In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley responds to the common assumption that Baptists hold a merely symbolic or memorial view of the Lord’s Supper and explains why this claim misunderstands both Baptist theology and the broader Reformed tradition.

 

Bosley argues that the Lord’s Supper—like baptism—is an effectual means of grace. While it does not justify, it truly sanctifies God’s people through Christ’s real, spiritual presence with His church. The Supper is not a bare remembrance, but a divinely appointed act of worship through which believers receive the benefits of Christ’s death by faith.

 

Bosley calls listeners to recover a richer view of the Lord’s Table—not as casual ritual or empty symbol, but as a powerful, joyful participation in Christ until He returns. As Charles Spurgeon observed, the moments we are nearest to heaven are often those spent at the Lord’s Table.

 

The Baptist tradition has more taken the memorialism view that there's not a literal presence of Christ in the elements. This is the main part where I want to differentiate from Dr. Allen. Welcome to A Reasonable Response. I'm Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a Reformed Baptist perspective.

Each episode contains what we call the breakdown, where I will respond to a video about whatever the topic at hand is, and today that is what is the meaning of the Lord's Supper. But before we get to that, I'm going to respond to some of you responding to me. At Maymert-P7L, I think. And this is as it's written. Wow, some Catholics are saved even though we are apostate.

Thank you so much. You are truly a God's gift to Catholic. You missed the entire point of the video if you even watched the whole thing. My point is that as an institution, Rome is an apostate church because it's rejected the gospel. That doesn't mean then that everyone who's in it or even all the local churches in it are apostates.

Basically Calvin's view, Luther's view as An institution rejected the gospel, but there are still true believers and perhaps even true churches among it, though in spite of the formal doctrines of the church. At J. Joe Jeans says, responding to a clip about the gospel killing sin in the life of believers, please supply a single fact that supports your narrative. The New Testament, the gospels, the apostle Paul, what they wrote. Yeah.

At troyterry6919 responding to the Mormonism video from a while back, you are a fool. Trivia question. When Joseph Smith prayed and asked which church he should join. Which church was he told? Obviously not yours.

Obviously because Joseph wasn't a Christian. We talked about what he says he saw in that vision. He was told they're all apostates. So yeah, he didn't join the Baptist because he wasn't a Christian and he created a non-Christian false church. And now for a positive one at Thomas Villeneuve, I guess, maybe, I don't know.

Thank you for covering this man, referring to the video responding to James Tallarico. I couldn't find anyone else talking about this man from a conservative Christian perspective. Subscribed. Thanks, Thomas, appreciate the subscription. Rick Meyer says, define sin.

This is in response to the video talking about the gospel is what kills sin, which apparently a lot of people had a problem with that idea. But yes, define sin. I have a great definition. This is why the Catechisms of the church are so useful. The Baptist Catechism, question seven, what is sin?

Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. That is sin. Are you conforming to the law of God or not if you are failing to that is sin So today for the breakdown we're looking at a video from the official YouTube channel of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Overland Park, Kansas, a sermon from Pastor Jason Allen on the Lord's Supper. This is one of the few breakdowns we do where I'm actually not going to be very strongly disagreeing with almost anything Dr. Allen says.

What he says I almost fully agree with. And that's what led me to pick this video. It's a good setup, a good foundation for what I wanted to explore more, which is the historic Baptist view of the Lord's Supper in contrast to what has become the dominant view since really the mid-1800s. And with that, Let's begin. Why the Lord's Supper?

And what does it mean? You ever wonder like why we do this once a month? Why churches do it? Some do it even more frequently than monthly. Like what is the Lord doing here?

So Dr. Allen talks about their practice at Emmanuel. They celebrate the Lord's Supper once a month. And that's better than a lot of Baptist churches. The church I grew up in when I was little, I don't even know when they celebrated.

It seemed to be very infrequent. And unfortunately, a lot of Baptist churches do celebrate the supper very infrequently sometimes once a quarter or once a year but I think when we look at scripture if we can't come down to an exact frequency I would argue for weekly but if we can't nail that down exactly, I think the clear impulse is the more often the better. And that case is built from a couple different passages. For instance, Acts chapter two. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

The breaking of bread there is probably more than just having lunch together. It's probably a reference to the Lord's table. And Acts two ends with that they were meeting daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house. So they were gathering together daily for this. In Acts chapter 20 Verse 7, Luke writes, now on the first day of the week when the apostles came together to break bread, Paul raged apart the next day and spoke.

So they come together on the first day of the week And part of the purpose of their gathering together was to break bread, almost certainly a reference to the table. So this early church is taking the supper every Lord's Day. And further from my position as a reformed Baptist, the confessional Baptist position, The supper is more than a memorial. It is an actual means of grace. It is an instrument God uses to strengthen His people.

We'll get into that a little bit more towards the end of Dr. Allen's video. And if that's the case, If this is actually one of the channels through which God extends His grace to us, wouldn't we want to do that more often than not? Reflection, proclamation, thirdly, examination. Paul makes quite clear we are not to take the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner.

And so in that moment, in those minutes leading up to it, for us to confess sin that the Lord would bring to mind and ask the Spirit to search our heart so that we would come to the table in a worthy manner. Adam Lickman So there are a couple of questions there. First, examining yourself. In what manner do you examine yourself? There are extremes on both sides, ditches on either side of the road to fall into.

Some reformed traditions go into a very morbid introspection where if there's any trace of sin or anything less than full commitment to Christ in every area, you don't take the supper to the point where no one, even the elders of the church, will take the supper. At the same time, this can be approached very flippantly and have a laissez-faire attitude of just coming, well, I walked an aisle, I prayed a prayer, I signed the card, I'm good to go. We need to avoid both of these extremes and do a real heartfelt self-examination not has your previous week been sinless but it has your faith been genuine and enduring are you trusting in Christ not Did you make a profession once at some point in the past, but are you right now trusting and following the Lord? Sins will come, you will fail, you will fall, but in the midst of all of it, are you the righteous man who gets back up again and continues following his Lord. Are you trusting in Christ?

That is the real self-examination. Also in the context, the big problem with Corinth was their divisions, their factionalism. They were at odds with one another. It was a church that was divided on just about everything you could be divided over. And in that sense, they were not discerning or recognizing the Lord's body when they came together.

They were taking their own supper, he says at the beginning of the chapter, not the Lord's supper, because they did not have love for one another, recognizing that together they are the Lord's body. So when you come, examine yourself. Are you walking in faith with the Lord? And are you also walking in fellowship and love with your brothers and sisters? I think that's what it means to discern the Lord's body.

And if you're not doing those things, you are not going to be able to eat and drink in a worthy manner. This also means, by definition, unbelievers and those under church discipline cannot come to this table. This is a ordinance, a sacrament for the Church of God, those who have professed faith in Christ, who have been baptized in obedience to His commands, and are walking in faithful love with their brothers and sisters toward the Lord. Reflection, proclamation, examination, celebration. There's a note of triumph in the text.

Paul spells that in 1st Corinthians chapter 11, and so the church, when it gathers, there should always be a note of triumph about the Lord's Supper. Dr. Allen is Exactly right. The table should be a time of celebration because again that self-examination isn't that morbid introspection where we look to ourselves and see if we in our own works or goodness or holiness are good enough to take but we are made worthy because of what Christ has done and we come to the table to receive his benefits. It should be a celebration.

Yes, on the one hand self-examination, being serious, thinking through these things, but also celebrating and rejoicing in what God has done. Now it is funny, he talks about they celebrated when he was a kid maybe every three or four months and it was an extra serious special celebration. And that's often the argument you have with those who advocate for less regular observance that the supper is so special, so we're going to do it less often so it doesn't become too commonplace and people treat it in a flippant way. That's really not a very good argument. It's not compelling at all.

