201025 Judgment Communion

Judgment in Communion

In Genesis chapter 9, if you will remember, God established what we call the Noahic Covenant. You are familiar with this covenant especially here in the Northwest. It came after God had destroyed the whole earth. The sign of it was God’s bow in the cloud. He gave multiple commands as part of the covenant. It was a great reset. “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth Noah. But now every animal is going to be scared of humankind going forward and you are to possess them.” In a very real way Noah and his kids are to fulfill the commands God gave to Adam. Dominate the earth, fill it, possess it.

Now a new element is added. God says that these animals are to be as food but not with the blood. Why? Because, He says, “life is in the blood.” Whoever ingests the blood will be guilty. God will judge everyone that eats blood or slays another person. Fast forward approximately 900 years from Noah to Moses in Deuteronomy 28. Moses is warning the Israelites that if they turn their back on God they will face judgment by being so starved that they will eat each other up. Cannibalism… Horrific language is used. The Israelites will starve until they literally eat their own children, their own afterbirth, the flesh off their own bodies. Fast forward 600 years. We see the fulfillment of that in Elisha’s day in 2 Kings 6. Horrible things… Fast forward 800 years to John 6, please turn there. John 6 verse 51. Jesus had just fed 5,000 men from next to nothing, 5 barley loaves and a couple of fish and then left. The Jewish people chase him down. The Jews want their meal ticket and Jesus says what?

51 “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

Whoa, danger, red lights flashing… Eating human flesh. The Jews had returned from exile 500 years earlier but they had not forgotten. Eating human flesh is related to divine judgment. Verse 52.

52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.

54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.

56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.

58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

You see judgment is a large part of communion. Jesus knew that He was going to the cross to die for the sins of humanity. We are to participate in that judgment by acknowledging it and judging ourselves also. We acknowledge that it is right, good that God’s perfect Son suffered in our place and we endorse it by incorporating the elements into ourselves. Our communion is a very deep experience. Could it be that is why Paul talks about judgment immediately after the text on Communion in 1 Corinthians 11?

27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.

31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.

32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

So as we recognize that our punishment fell on Christ at Calvary we can endorse it by obeying our Lord’s command to eat His flesh and drink His blood – not literally, this is not transubstantiation we are talking about. We are agreeing with our Lord by incorporating the elements into ourselves. We are declaring that we receive life as a part of the judgment that fell on Christ. PAUSE….Let’s take a minute and evaluate ourselves to determine if there is anything we need to confess. WAIT FOR ONE WHOLE MINUTE . Close in prayer.

George will you ask for the blessing on the bread?

(1 Co 11:23–26)

23 …the Lord Jesus in the night in which 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.”

Everett will you ask for the blessing on the cup?

25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

PAUSE

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

LET’S PRAY