| Show THE LORDS SUPPER the christian world since the departure of the men endowed with A special divine inspiration has always found it difficult if not impossible to arrive at a clear understanding of the teachings of christ years of study and patient investigation by men of brilliant learning and with a burning desire for truth have been spent in the work every branch of science has haa been searched for aid but after all opinions are and remain divided on nearly every doctrinal point and to the layman it often appears as it if truth were a phantom without reality or substance and that to search for it is in vain among the subjects discussed for centuries without any prospect of a clear understanding of it to is the significance ance of the lords supper theologians have asserted that the emblems when consecrated change so that the substance of the glorified christ body blood soul spirit deity takes taken the place of the substance of the bread and wine they have taught that every particle is therefore as truly christ as the glorified person to is tle fie and must be made an object of worship others have taken an entirely different view and see in the sacrament nothing more than a commemoration of the death of our savior and between betwee ve these two extremes there are various modifications the subject has been brought u again recently by prof briggs in an article in the independent he takes taken the view that the sacrament was not primarily instituted as a memorial feast but as a sacrificial meal after the pattern of some old covenant rites through some process of evolution it came to be changed he argues as follows the one great thing in the mind of jesus which he sought to impress upon his disciples was that he was now establishing a new covenant by a am sacrifice of the new covenant the essential words are this to is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many mark xiv 24 this covenant sacrifice is in antithesis to the covenant sacrifice at horeb hareb described in exodus 1 12 the whole nation was taken into a covenant relation with god the blood of the victims was scattered about on the people and their theft representatives senta tives the seventy elders ate and drank the sacrificial meal in the the presence of god thle this sacrifice was once tor for all it could never be repeated either in the presentation of victims or in the partaking of at the sacrificial rifi cial meal precisely in the same bame way this new sacrifice of the covenant was a sacrifice made once for all and its sacrificial meal was partaken partaker par taken of by the apostles the representatives of the church for all time and it could never boft be the blood was given under I 1 jhb fat form m of wine in a cut cul the flesh under the form of a loaf of bread it was wa essential that this fundamental mealing of the lords supper should be bb impressed upon the apostles and the church too great dependence upon ubon pauls statement rather than that or of thie the gospels has led many christians to bury the essential meaning of the lords supper under the secondary second try significance which to la involved in the perpetual celebration the professor believes that the christian world to Is on the eve of a reconsideration of the whole subject and he offers as hla his contribution to the discussion the conjecture in flat contradiction tra diction of the statement of paul thai Ms apostle had his information through tradition or and through some soine mistake mixed into one the teachings of jesus that tha were really delivered on two occasions widely apart spart hitherto the efforts of theologians have been to find the truth as aa contained in the scriptures the school to which dr di briggs belongs seems to endeavor to establish a new principle as aa a basis for the investigation it presupposes that the authors ot of the scriptures are misinformed and proceeds to form an opinion not on what these authors say but what they opinion ought to have said clearly this does not solve the problem atis to offer any criticism on this the theory of dr brigge it suggests the remark that every renewed effort of matt tv ta fand truth proves the necessity of tm the divine guidance that illuminated the first church Charch and that again soft spreads abw its rays upon the earth from the candlestick in the sanctuary without it there is absolute darkness when we turn to the revelations given upon the subject both formerly and in our own age we find the truth emphasized pha phU sized that the sacramental supper Is in the remembrance of the lord debits the bread to la partaken partaker par taken of that tho the saints may remember the body of eber borr and as a sw that they ar aw willing to take upon them his name astuto affa to keep big commandments in order tar ta hav eHte spirit in the same way the of the cup are aft in kemem bramwe bra siree of flir blood that was waa shed for thern theny aad a that those who of it remember him that they may have hier spirit this at once the sacred out of the depths of dark mystery and gives it a practical significance as an a divine od aid to the and final glorification of the r deemed |
