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PURITY OF THE COMMUNION TABLE
MONDAY, MAY 18
1 Corinthians 10:14-22
1 Corinthians 11:23-24
 
“Flee from idolatry.”
 
PURITY OF THE COMMUNION TABLE
 
The purity of the sacrament is vividly set forth in Paul’s injunction (1 Cor 10:14-22). What born-again Christian has not felt the very presence of the Holy Spirit of God in the mystical union of believers together with Christ at the communion table?
 
Paul emphasizes that the Lord’s table demands purity of faith and life. He draws the analogy, “Behold Israel after the flesh [i.e. historically]: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles [i.e. communicants of false religions] sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God.” Paul was, of course, referring to literal idolatry, but anything which comes between us and God is, spiritually, an idol. Any false doctrine which amounts to the denial of salvation through the blood of Christ, is a form of idolatry. “Modernism” is not a form of Christianity, it is another religion; it is idolatry.
 
Paul continues, “I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 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 devils.” The two cannot be commingled. If it is the table of false religion, it is not the Lord’s table.
 
Alluding to the metaphor of the marriage relationship, the metaphor which speaks of idolatry as unfaithfulness, Paul concludes, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?”
 
Calvin, in his Institutes, draws the distinction between a true Church and that which is not a Church, in that a true Church, preaching the true Gospel, maintains the purity of the sacraments.
 
THOUGHT: “We cannot obtain the grace offered in the Sacraments, unless we are capacitated by faith.” (Calvin, Antidote to the Council of Trent)
PRAYER: Lord, may I observe Thy sacraments by faith, and not as work nor as routine.

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