Assembly Characteristics - 10 The Lord's Supper
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- Parent Category: About the Church
- Category: Assembly Characteristics
- Published on Thursday, 22 October 2009 15:23
The Lord's Supper
1 Corinthians 11:23-34
Paul’s instruction to the assembly in Corinth includes this section that deals with the central feature marking such gatherings, that is, the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper. In the gospel accounts we find the institution of the Lord's Supper, but the teaching concerning the supper is in the epistles, particularly in this epistle. While there are some other companies of Christians that carry out this ordinance weekly, we know of very few outside the assemblies gathered to the Lord's Name alone that practice it in a Scriptural manner. We could say that this manner of observing the Lord’s Supper is one of the hallmarks of local assemblies that seek to faithfully carry out the commands of the Lord Jesus.
Corruptions and Substitutions
Many groups do not observe the Lord's Supper every first day of the week. They substitute a preaching service for the Supper, and even when they do observe it, they put it in a secondary place. However, if we examine with simplicity and care the record and teaching of our Bibles, we can come to no other conclusion than that the early saints came together to break bread on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). There are those who would try to tell us that they can carry it out as often as desired; there are those who practice a form of this ordinance on any day of the week, and there are others who only observe it once a month or every three months. We have been at wedding ceremonies in “fundamental churches” where the Lord’s Supper was a part of the ceremony. All this indicates failure to understand the teaching of the Holy Scriptures concerning this subject. The mark of an assembly faithfully seeking to carry out the Lord's will in this matter is that the saints gather on the first day of every week, the Lord's Day, to partake of the Lord's Supper. We trust we will never depart from this scriptural practice for any reason.
Some have converted this simple remembrance supper into a ceremony embellished with ornate ritual, candles, bells and incense. Yet the descriptive term used to describe the supper is “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42; 20:7), indicating the simplicity, spirituality and unity of it. In the New Testament, we see nothing of the formal ritual and ceremony that men have introduced into their present religious activities. The introduction of religious embellishments only caters to fleshly desires and robs the remembrance of its spiritual reality.
Others have turned the Lord's Supper into a “sacrament,” meaning a ceremony through which (supposedly) grace is imparted. Some teach that it imparts the forgiveness of sins or other blessings to participants. Such teaching departs from the Word, which tells us that this is a remembrance of a Person, linked with appreciation of Him and His Work and providing a means by which our Lord Jesus is exalted and worshipped by His own.
Some religious systems have gone so far as to teach that the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of the Lord Jesus in some mysterious act performed by the priest who officiates (transubstantiation). Others teach that the literal body and blood of Christ is present along with the physical emblems (consubstantiation). These teachings corrupt the basic teaching of this supper in that they fail to see the simplicity of the emblems that the Lord chose that night in which Judas betrayed Him.
Bread and wine were present with them at the table, and the Lord took those common elements, which in Scripture had been used as emblems of a body (Judges 7:13-14; John 6:33, 35) and blood (Genesis 49:11; Isaiah 63:2-3) to use them in this higher sense. We understand that these were elements that would have been in place at a supper to remember one who had died. He used them that they might continually remind us of Him, who died for us and rose again. To miss the simple emblematic meaning of the bread and wine and to make it a ritualistic ceremony is to make it into something that the Lord never intended it to be, and thus to mar its simple, yet spiritual, meaning.
Individual Versus Collective
God's Word teaches two ordinances for the believer today. Both baptism and the Lord's Supper involve physical elements that have a purely symbolic meaning. Baptism is the individual act of obedience (Acts 8:36) and follows salvation, but the Lord's Supper is a collective function of an assembly. To take it out of the realm of an assembly gathering and to make it an individual matter has no support in Scripture. Those who would set up a table wherever and whenever some Christians are together, regardless of the existence of local assembly testimony in that place, take a collective act of an assembly and make it a matter of personal convenience. There is no record in our Bible of any believers carrying out the Lord's Supper outside the fellowship of a local assembly gathering. We note that Paul, arriving at Troas, tarried 7 days until the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread (Acts 20:6-7). Keeping in mind that he was hurrying to arrive at Jerusalem (Acts 18:21, 19:21), it is instructive that he waited until the first day of the week to break bread.
