The Lord's Supper

The New Testament uses three words or phrases to identify the Lord’s Supper: “Communion”, “Lord’s Table”, and “Lord’s Supper”.

“Eucharist” is another word used by many believers. The origin of this word is 14th Century Latin. Eucharist means “thanksgiving” and refers to the prayer of Jesus in the Upper Room for the bread and the cup. I don’t use this term for communion because it was not used in that context in the Scripture.

In the New Testament the elements of the Lord’s Supper are identified as “bread” and “fruit of the vine” or “the cup”.

Jesus established the Lord’s Supper just before His crucifixion at the Passover meal He ate with His disciples. Because it was a Seder (literally Seder means “order”, or Seder Haggadah, which includes the narrative that goes with the Passover meal) this gives us a hint about what kind bread was eaten and what liquid was in the cup.

The bread at a Jewish Passover was and is unleavened bread, or bread with no yeast. For the Jews, unleavened bread represents the haste with which the Israelites left Egyptian slavery. The Jews were told to leave Egypt and had no time to let their dough “rise”. So the dough baked on their backs as they walked in the heat of the Egyptian sun.

While Jesus gave no new significance to the “unleavenedness” of the bread used at the Passover meal, leaven (yeast) in the New Testament is almost always associated with the influence of evil. This is the reason that before the Passover is eaten, even today, anything containing leaven or yeast (symbolizing corrupting influences) is removed from the house in which the Passover is observed.

The liquid used in communion is identified in the New Testament Scriptures as either “the fruit of the vine” or “the cup”. The liquid is never identified as “wine”. In observing the Lord’s Supper now many prefer using wine (fermented) and others prefer grape juice (unfermented).

It has been speculated that the “fruit of the vine” Jesus and the apostles used was unfermented. There are two reasons for this belief. 1) The word “wine” is never used in connection with the Lord’s Supper; and 2) before the Jews ate the Passover meal the Israelites very carefully rid their homes of fermenting agents (yeast) and anything fermenting (bread that had raised or was rising). The speculation is that this cleansing included wine, which is the result of grape juice fermenting.

Carl Ketcherside once wrote, “At the table of the Lord I do not examine the bread, to see if it is leavened or unleavened. I do not examine the cup to see if it is fermented or unfermented. I do not examine the mode of breaking the bread, or of passing the cup. I examine myself.”

Jesus Himself gave the meaning of the Lord’s Supper to us. Of the bread Jesus said, “This is my body given for you.” Of the cup Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Then Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

So the Lord’s Supper is very simply the means by which Jesus told His disciples to remember Him. The Lord’s Supper is like a photograph of the cross on which Jesus gave His body and His blood as the atoning sacrifice for all the sinners of the world. On the cross Jesus paid the penalty of the wrath of God, which you and I deserve, by giving His body and His blood, His life. His body and His blood are remembered at the Lord’s Table by eating the bread and drinking from the cup.

For a communion meditation one Sunday I held up a picture of a woman and said, “This is my mother.” I went on to tell a little about my mother. Then I confessed, “I have been lying to you. This is not my mother.” The congregation was a little surprised until is added, “This is a picture of my mother. I look at it to remember her.”

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the bread and the cup become the actual body and blood of Christ when the priest raises the bread and the cup and gives thanks (remember “Eucharist”?). This change in the bread and fruit of the vine is called “transubstantiation”. The substance on the bread and the fruit of the vine are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ.

Some Christian denominations believe in “consubstantiation”, which is the belief that Jesus body and blood are actually with (“con”) the bread and the cup (the “substances”).

The bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper are not the actually body and blood of Jesus, but are eaten in order to remember the sacrifice of His life Jesus made to redeem me from the wrath of God.

Two questions many ask are these: How often should I take the Lord’s Supper? And, what is the meaning and purpose of Communion?

My short answer to the first question is, “As often as you like.”

Now here is the long answer.

