READING ON THE LORD'S SUPPER 4

READING ON THE LORD’S SUPPER 4

Mark 14:22 - 26; Matthew 26:26 - 30

CAC I wanted to link these Scriptures together. I thought it was perhaps needful that we should consider that aspect of the Lord’s supper which stands in more immediate connection with the passover before we go on to the great thought of remembrance, which is specially connected with ^[p. 23] it for the assembly. That is why I suggested reading the verses from Mark and Matthew. They suggest a certain apprehension on our part which seems to be necessary if we are to take up the supper as it is possible to the saints of the assembly in Luke and 1 Corinthians.

Ques You think the passover aspect should have its effect on the saints before the remembrance is taken up?

CAC Yes. It would appear that the aspect presented in Mark comes first. That is, “As they were eating (i.e. the passover), Jesus, having taken bread, when He had blessed, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, Take this: this is my body”. I think the first thing we should learn is how to take the bread.

Ques You suggest that the further thought of eating comes in Matthew?

CAC Yes, the first thought is taking the bread, and the second is eating, which comes out in Matthew.

Rem “Eating” is not in the text in Mark, it is “take” there.

CAC Yes, the Lord does not refer to eating in Mark, and in connection with this great subject it is necessary that we should go carefully and observingly and not miss any part of the Lord’s instruction. In Mark He stresses the point, “Take this”. Take is the distinctive word.

Ques Would it be connected at all with the thought of taking the lamb?

CAC Well, I think there is a suggested connection.

It is important that we should take the bread in the wonderful import which the Lord has connected with it. We are told that, “Jesus having taken bread, when he had blessed, broke it, and gave it to them”. It is when He had blessed, not when He had ^[p. 24] given thanks.

Ques What is the difference between giving thanks and blessing?

CAC I think blessing gives the thought of the character which the Lord would attach to the loaf. That is, in blessing He gave the loaf such an import as no other loaf had ever before possessed.

Ques Would it suggest the Lord taking the body prepared for Him?

CAC No doubt it does suggest that. The fact that He took bread, or the loaf, intimates there is something very tangible which would clearly refer to His having become flesh. He has come into the conditions ^[p. 25] of Manhood, and all this blessing and the subject of the blessing is connected with that. The Lord would have us all to ponder deeply the great purpose of the incarnation — what has come into Manhood. It has come into Manhood in order that it might be taken, be appropriated. So the great thought of taking is primarily in this matter.

Rem “Taking” implies a very deliberate action on the part of the Lord, as if designed to bring something before us.

CAC It was to bring the greatest matter before us that ever took place in the universe, or that ever will take place, the most important matter in the whole of eternity. Now, He says, I want you to take it with something of that in your soul.

Ques Would the body imply that these great thoughts have come into its compass?

CAC Yes, there was so much told out in the Lord becoming Man that is available for us to take.

Rem And “My body” — it is the Person who comes into it, that Person’s body.

CAC Yes, and this blessing connects the immensity of all that with the symbol. But the Lord’s blessing connects the greatness of His becoming Man with the character of the loaf, it makes it all available to us. This matter becomes in this way concentrated, and we see what is infinite compassed in these simple outward emblems, and the Lord would have us avail ourselves of all that His blessing connects with it. I think this would fill out the thought of the remembrance. We take it up with little sense of what it is, and what it is we remember; but taking the loaf in the great sense of what His blessing connects with it would greatly help us.

Rem The Hebrew bondman served for six years as coming into this condition, and in the seventh he said, “I will not go out free”. I thought it was the deep affection that was at the back of it.

CAC I think that ought to affect us profoundly, and it comes very fittingly in Mark’s gospel where He is the great Servant, and where He stresses that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. He came to minister. The body He took up was the vessel of service. Who can measure the marvellous service? We take the loaf in the sense of what it symbolises. The Lord took it; He connected all in His life of marvellous service with the symbol, and says, Now, I want you to take it that way.

It appears to me that in blessing, the Lord connects with the simple emblem the thought of all that had come in from God in Himself as in Manhood. Then He breaks it, to indicate that it is available. It could not be taken unbroken. It was so when He broke the bread in feeding the multitude, it needed to be broken to be available. In a certain sense it refers to His death because then it was that all that was there in His body was made available. Otherwise it would not be available. It is a figure of His death in that particular aspect. If He had not died there would have been ^[p. 26] a gulf which we could not have passed over, but He has passed over that gulf and made it available to us. How could we take it all to ourselves, all that He is as incarnate? I could not as a poor sinner! So the greatest expenditure of love has been put forth that we might take what will fill eternity. That is, it is all available.

