Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians 11:17-31
All of us, I fear, have had the experience of attending some Christian service and walking out at the end with a feeling of extraordinary unreality. What on earth were we doing there? Sometimes it has to be said that this feeling of unreality, this experience of unconnectedness and insignificance, takes place even when we gather around the Table of the Lord. We do it because we know the Lord commanded it, but somehow it doesn’t mean much. We don’t feel anything. We’re not certain what we should be thinking about; and in the long pauses, there may be more daydreaming than meditation.
So once in a while, it is very important to go back to basics and articulate just what the Lord’s Supper is supposed to be about: what it does and how it functions in the life of the Christian and in the life of the church. I begin with 1 Corinthians 11, and I draw your attention, very briefly, to seven points.
1. The Lord’s Supper symbolizes our unity, our oneness, in the body of Christ.
Now the Lord’s Supper has been introduced already in 1 Corinthians 10, in the context of whether or not Christians are allowed to eat food that has been offered to idols. Certainly, Paul does not want them to eat food that has been offered to idols if it is in the context of a pagan rite or a pagan cult. He says these things in 1 Corinthians 10:14–16. “My dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?”
Now that should be rendered a slightly different way. It is not that we somehow participate in Christ’s blood by drinking. The word participation is almost always, in the New Testament, translated as fellowship. That is what is at stake here. “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a fellowship of the blood of Christ?” That is, it is an expression of our oneness as a fellowship, a fellowship of the blood of Christ. It is not that we participate in the blood; this is a fellowship of the blood of Christ. To look at it another way.… Is not the bread that we break a fellowship in the body of Christ?
That this is Paul’s point is made clear then in the next verse. “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Now in the first instance, the loaf reminds us of Jesus’ body broken on the cross, but the New Testament language goes further and sometimes speaks of Jesus’ body as the church. Then a further connection is made here. Well, if the body of Christ is symbolized in the bread, and the church is the body of Christ, then there is some connection (symbolically at least) between the bread and the church.
Listen again to what the text says. “Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body.” When we take the bread, we are saying we all belong to the one body, just as this bread has all come from one loaf. We are all one. Now it is within that context then, that the strong language of chapter 11, verse 17, is such a damning indictment. Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, Paul can say there are divisions of opinions among you on this or that, and he can say, “Yes, some say it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but on the other hand …” He constantly gives a “Yes, but …” approach to the divisions in the church, but on this point, Paul’s language is blistering!
He says in 1 Corinthians 11:17, “In the following directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.” In other words, the one place where condemnation is universal concerns Holy Communion. Shocking. Not disputes over tongues or hats or eating meat offered to idols, but Communion. Why?
In the first place, he says, “I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent, I believe it.” A classic Pauline understatement. You bet your life he believes it. “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.” That is, Paul himself recognizes that these divisions, these instances of divisiveness historically in the church, are still under God’s sovereignty, and they do serve a certain purpose. They eventually weed out and expose those who are false, those who are fakes.
Nevertheless, the church is still responsible for expressing this unity. “When you come together, however,” he says, “it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry; another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not.”
Now we must remember, of course, that in the first century, most people in the Greco-Roman world, outside of Jewish Christian circles, didn’t operate on a seven-day cycle. If Christians were going to gather on the first day of the week, as they did, they had to meet early in the morning or late at night. Many were slaves; they couldn’t get away any old time. Many were in commerce or business; they couldn’t get away during the day.
So Christians learned to meet early in the morning and late at night, but you can see what happens here. Some, who are a little richer, independent perhaps, who have their own wealth and can knock off work more easily.… They show up with their picnic baskets full of chicken sandwiches and caviar, with a nice bottle of Beaujolais. They’re having fellowship, they are! Then the poor tradespeople come in a little later; and last of all, the slaves. If they’re lucky, they’ve been able to take a bit of dry bread with them from the master’s larder before they get there.
Then this meeting, where they’re breaking bread together, is a disaster. On the one hand, some who have been having fellowship with spirit of various sorts for some time are in a great old mood. Others, at the end of a tiring day, feeling put upon, have nothing more than dry bread. Thus all the divisions in society are being brought right into the church in the very rite that ought to be an expression of fundamental Christian unity.
