Category Archives: Lord’s Supper

Edward Taylor, 28th Meditation.2

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by in 2 Corinthians, Edward Taylor, Lord's Supper, Uncategorized

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Lord clear the cost: and let thy sweet sun-shine

That I may better speed a second time:

Oh! Fill my pipkin with thy bloodred wine:

I’ll drink thy health: to pledge thee is no crime.

Although I but an earthen vessel be 

Convey some of my fullness to thee.

The image of a coast picks up on the “befogged dark fancy, clouded mind.” In days before the Coast Guard and lighthouses and radar and exhaustive maps, a cloudy coast would be an enormous danger. 

Here the coast is not a physical location, but rather the affections and mind “befogged” by the effects of sin and the fall. Without going through the entire doctrine here, which goes under the title “the noetic effects of sin,” it is sufficient to know that the residual effects of sin persist as long we exist in this world. And while there is improvement in this life under the operation of the Spirit and the Word, the effects persist.

Taylor here prays that the effects of sin be lifted: rather than fog, “let thy sweet sun-shine.” The hope of this transformative effect is that he will be able to rework the poem and create something more worthy. The poem is losing glory, because it lost it ways.

Perhaps Taylor is referring to an earlier version of the poem which he destroyed. But based upon this being a persistent claim, in various forms, which is seen throughout his corpus, it could be just his difficulty at the beginning of the poem.

In the remainder of the stanza he brings up the method of this shining light. Since the poems were written in preparation for communion, the reference of “blood red wine” is to the wine of communion. 

The nature of communion as a joy, while often not emphasized, is not absent from the ceremony. First, the Supper takes over for the Feast of Passover, which while in stressful circumstances also celebrates the escape from Egypt. Second, while the ceremony recalls the Lord’s Death, we also call that day “Good Friday.” Third, the ceremony recalls the Lord’s Death until he comes. The ceremony is based upon the Lord’s life and looks forward to the Lord’s return.

But there is another level of this image: He asks to have his “pipkin,” his small cup, is to be filled with wine. But in the last line, the image of “wine” is recounted as “fullness”:

Convey some of thy fullness into me.

“Fullness” is a reference to the fullness of grace in the moto for the poem, “16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Thus, it is the fullness of grace he is praying to receive.

The pipkin is repeated in the fifth line of the stanza as an “earthen vessel”. The move to an earthen vessel may seem disjointed on the face of the stanza, but when we see the nature of the illusion, Taylor’s relationship makes sense. 

Taylor is referring to 2 Corinthians 4:7, where Paul writes that “we have this treasure in jars of clay.”  While the reference to clay has become a bit of a Christian cliché to refer generally to the weakness of human beings, Taylor picks up this image not merely as a form self-abasement, but because the passage relates to his twin themes in this stanza of fullness of Christ’s grace and light to drive away the fog.

The treasure Paul identifies is  the “light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  The fuller passage reads as follows:

5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 

2 Corinthians 4:5–7.

James Denney: Moral Impossibilities

27 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in James Denney, Lord's Supper, The Lord's Supper, Uncategorized

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This sermon is based upon 1 Corinthians 10:21, Ye cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the cup of the devils.

The sermon has two points of particular interest: (1) what is the nature of the elements in the Lord’s Supper: particularly what is work in a symbol. (2) What does it mean for a modern Christian to take the cup of the devils?

As for symbol, Denney makes an important corrective to the concept of symbol: a symbol is not meant to put something at a distance, but rather to bring that thing close:

Perhaps it was under a deep sense of what it signified, perhaps with a sort of perplexity in our minds that in a spiritual religion like ours such a place should have been claimed by a material rite. It is certain that many church members have no clear convictions about the sacraments, and are uncomfortable in the celebration of them. They may think in some indistinct fashion that they are symbolical, but they use even the idea of symbol in a wrong way.

A symbol in their thoughts is something to be distinguished from reality; just because it is a symbol, it keeps them, one might say, at arm’s length from the thing symbolized. But the true use of a symbol is to bring the reality near; it is to give us a grasp of it such as we could not otherwise obtain.

A Christian spirit does not play off the reality in the sacrament, and the symbol, against each other; it grasps the reality through the symbol; it does not answer to its experience to say that in the communion it partakes of the symbols of Christ’s body and blood; it has Jesus Christ Himself in all the reality of his incarnation and passion as its meat and drink. It is nothing less than the cup of the Lord which we drink, nothing less than the table of the Lord of which we partake.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 230–231. The “symbols” of the supper are not to create a distance, but rather to bring about a relationship which could not obtain otherwise. The best of symbols make us understand better; help us relate better.

As for the second issue: what now is the cup of the devils? Denney says, Well, we don’t see idol worship or overt devilry nowadays. On this first point, things have changed greatly. There are a substantial number of people who self-identify as Wiccan, “In 2014 Pew Research Center estimated that 0.4 percent of Americans, about 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wiccan or Pagan.” There are any number of things quite common today which would have been unthinkable in such numbers in the late 19th century (although since the First World War, such things have certainly grown).

But even without overt paganism, Denney speaks of a certainly “liberty” which has one taking in ideas and culture which are contrary to Christ. The cup of devils is far more dangerous to us than we understand. Paul is warning them of a very real danger:

No matter how sure a man’s hold may be of the Christian principle that an idol is nothing in the world and therefore can do nothing to harm any enlightened person; if he takes part in such a transaction as I have described, then its atmosphere, its circumstances, its spirit, will prevail against him; he will be brought in spite of himself into the great communion of heathen life again. Let him say what he will, it is another world than that in which we live at the Lord’s table; it is spiritual influence of another quality which tells there upon the soul: and the two are irreconcilable. “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons”.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 235–236.

Here is how Denney describes the effect of such liberty:

Probably the cup of devils is drunk most frequently still under the sign of liberty. Even a Christian man says to himself that everything in human life ought to be of interest to him. It belongs to his intelligence to concern itself with all the experiences of his kind, and the most attractive way to look at these experiences is in literature. This is the mirror in which life is reflected, and it cannot be wrong to gaze into it. It is indeed the mark of a large and liberal intelligence to have the amplest toleration here; to allow the mind to familiarize itself with all that has been said and thought by human beings; to cultivate breadth, appreciation, geniality; to avoid a censorious and puritanic temper. The world that is good enough for God should be good enough for us, and we should not be too good to take it as it is.

