The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

ordained by Him. But signs ordained and dispensed by God, through
Christ, are not symbols--which would leave it undetermined how much or
how little we are to impute to them, but are a visible word of God (p. 613).
With the words of Christ, 'This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance
of Me,' the apostle links the declaration: 'For as often as ye eat of this
bread and drink of this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come.'
Inasmuch as the Supper is a participation of bread and wine as signs of the
sacrificed body and blood, it is a memorial feast in which the guest
confesses his faith in the sacrificial death of Christ. But he who makes
such a confession before the Church, in reality must do it in a state of mind
fitting it. 'Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink this cup of the
Lord unworthily, shall be guilty (enochos) of the body and blood of the
Lord' (v. 27). Enochos, literally, bound for, when it has the sense of guilty,
is conjoined with the genitive either of the sin, or of the penalty, or of the
person and thing involved in the criminality incurred (Bleek on Heb. ii. 15.
II. 339 seq. cf. 552). As immediately before, the Supper is spoken of as a
confession of the death of Christ, we cannot well understand body and
blood of Christ otherwise than as referring to the death of Christ, in the sin
of which the unworthy communicant makes himself guilty (Lev. v. 1-17; 2
Sam. xxii. 22; 2 Macc. xiii. 6). He who confesses the death of Christ
unworthily is guilty of the death of Christ. All men are guilty of the death
of Christ. But he who believes in Jesus Christ seeks from Jesus Christ
forgiveness of the sin which crucified Christ. But he who receives
forgiveness of his sin is thereby absolved from the guilt of the body and
blood of Christ. He, consequently, who receives the Supper unworthily,
really confesses: I have slain Christ, and does not receive forgiveness from
that sin, and is, consequently, guilty of the body and blood of Christ. In
this passage, beyond doubt, body and blood have the sense, death of
Christ: 'Wherefore let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that
bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
For this cause are many