Hi, this is the Human Proclaimed Podcast, The Messages of John Fawnville. You're listening to season five called Two Keys to Spiritual Growth. Have you ever tried to understand the reasons Jesus gave us the Last Supper and why we still observe this ordinance of communion over 2,000 years later? It's a fascinating and comforting topic today, and it comes with a promise that Jesus will be with us always. That's the title of today's lesson.
Let's listen now to Dr. John Fawnville. Turn to Matthew chapter 28, and let's look at verses 18 through 20. It says, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. I want us to look at this last part of the Great Commission and how Jesus concludes the Great Commission with this promise, his enduring promise to be with his church. Look what he says. And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Now, in the context of the Great Commission, as we just begin to look at this for a second, we need to understand that Jesus, when he's promising, I'm with you, it's no less than I, that is the resurrected, exalted, sovereign king of all nations, who has authority over all nations.
I'm with you forever. That's very comforting. And so the church's mission is ensured by Jesus' continuing presence. The presence of Christ with his church is a great gift to his church.
Now, while Jesus' promise is comforting, it also creates an immediate problem. or a parent problem. Jesus promises to be with his church Right before he leaves. Right. before he ascends bodily to heaven.
And since Jesus, in sight of his disciples, ascends bodily into heaven, Acts chapter 1, verse 9. How can Jesus be with his church on earth now? Yeah. By ascending into heaven, did Jesus abandon us and break his promise to be with his church? And did he leave us as orphans?
So the question this morning for us is this. How is Christ present with us? How do we have his presence with us? It's always helpful to study church history because church history has a lot to teach us, because the Bible says there's nothing new under the sun.
So this isn't the first time that we have entertained this question, how is Christ present with us? And it's a tragic irony that the most divisive question among the Reformers revolved around the sacrament of Holy Communion. And the reason it is ironic is because this sacrament is given by Jesus to form believers into one unified body. It's a sacrament of unity. But yet, while that is tragic, it also shows us how seriously these believers in the 16th century took the Lord's Supper.
Very important questions were raised at the time of the Reformation concerning the person of Christ. and his presence with us post-ascension. There were four major views back in the Reformation, and these four major views are still with us to this very day. Nothing has changed. Let me just quickly give you a little history lesson about this.
On October the 1st, 1529, Martin Luther met with the Swiss reformer Ulvik Zingli. And they had what was known as the Colloquy of Marburg. I'm sure most of you have enjoyed studying the Colloquy of Marburg this week. Yeah. These two reformers met together to try to settle their differences over communion.
Remarkably, they agreed on twelve out of thirteen propositions. But the one proposition they didn't agree on was Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper. Both Luther and Zwingli, who were Protestant reformers, rejected the Roman Catholic's view of transubstantiation. The Roman Church taught and still teaches that in the ceremony of the Mass, The priest is given special power so that the bread and wine are literally transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ on the altar. Both Luther and Zwingli found this teaching unacceptable, not supported by Scripture, but yet they still could not agree with one another on how Christ is present.
in the church at this sacrament.
So, whereas the Roman church located Christ's true presence in or as the elements. Zingli said, Well, we're just going to deny it altogether. He's not there. Zwingli held to a memorial view. Of the sacrament.
This is the most common view among most evangelicals in the church today. Zwingli believed that the sacrament of communion was nothing more than a memorial of Christ's death for us.
So, for Zwingli, it was very simple. Listen carefully. This is how you summarized it. He summarized it. Since Jesus ascended to live bodily to the right hand of the Father, His body is in heaven and he's not on earth.
And then he will come again on the last day physically. But until he comes again, Jesus is absent from us physically, he's not here. But he said that's okay because Jesus' divinity is what saves us. Jesus Christ is God and God is omnipresent and because Jesus' divinity is omnipresent, we don't have to worry about his physical absence because he's here with us in his divinity. Martin Luther saw the problem with that immediately.
Martin Luther Objected to that view, and he argued that without a connection to Jesus' humanity, without a connection to the flesh and blood of Jesus Himself, we can't be saved. He's exactly right.
So Luther over against Wingli affirmed that we have a true sharing in a whole Christ. We share in Christ's divinity and in His humanity for our salvation. Jesus is one One person with two natures, human and divine. They can't be separated.
