#16.

The Lord's Supper Proclaims the Sinfulness of Sin

Luke 1:35 The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called
the Son of God.
Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both
Lord and Christthis Jesus whom you crucified.
We are considering the Lord's Supper as a sermon, and thinking about some of the messages it
proclaims to us. This time, we want to focus on the fact that the Supper presents the sinfulness
of sin to our gaze. This may not be obvious at first sight, for it is inferred from other messages
the Table declares.
In our previous devotional, we saw that the table declares the sinlessness of Christ. The bread
that is used is free from the leaven that symbolized evil and corruption to the Jewish mind. So
Christ was born of a virgin and lived a Holy life. No one could justly accuse Him of sin, for He
had none (John 8:46). He was the unblemished and spotless lamb of God (1 Peter 1:18-19). No
deceit was found in His mouth (1 Peter 2:22) and when He was reviled, He did not revile in
return (1 Peter 2:23) - He was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). There was no unrighteousness
in Him (John 7:18) - He is the radiance of God's glory (Hebrews 1:3). In everything that He did,
and thought and spoke, He was good, kind, wise, true, faithful and loving.
We turn from this very brief study of the beauty and the holiness of the Savior to see what
mankind (of which we are a part), corrupted and perverted by sin, did to Him. We took this man
of unparalleled holiness and unleashed upon Him our hatred - because His light shone into our
darkness and exposed our sin. We took this man of unequaled humility and in our pride we spat
upon Him and ridiculed Him. We took this gentle and meek Son of God and vented our fury on
Him with such violence that His face was disfigured more than any man's (Isaiah 52:14). We
took this One Who, by being everything that we ought to be, showed us what sin has made us,
and we beat Him, crowned Him with thorns, mocked Him and nailed Him to the cross, from
which He cried out to God for our forgiveness.
Do you want to see how sinful sin is? Take a look at what we did to Jesus. It wasn't a quick and
quiet assassination (though that would have been bad enough) - our hearts desired the longest
and cruelest death imaginable for Him because our hatred against Him was so intense. We
wanted Him out of our lives, yes, but we wanted more than that. All our malicious, spiteful
contempt had to be let loose on Him.

But the Table affords us another view of the sinfulness of sin. We see it not only in what we did
to Jesus, but in what His own Father did to Him on the cross. It was then the sins of His people
were charged to Him. See how repulsive He became to the Father, Who had once called Him
"My beloved Son". See how the darkness covered Him on the cross as the light of the sun could
not penetrate the darkness of those events. Hear Him cry out in agony, "My God, my God, why
have You forsaken me?" He was forsaken by His heavenly Father. Instead of the comfort of

God's fellowship and eternal love, Jesus received His wrath in full measure. The peace and love
that had existed between the man Christ Jesus and God the Father was torn in shreds. Could it be
that the Holy Spirit, poured out on Jesus without measure, could remain present to His senses,
given the weight of sin and corruption that He bore? He was left alone to suffer in our place.
Do you want to see how sinful sin is? Take a look at what God the Father did to Jesus, His only
Son. And we have to believe that this was no more than the sin He was bearing justly
deserved. God did not lash out in an uncontrolled rage when confronted with the sin that Jesus
was now charged with. This was measured and just punishment, provoked by God's infinite
hatred of sin. God could not have fellowship with Jesus as long as He bore that sin - so He put
Him out of His presence and punished Him in His wrath.

The Table is ever a bitter sweet meal for the saint - showing us the depths of our sin and all that
Jesus had to endure because of it, but showing us also that He came precisely to undergo that
suffering so that we might be set free. Can you stay away from the Supper when such depths of
love and mercy are proclaimed here?
www.gcmodesto.org