1 CORINTHIANS 10 (SECOND READING)
1 CORINTHIANS 10 (SECOND READING)
Ques Perhaps you would tell us why the cup is brought forward before the loaf?
CAC It is evident that the apostle used the exercises which were current as an opportunity of bringing out the truth of christian fellowship. He has in mind that the saints should learn to look at things from the standpoint of their associations. There were some that claimed liberty to eat what was offered to idols, even in idol’s houses, on the ground that the idol was nothing; but that was overlooking the moral associations. He would have them to think of the moral associations, and that is very important for us. And in thinking of the fellowship, morally the cup comes before the loaf.
Ques We get the thought of communion or fellowship in connection with both, do we not?
CAC Yes, but we must know the fellowship of His blood first. We should hardly be prepared to think of the fellowship of the body of the Christ if we did not know what it was to understand the fellowship of His blood. The ground must be known first; that is, God must be known in the way of blessing first. The pouring out of the blood of Christ has changed everything; it has brought in a dispensation of blessing, so that there is no longer anything of curse, or distance from God, or unsuitability to Him. God is known in all the blessed value of the blood of the Christ and christian fellowship is [p. 26] a common equal sharing in that. It seems to me that the cup and the loaf give us two entirely different sides of the whole matter of our relations with God and with one another.
It was made known to people in Old Testament times that the dispensation inaugurated at Sinai was to be superseded by another order of things altogether — a new covenant — by which God would be known as a Source of blessing. His people would be taught to know Him, not as a God of demand but of supply. The cup of blessing is connected with the whole economy of blessing; it has come in on the ground of the blood of Christ.
Ques What is involved in the whole economy of blessing? Would it include the millennial day?
CAC Yes; I think it has to do with what is known on earth by the people of God. It does not quite comprise the heavenly side but takes in the whole economy of grace as enjoyed by the people of God down here, and it has come to us in all the value of the blood of the Christ. It is the blessing side of the fellowship. If we do not know that we shall not go any further. It could not be known before the blood was poured out. When the Lord’s supper was instituted at the end of the gospels there was no such thing as the saints blessing the cup; they could not do that. The Lord gave thanks for the cup; He was the only One that could. Not one of those there had any idea what it meant; He was the only One. So it is a wonderful thing that now intelligent persons here on earth can bless the cup; they can do what the disciples then could not do. It is enjoyed in common; there is no variation whatever in the blessing that has come out of the shedding of the blood of Christ. It is the same for Paul as for any poor sinner. It is supposed to characterise the fellowship, to which you are to be true. It is a moral impossibility to drink the cup of demons. Today we have to do with a lot [p. 27] of things in the world which are idolatrous in character, but we do not want to be diverted by any of these, however nice they may seem.
The new covenant was a familiar thing to the Jew, but future. The Lord sets it in the assembly as a present thing. That is, this entirely new dispensation is to be enjoyed by people on earth. It is the sphere of privilege that we enjoy in the wilderness down here; it does not touch the resurrection of Christ.
Ques You would not exclude the enjoyment of spiritual things?
CAC But I do distinguish between the enjoyment of spiritual things and the fellowship, which is enjoyed down here. The gift of the Spirit is essential, for how could we bless otherwise? But what you bless is not connected with the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, but relates entirely to His death. The more simply we keep to that, the nearer we shall get to God. This fellowship subsists in what speaks of death. It is vitally important to see that because then we move on. We must begin with the cup; it is the thing looked at morally. An entirely new order of things has come to pass here on the earth, enjoyed by people who have a common equal sharing, in this very place, of blessing made known through the pouring out of the blood of Christ.
Anything idolatrous will bring a shadow between me and the blessed God and the knowledge of Him that has come to me through the death of Christ. What is not of God as known in blessing in the death of Christ is diverting. The saints, viewed in the wilderness position, know God in the blessing that has come in in the death of Christ and they respond to it. Well, there is no idolatry there! Every moral question is settled in the value of the blood. There is forgiveness, complete purgation; not one thing is left to hinder believers from enjoying the blessing [p. 28] in common; and it is all brought about in the value of the blood of Christ. This lays the moral foundation on which we can move on to the new position of our being risen with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places. But if we are not firmly settled on this lower platform we are not likely to touch these higher planes of service.
