Reading through 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 recently, I was struck by two ideas surrounding instructions on the Lord’s Supper that increased my joy in taking the Lord’s Supper. In the churches I have been part of, the Lord’s Supper is defined as an ordinance for the Church in which the church body is to remember what the Lord accomplished on the cross. This has been traditionally termed by theologians as the Memorial View of the Lord’s Supper. I whole-heartedly embrace this view. This view takes the Lord Supper as an act of worship where believers remember Christ’s sufferings on the Cross. The verses most often read before eating the bread and drinking the cup are found in Paul’s Lord’s-Supper instructions to the Corinthians found in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26:
“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (ESV)
In giving this instruction to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul is reminding them of the tradition Jesus handed down for His people. Do you see the command there? “Do this in remembrance of me.” Here we have Jesus’ command for His people: do this. We are to do the Lord’s Supper. This ordinance of eating bread and drinking the fruit of the vine is to be a regular aspect of our worship to God.
The word for remembrance used in our 1 Corinthians passage is only used four times in the New Testament. It is first seen in Luke 22:19, from which Paul quotes twice in 1 Corinthians 11:24 and 25. The only other time that specific word for remembrance is found in the New Testament is in the book of Hebrews.
In Hebrews 10:1-10, we are told that the law was only a shadow of the good things to come (10:1). We are also told that sacrifices of the old covenant were offered every year because they could not make perfect those who draw near to God. Instead, “in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (vv. 3-4). That’s our word in Corinthians. Those sacrifices were a reminder, a remembrance. A reminder of what, exactly? A reminder of sins. That is, the old covenant sacrifices were a constant reminder that our sins were not fully paid, that there was still a need for sin to be dealt with once and for all, that there was still a cosmic curtain closing off access to God because of our sins. Jesus, however, offered himself as a sacrifice for sins that truly did accomplish forgiveness, true and full atonement. Jesus established the new covenant. “He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (vv. 9-10).
What we have in the Lord’s Supper, then, is a remembrance, a reminder. But it is not a remembrance of sin, like the blood of bulls and goats were during the old covenant. What we have is a remembrance, a reminder, of complete forgiveness! We have a remembrance of full access to God! As we take the bread and drink the cup, we remember that we are forgiven because of the body of Jesus broken for us and his blood shed for us on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins. Instead of taking the Lord’s Supper as primarily a time for introspection, to confess and repent of sin, take the Lord’s Supper as primarily a time for extrospection, a time to look outside of yourself to the elements of bread and wine, and there remember the forgiveness of your sins in the body and blood of Jesus. For thousands of years God’s people had a reminder of their need of forgiveness, but now, for the last two millennia, we have a reminder of full forgiveness found in Christ’s sacrifice of Himself for us on the cross.
And if all that isn’t reason enough to be excited for the Lord’s Supper, there are two other aspects of the Lord’s Supper that will fuel our love for the Lord and enhance our worship experience of taking the Lord’s Supper. Those two aspects, from which the title of this post comes, are participation and proclamation. You see, Paul’s instruction on the Lord’s Supper does not begin in chapter 11. Rather, it begins in chapter 10.
First, the Lord’s Supper is a participation in Christ.
“Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons” 1 Corinthians 10:14-20.
Do you see that there, the word participation? The Apostle Paul uses the reality of what happens when Christians partake of the Lord’s Supper as a grounds for commanding the Corinthians to flee from idolatry. The cup of blessing that we bless and the bread that we break is a participation in the blood and body of Christ, therefore we ought to resist temptation and flee idolatry. Because we participate in Christ, we are to pursue holiness. The charge to flee idolatry is grounded in the reality of participation, which is displayed in the Lord’s Supper. So what does this mean? What does it mean that the Lord’s Supper is a participation in Christ? A more common word is fellowship. We have fellowship with Christ. He is present with us; he will never leave us nor forsake us; he dwells among us. Next time you partake of the Lord’s Supper, remember not only that Christ died for your sins, but also remember that you now have a participation in Christ, that is, you now have fellowship with God.
Not only is the Lord’s Supper a participation, it is a proclamation. Look again at 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 26. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
When the church gathers and practices the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, we are proclaiming something to the cosmos. What are we proclaiming? The Lord’s sacrificial, sin-atoning death on the cross. The word proclaim is always used in the New Testament to refer to the proclamation of the gospel message, that Jesus died for sins and rose again from the dead. When you take the Lord’s Supper, do you realize that you are doing an act of gospel-proclamation? You are proclaiming to the world and to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places that Jesus has cleansed His people from their sins; you are proclaiming that there is only one way of salvation, and that way is through the body and blood of Jesus, symbolized in the bread and cup. You are telling the world that this one bread, this one cup, is the one way to be forgiven, redeemed, and welcomed into fellowship with the Triune God.
These twin realities, participation and proclamation, should fuel and inform our worship at the Lord’s Supper. Brothers and sisters, next time you partake of the Lord’s Supper, I encourage you to remember that Jesus Christ atoned for your sins, you are completely forgiven! When you take the Lord’s Supper, remember that you are participating in Christ, you have fellowship with God. When you take the Lord’s Supper, remember that you are proclaiming God’s one way of salvation through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the Cross.
A prayer from Matthew Henry’s book, A Way to Pray:
“Let this cup that blesses bring us into a united participation in the benefits of Christ’s blood. Let this bread which we break bring us into a united participation in the benefits of Christ’s body. By this thanksgiving celebration let us continually proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Amen.
Sound Teaching, Sound Living 