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Introduction:
Within the realm of Christendom the Lord’s Supper has been seen as one of the most intimate ways to worship our Lord.
This practice of observing the Lord’s Supper started within the early church it has been known by several names throughout early Christendom and is recognized as a “sacrament.”
But before I get into the names of the Lord’s Supper I need to quickly deal with this “sacrament” word.
In the most general sense, a sacrament is defined as a visible symbol of the reality of God.
Augustine of Hippo defined it as an outward sign of an inward grace that has been instituted by Jesus Christ.
so what’s the problem? the problem is how the Catholics have taken the meaning of this word one step further—a heretical step—defining it as a means by which God imparts His grace.
This problem is what prompted the Protestant Community to come up with a different term to put a clear separation of meaning between the Roman Catholic idea of a sacrament and the original meaning of more of an observance.
Therefore, it is common in evangelicalism to find the term “ordinance” to refer to both baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
However, I appreciate RC Sproul’s definition of a sacrament: “a dramatic sign that points beyond itself to some truth of redemption that is crucial to the life of the people of God.”
Terms for the Lord’s Supper in the NT
the early church used to come together and celebrate what they called an “agape feast” or a “love feast” in which they celebrated the love of God and the love that they enjoyed with one another as Christians in this holy supper.
In Acts 2:42 “breaking of bread” could mean both eating together and also celebrating the Lord’s Supper; 1 Co 10:16 The Greek word “koinonia”, here translated “participation”, is traditionally translated “communion”: hence the term “Holy Communion”; 1 Co 11:20 the Lord’s Supper; The sacrament was called the Lord’s Supper because it made reference to the last supper that Jesus had with His disciples in the Upper Room on the night before His death.
In the 2nd century church and later, the Lord’s Supper was referred to as the “Eucharist,” taking its definition from the Greek verb eucharisto, which is the Greek verb that means “to thank.”
This is because one undeniable element of the Lord’s Supper has been that the people of God express their gratitude for what Christ accomplished in their behalf in His death.
I.
An Institutional Supper
The Christ—the Messiah Himself, institution of the Lord’s Supper
It is Jesus who commanded us to actively participate in this supper, but it is not just any supper.
II.
A Methodical Supper
This meal is to have a particular order about it but first we noticed that it is:
As part of an ordinary meal
The church was not necessarily wrong to include the sacrament in an ordinary meal as we see here in 1 Corinthians; however, this otherwise ordinary meal should have been conducted in a loving way.
Paul is chiding the church in Corinth here, but notice it is not because it is during a meal rather it is their conduct during this meal that he rebukes.
On the Lord’s Day
See also Jn 20:26
The fourfold formula for breaking bread: taking, giving thanks, breaking, giving
See also Lk 24:30; Jn 6:11; 1 Co 11:24
The sharing of the cup
The Lord’s Supper is a drama that has its roots not only in that Upper Room experience, but the roots reach back into the Old Testament celebration of Passover.
In fact, you will recall that before Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in the Upper Room, He had given requirements to His disciples that they would secure a room for the purpose of their meeting together on this occasion because He was just a day away from the cross.
He knew that His trial, death, resurrection, and return to the Father were imminent, so He said to His disciples, “I deeply desire to celebrate the Passover with you one last time.”
III.
A Thematic Supper
The Passover
I don’t think you could properly understand the brevity of communion without understanding the connection to the Passover.
The immediate context in which Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper was the celebration of the Passover feast with His disciples.
The link to Passover is seen not only in His words to the disciples but also in similar language used by the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthian church.
He wrote, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor.
5:7).
It’s clear that the Apostolic community saw a link between the death of Christ and the Old Testament Passover celebration.
What exactly is the Passover?
Well you might recall that the celebration of the Passover Feast points all the way back to the time of Moses’ interactions with the pharaoh.
God had Moses called plagues down on Egypt in order to show the impotence of pharaoh and of the Egyptian gods.
Also, after a few plagues, Pharaoh starts saying that it’s okay for the Israelites to go but yet change his mind moments later— like, “okay, you can go—oops just kidding!”
If you look close enough at this account in Exodus, you would read there that it was YHWH that kept hardening his heart and having him change his mind.
