THE DISTINCTION
BETWEEN
AND
BRIEFLY CONSIDERED.
Bv R. F. Kingscoat.
Part 3 - THE LORD’S SUPPER
THE LORD’S SUPPER.
I Cor. xi. 17-34.
You will remember that on previous occasions we spoke of the Lord’s table in chapter x., and that which marks the truth of the Lord’s table we-saw to be our association with the death of Christ in all it has effected and in all that to which it has put an end, with regard to our history as of Adam’s race. The actual assembling together, though implied here (verses 16, 17), is not spoken of till chapter xi. Four or five times over the coming together is mentioned and in this instance the Corinthians came—or should have come—together to eat the Lord’s supper. In chapter x., Paul says, ” We being many are one body, for we are all partakers ot that one loaf”; so that this, as we saw before, takes in every believer. I suppose it has never been true that all Christians have actually partaken of one loaf; the thought is a mo al one, but it takes in the whole church. Coming together in assembly is, as we noticed in chapter xiv., seeing the wonderful truth of the Holy Ghost’s presence and realising that He is there to order and direct all. So, when we come together, there should be a sense that we are in the immediate presence of God Himself.
Here, in chapter xi. 20, he says, “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.” Though professing to do so, the Corinthians did not eat the Lord’s supper. So we infer that taking the Lord’s supper does not mean merely eating the bread and drinking the wine, but entering into the truth of all its deep significance. It is not a question of doctrine, but of the affections. The simplicity of the description is most striking. The youngest convert can easily understand it, yet at the same time the oldest saint cannot reach the bottom of it. Some of us have known it for years, and, if it were a human invention, how tired we should have been of it before now, instead of which it comes home with such power and freshness that we begin to think we have hardly entered into it at all.
Before we touch on the actual description of the Lord’s supper, let us see in what character we thus come together. The Lord’s supper has not in view the forgiveness of sins or fitting us for God’s presence. In Matthew, I know, we have the expression “for the remission of sins” brought in, but that is one of the terms of the new covenant about which the cup speaks to us, and Matthew gives us the atonement*side, for it is only those who know forgiveness and have peace with God who can eat the Lord’s supper. I ask the question of each one : How do you think the Lord sees us when gathered ? The very truth of His body given and His blood shed, would be the scriptural answer, and shows that He does not regard us as sinners or fallen children of Adam. We come together—it is important to see this—as His brethren. A wonderful expression ! Have we individually entered into the truth of being His brethren ? We think of Heb. ii. n : “For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” What cause ? It is because they are ” all of one,” like Himself, clear of Adam and livingly associated with the risen Son of God on the other side of death. Have we individually entered into the truth of being His brethren ?
He sees us also as His friends ; what leads me to this is John xv. 13. The thirteenth chapter begins a fresh section of the gospel, in view of His passing out of the world to the Father. Read chapter xiii. I. Jesus knew He was going to depart out of the world to the Father, and not only that, but He knew the Father had given all into His hand (verse 3). Do you know what th.at means ? He was conscious that all the eternal purposes of the Father before the world began were committed to
Him. Then think of all the truth of those chapters, xiii. to xvii. inclusive. Has it ever struck you that he, the beloved disciple, the one who was ever nearest to Jesus, who lay on His breast, never says a word about the supper ? You would think he would have been the very one to do so. No, but it is very beautiful and instructive that instead of giving an account of the actual supper (in chapters xiii. to xvii., where we have what passed in the upper chamber), John brings before us all the truth that the Spirit of God brings before us at the supper.
How does he begin ? Jesus is departing out of the world, and His own are still left down here, but His love is still the same,—and that is the very thing that comes before us in the supper. And first, He begins to remove all questions as to their fitness for it; that is settled, for He says to Peter: “He that if, bathed (all over—a different word is used for ‘ bathe ‘ and ‘ wash ‘) is clean every whit.” What do you understand by that? When a priest was consecrated, he w as bathed all over, and that once only; he was not washed in blood. The body bathed means that you are “clean every whit,” not merely with regard to sins ; all that we are as fallen sons of Adam is ended, in the death of Chris1, and we are fitted for a scene where sin can never enter. Water, as well as blood, flowed from the side of the dead Christ; the blood meets my guilt, the water my state by nature.