It is by pleas like these, or in a mood like this, that men and women who have drunk the cup of the Lord allow themselves to drink the cup of devils. They deliberately breathe a poisoned spiritual air as if it could do them no harm. But it does do harm. I do not believe there is anything in which people are so ready to take liberties which does so much harm. There are bad books in the world, just as there are bad men, and a Christian cannot afford to take either the one or the other into his bosom. There are books, and books of genius too, which should not be read, because they should never have been written. The first imagination and conception of them was sin, and the sin is revived when they are conceived again in the mind even of a Christian reader. It is revived with all the deadly power that belongs to sin. We cannot give our minds over to it with impunity. It confuses, it stains, it debilitates, it kills. It is the cup of devils, and we cannot drink it and drink the cup of the Lord.

 James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 237–238.

And, “All things are not lawful for us if we wish to remain in the Lord’s company and to share in His life.”

Intinction

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in Lord's Supper

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Intinction is the practice of dipping the bread into the wine.  The history of the practice in the Christian Church and theological reception of that practice within the Protestant Church is fully discussed here:

 http://theaquilareport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IntinctionPaper.pdf

Smith, in Desiring the Kingdom explains that the practice of the Eucharist forms the shape of the human being who partakes:

This intensity is suggested in the very words of institution of the Eucharist: “This is my body.”

Jesus didn’t look around the room or out the window and abstractly announce, “Behold, the goodness of all creation. Look, remember, believe. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.” Such a statement would be perfectly true; creation is just such a mediation of God’s presence. But in addition to that truth, we also need to note that Jesus takes up particular things from creation and endues them with a sense of special presence, an especially intense presence. In this way Jesus seems to establish particular hot spots of sacramentality within a good creation, while also ordaining particularly packed practices. This selective intensity suggests that the affirmation that all the world is a sacrament is not meant to thereby level “the sacraments.”

In the same way, the affirmation that all of life is worship— that all things can be done to the glory of God— should not level the particular intensity of worship as the “work of the people” that especially praises God and forms us in unique, particularly intense ways. If one temptation is to level the sacraments in the name of the sacramentality of the world, a second is the temptation to naturalize the liturgy as just an embodied practice like any other (another kind of leveling). [38]

Sometimes our emphasis on liturgy as a formative, embodied practice that shapes us runs the risk of construing this as a wholly natural or immanent process— as if the formation of disciples in Christian worship operates in much the same way as the formation of Manny Ramirez as an excellent hitter through bodily rituals of batting practice. While worship is entirely embodied, it is not only material; and though worship is wholly natural, it is never only natural. Christian worship is nothing less than an invitation to participate in the life of the triune God. In short, the centrality of embodiment should not be understood as a “naturalizing” of worship that would deny the dynamic presence of the Spirit; to the contrary, the Spirit meets, nourishes, transforms, and empowers us just through and in such material practices.

The church’s worship is a uniquely intense site of the Spirit’s transformative presence. We must never lose sight of the charged nature of these practices. [39] These are not just rituals that are unique because they are aimed at a different telos; they are also unique because they are practices that bring us face-to-face with the living God.

Smith, James K. A. (2009-08-01). Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (pp. 149-150). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As we change the practice, we change its meaning — we change what happens in the heart. When we both remove the cup as a separate element, remove the words of institution, or partake on our own schedule, we fundamentally transform our goal and its effects. Is that wise?

Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide 4

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Ecclesiology, Hospitality, John Bunyan, Lord's Supper

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Study Guide 4: Christian at Palace Beautiful

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Watchful & Discretion: Examination

  1. As Christian becomes discouraged by the lions he lifts up his eyes: what does he see before him?
  1. Where does this palace stand?
  1. Why was this house built?
  1. What does the house represent?
  1. How does Watchful explain the lions?
  1. Who is Watchful, what does he represent?
  1. What does Watchful do with Christian?
  1. What is and was Christian’s name? What does “graceless” mean?
  1. Whom does Watchful call?

Continue reading →

William Romaine on How Christ Enlightens the Mind

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Lord's Supper, Ministry, Prayer, William Romaine

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Paul prays in Ephesians 1 that the hearts of the Ephesians be enlightened:

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,
16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

How does effect this change — what means does God use to enlighten the heart? This is the way of discipleship and change. William Romaine explains that such change takes place by means:

The answer is, God has established the means of grace for this very purpose, of which his word is the principal: For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light: And when his good Spirit accompanies the hearing or reading of the word, then it is indeed a lantern unto our feet, and a light unto our paths. Then the word discovers to us the wretched darkness of our natural state, strips reason of all its high and divine titles, and thereby humbles us before God, and brings us low before his foot stool, waiting upon him in all the the means of grace, and particularly in prayer, that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ may mine into our dark and sinful hearts. To expect this light without the use of the instituted means is enthusiasm; and to expect to keep this light, after you once have it, •without continuing in the use of these means, is the very madness of enthusiasm. In them God has promised to be found of those that seek him. Out of them you have no promise; and you may as reasonably hope God will create a new light for you to read by in the night, as that he will enlighten you without the established means, without prayer, and the word and sacraments.

William Romaine “The sure Foundation. Two discourses, preached before the University of Oxford, April 11, 1756, in the morning at St. Mary’s, and in the afternoon at St. Peter’s.

First there is the content: the word of God. Second there is the Spirit’s application of the word sought and effected through prayer. Finally, there is the use of baptism and the Lord’s Supper to draw out the picture and to present Christ.

When we see these means we see the right basis of the work of ministry: whether preaching, teaching or counseling the Word of God is brought to bear upon one’s heart. No opinion, however “useful’, has within it the power to effect the change. This would be some version of bare human reason. Second there must be prayer that the Holy Spirit will apply the Word. This is the basis of spiritual discipline.

Note: Romaine’s critique of “reason” comes at the high point of the Enlightenment. Reason at this time was the belief that human thinking was capable without revelation was capable of knowing all things — including everything which could be known of God. Romaine is not advocating that one be “unreasonable”.

Second, “enthusiasm” refers to the opposite extreme: the idea that one can simply get some sensation and knowledge often even without words or content; an immediate (without any means) contact with God.

1857

03 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Church History, Lord's Supper, Union With Christ

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How we think about the past often tells us more about present that it does about history. For example, Greek mythology spoke of a past “golden age”:

(ll. 109-120) First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.


