Doctrine of the Church (Part 8): The Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper

We’ve been discussing the doctrine of the church. Today we turn our attention from the subject of baptism to that other major sacrament or ordinance of the church, namely, the Lord’s Supper.

As we do so, a major difference between baptism and the Lord’s Supper becomes immediately apparent; namely, baptism is a unique act never to be repeated, whereas the Lord’s Supper is something that is to be regularly commemorated and repeated. Baptism, you will remember, is the climax of one’s conversion-initiation of becoming a Christian. When a person undergoes baptism, this is the pinnacle of his initiation into the Christian faith – his identification with the death and resurrection of Christ and with the church, the body of Christ. Therefore this is an act which is never to be repeated.

I think that it is very important that we remember the significance of that act. A few years ago when Reasonable Faith first sponsored a trip to Israel, my Baptist pastor John Herring approached me and said, “Bill, some people have expressed an interest in being baptized in the River Jordan during this trip.” And I said to John, “Have they already been baptized?” And he said, “Yes, but they want to repeat this and do it in Israel.” And I said, “John, we can’t do that. That would be completely inappropriate.” To repeat one’s baptism is in effect to invalidate the earlier baptism that you underwent. It is to say, “That wasn’t really my initiation into the body of Christ – this act is.” Therefore, you are invalidating the baptism you underwent before. My pastor said, “Well, think about it. It could just be a re-commitment of their lives to Christ.” I said I would think about it, but as I did so, it just became all the more clear to me that such an action would be completely inappropriate. Baptism is a unique event whereby you identify yourself with the body of Christ and with his death and resurrection. It is an act of initiation. Therefore, to do it again is in effect to invalidate that earlier act of initiation that you underwent. So I said, “John, what we will do is offer baptism to anyone who hasn’t undergone believer’s baptism already. Someone who has never been baptized or perhaps was baptized as an infant without their consent and who now wants to undergo believer’s baptism as this act of initiation can be baptized.” And it turned out that there were some on the trip who fit that description. There was one Catholic family from Australia in particular who had young sons of about eight years of age who wanted to be baptized. So they were baptized by John in the Jordan River. They absolutely loved this because they could now go back and tell all of their Catholic friends that they had been baptized by “John the Baptist” in the Jordan River!

Today we want to look at the Lord’s Supper. Let’s look first at the biblical data concerning the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper was first initiated by Jesus himself. Let’s look at the account found in the earliest of our Gospels, the Gospel of Mark 14:22-25. Mark says,

And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Here Jesus, in initiating the Lord’s Supper, refers to “my blood of the covenant” which he says is represented by the cup of wine which they drink. This phrase recalls Exodus 24:8. Here Moses is explaining how the old covenant – that is, the Mosaic covenant – is sealed with blood. In verse 8 of chapter 24 of Exodus it says, “And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’” Here you have the same phrase “the blood of the covenant” which expressed the sanctifying blood in the Old Testament. And now Jesus takes this cup while celebrating the Passover and says, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” He thereby imbues his impending death with sanctifying significance.

Second, let’s look at the tradition that the apostle Paul hands on concerning this event. This is one of the events in the life of Jesus that we read about not merely in the Gospels but also in Paul’s epistles. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul gives some instructions concerning the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 Paul says, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” Now before I go on, I want to note that this is very interesting phraseology. This is the same phraseology that Paul uses in chapter 15 when he says, “For what I received, I also delivered to you” and then quotes an old four-line tradition concerning the major events of the Passion and resurrection – that Christ died, was buried, was raised, and appeared. So what this indicates is that Paul is here in 1 Corinthians 11 handing on historical tradition about Jesus that he had received concerning his Last Supper. Paul says,

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when 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 also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Here is a little aside on this passage that is interesting. Notice the phrase, “on the night when he was betrayed.” Even though Paul is not handing on the historical tradition of Jesus’ betrayal by Judas Iscariot – he is talking here merely about the Last Supper – nevertheless this remark shows that Paul was aware of the historical context of the traditions that he delivered to his churches. These weren’t just isolated sayings without a context for Paul. Paul knew the historical context of the traditions that he handed on to his churches. That is seen here in his knowledge of Jesus’ betrayal in the context of delivering these traditions about the Lord’s Supper.

So what Paul says expressly in his epistles is just the tip of an iceberg. We see Paul’s knowledge of the historical Jesus only insofar as he is called upon to draw upon that knowledge in dealing with situations in his local churches. If it hadn’t been for the fact that certain people in Corinth were getting drunk at the communion service, we would not have any reference in the Pauline epistles to the Lord’s Supper. Doubtless some scholar would surely say that in that case the Pauline churches did not celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and that the Lord’s Supper was a later tradition that eventually came to be embodied in the Gospels. But because of the accident of history that the Lord’s table was being abused in Corinth, we see here Paul’s knowledge of the historical Jesus and the context of the traditions that he hands on. So what we get in the Pauline epistles is just, as I say, the tip of an iceberg. What Paul knows about the historical Jesus is much, much vaster than what actually appears in these epistles, where it is just a matter of historical accident that this knowledge of Paul is disclosed. So that is just a brief aside about the credibility of what Paul has to say about the historical Jesus.

The important point for now is that we see in the letters of Paul a very similar tradition to what we read in Mark; namely, about Jesus taking bread and saying, “This is my body,” and then also the cup identifying it as “the new covenant in my blood.”

Actually, the Pauline tradition of the Last Supper is even closer to Luke’s version of the Last Supper than it is to Mark’s. Turn over to Luke 22:19-20. Luke writes,

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

[Notice here you have the command to celebrate this memorial supper, an element which isn't in Mark; but it is in Luke and in Paul.]

And likewise the cup after supper,

[This again is something that characterizes Paul’s tradition but not Mark’s. The cup was taken after supper.]

saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

So you have in Paul and Luke very similar traditions of the Last Supper that they hand on about how Jesus said that these elements are his body and blood and that we are to celebrate this Supper in remembrance of him.

In addition to the historical tradition that we find in Paul as well as in the Gospels, Paul gives some instructions that are noteworthy to the church in Corinth about how to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Let’s look at those. This is from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. Here Paul is obviously very upset with what is going on in Corinth. He writes,

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses 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 commend you in this? No, I will not.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when 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 also the cup, 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.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

That completes our survey of the biblical data concerning the practice of the Lord’s Supper. Next time we’ll talk about the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.^[1]