THE LORD’S SUPPER AS EXPRESSION OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND THAT WHICH LEADS TO ASSEMBLY PRIVILEGE
Revelation 1: 9-10; Acts 20: 7, 11; John 20: 19-20;
I am not sure, beloved friends, whether these scriptures will indicate what we have to say. I have not read them with any thought of an exposition of them, but because I think they indicate the points we desire to bring before you—that is, Christian fellowship, and then heavenly privileges of the saints at the present time. I might use the word assembly and say that we desire to bring before you the fellowship of the assembly and heavenly privileges of the assembly.
I have been very much exercised about speaking here this evening. It was easy, in a sense, to occupy the time by the utterance of words, but that is not what is before us; but what we have before us in our small measure, and in a sense of our own feebleness, is really the spiritual prosperity of the saints. We trust we can speak honestly before the Lord and say that above everything else that is what we desire.
In the first place, the point I have in my mind in reading this scripture (Revelation 1) is that things are there brought before us individually. If we speak of the fellowship or the privileges of the assembly we are not, of course, speaking about the fellowship or privileges of an individual, but of the assembly, and I trust we are speaking of it in full view of scripture. We are not speaking of the fellowship privilege of ‘brethren’ so-called, for it has come to pass that the term ‘brethren’ (I do not know that we can altogether help it) often means, with some of us, a certain number of saints, but we desire for ourselves and for you that all this might drop out of our minds for the time being and that we may come back to the scriptural use of the word “assembly” as really embracing every Christian. But while one is desirous to have scriptural thoughts, scriptural conceptions, feelings, and affections for all Christians, for all the saints of God—all who comprise His assembly, whether we speak of its fellowship or its privilege, we have to begin individually, and not only have we to begin individually, but in a certain sense we never lose our individuality. Though we may speak of ourselves in connection with the assembly we have to take account of ourselves individually; and whether it be the fellowship or the privilege of the assembly our ability to answer to the one or to the other is really the measure in which things are true of us individually. To speak simply, take the scripture we have read in Acts 20: 7. “And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread” (not simply the disciples at Troas, it is “we”, inclusive of Paul and his company who were there at that time). Now I think I am addressing a company who are familiar with that. I am addressing those who are in the habit of coming together on the first day of the week to break bread; but our coming together on the first day of the week to break bread does not in itself change our individual spiritual condition. If I leave such and such a place, and come into this room, the fact of getting ready and leaving my house and coming to the room and sitting down with the Lord’s people here does not change my spiritual state.
I want, beloved, in connection with that scripture we read in Revelation 1 to emphasise that which is individual; not simply as to the possession of the Spirit, but that which is individual in connection with the activities of the Spirit in me. We are not going to discuss the point as to whether every Christian has the Spirit; we are assuming that every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit, but I believe it needs to be emphasised in our souls at this time—what must be true of us individually. If it is not true of us individually the fact of fellowship with others in the breaking of bread, or the question of outward association with others who are spiritually fitted for the enjoyment of privilege, will not help us.
It is wonderful how John speaks of himself. If he had said: ‘I John, an apostle’, we might have been interested in what he was about to say, but if he had said that we should have had to stand off, as it were, we should have had to say—it is not common ground. It never was common ground even when the apostles were here among the saints. “He has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints” (Eph 4: 11), but it could be asked even then: “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers?” 1 Cor 12: 29. Not by any means: “Having then gifts differing”, Rom 12: 6. But look how John speaks. He says, “I John, your brother”. If a man speaks of himself as your brother, you may get close to that man; there is no distance, and more—there is no difference; it is common ground. But it is not only “I John, your brother”, but it is also “and fellow partaker”.
