The Disgrace of Divided Gatherings Pt. 3

We come again to 1 Corinthians
11, which are words to us which are
sweetly familiar this week, as they are words that are often
recited at the celebration of the Lord’s table. But these words,
as we have seen, come in the midst of Paul’s stern rebuke
of his church, The Corinthians, as it turns out, were routinely
desecrating the Lord’s table, and this Paul simply could not
tolerate. He had received a report, likely
from Chloe’s people, a delegation from Corinth, sent, or perhaps even having come of their
own accord, to tattle on this wayward church, And it was a
report true to Paul’s character that he was reluctant to receive
in full. Only in part did he believe it. The problem was there was enough
information about the circumstance and enough history with these
people and enough of a pattern of bad behavior that given the
stakes, He had to address what he had heard. What he had heard was truly disturbing.
Turning one of the most special, most solemn occasions in the
life of the church into a display of their selfishness and dividedness
as a church. I had occasion to attend a beautiful
memorial graveside last week. The individual who died was a
believer. It was a home going. The individual
was honored in these services. It was that particular joyful
occasion that was a home going for a Christian, but it was nonetheless
serious, sobering, and it brought everyone in attendance once again
to the awful reality of death. We can imagine Paul’s great dismay
that the Corinthians would choose so important an occasion as a
memorial service. And this, for the Lord Jesus
Christ, to put forward their vindictive
little issues. But they did. There in a celebration
of the Lord’s table, as Paul identifies it in verse 20, which
Jesus himself had instituted, for the comfort and the growth
of the church and which Christ’s people of every age are to repeat
a recurring memorial of the Savior’s atonement for our sins on his
cross. This was the occasion that the
Corinthians chose to showcase their division. There,
in the celebration of that ordinance, where joy was not out of place,
but where such joy was wedded perfectly with solemnness. The Corinthians were demanding
center stage. How strange and how utterly incongruent that in a service that would
acknowledge their Lord’s sovereignty, his people were vying for attention.
How terrible that in this same ordinance, which Jesus instituted
to establish unity, communion, that such hateful individualism
should present itself. And Paul heard all about it.
So he had to confront it. We find ourselves in the midst
of his confrontation here this week in this passage. Paul has
moved beyond his shock in introducing his concern, his rebuke of these
divided gatherings as we saw in verses 17 through 19, but
he has laid out the proof offered to him, evidence of these divided
gatherings in verses 20 through 22. Paul confronts there not
only evidence of their disrespect of Christ and his ordinance,
but disrespect of one another, disrespect of their fellow believers. Their divided gatherings were
consistently dishonoring to the Lord. This was not what the Lord
had instituted. This is not what the Lord desired. And having addressed what was
an unsettling contrast to the Lord’s purposes, Paul reviews
the dramatically different celebration of the ordinance as Jesus intended
it. We have that in verses 23 through
26. Let’s go back to the beginning,
verse 17. But in giving this instruction,
I do not praise you because you come together not for the better,
but for the worse. For in the first place, when
you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among
you. And in part, I believe it. For
there must also be factions among you so that those who are approved
may become evident among you. Therefore, When you meet together,
it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in your eating, each one
takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is
drunk. What? Do you not have houses in which
to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church
of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to
you? Shall I praise you? In this,
I will not praise you. For I received from the Lord
that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in
the night in which 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, 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. For as often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death
until he comes. We have seen the history of the
church is a history of disputes about the Lord’s table. And that
is strangely ironic, since the celebration of communion was
provided to promote unity within the church. But of the dozens
of controversies that have arisen touching the Lord’s table, few
have been as disturbing as the original controversy here in
Corinth. Only a few years after this ordinance
had been introduced to these new believers by Paul, They had
already set aside its special design in order to more indelibly
draw the battle lines in the church. I want to begin again
where we touched last week at a consideration of the ordinance
as it was instituted. And as we reviewed it last week
in the account that is recorded in Mark’s gospel, if you would
turn there, Mark chapter 14. And as you’re there, just scroll
down once again. We’ll pick it up this time in
verse 22. While they were eating, he took
some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and gave it to them.
