Heidelberg Catechism: 'Who are to come to the table of the Lord?'
LORD’S DAY 30
80. What difference is there between the Lord’s Supper and the Popish Mass?The Lord’s Supper testifies to us, that we have complete forgiveness of all our sins by the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which He Himself has once accomplished on the cross;1 and that by the Holy Spirit we are grafted into Christ,2 who with His true body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father,3 and is to be worshipped there4. But the Mass teaches, that the living and the dead do not have forgiveness of sins through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ He is still daily offered for them by the priests; and that Christ is bodily present under the form of bread and wine, and is therefore to be worshipped in them. Therefore, the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and passion of Jesus Christ, and an accursed idolatry.
1 Mt 26:28; Jn 19:30; Heb 7:27, 9:12, 10:10-18; 2 1 Cor 6:17, 10:16-17; 3 Jn 20:17; Acts 7:55-56; Heb 1:3, 8:1; 4 Jn 4:21-24; Php 3:20; Col 3:1; 1 Thes 1:10
81. Who are to come to the table of the Lord?
Those who are displeased with themselves for their sins, yet trust that these are forgiven them, and that their remaining infirmity is covered by the passion and death of Christ; who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and amend their life. But the impenitent and hypocrites eat and drink judgment to themselves.1
1 1 Cor 10:19-22, 11:26-32
82. Are they then also to be admitted to this Supper, who show themselves to be, by their confession and life, unbelieving and ungodly?
No, for by this the covenant of God is profaned, and His wrath provoked against the whole congregation;1 wherefore the Christian Church is bound, according to the order of Christ and His Apostles, by the office of the keys to exclude such persons, until they amend their life.
1 Ps 50:16; Isa 1:11-17; 1 Cor 11:17-34
