First, as to the nature of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, this is a cardinal point. If we understand not the nature of the ordinance, we shall be astray in all our thoughts about it. The Supper, then, is purely and distinctly a feast of thanksgiving — thanksgiving for grace already received. The Lord Himself, at the institution of it, marks its character by giving thanks. “He . . . took bread: . . . when He had given thanks.” Praise, and not prayer, is the suited utterance of those who sit at the table of the Lord.
True, we have much to pray for, much to confess, much to mourn over, but the table is not the place for mourners: Its language is, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.” Ours is a “cup of blessing,” a cup of thanksgiving, the divinely appointed symbol of that precious blood which has procured our ransom. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” How, then, could we break it with sad hearts or sorrowful countenances? Could a family circle, after the toils of the day, sit down to supper with sighs and gloomy looks? Surely not. The supper was the great family meal, the only one that was sure to bring all the family together. Faces that might not have been seen during the day were sure to be seen at the supper table, and no doubt they would be happy there. Just so it should be at the Lord’s Supper: The family should assemble there, and when assembled, they should be happy, unfeignedly happy, in the love that brings them together. True, each heart may have its own peculiar history — its secret sorrows, trials, failures and temptations, unknown to all around, but these are not the objects to be contemplated at the Supper: To bring them into view is to dishonor the Lord of the feast and make the cup of blessing a cup of sorrow. The Lord has invited us to the feast and commanded us, notwithstanding all our shortcomings, to place the fullness of His love and the cleansing efficacy of His blood between our souls and everything, and when the eye of faith is filled with Christ, there is no room for anything beside. If my sin be the object which fills my eye and engages my thoughts, of course I must be miserable, because I am looking right away from what God commands me to contemplate; I am remembering my misery and poverty, the very things which God commands me to forget. Hence the true character of the ordinance is lost, and, instead of being a feast of joy and gladness, it becomes a season of gloom and spiritual depression, and the preparation for it and the thoughts which are entertained about it are more what might be expected in reference to Mount Sinai than to a happy family feast.
If ever a feeling of sadness could have prevailed at the celebration of this ordinance, surely it would have been on the occasion of its first institution, when, as we shall see when we come to consider the second point in our subject, there was everything that could possibly produce deep sadness and desolation of spirit. Yet the Lord Jesus could “give thanks”; the tide of joy that flowed through His soul was far too deep to be ruffled by surrounding circumstances; He had a joy even in the breaking and bruising of His body and in the pouring forth of His blood which lay far beyond the reach of human thought and feeling. And if He could rejoice in spirit and give thanks in breaking that bread which was to be to all future generations of the faithful the memorial of His broken body, should not we rejoice therein, we who stand in the blessed results of all His toil and passion? Yes; it becomes us to rejoice.
But it may be asked, Is there no preparation necessary? Are we to sit down at the table of the Lord with as much indifference as if we were sitting down to an ordinary supper table? Surely not — we need to be right in our souls, and the first step toward this is peace with God — that sweet assurance of our eternal salvation which most certainly is not the result of human sighs or penitential tears, but the simple result of the finished work of the Lamb of God, attested by the Spirit of God. Apprehending this by faith, we apprehend that which makes us perfectly fit for God. Many imagine that they are putting honor upon the Lord’s table when they approach it with their souls bowed down into the very dust, under a sense of the intolerable burden of their sins. This thought can only flow from the legalism of the human heart, that ever-fruitful source of thoughts at once dishonoring to God, dishonoring to the cross of Christ, grievous to the Holy Spirit, and completely subversive of our own peace. We may feel quite satisfied that the honor and purity of the Lord’s table are more fully maintained when the blood of Christ is made the only title than if human sorrow and human penitence were added to it.