Matthew clarifies there to the disciples and said, take Take
it, eat, this is my body. And when he had taken a cup and
had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank from
it. Matthew records a command of
the Lord to drink from it, all of you. And he said to them,
this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
And the clear addition that we recognized last week from Matthew
is that it is for the forgiveness of sins. It was a recognition
of that. Truly, I say to you, I will never
again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink
it new in the kingdom of God. There are four accounts of the
Lord’s table, and if you keep your finger in Mark, we may dip
back in there in a moment. Keep your finger in Mark, and
just flip over to Luke 22 really briefly. There are four accounts
of the Lord’s table, and Matthew and Mark seem to align very well,
and Luke and Paul align very well, as we saw last week. If you’re in Luke 22, scroll
down to verse 17, when he had taken a cup and given thanks,
he said, this, take this and share it among yourselves. For
I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from
now on until the kingdom of God comes. That is new, that is completely
new and novel to any of the accounts. We may talk about that in the
weeks to come. When he had taken some bread
and given thanks, verse 19, he broke it and gave it to them
saying, this is my body. All four of the accounts record
this. But Luke adds this, which is
given for you do this in remembrance of me. That’s what I wanted to
capture from Luke’s account. So in these accounts, not only in the synoptic gospels,
but also in first Corinthians, I can tell you that while there
are identical phrases that are captured in each of these accounts,
each of the accounts also provides some very unique insights. Some
of the things that are universal to all four, he broke it, that
is of the bread. This is my body, all four accounts
capture that statement. All four accounts mentioned the
new covenant and my blood. Well, in addition, Matthew and
Mark’s accounts tend to follow one another very closely, while
Paul’s account is very much aligned with Luke’s account. If you’re
looking, I told you to keep a finger on Mark, glance back there if
you would. Let’s just note a few things. Relatively simple things,
nothing that will cause theological concern, but it is different,
unique, Mark tells the story a little bit differently than
do Luke or Paul. Matthew’s account, as I said,
is nearly identical to Mark’s. He adds a few things that we’ve
acknowledged. You can see that when Mark says
in verse 22 that Jesus gave them the bread, that he, that is Jesus,
had broken, the only significant difference in verse 26 is that
Matthew makes sure that we know that he gave it to his disciples. There’s another noteworthy difference
in verse 27 regarding the cup. Mark simply records that they,
obviously the disciples, all drank from it. Matthew, however,
records this as a command, as I said, drink from it, all of
you. In Matthew 26, 27, And in Mark verse 24, 14-24, this is the verse in which
there is the greatest variety of expression between all four
of the writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul. As I pointed
out last week, all of them mention a covenant in Christ’s blood.
Mark just says, of Christ’s blood of the covenant, that is poured
out for many. Matthew leaves no room for misinterpretation. He’s writing primarily to Jews. And so he records that Christ’s
blood is poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins.
This would have been easily understood by Jewish readers. It was atoning
blood that was being offered. And this is the great difference
between the new and the old covenant. that unlike the sacrifices of
the old covenant, Christ’s sacrifice need never be repeated. Okay,
so that’s a quick comparison of Matthew and Mark’s accounts,
but like I said, Paul’s account lines up very well with Luke’s.
And actually, I think it’s the other way around. Luke’s account
lines up with Paul’s. Let me tell you why I say that. It’s a remarkable thing to observe.
Here’s why I say that Luke and not Paul borrowed from the other.
We know that Paul likely wrote his epistle to the Corinthians
in AD 5455. But Luke was almost certainly
the third gospel written, and that about five years or so after
Paul had written to the Corinthians. Let me tell you why I find that
so fascinating. Listen to Luke’s plan for his
gospel as outlined in the first four verses of chapter one of
his gospel. Would you please turn? There,
we have time. Luke chapter one, where we see
Luke’s plan, his approach in writing this gospel. And look at verse one. Inasmuch
as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished
among us. And when he says many, we don’t
know exactly who he was referring to. Perhaps some had scrawled
some notes of things that they’d observed of Christ. But when
Luke says many others have undertaken to compile gospel accounts, he
would include at least Matthew and Mark. Matthew and Mark had
likely already written down their accounts, glance at verse 2,
just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning
were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. And so these eyewitnesses
were the primary human resources for these accounts. Ultimately,
they were guided by the Holy Spirit, but people were jotting
down notes, they were keeping records, they were recording
some of the things that Jesus did or said, and those were all
being funneled to these gospel writers. That’s essentially what
Luke says. Look at Luke’s approach in verse
three. It seemed fitting for me as well.
