THE LORD'S SUPPER
THE LORD’S SUPPER
The thought of God in every revelation of His mind is that which pre-eminently gives us a clue to its value, and it is also an unchanging source of strength and blessing to us. Often times His revelations are studied and observed more with reference to the good which may result to us from them than in order to acquire an idea of His own purpose in giving them.
The thought of our Lord in calling His beloved ones around Him in “the same night in which He was betrayed” unfolds to us above all others the true idea of the Lord’s supper. It was the same night in which He was betrayed, when everything here was coming to an end. Then it was, we read, that He “took bread: And when he had given thanks ..”. He owned to God the grace and favour of giving the bread, for He Himself was the bread of God which came down from heaven; and He can give thanks for it, a thanks which finds an echo in our hearts. But this is not all. The bread for which He gives thanks, and for which thanksgiving fills our souls, He breaks. He gives Himself in death. The blessed One dies here for those under death. His death † opens a way for His beloved ones out of the charnel-house which all here is. He desires — and this is His purpose — that we, His own, should be kept in remembrance of Him in the way, and at the moment, in which He, by giving † His body, has opened a way for us into His life. It is not here, that is, in this remembrance of Him, that He would teach us the value of His death — the appropriation of it, as in John 6; but here He would so connect us with Himself at this moment, that we might feel and know that as He has no longer a link with this scene, neither have we — that we, while remaining in the scene, may not resume links with it, but on the contrary, that our chief expression
†In original edition reads “broken body”;
†in original edition reads “breaking”.
[p. 26] and joy of heart may be in remembering Him at the moment when He gave † His body for us, and thus opened a way for us out of death into His own life. The thought of His heart is to connect us, who are still in the scene which is under judgment, with Himself, in that moment on this earth when He by His death delivered us from it.
“After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped (or ‘after supper’), saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me”. The new testament in which we now stand is through His blood, and while we are here, and while He is absent, we drink this cup in remembrance of Him. It is not that we come to it to derive a benefit from His blood-shedding, but we come to remember Him who by His blood-shedding has placed us in the new covenant. It is because we are in this new covenant that we meet this desire of His heart, that we should remember Him at that moment, and in that act, by which He placed us in a new covenant, and thus necessarily apart from all that under which we lay. It is here on earth, where we are surrounded with all not in covenant with God, that we drink this cup, and remember Him who by His blood-shedding has placed us in covenant, even while we are still in a scene in itself at a distance from God. The one simple desire of the heart of Christ is that we should remember Him while we are in this scene, at the moment, and in the manner by which He delivered us from it and its judgment. Hence it is where He freed us from it all that He necessarily attaches us to Himself; not that I should be occupied with the deliverance, but with the Deliverer; and as I am occupied with Him, I am in heart and spirit rejoicing to be in Him outside of it all. No one can be truly in this remembrance but as he is apart and outside of all that from which the death of Christ separates him. It is
†In original edition reads “brake”.
[p. 27] not His resurrection that He brings before me, it is His own death; to remember Him in His death, in the scene where it took place, and where I still am, and where He is not. It is here and in this state that I remember Him. If it were resurrection, it would be rising out of it; it would be passing from the death to the fruits of it. But it is in His death, in the scene and circumstances which required it, that He calls me to remember Him; and as I do, I know and feel and place myself outside of all here; I dissociate myself from everything here which required His death, and my heart is occupied in remembering Him at the moment when He gave His body† and shed His blood, in order to free me from all that is around me. It is the stones erected in the midst of Jordan; see Joshua 5: 9. It speaks to the heart — O, how deeply and touchingly! — of the only one thing on earth which interests me if I be true to Christ, of that one singular event which separates me from all here, but which connects me with Him, when He broke all natural links with the earth, in order to open out for me “a new and living way ... through the veil, that is to say, his flesh”. It is impossible for any one truly to remember Him in His death, and to minister to self, that for which He died. If I discern the Lord’s body, if I am eating worthily, I am remembering Him in His death †; and necessarily I am not occupied with that which has been judged in His death. I discern His body, I judge myself. If I see Him dying for me, I cannot maintain myself. The two cannot exist together, the death and the thing judged in death. If I see Him in His death, I must judge, ignore myself. I have not remembered Him in His death, I have not discerned the Lord’s body, if I have myself before me as my object. In the presence of Christ’s given † body, I must judge that self of mine for which it was given †, I must allow it no
†In original edition “to be broken” is added;
†reads “broken body and shed blood”;
†reads “broken” for “given”;
†reads “broken” for “given”.
[p. 28] place whatever, but be occupied with Him apart from and outside of it.
In 1 Corinthians 10 the saints in company are the expression on earth, during the absence of Christ, of His death, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” We together have communion with His body, and in concert, as by the one loaf, we make this expression. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” It is that we are thus together in communion with it. Each has already partaken of its value, and by one cup we express our unity. We have unity through the Spirit, and hence our acts are declarative of our unity.