The Church’s Meal, Part 1
A Taste of the World to Come
Many of us were not able to share thanksgiving meals with our extended families and friends this year because of the coronavirus. It didn’t dawn on me how much I missed doing this until I starting eating some dressing that my sister made for us. The taste literally flooded my mind with memories of our whole family sitting around my grandparents table, eating, talking, and laughing. These were precious times of enjoying food and enjoying one another.
When we share a meal with our family or friends, we often taste more than the food. We often get a taste of the world to come. Meals with those we love are a picture of life in the world to come. Think of it, what will life be like in the kingdom of God? The Bible describes it as a never-ending time of joy, peace, and rest with God and all of God’s children. There may or may not be food involved, but regardless, we’ll spend eternity enjoying God’s presence and each other’s presence. Think about this next time you sit to share a meal with others.
Hospitality Reveals Heaven
This is one reason hospitality must be a vital ministry of the church. The Bible commands it because it’s a way we display the life and love of the kingdom of God. Romans 12:13, “Seek to show hospitality.” Hebrews 13:2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” 1 Peter 4:9, “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”
Sharing our apartments and houses and food and time with each other and with people we don’t know well reveals what life will look like in the world to come. Our culture’s individualism makes this really difficult and makes it even seem strange. But almost every other culture in the world sees sharing a meal with loved ones or strangers as one of the highest forms of honor and love. When someone welcomes you to their table, they’re welcoming you into their life.
God Has Called Us to His Table
Out of sheer grace, God has granted us a reservation at his table in heaven. In the meantime, he’s given us a meal to share together to help us remember how we received the reservation and to help us long for its quick fulfillment. We call this meal the “Lord’s Supper.”
Today and next Sunday we’re going to discuss the Lord’s Supper, or “The Church’s Meal.” We’ll lay the biblical foundation today, surveying what the Bible says about the Supper, and then next week we’ll try to come up with a definition for the Lord’s Supper and look at several practical applications.
God’s Covenant People Marked-Off by a Sign
We started this series on the church by considering what the Bible says about the people of God. We started in eternity past, moved to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, then to Abraham, Moses, and the New Covenant that God would make with his people. We learned that the people of God are the chosen, miraculously created, international, marked-off people of God who believe the promises of God and who’re gathered together by God in order to listen to God and obey God.
When we considered God’s covenant with Abram, we learned that the people God would assemble through Abram would be a marked-off people. They’d be visibly identified through an outward ceremony. Genesis 17:10-11, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised…(this) shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.”
This “sign” did not save Abraham or his family. All of God’s promises to him were made to him before he was circumcised. His circumcision didn’t mark the moment when he suddenly belonged to God. His faith in God’s promises is what made him righteous before God (15:6).
God’s people have always been saved by faith in the promises of God, and they’ve always been marked-off by a sign. The sign of the old covenant was circumcision. The sign of the new covenant is baptism. Paul mentions both, linking them in Colossians 2:11-12. Although baptism doesn’t save anyone, in the New Testament it’s a clear marker of those who’ve been saved.
Circumcision and baptism are similar, but not the same. Circumcision marked off the ethnic people of God. Baptism marks off the spiritual people of God, those who’re trusting his promises.
A Covenant Meal with God
When we came to Moses and the covenant God established with him, we learned that God confirmed the covenant with blood (Ex. 24:3-8). Just as blood covered the doorposts of the believing Israelites on the night of the Passover, so blood covers those entering into this covenant with the Lord.
Interestingly, right after this, Moses and the leaders of Israel go up the mountain, see God, and partake in a meal (vv. 9-11). The Mosaic covenant is inaugurated by blood and followed by a meal. [1]
The Passover
The pattern of a meal in the presence God for those whom God has marked-off for himself and redeemed by blood actually begins in the earlier chapters of Exodus. The earliest roots of the Lord’s Supper start to grow in the Passover meal that God commanded Israel to observe before they left Egypt.
The Egyptian Pharaoh was crushing the Israelites in slavery. God heard his people’s prayers and sent Moses and Aaron to rescue them. After ten plagues, the last of which was the killing of every firstborn son in Egypt, Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go.
The night before the final plague, God told his people to kill a sheep or goat and put its blood on their doorposts, cook the animal, and eat it with some bitter herbs and unleavened bread (Ex. 12:1-8). This is more than a meal. The blood on their doors is their salvation (vv. 12-13). The only reason God spared the Israelites was because they were covered by the blood of a sacrifice.
God told the people to celebrate the Passover meal every year at that time in order to remember what God had done to deliver them (v. 14). Kids would learn from this meal what God had done to save his people (vv. 26-27).
