A similar recognition of the Trinity underlies the worship of the Lord’s Supper. Only those baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were to partake of this Holy Supper (1 Co 101-4 14169, Gal 37%, Ac 2% 812 198; Didache, x.). It called to mind the Father, in whose kingdom the new wine would be drunk (Mt 26”, Lk 2216), It was celebrated in remembrance of the Son, who sealed the new covenant with His blood (Mt 26?8, Mk 1474, Lk 22'); while the solemn reference to
Christ’s return to the Father and the coming thereby of His kingdom implies the work of the Holy Ghost (Lk 22'8). The wonderful discourses (Jn 14-17) on the mission of the Comforter were spoken in connexion with the Supper. The wash- ing of the disciples’ feet while at the table (Jn 13°15) symbolized the work of the Spirit. The worship of all who were here fed by the Son was charismatic (Ac 207), and conducted by men full of the Holy Ghost. Jesus said, ‘this do in remem- brance of me’; St. Paul said, ‘till he come’ (1 Co 11°); the Spirit-filled disciple at the feast prayed especially to the Lord Jesus, saying, ‘Come, Lord.’ This appears as part of the ritual (Didache, x.), and St. Paul’s use of it in the original ‘Maran Atha’ (1 Co 16”) shows that it was already liturgical in NT days (cf. Rev 22”). The object of adoration here, as in all worship, was the Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to promise (Mt 28”), was invisibly present, feeding the Church, and guiding all her activities (Ac 174 2” 41), The hymns of the Church must have started from this Christian Passover (Mt 26%, Mx 147°) ; they are all ‘spiritual songs’ (Eph 5”), arising in men filled with the Holy Ghost (518, ef. Col 3'*), and without exception glorifying the Son of God (Eph 5”, Col 3%”, 1 T13'°, Rev 191-3. 6f 1] 17f 411 59-13), For St. Paul the Lord’s Supper consisted in (1) a celebration of the Lord’s death, and (2) communion with the glorified Christ (1 Co 11*4* 1016), This xowwvia of the body and blood of Christ, which united all to worship the Son, was the creative work of the Spirit, which made a group of individuals a Church of God. After Pentecost, believers continued in this xov- wria (Ac 2), which was a gift of the Spirit (v.*). The Holy Ghost led believers at the Communion Supper to break bread in memory of the Son and offer prayer to Him as Lord of all. From NT days onwards, the Spirit led Christians at the Lord’s Supper to pray to Christ as both Creator and Redeemer (1 Co 107! *6, Didache, ix.); and in both offices He was inseparable from the Father. The communion of the Lord’s Supper was ‘unto the kowwvia of His Son Jesus Christ,’ to which we are called by the Father (1 Co 1°); and in it as the family gathering of the Holy Brotherhood ‘the communion of the Holy Ghost’ was indis- pensable (2 Co 134). The community of goods (Ac 2¥f-), which was an enlargement of the Lord’s Table to provide for the poor of the Church, arose through men ‘all filled with the Holy Ghost’ (Ac 451-82)” speaking the word of God and witnessing to the glorified Christ (v.**), And the sin of Ananias and Sapphira against this communion —St. Paul calls the contribution for the saints a cowwvia (Ro 15**)—was lying to the Holy Ghost (Ac 5°. ®), The men chosen to serve these tables of the Lord and His poor were ‘full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom ’ (6°) ; and when the first of them, Stephen, began to preach, his gospel was the Most High God and ite Glorified Christ, whom he adored as Lord. In urging the Jews to be saved, he de- clared that opposition to God and His Christ was resisting the Holy Ghost (74:5 51), The NT con: nects also the sacrament of Baptism and that of the Supper. The one was God’s Israel marching in covenant with the Lord through the sea; the other was the spiritual meat and drink given to feed them by the way (1 Co 10!4 12"), And, what is very important, both sacraments profess faith in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. St. Paul sees in Baptism a profession of fellowship with the Son (Ro 6, 1 Co 1%), into whom believers are bap- tized by the Spirit (1 Co 12"), showing that he agrees with Mt 28"; and in the Supper, which commemorates the Son, he says we ‘drink of the Spirit’ (1 Co 12”; cf. Nésgen, ii. 333). The sent Son and the sent Spirit appear in both sacraments
REVELATION
(Fp ns as es ee
as the only way to communion with God. The Lord’s Supper embodies the thought of covenant with the Father through confession of the Son. Jesus called it a new covenant in His blood (Mk 14°4), To eat and drink of this Supper was a test of loyalty to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (1 Co 1020-26 1122: 20.29 JO18; cf. Mk 1438, Lk 13% 249°, Jn 1318), At the foot of the cross the sacrificial meal of loyalty to Christ was eaten. It was a place of spiritual life or death; hence St. Paul, following Jesus (1 Co 11%, Jn 8), sees the alternative here to be the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan; table of the Lord Jesus or table of the devil; Spirit of God or spirit of evil,—that is the crucial confession-test at the Holy Supper (1 Co 1016-21 128), The charismatic communicant, speak- ing excitedly with tongues, might seem unworthy to sit down at the Lord’s Table ; St. Paul’s supreme and only criterion is, ‘No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost’ (12%). The test of every Christian in all worship, including the most sacred service of the Lord’s Supper, was belief in the Holy Ghost, who testified to the Divine Son, who came forth from the Father. The real presence of the Son of God, set forth in the bodily symbol of the broken bread, experienced in the communing Church, which is the body of Christ, ever one with her Divine Head, and witnessed to by the Holy Ghost, without whose presence there can be no Christian worship, is a doctrine of the NT to which the Church in all ages has borne testimony. In the believer’s ex- perience, as in the Bible history of redemption, this doctrine grows upon him. Not till the OT revelation ended was it evident that God was Father; only the Son could perfectly reveal the Father. Not till Jesus had finished His work and returned to the Father was it fully evident that He was the Divine Christ; only the Holy Ghost could perfectly reveal the Son of God. And not till the Church has ended her work on earth and become glorified with her Lord, and the histori- cally revealed economic Spirit has completed her sanctification, will the Divinity and Personality of the Holy Ghost be perfectly manifest. Only in the heavenly life, where the Spirit may cease to be subjective and inseparable from our spirit in religious consciousness, will His distinctive char- acter appear as manifest as that of the Father and the Son.