What is the character of the Lord’s Supper? and what is the meaning of it? Both these questions are answered by the Lord Himself. His action tells us of the one, and His words teach us about the other. “He gave thanks.” Then the service is eucharistic indeed; for that is all that we are told that He did before He broke the bread and gave it to His disciples. And a second time He gave thanks before He handed to them the cup of which they were to drink. That He gave thanks before He handed them the cup both Luke and Paul imply; but Matthew and Mark expressly state it. Agreeing in this they agree also in stating that He blessed before He broke the bread, whereas Luke and Paul affirm He gave thanks. The difference is not great, and admits probably of this explanation, that while the two latter give the character of His utterance, the others express the form in which it came forth.
A eucharistic service then is that of the breaking of bread. He gave thanks, but in what terms we know not. Matthew, who must have heard it, is silent upon it; neither Mark, nor Luke, nor Paul have supplied the omission. It must have been a wonderful thanksgiving when the Lord gave thanks to God for the results of His atoning death, so soon to be an accomplished fact. Who on earth could enter into them as He could? Who knew like Him what the judgment of God was? Who could then understand but Himself what are the joys of the Father’s love, and the Father’s house? Full and perfect then must that thanksgiving have been, yet not a syllable of it has been preserved in God’s book. And rightly so; for since the Spirit of God is to direct our worship, the words of the Lord on that occasion have been carefully kept from us; and nowhere have we even the thanksgiving utterances of an apostle when breaking bread at the Lord’s table. Had it been otherwise, Would not such have been used as a form? and no service at the Lord’s table would have been thought complete without them. But then dependence on the Holy Spirit’s guidance would have been really surrendered. Wisely, therefore, have the terms of the Lord’s thanksgiving been omitted from the account of His institution of the supper.
Are we on this account placed at a disadvantage? No; for we know what the character of the service is to be, and we know too, from the Lord’s action, how perfect in His eyes is His atoning work; for as He gave thanks, and that only, at the institution of the supper, we are taught that nothing needed to be, nothing could be, added to the value of His sacrificial work, and that nothing more would be wanted, than what He was about to do, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. No word have we here of prayer. What room could there be to ask anything in the contemplation of accomplished atonement? Prayer may come in after the breaking of bread has taken place, as those gathered together think of saints unable to be present, or of souls still unsaved, or of anything else in connection with the Lord’s work or God’s purposes; but prayer in the place of thanksgiving when gathered to break bread is assuredly not in harmony with the Lord’s ways at His table; for the work is a perfect work, a finished work, as Scripture affirms (Heb. 10:14-1814For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, 16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. (Hebrews 10:14‑18)), and the Lord’s own action of giving thanks abundantly confirms.
C. E. S.