The words teach us that at the present time our Blessed Lord and Saviour is at the right hand of God, and they suggest two subjects, His place, and His employment.
His place, then, is heaven itself; and His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Father. In His real human body He has ever been like ourselves, in one place at one time. When He was here he passed from place to place; from Galilee to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Galilee. So when Lazarus died He was absent from Bethany, and after his death He went there. Just so in His ascension He passed into the heavens, and, being there, He is as much absent from us in the body as He was absent from Martha and Mary in their deep anxiety about their brother. When present here, in His human person, He was absent there. Being present there, He is now absent here. [6]
Then, again, with the place there has been a complete change in His employment. He was here to found His kingdom and to make atonement. He is there to carry out the results of that atonement and to reign. His office was represented by the high priest of old, who first in the outer court offered the sacrifice, and afterwards went in before the mercy-seat to sprinkle the blood. So Christ Jesus here on earth offered Himself as the sacrifice, and now He is gone into the holy of holies there to present the blood before the mercy-seat of God. Thus He is described by St. Peter (Acts, v. 31) as being exalted to be a “Prince and a Saviour;” a Prince, because He is exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords; a Saviour, because as a living friend, He is saving those whom, when on earth, He redeemed by His blood. Every passage, therefore, which describes Him in His present condition, represents Him as in the possession of living power. Sometimes He is said to be reigning, as (1 Cor. xv. 25), “He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.” Sometimes we see Him as the Priest (Heb. iv. 14), “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.” Sometimes He is the Advocate (1 John, ii. 1, 2), “If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;” and sometimes He is the loving Friend, watching the struggles of His faithful disciples, and waiting to welcome His dying servant in the solemn moments of his rough and stormy martyrdom. “Behold,” said Stephen, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God;” and so, having seen it, he followed up the vision by the dying prayer, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (Acts, vii. 56.)
Here, then, is our delightful assurance. We look back to the work of the cross, and there see the whole burden of all our sin borne by Him, and so put away for ever. We ask no further sacrifice, for we know that He made there upon the cross “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world;” and we now look to our Blessed Saviour as reigning and saving. Because He reigns we know that all is rightly ordered, and because He saves we believe that we ourselves shall be safe for eternity. We see many things in the world that are altogether opposed to what we think best; but we know that God has put all things under His feet, and given Him to be the Head over all things to His Church; and, therefore, that all is in His hand, and all will work together for good. We find deep sin in ourselves, and we know how hard a thing it is really to walk with God. We find defect in our prayers, defect in our faith, defect in our service, defect in our best efforts, defect everywhere; but we look up to yonder throne, and there we find a loving Saviour; one who knows our deep need,—one who has died for us,—one who loves us,—one who can feel with us, and who vouchsafes to act as our Priest and Advocate, so that in the midst of all our shortcomings and deficiencies we may, in His Name, and through His most precious blood, “come boldly to the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
Let any one search the Scriptures, and they must be convinced that this is the truth there plainly taught. But what can be more palpably contradictory to it than to suppose that He is present, in body, soul, and divinity, in the form of the small piece of lifeless bread which we receive in the Lord’s Supper? In other words, that there is not only the one Saviour in heaven at the right hand of God; but that there are two or three hundred living Saviours collected together on the table every time that the Lord’s Supper is administered. I am not surprised if some of you feel shocked at such a statement, and I know that there is enough to shock any religious mind. I am shocked at it myself, and am sorry to have to make it. But this is the real teaching of the Church of Rome. The decree of the Council of Trent is as follows:—“If any man shall say that the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, together with his soul and divinity, and, in short, that a whole Christ, is not contained, truly, really, and substantially, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; but shall say that he is in it only in sign, or figure, or power, let him be anathema.” (Sess. xiii. Can. 1.) Another decree goes on to declare, “If any man shall say that in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of latreia, and that he ought not to be carried solemnly about in processions, or that he ought not to be set before the people that he may be worshipped, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters, let him be anathema!” (Sess. xiii. Can. 6.) [10]
The wafer, therefore, or the piece of bread, is here said to be after consecration nothing less than a real, living Saviour, with body, soul, and divinity, to be worshipped with that holy, reverential worship which belongs exclusively to the God of heaven and earth, for that is the meaning of the word Latreia. There is something very awful in such a statement. It shows that there can be no peace with Rome—no compromise, no middle path. If they are right, we are awfully wrong. If we are right, they are guilty of idolatry. If all these pieces of bread are living Saviours, we have been terribly guilty in never worshipping any one of them; but if, on the other hand, they have remained bread still—plain, simple, unchanged bread—then we have idolatry of the most unquestionable character when that bread is exalted by the priest for adoration, and men fall down and worship it as the living God.
Now, on what does all this tremendous fabric rest? What is there in the word of God to warrant it? What is there in the Scriptures of truth to give a sanction to such a system? So far as the word of God is concerned all hangs on the one text, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” To these words Romanists appeal again and again, as if they taught the doctrine, whereas the most cursory study of the different passages in which they are contained is sufficient to show that they mean nothing of the kind.
Let me briefly give you four reasons.
1. The words themselves prove that they are figurative. Turn to 1 Cor. xi. 25, where we read: “This cup is the new testament in my blood.” Is there any one blind enough to suppose that the cup was changed into the new testament? The words must mean that the cup was an emblem of the covenant. When our Lord said, “I am the vine,” “I am the door,” “I am the bread of life,” He did not mean that He was changed into a vine, into a door, or into bread, but that all these things were emblems of His work. So He says of the cup, that it is an emblem of the covenant; and if we would be consistent interpreters, we must believe also of the bread that it was declared to be an emblem of the body.
2. The bread is called bread, and the wine wine, after consecration, both by our Lord Himself and His Apostles.