The solution to reconciling these differing views on the nature of the relationship between the Lord’s Supper and Church is three-fold. First, one needs to look outside of Hammett’s view to the wider Baptist context. There one finds a more accurate picture of the invisible Church and the local congregation’s role within it. Second, one should look back into history at the writings and ministry of America’s most influential theologian, Jonathan Edwards. Once one places his ministry and practices into the context of his denomination’s view on the Eucharist, a Biblical model for admission to the Table emerges. Finally, and foremost, as people of the Word, Southern Baptist must find justification and instruction within the Bible itself. Incorporating the requirements and instructions set forth by the apostle Paul, the church finds the foundation and method for the healthy administration and practice of the Lord’s Supper.
The traditional Baptist definition of the invisible church comes from Second London Confession in 1677 which defines the church as “the body of Christ extended throughout time as well as space consisting of all persons everywhere who have been placed in union with Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit,” (Cross, 24). According to a recent collaboration of Baptist scholars entitled Baptist Sacramentalism, the New Testament pictures the church as a heavenly and eschatological reality, not an earthly institution to be governed and grasped by men. The universal church is an entity, “we believe…exists; that we ourselves by God’s grace have been placed within it, along with all others who ‘bow their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ’ and the gates of hell shall never prevail against it,” (Cross, 25). Similar to the rhetoric employed within the Reformed and Anglican tradition, these authors argue the Eucharist is a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet pictured in Revelation 19. The continuity between the earthly practice of the Lord’s Supper and the eschatological Feast of the Lamb is of crucial importance to the church’s understanding of the Eucharist (Cross, 26).
Beyond the unity created by corporate observation of the Supper, a believer’s participation signifies an expression and declaration of personal faith and identity (Cross, 80). Partaking in the meal links believers to the story of salvation, placing them directly in the context and setting of Christ’s last meal with the disciples. This community extends beyond denominational lines and unifies the Christian with more than the person standing next to him or even Christians across the world. Observance of the Lord’s Supper ties the Christian to the multitudes before him who have celebrated the Eucharist over the course of two millennia (Cross, 85).
The church may be viewed as a particular people imbued with a particular
‘constitutive narrative’ that spans the ages from the primordial past to the
eschatological future…the biblical narrative provides the interpretive framework
—the narrative plot—through which the members of Christ’s community find
meaning in their personal and communal stories, as through their connection with
this people, believers discover the link between their personal lives and a
transcendent story—the narrative of the work of the biblical God in history (Cross, 88).
In this context one sees the Church as timeless and cross-generational. The Church serves to transmit the Gospel generation to generation passing its traditions and message of salvation to its children. It becomes a community of memory and hope, linking the present with the past (Cross, 91). Ordinances, or sacraments among many non-Baptists, can thus be seen as rituals that interject the present into the faith narrative of the Bible. They portray the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and transport the believing participant into the story. By placing the contemporary, local church into both the eschatological future and the historical past, the Lord’s Supper demonstrates its place within the context of the universal church.
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