Hesiod Works and Days. Yet we wiser moderns know that history goes in one direction; that the past was primitive, but due to the power of progress, things have constantly become better.  We are wiser, better, stronger than our ancestors. Such thinking owes more to people like Herbert Spencer. The Wikipedia summarizes Spencer as follows:

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was “an enthusiastic exponent of evolution” and even “wrote about evolution before Darwin did.”[1] As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. “The only other English philosopher to have achieved anything like such widespread popularity was Bertrand Russell, and that was in the 20th century.”[2] Spencer was “the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century”[3][4]

Yet, a Stanford professor of genetics recently held that our Greek ancestors (or any of our ancestors from the time of Hesiod) would be more intellectually powerful than Spencer (who thought himself at the top of the progressive heap):

Our Fragile Intellect

Gerald R. Crabtree

David Korn Professor of Pathology and Developmental Biology

Beckman Center, B211

279 Campus Drive, Stanford University crabtree@stanford.edu

 

I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions. We would be surprised by our time-visitor’s memory, broad range of ideas and clear-sighted view of important issues. I would also guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I do not mean to imply something special about this time in history or the location, but would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago. I mean to say simply that we Homo sapiens may have changed as a species in the past several thousand years and will use 3000 years to emphasize the potential rapidity of change and to provide a basis for calculations, although dates between 2,000 and 6,000 years ago might suffice equally well. The argument that I will make is that new developments in genetics, anthropology and neurobiology make a clear prediction about our historical past as a species and our possible intellectual fate. The message is simple: our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprising fragile.

 

http://bmi205.stanford.edu/_media/crabtree-2.pdf

One way in which consider ourselves to be advanced is in matters of “race”. Now “race” is a nonsense concept. There is only one “race”, the human race. Of course human beings have organized ourselves into various groups which use common language and culture; but that is a cultural club, not a “race”. Anyway, we pride ourselves in outgrowing notions of race – which make us much better people than our forbearers.

Yet, racism is far more “modern” than we might admit. An incident in 1857 at least points in the opposite direction:

A watershed point in this history occurred in 1857 when the General Assembly of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) received from some white members a request for permission to celebrate the Lord’s Supper separated from black members of the church. The request was clearly against the Reformed polity of the DRC ….(Indeed, an earlier request for separate communion had been rejected by the Dutch Reformed Church, for the Lord’s Supper was to be administered “without distinction of colour”). Moreover, the 1857 Synod found no biblical grouns for the separation of communion based upon race. However, the assembly, wanting to avoid being conservative, doctrinaire, and rigid gave pastoral accommodation that “due to the weakness of some,” communion and worship could be organized into separate celebrations  based on race. (The “weaker” one referred to were the white members who made the request for separate communion.)

J. Todd Billings, Union With Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church, 98-99.

Fortunately, in many places – particularly within the Christian church – such modern racism has been rejected: but, not on the basis of “progress” but rather to conform to what the church already believed and held and practiced. If nothing else, this story cautions us to be more careful of what we “know to be true.”

Jesus is Seated at the Right Hand of the Majesty

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in affliction, Ascension, Christology, Fasting, Hebrews, Lord's Supper, Meditation, Preaching, Repentance

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(notes on a sermon for March 24, 2013):

The Church of Jesus Christ begins with Jesus leaving. After the resurrection, Jesus lives with and teaches his disciples over the course of 40 days:

4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Acts 1:4–11 (ESV)

Think of how crushed the disciples must have been. The Lord, the one who loved them and gave himself for them, was gone. They had depended upon him for years. They had lived with himm for years.  When John was an old man, he wrote to a church about Jesus. John still remembered that he looked upon Jesus with his eyes, and had touched Jesus with his hands, and his ears had heard the very words of the Lord.  Peter remembered that he had seen Jesus and had been with Jesus.

I too have had many friends leave. I know that I will not likely not see or hear or touch them again.  It hurts to see a friend leave.  Death has stolen people from me. There is too much loss in this world.

But to lose the Lord, to lose one’s dearest friend – that must have been an overwhelming grief. They had lost the Lord to death – but he returned in resurrection. Now, they had seemingly lost the Lord again. He would no longer be with them.

I can imagine standing there, looking into the sky, having no words to express my fear and sorrow and wonder. Even the promise of the angels may have seemed too little. Yes, he will return – but when? How long will I have to wait until I hear his voice again?

There is the birth place of the church – waiting for the Lord. We are like the wife in the Song of Solomon asking,

Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

Or, at least we should be.

But let us consider this truthfully. Too many Christians live as if Jesus is nice and all and heaven sounds good, but Jesus is gone. For many Christians, Jesus is an idea – not a man – certainly not “him whom my soul loves.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:15, Paul describes a Christian like this:

and he – that is Jesus — died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Now you say, that describes you. Really?. Where he is just now? What he is doing? Do you want to know?

Jonathan Edward wrote a sermon called, “The Kind of Preaching People Want.” People want to know how to make their lives better. When someone comes into to see me for counseling about their marriage, they want to know how to make their life more pleasant – and I do feel sympathy for them. Their marriage has often made their life a matter of grief – sometimes even a matter of fear. Those are real problems.

But when I tell people that their real problem is a matter of living no longer for themselves but for Jesus, they often seem perplexed.

Consider the church at Philippi: A dispute had broken out between two women which threatened to destroy the church. How should Paul respond? He taught them about Jesus.

What did Peter do when Christians were collapsing under the weight persecution? He told them about Jesus – he also told the Christians that it is more important that they know and love Jesus than it is to avoid suffering. He told wives in bad marriages, that Jesus was more important than escaping their sorrow. He told servants that Jesus was more important than being physically mistreated. He told everyone that Jesus was so important that they were to respect the government, so that Jesus would receive glory when he returned.  He told Christians that they must respond with faith toward God and love toward their enemies – because Jesus was that important.

When John wrote to churches suffering persecution, he explained that Jesus was more important than even being killed.

I could go through every letter and every command in the New Testament and prove the point.

Let me take just one simple example: Paul wrote to Colossae about how a servant should work. A servant must understand that when he is busy digging a hole that he must live for Jesus and act for Jesus – in fact, Jesus is involved in digging the hole:

23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23–24 (ESV)

Consider that command – in the midst of giving instructions to a servant, Paul mentions the Lord three times. He also brings up the return of Christ and the eternal state. He also draws the servant’s immediate work into direct relationship to Jesus, to show the servant that digging a hole or carrying water is a distinct act of worship to God.

Go back and read through anything in the NT: even the most “practical” passages, commands about family life or work are stuffed with references to Jesus and worship.

            Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church

Your real problem is not your “practical” problem. Your real problem is that you don’t know Jesus well enough, that you don’t love Jesus deeply enough.