That is the language of fellowship. Now I need not say to you—because it will be very obvious to every one here – that as banished to the Isle of Patmos it was not possible for John to give expression to his fellowship in the breaking of bread; you would have to have more than one saint for that; you might have the breaking of bread with two saints, or three, or more; but let me emphasise this—John brings himself before us on common ground as our “brother”, and he is in fellowship. Oh! you say, could a man be in fellowship without breaking bread? Excuse me if, in reply, I ask you: How is he going to break bread according to scripture if he is not in fellowship? If I understand the breaking of bread, it does not produce fellowship; the breaking of bread is the scriptural and divinely-appointed expression of it, but fellowship must exist. What else could you make of the order of the words in Acts 2: 42: “And they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”? That is the right order. Does Paul call in question the fact of the Corinthians being Christians? Look at the very opening of his epistle to them. He addresses them: “to the assembly of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints”—not ‘called to be saints’. They were constituted such by divine calling. So far from calling in question their Christianity, he speaks of it as a matter of thanksgiving, and he does not hesitate for a moment to give expression to his assurance concerning them—assurance that not only covers the present but reaches on into the eternal future; and yet, beloved, you may have a number of Christians and they may break bread—(that is, outwardly there is the table and the bread and the wine, and things may be done in a kind of orderly way), but if the truth of fellowship is not there, if they are not in fellowship, how would that affect their outward breaking of bread? Well, in Paul’s judgment it would so seriously affect it that Paul would absolutely deny that their breaking of bread was the Lord’s supper. Now that may seem a kind of paradox, but that is just what he says in chapter 11: 20. Ostensibly, and possibly in outward form, there was the breaking of bread, but he says, “When ye come together therefore into one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper”. And he says why; his statement is not arbitrary, or one which is unsupported by good reasons. The first thing, then, is individuality, and we have got to be in fellowship, and the question is, How? Well, what we desire to affirm most emphatically is that everything in Christianity not only subsists in the power of the Spirit of God, but everything in Christianity must be taken up in the power of the Spirit of God. If the breaking of bread is taken up apart from the activities and power of the Spirit of God in us, it will lose its proper character. This was the case with the Corinthians; the reality of fellowship was not there; externally they were in fellowship and responsibly they were in fellowship, but fellowship was not there—they were carnal—fleshly. “For whereas there are among you emulation and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk according to man?” 1 Cor 3: 3. These are the specifications supporting and proving the apostle’s charge that they were “carnal”, “fleshly”. It is a serious thing.
I have thought—I do not speak positively, but as a suggestion—that the opening of 1 Corinthians is very significant. In chapter 1 the cross of Christ is emphasised, and it is the cross of Christ not simply as meeting the question of man’s sins, but as meeting the whole state and condition of man according to flesh. There were great differences in that day with regard to man according to flesh, and there are great differences now. Some of them at that time were very religious—they were the Jews. Some men were not religious, they were intellectually cultured men, they were philosophical men, but, differ as they might in the sense in which we have just spoken, they were united in their opposition to the truth. Why? Because the cross set man according to the flesh—religious man according to the flesh, aside; indeed, it was the sentence of divine judgment upon that man, and it was just as much the sentence of divine judgment upon the other man, the philosophical man. The preaching of the cross was foolishness to the Greek and a stumbling-block to the Jew.
But in chapter 2 what is emphasised is the Spirit, and I presume that you would agree with me that it is on the ground of the cross—the cross as that in which man according to flesh has been judged and judicially terminated and set aside for ever from before God—that it is on that ground the Spirit is given. Now if that is the ground upon which the Spirit is given, it is only as the truth of the cross is really made good in our souls that we may expect the activities of the Spirit of God in us.
Now take chapter 11: 31. What does Paul say there? “If we judged ourselves, so were we not judged”. That is the practical power of the cross so brought to bear on my soul that I judge myself: “But let a man prove himself, and thus eat of the bread and drink of the cup”, v 28. They were refusing to judge themselves at Corinth and they were coming under the judgment of the Lord. I venture to say this—some of us get over bad conduct or bad ways because perhaps we have grace enough to pull off the bad fruit when it appears, but we do not judge ourselves. There will not be bad fruit or bad conduct if there is the judgment of self.
In chapter 5 the apostle is beginning to deal with the saints in a very practical way—a very real way, and what comes to light is that the failure to judge themselves at Corinth was bearing its bad fruit in many ways; but what I call your attention to for a moment is this—he brings in the truth of the Passover: “For also our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”. Now while the head of each family in Israel had to take the lamb, and was responsible for the slaying of it, you must remember that was only true in the beginning; after priesthood came in, the priest attended to the slaying of the paschal lamb; but when we come to Christianity you and I have had no part in the death of Christ—“our Passover”. For Christ our Passover has been slain for us; but where the truth is brought to bear upon us in this passage is just as the feast of unleavened bread lasting seven days (a complete period), was based upon the Passover and was really the practical answer in the Israelites to what the paschal lamb represented and typified—so it is here; he applies it to us, and here is the real reason why these beloved saints at Corinth were not in the truth of fellowship. Hence when they came together ostensibly to break bread Paul said, I cannot own it, “this is not to partake of the Lord’s supper”.
