The Real Presence - What Is It? # 4

The Real Presence - What Is It? # 4

This "presence" is the secret of all that peace, and hope, and joy, and comfort, which believers feel. All spring from their having a Divine tenant within their hearts. This "presence" is the secret of their continuance in the faith, and perseverance unto the end. In themselves, they are weak and unstable as water. But they have within them, One who is "able to save to the uttermost," and will not allow His work to be overthrown. Not one bone of Christ's mystical body shall ever be broken. Not one Lamb of Christ's flock shall ever be plucked out of His hand! The heart in which Christ is pleased to dwell, though it is but very weak - is one which the devil shall never break into and make his own!

(c) There is a real spiritual "presence" of Christ wherever His believing people meet together in His name. This is the plain meaning of His famous saying, "Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name - there I am in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). The smallest gathering of true Christians for the purposes of prayer or praise, or holy conference, or reading God's Word - is sanctified by the best of company! The great or rich or noble may not be there - but the King of kings Himself is present - and angels look on with reverence!

The grandest buildings that men have reared for religious uses, are often no better than whitened sepulchers - destitute of any holy influence - because they are given up to superstitious ceremonies, and filled to no purpose with crowds of formal worshipers, who come unfeeling, and go unfeeling away. No worship is of any use to souls - at which Christ is not present! Incense, banners, pictures, flowers, crucifixes, and long processions of richly dressed ecclesiastics - are a poor substitute for the great High Priest Himself!

(d) There is a real spiritual "presence" of Christ with the hearts of all true-hearted communicants in the Lord's Supper. Rejecting as I do, with all my heart, the baseless notion of any bodily presence appointed by Christ has a special and peculiar blessing attached to it. That blessing, I believe, consists of a special and peculiar presence of Christ, given to the heart of every believing communicant. That truth appears to me to lie under those wonderful words of institution, "Take and eat it - for this is My body." "Drink from it, all of you - for this is My blood." Those words were never meant to teach that the bread in the Lord's Supper was literally Christ's body, or the wine literally Christ's blood. But our Lord did mean to teach that every right-hearted believer, who ate that bread and drank that wine in remembrance of Christ, would in so doing - find a special presence of Christ in his heart, and a special revelation of Christ's sacrifice of His own body and blood to his soul.

In a word, there is a special "presence" of Christ in the Lord's supper, which they only know - who are faithful communicants, and which those who are not communicants miss altogether. After all, the experience of all the best servants of Christ is the best proof that there is a special blessing attached to the Lord's Supper. You will rarely find a true believer, who will not say that he reckons this ordinance to be one of his greatest helps and highest privileges. He will tell you that if he was deprived of it, he would find the loss of it a great drawback to his soul. He will tell you that in eating that bread, and drinking that cup, he realizes something of Christ dwelling in him; and finds his repentance deepened, his faith increased, his knowledge enlarged, his graces strengthened.

Eating the bread with faith - he feels closer communion with the body of Christ. Drinking the wine with faith - he feels closer communion with the blood of Christ. He sees more clearly what Christ is to him - and what he is to Christ. He understands more thoroughly what it is - to be one with Christ and Christ in him. He feels the roots of his spiritual life insensibly watered, and the work of grace within him insensibly built up and carried forward. He cannot explain or define it. It is a matter of experience, which no one knows but he who feels it. And the true explanation of the whole matter is this - there is a special and spiritual "presence" of Christ in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Jesus meets those who draw near to His table with a true heart - in a special and peculiar way! 

(e) Last - but not least , there is a real spiritual "presence" of Christ, given to believers in special times of trouble and difficulty. This is the presence of which Paul received assurance on more than one occasion. At Corinth, for instance, it is written, "Then the Lord said to Paul in a night vision - Don't be afraid, but keep on speaking and don't be silent. For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city!" (Acts 18:9, 10). AT Jerusalem, again, where the Apostle was in danger of his life, it is written. "The following night, the Lord stood by him and said - "Have courage! For as you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome!" (Acts 23:11). Again, in the last epistle Paul wrote, we find him saying, "At my first defense, no one came to my assistance, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth!" (2 Tim. 4:16; 17).

This special presence of Christ with His people - is the reason for the singular and miraculous courage which may of God's children have occasionally shown under circumstances of unusual trial, in every age of the Church. When the three Hebrew children were cast into the fiery furnace, and preferred to die, rather than commit idolatry, we are told that Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, "Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed; and the fourth looks like a Son of God!" (Dan. 3:25). When Stephen was beset by bloody-minded enemies on the very point of stoning him, we read that he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God!" (Acts 7:56).

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 5)