All Christians, are members of the house or family of God, are called and constituted a holy and royal priesthood, and may, therefore, attend God for the Lord’s table, its bread and cup. We may approach it with no fear, and partake of it with joy as often as commanded, one time only on Sunday in remembrance of the death of our Lord and Savior. Christ is “the Son over His own house, whose house we are”, Hebrews 3:5, provided we maintain our “profession and hope unshaken to the end.” Members of the body of Christ are “a holy and royal priesthood; lively stones, built up into a spiritual temple, holy and acceptable unto God.” 1 Peter 2:5 Peter, in the ninth verse of the same chapter says; “but you are an elect race, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood;” and this is addressed to all the brethren dispersed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
The purpose of priesthood was examined and explained in the Old Testament. Holy and royal priests thank God at the Lord’s Table, for remembering them!! We, without a human priest to hallow it, handle the elements and partake of its blessings. If the common priests did not fear to approach the golden table, and to place upon it the loaves of the presence; if they feared not to take and eat that consecrated bread; shall royal priests fear and require intervention of human hands, to approach the Lord’s Table and to partake of the bread and cup? If they should, they know not how to appreciate the price paid by Christ or how to value their high calling and exalted designation as kings and priests of God. And may we not say, that he who, invested with a little clerical authority, derived only from “the man of sin and son of perdition,” borrowed from the Romanists, says to them, “Stand by, I am holier than thou,”–may we not say that such a one is worse than Diotrephes, who declared a pre-eminence, because he desecrates the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ, and calls him common and unclean, who has been consecrated by the blood of the Son of God?? Such impiety can only be found among those who worship the beast from Hell, who have covenanted and agreed that none shall partake unless blessed by the human hands of a sinful representative of the Roman Catholic Church?? I ask, did your prayers of repentance and thanksgiving not reach the grand abode of the Father and were not your hands also they which handled the bread not as good as those of another sinner who to you gave this bread and cup?? Whether you were the second or one millionth to have handled them in order of location or seating arrangement?
The “royal priest” can approach the Lord’s table without fear, for we have been made worthy to officiate by a blood, as far superior to that which set apart and rolled ahead the sins of the fleshly priesthood, as the Lord’s table, covered with the sacred emblems of the sacrifice of the Lord Himself who’s blood gives the Father amnesia to the sins of we who partake, is superior to the table which held only twelve loaves of the presence? Are not we, to say the least, called by gospel of the Kingdom more holy and divine according to election, and chosen before the foundations of the world, a race of priests far superior to they who sprung from the loins of Levi and not the seed of Abraham? What does it means to the partaker who has the bread already broken for him by hands that have tasted sin and cup from the same fashioned sinner?? If we are not worthy to partake, how could we have been invited? If we are not worthy to eat and drink in direct communion with the Father and Son how could we commune through other hands soiled by sin??
The bread MUST be broken by the saints before the saints feed upon it, which has obtained for this institution the name of “breaking bread.” No one breaks the bread for you any more than would drink of the fruit of the vine for you!! One is called a preacher because he preaches; another is called a farmer, because he farms while another is called a “breaker of bread” because that is what he does; otherwise the verbiage is non-nonsensical and ludicrous!!
As the Lord had eaten a religious supper, had partaken of the paschal lamb with His disciples, before He instituted the breaking of bread and drinking of the cup, as commemorative of His death, it seems improper to some to call it a supper; for it was instituted and eaten after a supper. When my daughter was little she was watching her mother prepare the emblems one morning before services. She ask her mother; “when do we eat of the Lord’s breakfast?” to be continued
