The Sacrament
Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH. This is Heart of the Matter, where we try and get all people to walk toward the love of Jesus Christ. And I am Shawn McCraney, your host.
Let’s have a prayer.
Show 5 Redux – The Sacrament
MONDAY September 2nd 2019
Show 5 HOTM Redux – The Sacrament Presentation
Show 5a HOTM REDUX
Tuesday September 3rd 2019
Calls and Comments about The Sacrament Presentation
Key Concepts and Discussion
An analysis of what Christians call Communion and what the LDS call the Sacrament.
1st Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).
"This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 1st Corinthians 11:24
“A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” 1st Corinthians 11:28
“Being born-again comes by the Spirit of God THROUGH ordinances.” Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith page 162
“Through baptism and confirmation (people) are born-again and thus come back into spiritual life and through their continued obedience to the end, they shall be made partakers of the blessings of eternal life in the celestial kingdom of God.”
Joseph Fielding Smith said (in Doctrines of Salvation 2:223):
Tonight, we are presenting a new format for you folks in our HOTM Redux. On Monday nights we are going to air the core content of our weekly presentation to you – 30 minutes long. Then tomorrow night we are going to go live, open up the phone lines, and hopefully hear from YOU regarding the content presented now. So, in essence, HOTM.Redux will remain the same length but come to you in two parts – 30 minutes on Monday night of Presentation and 30 minutes on Tuesday nights of calls, emails and your online comments – as well as announcements and the like.
So, getting right to it, I want our first program tonight, oddly enough, to be about what the LDS call the sacrament, which is called communion in some churches and the Eucharist in others. Let’s take a quick look at where the observance of this rite began – and of course we have to go to the Bible.
Anciently and on out to today, the Nation of Israel celebrates what is called the Passover, which was in memoriam of when the Spirit of Death PASSED over the firstborn children of Israel, who put lamb’s blood on their doorposts while in bondage to Egypt. On the night of His death and the night Passover was celebrated, Jesus brought new significance to the Passover meal which was eaten among the Jews.
What was this meal? On the night the Spirit of death passed over those houses with the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, those inside the home roasted the lamb and ate it with unleavened bread. This was the Passover meal. On the eve of His own death as the Lamb of God, Jesus gathered for this same celebratory meal with His disciples and assimilated it into His ultimate sacrifice which was about to take place.
Paul, in 1st Corinthians 11:23-26, said of this meal something Jesus himself told him, saying:
1st Corinthians 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).
The Lord's Supper
Ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).
So, to them/then, Jesus instituted a significant new fellowship meal taken from the old but now based on Him. It was a material memorial created to sustain the believers in that day in their tremendous trials via fellowship (or communion – koinonia in the Greek) that would occur over very simple elements that were representative of His brutalized body and shed blood.
After taking a loaf of bread and giving thanks He broke it and said: ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ Then after the meal he took the cup of wine and after thanking God, said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’.” Then they ended the feast by singing a hymn and proceeded to the Mount of Olives where Jesus was betrayed and then lived out in his person the breaking of his body and shedding of His blood.
This meal was a profound and deeply impactful memorial to His offering for sin and death, and had tremendous import to the believers in that age. There is a lot of power behind this ritual when performed with solemnity and remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ – and for this reason it has remained a staple in Christian praxis for nearly two millennia. Of course, the materially based practice is both a favorite among religionists (perhaps second only to water baptism) and naturally it is approached a thousand different ways till Sunday in terms of execution and purpose.
The Continuation of Communion
What is so easily forgotten is Paul has the Lord placing a time limit on the ceremony itself — did you catch it? He said the Lord told him, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).” Because most believers are blind to the fact that He has come or returned, most believers – especially the denoms – continue to implement some form of the Eucharist, communion or sacrament in their weekly, monthly or annual services. In fact, built in to the practice of communion is the tacit affirmation that Jesus is coming back in the future to save them.
Additionally, there is perhaps no more of a religious practice on earth. What I mean by this is, according to the New Testament narrative (written to the believers then) Communion:
- Is a command believers must obey. Why? Because the Lord told them/then "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 1 Corinthians 11:24
Must obeys are called religion. It was necessary. Remember, this was established while the Temple still stood, and Judaism was still in control, and the nascent gathering of believers were barely surviving. This was BEFORE God established His New Testament of writing His laws on the hearts and minds of those who were his. It was a transitory period and so the communion to them/then was very important and purposeful.
Self-Examination and Communion
Additionally, communion is an ultimate expression of material religion because Paul said to use it as a time to examine ourselves as believers, saying in 1st Corinthians 11:28: “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” But self-examination in and through direct access to God by the Holy Spirit through Christ is a daily, constant, personal experience for those who are his and is not tied to an external practice the way the denoms want us to believe. The model is really simple folks – if the denoms can standardize, corporatize and institutionalize material mandates on people – whether water baptism, or blessings, or communions – they own us – as often as they demand our allegiance to the thing we are owned.
