As part of our morning worship service we read and I make a few comments about a Lord's Day of the Heidelberg Catechism.
Our hope for preserving these is they will provide instruction for those who are learning the catechism and wanting to understand its teaching.
78. Do, then, the bread and the wine become the real body and blood of Christ?
No, but as the water in Baptism is not changed into the blood of Christ, nor becomes the washing away of sins itself, being only the divine token and assurance thereof,1 so also in the Lord’s Supper the sacred bread2 does not become the body of Christ itself, though agreeably to the nature and usage of sacraments it is called the body of Christ.3
[1] Matt. 26:29. [2] 1 Cor. 11:26–28. [3] Ex. 12:26–27, 43, 48; 1 Cor. 10:1–4.
79. Why then does Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the new testament in His blood; and the Apostle Paul, the communion of the body and the blood of Christ?
Christ speaks thus with great cause, namely, not only to teach us thereby, that like as the bread and wine sustain this temporal life, so also His crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink of our souls unto life eternal;1 but much more, by this visible sign and pledge to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood by the working of the Holy Spirit, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him;2 and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we ourselves had suffered and done all in our own person.
[1] Jn. 6:51–55 (See Question 76). [2] 1 Cor. 10:16–17 (See Question 78). |
