Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 30 March, 2025
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Administration of the Lord’s Supper
Eating Christ’s Flesh and Drinking His Blood [youtube]
Scripture Reading: John 6:41-71
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 28
I. The Meaning of It
II. The Results of It
III. The Responses to It
Psalms: 78:18-25; 119:113-120; 105:36-45; 22:25-30
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Applicatory
Discerning the Lord’s Body [youtube]
Scripture Reading: I Corinthians 11:17-34
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 29
I. The True Meaning
II. The Unworthy Eating
III. The Believer’s Calling
Psalms: 84:4-11; 119:121-128; 36:5-11; 1:1-6
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart or the elders
CPRC Website: www.cprc.co.uk • Live Webcast: www.cprc.co.uk/live-streaming
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quote to Consider
John Calvin: “Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own” (Institutes 4.17:2).
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
After a week of self-examination, CPRC confessing members in good standing are called to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Your participation in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood is in part a witness that you repent of your sins, believe in Jesus Christ as your only righteousness, and desire to live a new and godly life. As this heavenly food can be taken to one’s judgment (I Cor. 11:28-30) and as the common reception of the Lord’s Supper is a confession of doctrinal unity (Acts 2:42), the elders supervise the partaking of the sacrament. Visitors who are members of other denominations must already have presented to the Council an attestation from their church that they are confessing members in good standing and have received permission from the Council to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
Monday catechism classes:
5:00 PM: Hannah, Penelope & Xander (Seniors OT)
5:45 PM: Grace, Jonas, Liam & Sammy (Beginners OT – Book 2)
6:30 PM: Eleanora, Felicity, Jorja & Sophie (Juniors OT)
7:15 PM: Jason, Kyan, Maisie & Sebastian (Heidelberg Catechism – Book 1)
8:00 PM: Bradley, Jack, Josh, Samuel & Taylor (Essentials)
Tuesday Bible study will meet this week at 11 AM to consider Paul’s interaction with Sergius Paulus and Barjesus in Paphos on Cyprus in Acts 13.
The Belgic Confession class will meet on Wednesday at 7:30 PM to continue our analysis of the Antichrist.
Men’s Bible study plans to meet this Saturday, 5 April, at 7:30 PM on-line, starting with Psalm 1, using A 30 Day Walk With God Through the Psalms.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Haak is entitled, “The Suffering of the Cross” (Isa. 53).
The Council meets next week Monday, 7 April, at 8 PM.
Offerings: £1,460.80. Donation: £80 (Rep. of Ireland).
Translation Additions: 1 French, 1 Polish and 1 Spanish.
PRC News: Southwest PRC has formed a new trio of Revs. Barnhill, Eriks and D. Holstege. Hope PRC (Redlands, CA) has a new trio of Revs. Barnhill, D. Holstege and W. Langerak. Byron Center PRC called Rev. Lee to serve as minister-on-loan to the Philippines. Cornerstone PRC called Rev. Smidstra. Grandville PRC called Rev. Engelsma.
The Institution of the Lord’s Supper
Rev. Cornelius Hanko in the Standard Bearer, vol. 60, issue 12
… [The Passover] was a repeated reminder of Israel’s deliverance from the bondage and servitude of Egypt. Egypt was a type of the bondage of sin and death and of the cruel oppression of the powers of darkness. God sent Moses, the Old Testament mediator and type of Christ, to bring deliverance to His people, according to His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob …
When Jesus celebrated His last Supper with His disciples, this feast [i.e. the Passover] had taken on a definite form of celebration. There were three cups or three times in which the participants drank of the wine together. After the first cup, the lamb was eaten along with the unleavened bread and bitter sauce. Thereupon, while they partook of the second cup, it was customary for the father, in this case, Christ, to relate the account of the deliverance from the house of bondage. Evidently now Jesus became exceedingly sorrowful, burdened with the presence of the deceiver at His side, and sent him out into the night to carry out his dastardly deed. Relieved that the traitor had left, yet conscious now more than ever of His anticipated death on the cross, Jesus takes the bread, breaks it and shares it with the disciples. Thereupon He takes the third cup, the cup of thanksgiving, and tells them all to drink of it. Thus the lamb and the bitter sauce fall away. The Lord gives us two new signs, the bread and the wine, to become the elements in our celebration of the Supper as a “glorious remembrance of His bitter and shameful death.”