Let me prove the point: How much can you tell me about your children, your husband, your wife, your parents, your employer, your work?

How much can you tell me about what Jesus is doing right now?

Peter’s first command in his letter is to “set your hope fully upon the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13). Which is your greater hope? That your children will obey or that Jesus will return – not what it is supposed to be, but what you really want?

Before Paul begins to give his practical instructions, Paul spends pages exalting Jesus, describing Jesus, praising Jesus. Listen to his command:

2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:2–3 (ESV)

So, do you set your minds this world – and I am talking about your home, your marriage, your children, your work, your car, your rent, politics, sports, movies, music – or upon the things above. What are the “things above”:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Colossians 3:1 (ESV)

Quick, which movie won the academy award this year? Which team has moved ahead in the basketball playoffs? What is Jesus doing right now at the right hand of the Father?

Your god is whatever is your greatest hope, your greatest joy, your greatest love. If you know your children better than you know Jesus, then you should ask yourself some painful questions about idolatry.

Take a different direction: How much of your life is really different from a well behaved Mormon? Mormons love their families. Mormons train their children to be respectful, obey their parents, say prayers, clean their rooms. Mormons go to classes to learn how to be better parents. Mormons go to marriage seminars. There are atheists who have lovely families, well trained children, happy homes. The things we generally expect in one’s home and work is what most people would have generally affirmed in the culture 50 years ago. There was a time when every politician would at least give lip service to Christian morals.

Let me ask you this question:  Jesus has ascended – do you miss him like the first disciples missed him? Do you stare and wonder, When will he return?

Let’s make this question more painful and more real: Do you have real communion with the Lord, today? Is Jesus an idea, or is Jesus your dearest friend? Could you pick Jesus out of a crowd? When the Lord returns, will you see your dearest friend face to face or will you be meeting a second cousin once removed?

Hebrews 3:1 commands:

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,

Do you consider Jesus? Do you know what it means that he is your high priest?

What did Jesus do when he ascended? What is he doing now? Would you rather know about what Jesus is doing right now, or would you like to have advice on how to get along better at work?  Are you more interested in the work of Jesus or in how to best save for retirement?  If you could have a perfect marriage, obedient children, a clean house and a safe retirement – or communion with the Lord, which would you pick? Which have you spent more time trying to get?

It is no secret what Jesus is doing. The New Testament is filled with this information. Jesus has ascended and today he is sitting at the right hand of Majesty on high. I’ll show you. Turn to Hebrews 1 and I’ll read verses 1-4:

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Hebrews 1:1–4 (ESV)

We are going to consider only the clause at the end of verse 3, “He sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high”.

The language means that Jesus is both King and Priest.  As King, Jesus rules the universe.  Jesus gives gifts as conquering king. Jesus will return to vindicate his people and to judge his enemies. But we cannot speak of that this morning.  There are many things about these words which we simply cannot discuss. Perhaps later we’ll look at Jesus again. For this morning, we will do one thing:

I am going to show a glimpse of what it means that Jesus is our priest. First, we need a priest because our relationship with God has been destroyed through sin.

Christians – especially good and careful Christians – know about sin. Sin describes a creature breaking God’s law. “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). But there is another aspect of sin – sin is alienation from, rebellion against God.

Sometimes we think that our trouble is merely a matter of keeping the law. We – human beings — have this bizarre idea that somehow we can simply do the stuff God “wants” and everything will be okay. We treat God like an idea – we treat the law like it was gravity or some-thing which just needs to be dealt with properly.

Human beings were built to live with God. Life and love come from God alone. Without God we will die. Sin is worse than merely breaking a law – sin is losing God.

Cutting a rubber tube is no big deal, unless you are diving and you need the tube to get air.

Sin is like cutting the tube. You break the relationship to God and you will die.

The one requirement of God is that we love him and that we love our neighbor. Yet, true love can only begin in God. Therefore, we cannot love him unless he first loves us:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7–11 (ESV)

That is the joy in the Gospel: God loves the world. God sent his Son into the world to carry the curse of sin and to fulfill the law. The Son out of love fulfilled the will of his Father. Jesus lived a perfect live. He died on the cross and carried all the curse of sin and death. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus ascended into the heaven and sits at the right hand of Majesty on high. There on his throne of grace Jesus makes reconciliation between human beings and God.

The Spirit of God comes into the life of a human being. The human being sees his rebellion against God. He sees his sin as hateful. He sees Christ as beautiful. He then repents – that means he turns from his sin and rebellion and turns to God in Jesus Christ and seeks reconciliation with God.

God credits our sin to the death of Jesus, and credits the life and righteousness of Jesus to us. The love of God comes into our life and we love God and we love our neighbors. It is not perfect at first, but it grows slowly and our lives become transformed into the image of Jesus. We are brought into union with Christ.

Our union with Christ transforms our lives. Gradually, we learn to love God more fully, to receive the love of God and to express the love of God to human beings – we do this in our marriage, with our children and parents, at our place of work. The love and desire for God grows in strength causes us to overcome the world.

That is Gospel change.

Today, Jesus will be reconciled to any man, woman, child who comes to him in repentance and faith. But the day is coming when Jesus will no longer be reconciled. When he returns, or when you die, the time of reconciliation will end. Some day you will stand before him. On that day, Jesus will either be your Savior or your judge.

Now you believers: God has called you to a life of love. That is your command.

But such love is impossible without Jesus. Augustine once noted that the grace of God flows through the wounds of Jesus. Love begins in the Father, it flows through the Son and it is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

You can only have that love if you are in union with Christ. You can only drink in that love if you are in communion with Christ.

Even Christians forget this. Even Christians act like unbelievers. We know we are supposed to obey – and we make valiant efforts to obey the law. We struggle with sin and shame and falter and fall because we think our trouble is with doing and keeping. We pride ourselves that we are not like the world.

What could be more sad than to see someone possessing an unending treasure – and yet live like a beggar; to lie down beside a stream flooding with pure, sweet water and yet die of thirst; to possess the never ending grace purchased by the blood of Christ and yet struggle with sin and the world and death and the flesh alone.

Nothing makes me as sad and as angry as to see you, my brothers and sisters struggle under the weight of the law when Christ has freed you for grace and life.

Do you want to know why you struggle so with sin? Do you want to know why you grow angry with your children? Do you want to know why you are so burdened with depression? Do you want to know why the world is so weary? Do you want to know you grow so discouraged in your life as a Christian?

It is because you are trying to be a Christian without Christ.

