You get Him better!

We celebrated the Lord’s Supper last night and I addressed the congregation from the table with a few quotations from Bruce’s magnificent volume. (Mine is the 1901 Edinburgh edition with the preface by John Laidlaw, so apologies if the page numbers don’t match the Torrance edition pictured above)

First, concerning what we receive from the Supper, Bruce affirms that we get nothing in the Supper that we do not receive from the Word. But does this not render the Supper superfluous? If I get from the Supper the same thing I get in the preaching of the Word why do I need the Supper? What new thing is there is the Supper that renders it necessary?

“Then wilt thou ask what new thing we get? I say, we get this new thing: we get Christ better than we did before; we get the thing which we had, more fully, that is, with a surer apprehension than we had of it before; we get a greater hold of Christ now. For by the sacrament my faith is nourished, the bounds of my soul are enlarged: and so, whereas I had but a little hold of Christ before, as it were between my finger and my thumb, now I get Him in my whole hand; and still the more that my faith grows, the better hold I get of Christ Jesus. So the sacrament is very necessary, if it were no more but to get Christ better, and to get a closer apprehension of Him, by the Sacrament than we could have before.” (p64)

Secondly, Bruce has these wonderful exhortations for us as we sit at the table together,

“Look what thou seest the minister doing outwardly, whatever it be; is he breaking that Bread? Is he dealing that Bread? Is he pouring out that Wine and distributing that Wine? Think assuredly with thyself, that Christ is as busy doing all these things spiritually to thy soul. He is as busy giving to thee His own body with His own hand: He is as busy giving to thee His own blood with the virtue and efficacy of it. Likewise, in this action, (if thou be a faithful communicant) look what the mouth is doing and how the mouth of the body is occupied outwardly: so is the hand and mouth of the soul (which is faith) occupied inwardly. As the mouth takes that Bread and that Wine; so the mouth of thy soul takes the body and blood of Christ, and that by faith. ” (p55)