The Lord’s Supper and the Cultural Mandate

We saw in the words that Jesus taught us to pray that we are to pray for the consummation of all things—for God’s name to be hallowed, for his kingdom to come, for his will to be done, all “on earth as it is in heaven.” This is the great prayer of the church—that the veil of the firmament would be rent and that heaven and earth would be face to face as they were always meant to be. This understanding of God’s purpose in history, that earth would become like heaven, gives us a better picture of what our purpose is, as well. In other words, the great prayer of the church is also the great task of the church. Going all the way back to the garden of Eden, the charge of the images of God was to “be fruitful and fill the earth, and have dominion over it”—to create a culture glorifying to Yahweh—to turn the whole world into the garden, and take the glorious creation and turn it into something fit for heaven, made after the pattern of heaven. And now we who are united to the perfect image of God, the second Adam who knew no sin are called to take up and continue that task, even as our Lord Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father with dominion over all things in heaven and on earth, and as he fills the earth with the glory of God by growing his church, making his bride mature and perfect, spotless and blameless and glorious for the last day.

What does all this have to do with the Lord’s Supper? Well, everything. But here are two things for us to remember: First of all, the Divine Service of Covenant Renewal is the weekly moment in this age in which we get a foretaste, by faith, of the last day when the heavenly veil will finally be torn once and for all. I don’t get tired of reminding you of what happens here for us every Lord’s Day—we are brought into the heavenlies in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in a special way. Earth ascends to heaven, and so earth is transformed a little bit more into heaven, as we feast together with the Lord Jesus in the Heavenly Holy of Holies.

The second thing to remember is that the gifts we receive in the Lord’s Supper—bread and wine—are gifts that we have also given. They are a gift from the church to the Lord (given in the tribute offering) of the work of our hands, the fulfillment of the cultural mandate. For what is bread? It is the fruit of the ground, glorified. And what is wine? It is the fruit of the vine glorified. It is water glorified. By God’s grace we have taken what he has given us in creation, and made it better. And what we do with bread and wine, we must do with the whole of creation, every corner of the earth that has been graciously placed under our dominion must be brought under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and reshaped for his glory, after the pattern of heaven.

This is the Lord’s Table…