The Holy Spirit laid it on his heart, quite obviously. And look
at the approach of Dr. Luke. This was not a casual approach. Having investigated everything
carefully, Luke wanted to make sure, absolutely sure, that somebody
who remembered something, that it was verified. having investigated
everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for
you in consecutive order. And for those of you who are
students of the gospels, especially the synoptics, you know that
Luke’s order, his order is strictly chronological. Not so much with
Matthew and Mark. They’re just gathering data,
and it sometimes seems quite jumbled. if you look at the order
in which it occurs in comparison with Luke, to write it out for you in consecutive
order, most excellent Theophilus. Luke presents his approach here
to this nobleman, Theophilus, specifically that he has investigated
everything carefully, that he has made painstaking effort to
write it in consecutive order. so that you may know the exact
truth about the things you have been taught. Okay, so now would
you please turn back to Corinthians? 1 Corinthians 11, and here’s
the fascinating thing. Many people have the funny idea
that just because the gospels appear as the first four books
of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that they
were written first. They were not. Most of the epistles
were written prior to the Gospels. This is especially the case with
1 Corinthians because it was one of the very first epistles
that Paul wrote. So it was certainly written before
any of the Gospels, including Luke. So when Paul wrote his
epistle first, And then Luke wrote his gospel that makes Paul’s
account of the Lord’s table here in 1 Corinthians 11, the very
first account of the Lord’s table. It is, if you will, the oldest
and the most original account of the institution of the Lord’s
supper. And that is remarkable. Well, Let’s look at what Paul says here in verse
23, just briefly as we begin to get into this text, 1st Corinthians
11, where Paul says, I mean quite clearly, For I received from
the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus,
in the night in which 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. Paul says
that he received his account of the ordinance of the Lord’s
table from the Lord himself. We have nothing else to go on
but this statement. Paul doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t
tell whether the Lord came to him in an audible voice, but
it is a remarkable statement. Paul wasn’t an eyewitness of
the Lord’s day-to-day ministry, and he doesn’t say that the apostles
told him about the events of the upper room, or even necessarily
that the message was communicated to him by the Holy Spirit. And we may be left with questions,
but we need to let that statement stand on its own. He says, I
received from the Lord that which I delivered to you. Was this
communication to Paul by God, by an audible voice? We don’t
know. Paul avoids that detail. But
it wouldn’t have been the first time that Paul received a direct
and remarkable message from the Lord, right? Remember his conversion
on the road to Damascus? He makes it very clear that it
was the Lord that was talking to him. In 2 Corinthians 11,
he records another such episode, an interaction with God himself.
Acts 16, he was providentially guided ultimately to Macedonia
because of a vision that he had, which he identifies from the
Lord. But for one specific, let’s go
and look at Paul’s seminary records, could we? Turn to Galatians if
you would, Galatians chapter one. How did Paul hear this? Where
did Paul get this idea of the Lord’s table and the accounts
that he records so clearly? Let’s just listen for a moment
as Paul tells you about his seminary experience. For I would have
you know, I’m in verse 11. Did I tell you that? Galatians
1 verse 11. For I would have you know, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
In other words, he didn’t attend seminary. He wasn’t indoctrinated
like so many others were. For I neither received it from
man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation
of Jesus Christ. Paul knew absolutely definitively
that he was interfacing with the Lord Jesus Christ just as
he had done on the road to Damascus. Look at verse 13. For you have
heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to
persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy
it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries
among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral
traditions. But when God, who had set me
apart, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through his
grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I may preach
him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with
flesh and blood. I didn’t even apply for seminary,
essentially, Paul says. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem
to those who were apostles before me, but I went away, get this,
to Arabia. He went away to the desert to
interface with none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
I returned once more to Damascus, then Three years later, this
is the Apostle Paul, arguably one of the best trained Pharisees
of his day. He knew his Bible, he knew his
Old Testament. He had been trained strictly
adhering to the Jewish law. And now all of a sudden, in order
to get squared away in his Christianity, he goes off to the desert to
be taught by the Lord himself. Then three years later, I went
up to Jerusalem, verse 18, to become acquainted with Cephas,
Peter, and stayed with him 15 days. But I did not see any of the
other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. Now, what
I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not
lying. Then I went up to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea, which
were in Christ. Only they kept hearing, he who
once persecuted the church is now preaching the faith which
he once tried to destroy. This is Paul’s training. Well
now, we know from the book of Acts, which Luke records, and
Luke also wrote, that Luke was a frequent traveling companion
with Paul. He was a fellow worker in the
gospel with Paul. Which means that in all likelihood,
Luke, who was not an eyewitness to the Lord’s ministry, very
likely got his account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper
directly from the Apostle Paul, since the two accounts are nearly
identical. And that is remarkable. We tend
to think of it completely upside down. Let’s pick up Paul’s account
of the institution of the Lord’s table in verse 23. I don’t even
know where I left you. Matthew, Mark, Luke, 1 Corinthians
chapter 11. Here Paul emphatically points
out that he received this account, as we noted a moment ago, from
the Lord Himself. Perhaps it was a question of
authority, But Paul’s instruction to them in the celebration of
the Lord’s table came under the Lord’s authority because it came
directly from the Lord. That’s exactly what Paul is trying
to communicate. This statement is undoubtedly
for the Corinthian’s sake. Maybe it was a matter of content,
remembering, remember this children’s game of telephone? One child
sitting in a circle whispers a sentence into the child next
to him, into their ear, and it goes around the circle. Remember
this game? Until it comes back to the kid
who started the sentence. And what is the inevitable result?
