Leviticus 7:15 “The flesh
of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the
day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning”.
This study of the Christian
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper looks at the difference of the sign, along with
the common ground and message. This lesson states that fewer disagreements
between the Protestants and Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation were
more heated than the disagreements over
the Lord’s Supper. The Protestants argued strongly against the Roman Catholic
idea of the Lord’s Supper as a “propitiatory” offering. The notion that Christ
is offered up by the priest in the supper to atone for sin was held to violate
the “once-for-all” nature of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice (ex. Heb.
10:1–18). To this day, Protestants continue to affirm this position.
A line of evidence that
confirms that the Lord’s Supper is not itself a propitiatory offering is seen
also when we consider what happened in the old covenant sacrifices and what
happens in the Lord’s Supper. Notably, worshipers under the old covenant could
not eat any portion of the burnt offering, which was the propitiatory offering
that foreshadowed the final, propitiatory, or acceptable substitute payment and
wrath-satisfying atonement of Christ. The entire animal was offered to the
Lord. However, worshipers did eat of the animal that was offered to God in the “peace
offerings”, sometimes called the “fellowship offerings” (Lev. 7:1–36). Since we
feed on the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, this suggests that
there is a parallel between the Lord’s Supper and the peace or fellowship
offerings. The fellowship/peace offering could serve many purposes under the
old covenant. For example, it could be offered as thanksgiving to the Lord or
to signify the fulfillment of a vow. This offering was also given as a freewill
offering, or an offering of spontaneous, heartfelt worship of God and praise
for His goodness.
It seems reasonable, then,
that similar things are going on or should be going on in the Lord’s Supper. We
come to the Lord’s Table, covered by the blood of Christ, and partake of His
sacrifice for us. In so doing, we should express thanksgiving for our
redemption and offer up our praise to Him for who He is. But there is also a
vow being made when we eat the bread and drink the wine. We are renewing our
pledge of faithfulness to Him and signing and sealing that pledge with a meal
that expresses our ongoing fellowship with Him. In Scripture, meals were
frequently held to mark covenant fellowship and peace with others. The Lord’s Supper is God’s gift
to us that confirms the reality of our fellowship and peace with Him when we
partake of the bread and wine in faith.
We do not fellowship over
food with our enemies but typically only with our friends and family. Christ
invites all who genuinely believe in Him as their Savior and Lord to His table.
If we have faith in Him alone for salvation, then the eating and drinking
signifies that we are at peace with Him and impresses the reality of this peace
and fellowship on our souls.
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