A vital part of the revelation of God is our response or participation in it.
The best example of this is the way God reveals himself through the Table of His Presence or communion. Whether it’s blessed by a priest, lovingly prepared by deacons, or passed out by ushers down rows in a church, the simple truth is that it is a participatory ordinance. Through it, we participate in the finished work of the cross. Without it, we would only be able to look backward to the cross, similar to the way that Abraham's faith makes him look forward to the cross. Instead of merely being a memorial, communion has the power to bring Christ's death into the present, making his presence tangible.
The Wesley brothers believed in its tangible power so strongly that they gave communion to those who were not saved. Upon consumption of it, these people would become convicted by the Holy Spirit and receive salvation. That's a very different process than what we have in the church today!
When we take communion, we can inwardly imagine Christ raised on the cross, his body broken and bleeding. We might not realize it, but when we do this, we see the fulfillment of the type or shadow that Moses erected when God told him to put the bronze serpent on the cross. When Moses did so, anyone dying from snake bites sent because of their rebellion, could simply look at it and receive healing. In Christ, through the work of the cross, we too, receive what we need.
Paul tells us over and over again that everything is accomplished in Christ. Christ himself tells us that when he declares “It is finished“ from amidst the agony on the cross. And what they both are referring to includes the things that were killing us—separation from God brought about by our sin, the barriers of the law between us and God as well as every other man-made barrier—he took upon himself. Christ became sin for us, became death for us, and destroyed these barriers in his flesh by taking them into his flesh (see Ephesians 2:14-16).
So to review, Christ took into himself the "dividing wall of hostility" that separates us from God and kept the Gentiles from the inheritance of the Jews. This separation brought us death. He also became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), which is what put that wall of separation and set us as enemies of God in the first place. He fulfilled the law and became the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), not abolishing it, but fulfilling it (Romans 8:4) so that it no longer was needed to convict us.
When we accept the finished work of the cross we become a new creation in Christ and surrender to the transformational work of the Holy Spirit.
The revelation of Christ’s broken body and blood not only frees us, but in the act of participation in communion, it transforms us. It transforms us because of our participation through the enablement of the Holy Spirit.
The consumption of bread and blood is only part of the participation. Unfortunately, many of us miss what Christ does before hands the cup and bread to the disciples. The Bible says he "gave thanks" or Eucharistesas. As a vessel of the Father, Jesus received the presence of the Father and returned it to the Father in a flow of worshipful glory where nothing was lost in the transfer. This is full participation in communion.
Despite the difference in the doctrine of communion, the aspect Christians should agree upon is that it is a participatory act in the finished work of Christ. And every time we participate in it—from receiving it in an act of worship to glorify God to the actual consuming of it in our bodies—the mission of Christ is revealed in the transformation it brings.
When we receive the presence of God and return it in unbroken worship, then receive the cup and the bread, we fully participate in the finished work of Christ. The law no longer has a hold on us, sin no longer separates us, all barriers are broken down, and a new creation can live in Christ.
Grace makes us whole.