Eating and Drinking Christ

To Herman Hoeksema's profound and fresh exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism is added this new volume, the seventh in The Triple Knowledge series, a vigorous discussion of the doctrine of the Lord's supper. Eating and Drinking Christ continues the author's treatment of the sacraments begun in volume 6, Baptized into Christ, in which he discussed the idea and institution of the sacraments in general and the sacrament of baptism in particular.

Following Lord's Day 28, he begins with the institution of the Lord's supper, followed by a description of the symbolism and the significance of the sacrament, explaining what it means to eat and drink Christ. He shows that the underlying truth and central meaning of the supper is that by it we are united with Christ, so that we are bone of his bone.

Next the author deals with the three major views of the Lord's supper. He rejects the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and using the strong language of the Catechism, calls the Romish teaching an accursed idolatry. He also refuses the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, showing how it is incorrect. In contrast to these errors, he sets forth the biblical and Reformed view that the sacrament is a spiritual eating and drinking of Christ.

Hoeksema concludes his treatment of the sacrament by describing both positively and negatively the proper partakers of the supper. They are those who are truly sorry for their sins, believing that they are forgiven through Christ, and who desire to have their faith strengthened. But hypocrites and all who show by their confessions and lives that they are ungodly must be barred from the supper by the exercise of the keys of the

kingdom of heaven.

This mention of the keys gives the author the opportunity to segue into an explanation of the two keys, the preaching and Christian discipline, in which he emphasizes especially how these keys open and close the kingdom.