The church in which I grew up took communion as a part of each Sunday’s worship. There was a song, a meditation, and two prayers – one for the loaf (It just dawned on me, we called the bread the “loaf”, certainly not a New Testament word for us believers who insist on “calling Bible things by Bible names”!) and another prayer for the cup. The Scripture we cited for taking communion every Sunday was Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.”

We made two assumptions, or two interpretations, about this verse that led to the practice of communion every Sunday. The first assumption was that the disciples came together the first day of every week. And secondly, we assumed that “break bread” was the Lord’s Supper. Now I still believe this, but the Scripture does not say that the disciples came together the first day of every week to have the Lord’s Supper.

Another reason I believe in communion every Sunday is that in I Corinthians 16:2 Paul told the Christians, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.” This indicates that the church met on the first day of every week. Also, church historians tell us that the church met every Sunday for communion. But, the writings of church historians are not Scripture!

Once I discovered that the Scripture itself does not clearly teach the observance of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, it freed me to have communion anytime I chose to take it. And I do.

Now to the second question, what is the meaning and purpose of Communion?

Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper the night before He was crucified. He took the bread and broke it and the said to the disciples, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Then Jesus took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Commenting on what Jesus said, the apostle Paul wrote, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) That is simply what communion is all about; eating a piece of bread and drinking from the cup to remember the atoning sacrifice Jesus made by allowing Himself to suffer the death penalty on a cross for our sins.

In 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 Paul gave some more instructions concerning the Lord’s Table. First, Paul writes that those who eat the bread or drink the cup “in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” For many believers, the word “worthy” is interpreted to mean “being good enough to take communion.”

A preacher I know of in Kentucky would not allow communion in his church until he decided that everyone who was going to partake was “worthy”. And by “worthy”, he meant that those who were coming to the Lord’s Table had cleaned up their lives sufficiently enough to be spiritually qualified to partake.

Paul, however, defined what he meant by the word “worthy”. He wrote, “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (1 Corinthians 11:28-29) “In an unworthy manner” then means to take communion without “recognizing” (giving thought to) the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. If communion is just a ritual of Sunday worship, or if communion has been given some other meaning than to remember the death of Jesus, Paul warns, don’t harm yourself by eating and drinking of the Lord’s Table.

Beware (be aware!) of those who would make of the Lord’s Table something other than the means of remembering the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to pay the death penalty we deserve for our sins.

The communion service is not a time to emphasis one’s views on social issues. Communion is not a place to call attention to racial justice, or environmental or ecumenical issues. There is a place to speak to these issues, but not at the Lord’s Table. As far as I am concerned that table and the bread and the cup are not to be trifled with. But then I am one who believes the Bible is the Word of God and that we are to call Bible things by Bible names and do Bible things in Bible ways.

In concluding this discussion of the Lord’s Supper I want to go back to something Jesus said in Upper Room to His disciples. In Matthew 26:29, after telling the disciples to eat the bread and drink the cup, Jesus said, “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Throughout the New Testament Scriptures the indication is that our salvation will be celebrated as a grand wedding followed by a feast that features Jesus, the groom, and the church, the bride.

In the Revelation 19:6-9, the apostle John wrote, “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting, ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ Then the angel said to me, ‘Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’”

This is what I think Jesus meant in the Upper Room when He said He would eat and drink with His disciples in the kingdom. The celebration of our everlasting salvation will be a “wedding feast”.

The church, which is the bride, and Jesus, who is the groom, will finally be together forever. And, I believe, part of that wedding feast will be eating the bread and drinking from the cup to again remember that it is because of the substitutionary death of Jesus for us on the cross that we are safely secured in the new heaven and the new earth.

So the Lord’s Supper looks back at the cross; it looks at the present and the great debt we owe Jesus for His sacrifice; and the Lord’s Supper looks ahead to the wedding of the Lamb of God (Jesus) and His bride (the church).