(1 Cor. 10, 11)
NOTES OF A BIBLE READING.
MOST Christians understand the object of the Lord’s Supper, but the fullness of its meaning is not so generally apprehended. Significance has to be distinguished from object, as for instance in the case of a royal salute. Few fail to understand that guns are fired in honor of royalty, but are there many who know why twenty-one guns are let off on such occasions? Why not twenty-two?
In contrast to the numerous symbols of the Jewish system, Christianity has only three—water, bread, and wine. The last two are used in the Lord’s Supper. After giving thanks, the Lord broke the bread and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is for you” (1 Cor. 11:2424And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. (1 Corinthians 11:24); “broken” is supposed to be an interpolation). The bread, therefore, is a token of the Lord’s body. Likewise, He took the cup after He had supped, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood,” &c. (vers. 25, 26). The cup, therefore, speaks of the shed blood of the Lord, and the partaking of both the bread and the wine is an announcement of the Lord’s death in this world.
It does not appear that the actual breaking of the bread represents the death of Christ, but rather the bread being separate from the wine and being taken in separation. If a Jew were brought to the Lord’s Day morning meeting, and told that the bread on the table was a symbol of the Lord’s body, and the wine of His blood, he would at once understand that the Founder of Christianity had died. For how could the blood be separate from the body except in death?
1 Corinthians 11:2626For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. (1 Corinthians 11:26) gives us, then, the great primary meaning of the Lord’s Supper. However unworthily souls may partake, and however dull their affections, yet wherever the bread is eaten and the cup is partaken of, there is in that act a pictorial announcement of the Lord’s death till He come. This is true even in the Greek and Roman Churches, where, alas! the object of the Supper is lost. For it is for them not a memorial but a sacrifice. Still, the meaning remains indestructible through grace.
Our taking the bread (the body) before the cup (the blood) may be called reversing the natural order of a sacrifice in which the blood was always first dealt with, for the shedding of the blood slew the victim. In “the Lord’s death,” God’s Lamb, it was not so, for He “laid down” His life of Himself, and after death His blood was shed. His death was as miraculous and divine as His birth, yet He was very Man in both.
The object of the Supper, therefore, is to recall to the hearts of the saints the Lord’s death. It is His own means of reminding them of Himself, and of His infinite love displayed in His death.
What is the qualification to partake of the Lord’s Supper? That of being a true Christian and walking godly. The title consists in being children of God, though soundness in faith and walk are necessary. A parent takes his meals at certain hours, and his children in taking their places at table, will first see that their hands are clean. But the fact of having clean hands does not in itself entitle them to present themselves at table. So all Christians should come to the Lord’s Table, but they should first remove any disqualification, such as sin on the conscience, by confessing it. “Let a man examine (prove) himself” (vs. 28).
Neither baptism nor the Lord’s Supper is a condition of salvation, but are they not both binding on all believers? It was the Lord’s expressed desire that His saints should remember Him, and should not His word bow their hearts to fulfill it? “This do in remembrance of Me,” said the Lord. It is reported than an invitation from a royal person is looked upon as a command, and must be obeyed. What Christian would do otherwise than accept the gracious invitation of the Son of God?
The tenth chapter of Corinthians adds another and very important point to the significance of the Supper, and brings in the Lord’s Table. It would thus come under the notice of the reader before the object, which, as we have seen, is stated in the next chapter. It thus appears that God presents the truth in an order the reverse of that in which it is learned in the experience of the saint. In Leviticus the burnt-offering is described before the sin-offering, yet who can apprehend the burnt-offering aspect of the death of Christ before he has discerned Him as the antitype of the sin-offering?
In chapter 10 the truth of the Lord’s Table seems to be given in support of the apostle’s injunction to “flee from idolatry.” To eat a thing offered to an idol was to have fellowship with the idol—to be identified with it. The Jews of old, who partook of the sacrifices, were fellow-partakers with the altar (vs. 18). Similarly he who drinks the Lord’s cup, expresses his fellowship in Christ’s blood, and to partake of the Lord’s Table is to have communion or fellowship with His body. This seems to be the meaning given in Scripture to eating and drinking. Those who eat the Lord’s Supper or “partake of the Lord’s Table” express their fellowship or common interest in His death.
But in addition, the one loaf signifies the Church, the aggregate of all Christians, for it is written, “For we being many are one bread, one body.” Hence any system which does not allow all Christians, not otherwise disqualified, from partaking of the loaf, denies this truth, and surely is in nature sectarian, however little it may be so intended. It overlooks this aspect of the Lord’s Supper, under which all Christians are displayed as members of Christ’s body, and thus members one of another.
The Passover feast, though it had to be eaten in the place where Jehovah put His name, was a family feast. Not so the Lord’s Supper. It would lose the true significance of 1 Corinthians 10 if individual families were to celebrate it in their own houses, though they would attain its object of calling to mind their precious Saviour and His death for them. So in the sects of Christendom, piety attains the object of the Supper in remembering the Lord; and the meaning as presented in 1 Corinthians 11 is also seen, for the death of the Lord is announced visibly; but the significance of the one loaf before it is broken, as picturing the one Church (1 Cor. 10) is lost.