For this reason, the more sinister approaches to communion demand it more frequently of their congregates, right? This is not of God who came to liberate and free through the finished work of His Son. Like most things in the New Testament, communion had a limited purpose for a limited time that had a limited application to that little church-bride. You wanna do a study? Just go online and review the vast and varied approaches that churches have adopted relative to communion.
First, we have the name it is called. The term "Eucharist" (which means, thanksgiving in the Greek) is the name still used by Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans. Some Protestants use the term "Communion", or "the Lord's Supper," or "Memorial" or "Remembrance", or "the Breaking of
The Practice of Communion
Bread". And of course the Latter-day Saints call it the "Sacrament."
We don’t have the time nor do I have the inclination to describe to you all the variables RELIGIOUS men and women have created in this rite relative to mode, frequency, worthiness, approach, and significance – it's fascinating, but I will say (admit) to this:
Participation in Communion is nice and can be really rewarding – sort of like going to a Chiropractor is often more rewarding than going to a General Practitioner – because you are actually doing something, experiencing something, and committing or renewing something in your life – which is good for people. So, I have no rub with people who enjoy participating from the heart in a communion service. That is their choice and they are responsible for themselves in doing it.
Where Communion becomes fugly in my mind, especially relative to what God established in destroying material religion, is when the institutions take communion and
- Control and Manipulate their members
- Alter its original purpose and presentation
- Thereby making it something it was never supposed to be – which most individuals do not understand.
Mormonism and Ordinances
And here is where we come face to face with Mormonism, the institution.
See, Joseph Smith, borrowing from Catholicism at large, said (found in “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith” page 162) “Being born-again comes by the Spirit of God THROUGH ordinances.” Jesus said the Spirit moves where it will, but Smith captured the Spirit and allowed it, in terms of spiritual rebirth, to only exist in LDS administered ordinances – like their weekly sacrament. Echoing the founders’ sentiments, Joseph Fielding Smith said (in Doctrines of Salvation 2:223):
“Through baptism and confirmation (people) are born-again and thus come back into spiritual life and through their continued obedience to the end, they shall be made partakers of the blessings of eternal life in the celestial kingdom of God.”
Ritualistic Practices and Spiritual Rebirth
So it works like this: In order to overcome sin, Mormonism teaches that a person must enter into a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. This happens when the person accepts the ordinance of the LDS water baptism, and then they receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost which comes ONLY by the laying on of hands by a LDS male priesthood holder. That is a proprietary religious product if I have ever heard of one, right?
And in receiving these LDS ordinances, our brothers and sisters believe they have “taken on the name of Christ” (which is synonymous with being Born again to them).
Now comes the lifelong ties to religious observances provided by the LDS church: To remain faithful to taking on the name of Christ at Baptism, a person must then live so as to be worthy of the Gift of the Holy Spirit that they have been given. Part of this worthiness is to repent (weekly) for the sins they commit (which are not on the egregious list) and this repenting culminates in LDS members “faithfully and repetitively” renew the covenants they made at water baptism by taking the LDS sacrament of broken bread and water – every week!
In other words, to a standard Latter-Day Saint spiritual rebirth does NOT occur when God sends His Spirit and writes his laws on the hearts of those who are his but God dwells in a believer when a person receives LDS ordinances and then follows up weekly in partaking of their sacrament as a means to repent and repeat – until death.
As a result . . . most Latter-day Saints – not all, God reaches many – but most wander about not ever having experienced true, regenerative spiritual rebirth but instead find themselves chained to a hamster wheel of religious rites and rituals as a means to maintain and keep their salvation. And this not only breaks my heart, it must certainly break God’s.
He wants a direct, free relationship with you. You. It comes unencumbered by men and their fanciful ideas. He is there to any and all who want Him in their lives. He does not demand your complicity to organized religion, he does not expect you to embrace any of the two billion ways to God espoused by Man. He gave us His Son. He saved this world from Sin and Death. And he made you free. Free to choose Him, free to have Him – directly in your life.
How?
Go to Him, and speak your heart. Speak your fears, your failures, your desires, your doubts.
Inviting Him into Your Life
Be honest as a cup of water with him – He can take it. And ask Him into your life. Then wait. Wait on Him to start showing himself. And when he does, follow Him. Not me. Not others. Not the churches. Just Him.
Community Engagement
And call in tomorrow night when we go live! We will follow up with this presentation on Communion or Sacrament – and if you don’t like to call, write your comments here on the site. We’ll read them on air, tomorrow night, here on Heart of the Matter!