However, the question of preparedness will come more fully before us as we proceed with our subject. I shall therefore state another principle connected with the nature of the Lord’s Supper, that there is involved in it an intelligent recognition of the oneness of the body of Christ. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” Now there was sad failure and sad confusion in reference to this point at Corinth; indeed, the great principle of the church’s oneness would seem to have been totally lost sight of there. Hence the Apostle observes that “when ye come together . . . into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper, for . . . every one taketh before other his own supper” (1 Cor. 11:20-21). Here, it was isolation, and not unity; an individual, and not a corporate question: “His own supper” is strikingly contrasted with “the Lord’s supper.” The Lord’s Supper demands that the body be fully recognized: If the one body be not recognized, it is but sectarianism; the Lord Himself has lost His place. If the table be spread upon any narrower principle than that which would embrace the whole body of Christ, it is become a sectarian table and has lost its claim upon the hearts of the faithful. On the contrary, where a table is spread upon this divine principle, which embraces all the members of the body simply as such, everyone who refuses to present himself at it is chargeable with schism, and that, too, upon the plain principles of 1 Corinthians 11. “There must,” says the Apostle, “be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”
When the great church principle is lost sight of by any portion of the body, there must be heresies, in order that the approved ones may be made manifest! And under such circumstances it becomes the business of each one to approve himself, and so to eat. The “approved” ones stand in contrast with the heretics, or those who were doing their own will.
But it may be asked, Do not the numerous denominations at present existing in the professing church altogether preclude the idea of ever being able to gather the whole body together? And, under such circumstances, is it not better for each denomination to have its own table? If there be any force in this question, it merely goes to prove that the people of God are no longer able to act upon God’s principles, but that they are left to the miserable alternative of acting on human expediency. Thank God, such is not the case. The truth of the Lord endures forever, and what the Holy Spirit teaches in 1 Corinthians 11 is binding upon every member of the church of God. There were divisions, heresies and unholiness existing in the assembly at Corinth, just as there are divisions, heresies and unholiness existing in the professing church now, but the Apostle did not tell them to set up separate tables on the one hand, nor yet to cease from breaking bread on the other. No; he presses upon them the principles and the holiness connected with “the church of God,” and tells those who could approve themselves accordingly to eat. The expression is, “So let him eat.” We are to eat, therefore: Our care must be to eat “so,” as the Holy Spirit teaches us, and that is in the true recognition of the holiness and oneness of the church of God. When the church is despised, the Spirit must be grieved and dishonored and the certain end will be spiritual barrenness and freezing formalism, and although men may substitute intellectual for spiritual power, and human talents and attainments for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, yet will the end be “like the heath in the desert.” The true way to make progress in the divine life is to live for the church and not for ourselves. The man who lives for the church is in full harmony with the mind of the Spirit and must necessarily grow. On the contrary, the man who is living for himself, having his thoughts revolving around and his energies concentrated upon himself, must soon become cramped and formal and, in all probability, openly worldly. Yes, he will become worldly, in some sense of that extensive term, for the world and the church stand in direct opposition, the one to the other, nor is there any aspect of the world in which this opposition is more fully seen than in its religious aspect. What is commonly called the religious world will be found, when examined in the light of the presence of God, to be more thoroughly hostile to the true interests of the church of God than almost anything.
But I must hasten on to other branches of our subject, only stating another simple principle connected with the Lord’s Supper, to which I desire to call the special attention of the Christian reader; it is this: The celebration of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper should be the distinct expression of the unity of all believers and not merely of the unity of a certain number gathered on certain principles which distinguish them from others. If there be any term of communion proposed, save the all-important one of faith in the atonement of Christ and a walk consistent with that faith, the table becomes the table of a sect and possesses no claims upon the hearts of the faithful.
Furthermore, if by sitting at the table I must identify myself with any one thing, whether it be principle or practice, not enjoined in Scripture as a term of communion, there also the table becomes the table of a sect. It is not a question of whether there may be Christians there or not; it would be hard indeed to find a table among the reformed communities of which some Christians are not partakers. The Apostle did not say, “There must be heresies among you, that they which are Christians may be made manifest among you.” No, but, “That they which are approved.” Nor did he say, “Let a man prove himself a Christian, and so let him eat.” No, but, “Let a man approve himself,” that is, let him show himself to be one of those who are not only upright in their consciences as to their individual act in the matter, but who are also confessing the oneness of the body of Christ. When men set up terms of communion of their own, there you find the principle of heresy; there, too, there must be schism. On the contrary, where a table is spread in such a manner and upon such principles as that a Christian, subject to God, can take his place at it, then it becomes schism not to be there, for by being there and by walking consistently with our position and profession, we, so far as in us lies, confess the oneness of the church of God — that grand object for which the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven to earth. The Lord Jesus, having been raised from the dead and having taken His seat at the right hand of God, sent down the Holy Spirit to earth for the purpose of forming one body. Mark, to form one body — not many bodies. He has no sympathy with the many bodies, as such, though He has blessed sympathy with many members in those bodies, because they, though being members of sects or schisms, are, nevertheless, members of the one body. But He does not form the many bodies, but the one body, for “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13).