You do not need my experience or my opinion. I’m certainly not important. You don’t need what I think is a good idea. You need Jesus. When I teach you the Bible, I have only one responsibility: Take you to Jesus, show you Jesus. If I leave and you know Jesus better and you love Jesus more, then I have succeeded. If I teach you something and it’s not in the Bible, chuck it. I don’t want you to follow me – I you want to follow Jesus.

But Christians are like anyone else. We look on life and think, I would sure like for it to better, what do I do? We make the mistake of thinking Jesus is too far away.

Why do you think Christians chase after every marriage and parenting fad? Because we don’t think the Holy Spirit is able to change our hearts – because we don’t think Jesus will really do anything about our situation – so we have to go it alone.

Christians are too often like a disciple who saw Jesus ascend into heaven and then thinks, Well Jesus is gone. Yes he will come back some day. And yes he will save me – so I won’t go to Hell. But until he returns, I’m pretty much on my own.

You do this, because you do not understand something – you do this because you do not rightly consider Jesus. You see, Jesus – Our Lord – has sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:3

Did you ever think that the reason your life is so painful lies with you? Did you ever think that maybe the reason you feel overwhelmed lies with the fact that you are shouldering a burden which God never intended for you to bear?

In 2 Corinthians Paul explained the reason why God may give us an overwhelming burden – a burden too great to bear:

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 2 Corinthians 1:8–9 (ESV)

Consider Jesus.

He has sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high.

This means that Jesus has bodily entered into heaven – Go to Hebrews 9:24. We’ll read it twice – and I want you to engrave these words on your heart:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Hebrews 9:24 (ESV)

Did you hear that? When we say that Christ has sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high it means that Jesus – the man Jesus, God incarnate, Jesus is in the very presence of God. Do you know what that means?

There is a human being – God incarnate, Jesus Christ – who is at this very second in the presence of God!

And why is he there? Listen again:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Hebrews 9:24 (ESV)

Right now – as I am speaking to you – Jesus is appearing in the presence of God on your behalf!

Since that is true – why do you look to men to give you help? Why do you not look to Jesus first? Because you don’t know him well enough.

Go back to chapter 2, look down at verse 16:

For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Hebrews 2:16 (ESV)

Jesus loves you. He helps you.  But keep going – look at 17:

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17 (ESV)

Three things: First, again make certain you understand this point: Jesus is like you in every respect.  He does not have our sin. But he is every bit as much human as you and I.

Second, he did this – God did this – so that we could have a high priest. A priest is someone who stands before God on our behalf. We have such a high priest: Jesus. He is not only a high priest – but he is a merciful and faithful high priest.  He is merciful toward us. He knows our weakness.  And he is faithful, he never fails in his work.

Third, he has made propitiation for our sins. That means that the sacrifice of Jesus clears away all our sin.

Next verse:

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 2:18 (ESV)

You who think, my temptation is too great, my trial is too deep: Hear me. It is. You cannot carry such a weight alone. God never intended that for his children. Your marriage is too hard. I believe you. It is! But God never intended for you be married without him. My children – my work – my parents – my finances – the government – the world! You have a high priest who in mercy and love stands ready with unending supplies of grace to pour into your broken heart.

You are bearing pain you were never called to bear.

Look to the next verse:

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, Hebrews 3:1 (ESV)

Now that we have come back to those words, do they not sound sweeter? Consider Jesus.  Let us consider him more.

Go now to chapter 4, and look at verse 14:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Hebrews 4:14 (ESV)

Here again, we see that Jesus is our high priest – the one who has passed through the heavens and is now sitting at the right hand of Majesty on high. What then do we do? Hold fast our confession.

Now holding fast to your confession will be a burden to you if you think of this as just one more task. But what if you see the beauty of your Savior? Open the eyes of faith, they will rest upon your high priest – he is more beautiful, more glorious than anything in heaven or earth. In him shines the glory of God, the glory of redemption.

No one has to tell the bride to-be to hold fast to her engagement ring. She can think of little else. The child on his birthday, when he receives a favorite toy does not to be told to hold fast.

If you find that you have trouble holding fast, the trouble lies with your desires. You will more happily and easily hold fast if you find Christ beautiful. If your hold on your confession is weak, perhaps the trouble lies with a heart that is more concerned with this world than with your Savior.

Let me stir you up to love and good deeds. Let me show you here in the sacred text some further beauty of Christ.  Look to the next verse:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 (ESV)

The Father – your Father in heaven – wants you to come to his Son. Therefore, the Father sent the Son into the world as a man so that Jesus could sympathize with your weakness. Christians sometimes hesitate before they go to Jesus. They think I am a sinful man. Well yes, you are sinful. So what?

Jesus sympathizes with your weakness. Do you see that when stay away from him, you are saying that Jesus does not sympathize with your weakness. When you hide from him because you have sinned, you are saying that he is not loving, not kind, not merciful – not full of grace.

Do you know shame? Jesus was born a bastard. He was crucified naked and mocked as he died. He would have known mocking and jeers from the time he first knew the meaning of words. The other children would have mocked the fact that he was not Joseph’s son. He experienced poverty, hunger, thirst. He knew death and sorrow and loss. He knew betrayal. He knew pain:

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:3 (ESV)

And more than this, Jesus also bore in his body on the cross, the shame and sin of the world.

Do not think that he will not sympathize with you. You do him wrong, you don’t understand him if you think your sin too great, your shame too deep.

He is all of mercy and gentleness. He did not have to become a man to rescue you. The Father did not have to send his Son. The Spirit did not need to come bring you to Christ.  God willingly poured out rivers of love and mercy and grace. Do not let stubbornness and pride hold you back.

Consider Christ further:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16 (ESV)

I told you earlier that Jesus is at this moment in the presence of God. He sits on a throne – a throne of grace.

Think of what that means: His throne is made up of grace, it was built by grace. It was the grace of God which put him upon that throne.

Grace means a gift – something perfect, something prized, something you need and desire – but it is also free. It can be had by any for the asking, but it cannot be purchased with all the gold in the universe.

One more beauty of this priest, turn to Hebrews 7:23:

23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:23–25 (ESV)

This high priest cannot die – he has the power of an indestructible life.  His priesthood will continue forever.  What does this mean for you?

He is able to save to the uttermost.

He cannot merely save you from hell – although he does that – he will save you even now. He saves to the uttermost.  He makes intercession for you, always.

