Mark Cowan
1 Corinthians 11:26. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
This verse is so often quoted as a “connector” with the verses recorded in the Gospels concerning the Lord’s supper with His disciples.
It is also so often used to further instruct or as it were, enhance the relevance of the Lord’s supper.
We often fail to recognize that this verse is in the center of a rebuke to the Corinthians.
Paul exposes some serious problems in the Corinthians’ observance of the Lord’s Supper and links this problem to the sickness and deaths of many of the Corinthian saints, which are manifestations of divine discipline. Paul does not leave the Corinthians without a solution. In addition to exposing their sin for what it was, Paul tells them how to correct the problem and avoid further discipline from the Lord.
The problems that Paul exposes in the Corinthians’ celebration of the Lord’s Supper should be instructive to us.
(1) Recognize that their celebration of the Lord’s Supper was not really the Lord’s Supper at all. These Corinthians are “going through the motions” of observing the Lord’s Supper, but when you compare their practice with the reality of this Supper, it is apparent that what they were doing was nothing like what the Lord’s Supper was all about.
Their celebration of the Lord’s Supper is something like a peace activist beating an innocent bystander with a sign with a dove on it. It is like a prison warden handing out handgun permits to the most violent inmates. It is like a man pawning his wedding ring to pay for a night with a prostitute.
How ironic that Paul assesses the situation in Corinth by saying their celebration of the Lord’s Supper is not a celebration of the (true) Lord’s Supper at all.
I am reminded of the words of the prophet Amos as cited by Stephen in his final message to his Jewish brethren:
>>Acts 7:42-43. Acts 7:42-43. 42 Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
43 Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
I cannot imagine that Paul did not mentally recall where he first heard that religious rituals are a sham without religious reality, without practicing what we proclaim. Even from the grave, Stephen was still preaching through one of his assassins—Saul—now the Apostle Paul.
(2) Recapture the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, as it was first instituted by our Lord. Paul takes these Corinthians back to the original Lord’s Supper, as he received this tradition from the Lord.
If the Corinthians are to practice the Lord’s Supper as our Lord meant it to be, they must be reminded of that first Lord’s Supper which our Lord celebrated with His disciples shortly before His death.
(3) Return to the simple message and meaning of the gospel. We know from the earlier chapters of this epistle that some of the Corinthians are being lured from the simple gospel by the false wisdom of some of their (would-be) leaders.
Paul is thought of as simplistic and second class because of his refusal to embrace anything but the gospel message of Christ crucified. The Lord’s Supper is the commemoration of our Lord’s sacrificial life and death for the salvation and sanctification of lost sinners, in whose place He was condemned, and in Whom the saints have been forgiven, justified, and glorified.
The Lord’s Supper means nothing apart from the gospel, and so it is by revisiting the gospel message through the Lord’s Supper that we come to appreciate the significance of the Lord’s Supper.
(4) Understand that the symbols God has appointed reflect substance.
Symbols mean little without the substance. This is truly difficult for the self-centered for whom the measure of the meeting is “What did I get out of it?”
Over and over again, the Old Testament prophets rebuke the Israelites for their elaborate display of feigned spirituality through external rituals and symbols, but doing so without the substance of what these symbols represent:
>>Isaiah 58:1-14. 1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. 3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day: 11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
>>Amos 5:21-24. 21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. 22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. 23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
(5) Recognize the broader, corporate dimensions of the Lord’s Supper.
The Corinthians tended to approach the Lord’s Supper in the same way most of us do, viewing the celebration individually and personally. Now do not misunderstand me here. If the Lord’s Supper does not apply to us personally and individually, it can have no meaning at all. But the Lord’s Supper goes beyond us as individuals and includes the church of our Lord corporately.
When we partake of communion, we are not only reminded that we have partaken of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary for the forgiveness of our sins, we symbolically demonstrate that we have become a member of His body, the church.
Communion symbolizes our identification with Christ and with His church.
In. Ephesians 2:1-10. Paul reminds the Ephesians how they have been personally and individually saved from their sins to an eternal union with Christ.
In verses 11-22, Paul reminds his readers that they have been saved from their alienation and separation from the people of God to a new status where they are one people as believers in Christ.
To fail to wait for other believers in the church and not to share the Lord’s Supper with them is a blatant disregard for this corporate dimension of Christ’s atoning work on Calvary, which is to be symbolized in the Lord’s Supper.
(6) The affluent Corinthians are to stop despising and shaming those in the body whose socio-economic status is lower than theirs, by waiting for them before celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and by sharing their supper with them. The Corinthians are guilty of the same offense as those whom James rebuked in his epistle:
>>James 2:1-4. 1 My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
The solution was for the Corinthians and should be for us today, is to see how their actions contradicted the gospel and then how they turned their celebration of the Lord’s Supper into a hypocritical sham. They were to see to it that the way they celebrated communion was consistent in substance (practice) with the symbolism of the meal.
We need to be reminded of the subtlety of sin. Sins should not be determined on a cultural basis but rather on a biblical basis. The Corinthians were guilty of a deadly sin, and they hardly seemed to know it. As we observe the exposure of this sin in Corinth by Paul, let us open our own hearts and minds to the Word of God and the Spirit of God, asking as the psalmist did to have our sins exposed and cleansed:
>>Psalm 139:23-24. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
We should beware of evaluating our worship in terms of what it does for us. I suspect you have frequently heard the question asked after church, “How did the church meeting go?” The basis on which we answer that question tells us a great deal. Unfortunately, we tend to measure the meeting by what it did for us. Did we feel elevated in our spirit? Did we come away feeling good? Did others say or do what we hoped for? Did we have the opportunity to do or to say what we wanted? We indulge ourselves in other ways than in food. Self-indulgence is all too often a motive or a goal in our worship. We worship because of what we hope we will gain. I must warn you that this is a most dangerous goal.
The element of sacrifice is primary in everything we do as Christians, including celebrating the Lord’s Supper. If sacrifice is a significant element in worship, the question we should be asking to evaluate the quality of our worship is, “What did I give (up), and what did God gain?” All too often we worship expecting God to give and ourselves to gain. As we see in this text and in the chapters to follow, we are also to sacrifice so that our fellow-believers might gain, so that they might be edified. The element of sacrifice was missing in Corinth, as it is frequently missing in our worship today.
The good news is that even when sins as serious as those in Corinth are taking place in the church, God will use them for His glory and for our good.
Paul does not wring his hands over the situation in Corinth, even though he might like to wring their necks. But even when the church is behaving as badly as many were in Corinth, God’s purposes are not frustrated.
I think this is why Paul could be direct and yet still admonish these saints as his dear children in the faith. God is glorified when He disciplines the saints before the world and before the celestial beings.
God’s holiness is surely evident when He disciplines His children, and so is His faithfulness and love. Remember that even in the discipline of death, God’s actions are for our best interest:
We live in a world which knows not the unity and fellowship which Christians possess, and which we should practice at all times, especially in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. If you are reading these words, my friend, and you have never experienced the forgiveness of your sins and the intimate fellowship with God and with other Christians of which Paul has been writing, I urge you to “come to the table”; that is, that you come to Him Who is the “Bread of life,” and Whose blood was shed for you. Come to Jesus Christ as the sinner you are, and partake of His sacrificial death on your behalf. To do so is to not only entitle you to sit at His table every week at the Lord’s Supper, but to sit at His table throughout all eternity in the kingdom of God.
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