Nothing like the original sentence, right? Maybe, Paul, you got this communion
thing messed up. No. Paul says, I heard exactly. I delivered it exactly to you,
just exactly what I received from the Lord. There was no chain
of command. Jesus told Paul, and Paul told
the Corinthians. How direct is that? The design
of this is to arrest the attention of these bickering saints and
snap them back into reality. This is the Lord, the Lord Jesus
Christ who instituted this ordinance and who in time passed it along
to me, Paul. And Paul, get this, says, which
I delivered to you. Look at this chain of custody.
These believers were not that far removed. The Lord delivered
this to me, I delivered it to you. How could things have gotten
so messed up so quickly? And Paul continues to unfold
the celebration of the Lord’s table as commanded to him, as
he communicated it to them. Look at this stunning reminder
as Paul begins to paint the picture. The Lord Jesus in the night in
which he was betrayed. Now on the face of it, this word
translated here as betrayed is not as nefarious as it sounds. In the first place, it could
be somewhat softened to mean simply handed over. And it’s
used often in that sense. It could even be translated appropriately,
even more blandly than that. We’ve even already seen it in
this chapter, this word. If you glance back at verse two,
there in verse two, Paul used the word to speak of how he had
instructed the Corinthians. I delivered these things to you.
Very bland. Paul uses the word in that sense
very often in his writings. And he does it again in chapter
15, verse three, to remind the Corinthians of what he had delivered
to them about the gospel. So the exact shade of meaning
of this word varies, but in the Gospels regarding Judas, there
is a darker side, a darker shade to the use of this word. In Matthew 26, nearly a dozen
times the word is used to speak of the betrayal of Judas. So here in 1 Corinthians 11,
We gather so much from that phrase in the night in which he was
betrayed, the very night when Judas’s evil plot would come
to fruition. And we at once have there the
essence of the gospel, do we not? He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And here
he is. being betrayed for that very
purpose. Anyone else under the same circumstances betrayed by
a friend, they would have been focused on self, not Jesus. Jesus knew that his betrayer
was not only part of God’s greater plan of redemption, you could
even say that Judas was necessary. Judas would betray him. The Jews
would try him. The Romans would crucify him,
but it was all according to God’s plan, after all. And this already
must necessarily hit the Corinthians so engaged in factiousness, or
any believer so engaged in factiousness. It would render us insensitive
or even sympathetic to Judas’s treachery. to participate in
factiousness. Take yourself back to that night,
Paul says, to the night in which he was betrayed. Yes, to that
night. And let the believer of any age
at once examine himself or herself. Now before we press on to the
words that Paul uses to describe the institution of the Lord’s
table, I want to take a very brief opportunity To capture
something that Luke alone addresses, I pointed it out a moment ago,
turn back to Luke 22, verses 17 and 18. Luke begins to capture
the institution with these words. And when he had taken a cup and
given thanks, he said, take this and share it among yourselves.