Then in chapter xv. we read, ” Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” I think the verse of the hymn we sing:
No man of greater love can boast
Than for his friend to die;
Thou for Thine enemies wast slain,
What love with Thine can vie ?
hinders people from appreciating the meaning of this scripture. The thought expressed in the hymn is quite different from the Lord’s thought in John xv. In the hymn we think of ourselves as His enemies, which is the exact opposite to ” Ye are my friends.” Why are we His friends ? It is because all He has heard of the Father He has made known to us.
Have we the sense of being clean every whit, bathed once for all; ended as to our life as Adam’s children; dead to all that order of things, and living in Him in resurrection life beyond death; His friends, His brethren? It makes all the difference if we have, for it sets us free to think of Him. The perfection of His love brought Him down to death for His friends. If we entered into this, we should not be occupied with our fitness and so on, but should be overflowing with praise and worship, as we see all His glory and beauty, and think of His love, in which we lose ourselves. It is a very simple but none the less a real truth, that we shall not be more loved in the glory than now, nor shall we be more fit. It is quite true we are hampered, since we are still, as to our bodies, linked with Adam, but ” as he is, so are we in this world.”
Let us now look at what this scripture tells us of the Lord’s supper. The first sentence of verse 23 is very important: ” I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.” Paul had received the truth of the Lord’s supper, not from Peter or John, but as a special revelation from the Lord after He had ascended into glory. Now does not this show what the Lord thinks of the supper, and how He appreciates our remembrance of Himself and our responding to His love ? His own heart of love, which brought Him down into death, gives this revelation to Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Jews might otherwise have said that, connected with the passover as it was, the supper was only for Jews—but the Lord gives it to him as a distinct and direct message to the Gentiles.
I cannot conceive how any Christian can be happy if he does not partake of the Lord’s supper. Some think it is not essential to do so, but that is a very poor thing. Others think it is very blessed, but fear they are not up to it . and would only prove inconsistent with it in their daily walk. Many Christians, moreover, think they are not worthy, through mistaking the meaning of verse 29. What is it to eat and drink unworthily ? I knew someone who considered herself unworthy to take the Lord’s supper. \Ve happened to have had a reading on Luke xx. 34-36, by which she had been greatly helped. She had seen that those who were “counted worthy to obtain that world” were those who had no worthiness of their own, but trusted in the worthiness of Another, so as to obtain that world and be with Christ in glory. So I said to her : ” Surely, if you are counted worthy to obtain that world, you are worthy to eat the Lord’s supper.” But still she was not satisfied. I did not know what to say; she still came to the meeting but could not see her way to take the Lord’s supper. At last I said to her: ” Have you ever thought that your remembering the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread would give Him joy ?” ” Oh, no; I had only thought of my fitness.” “Well, it would, believe me, give His heart positive joy to see from you a response to His loving request.”
After that it was all clear.
Do you remember the home at Bethany, where Jesus spent most of the la-t six days of His life here? Why did He go there,to Martha, Mary and Lazarus ? Ah, there were hearts there that appreciated His company and valued His love in contrast to the coldness, hardness of heart, and hatred of the world around. The Lord went up to heaven from Bethany, and that Bethany has continued even till now, since the Lord Jesus has, in the midst of a world that hates Him and that crucified Him, positive joy in the response of His own to His love. It is very beautiful to see that side, and that is why I cannot imagine how one of the Lord’s people can refrain from taking the Lord’s supper.
As I may not have an opportunity to speak of it again, I would just like to say a word on verse 29. Here it is not a question of being worthy to eat, but of eating unworthily—”not discerning the Lord’s body.” What is meant by that ? What does the bread set forth ? It sets forth the Lord’s body given for us, and this signifies that there is the removal in His death of all that we are, as involved in the fall of Adam. This truth is implied in the breaking of bread. Perhaps when we are assembled together, in spite of all contrary efforts, our minds are filled with other thoughts, thoughts of ourselves, our failures and shortcomings, thoughts of every-day business, and so on. What a relief then it is, to know that all this has been removed in the death of Christ, brought so vividly before us in the bread, which is His body given for us, and to know that God now regards us in Another beyond and apart from that altogether. He who eats unworthily forgets this, and indulges the flesh, allowing what is not of God ; he eats the supper, but allows that from which the Lord’s death has delivered him. The Lord in His love cannot leave such a person alone, but He comes in, by way of discipline. Do you think it would be right or kind of Him to leave you alone, if you were going on in a way displeasing to Him ? No, He would bring you to your senses, as it were, and let us praise Him for it.
