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The Lord’s Supper is a symbol and sacrament of the believer’s union and participation in Christ and in His death. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” The word “communion” there indicates a communal participation, that we as a fellowship, as a body, receive from Christ the blessings and benefits of His life, death and resurrection. This is what it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood- that by faith, we are strengthened and blessed by the life of Christ, worked in us spiritually. When we understand this concept,Read More →

Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness, an Exegesis Our hymn of the month, #520, “Jesus, thy blood and righteousness,” is a wonderful meditation on the imputed righteousness of Christ, in which the Christian can stand boldly by faith even in the face of God’s dreadful judgment day. Jesus, thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; ‘Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head. In the first verse, the hymn teaches the double imputation of Christ’s righteousness, that His lifetime of perfect obedience and His death on my behalf combine to guarantee our standing before God. It isRead More →

Our hymn of the month, #520 in the Trinity Hymnal, is “Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness.” It was written by Count Nicolas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf in 1739. A German from noble stock, he was born Lutheran but was disappointed in the dry and sterile state of the German Lutheran Church at that time. With other likeminded men he tried to promote a revival of true religion focusing on the work of Christ. He was a landowner and part of the nobility and gave land to a number of refugees fleeing religious persecution. He created a religious community based on equality and unity which was notRead More →

“…These people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men (Isa 29:13 NKJ).” While a great many today downplay the importance of the corporate body of God’s people and make salvation an entirely individualistic affair, the opposite danger is very real and perhaps even worse- the idea that I am saved simply because of an identity or membership in a particular group. The fact that I show up to church, assent to certain doctrinal propositions and perform various rituals, and don’t doRead More →

How Lovely Shines the Morning Star 1 How lovely shines the Morning Star! The nations see and hail afar The light in Judah shining. Thou David’s Son of Jacob’s race, My Bridegroom and my King of Grace, For thee my heart is pining. Lowly, holy, Great and glorious, Thou victorious Prince of graces, Filling all the heav’nly places. 2 Now richly to my waiting heart, O thou, my God, deign to impart The grace of love undying. In thy blest body let me be, E’en as the branch is in the tree, Thy life my life supplying. Sighing, crying, For the savor Of thy favorRead More →

One of the most important texts for understanding the nature and use of the Lord’s Supper is in 1 Corinthians 11. There, Paul sharply criticizes the Corinthian church for administering the Lord’s Supper in a way that divided the body along economic lines. The rich would partake first, and they treated the Lord’s Supper as a great feast, with wine and lots of food. The poor would arrive later and eat the leftovers if there were any. One chapter earlier, when Paul was warning the Corinthians against participating in pagan festivals, he pointed to the Lord’s Supper as a teaching tool regarding the nature ofRead More →

New Testament Baptism draws from a number of Old Testament sources for its significance. We know that it cannot be entirely new to the New Testament; for one thing, John’s baptism was immediately connected to the coming of the Messiah by the Jews. The Old Testament prescribes cleansing water rituals for a variety of situations. They were performed when someone became ritually unclean (see Numbers 19) or when priests began their service in the temple (Leviticus 8) involving symbolic baths or washings, including sprinkling of water. In Mark 7:4 these kinds of washings, superstitiously performed constantly by the Jews and even applied to vessels andRead More →

The Gloria Patri is an ancient hymn that has been sung in all parts of the church since its earliest days. The hymn starts with the phrase, “Glory be to the Father” which in Latin is Gloria patri, the name of the hymn. The opening phrase echoes many similar praises in the Scriptures in different places, as in Galatians 1:4-5, for example: “…according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” or in Romans 16:27, “…to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” We start the service, after receiving the Divine invitation toRead More →

8:1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. (Heb 8:1-2 NKJ) The incarnation of Christ fundamentally changed the nature of godly worship. Before Christ came, God’s worship was taken up with types and shadows. These were elements and ceremonies of worship that pointed to Christ in an indirect way. In the sacrificial death of animals for sin, the worshiper wasRead More →

One of the chief elements of worship is thanksgiving.  Being thankful lies right at the heart of the reason for our existence, because we are created to be in relationship with a gracious God and thankfulness recognizes that relationship. Thankfulness does not mean being happy that I have something good.  It means recognizing the good gift I have received and acknowledging the goodness and benevolence of the one who gave it.  Romans 1:21, in discussing the essential nature of sin closely links the refusal to acknowledge God with a lack of thankfulness. This means that the one who does not believe in God cannot beRead More →