READING ON THE LORD'S SUPPER 5

READING ON THE LORD’S SUPPER 5

Matthew 26. 26 - 30 cont.

CAC As we were dwelling last week on the thought of taking and eating, I wondered if the Lord would say something to us this afternoon about drinking.

I feel impressed with the thought that the presentation in Matthew and Mark is of very great importance. We are apt to begin with Luke and to think perhaps of the remembrance. We all observe that there is no thought of remembrance in either Matthew or Mark. It is the question of eating and drinking, and ^[p. 31] it seems to me that the thought of eating and drinking must precede the thought of remembrance.

Rem Will the act of remembrance be greatly enhanced if we eat and drink in a spiritual way?

CAC That is what I had in mind, and I think it is important for us. There is no doubt that in Luke we get the setting of things more in relation to the assembly. So that the account in Luke’s gospel is practically the same as the account which the Lord gives to Paul by direct revelation from heaven. It has to do with the assembly as such. The assembly would be normally made up of persons who knew what it was to eat and drink; their constitution and inward state of soul would be greatly affected by what they ate and drank. We have been considering that it was important in approaching the Lord’s supper to see the kind of people who can eat the supper.

^[p. 30] Rem You would say there is a kind of moral order in it all? We can only “remember” what we know and appreciate; eating and drinking deepens the knowledge.

CAC Yes. It seems to me there is the thought of eating and drinking connected with this matter, as well as remembrance. We get a spiritual constitution which would enable us rightly to remember the Lord. As we observed last week, when we come to eating and drinking, it is what no one else can do for us, it is our activity. The most wonderful supply of spiritual food may be there, and yet it is only what we personally eat and drink that builds us up and gives us constitutions. That side of things seems to link on with the passover. It is a question of eating and drinking the cup there, because we find there was a cup connected with the passover. That thought really links on with the passover.

Ques Was there a cup with the passover?

CAC There was no cup in the institution of the passover, but we find in the course of centuries it had become necessary to have one or more cups on the table at the passover, and evidently there was one on the table which the Lord took. The passover reached its fullest development in having a cup connected with it.

Ques Is building up connected equally with the cup?

CAC I thought so. I thought the strength of the constitution would be derived from the bread — the eating — but the stimulation would be connected with the cup. Some of us feel we not only need spiritual strength and vigour of constitution, but a stimulating element.

The eating and drinking pass out of sight when you come to remembrance, and the Lord Himself is the Object in view. In remembrance we have not the thought of what we get at all, but, He says, “This do in remembrance of ME”. That blessed ME takes the place of every other consideration.

It seems to me that the thought of eating and drinking morally precedes the thought of remembrance, providing constitution and stimulation so that there is perfect freedom to take up the remembrance where the Lord fills the vision. “Do this in remembrance of ME”. It supposes a state of heart that can be absorbed with Himself.

Rem In Exodus 24 you get eating and drinking, both ideas are there.

CAC Yes, and the thought of drinking is very prominent in Scripture. We all remember the allusion in 1 Corinthians 12 where he says, “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”, which is an allusion to the one loaf, and all made to “to drink of one Spirit”, which clearly alludes to the cup. This last is not exactly the gift of the Spirit from outside, but refers to our drinking of the Spirit, which is a definite personal act.

I think in connection with the Lord’s supper there is the great thought of stimulation. We should look for that on every occasion. We may be heavy and pre-occupied with what we have come from, and we require stimulation for the service of God, which it seems to me is connected with the cup as having in view our drinking.

The drinking is part of the remembrance in 1 Corinthians. I think the drinking in Corinthians merges in the remembrance.

Ques Why does the Lord have more to say about drinking than eating? I mean, in a practical way, we find we need to understand the cup more than we do the bread. Is that not so?

CAC I think so. In the bread we get the great thought of the Lord’s incarnation. He has actually been here in a prepared body, a body entirely different from any other man’s. He was a true Man but unique in His humanity.

^[p. 32] Taking that and eating it is a very wonderful thing; the soul being formed in substance by the great fact; the Lord and the will of God being available to us in the eating.

Ques Were you linking the remembrance with the cup?

CAC No, I said it is also connected with the cup.

Ques Why is it the cup and not its contents?

CAC The prominent thing before the Lord is the common character of it. The cup, that is the vessel from which all drink, shews it is a portion shared by all. Matthew begins with the lowest level of the blessing, because he speaks of it as the remission of sins. It is the blood of the new covenant that is shed for many for the remission of sins. The ground is divinely cleared of the question of sins, so that we do not need to revert to that question. It is important that all should know their sins are remitted and no longer present to the mind of the believer or before God. Through the blood we are as clear as if they had never been committed. That is a basic reality and if we do not know that we cannot proceed any further.