So, in chapter 5 we come to the bottom of this; their failure was in what the feast of unleavened bread sets forth; there was not in them the practical answer to the death of Christ as the true Passover. Instead of purging out the old leaven, Paul brings them face to face with the fact that the old leaven had been allowed by them and it was active among them, and so they are called upon to purge out the old leaven that they might answer in their practical condition to what was true before God of the saints viewed in the light of the death of Christ as our true Passover. There was their failure, and how could there be the activities of the Spirit? The Corinthians had the Spirit—chapter 6 is positive proof of it—the apostle does not challenge the fact of their having the Spirit; he owns in it chapter 2 and he owns it right through his epistle—he owns it in chapter 3, for, apart from the Spirit, how could the saints be spoken of as the temple of God? He is speaking to them individually, as it were, of their bodies being the temple of the Holy Ghost, “which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own, for ye have been bought with a price” (1 Cor 6: 19, 20); but he most emphatically challenges their having the activities of the Spirit. He says, I cannot speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. I know that many of us have dropped, perhaps unconsciously, into the thought that “spiritual” describes some wonderful attainment on the part of Christians, but it is not so. If you are a Christian, you ought to be spiritual. To be spiritual is the normal condition of every Christian; one might say God has had it before Him in giving us the Spirit that we might be spiritual. Has God given us the Spirit that we might grieve Him, and that we might allow the flesh—indulge the flesh? No; He has given us the Spirit that we might be spiritual and not carnal. For this there must be correspondence and fellowship with Christ’s death.
Now where the trouble lay was in the fact that there was not an answer in their souls to the death of Christ as the Passover lamb. And let me say one simple word—when it speaks of Christ as our Passover (the great truth set forth in the Passover was God acting in judgment—it was a night of judgment, and in the blood of that lamb, sprinkled with the bunch of hyssop on the two side posts and the upper door post of the houses where they dwelt, presented for the eye of God), there was this fact set forth that the judgment of God had already taken place; the blood which was sprinkled there sheltered and screened them. I trust you will in grace bear with my saying a word as to this, but I feel that in these days many of us are occupied and working away with a superstructure in Christianity, when the real trouble is that which is connected with the moral foundations of Christianity in our souls; we are occupied with the superstructure, and we do not get on very well with it. What is the cause? The foundation is lacking in our souls. And for this we have not to look on one another, but each one of us to see to it for ourselves.
Well, the Corinthians were not ready for the Supper. The Supper is the divinely-appointed expression of the fellowship, and it is most precious to me, if one might for a moment speak personally—it becomes more precious than ever to me in all the years that pass by; but, beloved brethren, the fellowship must be there. The Corinthians were partaking of the supper outwardly, and in doing so they were eating and drinking judgment to themselves. I need not stop to say to you that the Lord never designed that in the breaking of bread you and I should be eating and drinking judgment to ourselves; the Lord intended that it should stand till He comes, and as the precious expression of the truth of our fellowship together—fellowship based upon His death, a fellowship that calls for correspondence with that death, and a fellowship together in His love expressed in His death; that is the Lord’s supper.
Well, I have dwelt thus long on the individual side of it; I trust that we may be able to receive it and to take it home to ourselves, for the Lord does individualise things. I am aware that fellowship in the very conception of it is the fellowship of the assembly of God; indeed, I do not know any other fellowship—I am not concerned about any other but the fellowship of the assembly of God, and while it necessarily embraces all who are in and of the assembly it does not at all interfere with individual responsibility: “Let a man judge himself, and so let him eat”; that is individual. I am coming to the Supper every Lord’s day morning, but it is a solemn consideration—am I really in the truth of fellowship? It all turns upon the Spirit of God, and the free action of the Spirit of God in your soul, and that depends on whether you are in correspondence with the judgment of God as expressed in the death of Christ as our Passover. He has borne the judgment, but, mind you, those who are sheltered and screened by that blood are those who are called upon to keep the feast of unleavened bread; and if the leaven is allowed individually, or if it is allowed collectively, it vitiates fellowship and it vitiates the breaking of bread. You cannot have the Lord’s supper apart from the truth and reality of fellowship, and the truth and reality of fellowship involves your unconditional acceptance of the judgment of God as expressed in the death of Christ as our Passover. It is not the Passover at the Supper; it is a different aspect of Christ’s death altogether. In the Lord’s supper it is the Lord’s death as the expression of His love for us; you cannot have any words better than the Lord’s own words: “This is my body, which is given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you”. It is His death as the expression of His love, and it is the expression of God’s love for us. It is not only the “love of God which is in Christ Jesus”, but it is the death of the Lord Jesus wherein He expressed His love for us that the love of God finds its full and perfect expression; not that we can separate them; you may distinguish them in a certain sense, but you cannot separate them.
