The Lord’s Supper is a precious gospel ordinance. In it we may have the clearest sight by faith of our slain Savior, of His love, of our covenant with God, and of our unity with each other. As it sets Christ crucified before our eyes through visible signs, it calls us to feed by faith on His broken body and shed blood. As it reveals His love to us, it calls us to believe the love that He has towards us and to love Him in return. As it seals to us the blessings of the covenant of grace, it calls us to confirm our faith in the God of the covenant through the Mediator of the covenant. As it expresses our unity with each other, it calls us to prove that we have that faith which works by love.

As the Lord’s Supper is the communion of the body and blood of our Savior, it shows us our inexpressible debt to Him, for what more could He have given for us and our salvation than Himself? Therefore, when we partake of the material symbols which represent to us His broken body and shed blood, we are to receive Him spiritually as really giving Himself to us. We are to go out of ourselves and welcome Him into our hearts like a newlywed bride receiving her bridegroom. We are to be exercised in the sacrament as we would hope to be when Christ comes to meet us in death. Through meditating on Him and His sufferings for us, our longing for His presence should raise us to such communion with Him that we would be happy to die at His table. Some of His people know this by experience. Surely we do not partake worthily unless we really welcome and receive Christ into the inner recesses of our hearts. This is faith’s act of receiving Him.

The Lord’s Supper also serves to show us His love in dying until He comes again. It therefore calls us to believe this and love Him in return. As He gave Himself for us and continues to give Himself to us, so we are to give ourselves for and to Him. Our very receiving of Him implies our giving of ourselves to Him. Preoccupied with His wondrous love to us, signified in the material emblems before us, we yield ourselves afresh to Him and engage ourselves afresh to be His and not another’s. And though we receive infinitely more than we can ever give, yet we place ourselves in His care as One who is perfectly able to prepare us for His Father’s house. This is faith giving ourselves to Him.

In sealing to us the blessings of the covenant of grace, the Lord’s Supper reminds us that God has made a covenant with us, that into this covenant He has put Christ, and that in Christ He has put all the blessings of salvation. The sacrament is God’s seal to His gracious covenant promises, and our faith in receiving the sacra­ment is our seal to those same promises. In partaking of the Lord’s Supper, therefore, we ratify the covenant of grace, trusting that all its terms shall be confirmed to us and fulfilled in us. What is first a bond on God’s part and then a bond on our part now becomes a mutual contract. God’s promises and our faith meet in the Supper, and God’s seal and our seal combine. When we partake by faith, the covenant seals become one, signifying that Christ is ours and we are His forever. For the covenant of grace is an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; neither of its seals can be broken. In this respect our renewed acts of faith in the sacrament become means of confirming, strengthening, and assuring us of the covenant faithfulness of our God.

Lastly, as a communal meal, the Lord’s Supper expresses both the inward and outward unity of the people of God. They gather at their heavenly Father’s table as His children in relation to Him, and as broth­ers and sisters in relation to each other. This is why they are called on in the most solemn terms to put away every lurking grudge and be reconciled to each other before partaking. I know of two women whose enmity towards each other went to the table with them for ten years and was not broken until this aspect was pointed out to them. How can we love each other with a pure heart fervently while practicing such hypocrisy? How can we obey the command to “put on ... as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; for­bearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any” (Col. 3:12-13), if we ignore the very message shouting out at us from the elements before us — “even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye”? Only by self-examination and adequate reparation when found to be guilty of lack of love to our brethren in Christ shall we be brought to partake of the Supper as we should.

Dear friends, are we worthy partakers of the Lord’s Supper? Do we welcome Christ into our hearts afresh every time we partake? Do we yield and pledge our­selves afresh to Him when we commemorate His death for us? Do we put our seal to God’s and confirm afresh that by His grace He will be our God and we His people? And do we gather round His table as loving children of the same family? How blessed our communions would be if this were so! What foretastes of heaven would be ours as we sat at His table!