Our Teaching On Communion &
Why We Partake At The Lord’s Table Every Sunday
We believe in active participation of Christians in good standing in our church (or if you are visiting us, good standing in your local church) in a Eucharistic celebration, culminating in the gathering of God's people around the Table of our Lord. Prayer, songs of praise, the preaching of the Word and coming to the Lord's Table are all vital and indispensable aspects of worship. Along with the understanding that we are remembering the death of Christ for the sins of the Redeemed, there is an exciting eschatological aspect that celebrates the victory of God's people in time and history. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. My cup runneth over," proclaims the Psalmist (Ps. 23). Truly even as we are experiencing covenant renewal by partaking of the bread and wine, Christ is also establishing and building His Church in the presence of its (and His) enemies, yet the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This meal in the presence of enemies anticipates The Great Wedding Banquet of the King that is celebrated when "all His enemies are placed under His feet."

Further, we believe that Jesus Christ, the sole mediator between God and man, is personally present today, governing and sustaining the church through the Word of God and two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Table. Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper as a sign that, through his death and resurrection, He fulfills the new covenant, establishing reconciliation between wayward humans and a holy God.

The substance of the Lord’s Supper is “Christ communicating Himself with all His benefits to us.” This sacrament does not just intellectually remind the believer of Christ; “here the faithful have such union with Christ Jesus as the natural man cannot apprehend.” Even though His human body is in heaven, the Spirit “transfuses life into us from the flesh of Christ.”

John Calvin, after giving much thought to the purpose and importance of the Christians coming to the Lord’s Table on a regular basis, taught that “If the Lord truly represents the participation in this body through the breaking of the bread, there ought not to be the least doubt that He truly presents and shows His body.”

The Church, while many times divided over exactly how Christ is present and in what way His presence is determined or experienced, has always held that Christ’s words are true. Christ declared: 

I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst
. . . I am the bread of life . . . This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. . . Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. (John 6)

Christ’s flesh and blood are represented each Lord's Day by the bread and the wine. As we prepare to partake at the table of our Lord, we make confession of the Faith that binds us together in one body, recognizing one baptism and one Lord.