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Today, as is our custom, we will observe the ritual of the Lord's Table that celebrates Jesus Christ's victory on the cross that is the predicate for our release from spiritual death in satan's spiritual gulag into spiritual freedom and eternal life.
Spiritual freedom is the predicate for temporal personal and national freedom because God's Word is the absolute truth that is the predicate for all freedom. Heb 2:14-15; John 8:31-33; Luke 12:4-5; 1Tim 2:3-4; Exod 20;
Gal 4:3-5 So when we were children, we were held in bondage under the devil and his spiritual forces who rule the cosmic system.
v4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, v 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons.
John 3:16-17;"God had such unfailing integrity love for the entire race that was enslaved to the devil and the spiritual rulers of the cosmic system, that He gave His uniquely born Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Because God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world may be saved through Him.
Rom 8:3-4; God achieved what the Law could not achieve because mankind was spiritually dead and enslaved to the OSN by sending His own uniquely born Son in the likeness of sin infused humanity and He was judged as our substitute so that the righteousness required by the law could be fulfilled in those who do not operate according to the OSN but instead operate according to the Spirit.
Gal 5:1;It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not submit to the bondage of slavery.
John 8:32; Spiritual freedom is the predicate for temporal freedom and we are commanded to use it properly in 1Peter 2:16; Be free but do not use your freedom as a veil for committing evil, but rather use it to serve as God's slaves.
When we observe the ritual of the Lord's Table we recall and celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ who is the personification of all truth and therefore the source of all freedom.
Jesus Christ is the greatest victor of all time and eternity in the invisible spiritual war with satan that rages in the world that is the predicate for all of the visible wars and conflicts in the world.
During this ritual we remember the why, how, who, what, where and the when of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bright morning star Rev 22:16; who has defeated Lucifer, the star of the dawn who became satan the devil after his rebellion against God.
Jesus is presently waiting in heaven for God the Father to authorize Him to put the final permanent kibosh on satan. Isa 14:12; Matt 24:6-9; Rev 20:10;
The Eternal Word who was and is God (John 1:1,14;) invaded the devil's world by becoming a member of the human race in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ through virgin birth at Christmas in order to recover the human race that was lost when the first man, Adam, fell in the Garden of Eden and to destroy what the devil was doing. Luke 19:10; 1John 3:8b;
His ingress into the human race that is enslaved to the devil by the OSN in devil's world occurred at His physical birth (Gal 4:4; Heb 10:5;), egress from the devil's world occurs at physical death when the soul and spirit are transferred into heaven. Luke 23:46;
Jesus' objective was to fulfill the Father's plan to provide a way to save the entire human race, create an entirely new spiritual species that possesses the power that He used for His spiritual victory over satan the devil on the cross and to destroy the works of the devil.
He did this by permitting himself to be judged for the personal sins of every human being in a substitutionary forensic spiritual death, followed by His trichotomous separation that resulted in His physical death and the burial of His physical body in the tomb for 3 days and nights. Luke 23:46; Matt 12:40;
Our celebration of the Lord's Table recalls our Lord's substitutionary spiritual death that was God's judgment for our personal sins along with the personal sins of the entire human race that was God's answer to satan's accusation that God was evil and unjust because in order to maintain His immutable perfection He had to judge and condemn all unrighteousness and cast it into the lake of fire forever.
The Lord's Table celebrates God's solution to the problem of how to make sinners righteous without compromising His perfect righteousness. He accomplished that on the basis of the imputations and the positional truth that was made possible by His judgment of our sins in Jesus on the cross.
God's strategic victory over satan in the angelic conflict was won through Jesus' work on the cross. Rom 4:5; 2Cor 5:19,21; Rom 8:1-3;
The cross is also where Jesus, the personification of God's Word of truth (John 1:1;) defeated the devil who is the god of the cosmos (2Cor 4:3-4;) along with the propaganda, disinformation, lies, and deceit that he deploys as the false narratives of the public lie to enslave, control and destroy the entire human race through the functions of arrogance and hatred in his cosmic systems. John 15:18-25;
This means that with this ritual we are celebrating how God through Jesus Christ broke us free from slavery to satan's tyranny by providing a way to free mankind from the sin nature and the spiritual death that the devil uses to maintain his control over mankind. Rom 6:23; 1Cor 15:22; 1Cor 15:54-57;
The fact that Jesus Christ is the pattern for humility and obedience to God is demonstrated by His dauntless unswerving relentless devotion to God's absolute truth (Heb 12:2) Phil 2:5-8;
Jesus became the channel for the fulfillment of God the Father's plan by willingly submitting to and complying with God's grace policy even though it required him to die. Rom 5:19; Rom 5:8;
He set his face like flint In His determination to fulfill His personal sense of destiny and He glorified God through His deployment of the power of God's Word under the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit that provided the potential for every single person who is ever born into the human race to be saved. Luke 22:42; Isa 50:7; Rom 5:15b; Titus 2:11; John 14:6; John 11:25-26;
By sending Jesus Christ to receive the imputation and judgment for all personal sins and die as the substitute for all of the personal sins of every person in the entire human race God unilaterally demonstrated His unfailing love not only for those who believe in Him but for every person, believer and unbeliever who is ever born. Rom 5:8; 1John 2:2;
We respond to His unfailing love by complying with His mandate to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that adjusts us to His perfect justice through the imputation of His perfect judicial righteousness that makes us compatible with His eternal Word of absolute truth forever. John 6:40; 1John 5:2-5; Heb 11:6; Acts 16:31; 1John 4:19;
Our celebration of the Lord's Table is therefore the reciprocation of our personal love for God and our Lord Jesus Christ, the savior of all mankind. We therefore focus on Him as we partake of the elements of the Lord's Table that remind us of what He did for us. Luke 22:19-20;
Paul goes on to tell us about the how and the why of Jesus' mission in. 2Cor 5:21; Jesus became sin as our substitute so that God could impute His very own judicial righteousness to us when we believe in Jesus Christ.