For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine
now until the kingdom of God comes. When Jesus says there,
verse 17, take this cup and share it among yourselves. Some have
read this and assumed that Jesus is offering up there the communion
cup, instituting the Lord’s Supper. Remember, they’re also practicing
the Passover meal. But if Jesus is offering the
communion cup there, then the traditional order of receiving
the elements, the bread and the wine, is reversed. Is that a
problem? For some it is. I would say that
it doesn’t need to be so. It could well be that Jesus takes
the cup, declares his desire, sets the cup down only to be
taken up again and passed around moments later. But even regarding
the order of the elements, the bread and the cup or the cup
and the bread, Paul isn’t slavishly bound to the order of those elements. might remember that back in chapter
10 Paul referred to the Lord’s table twice, and both times he
has the order of the elements reversed. Just listen. First Corinthians 10 16, if you
want to jot it down. Is not the cup of blessing which
we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? He’s obviously talking
about the Lord’s table. And then he mentions the bread.
Is not the bread which we break a sharing of the body of Christ.
First Corinthians 10 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord
and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the bread
of the table and the table of demons. And so there is a reversal
of the order of the reception of those elements. It is not
a big problem. Those do not stand in the way,
they do not cause us to lose faith in our New Testament, to
see that there are differences even among the accounts. Back,
if you would, to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 11, and I promise
I’ll stay here for a minute or so. Paul just introduces us to this
ordinance very bluntly. He doesn’t say anything about
the upper room. He doesn’t address the Passover
meal. He just records that Jesus says he took bread. None of the
synoptic writers will say this any more delicately than that.
They all just mention almost in passing that Jesus took some
bread as Matthew and Mark call it. It wasn’t special bread. It wasn’t a special loaf. It
almost certainly was the unleavened bread which would have been on
the Passover table for the celebration that they were enjoying. But
there’s no command that only unleavened bread should be used
for communion. It is not stipulated here or
anywhere else that any particular kind of bread be used for the
Lord’s table. The kind of bread used for the
Lord’s table is not important. I received from the Lord that
which I delivered to you, verse 23, that the Lord Jesus and the
night in which he is betrayed took bread, and when he had given
thanks. Paul continues, the Lord Jesus
took bread and gave thanks. Can you pause for a moment and
just ponder that significant clause, when he had given thanks? Think of it, here is the Lord
Jesus Christ, the co-creator of the universe, God himself
in human flesh, rendering back gratitude to God for bread? That kind of gratitude alone
is an indictment on most of us, isn’t it? Just the saying of
grace, as we call it. But a genuine thankfulness for
everything in life down to a crust of bread. All four accounts speak
of this expression of gratitude. Matthew and Mark use one word,
blessing. After a blessing, he broke it.
They both use the word eulogeo, and you probably heard it there.
It’s the word from which we get our word eulogy, to speak a good
word. Jesus spoke a good word. in gratitude
for the bread. Paul and Luke both say, when
he had given thanks, using the word Eucharisto, and you probably
heard that there too. Those words basically mean the
same thing. They’re basically interchangeable,
but you likely heard Luke and Paul’s word, Eucharisto, that
it is the word that came to be employed to refer to the Eucharist,
the wafer of bread in the Catholic mass, But the word really just
means to give thanks. So Jesus gave thanks before he
breaks this bread, ostensibly to thank God for the bread, but
there’s so much more to it there. Jesus was not just thanking God
for a morsel of food. He was thanking God for what
it represented. The provision for sinful man
of the atonement for their sin to be born in his body crucified
on the cross. That all four writers here note
something amazing after thanks was rendered. After a blessing
when he had given thanks, he broke it. Wouldn’t you know it that this
sentence too has been a source of great controversy in the church. What does it mean that he broke
it? What is the significance And really, in order to get to
that question, we have to deal with the subsequent statement
when he says, this is my body, which is for you. Let’s think
about that statement first. This is my body. In what sense
is this bread Christ’s body? And that question has vexed the