Granted, it is likely that if he desired to speak to the believers in that assembly, he had to wait, since that was likely the only day they were free to gather. However, his waiting also was another expression of his continual practice; we have no record of Paul and his associates ever having the Lord’s Supper on any other day of the week, and they only did so with an established assembly of saints. In addition, only those who were in the fellowship of a local assembly had the privilege of participating in the Lord's Supper. We should be very careful never to depart from this pattern. One could see this same principle expressed in the practices of Israel's history, where the feasts and ceremonies under the old economy were linked with collective gatherings on set occasions; they never were events carried out individually as random occurrences. They were to gather to a determined place at set times in fellowship with all Israel as the Lord had appointed for them.
Precious Aspects of The Supper
The Lord's Supper expresses many solemn truths, and thus it is the high point of an assembly gathering. It is the focus of our worship centered on the Lord Jesus. That is not to say that other gatherings of the assembly do not involve worship, but the Supper is the highest point and expression of that worship. It is truly a privilege that accompanies assembly fellowship when we are able to sit down with saints in this precious act of remembering Him. It should be our exercise to come prepared to express some form of worship to the Lord so as to exalt His Name. The Lord's Supper “shows” or proclaims the Lord's death until He comes. We proclaim the value of His death to those who observe, to unseen hosts, and to the Father in heaven. Thus, it is a continual reminder to our hearts and to those around who observe, of the enduring importance and value of His sacrificial death for sinners. It is an expression to God of the deepest gratitude for what Christ is to His people. It is an act that looks back to the cross, but it anticipates the future, when the emblems of this present day will give way to the reality of His own Person.
The Lord's Supper is especially, (but not exclusively) expressive of the Presence of the Lord Himself in the midst of His people. We believe He is present in every assembly gathering, but as we sit quietly with our attention directed toward Him alone, we are more conscious of His presence in the midst than at any other time. This precious truth demands holiness on the part of each one, and we should express our reverence in our attitudes and actions. It is no place for social visiting and conversation that often mars the time spent waiting for the actual commencement of the meeting. We would restrain our casual actions if we were more conscious of the Lord's presence. Chatter or whispering before the commencement of this meeting grieves the spirits of exercised believers at the Lord’s Supper. If this is so, what must the Lord think of such behavior?
The Supper is the expression of the fellowship of the assembly. The one loaf (and may we never come to the point of using individual wafers) speaks plainly of the precious body of the Lord Jesus given for our salvation. It also suggests the unity of the Body of Christ and in a secondary way the fellowship of the local assembly (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Paul teaches that “we (the many) are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread.” Who are “the many” who partake of that one bread if not the local assembly that he is addressing? He uses a similar expression in 1 Corinthians 12:12, 20. The saints of Corinth, keeping this Supper under the conditions of their divisions, were failing to realize the significance of their activity.
Also significant is the one cup. Never do we read any suggestion of the modern practice of having individual cups. It would be contrary to Scriptural principle to depart from the simple and accurate pattern of having one loaf and one cup. The singularity of the cup points to the single sacrifice into which blessing Christ has brought us and with which we are linked. Only ONE sacrifice accomplished our salvation and we have, as a result, only one source of all blessing. May this simple consideration of such an important ordinance in relation to the local assembly stimulate in each one an added appreciation for its beauty and importance!
There are, and always will be, objections on various grounds to using one cup. However, we have a pattern and principle in Scripture for this practice and it is outside the realm of any person to set it aside. Faithfulness to the Word of God is essential in our day as well as in the past, and assemblies are required to uphold the truth of God’s Word. However, in practical terms, brethren handling these emblems after the meeting is concluded should not pour the unused wine from the cup back into the bottle to be used for another time. This violates all principles of sanitation and should not be done. The small cost of new wine for each remembrance of the Lord is small compared to the objections that could properly be made against doing this, if it is ever practiced. The glass should be properly washed and cleansed, and not simply wiped out for the next use. Some brethren think that wine is a disinfectant and will kill all germs, but this is far from the truth. Any believer in assembly fellowship who has some contagious disease or the possibility of one should arrange to receive the cup last out of consideration for the others. We must use common sense along with our desire to uphold the truth of God’s Word.
May this simple consideration of such an important ordinance in relation to the local assembly stimulate in each one of us an added appreciation for its beauty and importance! We trust that the Lord will help us in these days to preserve the scriptural simplicity and holy character of the remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ.