In his sermon on the Lord's Supper, Colton Neifert critiques the doctrine of transubstantiation, which suggests that the bread and wine transform into Christ's actual body and blood. He argues this view is contrary to Scripture and common sense, disrupts the symbolic nature of the ordinance, and leads to superstition and idolatry. Neifert emphasizes that the Lord's Supper is meant to be a symbolic and memorial act, reflecting on Christ's sacrifice. He highlights John 6, where Jesus speaks metaphorically about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The sermon stresses true worship, which should be conducted in spirit and truth, rather than through physical or outward rituals. Neifert warns against practices like Eucharistic adoration, which he sees as idolatrous, and encourages believers to focus on spiritual worship, acknowledging human imperfections but seeking God's face with a contrite heart.

Second London Baptist Confession, Chapter 30 of the Lord's Supper, paragraph 6. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood, commonly called transubstantiation, by consecration of a priest or by any other way, is repugnant not to scripture alone but even to common sense and reason, overthroweth the nature of the ordinance and has been and is the cause of manifold superstitions, yea of gross idolatries. Acts 321, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. Luke 24, 6, he is not here but is risen. Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee.

Luke 24, 39, behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. Alright, so I think we all pretty much agree here, but I want to touch on three points from the confession. Number one, that this doctrine is repugnant to Scripture and common sense. Number two, it overthrows the nature of the ordinance, and number three, it leads to superstition and idolatry.

So to say that at the Lord's Supper Christ's physical blood and body are being consumed is repugnant to Scripture and that Scripture forbids consuming blood. In John 6 Jesus lost credibility with many of his followers when he said that, He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. The thought of eating a man's flesh and drinking his blood was repugnant to their common sense. So I'm going to read some of John 6. John chapter 6, starting in verse 32.

Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen me and you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." The Jews then complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

And they said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it that he says, I have come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answering answered and said to them, Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught by God.

Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except to you who is from God. He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.

This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead, he who eats of this bread will live forever. Therefore many of his disciples when they heard this said, this is a hard saying and who can understand it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them, does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before.

It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who would not believe and who would betray him. And he said, Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my father. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.

Then Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So point number one was that it's repugnant to Scripture in common sense.

Point number two is that it overthrows the nature of the ordinance. The nature of the ordinance is symbolic and memorial. Jesus said, this is my body, this is my blood, do this in remembrance of me. Mr. Beckler gave an excellent explanation of the representative definition of the word is in these sentences last week.

Like Christ also said that I am the door, I am the vine, and we know that these are to be taken figuratively, not literally. And so in the same way, when Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood, If you eat of it, you'll never die, you'll live eternally. We know that if someone actually ran at Jesus and took a bite out of him, he wouldn't live forever. It's not saying that eating my flesh is necessary for eternal life and guarantees eternal life. It's not talking about his actual physical flesh, it's talking about a spiritual truth.

Christ also talked about himself as a temple. He said, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up. These are all symbolic terms. He's been speaking in parables a lot to these people and he continues to speak symbolically here. His disciples began to understand these things better after his resurrection like how he said he would raise up the temple in three days.

So this is symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ. He literally broke His flesh and poured out His blood for us, and He asks us to do this in remembrance of Him. So we're not continuing to actually break His physical flesh and pour out His physical blood for ourselves. Like he said on the cross, it is finished. In Hebrews 7, it says that he made this sacrifice once and for all so we don't continually sacrifice Christ's physical flesh and blood.

We also see like how Christ sustains us just as the food sustains our bodies. Christ sustains us spiritually. And I think that's what he's talking about in John chapter six, like we just read, that you need to partake of his body and of his blood in a spiritual sense, and that you're relying on him and you're being sustained by him. The last part, point number three, is that this leads to superstition and idolatry. So I guess there's these practices of Eucharistic adoration where after the priest blesses the bread and the wine, there's actually this act of worship where people can come down and kneel before the bread and pray to the bread as if it is really Christ's physical presence there with us.

Calvin was very emphatic that Christ was truly with us but not physically with us. So Christ is with us in the Lord's Supper but he's not physically with us. So yeah, it leads to this idolatry, worshiping the flesh of Christ. So that leads me to the question, how does Christ want to be worshiped? In John 4 you have Jesus with the woman at the well and she's asking where to worship and Jesus says, You worship what you do not know.

We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth." So worshiping the bread is not worshiping in spirit, and saying that the bread is literally Christ's body with the accidents like we talked about, it has all the physical makeup of bread and wine, but it truly is his body and blood. To say that is not worshiping in truth. So at the end of the day, we want to worship God in spirit. We live in these corrupt bodies that have no hope of truly worshiping God in the flesh.

No amount of physical outward signs of affection can save our souls, and no deeds of self-sacrifice are acceptable to God if they're done purely in the flesh and not in the Spirit. You can go as far as to give your life for another. You can lay down your life in the defense of Christ, but if your motivation is purely selfish, it's not worship. It's not true worship. It's self-serving.

And conversely, you can have a heart to worship God, and you can be making all kinds of mistakes in your worship. I mean, that's the state that we live in, in these bodies. We're never doing everything absolutely perfect, but we come to God with a broken spirit and a contrite heart, and we have a spirit to truly worship Him, and by God's grace and through His Spirit, he accepts our worship as flawed as it is. So I want to encourage everyone to continue worshiping God in spirit throughout the rest of the service and in the week to come, not just physically sitting here in church. This isn't worship.

Your physical presence in church doesn't constitute worship, but you need to have a spiritual heart towards God to seek His face and praise His name and do His will.