reason the Reformed view uses the language of “eating” is because it’s the language of Scripture.

Please don’t get hung up on the language, though I understand why it can be difficult. There’s a mountain of reading I could recommend on this. And just so you know: of all the issues debated during the Reformation, the Lord’s Supper was the most contested.

Why This Matters

So why is this so important?

If you ask, “Why aren’t we in the same association of churches with Lutherans, Methodists, or Presbyterians?”—a big part of the reason is because of these two sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

And the main questions really boil down to two:

How is Christ present?
Who may worthily partake?

Our confession of faith clearly lands in the Reformed, mystical presence view. It teaches that something is happening beyond a mere memorial, but that it’s a spiritual eating, not a carnal one.

Ben:
If the church isn’t administering the Supper properly, is Christ still present?

Response:
That depends on what you mean by “improper.”

For example, some Reformed Baptists hold that only the pastor should pray over the cup and bread, not laymen. As you know, I’ve asked others—like Duncan and Scott—to pray before, and I believe that’s perfectly fine.

So in that case, yes, Christ is still present. That’s a difference of opinion that we can allow between gospel-preaching churches.

But if we get further afield—say, swapping bread and wine for Skittles and Mountain Dew (and no, that’s not a made-up example, I know of churches that have done this)—then I’d say no.

So there’s a gradation of errors, ranging from differences about who prays over the elements, all the way to outright abuse.

The Donatist Question

Ben:
What about churches with a woman pastor, or a pastor more political than biblical—is Christ still present in their Supper?

Response:
That’s an important question. It takes us back to the old Donatist controversy in Augustine’s day.

The Donatists asked: What if someone recanted under persecution, saying, “I’m not a Christian,” but later repented? Could he come back into the church? And more specifically—what if a pastor did that? Could he minister again?

And what about those who had been baptized by him? If he turned away from Christ, did their baptisms still “count”? Did they need to be baptized again?

Christ Works Independently of the Minister

The answer, and the position I hold, is that Christ works through baptism and the Lord’s Supper independently of the personal sin of the one administering them.

For example—hypothetically—if I were to renounce the faith tomorrow, that would not invalidate the baptisms I had performed here. Those twelve or so people would not need to be baptized again, because Christ Himself had been at work in their baptism.

And the same with the Supper. If years from now you were to ask, “Did we ever truly receive Christ in the Supper during Michael’s ministry?” the answer would still be yes—because Christ is greater than the one administering it.

Spiritual Eating, Not Carnal

And this, again, reinforces why we speak of the Supper as a spiritual eating and drinking.

It doesn’t ultimately occur here in the earthly elements—it occurs where Christ is, in heaven.

So regardless of the failings of the minister, Christ Himself can and does feed His people through His Supper.

Wrapping Up This Section

So, to summarize this portion:

We do not partake of Christ’s body and blood in a corporeal or carnal sense.
Because we are united to Christ by the Spirit, we partake of Him in a spiritual sense.
The Supper is therefore not just a mental exercise—it is a visible proclamation of the gospel, sealed with all the promises of God in Christ.
And it is delivered—that is, grace is actually conveyed to us in the Supper in a way that does not happen elsewhere.

This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:21, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.” It is a real participation.

Looking Ahead

So we’ve seen together:

Signed: the visible picture of the gospel.
Sealed: the confirmation of God’s promises.
Delivered: grace actually given to His people.

The key questions are: Is Jesus present? and How is He present?

If you say He’s not present—or only present in our memory—that leads one way.
If you say He is present spiritually, and we are lifted up to where He is—that leads another way.

Our confession of faith, I believe, clearly teaches the latter.

Transition to Next Series

So with this, we’ve wrapped up the section on the means of grace.

First, we looked at the ground of our salvation.
Then, in this series, we’ve looked at the means or vehicle God uses to give grace to His people.
And next, I want to move to the law and its relationship to the Christian.

Because as Christians, we know we’re not under condemnation. Yet we also know we still must not murder, must still honor our parents, and must still obey the Lord in countless daily ways.

So how does the law function for us who are in Christ?

That’s where we’ll go in the weeks ahead, Lord willing.