So Luther rejected transubstantiation. But, nevertheless, he argued that Jesus is physically omnipresent. Lutherans like to call this the doctrine of real presence. Luther taught that Christ's body was present, quote, in with and under the bread and wine.
So, this is how Jesus can be present at every observance of communion with the bread and wine. And so, while Luther correctly affirmed that we have a true sharing in the whole Christ. Luther had a problem. And so here comes John Calvin with the fourth view. Calvin rightly argued that Luther's view undermines the reality of Jesus' unity with us as a true human.
What is a true human? A true human is not omnipresent. We're localized. And so Calvin said: if Jesus is in a form where his divinity absorbs his humanity, what does that say about us? Where does this leave our bodies?
Then concerning Zingli, John Calvin disagreed with Zingli. He said, Zingli, quote, is pernicious. In other words, he's extremely harmful. And he's erroneous. They were really kind to each other back then.
They had ways of speaking that we don't do that anymore. Um Calvin actually preferred Martin Luther's view. But Calvin understood that Luther's view had a definite problem about Christ and his humanity, and Christ's humanity, his continuity with us as a human.
So John Calvin presented this fourth view. Of the presence of Christ in communion that took seriously both the humanity and deity of Christ, the unity of the person of Christ, the God-man. Because Jesus is forever after the incarnation, forever. in a body. He's forever the undivided God-man.
So Calvin rightly emphasized that Jesus is not only divine, but also human. In the incarnation, Jesus comes to fully share in our humanity in every way. Gregory nasiensis: what Jesus did not assume, he has not healed. He became a hundred percent like you and me, human. He took on our DNA, they say.
And so Jesus shares in our humanity by His incarnation, by His descent to us, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And Calvin then said That the Holy Spirit is, quote, the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to Himself. And then he goes to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9, and Paul writes this: God is faithful. Through whom you are called into fellowship, koinonia, communion. With his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
And Calvin begins to reflect on this fellowship. What is this communion? What is this koinonia, this fellowship that we have with Christ? And he says, he writes this: He says, What I say is that the moment we receive Christ by faith, as he offers himself in the gospel, we become truly members of his body. And he said, and life flows from him as from the head.
Thus we draw life from his flesh and blood. Do you see that? Not just from his divinity, we receive life. From the flesh and blood of Christ Himself, by whom we are united to through the bond of the Holy Spirit. And he says that his flesh and blood is not undeservedly called our food.
How it happens, I confess, is far above the means of my intelligence. Hence, I adore the mystery rather than labor to understand it. We come to faith in Christ, and the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ. Vitally united to Christ. Paul uses that phrase over and over in the Bible: where we are in Christ.
And so for Calvin, it is the secret energy of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who is the active agent that unites us to the whole Christ, His humanity and His divinity for our salvation. He says that apart from the working of the Holy Spirit, both the gospel and the sacraments profit us nothing. He goes on to say that the sacraments properly fulfill their office only when the Holy Spirit, the inward teacher, comes to them by whose power alone our hearts are penetrated and affections moved and our souls open for the sacraments to enter in. If the Holy Spirit be lacking, the sacraments can accomplish nothing more in our minds than the splendor of the sun shining upon blinding eyes.
Or a voice sounding in deaf ears. The sacraments are but a ministry of empty and trifling apart from the action of the Holy Spirit, but charged with great effect when the Spirit works within and manifests his power. And so Calvin, along with other Reformed theologians since Calvin, and Calvin, by the way, his nickname in the Reformation was the theologian of the Holy Spirit. Calvin, and since Calvin, other Reformed theologians have argued that the whole Christ. His deity and his humanity is actually given to us in the Lord's Supper by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit who unites us to the whole Christ.
And so, Article 35 in the Belgic Confession's beautiful statement, it says this. It is beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ did not commend his sacraments to us in vain. Therefore, he works in us all that he represents to us by these holy signs. We do not go wrong when we say that what we eat and drink is the true natural body and the true blood of Christ.
However, the manner in which we eat it is not by mouth, but in the Spirit by faith. And that way, Jesus Christ always remains seated at the right hand of God His Father in heaven, yet he does not cease to communicate himself to us by faith. This banquet. Is a spiritual table. At which Christ makes us partakers of Himself with all His benefits.