Only those who’d been “marked-off” as belonging to the covenant community could eat the meal. Foreigners had to be circumcised to eat it (vv. 43-45, 48). The Passover thus defined the identity of Israel (v. 47). Those who ate the meal made up the “congregation.”
To summarize: On the night before God freed his people through the blood of a sacrifice, he gave them a meal to celebrate perpetually, a meal that defined them and set them apart as a nation. The whole nation, and only the nation could celebrate it. As they shared this meal together, they retold the story of their salvation and brought God’s past displays of grace into the present.
In the Old Testament, we see the pattern of God choosing and creating a people for himself, saving them by the blood of a substitute, marking them off through an outward sign, and helping them remember his grace through a covenant meal that they share together. This Old Testament background is the theological foundation for what the New Testament says about baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The Upper Room
The next snapshot we have of the Lord’s Supper in Scripture is in the Upper Room on the night before Jesus was crucified, when Jesus eats the Passover meal with his disciples (Luke 22:14-20). The Passover was meant to be eaten by families (Ex. 12:46), so when Jesus eats with his disciples, he’s turning his friends into his family, saying that those who receive his sacrifice are his family.
As he leads the disciples through the Passover meal, he turns it into something new. For his family, the meal will no longer look backwards to the exodus from Egypt, but will rather look forward to the deliverance he’ll achieve for his family on the cross. Jesus remakes the Passover meal in order to teach his disciples about the death he’s about to die.
He says in verse 19 that he’ll “give” his body for them. It won’t be an accident and no one is going to take it. He says in verse 20 that his blood will be the seal that institutes the long-awaited “new covenant.” God promised through the prophets to make a new covenant with his people (Jer. 31:31-34). Jesus is saying that this is happening through his death.
When Jesus says “this is my body” and “this is my blood,” he’s making the bread and wine signs of the new covenant. He’s connecting them to God’s new covenant promises like we connect a wedding ring to vows made between a husband and wife. The ring reminds us of our commitment to one another. It’s a sign of the covenant. Jesus isn’t saying that the bread and wine transform into something else. He’s naming the sign by what it points to.
Where Is Jesus in the Supper?
This brings up a centuries long debate over the nature of the elements in the Lord’s Supper. The question, “Where is Jesus in the Lord’s Supper?” was fiercely debated during the Reformation. This issue was more controversial and divisive than any other. In fact, Martin Luther refused to agree with Ulrich Zwingli over the Supper, thus hindering the unity and strength of the Reformation in Europe.
They at least agreed that the Catholic view of the Supper, a view called “transubstantiation,” was unbiblical and idolatrous. The Catholic view, even to this day, is that the bread and wine become Jesus’ body and blood, even though they appear as bread and wine. [2] Christ himself, in this view, is offered in the Supper.
Luther’s view, called “consubstantiation,” was a slight modification of the Catholic view. He said that Christ was “with” the elements, hence the prefix “con” (“with”). For Luther, Christ was physically present with the elements, not in the elements.
Zwingli’s view, called the memorial view, was that the Supper was merely a way to remember what Jesus did. He said that Jesus isn’t with the elements in any way because Jesus is in heaven. This is the view that most Baptists take.
But then along comes John Calvin. He also rejected the Catholic view, but he articulated a mediating view between Luther and Zwingli. His view is simply called the “Reformed” view, and it’s that Christ is spiritually present in the Supper. Jesus is in heaven, so his physical body isn’t with us during the Supper. Calvin said that we don’t bring Christ down to us during the Supper. Rather, through faith, we’re brought up to him. He said that, through faith, we can enjoy Jesus’ presence during the Supper. He said that the Supper is meant “to awaken, arouse, stimulate, and exercise the feeling of faith and love, and indeed, to correct the defect of both.”[3] Through the Supper, God wants us to see and feel the presence and love of Jesus. Through the Supper, we’re meant to taste a bit of the glory of heaven.
Calvin’s view of the Supper is the view I take because it avoids the mystical tendency of the Catholic and Lutheran view, which says that Jesus is somehow present in the elements, and because it avoids the rationalistic tendency of the memorial view, which says that the Supper is merely a way for our minds to remember the events of Jesus’ passion. Yes, the signs of the new covenant, the bread and wine, help us remember what Jesus has done. But as our minds remember Jesus, our hearts are meant to feel his love and grace and forgiveness through faith.
Participating in Christ and Each Other
The next place we find the Lord’s Supper in Scripture is in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22. In this section, Paul is warning the church to not take part in meals honoring pagan gods. To support his argument, he refers to the Lord’s Supper (vv. 16-17).