church for centuries. It is beyond ironic that the
very passage that was uttered to quell division in the Corinthian
church became the battleground for even greater division in
the church. One historian said it this way, these simple words
found in all four accounts have been the occasion for much ecclesiastical
controversy and views concerning their full meaning are still
sharply divided. You probably even know of a few
of these. Another said it this way, the words of institution
have been the occasion of one of the longest and bitterest
controversies that ever divided the Church of Christ. Yet another,
no less than Charles Hodge said it this way, probably the history
of the world does not furnish a parallel to the controversies
occasioned by these simple words. and one of my heroes of the faith,
J.C. Ryle, how mournful. How mournful
is the thought that no ordinance has led to such fiery controversy
and been so grievously misunderstood as the ordinance of the Lord’s
Supper. It ought to have been, it ought
to have united the church, but our sins have made it a cause
of division. The thing which should have been
our welfare has been so often occasion of falling. The perennial divisive question is what is the nature of the
bread in the cup? Does the bread in the cup or the fruit of the
vine become the actual body and blood of the Lord as the Roman
Catholic Church believes? Absolutely not. The bread did
not become his literal flesh and blood as the context plainly
shows. Jesus was standing right there. in flesh, in his body, right
in front of them as he uttered these words. Jesus routinely
uses figurative language with reference to himself throughout
the Gospels. He was called or referred to
himself as the vine. He’s not a literal vine. The
door, he wasn’t a literal door. The morning star, the cornerstone,
the lamb, the fountain, the rock. He didn’t literally become any
of those things. And Jesus did not literally become
bread. So is Jesus speaking perhaps
of his glorified body? No. When Jesus uttered these
words, he was not yet ascended. He was not yet glorified. Jesus
first introduced this image in John chapter six, remember? John
chapter six, verse 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. So he had already introduced
this image. Jesus simply presents to his
disciples a symbol of his body and his blood as he’s preparing
to go to the cross. Now, when Jesus says here in
verse 24, this is my body, which is for you, depending on which
version you’re reading, we may benefit from a brief pause. You see here, there is a longstanding
problem here in this verse. It goes all the way back to the
very first translation of the Bible into English, John Wycliffe. And we have to be gracious to
this great Reformer. He did, after all, awaken the
English speaking world to the written Word of God. But Wycliffe
was translating from the Latin into English, and therein lay
the problem. But here in verse 24, he translates
in very rough English. that after breaking the bread,
Jesus said, take ye and eat ye. This is my body, which shall
be betrayed for you. In that little phrase, which
shall be betrayed, I’d like us to take note of something here.
This is what’s called a gloss. I don’t want you to panic. It’s
an interpolation that has been woven into the scriptures, added. It’s not a bad interpretation.
When Jesus says, this is my body, which for you, he certainly implies
that his body is going to be given over as a sacrifice. It doesn’t say explicitly in
the text though, but unfortunately things get worse usually in translation
before they get better, and it did. Because along comes William
Tyndale, some 150 years later. And he tweaks Wycliffe’s translation
here just a little bit. And we can be gracious to this
great reformer as well. But his translation here, he
says that Jesus not only break the bread, but quotes Jesus as
saying, take ye and eat ye, this is my body which is broken for
you. Essentially, he duplicates the
breaking of the bread and applies it to Jesus’ body. And a century
later, the King James translators followed suit, and that translation
was with us for more than 300 years, and even to this day. It wasn’t until the Greek text
scholarship of the mid-1800s that this unfortunate addition
began to be corrected. In the original, Jesus simply
says, this is my body, which is for you. There is no breakage
here. And you might be sitting here
thinking, blah, blah, blah, blah, Frasco, why is this important?
I get it, I’ll tell you why. First, because it isn’t accurate.
But secondly, because it isn’t true. Not only does the text
not record these words of Jesus, but scripture explicitly said
that not one of his bones were broken. Jesus did indeed give
his body as a sacrifice, but his body was not broken.
John chapter 19, rather, coming to Jesus, they saw that he was
already dead. They did not break his legs.
