Heidelberg Catechism Week 30

80. Q. How does the Lord's Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass? A. The Lord's Supper declares to us that our sins have been completely forgiven through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ which He Himself finished on the cross once for all. It also declares to us that the Holy Spirit grafts us into Christ, who with His very body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father where He wants us to worship Him. But the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have their sins forgiven through the suffering of Christ unless Christ is still offered for them daily by the priests. It also teaches that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine where Christ is therefore to be worshiped. Thus the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and a condemnable idolatry.

81. Q. Who are to come to the Lord's Table? A. Those who are displeased with themselves because of their sins, but who nevertheless trust that their sins are pardoned and that their continuing weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to lead a better life. Hypocrites and those who are unrepentant, however, eat and drink judgment on themselves.

82. Q. Are those to be admitted to the Lord's Supper who show by what they say and do that they are unbelieving and ungodly? A. No, that would dishonor God's covenant and bring down God's anger upon the entire congregation. Therefore, according to the instruction of Christ and His apostles, the Christian church is duty-bound to exclude such people, by the official use of the keys of the kingdom, until they reform their lives.

My reflections on the reading from the book...

The Lord's Supper is something the Christian needs, yes - but not as an atonement. Rather, it is a means by which we can regularly declare the truths that our sins have been forgiven, that Christ is interceding for us before the throne, and that the Holy Spirit is working in and through the Church, the Body of Christ, to advance Christ's kingdom.

Excerpts from DeYoung:

Communion is for the weak, but it is not for the hypocrite. Hypocrites are not those who live worse than they profess - that's all of us. Hypocrites are those who cannot see, or are not honest about the gap between their talk and their walk. The Table is for those who hate their sins, not for those who coddle them or excuse them or make no effort to turn from them...

To be fair, Catholic theology does not consider the Eucharist a re-sacrifice of Christ... Official Catholic teaching does not argue that Christ's death must be repeated over and over. Rather, it teaches that in the Eucharist the death of Christ is pulled into the present for us to enjoy sacramentally...

At the very least we can object to: (1) the notion that the finished work of Christ (John 19:30) is somehow atemporal and can be pulled into the present, (2) the belief that the Mass is in any way a sacrifice for sins, and (3) the idea that the elements become the actual body and blood of Christ...

The Lord's Supper is to be celebrated not on an altar, but around a table (1 Cor. 11:20). The only altar we have is the cross (Heb. 13:10; 7:27; 10:10), and the only ongoing sacrifices are the praises on our lips (13:15) and the obedience of our lives (Rom. 12:1).