Why? this could be in order to show the Israelites without any doubt that their salvation from slavery was from YHWH and not from the decision of pharaoh.
However, the last plague was the worst and the most significant physically as well as theologically.
Let’s look at this last plague together because it is very significant in our celebration of communion.
The Passover celebration is a remeberance of what YHWH did and was willing to do for the sake of free His chosen nation.
In fact, it was first YHWH’s idea to make it into a feast!
Look at chapter 12:1 in Exodus:
R. C. Sproul
The sign character of this ritual was really a sign of deliverance.
It was a sign of redemption because it meant that these people would escape the wrath of God.
Ultimate calamity is exposure to the wrath of God.
Christ saves His people from the wrath of the Father.
Not only are we saved by God, but we are saved from God, and that idea is dramatically displayed in the Passover as recorded in the book of Exodus.
The sign on the doorpost, the sign marked by the blood of the lamb meant that the Israelites would be rescued from calamitous exposure to the wrath of God.
The New Covenant
1 Co 11:25
This reference to a new covenant is a personal relationship with God and sins forgiven.
When Jesus had His last meal in the upper room with His disciples, it became the final Passover.
He added a new meaning to the Passover celebration as He took the unleavened bread, attaching a new significance to it when He said, “This is My body which is broken for you.”
Then, after the supper had been completed, He took the wine and he said, in effect, “I’m attaching a new significance to this element as you celebrate the Passover because this wine is my blood.
Not the blood of the lamb in the Old Testament whose blood was marked on the doorpost, but now this cup is my blood.”
In essence, Jesus was saying, “I am the Passover; I am the Lamb; I am the one who will be sacrificed for you.
It is by My blood being marked over the door of your life that you will escape the wrath of God.”
This is why Jesus says: “From now on, this is My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of your sins.
This is the blood of a new covenant.”
This new covenant that He instituted that very meal fulfills the old covenant.
Remembrance
When we partake, we are to recall the past.
Repetition is the mother of all learning and no doubt Jesus knows this very well.
In the Old Testament, altars were built at certain places where the Lord’s work abounded.
Festivals, feasts, and holidays/holy days were all to remind the Israelites and to remind us of the work God has done.
Jesus also understood the traditional Jewish link between apostasy and forgetting.
Linguistically, that link is found in the very word apostate, which means “a letting go of or forgetting.”
An apostate is somebody who has forgotten what he once was committed to (i.e. the faith).
We remember Psalm 103, where David cries,
Jesus died two thousand years ago, and not one second passes on the clock that there aren’t people somewhere in this world sitting down, breaking bread, drinking wine, and remembering Christ’s death until He comes.
Thanksgiving, fellowship and unity
See also Mt 26:26–27; 1 Co 11:20–21
IV.
A Blessed Meal
The Lord’s return
Knowing this future promise that runs throughout the teaching of the New Testament, we see references to it in the Lord’s Supper.
A foretaste of heaven
Jesus calls attention to the future time when He will sit down with His people and celebrate at the feast of the kingdom of God in heaven.
There still remains a wonderful, grandulose celebration.
Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper in this world, we shouldn’t only look back to Christ’s past accomplishments, but to the future feast that is yet to be fulfilled.
Here Jesus focused on the future orientation of the consummation of His kingdom.
He is the Anointed One whom the Father has declared to be the King of kings and Lord of lords.
He mentioned that His Father has bestowed upon Him a kingdom, and in like manner He now bestows upon His disciples the kingdom of God and promises that there will be a time in the future when He will sit with them at His table.
Implied in this statement from Jesus is the anticipated promise of the marriage feast of the Lamb, the great ceremony of Christ and His bride, which will take place in heaven (Rev.
19:6–10)
There is still more of the kingdom of God for us to experience.
We have experienced the inauguration of the kingdom in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, but we still await the final, future consummation of the kingdom.
So when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we see that it’s not just a sign of what has already happened, but it’s also a sign and seal of what will happen in the future.
In the Old Testament, God’s people Israel celebrated the Passover once a year.
This Passover looked forward to a future fulfillment, when the Pascal Lamb was sacrificed on Calvary.
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