One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, immediately
blood and water came out. He who has seen this has testified,
John says it himself, I saw it with my own eyes. And his testimony
is true, and he knows that he’s telling the truth, so that you
may also believe. For these things came to pass
to fulfill the scripture, which says, not a bone of him shall
be broken. Just like the Passover lamb,
which Jesus was replacing, not a bone of his was to be broken. That was in fulfillment of Psalm
3420. He keeps all his bones. Not one of them is broken. And
so we’re back to the breaking of the bread. All four writers
quote that sentence exactly. He broke it. Jesus did break
the bread. What is the significance of that
act if his bones were not broken? It merely served the purpose
of aiding in the distribution of the bread. He broke the bread,
likely with his disciples encircling the table, he broke the bread
and sent it in two different directions. And it may have been
symbolic of Jesus offering himself for the redemption of humanity,
but there is no overt statement to that effect. Anything else
is embellished. He just says, this is my body,
which is for you. And then Paul adds, do this in
remembrance of me. And so verse 24 ends with the
words that only the apostle Paul records. Do this in remembrance
of me. It is sad and manipulative. and disingenuous for those, namely
the Roman Catholic Church, to take these words and refer to
this, the word this, to a sacrifice. Do this sacrifice in remembrance
of me. That’s their justification for
turning the celebration of the Lord’s table into a re-sacrifice
of Christ. And this is why I told you, you
visit the Catholic Church, you go for a wedding, a funeral,
what have you, and they practice communion. Believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ cannot re-crucify Christ. They can’t participate
in that. The word this can only legitimately
refer to the celebration of the Lord’s table, not to Christ’s
sacrifice. But Paul, and as I said, only
Paul introduces this idea of the Lord’s table as a remembrance,
a memorial, that it is to be perpetually celebrated by Christ’s
followers. This is what the Greek word onomamnesis
means, a remembrance. It speaks of a symbol, something
used to remind us of something, and that can be used as an act
of remembering. Numbers 10, as in the day of
your gladness and your appointed feasts on the first days of your
months, you shall blow the trumpets, burn your offerings, The sacrifices
of your peace offerings, they shall be as a reminder of you
before your God. This was nothing new. These words
have hearkened back in the disciples’ ears to the celebration of the
Passover in which a lamb was used to commemorate the salvation
of God’s people from Egypt. Exodus 12, 14 set it all forth
for us. Now this day will be a memorial
to you. You shall celebrate it with a
feast of the Lord. Throughout your generations,
you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. So just as the Passover
called to mind God’s redemption of Israel out of Egypt, Paul
urges believers to remember their Lord Jesus Christ in the celebration
of the supper. But not only is death, His life,
His words, His teachings, His miracles, His sacrifice, His
death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, His sovereign
rule for all time. And for the Corinthians, destructively
focused on self and self-interests, remembering Christ was the only
cure for their condition. If it’s just a memorial, what
benefit is there to us? There are four views on exactly
what these elements become, and that helps us to make sense of
what we do with the Lord’s table. Transubstantiation, the Roman
Catholics believe that the bread becomes the actual body that
is the flesh of the Lord. And that in order to be saved,
you must partake of these elements. The Lutherans, consubstantiation,
believe that the bread is united with the glorified Christ. He
wasn’t glorified when he instituted this supper. The Reformed view is that bread
is attended with a spiritual blessing. Hold on to that one. And then the merely symbolic
view is that the bread is symbolic. The Lord’s table is a simple
memorial. And I am between those latter
two. The Lord’s Table is indeed, even
as Jesus characterized it, a remembrance, a memorial. But the celebration
of the Lord’s Table does provide real spiritual grace to Christ’s
people. It isn’t magic bread or juice. It is the grace of self-examination. that believers receive at the
Lord’s Table. It’s the grace of confession. It’s the grace
of humbling oneself before their Savior. It’s the grace of doing
so with one’s fellow believers. The Lord’s Table is a means of
grace, just like reading your Bibles, just like sitting under
teaching or preaching, just like prayer. It is a means of grace,
and real grace is received in the participation of the Lord’s
Supper. Remember, Jesus used the same imagery. John chapter
six, the people came seeking a sign greater even than the
feeding of the 5,000, like Moses did with the manna.
Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has
given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father that gives
you the true bread out of heaven. Then he goes on in verse 35 to
say that I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger,
he who believes in me will never thirst. When we come to the Lord’s table,
we’re not self-focused, we’re focused on the Lord Jesus Christ
and him alone. J.C. Ryle said it this way in
closing. The benefits of the Lord’s table
are spiritual, not physical. It was intended to remind us
by the visible, tangible elements of bread and wine that the offering
of Christ’s body and blood for us on the cross is the only atonement
for sin and the life of a believer’s soul. It was meant to help our
poor, weak faith as we draw closer to fellowship with our crucified
Savior and to assist us in spiritually feeding on Christ’s body and
blood. By our receiving it, we publicly
declare our sense of guilt, our need of a Savior, our trust in
Jesus, our love for Him, our desire to live upon Him, our
hope is with Him. Using it in this spirit, we shall
find our repentance deepened, our faith increased, our hope
brightened, our love enlarged, our besetting sins weakened,
Our grace is strengthened. It will draw us nearer to Christ. That’s just a consideration of
Christ’s body. We’ll take up the consideration
of Christ’s blood next Lord’s Day. God willing, let’s pray.