A sister said to me that she could not get as much of Christ as she wanted. That is darkness in the soul, and the Lord saying “Take” is the answer to it. This Scripture says nothing but “TAKE” in all its blessed assurance, and nothing is required on our part but the preparedness to take. It is marvellous to think of that great Person — all that He is as Man, and all that He has secured in His death — He has put the symbol of it in a loaf and He says, “Take this”. It is available. He was among disciples who loved Him — but in the principle of it, it spreads out to the entire household of faith.

Ques Would you connect the Lord’s teaching in John 6 with what is now before us?

CAC In John 6 it is the condition He stresses, which has in view the entrance of believers into eternal life. It is not the supper there, it is the appropriation of Himself in death in view of entering into life eternal. It is noticeable that it is all in the singular number in John 6. “He that eateth” etc. In the Lord’s supper there is nothing individual. We could not bring it down to the individual. The great blessing of the Lord’s supper is that it is a company that eats it. It is a company all thinking alike of Christ, all having the same thoughts of that blessed One. Some, of course have a little more capacity than others, but there is not a divergent thought. So the young convert looks round and says, They think just as I do about Christ and better of Him than I do; and he says, What a privilege to be among them! Well, we might dwell a long time on that, but we ^[p. 27] must try and take in the thought that is added in Matthew. There is the additional thought of eating, “Take, eat”.

Ques Taking is appropriation, then what is the thought of eating?

CAC It is assimilation I should think. We first appropriate, that is we see that divine love invites us to take possession of all that is signified by a divine Person coming into Manhood, but with that — the loaf taken — there is the thought of eating. That is a further thought, indicating that it is the divine thought that we should become like Him. In Matthew the thought of being disciples is very much stressed. There is very little about apostles in Matthew. I think they are spoken of once where it gives their names. But disciples are stressed, that is, those who have come under His moulding and instructing influence. There is the thought of training, but it is hardly the thought of discipline, because that suggests the need for correction on our part. The divine proposal is that we should be corrected by feeding on the One in whom there is no possible thought of correction. We are to assimilate the One who needs no divine correction. It suggests that by eating we are to become assimilated to Him, which of course has the body in view. What came out in the body of Christ is to come out in the whole company of saints that form His body. It is to get extension, but by way of eating. I think it is a weak point with us all that we do not feed upon Him sufficiently. In a physical way the food we take in becomes part of our physical constitution. Now when we feed upon Christ what we eat spiritually becomes part of us spiritually. We take character from what we feed upon.

Now this truth all underlies the supper. It is not merely coming to break bread week by week, though that is essential. What underlies it is this great reality of taking and eating.

Rem The body and blood are separated to emphasise the import of ^[p. 28] each.

CAC Yes, it is how we understand. The question is how much have we eaten? What we have taken of Christ, not all the power of earth and hell can ever take away from us. It becomes part of the fibre of our being, part of myself, and that cannot he taken away.

What is introduced to me objectively, becomes part of me subjectively. We shall not really please the Lord in taking His supper if we do not move on these lines. We may ourselves become sacramental as if deriving something from the action, instead of being on this line, that we have taken what divine love has made available in Christ, and have really eaten it and made it part of ourselves. It is taking and eating, not eating first. There must be the eating too. It is a wonderful thing to get something of Christ into the soul, so that it becomes so part of me that nothing could possibly get it out of me! That is the divine thought.

The Lord introduces us to the greatness of what is available in Matthew and Mark. The question is, Is there enough in Christ to change me completely from what I am into what He is? — to transform me! Everyone that knows Him would say, Yes, there is everything in Him to change all that I am into what He is. Then I am a disciple. His great distinction of a disciple is that he becomes as his teacher. We ought to ponder all these things. If this is not so, I do not know what it is to eat it, and in saying that I am not referring to partaking of the literal loaf. We might do that for forty years and not enter into the spiritual reality of eating it.

Ques Would you say that we can break bread and not touch the supper?

CAC That is what they were doing at Corinth, making it part of a common meal. To get away from that we must enter into these spiritual things. We need to enter into the import of all that the Lord has conferred upon it by blessing, so that we are in harmony with Himself.

^[p. 29] Then there is the eating. The apostle says, “Yet not I but Christ liveth in me”. He must have done some eating! How did Christ get into him? By eating. We have to take up these things from Mark and Matthew in order to be qualified to remember the Lord according to Luke and 1 Corinthians.