The sermon opens with two readings that anchor the whole message: Matthew 26:26-29, where Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper with his disciples at the Passover, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, where Paul hands down the same tradition to the Corinthian church. Against the backdrop of Jesus' final days in Jerusalem, the sermon sets the scene of the Last Supper. Jesus has been exposing the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious teachers, who preach a false religion of self-earned righteousness — some lying about their own goodness, others quietly trusting that their imperfect obedience is still good enough. Jesus condemns both postures and calls all people to abandon self-righteousness and turn to God in humility, a message that so enrages the religious leaders that they conspire to have him killed. It is in this context, at the Passover meal, that Jesus takes bread and wine and reinterprets them: "This is my body... this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The sermon insists this is the gospel's focal point — Jesus lives the righteous life sinners could not live and dies the sinner's death they deserved, so that in union with him believers are counted not merely forgiven but righteous.

The sermon then asks why Christ's death is commemorated specifically through eating bread and drinking wine, and offers two reasons. First, because bread and wine were the most basic sustaining foods of that culture, their use signals that Jesus himself is the one who sustains and gives life to all who receive him, echoing John 6's "I am the bread of life." Second, because bread represents flesh and wine represents blood, the meal deliberately highlights the violence of Jesus' redemption — believers, as "spiritual carnivores," have their life sustained by another's death.

From here the sermon turns polemical, addressing two doctrinal errors in Roman Catholic theology. The first error treats the Lord's Supper as a repeated sacrifice that supplies additional grace beyond what Christ's historic death provided, on the premise that the cross alone is sufficient to escape hell but insufficient, without further sacramental grace, to enter heaven. The sermon rejects this outright, appealing to Hebrews 10 ("it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins") and the logic of Old Testament sacrifice: just as the animals only forgave because they anticipated Christ, so the Supper only forgives because it looks back to Christ's finished work — it adds nothing to it. An illustration of a marriage renewed unnecessarily makes the point that Christ's one sacrifice is "once for all" and entirely sufficient; the church returns to the table often not because the sacrifice is repeated but because believers need to be reminded, again and again, that their sins are already fully paid for.

The second error is transubstantiation — the belief that consecrated bread and wine become the literal physical body and blood of Christ, received and applied through the act of digestion (ex opere operato), a teaching the sermon says breeds superstition. Against this, and against a bare memorialist view that denies any real presence, the sermon presents the Reformed, Calvinist position: Christ is truly present in the Supper, but spiritually rather than physically. Drawing on Hebrews 8-9's picture of a heavenly tabernacle and Christ's entrance into it as great high priest, and on the wider biblical witness to an unseen spiritual realm, the sermon argues that when believers eat the bread and drink the cup by faith, the Holy Spirit truly unites them to feed on Christ's body and blood in the spiritual realm — not as a metaphor for faith but as the real fruit of a faith already given. Only those united to Christ by the Spirit, evidenced by their faith, actually feast on him; for the unbeliever the bread remains only bread.

The sermon closes with pastoral application: this new life belongs to Christ, purchased at great cost, and is not to be spent on selfish or sinful desires, illustrated by a story of a son who squandered money entrusted to him for his dying father's care. Yet rather than driving the fearful away, the solemnity of the table is an invitation — sinners who feel unworthy are precisely those Christ calls to himself, and the sermon ends urging the congregation to draw near to the table and to God's throne of grace with confidence, trusting the sufficiency of Christ's finished sacrifice.

Bible Verses Used

• Matthew 26:26-29: The sermon's primary text — Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper at the Passover, giving bread and cup as his body and blood of the covenant.

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26: Paul's parallel account of the institution, used to establish the Supper as an ongoing ordinance proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

• 1 Corinthians 10:16: Cited to show that eating and drinking at the table is a real "participation" in Christ's body and blood, grounding the Reformed view of true spiritual presence.

• Hebrews 10: Quoted ("impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins") to refute the Catholic view of the Supper as a repeated, forgiveness-granting sacrifice.

• Hebrews 8-9: Used to describe the heavenly tabernacle and Christ's entrance into it as great high priest, grounding the sermon's account of the spiritual realm where believers commune with Christ.

• John 6: Jesus' "bread of life" discourse ("unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man... whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life") is used to show the Supper's promise of life through union with Christ.

• Galatians 2:20: Applied pastorally — believers no longer live for themselves but by faith in the Son of God who gave himself for them.

• Deuteronomy 29:29: Cited on the limits of revealed knowledge, supporting the sermon's acknowledgment that the spiritual realm remains largely mysterious.