14. Miracles
15. Satan and his devils
13. The Lord's Supper
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are only two sacraments (rites) given to the Church immediately by Christ. The sacraments are the symbols,types or rites of the Covenant of Grace set up by Jesus Christ Himself. The Covenant of Grace is the agreement made by God and men to be given freely the forgiveness of sins and the Eternal Life by God to those who believe in Jesus Christ.
The Lord's Supper was instituted (set up) at the time of supper which the Lord took with His disciples at the night before He was hung on the cross.
While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. " Mt 26:26-28
The clergymen of Roman Catholic Church robbed lay believers of the right to participate the cup of the supper which our Lord gave every believer saying "Drink from it, all of you" and they keep it to themselves.
And they maintain the doctrine of transubstantiation which means a change of substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood by their setting them apart as holy.
Furthermore, they insist that they repeat the redemptive work of Christ on their alter, which Christ fulfilled once for all (Heb 9:11,12).
The Lord's Supper is not acting out or reproduction of the Work of redemption of Christ as they hold on, but the way for believers to reconfirm and deepen their faith in the grace of salvation which Christ had completed on the cross.
When the Scripture says "the Word of the Cross" (1Cor.1:18), it means the Gospel which signifies all the work of Christ: not only his death on the cross, but also resurrection, ascension and pouring of the Holy Spirit. And"breaking bread" (Act. 20:7) means the Lord's Supper in which the only word "bread" stands for both bread and wine.
So that we need not be silent with a sad look at the time of the Lord's Supper meditating only His death and forgetting His resurrection because the Bible says " It proclaims the Lord's death"(1Cor.11:26).
I hear that Judaists who wait for another Savior celebrate joyfully the Passover which is the shadow of the cross of Christ. We Christians should feast ourselves joyously on the Eucharist in which we remember and celebrate the fulfillment of the Passover on the cross and by the emptied grave.
At the Lord's Supper, first, we die to the old sinful ourselves by being united with the death of the Lord. Next we rise from the dead to the living new men likened to the image of Christ by being combined with the resurrection of Him.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:3-11
And being strengthened by the baptism of the Holy Spirit which the Lord pours into us, we go out to the world as the witnesses of Christ (Acts 1:8).
On the way to Emao two disciples met the risen Lord knowing not Him to be the Lord. But they recognized Him to be their Lord by their eyes opened, while they had supper with Him after they got to the town.
The Lord's Supper is the place and time, where and when our spiritual eyes are opened to see Him spiritually and to touch Him by the bread and wine (Lk 24:30,31).
cross and the resurrection from the dead of Jesus are true
14. Miracles
Our lord Jesus said,"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" (Lk 18:17). The total reliance of infants on their parents is the model of the stance of us believers to God.
Another peculiarity of infants is their impressionable nature to things around them. They ask frequently their parents, "What is this?" or "Why?", and makes them at a loss for a answer.
Some theologians and preachers want to explain away rationally the miracle stories in the Scriptures as if they reveal the juggler's trick. But if miracles are removed from the Bible, it will become only a moral textbook written by mere people.
Miracle description is one of the important marks which show the Bible to be words of omnipotent (all-powerful) God.
The miracles of the Bible are real and marvelous occurrences without gimmicks behind them.
The most important one of the miracles in the Scriptures is the resurrection of Jesus into the glorious and immortal(deathless) body.
He (Jesus) replied, "What is impossible for mortals is possible for God." Lk 18:27
Jesus said to her, " I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25
If we look around the world with flexible mind like infants and spirit of inquiry like Isaac Newton who discovered the law of universal gravitation, we will soon find ourselves to live in the land full of miracles.
The motion of planets by which we set our watch aright is unthinkable without the existence of God who made the universe and gave them move and supervises it now.
The conception in and birth from womb are never matters of course as people think and say in Japanese "Kodomo wo tsukuru( we make a baby)" which means" we bear a baby."
Thinking of the design of man's face, we find the wisdom and love of our Creator there. It is obvious when we think in the case where the design of it were upside down.
If we call the daily occurrence like planets movement as miracles under law, we can call the miracles in the Scriptures as super-law miracles.
Some theologians say that the miracles super-law do not occur in the present time, because we need not them after the completion of the Bible as the canon.
In spite of theologians' doctrine, miracles super-law sometimes happen all around the world in answer to the prayers of believers.
They occurs according to the following words.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Heb. 13:8
"Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it." John 14:12-14
15. Satan and his devils
God created everything visible and invisible. One group of the invisible is that of angels of God. When we think of angels, we draw a mental picture of a character in a fairy tale which is like an infant flying in the air with a set of wings.
The angels portrayed by the Scriptures, however, are the marvellous beings, each one of whom has power to destroy a large number of troops (2Chr.32:21), and who made sturdy Roman soldiers terrified and trembled to become like dead men when they appeared in the presence of them (Mt 28:4).
And they sometimes show themselves like ordinary men in the human world and the Scriptures says that some people entertained them as their guests without knowing they were angels (Heb. 13:2).
Satan is the head of the angels who had once rebelled against God and degenerated and has devils as his followers. The Scriptures say that one third of all angels became dark angels taking part with Satan (2Pt 2:4; Jude6; Rev.12:4).
The name Satan means "Hater","Accuser" and "Antagonist", and he appears as the enemy of both God and men in both the Old and the New Testaments. His real character is "Lier", "Stealer" and "Destroyer" (Jn8:44; 10:8-10) and his mission is to make men oppose God in order for them to be ruined.
Satan and his devils try to make people commit sins by every ways. They deceive non-Christians by various kinds of false religions and make them worship idols. Those who worship idols worship Satan who hides himself behind the idols.
What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.I do not want you to be partners with demons. 1Cor.10:19,20
There are many kinds of idols in the world. In Japan people worship gods in their shinto shrines and do the same to the statues in the Buddhist temples. As the king Darius commanded his people to pray to himself, there are times when people are demanded to worship their governors. In Japan the Emperor Meiji and early years Showa were worshiped as gods. In modern North Korea their ex-president are adored as god. There are people who refuse to worship these idols. Satan allures them to serve some thoughts like evolutionism and atheism or make them hold wealth and honor in greater account than the true God.
Satan and his devils sometimes disguise themselves as angels of light in the presence of others.
And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their deeds. 2Cor.11:14,15
The new religion born in USA, the Jehovah's witness is very active in our country. They visit from door to door to preach people down keeping themselves neat and trim and sometimes taking their infants along. They continue to delude people with smile and skillful speech saying "We are Christians, would you please listen to us". But they themselves are deluded and manipulated by Satan and not conscious of their sin deceiving people.
1 April 2008 Published
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