Practical Religion / Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians

by J. C. Ryle

Now is the view here stated the doctrine of the New Testament? If it is not, for ever let it be rejected, cast aside, and refused by men. If it is, let us never be ashamed to hold it fast, profess our belief in it, pin our faith on it, and steadfastly refuse to hold any other view, no matter by whom it is taught. In subjects like this we must call no man master. It signifies little what great Bishops and learned divines have thought fit to put forth about the Lord's Supper. If they teach more than the Word of God contains they are not to be believed.

I take down my Bible and turn to the New Testament. There I find no less than four separate accounts of the first appointment of the Lord's Supper. St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul, all four describe it: all four agree in telling us what our Lord did on this memorable occasion.—Two only tell us the reason which our Lord assigned why His disciples were to eat the bread and drink the cup. St. Paul and St. Luke both record the remarkable words, "Do this in remembrance of Me."—St. Paul adds his own inspired comment: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew (or declare or proclaim) the Lord's death till He come." (Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 25, 26.) When Scripture speaks so plainly, why cannot men be content with it? Why should we mystify and confuse a subject which in the New Testament is so simple? The "continual remembrance of Christ's death" was the one grand object for which the Lord's Supper was ordained. He that goes further than this is adding to God's Word, and does so to the great peril of his soul.

Now is it reasonable to suppose that our Lord would appoint an ordinance for so simple a purpose as the "keeping His death in remembrance"? Most certainly it is. Of all the facts in His earthly ministry none are equal in importance to that of His death. It was the great satisfaction for man's sin, which had been appointed in God's covenant from the foundation of the world. It was the great atonement of almighty power, to which every sacrifice of animals, from the fall of man, continually pointed. It was the grand end and purpose for which Messiah came into the world. It was the corner-stone and foundation of all man's hopes of pardon and peace with God. In short, Christ would have lived, and taught, and preached, and prophesied, and wrought miracles in vain, if He had not crowned all by dying for our sins as our Substitute! His death was our life. His death was the payment of our debt to God. Without His death we should have been of all creatures most miserable. No wonder that an ordinance was specially appointed to remind us of our Saviour's death. It is the very one thing of which poor, weak, sinful man needs to be continually reminded.

Does the New Testament warrant men in saying that the Lord's Supper was ordained to be a sacrifice, and that in it Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? Most certainly not! When the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, "This is my Body," and "this is my Blood," He evidently meant, "This bread in my hand is an emblem of my Body, and this cup of wine in my hand contains an emblem of my Blood." The disciples were accustomed to hear Him use such language. They remembered His saying, "The field is the world," "The good seed are the children of the kingdom." (Matt. xiii. 38.) It never entered into their minds that He meant to say He was holding His own body and His own blood in His hands, and literally giving them His literal body and blood to eat and drink. Not one of the writers of the New Testament ever speaks of the sacrament as a sacrifice, or calls the Lord's Table an altar, or even hints that a Christian minister is a sacrificing priest. The universal doctrine of the New Testament is that after the one offering of Christ there remains no more need of sacrifice.[2]

Does the English Prayer-book warrant any Churchman in saying that the Lord's Supper was meant to be a sacrifice, and that Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? Once more I reply, Most certainly not! Not once is the word altar to be found in the Prayer-book: not once is the Lord's Supper called a sacrifice. Throughout the Communion Service the one idea of the ordinance continually pressed on our attention is that of a "remembrance" of Christ's death. As to any presence of Christ's natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the rubric at the end of the Service gives the most flat and distinct contradiction to the idea. That rubric expressly asserts that "the natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven, and not here." Those many Churchmen, so-called, who delight in talking of the "altar," the "sacrifice," the "priest," and the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper, would do well to remember that they are using language which is entirely unused by the Church of England.

The point before us is one of vast importance. Let us lay hold upon it firmly, and never let it go. It is the very point on which our Reformers had their sharpest controversy with the Romanists, and went to the stake, rather than give way. Sooner than admit that the Lord's Supper was a sacrifice, they cheerfully laid down their lives. To bring back the doctrine of the "real presence," and to turn the good old English communion into the Romish "mass," is to pour contempt on our Martyrs, and to upset the first principles of the Protestant Reformation. Nay, rather, it is to ignore the plain teaching of God's Word, and do dishonour to the priestly office of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches expressly that the Lord's Supper was ordained to be "a remembrance of Christ's body and blood," and not an offering. The Bible teaches that Christ's vicarious death on the cross was the one perfect sacrifice for sin, which never needs to be repeated. Let us stand fast in these two great principles of the Christian faith. A clear view of the intention of the Lord's Supper is one of the soul's best safeguards against the delusions of modern days.

II. In the second place, let me try to show who ought to be communicants? What kind of persons were meant to go to the Table and receive the Lord's Supper?

It will clear the ground if I first show who ought not to be partakers of this ordinance. The ignorance which prevails on this, as well as on every part of the subject, is vast, lamentable, and appalling. If I can contribute anything that may throw light upon it, I shall feel very thankful. The principal giants whom John Bunyan describes, in "Pilgrim's Progress," as dangerous to Christian pilgrims, were two, Pope and Pagan. If the good old Puritan had foreseen the times we live in, he would have said something about the giant Ignorance.

(a) It is not right to urge all baptized persons to become communicants. There is such a thing as fitness and preparedness for the ordinance. It does not work like a medicine, independently of the state of mind of those who receive it. The teaching of those who press all their congregation to come to the Lord's Table, as if the coming must necessarily do every one good, is entirely without warrant of Scripture. Nay, rather, it is teaching which is calculated to do immense harm to men's souls, and to turn the reception of the sacrament into a mere form. Ignorance can never be the mother of acceptable worship, and an ignorant communicant who comes to the Lord's Table without knowing why he comes, is altogether in the wrong place.—"Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup."—"To discern the Lord's body,"—that is to understand what the elements of bread and wine represent, and why they are appointed, and what is the particular use of remembering Christ's death,—is an essential qualification of a true communicant. God "commands all men everywhere to repent" and believe the Gospel (Acts xvii. 30); but He does not in the same way, or in the same manner, command every body to come to the Lord's Table. No: this thing is not to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or carelessly! It is a solemn ordinance, and solemnly it ought to be used.

(b) But this is not all. Sinners living in open sin, and determined not to give it up, ought on no account to come to the Lord's Table. To do so is a positive insult to Christ, and to pour contempt on His Gospel. It is nonsense to profess we desire to remember Christ's death, while we cling to the accursed thing which made it needful for Christ to die. The mere fact that a man is continuing in sin, is plain evidence that he does not care for Christ, and feels no gratitude for redemption. The ignorant Papist who goes to the priest's confessional and receives absolution, may think he is fit to go to the Popish mass, and after mass may return to his sins. He never reads the Bible, and knows no better! But the Englishman who habitually breaks any of God's commandments, and yet goes to the Sacrament, as if it would do him good and wipe away his sins, is very guilty indeed. So long as he chooses to continue his wicked habits he cannot receive the slightest benefit from Christ's ordinances, and is only adding sin to sin. To carry unrepented sin up to the Communion Rail, and there receive the bread and wine, knowing in our own hearts that we and wickedness are yet friends, is one of the worst things a man can do, and one of the most hardening to conscience. If a man must have his sins, and cannot give them up, let him by all means stay away from the Lord's Supper. There is such a thing as "eating and drinking unworthily," and to our own "condemnation." To no one do these words apply so thoroughly as to an open sinner.