Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 8, No. 15
In a previous article we wrote of the fact that the difference between the two sacraments lies in the fact that baptism pictures our entrance into the covenant of God, while the Lord’s Supper pictures our life in that covenant once we have entered. The two together, therefore, picture the whole of our salvation and show that it is by grace alone.
The wonderful testimony of the two sacraments is that Christ and His sacrifice are everything! Baptism says that we enter the covenant by the death of Christ, pictured in the water of baptism, while the Lord’s Supper tells us that once we are in the covenant, the same death of Christ, pictured in the bread and wine, are our life, nourishment, help and strength. It is Christ alone and His sacrifice!
The Lord’s Supper, however, is unique in that it shows us what it means to live in the covenant of God. It pictures us sitting down at the table of the Lord as members of His family, and speaks of how God, our Father, cares for us there and provides for all our needs. Indeed, the Lord’s Supper, as we shall see, does not just picture these things but is a way in which we enjoy that fellowship and that care.
The symbolism of the Lord’s Supper has a number of different elements, all of them emphasizing God’s fellowship and provision. (1) There is the table itself. This element is sufficiently important that the sacrament is even called the Lord’s table (I Cor. 10:21). That table symbolizes to us our place in the family of God and the fact that as members of His family He loves us, cares for us, and shows His love by providing for our needs. (2) Then there are the bread and wine. Broken and poured out, they symbolize the broken body and shed blood of Christ as our daily spiritual food and drink, our nourishment and refreshment, the means by which our spiritual life is fed, supported, grows and develops and is preserved unto eternal life. Let us take note of that. The sacrifice of Christ is not only payment for our sins and the way in which we are restored to God’s favor and fellowship, but is also our daily strength and nourishment and help until we leave this life and enter our eternal home. He is everything. (3) One more important element of the Lord’s Supper is the eating and drinking. This pictures our faith and shows us the importance and necessity of faith. Nor more than food and drink are of any benefit without eating and drinking, are the body and blood of Christ of any benefit to us without faith. There is not, as Roman Catholicism teaches, any automatic blessing in eating and drinking the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.
One of the Reformed creeds calls faith the hand and mouth of the soul (Belgic Confession, Art. 35). Thus the eating and drinking in the Lord’s Supper remind us that just as by taking and eating our daily bread and so receiving it into our bodies, so by faith we really do receive Christ, who dwells in us and is our strength and life (Gal. 2:20).
What a
beautiful picture! What a sin to neglect it! Rev. Ronald Hanko
For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? Hebrews 10:26-29.
Two questions on this passage were submitted by two different readers. Both refer to the same problem. One reader writes: “How can these men have been sanctified?” The other reader writes: “Please could you explain these verses. Since I understand that an elect child of God cannot lose his salvation, what do they mean?”
The problem is clear enough. The text
obviously describes people who have received the knowledge of the truth and have, for a
time, confessed it. But in the course of
their life as “Christians,” they have sinned willfully, according to vs. 26. For these people there is “no more sacrifice
for sin,” but instead, terrible judgments.
There is no difficulty in all this. But in vs. 29 these same people are described as being “sanctified.” They are charged with the sin of counting the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy thing, and they did despite to the Spirit of grace.
Sanctified people are regenerated and saved people. The text describes them as sanctified. How then can such terrible judgments, including eternal desolation in hell, be ascribed to them?
Before I answer this question specifically, we ought to remind ourselves of the reason why this epistle was written.
During the course of the progress of the gospel, many Jews were brought into the church. This began on Pentecost and continued throughout the apostolic era as Paul began his work in a new city by preaching first of all to the Jews in the synagogues.
These Jews were often the objects of persecution, especially by their fellow Jews who considered converted Jews to be traitors to the religion of their fathers. They, under the pressure of persecution, were tempted to abandon their Christian faith and return to Judaism to placate their compatriots. The temptation was strong to become “backsliders.”
Against these the apostle warns. This epistle is a powerful testimony of the fact that all the Old Testament types and shadows have been fulfilled in Christ. The key word in the Hebrews is “better.” The fulfillment of the types and shadows is “better” than the shadows. Far better. Melchisedek was “good”; how much better is He who is priest forever after the order of Melchisedek.