Now I have to answer an objection: You have heard these words and you think to yourself: This all sounds like so much poetry – pretty, but not very realistic.  My life really is painful. I really cannot pay my rent today. Today, I don’t know where my son is. Last night, my daughter ran away.  My wife didn’t come home last night and I don’t know where she went. My husband hates me. My work is a misery which I don’t think I can bear. My wife is dying from cancer. My father beats me.

I could continue. I know that all of these things are true. I have heard all of these things – and more. I know worse than these things are true.

Let me tell you something else. Not one thing I have said means that you will not have trials. Not one thing I have said means that God will take your trials away.

You may be a perfect wife, and your husband may never love you. You may be a perfect husband, and your wife may never be gracious. You may be a perfect parent, and your child may end up in jail. You may be a perfect employee, and you may end up bankrupt.

It is even worse than that:

Let us assume that you are a perfect human being from the moment of conception. Let us assume that you never for a moment do wrong. You do not even sin in your heart; your intentions never drop below perfect love toward God and man. You may be perfect. That happened once in this world – so we murdered him.

Your savior has already gone down that road:

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 1 Peter 2:21 (ESV)

He does not promise you that you will never suffer. Suffering and trial are guarantees. I’m not going to deceive you.

God will almost certainly try you on the point you are most tender. He will permit you to be tried on the exact place that you cannot bear. He will do this to tear up your sins and expose your idols –but that is for another time.

Listen again to Peter’s words, “For to this you have been called”. Those words should bring you to a sure sobriety. Suffering is certain.

Now, my friend with the objection will return and say, That is exactly my point. If suffering is certain, then how can I possibly believe that Jesus has sympathy for me? What kind of a priest shows sympathy by permitting me to suffer?

One that loves you.

If the goal of God were to make our lives pleasant here and now, he has done a poor job. But if God’s goal is greater, then perhaps God is wiser. Perhaps the goal of God is not our immediate ease. Perhaps the goal of God is his glory and our joy.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism famously begins:

Q. What is the chief end of man?  — What is our purpose in life?

A. To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Teach that to your children.

Peter writes,

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:3–7 (ESV)

That’s why God can be good and still let you suffer difficulty in this world.

Our hope is not that we will not suffer in this world. Our hope is that we will live with Christ in glory.

Our hope is not that we will not suffer in this world. Our hope is that God will conform us to the image of Christ.

In Colossians 3:10, Paul writes that we are being conformed to the image of the one who created us. In Romans 8:29, Paul writes that we are being conformed to the image of Jesus.

God has brought you to a trial so that you can know and love him better. God has given you difficult children, a hard job, a painful marriage, financial troubles so that you can go to Christ for help and strength.  – There is another element of responding to trials. The body of Christ must exercise real tangible love to those in trial. However, I have no space to teach you about that today.

How to respond to a trial:

You must exercise faith. When you come to Jesus in faith, the Holy Spirit brings the grace of Christ into your life.

Here is how you exercise faith.

The first part of faith consists of knowledge. You cannot exercise faith unless you know. That is the point of a sermon: You come here so that you may learn about Jesus. The knowledge from the sermon becomes material which faith uses. That is why a sermon must be based in Scripture. That is why a sermon must display Christ. A sermon without Jesus is a lecture.

Here is what you must know: Christ is a merciful and faithful high priest who can and will save to the uttermost.

However, you must do more than merely listen to a sermon. You must study, memorize, meditate. You must fill your mind with Scripture. The Holy Spirit uses the Scripture in your heart to develop your faith. Without Bible, you cannot begin. There is nothing more dangerous than a man in a pulpit who either does not open or does not rightly use Scripture.

Your primary job as parents is to … worship Christ in your home. Demonstrate the love and joy and mercy of Christ daily before your children. Tell your children the wondrous love of Jesus. You cannot save them, but you can evangelize them. Tell them the good news morning and evening. Ever lay the mercy of God before them. As Paul writes in Romans 2:4, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” You show and teach your children of the Lord by loving the Lord before them. When they see your desire to know the Lord, you are teaching them that the Lord is worth knowing.

The second part of faith consists of seeking: You must not merely know about Christ, you must come to Christ. The primary element of seeking Christ is by prayer. God lays trials and temptations before us so that we will come to him for help.

Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! 1 Chronicles 16:11 (ESV)

When the armies of Moab and Ammon threated Judah, King Jehosophat sought the Lord:

3 Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4 And Judah assembled to seek help from the LORD; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD. 2 Chronicles 20:3–4 (ESV)

When David was tried he called to God for help:

3 But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. 4 I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah 5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. 6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. 7 Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Psalm 3:3–7 (ESV)

Our Lord sought help.

35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:35–36 (ESV)

Faith must move in prayer. Faith without prayer is a ticket without an airplane. The ticket can stand at the terminal and look out the window, but the ticket can never leave the airport until it boards a plane. Faith without prayer stands still and dies.

The third part of faith is obedience: You hold the ticket, the airplane has come, but until you board you will not leave.

Faith gains strength from obedience. God does not give grace until it will be used. Consider Christian martyrs. Do you think they are more brave than you? Not without Christ. Yet, as they followed Christ in obedience, Christ gave them grace for obedience to death.

Christ has grace that can sustain your faith and uphold you in any trial. You may lack faith because you have yet to move, to act.

But none of this will be true of you, if you do not know and love Jesus. Even if you have sworn allegiance to Jesus in baptism, you will not know him well until you know him often. He is a man with whom you can cultivate the most dear and deep friendship. Like all friendships, it takes time to meet this man, to know this man, to hear from this man. And oh when you know God in human flesh, when you see the love of the Father displayed in the wounds of Christ, when the Holy Spirit shows to you his surpassing beauty – then you will know and love him dearly.

Come, consider Jesus – seated at the right hand of Majesty on high.

Oh Lord, as wait expectantly for you, we pray, Come quickly Lord Jesus!

 

 

 

 

Edward Taylor: What Feast is This.1

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Isaiah, Lord's Supper, Meditation, Puritan

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What Feast is This?

Isaiah 25 is a poem of praise to God for reversing the power of sin and death. The power of wicked who use violence to crush the poor and powerless will be undone and also the power of death which animates the oppression will itself be destroyed (the poem is written in a “prophetic perfect” — that is, it represents a future state, but speaks of it in past time: it is a thing so sure as to be counted complete before it happens in time).

