THE LORD’S SUPPER (NO. 1)

The first great thing to ascertain with regard to the Lord’s Supper is His own mind in instituting it. It was evidently to be a remembrance of Himself in His death. He addressed Himself to the eleven, so thoroughly bound in heart to Him. It was a request which each heart then most eagerly responded to. To remember Him was the paramount feeling in their hearts; He asked to be remembered by those who were most willing to accede to His request.

A sense of His love would be engendered in us, as the remembrance of Himself in death for us was revived to our hearts. His love led Him to give up all things here that He was divinely and rightly entitled to as a man – for us; and the more this love and the manner of it came before our hearts the more should we be attached to Him and in heart dissociated from all that He had surrendered for us. I would not call it a command – I feel I am invited by Him to do what my heart delights to do. It is addressed to loving hearts, and hence I am – the deeper and fuller my remembrance of Him – where His love came out most fully, the more attached to Him. I do not say that I bind myself to think of nothing but His death. It is His death which draws my heart more to Himself in a very special way, which results in the responsibility which the Table expresses.

The Supper leads me into His great love for me, and the Table, which is fellowship with His death, is my answer to it. I quite feel that the remembrance of my Saviour in death for me so affects me, that at that time He is more than ever before my heart, in the depths of His love for me, which many waters could not quench; but I always find that where there is a real effect produced on me, that I am then not so much occupied with the work which produced it (though the effect must carry with it the sense of the nature of the work) as with the One who did the work, and hence I believe the corn of the land accompanies the Supper, or rather follows it, as in the land, and as it did in John 14, which surely is the corn of the land, or Christ in glory. Confining the mind to the mere act of Christ’s death, though that is the door by which we enter into this new region, would be limiting me to that which produced an effect, and would not leave room for the range and scope into which the effect would lead me. Because when, by a fresh remembrance of His death, I enter into His love for me, I feed on Himself in death and in glory and I am determined in purpose of heart to be identified with His death here, which is the Table side. It is the very sense of enjoying Him in glory to which I reach afresh in remembrance of His death, that prepares me in heart and desire to have fellowship of His blood here. I walk along the Jordan the rest of my days, but on the heavenly side of it. Thus death and glory are mine; glory where He is, and death where He was. As I recall His death I am renewed in His love to rise to Himself where He is – the corn of the land; and I am prepared for the responsibility of being identified with His death in this place where He died for me! I feel that any one who loves the Lord will easily agree with me.

J. B. Stoney Letters, Second Series / New Edition Vol.3 p.27

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