This truth is deeply reflected in historic Reformed practices regarding the observance of the Lord’s Supper. For instance, the truth of Jesus’ sole mediation is one reason the Presbyterian ministers stand behind the communion table (and not in front of it) when the Lord’s Supper is administered. We do not mediate between God and his people. We are instruments not mediators. We are pastors not priests. The people of God do not come to Jesus through us, rather Jesus’s administers his call to table fellowship through us directly to his people, and they come to him. Thus the Lord’s Supper is a meal, and he is the host and mediator. His ministers are but servants and stewards, announcing in his own words his invitation to repentant sinners, burdened saints to come, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to come “take, eat, drink” and sup with the risen, ascended, enfleshed Lord at the right hand of his Father, by faith. This is, by the way, something that has been forgotten in the unintended symbolism of some of the diversity of communion practices in many of the Reformed churches today.
— Ligon Duncan, “What Gathered Worship Should Look Like: Mediated”
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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