He came to do God the Father's will Heb 10:5-7; He demonstrated obedience to the Father's unique plan for His unique life by maintaining impeccability while under maximum pressure from satan and his cosmic system and went on to endure the suffering and death of the cross Phil 2:8; because of His determination to fulfill His personal sense of destiny Heb 12:2;
As a glorified human being He is presently seated office at the right hand of God the Father in glory, honor, and majesty because God the Father has exalted Him and placed Him over the angels and every other category of God's creation.
Because of this God will require that every created being bow down and acknowledge Him as Lord of all to the glory of God the Father. Phil 2:9-11;
He completely and perfectly fulfilled the directive will of the Father by submitting to God the Father thereby unilaterally providing a way of salvation for every human being who ever lives on the earth as the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" Rev 13:8; KJV John 1:29;
While we were God's enemies Rom 5:10a; God demonstrated his unfailing love for us by giving his uniquely born Son "monogenes" who invaded the devil's cosmic system through the miracle of the virgin birth. Matt 1:21-23; Luke 2:7; John 3:16;
On the cross Jesus allowed himself to be humbled under God's perfect justice when He accepted the undeserved suffering of God's judgment for all of the personal sins of the entire human race that is enslaved to satan and imprisoned from a spiritual death sentence in the zeitgeist of this world that is satan's spiritual gulag.
Jesus became the substitutionary ransom payment that paid off the death sentence for the entire human race so that by simply believing in Jesus Christ God was free to irrevocably impute His eternal life and His judicial righteousness to everyone. Luke 22:41-42; 1John 2:2; 2Cor 5:21;
God the Father forsook Jesus while he was being judged for the sins of mankind so that those who believe in Him would never ever be forsaken. Mark 15:34; Heb 13:5c; Rom 8:38-39;
God 's perfect holiness was satisfied with Jesus' substitutionary forensic spiritual death on the cross that paid God's death penalty for sin so He was free to forgive the entire human race and make it possible to rescue them from their fallen state of deception and depravity without compromising his perfect righteousness and justice because Jesus willingly laid down his life and died as our substitute. John 15:13; 1John 3:16;
This is why Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with God John 14:6, salvation Acts 4:12 and eternal life John 3:16;
And it is also why the believer's salvation and eternal life are irrevocable. Rom 11:29; It is the reason believers are protected by God's omnipotent power. 1Pet 1:3-5; John 10:26-29;
Anyone can appropriate God's Grace gift of salvation simply by believing what God's Word of truth says when it tells us that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins, was buried and resurrected on the third day 1Cor 15:3-4; in other words the Gospel is God's power for salvation for all who believe in Jesus.
This is what Paul and Silas told the Philippian Jailer to do when he asked "what Must I do to be saved?" Their answer in Acts 16:31; is that Anyone, anywhere, at anytime, can be saved in a moment of time simply by believing in Jesus Christ.
At the last supper Jesus left his friends, the members of God's Royal Family, this one and only ritual for the Church Age The Lord's table that our Lord commanded us to observe in remembrance of Him.
Paul describes this mandate in 1Cor 11:24; in the second person plural present active imperative of the Greek word " poieo" translated "do" where Paul references Jesus' instruction to His disciples in the upper room. Luke 22:19-20;
An expanded translation of 1Cor 11:24 taking into consideration the tense mood and voice of the Greek word "poieo" would be " Keep on doing this in remembrance of me"
This is the mandate that establishes the Lord's Table as the one and only ritual that God's Word specifies for Church Age believers.
The ritual of the Lord's Table is a test of our ability to concentrate on our Lord Jesus Christ by recalling to our thinking what God's Word says regarding His unique role in God's plan as we partake of the elements that represent what, how and why He did what he did for us on the cross.
We have these instructions for partaking of the Lord's Table from the Apostle Paul starting in verse 26 of 1Cor 11.
1Cor 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
We understand from this that we are to examine ourselves the imperative mood is a command to start doing something and stop doing another privately in our thinking.
We do this In the privacy of our priesthood, and when we find we are not in compliance with God's Word, we simply apply rebound, first problem solving device, and simply acknowledge any sin we can remember to God as described in 1 John 1:9;
If/when (third class condition) we acknowledge any known sin he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. This is the believer's experiential forgiveness during their post salvation life in time.
Having examined ourselves and acknowledged any sin that we can recall to God alone with the result that we have been forgiven for all personal sins that we have ever committed to that point in our lives and have been purified from all unrighteousness, we are then commanded to partake of the bread and the cup.
The bread represents Jesus' perfect sinless impeccable physical body in which He bore every personal sin and received God's judgment for every personal sin of every person past, present and future who ever lives in a sin infused mortal body.
1Cor 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
1Cor 11:24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
Eat the bread
The cup represents Jesus' substitutionary spiritual death on the cross that paid the penalty for every sin ever committed with the result that Jesus purchased our freedom, redeemed us from the slave market of sin, spiritual death, and eternal condemnation in the lake of fire that is freely available to everyone who will simply believe in Jesus for a single moment of time.
1Cor 11:25 In the same way, He took the cup also after supper saying This cup is the new covenant in my Blood do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.
Drink the cup