The entire meal is rich in symbolism.
Our attention is directed to the Host, Christ, who administers the Supper. He gives us the bread and the wine, so that we may eat His body and drink His blood, assuring us that through His atoning death His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed. That makes the administration of the Supper official ministry, carried out by the minister and the elders of the church, and we must regard it as such. We hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us: “Take, eat, this is my body that is broken for you … Drink ye all of it [i.e., the cup], which is the new testament in my blood.”
At least symbolically, we sit about the Lord’s table as His guests, in fellowship with Christ and with His saints, anticipating the wedding feast of the Lamb.
At the table, we see the bread broken before our eyes, reminding us of Christ’s body that was broken as atonement for our sins. We see the wine poured out as a reminder of Christ’s blood that oozes forth drop by drop as the obedient Servant gave His life for His sheep. Our communion form reminds us so strikingly that this sacrifice for our sins was not limited to the last hours of Jesus’ life, but that all His life He bore the wrath of God against our sin and especially when the bloody sweat was pressed from Him in the garden, where He was bound to free us from the bondage of our sins; afterward to suffer innumerable reproaches and pains of hell, that we may never be confounded. He was condemned to death in order to acquit us from our guilt and suffered His blessed body to be nailed to the cross that He might fix thereon the handwriting of our sins. He humbled Himself unto the deepest reproaches and pains of hell, both in body and soul, on the tree of the cross to be forsaken of God. Thus He confirmed with His death and the shedding of His blood the new and eternal covenant and reconciliation when He said, “It is finished.”
Christ gives us the bread and permits us to eat of it. Thereby He assures us personally of a twofold promise: “That His body was offered and broken on the cross for me, and His blood shed for me, as surely as I see with my eyes, the bread of the Lord broken for me, and the cup communicated to me; and further, that He feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life with His crucified body and shed blood, as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister, and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord, as certain signs of the body and blood of Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, A. 75).
As we eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood, we become flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone in the eternal mystical union with Him, as members of His body or as symbolized in the marriage of husband and wife, and realized in the eternal Supper in glory.
Since we partake together of these bounties, the riches of grace in Christ Jesus, we are also united to one another by the bond of faith and love that unites us to one Lord. With Christ we say, This is my father, mother, sister and brother, who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Therefore, on the one hand, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial feast. We do this in remembrance of Christ in His perfect sacrifice once accomplished on the cross, of His merited righteousness and His promise of everlasting covenant fellowship with Him in glory. As Paul states, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ … and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6).
On the other hand, the table of communion is a foretaste of the better things to come, creating in us a longing for and eager anticipation of the eternal blessedness of sitting as guests at God’s table, to behold His glory in the glorious face of Jesus Christ, to hear Him speak to us, to see His infinite perfections of almighty power, holiness, righteousness, truth and grace, to be satisfied with His fullness and to enjoy His fellowship unto the praise of the glory of His grace in the Beloved. That will be glory, glory unspeakable!
This can be experienced in the Holy Supper only through faith. Just as our response to the preaching of the Word and to the sacrament of baptism is a response of faith, so also we must respond to the signs of holy communion with the testimony: I believe. Only through faith in Christ Jesus and in His atoning death, as the Catechism so strongly emphasizes, can we experience the forgiveness of sins and the right to eternal life. And this faith is God’s gift, wrought by His Spirit in us.
Therefore Scripture warns us that to eat and drink unworthily is to eat and drink condemnation to ourselves. If we partake as a mere formality or obligation, failing to focus our attention in all sincerity upon the broken body and shed blood of our Lord, we can only suffer a spiritual decline in our lives.
The Lord’s Supper requires preparation, prayerful soul-searching, that spiritually we may be prepared to sit at God’s table, partake of His bounties and be satisfied with His abundant grace, the riches of salvation in Christ Jesus, that endure unto life everlasting with Him in glory!