In the New Testament we find four truths revealed especially to Paul: (i) the gospel (i Cor. xv. 3) ; (2) the rapture (1 Thess. iv.); (3) the Lord’s supper, in this passage; and (4) the mystery, Christ and the church (Eph. iii. 3). Here it was revealed to him, how the Lord Jesus—not Jesus, but the One Who is the exalted Lord in the highest place in glory— “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread: and when he had given thanks”-—what a thanksgiving that must have been and how He looked on to the full result of the death He was about to accomplish !—“He brake it, and said : Take, eat, this is my body, which is for you. This do in remembrance of me.” When was it ? On “the same night in which he was delivered up ” (as it should read); this is a much wider thought than that of the Authorised Version rendering, which confines it, to Judas’ treachery. What does it involve?- That was the.hour, when all that was in man’s heart came out, when all the wickedness of man rose to its height—the treachery of Judas, the weakness of Peter and of His disciples, the hatred of the scribes and priests, the cruel mockery of the soldiers, the unrighteousness of Pilate who thrice protested His innocence and finally gave Him up to be slain, and, behind all, the power and energy of Satan, leading Jew and Gentile to crucify the Lord of glory, Who could say, ” This is your hour and the power of darkness.” In that hour did the Lord Jesus declare all the fullness of the love of God. And we have to own that all that came out there was what is in the heart of each one of us by nature, and we must each apply it to himself. But the Lord in His love has freed us from the man of sin and shame: ” This is my body, which is for you.” And now He looks upon us as His brethren, as sanctified and clear of the old, fallen state altogether.
So it is no question of doctrine, but one of the affections being in exercise, and if it is regarded as a duty, it loses all its significance. What would you think of a family professing to love their father, if, when he was away from home for a long time and sent them his photograph with a request that they would place it on the mantelpiece in order to have a constant remembrance of him, they simply said: ” We suppose we must do it, as he asks us to”? There would not be much love there, would there ? No, it is not a duty, it is not doctrine, but the response of the affections, and the older one gets and the longer one goes on with the Lord’s supper, the more real, the more beautiful it becomes.
And it is “till he come.” We are placed between His death—to which we look back to see all the ground – work and foundation of everything for God and for us—and His corning again, when first, as a preliminary, He will catch us up to be with Himself, and will then return to set up the kingdom.
How beautiful it is in Matthew, when He says: ” I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.” The wine speaks of the joy which He will share with us, the intense joy that will be His, and in that new state of things—that vast system of glory, of which He will be the Head and Centre. The expression, “the kingdom of my Father” occurs only in Matthew, in (i) the Lord’s prayer; (2) chapter xiii. : ” Then shall the righteous shine . . . in the kingdom of t-heir Father;” and (3) here. It is the heavenly side of the world to come, and we too shall shine as the sun in that day for the millennium earth. How wonderful is this glimpse of the Lord Jesus giving thanks in view of that day.
“After the same manner also he took the cup.” This is different from chapter x., ” the cup of blessing which we bless,” for here it is the Lord who puts it into our hands. And is it not remarkable that the Lord here introduces the new covenant ? Surely He must have thought a good deal of it to link it with His supper. I think many of us have too little understood the new covenant — a great thing to grasp. What is expressed in the new covenant ? The new covenant is the expression of the love of the heart of God. I have not time now to prove it to you from scripture, so it must be taken on trust until another time, So in the bread, the Lord’s love comes before us in a very special way, and when He gives us the cup, He directs our hearts into the love of God; it is the Lord Himself that does it. ” The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us,” we have in Rom. v., but here it is the Lord Himself doing it. Does not He know the love of God ? Yes, both as God and as Man, He knows it fully, and He delights to lead our hearts into it now. By nature we are on quite different lines, for we are afraid- of- God, and many Christian? imagine that the Son came here to reconcile the Father to us. The Lord would undo all that dread which the enemy has instilled into us, and would lead our hearts into all the love of God, that we might respond to it.
What marvellous times we ought to have, privileged as we are to know the Father ; conscious, too, of the Spirit’s presence and power, and of the Lord’s delight to have an answer to His love. What a privilege it is! May the Lord lead us on to a greater sense of all its meaning, simple enough for the youngest to see, but so profound that none can ever fathom all its depth.