The Lord's Table
Gordon Henry Hayhoe
Table of Contents
The Lord's Table
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come."
-1 Cor. 11:26.
The Lord's Table
The desire is, or should be, in the heart of every true believer to remember the Lord in His death, by partaking of the Lord's supper each first day of the week. (1 Cor. 11:26, Acts 20:7.) What a privilege this is, until He comes! How can we but respond to love like His? Surely it ought to constrain our hearts more and more. However it is noticeable that, because of its importance, the truth as to the Lord's table precedes the instructions as to the Lord's supper in the epistle to the Corinthians.
The Lord would have us partake of His supper in the place and way He chooses, not as we choose, for it is never right to follow our own wills. Self-will is sin. He orders for us in wisdom and love, as He has always done for His people. He chose a center for His earthly people Israel, and He only acknowledged that center. No other would do. (Deut. 12:13,14.) We also notice that when the Lord instituted His supper on the night of His betrayal, He chose the place for them. (Luke 22:8-20.) Again, later, after His resurrection, He chose the place He would meet with them before He ascended. (Matt. 28:16.) Then, after this, He chose Jerusalem as the place where the disciples were to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. (Luke 24:49.) And so today, we have the Word of God, speaking with equal clearness as to the Lord's table and the Lord's supper. Let us notice a few simple Scriptures in this connection.
The Lord's table is that which the Lord has set up according to His Word, where He is in the midst (1 Cor. 10:21, Matt. 18:20), where His authority is owned (Matt. 18:17,18; 1 Cor. 5: 41. and where the unity of the body of Christ is expressed by the one loaf on the table. (1 Cor. 10:17.) The local assembly is the local expression of this. How precious this is to faith! The ritual that God gave to Israel has now been set aside, and we can enter the very "holiest of all" through the rent veil. (Heb. 10:19,20.) That is where we worship now, as members of the body of Christ, bearing testimony to His finished work, while we await His coming as the Bridegroom for the Church-His bride.
What a privilege it is to remember the Lord in His own appointed way! Though we are not told to invite all believers to His table, yet we know they are all represented in the one loaf, and we can teach them the truth of it, receiving them gladly, when we can do so to the glory of God. (Rom. 15:6,7.) The Lord Himself invites them, but let us bear in mind that although it is the responsibility of each believer who breaks bread to examine himself, (1 Cor. 11:28), it is ALSO the responsibility of the assembly to judge evil in its midst. (1 Cor. 5:12,13.) God's assembly is the pillar and ground of the truth, and soundness in faith as to the person and work of Christ are of vital importance. (1 Tim. 3:15.) Because of these things we have to be careful as to who is received at the Lord's table. Even though an individual Christian may be sound in the faith, and godly as to his own personal walk, yet if he knowingly remains in a group where moral or doctrinal evil is allowed, he is having fellowship with the evil, and is defiled thereby; for "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (1 Cor. 5:6.) The act of breaking bread is the expression of fellowship with the table where one breaks bread (1 Cor. 10:18-22), and so the Word of God calls upon each believer to purge himself from the "vessels to dishonor" and to "depart from iniquity". (2 Tim. 2:18-22.) To remain in an unscriptural position would be to say that there is more than one Lord's table, one set up and owned of the Lord in separation from evil, and others set up by men. It is the Lord's glory we would seek as we "endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace". (Eph. 4:3.) We do not wish to offend, for we love every true believer, and are members one of another in the body of Christ. but would ask each one to examine these things in the light of God's Word. Divisions and sects in the professing church are the result, either of the allowance of evil. or the denial of the all-sufficiency of the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ as a gathering center, and His authority in the midst of His gathered saints.
In making these remarks we are conscious of much failure on our part, and would be humbled by it. How grievously we have failed, but even this does not alter the truth of God, and we would still seek to maintain divine principles. It is our desire, though with but a little strength, to "keep Christ's Word and not deny His Name" till He comes.
How precious to be gathered as those united by the Spirit to Christ in glory-not of this world. (John 17:14.) The Church is the bride of Christ, and espoused as a chaste virgin to Him. (2 Cor. 11:2.) The beauty of Israel of old was in having the Lord's comeliness put upon them (Ezek. 16:14), and they were to be separate from the nations, dwelling alone. (Num. 23:9.) Their national failure was in their desire to be like the nations about them. (1 Sam. 8:5,19,20.) Anything that marks the child of God as of the world is a practical denial of his heavenly calling. May we each, in the unity of the Spirit, "speak the same thing" (1 Cor. 1:10) and seek to walk as those led of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), manifesting those divine affections that produce "the same care one for another" as members of the body of Christ. If we were all exercised as to this, then the world which rejected our precious Savior, would see in all His saints, gathered to His precious Name, that our joy is in the Lord. May it be more so, as the Lord's coming draws nearer!
"Till Thou shalt come in glory,
And call us hence away,
To rest in all the brightness
Of that unclouded day,
We show Thy death, Lord Jesus,
And here would seek to be
More to Thy death conformed,
Whilst we remember Thee."
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