Paul says that, in the Supper, we’re “participating” or “sharing” in the blood and body of Christ (v. 16). What does this mean? It means that we’re sharing in or experiencing the benefits of Jesus’ death for us. The bread and wine are drawing us into the realities that they signify, drawing our hearts to the forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus purchased with his blood. In the Supper, we experience genuine fellowship with Christ. This text supports Calvin’s view.
We also have fellowship with each other (v. 17). The text says that we’re “one body” because “we all partake of the one bread.” Our fellowship with Jesus creates fellowship with each other.
How Not to Take the Lord’s Supper
In the next chapter of First Corinthians, Paul rebukes the church for abusing the practice of the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34). Paul has nothing good to say about their practice of the Supper (v. 17). He tells them that they’re not even eating the Lord’s Supper (v. 20). What are they doing wrong? The richer members of the church are treating the Supper like their own private party (vv. 21-22). They’re indulging themselves and excluding the poorer members.
Paul reminds them what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper (vv. 23-25). Jesus said the bread was his body and the wine his blood. Paul says that this means we proclaim the gospel when we observe the Supper (v. 26). Because the Supper announces the gospel, it also carries the demands of the gospel (v. 27). This is why we should examine ourselves before taking it (v. 28), and why taking it in an unworthy manner comes with consequences (v. 29).
How do we “discern (or recognize) the body” (v. 29)? In context, this means that we understand that every member of Jesus’ church is equally valuable and loved by God. The problem in Corinth was that some of the members weren’t loving other members, excluding them and looking down their noses at them. They weren’t “discerning the body of Christ.” They didn’t “recognize” their brothers and sisters for who they were.
Paul is saying that we can’t be at the foot of Jesus’ cross and despise Jesus’ people at the same time. If our actions despise Jesus’s people, we’re despising Jesus’s death. When we do things that exclude or shames any of the church’s members, it’s as if we’re saying that Jesus only died for us, not them. But God doesn’t stand idly by while his children are mistreated. He always stands up for the oppressed, especially in his own house. Those who live this way and take the Supper will receive his judgment (vv. 29-30).
This means that Paul’s point about “examining ourselves” (v. 28) doesn’t necessarily mean to confess every known sin in our lives. None of us can perfectly confess our sins. In context, Paul’s point is that we need to make sure we aren’t saying we love Jesus while we despise some of his people. If we judge ourselves truly now, we won’t be judged by the Lord in the end (vv. 31-32).
Paul concludes by encouraging the Corinthians to come to the Supper with the mindset of serving others (vv. 33-34). The Supper is meant to strengthen, not scare off, those who genuinely love Jesus.
The Final Supper
A final aspect of the Lord’s Supper for us to consider is in Matthew 26:29. Jesus tells his disciples that he’ll drink wine with them again in God’s kingdom. This means that the Supper doesn’t just look back at the cross. It also looks forward to Jesus’ return and the coming of God’s kingdom. It looks forward to the time when Jesus will feast with his people.
1 Corinthians 11:26 says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” In the Supper, we proclaim what God did in the past while we wait for what he’ll do in the future. One author says, “When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we’re not just remembering the past; we’re tasting the future.” [4]
God promised a day when death would be done, when people from all the people groups would come into his presence and enjoy his food, and when everlasting joy in his presence would begin. God promised a day when our weary waiting would be rewarded.
The Supper helps us remember these promises. It strengthens our faith while we wait for their fulfillment. When we observe the Supper, we look back to the bloody cross and forward to the blessed feast. In the Supper, we taste a glimpse of the glory that’s coming. More than in any other meal, we get a taste of the world to come when we eat the Lord’s Supper together.
Observing the Lord’s Supper
1 Corinthians 10:16 says that, in the Supper, we share in and experience the benefits of Jesus’ death for us. The bread and wine are meant to draw us into the realities that they signify, to draw our hearts to the forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus purchased with his blood. In the Supper, we’re meant to experience genuine fellowship with Christ and with one another.
Practically, this means that the Lord’s Supper is for Christians. As I said last week, a Christian is someone who’s been baptized and is part of a local church. If you’re not yet a baptized follower of Jesus, we’re glad you’re here, but we’d encourage you to refrain from taking the Supper. If you’re a visitor with us and you’ve been baptized as a believer and you’re a member in good standing at another gospel-preaching church, you’re welcome to observe the Supper with us.
As I said, Paul’s point about “examining ourselves” in 1 Corinthians 11:28 means that we need to make sure we aren’t saying we love Jesus while we’re scorning or spurning some of his people. Those whose lives contradict their words will be eating judgment on themselves when they eat the Supper (vv. 29-30). Before we take the Supper, let’s confess any ways we aren’t loving our brothers and sisters well. Ask God to show you areas where you need help in this. Look to the cross and rest in Jesus’ forgiveness.