“Shall I praise you for this?” Paul says. “Certainly not.” Then in verse 33: “So then my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgement.” That is, this is not a time for showing off. It is not a time for partisan spirit. It is not a time to satisfy your physical hunger. It is a time to express unity around the Table of the Lord.
Now we are not so structured today. We are all here, more or less on time, nobody has brought a bottle of Beaujolais. No one brings only a crust of bread and others caviar. But it is true in our churches that we sometimes bring into them all of the divisions, all of the hierarchicalisms, all of the biases and prejudices, all of our personal antipathies, so that at the very point where we must remember that we are sinners before God (and by God’s grace all belong to one body in that we partake in one loaf) all of the resentments are still suppressed, barely under the surface, and the whole act becomes one of hypocrisy.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we eat and drink together, this is a time to confess our one-upmanship, to confess our arrogance, to love one another for Christ’s sake, and to acknowledge that we are one in him.
2. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of Jesus’ death.
Paul writes in verse 23–25: “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night 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, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’“
You know as well as I do that there have been vast disputes across the history of the church on the precise significance of the Lord’s Supper. I shall not enter into those disputes here. What is clear, however, is that there is great emphasis on the importance of remembrance, remembering Christ’s death.
When I was a child, I used to hate the old hymn “Tell Me the Old, Old Story.” It was the third verse that used to get me. “Tell me the old, old story as to a little child.” Very few children like to be thought of as little children. I knew the old, old story. I learned it from my parents’ knees. I didn’t want to be told the old, old story as to a little child. I wanted something more imaginative; I wanted something new. I wanted to be stimulated, and I couldn’t stand anything boring and old. Now I’m getting older myself, and I love that old hymn.
I am persuaded that one of the reasons why the Lord gave this simple rite, in his great wisdom, is because he saw that the church of Jesus Christ would necessarily, would inevitably, be involved in all kinds of legitimate things that would, nevertheless, take believers away from the core. What are the things that churches have to deal with in the course of a year?
Well, there’s the full range of Christian doctrine. There need to be sermons on the Spirit. There need to be sermons on family living. There need to be sermons on evangelism. There need to be sermons on the doctrine of God. There need to be sermons on how to handle material wealth. There need to be sermons on death. There need to be sermons on so many things.
Then there are the pragmatics. You still have to fill out government forms and sort out things for income taxes. Then you have your building and your plant; then there are relationships and committees.… That’s just in a small church. Then you get the larger denominational affairs and you have the concerns of synod and of parish council, and then you may be appointed to the standing committee, and on and on, and on and on, and on and on it goes. You can go from one year’s end to the next, and never, in the whole life of the church, spend more than a few minutes meditating upon the death of God’s dear Son.
Here, by this simple rite, Jesus insists that we go back to basics. “Do this in remembrance of me.” In some ways, it is tragic beyond words that he felt he needed something like this for us. Shall we forget him? But we do. How can we play our games of power politics when we remember Jesus and his death? How can we be unconcerned about lost neighbors when we remember Jesus and his death?
How can we be unconcerned about gaining heaven and living holiness when we remember Jesus and his death? How can we be unmoved by the love of God, in all its height and depth and length and breadth, when we remember Jesus and his death? Tell me the old, old story as to a little child. For I am weak and simple and I forget so soon.
3. The Lord’s Supper is the seal of the new covenant.
In Luke and in Paul, these words from Jesus are included: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” It is the seal of the new covenant and with those simple words comes a whole biblical theology. The old covenant has been superseded by the new. It points to the new. The Spirit has been poured out upon us.
We have God’s law written on our hearts (in the language of Jeremiah). We have been washed with water and cleaned up, and the Spirit has been given to us (in the language of Ezekiel). The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh: young and old, men and women (according to the language of Joel). This is the language of the new covenant.
Here, then, is a place for great rejoicing. You and I, if we know Christ at all, participate in the new covenant. God is a covenantal God. He cannot breach his own covenantal commitments. It is why Paul can say, for instance, “He who has begun a good work in you, he will perform it; he will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Of course, it is a covenantal commitment. So we remember the new covenant. Jesus’ death sealed it. This rite remembers it.
4. The Lord’s Supper ought to function evangelistically.
We read verse 26, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The word for proclaim is the regular Pauline word for preaching, for heralding, for evangelizing. This is the kerygma; this is proclamation.
