1 CORINTHIANS 11 (SECOND READING)
1 CORINTHIANS 11 (SECOND READING)
It is important to notice that the Supper is connected with our corning together in assembly. In verses 17 and 18 Paul says that “ye come together, not for the better, but for the worse. For first, when ye come together in assembly, I hear there exist divisions among you”, and in verse 20, “When ye come therefore together into one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For each one in eating takes his own supper before others”. It clearly shows that the Supper would be in connection with the coming together, but it suggests that the coming together of saints might not be suitable to the Supper. The saints, as a matter of fact, did come together at Corinth but they came together most unsuitably and divisions existed which were manifested even when they came together. The Supper is introduced to correct all that, so that the saints might come together in divine unity. The object, the primary object, of the Supper, is that the saints might be together in divine and spiritual unity, and only thus can they have the true character of the assembly of God.
[p. 45] Paul addresses them as the assembly of God in Corinth at the outset, but he also speaks of some as despising the assembly of God; in the very way they were coming together they were despising the assembly of God. There were divisions, and then each one was eating his own supper; things were being taken up entirely, and even publicly, in an individual way. Surely these things in their moral application are not to be limited to Corinth. Many of those who think they are eating the Lord’s supper are really eating their own supper, that is, they take what they call the ‘Sacrament’ or the ‘Holy Communion’, but they take it entirely on an individual basis, though it may be with a grateful and affectionate sense that the Lord has died for them — they delight to think of that; but it is more what the Lord has done for them that is before them, and if what the Lord has done for me is the prominent thought in my mind, I am not eating the Lord’s supper, I am eating my own supper. The Lord’s supper is divinely intended to bring the saints together. We cannot eat the Lord’s supper alone because it is a collective matter; we have fellowship. If we all partake of one loaf and one cup, it is a collective matter. The Lord’s supper stands connected with Paul’s ministry. Paul says emphatically, I received from the Lord”. The twelve, one might say, received it of the Lord in the days of His flesh, but Paul was the only one who received it from the Lord as risen and glorified. He says, I received from the Lord”; the Lord gave it to Paul in connection with his ministry in regard to the assembly. It is the centre, the true rallying point of the assembly of God; and it raises a question with every one of us as to whether we are, in our souls, on the ground of the assembly of God which gives the Lord’s supper the central place, or whether we are on sectarian ground. Some of those at Corinth were on sectarian ground; although they were actually all coming [p. 46] together, yet there were sects amongst them. Some of them were sectarian; there were divisions among them; there was not unity even when they came together. There was a lack of spiritual unity, and the apostle is seeking to adjust it, or rather the Lord is seeking to adjust it, by giving the Supper its proper place.
The Lord’s supper would revive the affections of the saints and so centralise them on certain divine objects that there would not be a jarring note in the assembly. It is just as effective today as ever it was. The power of what is presented here is as great as it was when Paul penned it. The conditions of disorder at the present time are not so manifest as they were then, and if it sufficed to adjust things then, it would suffice today. You can meet the Lord individually in your own room, but to meet the Lord in the company of the saints, to meet Him in the assembly of God, we must see the Lord’s way to form and mould our affections. The Supper is the Lord’s way, the way of divine love, to mould and form our affections so that we might be together without a jarring note, without any disorder, that we might be together as the assembly of God. If there had been any better means of securing what the Lord desires than the Supper, He would have used them. The fact that the Lord has taken this simple means (nothing could be more simple outwardly, nothing more profound inwardly and spiritually) in the wisdom of His love shows that there is no better way. There is no better way of moulding the spiritual affections of saints and putting them together in spiritual unity than the Lord’s supper.
“This is my body, which is for you”. You could not limit that “you”. It is as wide as the love of Christ. It embraces every saint on the face of the earth, or more practically put, it embraces every saint in the town where we live.
[p. 47] The Supper is the peculiar portion of the assembly; no other family will eat the Lord’s supper. The saints who succeed us, the remnant of Israel, may take up some memorial of Passover character, but I do not think they will take up the Lord’s supper because the Lord’s supper is connected with the body. It is connected with that peculiar and distinctive truth which marks off the assembly from all other families of saints which went before and which will come after. What marks off the church period and the church saints is “one body”, and the Supper is connected with one body. I do not think any saint ever did or ever will eat the Lord’s supper but those who are of the one body. There is nothing that we have to cherish with more jealous and holy affection than the Lord’s supper. The devil has done his utmost to rob the people of God of the Supper; he has made it sacramental; he has made it into a religious ceremony or a means of grace; he has taken away its true character. It is helpful to see that the matter is presented in three different aspects in this chapter; it is spoken of as a remembrance, as an announcement, and with regard to the responsibility that attaches to eating and drinking. These three things are separate but we have to remember that what is for the Lord is the remembrance. That is for the Lord and, therefore, the remembrance has the first place. He says, “This do in remembrance of me”. The remembrance is for the Lord; the announcement is for the world.
