Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 26 September, 2021
“… walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph. 5:2)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Administration of the Lord’s Supper
The Branch of the Lord [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 3:1-4:2
Text: Isaiah 4:2
I. Who?
II. For Whom?
III. When?
Psalms: 122:1-9; 147:14-20; 132:11-18; 45:1-6
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Applicatory
The Purification of Zion [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 2:1-9; 3:16-4:6
Text: Isaiah 4:3-4
I. The Holy Remnant
II. The Spiritual Cleansing
Psalms: 46:1-7; 148:1-6; 99:1-7; 91:1-6
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
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.
As members in good standing in Trinity PRC, Bob & Carolyn Prins have been granted permission to partake of the Lord’s Supper with us this morning.
Our Christian condolences to Tommy Duncan in the loss of his sister. Her funeral was held yesterday.
The Beacon Lights are available on the back table for subscribers.
Justyn Perry’s new mobile number is 07503051906.
Monday catechism classes:
5:00 PM: Jason & Sebastian (Juniors NT)
5:45 PM: Eleanora, Felicity, Hannah, Jorja, Penelope, Sammy, Somaya, Sophie and Yossef (Beginners OT, Book 2)
6:30 PM: Angelica, Bradley, Josh, Samuel & Taylor (Heidelberg, Book 1)
7:15 PM: Alex, Jacob & Nathan (Essentials)
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet to discuss fruit in Paul’s epistles.
The Belgic Confession Class meets upstairs this Wednesday at 7:30 PM to consider the millennium of Revelation 20.
Membership Class: Thursday, 11 AM with the Goulds.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Bruinsma is entitled, “Faith: A Confident Conviction” (Heb. 11:1-2).
Plan to attend this year’s Reformation Day Lecture on Friday, 29 October, entitled “Fulgentius of Ruspe, the Sixth-Century N. African Church and God’s Saving Will.”
Offerings: General Fund: £1,114.50.
Translation Additions: 2 Hungarian, 1 Polish and 1 Spanish.
PRC News: Covenant of Grace PRC (Spokane, WA) has called Rev. Barnhill (Peace, IL). Doon PRC and Hudsonville PRC have both called Rev. Guichelaar (Randolph, WI) to be their next pastor.
The Lord’s Supper
Rev. George M. Ophoff, Standard Bearer, volume 24, issue 2
We must now inquire after the sacramental working in the Lord’s Supper. This working was set forth by Christ Himself, when He said, “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in yourselves.” The believers then do very actually eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood. But how can Christ give us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink? Not through changing the natural bread and the wine into His flesh and blood, as Rome teaches. This doctrine is not according to the Scriptures and must therefore be rejected. Nevertheless, the believers do eat and drink the Christ not with their physical mouths but by faith, spiritually. For Christ through the prophets and the apostles has placed in the possession of the church a revelation of Himself by word and symbol. It is this revelation, this word by itself and as imposed upon the symbols of the Lord’s Supper that the believer eats and drinks, and eating and drinking this word, he eats and drinks the Christ set forth by word and symbol—the Christ, the suffering, dying, resurrected and glorified Christ. Thus the eating and drinking is by faith. It is a spiritual action. For it is the word, the word-picture, the idea, conception, revelation of the Christ, and thus, whereas this revelation is true and not a lie, the very Christ that is eaten and drunken. And this spiritual eating—this eating and drinking the word and thus the Christ—is just as real and actual as any physical eating by physical organs, can possibly be. This is true in general. All men eat in a twofold sense. They eat words, ideas, concepts with their mind, spirit, and with their physical mouth they eat the natural bread with which they nourish their immortal frames. Therefore the world builds schools. Institutions of learning are places where men are fed and where they do eat words, ideas, good or bad, spiritually wholesome, upbuilding, or poisonous, soul-destroying. But eat and drink they do with their mind. Words, ideas, mightily effect a man. Someone brings him a glad tiding, and he leaps with joy, the reason being that very actually he has eaten the message, its words, the idea of which in their totality the words of the message are the embodiment and the vehicle. Therefore sad news has the effect of bringing the tears to the eyes of the man. So does the believer eat and drink the idea of the Christ, and thus the very Christ Himself, set forth by God’s Gospel. He eats and drinks the Christ by eating and drinking the word-picture of the Christ hung before his eye by the preaching of the Gospel. We set pictures of our loved ones in conspicuous places of our homes, especially when they are away from us. And we fix our eye on these pictures and drink in the features of those beloved faces. So does the believer have a picture of Christ. And the Gospel of God and the symbols of the sacraments that He instituted for the strengthening of the faith of His people, is that picture. And by the mercy of God the believer fixes his eye upon that picture—the picture of the Christ. And drinking in the beauty and the loveliness of the Christ, he says, also at the communion table, “My Saviour.” So does he by faith eat Christ, the crucified Christ, as atoning for the sins of His people, His sheep; the Christ as raised up from the dead unto the justification of His people, and the Christ set in heaven with His people and blessed with all spiritual blessings.
And so eating the Christ by faith, Christ nourishes, feeds this eater and drinker of the Christ, feeds him in the way of his spiritual hunger and thirst, and of his spiritual eating and drinking—Christ’s own work in him. The saying, “Eating and drinking Christ, the believer is fed and nourished,” again gives expression to a reality. Eating and drinking Christ, the believer receives out of Christ life and grace. For Christ is the bread of life, the living water. A hungry man, having eaten a wholesome meal, will tell you that he is strengthened, refreshed by the food that he has eaten and that has been assimilated by his body and poured into his bloodstream. So the believers, who by faith eat Christ—they are spiritually fed, nourished, and strengthened by their Christ who gives them to eat His own flesh and to drink His own blood; who thus continued to give them out of Himself the grace and life that He merited for them and of which His Father is the creative source and He, the Christ, the seat and channel—the channel of grace. For He is the true bread of life. This is the essence of the sacramental working of the sacrament.
But this is something that the Reformer Zwingli seemed not to have understood. “We have,” said Zwingli, “in the words and the signs of the sacrament a revelation of Christ to our consciousness. And with our minds we receive the revelation and believe and are saved. And we associate the idea of the Christ presented to us by the word with those signs. And we see those things as a picture of the Christ.” But this is all the farther that Zwingli went. He never seemed to have come to the understanding of the fact that Christ, in the way of the believer’s spiritual hunger and thirst, eating and drinking of the idea of Christ, and thus the Christ—Christ imparts His very own life to them also when they are seated at His communion table.
But what now has faith to do with all this? If a man has no true saving faith, if on this account he is dead in trespasses and sin, and as spiritually dead, devoid of hunger and thirst, he cannot and does not eat; and Christ does not feed him. For Christ, the true bread, is not for the dead but for the living.
The fact and truth that Christ now and everlastingly nourishes His people, imparts unto them His life and grace, in the way of their eating and drinking Him—His work in them—is brought home to us in the Scriptures by still other images, among others by the allegory of the vine and the branches. Says Christ, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.” The natural vine and the branches in nature also is a mystery, it being a creature, a work of God’s hands. The seat of life of the branches is the vine; and of the life of the vine the branches are full; and on this; account the branches must needs abide in the vine, the vine being their very life, so that, as separated from the vine, they must needs wither and die. Thus applying this figure, we get this: The seat of life of the believers is Christ, now and ever; and of the life of Christ the branches are full. On this account the branches must abide in Christ, He being their very life, so that as separated from Him they must needs wither and die. And therefore His admonition to them, “Abide in me.” And they shall abide in Him; for He prayeth for them, so that their faith cannot cease …
