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The Benefit and Blessing of the Lord’s Supper, Part 2 (1 Cor. 11:26-32)
Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at GCBC on August 1, 2010
www.goldcountrybaptist.org
An old hymn by Timothy Dwight (“I Love Thy Kingdom Lord”) says this about Communion:
Beyond my highest joy I prize her heavenly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise.
Is the sweet Communion we celebrate at church “beyond our highest joy” – is it a happy and joyful day, as we heard it called by others earlier from church history. Can we be reverent and rejoice? Or as the hymn line joins “joy … sweet … solemn” … do we?
Psalm 2:11 “Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling”
NASB “Worship the Lord with reverence, rejoice with trembling”
The end of v. 12 says “How blessed [lit. “happy”] are those who take refuge in Him / trust in Him” [the Lord]. Happiness and holy fear of God can go together, and they should. So can reverence and rejoicing in worship, or trembling and true joy, according to Ps 2.
As we turn to 1 Corinthians 11, that’s the balance and the dynamic it seems Paul is also getting at in the Communion instructions for the churches. God has always wanted both attitudes in worship, reverence and rejoicing, gravity and gladness. How much more after Calvary if we know what we proclaim about the cross?
1 Corinthians 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
Verses 27-32 then move from there to a serious note, but I want to make sure we don’t miss the celebration note here. There is joy in proclaiming that the Lord Jesus for the joy set before Him endured the cross, taking my sins upon Himself, and then giving me His joy eternally in exchange for my sins. We don’t re-enact the Lord’s death (like the RCC Mass), we proclaim the once-for-all death of our Lord and celebrate His all-sufficient sacrifice. We don’t look to His body on the cross in a crucifix or in the bread - we proclaim His resurrected body now in heaven will come again in the end.
So there is a note of joy in v. 26, and even when sin is addressed later in this text, it is for our joy and spiritual happiness, as we read in Psalm 32 and Psalm 52 that in repentance, salvation’s joy is restored, guilt is replaced with gladness, remorse with rejoicing. And in the Lord’s Supper, it’s not mere memorial, bare symbolism, there is a benefit and blessing to believers: the real presence of our Lord in a spiritual special way, a real communing, fellowship, joy.
Increasing the JOY of Communion:
1. Look to Jesus
2. Look to Others
3. Look to Yourself (J.O.Y. in that order)
1. Look to Jesus
This is the look of faith, as Hebrews 12 says “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Or as Paul said even in this same book to the Corinthians, beholding Jesus more is the key to becoming more like Jesus, seeing His glory and beauty for what it is, transforms us to His likeness, from glory to glory. And specifically in our text, we look to Jesus in 3 ways:
- Look Up (in thankfulness) – v. 23-24
- Look Back (in remembrance) – v. 24-25
- Look Forward (in anticipation) – v. 26
Look Up (in thankfulness) – v. 23-24
23 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; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this …” [we’ll look at the remembrance in the next point]
Part of what we are to do is to give thanks. Certainly “do this” does not just mean eat, but to do what Jesus did, which was first to give thanks. If we thank the Lord before we partake of ordinary meals for His provision for us physically, how much more natural should it be and how much more joyful should we be in thinking of the Lord and thanking the Lord for His provision spiritually in the events that began to transpire on that night leading to the cross. As you think of Jesus given for you at Calvary, think of Him now up in heaven at the Father’s right hand and thank Him with joy. As 1 John says in explaining the fellowship we have as a result of this and the forgiveness of sins we enjoy when we confess our sins, John says “these things we write to you, that your joy may be full.”
It’s true that when we pray before we eat a meal it can become a mindless routine and the same danger is present before we eat of the Lord’s Table (I stand up here as susceptible to mind-wandering as much as anybody). But I don’t want that to be the case, and that’s one reason we’re doing this message before we take of communion today, I hope to help us not be ritualists or traditionalists.
The Lord never wanted worshippers to honor Him with their lips, while their heart is far from Him. Our chief end, or the reason we were created is to glorify God and to enjoy Him. Joyless mindless thankless religion does not give God glory or do us any good. In Rom. 1, man’s problem is not glorifying God nor being thankful.
Look Back (in remembrance) – 1 Cor. 11:24b-25
24b … “… do this in remembrance of Me.” 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.”
As we remember the Lord’s body given and blood shed, it’s not a sad recollection of someone who is dead, it’s not a repetition in any way of that once-for-all sacrifice, it’s a remembrance with joy of the empty tomb and the living risen Savior whose life and death and resurrection forgives sin for all in new covenant relationship with Him, all who know Christ intimately by grace through faith.
