In studying my basis for faith towards God I have been meditating on the promises of God through the covenant that we have through the blood of Jesus, as our sacrifice. Yesterday, a minister of God was teaching on communion using Corinthians and talked about Jesus and how the bread is our symbol of the sacrifice and the blood being the cleansing agent by which we are made holy and pure before God. I realized that as God requires a means by which we are made acceptable, a sacrifice. And Jesus, being the only sacrifice that could ever be truly acceptable, in becoming our sacrifice, has made us holy before God. The act of accepting that sacrifice is what transformed us all into children of God, partakers of God's heavenly kingdom and members of the household of God, giving us salvation and reconciliation to God. The sacrament of communion is our remembrance before God of that which we hold to as our means of salvation and that salvation is complete and inclusive, described as the covenant, based on the covenant of Abraham. The covenant is Gods promise for every area of life, His intention to bless His people, His desire to supply us with everything we need in this life, health, prosperity, safety - just as the old testament describes Gods blessing and provision under the old covenant to the house of Israel so it is in the new covenant. The real improvement (speaking as a foolish man), since it is a better covenant, is in God giving us a new life and placing His Spirit in our hearts so that we as indwelt by Him. But I digress. The point here is that recognizing that God has made a covenant with whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came and became the sacrifice for our sins and God has raised Him up from the dead has entitlement to the promises of the covenant. Faith towards God for salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus and faith that in Him all of His promises are yes and amen.
The realization of this came to me when the minister referred to:
1Co 11:24-31 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
The minister's point was that Paul's reference to "unworthy manner" and "examine himself" concerns the believer's awareness that communion is the act of honoring the sacrifice that provides our acceptability to God and by not sharing in communion with the intention of recalling that sacrifice prevents the believer from partaking of the promises that sacrifice provides.
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