Ah, but you say, how can that be? The Lord’s Supper is for Christians! We may have our seeker services and our guest services for non-Christians (and then we shall bring in drama groups and then we shall have more contemporary music), but when it comes to the Lord’s people, then surely we have our Communion, our Holy Communion, and they are excluded.
I don’t think that’s the way it works in the New Testament at all. The New Testament church was interested in having non-Christians present at all kinds of meetings, including the Lord’s Supper. This does not mean they participated (we’ll see that in a moment), but the Lord’s Supper can, and ought to, function evangelistically. Let me tell you some ways.
A friend of mine in England, pastoring a church which gathers in many non-Christians for many services, in addition to special seeker services and the like, often leads Communion with words like this:
“If this is the first time you are in our church, you’re going to find what we do now a bit strange. So let me explain it to you. We’re actually all going to take a little bit of bread and eat it together, and we’re going to take a little bit of wine and drink that together. The reason we do it is because Jesus told us to. Now, he didn’t tell us to because this is a bit of magic, or because it’s a kind of medicine of eternality as some of the later fathers in the church actually taught. No. It’s because we recognize it is fundamentally important to hark back, again and again, to Jesus’ death and remember what it means.” Then very simply and quietly, he explains the gospel.
Then he says, “Now if you’re not a Christian, it would quite frankly be blasphemous for you to take these elements, but you ought to watch Christians and as the Christians take these elements, not because they’re any better, but because they know they’ve been forgiven by this Christ who gave his life on their behalf, they remember. They repent. You watch, and as you watch, you will hear echoes and see echoes of the gospel of God: the good news of God’s redemption.”
Thus every Lord’s Table can become an evangelistic proclamation. Do you see? That’s what the text says. It says, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
5. The Lord’s Supper is a temporary rite of anticipation.
You proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. This is not something we are going to continue to do in eternity. When the new heaven and the new earth finally dawn, no one will be celebrating the Lord’s Supper … no one. This is only until he comes.
The ancient Jews who celebrated Passover, which has many connections with the Lord’s Supper, learned to say, as part of their rite, “Next year in Jerusalem.” They had been expelled from the land. They were dispersed across the surface of the earth. But they learned to say at the end of every Passover rite: “Next year in Jerusalem.” Thus this rite, which looked back for them to Passover, also looked forward to their understanding of the dawning of the kingdom.
Now Christians take the cup, and they take the bread, and they remember Jesus and his death. They say, “Until he comes.” For our ultimate goal is not to meet as a church around the Lord’s Table and remember his death. Our ultimate goal is, on account of his death, to meet with the risen Christ himself in the new heaven and the new earth at the time of the Messianic banquet. We will all be there. Until that happens, then each participation is an anticipation of that glorious time when we shall eat with him and we shall see him face to face. Thus as we partake, we should be saying, “I remember … until he comes.”
6. The Lord’s Supper provides an opportunity for self-examination.
Verse 27: “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” Now it is important to understand that the text really does say “in an unworthy manner.” It is not that you or I are worthy or unworthy; it is not we who are worthy or unworthy, but the manner of our approach. This is an adverb describing how we come, not an adjective describing who we are. Of course we’re unworthy; that’s why Christ died!
But there can be a worthy manner of approach to this Table. It is not an approach that is based upon any putative goodness in us; that’s not the point. It is this: how can we possibly come to the Lord’s Table and say, “I remember. I remember that he died for my sins,” when in fact we are nurturing sin? To say, “I remember that he died because of my bitterness,” when I am nurturing my bitterness or “I remember that he died to forgive me all my hate and self-centeredness,” when I am loving my hate and my self-centeredness. That is to approach in an unworthy manner.
Yes, we are sinners. Yes, we need forgiveness. No, we are not ourselves worthy, but we dare not approach a rite that focuses on Jesus’ death in a manner in which we care little for sin still carefully nurtured and flourishing in our lives. “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”
What then is the worthy manner? 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 judgement on himself.”
Of course, there have been times in the history of the church when verse 29 has been understood to mean to recognize the body of the Lord in the elements themselves, as if somehow the bread becomes divine. I don’t think that’s what Paul means; I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “This is my body,” any more than he meant to be taken literally when he says, “I am the door.” No.