I do not see how I could dare to come next Lord’s day morning and sit down with the saints to partake of the Lord’s supper if I were not self-judged. I beg you to bear with this; I say it for the sake of the truth; we need it in its living, practical power in our souls. No amount of correct statements of doctrine or correct ways of putting things (I fully believe in doing things decently and in order), but no amount of that will form a substitute for the inward and spiritual reality of Christian fellowship; that can only be known in connection with the free action of the Spirit of God in us. I know how we are tested, and nothing puts us more to the test than when something is done by somebody that makes us feel, ‘Well I know that is not right’, and when it is done it often becomes the occasion of that which is not consistent with the truth which we have been feebly attempting to put before you.
In chapter 1: 9 the apostle Paul says, “God is faithful, by whom ye have been called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”. And what is the next verse? Well, I will leave you to find out what it is; I tell you; it will pull you up (“Now I exhort you, brethren”, etc.); it is intended to pull up every one of us. We often drop down to the miserable, low level of religious systems, while loudly denouncing them! May the Lord bring it home to us, and bring us into the reality of Christian fellowship!
I wish I were able to speak of the blessedness of the divinely-appointed expression of it. The expression of fellowship in the breaking of bread stands in relation to the spiritual—the heavenly privilege of the assembly as brought before us in a scripture like John 20. And do not let your minds drop down to some quibble; get the reality of what this wonderful spiritual privilege of the assembly is.
Well, I ask you, what is the relation of Christian fellowship, and the truth of Christian fellowship as expressed in the breaking of bread, to what is beyond it—the privilege? I will tell you. There is a scripture I have often thought of which illustrates it. It is in the last chapter of Revelation— “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they should go in by the gates into the city”, chap 22: 14. The expression of Christian fellowship is the gate into the city; it is the gate into the marvellous privilege that is found inside the city. A beloved servant of the Lord, alluding to the meeting—when the saints come together on the first day of the week to break bread, he said it is the meeting-place—it is the gate into the city1. I can think of the gates, but I can hardly think of them apart from the city; you go “through the gates into the city”. The Psalmist says, “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem” (Ps 122: 2); he was delighted at the thought of going through those gates and entering the city. I wish that our hearts were fairly ravished with the thought of it; I wish we knew the spirit of that—“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord”. What is in the city? Well, the tree of life is there. “That they might have right to the tree of life”. There is a wonderful, illimitable, unspeakable wealth of spiritual and heavenly privilege found in the city?
Now is the time to go in for the reality of the truth of Christianity, whether it be the privilege or the fellowship of the assembly. There are, I fear, a good many in a path of pretension and assumption; they boldly say, We are the assembly, we are the church. On the other hand there is the ignoring of the truth of the assembly—utter independency! And the only thing that will preserve from either the one or the other is the truth of the assembly. If I find a few people who are in the truth of the assembly, or the privilege of the assembly, I am glad to have the opportunity of being with them, but we want to stand for the truth in these days.
I might have called your attention to the fact that all the four scriptures that I have read are connected with the same day—it is the resurrection day; it is the day on which the Holy Ghost descended; it is the assembly day; the Christianity day; and it is also called the first day, or the Lord’s day. As the Lord’s day, we think of it in connection with Him personally, and we think of all that belongs to Him, and as connected with Him, as the Lord; and if we speak of it as the first day of the week we think of the new order of things, and the new scene that has come in. We might have spoken of these scriptures in that way, but it was the truth I desired, as the Lord might help me, to put before you simply, and I trust He will be pleased to use it. Well, it is a wonderful thing to be so self-judged, as to be really keeping the feast of unleavened bread in sincerity and truth, and to answer in my soul to the judgment of God expressed in the death of Christ as the Passover; to be in the truth of fellowship, and being in the truth of fellowship to be permitted to give expression to it in the breaking of bread; and, remember, you find it is the gate into the city; you are in the city of heavenly, spiritual, privilege, and when in that city you will know what belongs to it, and what belongs to it crowns everything, and that is His presence in the midst! “Then ... came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace unto you”, and the disciples “rejoiced” when they saw Him in the midst. That was the joy connected with His own presence as in the midst. May we, beloved, increasingly know that joy—not only know what it is to sit down together and break the one loaf and drink of the one cup; and thus practically announce ourselves one body, but to find that the breaking of bread in the power of the Spirit is the open doorway into spiritual and heavenly privilege. May the Lord add His blessing.