And gives us the grace, listen, to enjoy both Himself and the merit of His suffering and death. And so when Jesus ascended into heaven, He didn't abandon us, He didn't leave us as orphans. Jesus had already prepared his disciples for his departure in John 14, 15, and 16. Listen to what Jesus says in John chapter 16 verse 28. Jesus says to his disciples, I came from the Father.
And have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.
So Jesus says, I'm leaving the world. He's preparing his disciples for his Physical departure. He's leaving. But yet, Jesus promised them that he would not leave them as orphans. He assures his disciples in John 14: listen, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate.
To be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, but it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. He's leaving.
But I'm coming to you. Do you see that? Through the advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. John 16:7, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you. Believers are not orphans. The church is not abandoning her mission. He is with us always, even to the end of the age. We are not abandoned.
Why? Because God is not one person. Because God is not two persons. Because God is three persons, He is a Trinity. And the good news is that God is a Trinity.
The Spirit, whom Jesus promised, is a person. I will send him. He is not a force. He is a person, the eternal God with us now. And although Jesus is absent from us in the flesh, the Spirit is present with us, and he unites us to the whole Christ, humanity and deity, who is in heaven.
And he does it by the power of the Holy Spirit, mysterious, powerful, but real. And so, Jesus, the God-man, is with us. Matthew has been telling this. Us this throughout the whole gospel. Matthew chapter 1, he is Emmanuel, God with us.
Matthew chapter 18, in a matter of church discipline, when the church rules on unrepentant believers in the church, he says, where two or three are gathered, I am with you. And now he says, I am with you always at the end of Matthew's gospel. Listen to the Apostles' Creed when it says, I believe in the Holy Spirit. It says, What do you mean? The Heidelberg Catechism is interpreting this, the Apostles' Creed.
What do you believe concerning the Holy Spirit when you say, I believe in the Holy Spirit? First, that the Holy Spirit is co-eternal God with the Father and the Son. He's God. But second, he's given to me to make me a true faith partaker in Christ and all of his benefits to comfort me and to be with me forever. Question 55.
What do you understand by communion of saints? I believe in the communion of saints, the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. I believe in the communion of saints. What do you understand by the communion of saints? That believers, all and everyone as members of Christ, have communion in Him and in all His treasures and gifts.
Jesus, with all his treasures and gifts, is present with us, and he is present for us by the Holy Spirit who works this in us. He does this through the methods that Jesus has already given to us in the Great Commission. We don't have to make this up. We want the Holy Spirit to come in power. Jesus just taught us in the Great Commission how He comes.
Word, sacrament, and discipline. He promises to be there. and to be there for you. And so, Jesus' simultaneously bodily absence to be with the Father and his true presence by the Spirit in our persons and through the Word and Sacrament, this is a grand truth. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 10.
Says that Jesus is as near to us as the word that we hear. When we hear his word, the gospel, Paul says in Romans 10, we hear Christ. It is the word of Christ. We hear him. When we see the water and the bread and the wine, we are seeing Him and His promises signified and sealed, guaranteed to us.
We are seeing him. And so Jesus has promised to make disciples, to build his church, to extend his mission to all nations, and to bless us with his presence. And he does it through the means that he's instituted: word, sacrament, and discipline in the great commission. We don't have to make it up. Wherever he promises, wherever these means of grace are found, Jesus is no doubt to be found there in saving grace.
So here's what I want us to reflect on as we finish. What was the history lesson for? What was the theology lesson for? And what was the exposition for? This is what it was for.
What is the whole point of discussing the presence of Christ in Holy Communion? Listen to what John Calvin said about that. He said, it is to assure. trembling consciences. It is to assure trembling consciences that communion is not a bare figure, but it is joined with the reality and substance.
Let me put it very simply for you. Communion is not an empty sign that makes us remember something 2,000 years ago that is not present with us now. He's saying that the signs of bread and wine are guarantees of a present reality. What is this present reality? What is the substance and reality that is with us now?
Listen, Jesus and both his humanity and his divinity is the reality of the substance of this meal. That's what is present. And he is present in this meal for us for the forgiveness of our sins. How do we know this? Because he has attached his word of promise to it.