Others take this to mean that the body here refers to the whole church. After all, the larger context shows that Paul is concerned for the way Christians treat each other in the church; therefore, they say verse 29 means “anyone who eats or drinks without the body of the Lord [that is, the whole church, where all of the relationships are being worked out] eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
That’s possible in the larger context, but if I understand the flow of the argument to rite in 27–29, it’s simpler than that. Jesus is simply saying unless you recognize the body and blood of the Lord, to which these elements point, the body and blood of the Lord, which these elements are designed to make you remember, then how can you take these elements and say by your taking, ‘I remember,’ when you are cherishing and nurturing the sin that shows you have forgotten?
How blasphemous it would be to say, “Yes, Lord Jesus, I accept your forgiveness, now let me go out and sin”? But isn’t that what we’re doing when we come before the Lord and take these elements (and by taking them proclaim that we remember) and then daydream our time away and go back to all the sinful habits and behaviors that we want to cling onto because they’re ours? No, this is a time, an opportunity, for self-examination. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.
7. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of covenantal judgment.
It warns us of it in verses 30–32. Some, you see, do not examine themselves; some take of the elements and nurture their sin. Paul says, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. When we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.”
Do you hear what the text is saying? Paul is actually saying that some instances of illness in the congregation, and some instances of actual death, are nothing less than the Lord’s explicit judgement on those who dare to approach the Lord’s Table so lightly. Because God doesn’t want his people to be condemned with the world, so he may issue temporal judgments to clean up his church.
Now I know such language as that frightens us today. I know that. It is also surely the case (we must insist upon it) that not every instance of sickness, and certainly not every death, is the direct result of some specific disobedience. Thus for example, in John’s gospel, the man who was 38 years paralyzed is paralyzed because of his sins (John 5). However, in John 9, the man who was born blind has not been born blind because of any explicit sin that either he or his parents committed.
There is no one-to-one connection between sickness and some specific sin, but that doesn’t rule out the fact that, in some instances, some explicit sickness and even death may be the direct result of a specific sin. If I were to venture a judgment based on account, after account, after account in Scripture (and for that matter, in church history), it is a sign of God’s mercy and power in the church when such things take place. I think it is a sign of terrible distancing when God simply says, “All right, do it your way; let’s see what happens.”
No, it is in the early church that has the account of Ananias and Sapphira. One of the men who taught me theology when I was a student at seminary (now gone to be with the Lord after dying of throat cancer) had in his youth been pastor of a church out in the bush. This was a community church, Baptist by name, but in fact it was a mixture of anybody who was anybody in the church. This was in the early 30s and it was shot through with all kinds of greed, materialism, sexual promiscuity, one-upmanship, and even cruelty, but everybody gathered in the church because it was the community affair.
This young man didn’t know what to do with this. He preached for about a year and a half or so, and he became more and more discouraged. He couldn’t lead in any sort of church discipline because the “bad guys” held all the strings of power in any case. He couldn’t do anything. He was single. He was lonely. He was discouraged.
Finally, for three months, he cast himself on the floor of his study and wept before the Lord every day, “Lord God, take me out of this place. I am not big enough to handle it. Send in somebody who can handle this kind of situation at the church. I cannot do it. This is not right; this is blasphemous Sunday after Sunday. It is a terrible witness to the community and a dishonor to your most holy name. Take me out. You send in a Paul, you send in someone good and powerful and strong, someone articulate and wise and bold, someone who has unction … or you clean up the church.”
For three months he cried and he prayed, and in the next three months, in a congregation of just over 200, he had 34 funerals, and the next year he baptized 200. Now I’m not suggesting we indulge in such prayers too soon. We do not play around with such things. But God loves the church. He sets himself against those who will destroy it. He does bring judgment upon his people. He wants us to be pure. And the Lord’s Supper is a time of covenantal judgment.
So, brothers and sisters, come. Come joyfully and freely, as you abandon your sin. Examine yourselves. Confess your sin: sins of commission, sins of omission, sins of imagination, sins of desire, sins of word. If you have offended, go and repent. And come! This is a great time, a great moment to remember Jesus’ death and to remember that all of our hopes for heaven, all of our enjoyment of the Spirit, and all of our prospects for endless living in a new heaven and a new earth (the home of righteousness) are encapsulated, are won, are secured by Jesus’ death, which we now remember. Come! Come. In Jesus’ name, amen.