Ques What would you say of the body here?
CAC It is the body of Christ in death. The body of Christ brings before us quite a different thought from His blood. It brings before us the moral character of what came out in His body, that is, absolute devotion to the will of God that would not stop short of His death.
We have our fellowship in the first place in the appreciation of that as seen objectively in the loaf. We think first of what comes out in His body, absolute devotion to the will of God and to those who were the subjects of that will, the saints. It does not stop there, for in connection with the thought of the bread he brings us into it. He does not leave it as abstract or objective, because we break it and again, further down it says we all partake of it. We bless the cup. It is not that we handle the cup in this chapter, but we do touch the loaf. The loaf enters into the fellowship as an essential part of it but this scripture suggests the thought that we break and partake of it; we have our part in it. He shows clearly that that which came out in Christ is to have an extension in the saints. Suppose that you could contemplate all the perfections that came out in the body of Christ and felt at the same time that you could never participate in them, you would be the most miserable of all men! Does that not follow morally on the cup? If the knowledge of God comes to you and makes you supremely happy, how could you do anything else but do His will? He says of the new covenant, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days ... : I [p. 29] will put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them ... for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more”, Jeremiah 31: 33, 34. (This is also quoted in Hebrews 8:10 - 12). They will delight to do His will, and if this is true of Israel how much more would the saints today do His will, not in heaven, but in this very world where Christ’s dead body was?
This is all connected with the Lord’s table. We all understand that the Lord’s table is the loaf, I suppose. He distinguishes between the Lord’s cup and the Lord’s table, so the one is the cup and the other is the loaf. It seems to me quite clear that if the Lord has a cup, it is that which He administers, what He ministers to His own. His table is His administration too. He administers to His saints deep spiritual joy, and God as known in connection with His blessing. With the loaf He administers to His saints at His table all that came out in His holy body for the delight and pleasure of God. The table really includes both. The truth of the fellowship should always be deepening in our souls. We may know little of it, but we know enough to set to our seal that it is true.
This is the sphere of the fellowship; it is what we enter into as people living down here. “Ye cannot drink the Lord’s cup, and the cup of demons”. You cannot possibly have God and the devil at the same time; it is a moral impossibility. And if we allow anything that belongs to the system that gives God no place to enter into us or to govern us, we rob ourselves of the blessing and joy of the fellowship. Worldly links cause us to lose our divine links with [p. 30] our brethren.
Ques What would you say as to the body here?
CAC He is not thinking of the body here as formed by the Spirit as in chapter 12 but as the body formed morally by the fellowship. It is the saints unified in their appreciation of Christ and in taking character from Christ; it is not the truth of the one body as we speak. If we want to see the will of God worked out, where can we see it livingly but in the body of Christ? Anyone who appreciates that must be committed to the will of God. He administers the joy of the cup and the substantial nourishment of the loaf, so that the saints are formed in His character. If I am doing the will of God and someone else is doing his own will, how could I have fellowship with him? It is what we are down here where we did nothing but sin; in that very place we have presented our bodies to prove “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. One takes up one part of it and another another, and so the will of God is done. There will be no difficulty with the fellowship then. It is all summed up in the verse at the end of this chapter, “Whatever ye do, do all things to God’s glory”.
In Psalm 16 you see the One who is presented to us in death as the loaf; all those features that marked Him are surely to come out in His own: “Preserve me, O God: for I trust in thee”. Do I not want to have part in that, to partake of it in that way? The saints on the earth, the excellent, are His delight. Do I not want to come into that? Do I not want to delight in them? Then how He shrinks from idolatry and delights in God. Now that is the body. We put our hands to that when we take the loaf and we put our hands to that permanently, we might say, not only for about an hour and a half. There is no other way into fellowship but what we have been talking about tonight; there is absolutely no other way.
In the cup we appreciate the rich blessing of God. How [p. 31] could you go to God and ask Him to bless you more than He has blessed you? You could not possibly do so! As to the moral side, the will of God has been done perfectly in Christ, but then we appropriate it and assimilate it so that it comes out in us. There is no other way of coming into fellowship.