Listen to what he says. Take ye, this is my body, drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. We cannot possess full assurance of salvation. We cannot have our troubled consciences. Quieted.
Listen, until we are fully assured that we're united to the whole person, both his humanity and his divinity. We cannot receive salvation apart from being united to a whole Christ. And so, in communion, the Holy Spirit, the bond of union, he unites us to Christ's humanity and to his divinity, and thus his full saving work that is for us, because it was the whole Christ who accomplished our redemption for us. We're not just saved by Jesus' deity. We are also saved by his humanity.
And you must be vitally united to both to be saved. And if you do not receive a whole Christ, you can never have your troubled conscience that plagues you for your failures this past week ever assured and quieted. The whole Jesus must be present to save us. This is what the Heidelberg Catechism teaches in question 15. What kind of mediator and redeemer must we seek?
We must seek one who is a true and sinless man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, one who is at the same time true God. Jesus must be 100% man. He must be 100% God. He must be a true and sinless man. Why?
Because God's justice, His law, requires that the same human nature that has sinned should make satisfaction for that sin. The problem is, no man who is himself a sinner can make that satisfaction, neither for himself nor anybody else. Why must Jesus also be God? Because it is by the power of his divine nature that he is able to bear in his human nature the burden of God's wrath and be our propitiation and exhaust it fully on the cross for us so that we could be restored to righteousness and life in him. And so, yes, in his divinity, Christ is omnipresent.
That's not the issue. The question in Scripture is: whether and where is Jesus present for us in salvation for the forgiveness of our sins? You know, we live at the beach and we like to watch sun rises on the east coast. If it's the west coast, it's sun sets, right? But in a sunrise or in a sunset, we see the beauty of God and His creation.
But as wonderful as those things are, there's no word of promise in a sunrise or a sunset that tells you Jesus is here for you for the forgiveness of your sins. In fact, the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 1 that the creation is telling you the exact opposite. He's here to judge you. That word of promise for the forgiveness of sins is not attached to a sunset or a sunrise or a mountain range. As wonderful as creation is, creation doesn't give us the gospel.
Without the word of gospel, Jesus might not be here for you in forgiveness. He might be here in judgment. But the good news through holy communion is the Holy Spirit not only makes Christ's divinity, but also his humanity, his true and natural body and blood, present for us for the forgiveness of our sins. In the Lord's Supper, the Holy Spirit gives to us Christ crucified, buried, risen, and ascended. For us.
And oh, oh, how we need this assurance, don't we? We look back across the past week. The past month the past years. and we look at the failures that have plagued our life. And we need this assurance that we have the forgiveness of our sins.
And so the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord and giver of life, makes Christ, who is separated from us by virtue of his ascension, present with us by uniting us with Christ. And so that through that union we derive life from Christ. Why? Because where there's the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation. Listen carefully.
Where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life. and salvation. Exactly how this happens is a mystery. It is a mystery that exceeds our capacity to understand, and the Belgian Confession is helpful. It says we do not understand the manner in which this is done.
We don't understand this. Just as we do not comprehend the hidden activity of the Holy Spirit of God. Yet, we do not go wrong when we say that what we eat and drink is the true natural body and the true blood of Christ. And so let us note this morning as we come to this. Table that the Lord has given to us, this sacrament, let us note that this holy mystery is something to be marveled at and enjoyed rather than explained and fully understood.
By the mysterious, powerful working of the Holy Spirit, we, Paul says in Ephesians 2, are in heaven in Christ, and he is on earth in us. For us now. Thanks be to God. for his indescribable gift. Amen.
Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this gift. We thank you for this wonderful mystery, this great gift that you have given to us, that we can, through the power of your Holy Spirit, commune with a whole Christ. A risen Christ who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, a Christ who is both God and man, and we are united to Him.
And we thank you for it. We don't understand it, but we thank you for this gift. And we thank you for the gift of your table now that assures our trembling consciences. That all the promises in the gospel are yes and amen for us in Christ.
So be with us now and serve us, we pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Him we proclaim is a ministry of John Fondill of Fairmount Church in Jacksonville, Florida.
You can check out his church at Paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
