Lord’s Supper: Who’s When's How’s

A Teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper

One of two ordinances

Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the two ordinances given by the Lord to symbolize the believer's union with Christ.

Baptism commemorates our identification with Christ -- a visual reminder of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus; the death of the old nature through the reception of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ; and the promise of our future hope when our mortal bodies will be raised incorruptibly for eternity.

The Lord's Supper too is a visual reminder to us of the means by which God's salvation was secured on our behalf. The bread is a symbol of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ in His body, soul and spirit. The fruit of the vine symbolizes the substitutionary, propitiatory and covenantal blood of an innocent sacrifice, shed for the remission of the sins of the guilty (see Romans 3:21-26; Hebrews 2:5-17; 7:27-28; 9:26-28; 1 Peter 3:18).

Baptism demonstrates that I’m identified in Christ, I died with (Romans 6:3-4, doctrine of identification).

The Lord's Supper, also called communion, demonstrates that Christ died for me (1 Corinthians 11:26, doctrine of substitution).

These two ordinances were established to us through the Word of God. Their signs are to be conducted when we gather together.

Elements of its biblical ordinance

1 Cor 11:20: “Lord’s Supper” from the Greek κυριακὸν δεῖπνον

deipnon: Supper/banquet/feasts/dinner/meal, kyriakon: belonging to the Lord.

—Its not an ordinary meal sharing. It does not belong to us: but to the Lord.

Lk 22: 17 when Jesus had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.

—It’s something we do in thankfulness by taking a share from something which is physically divided among the local gathered church (ἐκκλησία a term which in itself conveys gathering, assembly, congregation)

Lk 22:19, Jesus: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

—It is a command from Jesus Himself, for us to remember him, what he did in the cross specifically

—we can only experience remembrance for something the meaning of which and involvement with which we have fully appropriated in our inner self: which is why only the local gathered church members can participate in

(Mark 14:22–26 = Matt 26:26–30 = Luke 22:15–20)

1 Co 11:17–22—

17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal …[then Paul adds other inappropriate behaviors and then concludes]… What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

—It is not considered Lord’s supper if the church is segmented, each doing his/her own thing, let alone doing it disrespectfully (even when together)

1 Co 11:23–26—

23 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, 24 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.” 25 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.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

—Paul institutionalize the Lord’s supper’s in the church which would practice as often as they established to practiced it, meaning that there is no rule regarding frequency.

The New Testament provides no blueprint for the frequency of participating in the Lord's Supper. It was instituted as part of an annual event (the Passover). The apostles speak of the breaking of bread (which many interpret as a reference to the Lord's Supper) as a daily act (Acts 2:46) and a weekly celebration on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). Paul referred to the Lord's Supper in a timeless way (as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, 1 Corinthians 11:26). Regardless of the frequency with which a church celebrates the Lord's Supper, the meaning is the same -- a time to remember anew the value and joy of Jesus' sacrifice for us, His redeemed children.

But the way it is done is clearly indicated in the Bible

1 Co 11:27–32—

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

—Conducting the Lord’s supper in unreverent manner without self-examination brings guilt and judgement on him/herself

The Lord’s supper involves a physically gathered church, a group of persons which were clearly coming from different households, in an act of physical sharing in one broken loaf of bread and one cup of wine.

The full contextual passage where Paul institutionalizes the Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians 11 actually starts in the previous chapter 10 where Paul alludes to the exodus and wilderness wanderings. He speaks of one baptism into Moses in the cloud and the sea (10:1–2), one and the same spiritual food and drink (vv. 3–4), and participation in the one Christ (v. 4; cf. 8:6).

When in verse 1 Co 10:16 Paul turns to the Lord’s supper he speaks of one cup blessed and shared, of one bread broken and shared. The spiritual unity in the one body is manifested by the physical signs (the oneness of the cup and the oneness of the bread) and the act of sharing in both elements. And as we just read, Paul exhorts us to respect reverential emphasis following the way the Lord Himself instructed us to carry out this remembrance, in the togetherness of the body of Christ.

The Specific Issue of Physical Togetherness

But let us dive further in the specific issue of physical togetherness. Because one could say that what matters is spiritual unity. So can we justify ourselves to change the way the sacrament was instituted by God Himself? Even if to conform to our current situation, in good spiritual intention of our unity in Christ that those symbols represent? Such signs were given to us by God in the realm of the physical. It seems clear that it is in the physical realm of togetherness that God intends to operate these signs as communicated to us through the NT accounts in Scriptures.

You see, Jesus resurrected in the body in which we were created by God to live in fellowship with Him. The church is called to preach the word and praise the Lord in presential chorus. All imagery depicting the unity of the saints seems to show physical togetherness, like sheep, the banquet of the lamb, etc. We are still living in sinful bodies and everything that we accept to accommodate from our individualistic world will further separate us from fellowship with the church. See the difference of the Acts church practically living together intermingled in enlarged family units in daily fellowship converting thousands and look at us here today, in spite of a highly connected world self-indulged with the physical and virtual pick-and-chose variety of our days.

But let us go back to Scripture and let me share with you thoughts you can also find in the blog of the Pastor’s Academy: God has ordained the realm of the spiritual reality and the realm of the physical sign in a given relation. In this regard it is striking that Paul can even make the spiritual rest upon the physical in the way that he writes in 1 Corinthians 10.

You see, go to 1 Co 11 verse 16. Paul points to the one cup and says that it –the physical cup—is a sharing in the blood of Christ, and he points to the one bread and says that it—the one physical bread—is a sharing in the body. Then in verse 17 he does something that can only unsettle a low-sacramental evangelical, as Williams interjects. We would expect: ‘Because there is one body, we who eat share one bread, since all of us share the one body,’ but instead he says the opposite: ‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, since all of us share the one bread’ (v. 17). God has clearly appointed to us this physical sign and togetherness as an instrument for the spiritual reality. This is the way He established: one bread, one cup, one gathered act of sharing, all embodied. Because he has done this, we may not do otherwise.

We shouldn’t feel excommunicated. We are only deprived of this sacrament of remembrance as God Has in His sovereignty so established as He Has established the lockdown situation we are currently in, which perhaps includes the reason to make us long for it, as we long to enjoy the warmth of physical in persona fellowship full in the body.

Illustration for longing-ness

Let me finish with an illustration of how we could compare the Lord’s supper and using another imagery which the Bible also uses to represent God and His church which is the image of the groom and the bride looking forward to marriage.

We should be indeed longing to be with our loved ones and more importantly so, with the family of God in the same way that, as a church, we have for a very long while been longing to be with the Lord Himself. In fact, the church has been longing to be with Jesus since his ascension.

Yet in normal times we do enjoy a dim shadow yet the strongest experience we are able to have of encounter with God which happens when we are physically together worshipping Him, hearing His Word and around His table. And right now, each one of us can’t even have that.

Imagine a couple who cannot see each other because both of them are locked down, one representing the groom, Jesus, which from our perspective is locked-up in heaven while the church is locked-down from even being together now. When our lock-down would hopefully shortly be lifted, then the church in her body will again meet together savouring the groom’s perfume just about caressing him with her corporate hand of prayers and worship through the meshes of heaven’s gates dreaming of the moment when these gates will be opened to consummate their love in marriage.

Let us accept what God has imparted on us without trying to improvise by our own means (as Abraham did with Hagar) and wait and keep our faith, trues and hope on the Lord.