So we are liberated for a new kind of association which the Lord intimates is to be known by His saints outside all question of sins. They have been remitted in the power of the blood. It is the most elementary part. The assembly does not dwell on that, but we could not take up the assembly position if we did not know it.

After they had drunk in Mark He said to them, “This is my blood, that of the new covenant, that shed for many”. The Lord Jesus opens up more after they had drunk. I think we get that service from the Lord sometimes, and we should give Him the opportunity if He pleases. There is evidently an opportunity suggested by Mark, that the Lord may have something further to say about it.

Rem The Lord “gives thanks” for ^[p. 33] the cup.

CAC In blessing the bread the Lord is clothing it with such import as no loaf ever had before, so that it can be taken and eaten on our part as conveying the thoughts which the Lord has impressed upon it in blessing.

In the cup there is that which the Lord could recognise as coming in from God for men, and He could take part in thanksgiving for it. If you connect it with the Spirit (and Scripture does so), you can understand what profound pleasure the Lord had in giving thanks that men were to be in the good of this present blessing in the power of the Spirit. So that all are stimulated, we do not sit down in a heavy dead state, but we are stimulated into it livingly. If there is a long pause before there is liberty to take part, it indicates that the divine stimulation is not present.

Rem It has been said that there is the silence of weakness or the silence of power.

CAC Yes, but there is not much power in silence if nothing has been said before, but there is a silence of power after something has been said that is so rich that you want to keep quiet about it for a while. These suggestions need to be weighed — the thought of stimulation and drinking. That is what we have done by our own act. Drinking of the Spirit is not God’s act for me, but it is my act. We are so apt to be formal. Christendom is a solemn warning for us, because holy communion, so-called, is taken up in a very poor and formal way. It seems to me the thought of drinking would dispel all formality.

Rem In the Song of Songs we have; “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, beloved ones!” There is the thought of increase.

CAC We need to be exercised in heart as to all that is connected especially with the supper, so that the spiritual side should be uppermost with us. There is the great thought ^[p. 34] of being inwardly stimulated. There is a new association too, because the Lord calls attention to it. There is going to be a suspension of what He has enjoyed with them before, and a new association is in view.

Ques Are you linking it with what is to come, or with His entering into it in a new way with us now?

CAC I think the Lord is linking the hearts of His own to a new kind of association — a spiritual association outside this scene where He was about to die. There had been a most blessed association with Him as Messiah; they had eaten and drunk with Him often in this way; now He is suggesting to them that there is to be an association of an entirely new order.

Ques Which of the two cups is it here?

CAC In Matthew and Mark the cup merges in the supper; in Luke the two cups are separate; after the passover supper He takes another cup. No doubt the Lord had in mind this wonderful period coming in by the saints drinking of one Spirit, which was a spiritual association and there was spiritual joy in connection with it. It was not like that which they had enjoyed with Him on earth, but it was based on His death and His blood poured out, and it was given from heaven in order that we might be able to drink of one Spirit. That is a new kind of association in which all christians should share.

Ques Would you state the difference between “my blood” and “the fruit of the vine?”

CAC I think the fruit of the vine was suggestive of what would be enjoyed in the millennium.

Ques Do you think the assembly has no part in it, or that we touch it ^[p. 35] now?

CAC I think the Lord was leaving all that for the moment although He was entitled to all earthly blessing and joy as Man, and entitled to an earthly kingdom. The saints are to leave it too for a heavenly portion. The Lord has had to give up earthly blessing, He has had to give up Israel.

Rem The Lord said in Luke following the supper, “I appoint unto you, as my Father has appointed unto me, a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel”. So it is all in view of what is coming in.

CAC Yes, but that has not come in yet.

Rem It would shew a very blessed scene of glory as the result of the Lord’s operations.

CAC But really our association is entirely different; it is the fellowship of the body and blood of Christ, and the more we understand that, the more we shall understand the character of the blessing that has come in. It is of a spiritual order, and the enjoyment of it is connected with drinking of one Spirit.

Rem The kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” — it is the spiritual side.

CAC Yes. We come into it as a people who are really called to heavenly blessing, but we touch the new covenant, or the new covenant touches us in a spiritual way.

Rem He gets from us the response He would have had from Israel.

CAC Yes, and very much more. There will be very much more from a company of persons in association with Christ where He is, than from any earthly people. It would help us if we meditated more on the thoughts suggested by the Lord’s supper, before we take up the thought of remembrance. The remembrance is not always so rich as it ought to be for want of taking up these collateral thoughts, especially ^[p. 36] the thought of eating and drinking. The “cup of blessing” contains very much more than any thought of the covenant.

Of course all these things take on an infinite character when they are connected with divine Persons. Everything is as immense as it is immeasurable.