In John’s gospel, He records that on this same occasion of the Last Supper Jesus also said to His disciples: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11)
What Jesus spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper was intended for their ultimate joy. And the ultimate example of His love then in washing their feet and then in greater measure the next day in washing away sin eternally at the cross for all His disciples for all time, what greater rejoicing in remembering Christ can there be? Luke 24 records that after the resurrection they “remembered His words” (v. 8) and then at the end of the chapter when their eyes were opened to see and to recognize the Lord’s risen body, they had “great joy” (v. 52). As we remember His words and look to our risen Savior, so should we
1 Corinthians 11:26 says in Communion we “proclaim His death,” and implied is “and all that represents.” And there is joy and a note of celebration in this word for proclamation. The declaration of the death of Jesus on the cross for sin by us whose lives experience the power of the cross in transforming our lives so that we’re crucified with Christ and no longer live but Christ lives in and through us, it should make our joy overflow. But v. 26 doesn’t end there …
Look Forward (in anticipation) – v. 26b “ … until He comes”
We don’t proclaim Christ’s physical presence at the Lord’s Table, we proclaim His bodily return in the future; He’s coming again! At the Last Supper He said: “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (Jn 16:22).
We look to Jesus for past, present, future blessings
2. Look to Others (Look around)
Verse 27 warns against eating or drinking the Lord’s Supper “in an unworthy manner.”
Verse 29: “For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.”
In this context, v. 32 makes clear that v. 29 isn’t about eternal consequences for believers, but there are earthly ones. Sin can hinder our fellowship as Father/child and bring fatherly discipline
What does it mean at the end of v. 29, “judge the body rightly”?
I believe he’s talking about the body of Christ, i.e., the church. Look back in context to 10:17: Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.
There is a oneness and unity and common source signified as we eat of the bread and drink of the cup in Communion (v. 16, 21). We eat together because we are together in Christ in His family. The bread reminds us of the physical body of Christ given for us, but as Christ told His disciples they wouldn’t see Him again until His bodily return at the end of time. We don’t see that body in the bread but we do see His spiritual body around us at Communion. It’s not what’s on the Lord’s Table, it’s who’s around the Table that the NT calls “the body of Christ.” The bread symbolizes the body of Christ, but spiritually believers are the body of Christ!
To judge wrongly the body of Christ (the believers around you) is unworthy of and inconsistent with the purpose of Communion that is to celebrate our union and unity with Christ and our union and unity with other believers in the body of Christ! We commune with Christ today not privately or by ourselves (like in a prayer closet or in our home for other spiritual disciplines). We partake together in corporate worship to commune with Christ and with His body, the church, which Paul says in another place Christ purchased with His own precious blood! That’s why this is so important to Christ in 11:29, we’re His body. This hit me! Has it hit you? Look around at the body of Christ; don’t look in this basket up here for it. Do you see and discern and recognize Christ’s body all around you here?
NKJV/ESV translates 11:29b “not discerning the body”
NIV/HCSB “without recognizing the body”
NET “without careful regard for the body”
NLT “without honoring the body of Christ”
TEV “not thinking about the body of Christ”
CEV “if you fail to understand you are the body of Christ”
Do you understand that since Jesus has gone to heaven, there is a visible body He left behind of flesh-and-blood? Not a miraculous change in the cracker or cup behind me but in the miraculously changed Christians I see in front of me who have been transformed so that once enemies are now seated at the Lord’s Table! There is a real miracle signified by Communion, but it’s a greater miracle than many think! Not a water-to-wine or wine-to-blood or bread-to-body transformation, but from death-to-life, darkness-to-light, blind-given-sight, unable-given-might, hell-bound-given-Christ! It’s a miracle of Almighty God that we’re in the body of Christ!!
We didn’t do it and we’ll never deserve it, but a miracle of mercy put us in the body. None of us were or are better or more worthy of grace that brought us to this table, therefore don’t elevate yourself and denigrate the body (church) Christ shed His precious blood for
The church is not a symbol. The church is Christ’s body so profoundly that as Paul met the Lord Jesus on the Damascus Road while he was persecuting the church, Jesus said to him “why are you persecuting Me?” The head and the body are inseparable, that’s why this is a big deal.
Remember, there were no chapter divisions when Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians, and the end of what our Bible marks as chapter 11 is all a build-up to chapter 12’s discussion of this:
13 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body is not one member, but many … … 18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. 19 If they were all one member, where would the body be? 20 But now there are many members, but one body …24 whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked [this is the problem in Corinth in chapter 11, they were dishonoring members that lacked], 25 so that there may be no division in the body [another problem in 11], but that the members may have the same care for one another … [this is the climax of his argument and key problem in chapter 11, they weren’t caring for and looking to others in the body] … 27 Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.
Once you see the context before and after, it opens up chapter 11 and you see the warning in verse 29 in context especially has to do with sins in thought or deed against others in the body of Christ:
11:16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. 17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you
[some of the factions Paul mentioned in chapter 1 as being
personality-driven, “I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos, I’m of Peter, I’m of Christ” (i.e. super-spiritual Jesus-only crowd) –they had their own cliques / divisions, we can have others]
… 20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for in your eating each one takes his own supper …
[this is supposed to be the Lord’s Supper, but you act like this is “your supper,” like it’s all about you!? Apparently there was a love feast before communion, similar to Last Supper, but it was a lot of feast and not a whole lot of love]