In Luke there is the thought of “remembrance” but there is no “remembrance” in Mark or in Matthew. It is important to see that. In Mark it is, “Take”, and in Matthew He says, “Take, eat”. Now those are very important things, but they are not the remembrance. We reach Luke by way of Mark and Matthew. “Take” is the appropriating to ourselves of all the import which the Lord put upon the loaf. Matthew and Mark tell us that [p. 48] He blessed the bread; it looks at the Lord on the divine side, and the Lord blesses the bread; He clothed it with a spiritual import which no other loaf in this world ever had. Now in Mark He says, “Take”. Each saint has to know what it is to “take” the loaf, to lay hold of it in our affections in all the import that the Lord has clothed it with. Then in Matthew He goes further; He not only says, “Take” but “eat”. Our very constitution is to be formed by the import of this loaf. He says, ‘You are to eat it’. What a wonderful character it would give us if we really took and ate spiritually what the Lord would express to us in the loaf, that is, His own body! If we have taken it and eaten it we shall become the kind of people who could come together according to Luke. If we have learned individually to take it up on the line of Mark and Matthew it would prepare us to take it up as a remembrance. In Luke it is a remembrance. There is a remembrance of the Lord in unity, a remembrance of church character, something quite different from anything that we can take up individually. We can think of the Lord in our own chamber, we can retire with the Bible, or bow our knees in prayer, or occupy ourselves in meditation; we can talk to Him adoringly, we can remember Him individually. But then, what the Lord wants is assembly remembrance; He wants this peculiar character of remembrance which only the assembly can give Him. The Lord views the assembly as great enough to answer to His own love for it. He loves the assembly; He gave Himself for it. He has given His body to be the portion of the assembly, to be the nourishment of the assembly’s affections.
I think that at Corinth they had ceased to give the Lord His place as Head, and it is very remarkable that when we come to the Supper as in Luke’s gospel and as in Corinthians, the Lord seems to present Himself to us as [p. 49] Head. I think He is seen as Lord in Matthew and Mark (it is in connection with the loaf I am speaking now particularly) for He blesses the bread; but in Luke He gives thanks for it, and in Corinthians He gives thanks. Now when the Lord gives thanks He is viewed as on our side; He has taken a place on man’s side if He gives thanks. So that it is really the Lord as Head who presents the Supper to us; so that we can understand why the truth of headship comes in at the beginning of this chapter, because if the Lord gives thanks for the bread and for the cup He has come to our side. It is important to distinguish between the Lord blessing and giving thanks. As blessing He is on God’s side — He is Lord. He is authoritatively, as Lord; clothing the bread with a new and spiritual import. He says, ‘It is My body’. But when He gives thanks He is on our side, so that we take up the Lord’s supper in the light of His headship.
It is a great exercise with me to get at what was in the Lord’s mind when He instituted the Supper. If we could see what was in the Lord’s mind and in His heart when He instituted the Supper, it would have a wonderful regulative and formative effect when we come together. We are to come together for the remembrance. Let us think of this: the remembrance is for the Lord. It is not for us, it is for the Lord. He says, “This do in remembrance of me”. The remembrance is connected both with breaking the bread and with drinking the cup. The brother who breaks the bread is rendering a precious service amongst the brethren and, as doing it in the serving spirit of Christ, he would suggest Christ in the very way that he does it. The Lord was there at that supper table. He says, “I am in the midst of you as the one that serves”, Luke 22: 27. Now if the brother who breaks the bread does not do it in serving love he would not convey any impression of what the Supper really means.
[p. 50] But the whole service is of assembly character. All of us break bread; the saints come together to break bread, so that the thing is looked at as an act of the assembly — we do it. But then, it recalls the Lord. It is a great exercise really to know what was in the Lord’s mind when He instituted the Supper and to bring the impression of that into the meeting so that there might be a breaking of bread in which the Lord shall be recognised. “He was made known to them in the breaking of bread”, Luke 24: 35. Whilst that was not exactly the Supper it was a figure of His death, and one would desire that when the Supper is eaten every soul present might recognise the Lord. Sometimes we bring in many thoughts which are not exactly what the Lord would suggest to us, and we do not allow Him to mould our affections in His own way. The Lord has His own way of moulding assembly affections and that way is by the Supper, and the more simple we are in taking up what the Lord suggests to us in it the nearer we shall get to His heart and the more truly shall we remember Him. It is only as we get into the thoughts of His love that we have the Person before us. He says, ‘Remember Me’. He wants to fill our affections with Himself, known in this blessed way. There is nothing in heaven or earth like the Supper. It is a concentrated appeal of divine love to us and it enshrines every moving influence that the Lord could present to us in order to mould our affections. Think of the greatness of His saying, “This is my body”! How immense it is if we think of who He is! He is the Son, a Person of the Godhead; He is a Man, but Jehovah’s Fellow! He would have us to think of the wonderfulness of the Person who has come in flesh — a divine Person! It is no reaching out to something that He had no title to. It was His by right; and it is such a Person as that who came in a human body prepared for Him. He came down from heaven to bring the good [p. 51] pleasure of God, all that was of delight to heaven, into this world in His own Person. It is all wrapped up in, “This is my body”. That word enshrines the whole truth of the incarnation. The delights of God are not confined to heaven; they have come forth into this world in that body — the full delight of God in a Man! And all the thoughts of God in regard to the blessing of man were secured in Him.
We need to withdraw ourselves into seclusion of heart to ponder the greatness of this. And when we come together the Lord would withdraw the assembly into the seclusion of the Supper that we may ponder it afresh together. The Lord would say, as it were, ‘It is in this way I would mould your remembrance of Me. What I delight in, My peculiar joy, is that you should remember Me in assembly character, and I take this way to mould you into the kind of remembrance that will suit My heart’. One might say, ‘Jesus is my Saviour; I delight to think of Him as my Saviour’. Well, the Lord appreciates that; but it is not the kind of remembrance which would satisfy Him from the assembly. It is most wonderful to think that such a Person, having come in such a body into this world, would go into death, would give His body in death, in order that the assembly might be secured for all that is the pleasure and delight of divine love.