But accompanying that teaching are warnings. They are sharp warnings, and the gist of them is this. Judgment awaits all those who die in unbelief and who in their unbelief reject the gospel. But much greater judgments come upon those who once confessed the truth as it is in Christ, but, after confessing it, turn away from it. Their judgment is greater on the principle which our Lord Himself lays down: To whom much is given, of him shall much be required. And, The one who knew his Lord’s will and did not do it shall be beaten with more stripes than one who did not know his Lord’s will.
This is the reason why these people are described in the text as having received the knowledge of the truth, but sinning willfully after they had received such knowledge. They have abandoned that which formerly they confessed.
Having understood
this, let us also agree with the writers of these questions, that there is no falling away
of the saints. Scripture is clear and sharp
on that truth. John 10:27-30 teaches this in
unmistakable language.
Implied in the preservation of the saints is the fact that those in the church who eventually fall away (and there are many of them) have never really been sanctified. If they had been sanctified, they would have been made holy – for this is what sanctification means. And if they had been made holy, they would have been people of God, elect, purchased with the blood of atonement. Then also, they would have remained that, even if they had, at any time, fallen into sin.
These people are, therefore, like those who are mentioned by John in I John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
Why then are they called “sanctified?” The answer to that question is that they confessed at one time that they were sanctified. They claimed to be among the sanctified. They cast their lot with the sanctified people of God. They said before the church and the world that they were sanctified in Christ. Now they deny that. They had received the knowledge of the truth; now they want it no longer. Thus they count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and they do despite to the Spirit of grace.
They are those Jews who were brought into the church, but who now return to their former Judaism.
This interpretation is not foreign to Scripture. In II Peter 2:1, reference is made to people who belonged to the church, but now turn against the truth and become false prophets. They are described in the text as “denying the Lord who bought them.” Christ did not actually die for them and purchase them with His blood. But they confess that this was so; and now they deny it.
What a powerful warning to us to be careful lest we too turn against that which
once we confessed! Prof. Herman C. Hanko.
The Origin of Scripture (Part 2)
In the previous article on God’s hammer, we considered the fact of the divine origin of the Bible: “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man” but by the will of God. This time we will study the means God used to write His Word: “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:21).
God’s will determined what was written in Scripture and with what words it was written. But since the Bible didn’t fall from heaven and since Scripture says that Isaiah, David, etc., wrote the words of the Bible, we must consider the God-given role of the divine penmen, the “holy men of God [who] spake [and wrote] as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The word “moved” is a very strong one. It means, literally, that they wrote not merely as they were guided or directed or led but as they were “borne” by the Holy Spirit. This Greek word is used of Paul’s ship driven by the wind (Acts 27:15, 17). That these men were borne by the Holy Ghost means that the Holy Ghost took them up, as it were, and empowered them to write God’s word so that they wrote exactly what God intended them to write.
God’s sovereign control of the writers did not negate their personality or make them robots. Nor does it imply that Paul could have written Revelation or that John could have written Acts. Rather God prepared the men beforehand to write what He willed. The divine penmen were called “holy men” not so much to indicate their personal sanctity but to indicate that these men were set apart and equipped for their role of writing particular books of the Word of God. God in His eternal decree and sovereign providence prepared the various men to write the Scriptures. For example, God decreed that Jeremiah be a priest born at Anathoth with a religious upbringing and a particular literary style and emotional life. God ordained that he would be single, that he would have a friend, Baruch, and that he would live to see the desolation of Jerusalem. Thus God prepared Jeremiah to write His Word in such a way that the word choice, sentence structure, etc., fits with the style of Jeremiah. In fact, God used all His penmen to write particular books in accordance with the particular style He gave them in His eternal decree and providence. Clearly, the production of the Holy Scriptures is a great wonder: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom. 11:33).
In your believing Bible study, you must be absolutely certain that the Bible is God’s Word. Make this truth a first principle in understanding the Holy Scriptures: “Knowing this first, that … the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:20-21). Rev. Angus Stewart