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The Lord’s Supper

Posted on by Carl Robbins

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is worth 919 pages of study…

This Sunday evening (July 12) we will delight in the Lord’s Supper at the close of our worship service. Each month, before we celebrate the sacrament, we (the pastors) want to remind you to prepare for this holy meal.

I seek to engage in some concentrated reading-both Scriptures and devotional material- to prepare my soul. This month I have dug deep.

Hughes Oliphant Old is the premier living scholar on all matters related to biblical worship. He is 82 and nearly blind, but is still an encyclopedic resource.

Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old

Dr. Old recently published his 919 page magnum opus on the Lord’s Supper, entitled “Holy Communion in the Piety of the Reformed Church.”

The book (edited by our dear friend and church planter – Dr. Jon Payne) is filled with insights.

Dr. Old surveys all the major reformed thinkers on the subject of the Lord’s Supper, including John Calvin, John Knox, the Puritans, Matthew Henry, the Erskine brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, Thomas Chalmers, C.H. Spurgeon and many others. Along the way Old points out where the church has veered off a straight path either in its theology or practice.

The marvelous thing about this volume is that Old carefully teases out the major “themes” that should be showing up in our celebration:

  • That our communion services are “down payments” on The Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
  • The sacrament is a “Public remembering” of the work of Christ, so that we might be thankful.
  • Our union with Christ is on display at the Lord’s Table.
  • Communion is more than just a sign, it is a sign and a seal. A seal being used to confirm a promise or make a document legal. This means that the covenant of grace has been “ratified”.
  • Preparation must be part of our celebration. Old has a marvelous discussion of how the Puritans trained their congregations to avoid “casual participation”.
  • Jesus is present! We often spend so long talking about how He is NOT present (transubstantiation and other erroneous understandings) that we never get around to affirming that our Risen Lord meets with us at the Table! And we truly “feed on Him” in this sacrament.
  • The communal nature of the sacrament – we should never have a greater sense of the unity of the church than at our communion services. This is one reason why we (like the church has done for centuries) take a diaconal offering, to share our goods with any in the Body who might be needy.

How are you preparing to come to the Table ?

Carl Robbins
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Carl Robbins
Carl is a native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a graduate of Crichton College and Covenant Theological Seminary. Pastor Robbins has served churches in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Nevada. In addition Carl has served on the board of crisis pregnancy centers, Christian schools and seminaries. He has spoken to college groups, medical school forums, state legislative groups, seminary chapels and church conferences. His special passion is training pastors in developing countries. Carl and wife Sandy have been married for 37 years(!) and are the parents of three believing, adult children: John and his wife DeAnna and their children (Bray, Emmie Ruth, and Maggie Grace), James and his wife Megen and their children (Jack and Lainey Janice), and Sarah and her husband Andrew Holmes. Carl and Sandy love OU football, big dogs, good Mexican food, and the beach—any beach, any time.