In place of death, God will raise a feast; rather than a funeral, there will be a marriage celebration:

6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

This image of a feast replacing death is used by Jesus to speak of the coming world (Matthew 8:11 & 25:1-13). The Bible ends with the invitation to a marriage feast (Revelation 19:9). Thus, the Bible opens (Genesis 2:24) and closes with a marriage. Death has intervened (Genesis 3), but God has overcome death in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Taylor takes this imagery of the feast in celebration of death being overcome and uses it to contemplate the Lord’s Supper (communion):

A Deity of Love incorporate
My Lord, lies in thy flesh, in dishes stable
Ten thousand times more rich than golden plate
In golden service on thy table,
To feast thy people with. What feast is this!
Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish?

Deity of love incorporate: The Son of God incarnate: John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. John 3:16, “For God so love the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
1 John 4:9-10: 9 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Dishes stable/Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish: This is a reference to the communion service (the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper):

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

In short, Taylor sees himself before the Lord’s Table (another name for communion), where the feast is the Lord whose death overcomes death. By means this meditation, he is seeking to see “spiritually” (if you will) — to see the truth of thing, itself; and bring his heart to a state to relish it rightly.

Stable/table: The second lines contains 11 syllables, the fourth, 9.

My Lord, lies in thy flesh: the accent should fall on “lies” & “flesh” -“–`-`-`-

Stupendous Love

04 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by in Ante-Nicene, Edward Taylor, John, Lord's Supper, Meditation, Puritan

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Edward Taylor

Stupendous Love[1]

Stupendous Love! All saints‘astonishment.!

Bright angels are black motes in this sun‘s light.

Heav’n‘s canopy the paintice[2] to God‘s tent

Can’t cover’t neither with its breadth, nor height.

Its glory doth all glory else out run,

Beams of bright glory to’t are motes i’th’sun.

 

My soule had caught an ague[3], and like Hell

Her thirst did burn: she to each spring did fly,

But this bright blazing love[4] did spring a well

Of aqua-vitae[5] in the deity,

Which on the top of Heav’ns high hill out burst

And down came running thence t’allay my thirst.

 

But how it came, amazeth all communion[6].

God’s only Son doth hug humanity[7],

Into his very person. By which union

His human veins its golden gutters lie.

And rather than my soul should die by thirst,

These golden pipes, to give me drink, did burst[8].

 

This liquor[9] brew’d, thy sparkling art divine

Lord, in thy crystal vessels did up tun[10],

(Thine ordinances[11],) which all Earth o’re shine

Set in thy rich wine cellars out to run[12].

Lord, make thy butler draw, and fill with speed

My beaker full: for this is drink indeed[13].

 

Whole buts[14] of this blessed nectar shining stand

Locked up with saph’rine taps, whose splendid flame

Too bright do shine for brightest angels’s hands

To touch, my Lord[15]. Do thou untap the same.

Oh! make thy crystal buts of red wine bleed

Into my crystal glass this drink-indeed.

 

How shall I praise thee then? My blottings jar

And wrack my rhymes to pieces in thy praise.

Thou breath’st thy vein still in my pottinger[16]

To lay my thirst, and fainting spirits raise.

Thou makest glory’s chiefest grape[17] to bleed

Into my cup: And this is drink-indeed.

 

Nay, though I make no pay for this red wine[18],

And scarce do say I thank-ye-for’t; strange thing!

Yet were thy silver skies my beer bowl fine

I find my Lord, would fill it to the brim.

Then make my life, Lord, to thy praise proceed

For thy rich blood, which is my drink-indeed.

Incidentally, the practice of communion is recorded in Justin Martyr’s first apology:

But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, [8 highlights] and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss.3 There is then brought to the president of the brethren4 bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; [8 highlights] and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to γένοιτο [so be it]. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.

CHAP. LXVI.—OF THE EUCHARIST.

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία5 [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, [11 highlights] and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh[19].  For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done.  For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.

Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin” In , in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers With Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 185.

[1] General argument of the poem: The poem itself is a pre-communion meditation. The poet’s soul thirsts “like Hell” due to the damage of sin. He compares sin to a fever which drives his soul to thirst. His thirst can be slaked only with the “wine” of Christ’s blood, shed for sinners (2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV),  For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus Christ] to be sin [a sin offering; in the Mosaic Law, a sacrifice made to atone for one’s sin] who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  1 Peter 2:21–25 (ESV) 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.) The balance of the poem is a praise and desire for the blood of Christ.

[2] I could not find the meaning of this word. It does not appear in the two volume OED, and it does not appear in the google ngram viewer.

[3] An illness. Here: sin: Sin has drained the poet dry of the water of life and hence bound for hell he thirsts like hell.

[4] John 3:16 (ESV)  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

[5] Water of life: John 4:13–14 (ESV) 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

[6] The Puritans understood the Incarnation as the greatest act of love and the most incomprehensible of miracles.  Thomas Watson, in A Body of Divinity, wrote, “Behold here a sacred riddle or paradox – ‘God manifest in the flesh.’ That man should be made in God’s image was a wonder, but that God should be made in man’s image is a greater wonder. That the Ancient of Days should be born, that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle; Qui tonitruat in caelis, clamat in cunabulis; qui regit sidera, sugit ubera; that he who rules the stars should suck the breast; that a virgin should conceive; that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which himself made; that the branch should bear the vine; that the mother should be younger than the child she bare, and the child in the womb bigger than the mother; that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God; this was not only mirum but miraculum. Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven, when our light shall be clear, as well as our love perfect.”

David Clarkson, in the Love of Christ, wrote,

These are large expressions of love indeed. But the proper act of love is union; love is ever accompanied with a strong inclination to unite with its object, which, by some secret and powerful virtue, as it were by the emission of some magnetical rays, attracts the lover with a restless solicitation, and never ceases till they meet and unite, as intimately as their nature will permit. The grossness of the matter in corporeal parts will not admit of such intimacy and penetration as love affects; but souls, they can mix, twine about each other, and twist into most strict oneness. We see this effect in Christ’s love. His affection moved him to union with us; and one degree of his union was the assuming our nature, by which Christ and we are one flesh. He may say to us as Adam, ‘Thou art bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh’ Nay, we are not only one flesh, but one spirit: 2 Cor. 6:17, ‘He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.’ O transcendent love! As if some man, out of love to a worm, should take upon him the form and nature of that irrational, contemptible creature. Hence David (in that a type of Christ) calls himself ‘a worm, and no man,’ Ps. 22. Yet Christ’s love, in being incarnate, is infinitely more; as the disproportion betwixt him and us is infinitely greater than between us and worms. This was greater love, greater honour, than ever he would vouchsafe to angels: ‘He took not upon him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham.’ But the love of Christ would not rest here; he thinks us yet not near enough, and therefore holds forth a more intimate union in such resemblances as these: John 15:5, ‘I am the vine, ye are the branches.’ We are united as closely to Christ as the branches to the vine. More than this: Eph. 1:22, 23, ‘gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body.’ We are united to Christ, as the body to the head. Each of us may look upon ourselves as a part of Christ; so that whatever glory and happiness shines in our head, reflects upon us; and whatever dignity and injury is cast upon us, it reaches our head.