I desire that there may be no misunderstanding on this point. I say the Holy Spirit cannot approve the schisms in the professing church, for He Himself has said of such, “I praise you not.” He is grieved by them — He would counteract them; He baptizes all believers into the unity of the one body, so that it cannot be thought, by any intelligent mind, that the Holy Spirit could sustain schisms, which are a grief and a dishonor to Him.
We must, however, distinguish between the Spirit’s dwelling in the church and His dwelling in individuals. He dwells in the body of Christ, which is the church (1 Cor. 3:17; Eph. 2:22); He dwells also in the body of the believer, as we read, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God” (1 Cor. 6:19). The only body or community, therefore, in which the Spirit can dwell is the whole church of God, and the only person in which He can dwell is the believer. But, as has already been observed, the table of the Lord, in any given locality, should be the exhibition of the unity of the whole church. This leads us to another principle connected with the nature of the Lord’s Supper.
It is an act whereby we not only show the death of the Lord until He come, but whereby we also give expression to a fundamental truth, which cannot be too strongly or too frequently pressed upon the minds of Christians at the present day, that all believers are one loaf — one body. It is a very common error to view this ordinance merely as a channel through which grace flows to the soul of the individual, and not as an act bearing upon the whole body, and bearing also upon the glory of the Head of the church. That it is a channel through which grace flows to the soul of the individual communicant there can be no doubt, for there is blessing in every act of obedience. But that individual blessing is only a very small part of it can be seen by the attentive reader of 1 Corinthians 11. It is the Lord’s death and the Lord’s coming that are brought prominently before our souls in the Lord’s Supper, and where any one of these elements is excluded there must be something wrong. If there be anything to hinder the complete showing forth of the Lord’s death or the exhibition of the unity of the body or the clear perception of the Lord’s coming, then there must be something radically wrong in the principle on which the table is spread, and we only need a single eye and a mind entirely subject to the Word and Spirit of Christ in order to detect the wrong.
Let the Christian reader now prayerfully examine the table at which he periodically takes his place and see if it will bear the threefold test of 1 Corinthians 11, and if not, let him, in the name of the Lord and for the sake of the church, abandon it. There are heresies, and schisms flowing from heresies, in the professing church, but “let a man [approve] himself, and so let him eat” the Lord’s Supper. And if we ask what the term “approved” means, the answer is that it is in the first place to be personally true to the Lord in the act of breaking bread. In the next place, it is to shake off all schism and take our stand, firmly and decidedly, upon the broad principle which will embrace all the members of the flock of Christ. We are not only to be careful that we ourselves are walking in purity of heart and life before the Lord, but also that the table of which we partake has nothing connected with it that could at all act as a barrier to the unity of the church. It is not merely a personal question. Nothing more fully proves the low ebb of Christianity at the present day or the fearful extent to which the Holy Spirit is grieved than the miserable selfishness which tinges, even pollutes, the thoughts of professing Christians. Everything is made to hinge upon the mere question of self. It is my forgiveness — my safety — my peace — my happy feelings, and not the glory of Christ or the welfare of His beloved church. Well, therefore, may the words of the prophet be applied to us: “Thus saith the Lord, . . . Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of [My] house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (Hag. 1:7-9). Here is the root of the matter. Self stands in contrast with the house of God, and if self be made the object, no marvel that there should be a sad lack of spiritual joy, energy and power. To have these, we must be in fellowship with the Spirit’s thoughts. He thinks of the body of Christ, and if we are thinking of self, we must be at issue with Him, and the consequences are but too apparent.