Almost all these same churches would have preaching every single week. They would lose their minds if you say, we shouldn't have preaching every Sunday because we don't want people to treat the preaching of the word too flippantly. We do it every week because it's special. Shouldn't the same thinking apply to the Lord's Supper? Because it's special, because it is such a wonderful gift from God, shouldn't we do it more often, not less?

So what do we do with that? In different denominations, different traditions have different understandings, some significant, some slightly different understandings, some significant. Our Catholic friends understand this domain and taught the doctrine of transubstantiation that through the celebration of the Eucharist this becomes the literal body and blood of Christ. Our Lutheran friends, for instance, they understand the doctrine to be a doctrine of what's called consubstantiation, that it's not literally the body and blood of Christ, but Jesus is literally there alongside of the elements. And the words that they champion, the Latin words, hóque est corpus maëm, this is my body.

And then our Presbyterian friends, for instance, would see this more in a real spiritual presence, that Christ is not in the elements, but He's spiritually present. That was the teaching of Calvin. And the Baptist tradition has more taken the memorialism view that there's not a literal presence of Christ in the elements, but rather through the coming to the table together, we are reminded of the Lord's life and death. And we celebrate that until he returns. This is the main part where I want to differentiate from Dr.

Allen. Up to this point, almost everything he said I fully agree with. Maybe go a little bit further in a few places, but here is really the difference. He goes through the different groups and their different perspectives on the Supper. He forgets the Orthodox.

They basically fall in line with a kind of transubstantiation. It's a little fuzzy. But he then says that the Presbyterians have a spiritual presence view, but the Baptists hold more of the memorial view. And that's Probably true today, Baptists hold mostly to a memorial view, but historically that's not the case. Coming out of the Reformation, and especially the particular Baptists, or what we would now call the Reformed Baptists, They agreed with the Presbyterians almost exactly when it came to the Supper.

They held a spiritual presence view as Reformed Baptists do today because that is in our confession of faith. The Second London Confession of 1689, chapter 30, paragraph 7 reads this, worthy receivers outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, being the supper, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporeally, but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all the benefits of his death. The body and blood of Christ being then not corporeally or carnally but spiritually present to the faith of believers in the ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses." So they really kind of say it twice. They belabor the point. We believe in a real presence.

Christ is really present, yet not physically. That corporeally, carnally, say not physically, not locally. Christ isn't there in the bread, there in the cup, but he is there with his people by the Spirit so that Those who are worthy partakers by faith receive Christ's body and blood spiritually and through that receive the benefits of his death. And that's why the Baptist Catechism written by Benjamin Keach says that the Lord's Supper as well as baptism is an effectual means of salvation. Now that doesn't mean that it justifies, but that it is a means of grace that sanctifies God's people.

The early Baptists were not mere memorialists. They were right in line with the broader Reformed tradition of a real presence of Christ, but not a physical presence. Christ is really present, but not physically, spiritually. He is present with his church. And as we do it, our minds go back to Calvary, but not just to Calvary to that upper room where Jesus is celebrating the Passover, But he eclipses it by instituting the Lord's Supper.

Then when we come to it in two weeks, it's not just some bread and cups we fumble around with, we see a powerfully rich expression of worship that we get to participate in until the Lord returns. He's right, the supper is a glorious and powerful thing and it should be rejoiced in and celebrated by God's people regularly. And so thankful for Dr. Allen and this message a few things that I think we should go further in than he does But overall in great agreement with him and I want to end with a quote from Charles Spurgeon Of course, they've got the Spurgeon library at his school but a quote from Charles Spurgeon where he says, I think the moments we are nearest to heaven are those we spend at the Lord's table. Well, that's all the time we have for today.

If you'd like to connect with me personally, you can do so on X at R. Bosley 1689. If you'd like to learn more about church and family life, you can do so at churchandfamilylife.com. And don't forget, we have our national conference coming up in May at Ridgecrest, North Carolina on biblical manhood and womanhood. We'd love to see you there.

Thanks. See you next time.