[7] That is, the Son of God became a human being: Romans 8:3 (ESV)

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

[8] The blood of Jesus Christ was given to slack the thirst brought on by sin.

[9] Liquor merely means something to drink.

[10] A tun is a large cask or barrel for wine, beer or ale. Incidentally, the Puritans did not forbid alcohol, despite the statements made by some at a much later date.

[11] Baptism and the Lord’s Supper/Communion – which Taylor has in view here.

[12] The wine which represents the Lord’s blood.

[13] In John 6, Jesus preaches that his body and blood must be taken to receive forgiveness. This, incidentally, is a point of contention between Roman Catholics and Protestants over the nature of the elements in communion.  The Roman Catholics hold to transubstantiation in which the elements become the actual body and blood of the Lord (in substance, not accident); while Protestants hold other positions (consubstantiation, real presence, symbolic memorial). The line alluded to by Taylor comes from  John 6:55 (AV)  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

Incidentally, communion is one of the earliest elements of Christian worship recorded outside of the Bible. Justin Martyr wrote in his first apology:

[14] A container for the wine.

[15] Angels are not able nor worthy to drink nor give the blessing of Christ’s death. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:10-12:

10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

And, Hebrews 1:14, “Are they [angels] not ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them, who shall be heirs of salvation?” [The heirs of salvation are human beings whom God redeems.]

[16] The OED states that a pottinger is a “porringer”, which is a small bowl, often with a handle, for soup, broth, porridge, etc.

[17] Jesus.

[18] Salvation is a “free gift” (Rom. 5:16-18; Eph. 2:8).

[19] The editors of the translation provide this note,

 

This passage is claimed alike by Calvinists, Lutherans, and Romanists; and, indeed, the language is so inexact, that each party may plausibly maintain that their own opinion is advocated by it. [But the same might he said of the words of our Lord himself; and, if such widely separated Christians can all adopt this passage, who can be sorry?] The expression, “the prayer of His word,” or of the word we have from Him, seems to signify the prayer pronounced over the elements, in imitation of our Lord’s thanksgiving before breaking the bread. [I must dissent from the opinion that the language is “inexact:” he expresses himself naturally as one who believes it is bread, but yet not “common bread.” So Gelasius, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 490.), “By the sacraments we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them,” etc. (See the original in Bingham’s Antiquities, book xv. cap. 5. See Chrysost., Epist. ad. Cæsarium, tom. iii. p. 753. Ed. Migne.) Those desirous to pursue this inquiry will find the Patristic authorities in Historia Transubstantionis Papalis, etc., Edidit F. Meyrick, Oxford, 1858. The famous tractate of Ratranin (A.D. 840) was published at Oxford, 1838, with the homily of ælfric (A.D. 960) in a cheap edition.]

 

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers With Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885).

Edward Taylor: The Reflexion.1

20 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Church History, Confession, Edward Taylor, Lord's Supper, Prayer, Puritan, Song of Solomon

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The  Reflexion

Lord, art thou at the tablehead above

Meat, medicine, sweetness, sparkling beauties to

Enamor souls with flaming flakes of love,

And not my trencher[1], nor my cup o’erflow?

Be n’t I a bidden guest? Oh! sweat mine eye[2].

O’reflow with tears: Oh! draw thy fountains dry.

 

Shall I not smell thy sweet, Oh! Sharon’s Rose?[3]

            Shall not mine eye salute thy beauty? Why?[4]

Shall thy sweet leaves their beauteous sweet upclose?

As half ashamed my sight should on them lie?

Woe’s me! for this my sighs shall be in grain

Offer’d on Sorrow’s alter for the same.

 

Had not my soul’s  — thy conduit —  pipes stopped been

With mud, what ravishment would’st thou convey?

Let Grace’s golden spade dig till the spring

            Of tears arise, and clear this filth away.

            Lord, let thy spirit raise my sighings till

            These pipes — my soul — do with thy sweetness fill.

 

Earth was once paradise of Heaven below

            Till infected sin had it with poison stocked

And chassed this paradise away into

            Heav’n’s upmost loft, and it in glory locked.

            But thou, sweet Lord, hast with thy golden key

            Unlocked the door, and made a golden day.

 

Once at thy feast[5], I saw thee pearl-like stand

            ‘Tween Heaven and Earth where Heaven’s bright glory all

In streams fell on thee, as a floodgate and,

            Like sunbeams through thee on the world to fall.

            Oh! sugar sweet then! My dear sweet Lord, I see

            Saints’ heaven-lost happiness restored by thee.

 

Shall Heaven, and Earth’s bright glory all up lie

–Like sunbeams bundled in the sun — in thee?

Dost thou sit Rose[6] at table head, where I

            Do sit, and carv’st no morsel sweet for me?

            So much before, so little now! Sprindge[7], Lord

            Thy rosie leaves and me their glee afford.

 

Shall not thy rose my garden fresh perfume?

            Shall not thy beauty my dull heart assail?

Shall not thy golden gleams run through this gloom?

            Shall my black velvet mask thy fair face veil?

            Pass o’er my faults: shine forth, bright sun: arise

            Enthrone thy rosy-self within mine eyes.

[1] Trencher: c.1308, “wooden platter on which to cut meat,” from Anglo-Fr.trenchour, from O.N.Fr. trencheor “a trencher,” lit. “a cuttingplace,” from O.Fr. trenchier 

“to cut” 

trencher. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trencher (accessed: September 20, 2012).

 

trencher

originally a thick slice of bread, used as a primitive form of platefor eating and for slicing meat (hence its derivation from“trancher”- to cut, or carve), but by the 14th century a square orcircular wooden plate of rough workmanship. There was usually asmall cavity for salt in the rim of the wooden plate, andsometimes the main section was so formed that it could beturned over and the other side used for a second course 

trencher. Dictionary.com. © Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trencher (accessed: September 20, 2012).

[2]Weep.

[3] Song of Solomon 2:1

[4] Why not?

[5] The Lord’s Supper, Communion.

[6] Jesus, as the Rose of Sharon

[7] Sprinkle.