Page:Southern Presbyterian Journal, Volume 13.djvu/943

. . . but now once in the end of the world. . . So Christ was "just once (once for all) offered to bear the sins of many."

For these unscriptural theories imposed by the arbitrary authority of the Roman Church, a number of subsidiary objectionable practices follow. For once the rule of Scripture is bypassed, there is no restraining man's fertile imagination. Hence the Roman church "reserves" some of the body and blood of Christ and carries them around in processions. Instead of celebrating the Lord's Supper as a common meal, it serves private masses. Contrary to the express command of Christ, it denies the cup to the laity; and it has even done away with the bread in favor of a glucose wafer. Then too, whereas Christ instituted the Lord's Supper after the regular Passover meal, the Roman church, again by an arbitrary act of authority, requires its people to fast from midnight until they receive the wafer in the morning.

But if the Roman church is so obviously not a Christian church, what shall be said of modernistic churches? When ministers reject the sole authority of the Bible, where can they find the rules and practices of the Lord's Supper—or any any part of ecclesiastical administration—except in their own arbitrary imaginations? If it seems aesthetic to them, they will push the pulpit and its Bible over to one side, abolish the communion table, and put up an altar against the back wall. Now, it is easy to understand why they wish to remove the Bible from its place of central importance; but what do they put in its place? What are they asking the congregation to center attention upon? That piece of furniture they call an altar—what do they sacrifice upon it? Surely they do not hold to transubstantiation. Unfortunately they do not believe that even Christ's sacrifice on Calvary was satisfactory to his Father's justice. In fact, we might ask why such churches go through the motions of celebrating the Lord's Supper. What do they mean by it? Such questions, I fear, cannot be answered clearly because these people have no infallible rule of faith to direct them how they should glorify and enjoy God.

On the contrary, a confessional church, if it believes its Confession, knows what the significance of the sacraments is, understands why it administers them, and, instead of relying on vague answers, unguided imagination, or aesthetic taste, can give clear-cut, above-board explanations from the word of God. APRIL 6, 1955