Sermon Tone Analysis

*1 Corinthians 11:17-22*

*An Invitation to the Lord’s Table*

 

“In the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.

For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.

And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.

For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk.

What!

Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you?  Shall I commend you in this?  No, I will not.”[1]

It is with considerable astonishment that I witness what can only be seen as an insidious and sustained error within modern Christendom concerning the Lord’s Table.

Even among churches I have pastored, these particular errors were held so tenaciously by a surprising number of professed believers that it was virtually impossible to eradicate the deviant practises.

When I left, the churches immediately gravitated back to the error.

It is especially dismaying to see that generally, liturgical churches are more cautious about guarding the Lord’s Table than are evangelical churches.

The Word of God is quite clear on several issues that should not be controversial, but which have nevertheless become contentious issues within the congregations of our Lord.

Several principles that should guide Christian observance at the Lord’s Table have been neglected among the Lord’s churches.

These principles will keep our attention focused on vital truths that are otherwise jettisoned in acts of faux humility or ignorance of what is entailed in Christian unity.

I would invite you to make a copy of the principles I shall shortly enunciate and consider the import of their observance.

The first of the several principles that we must endeavour to keep in view is that */The Lord’s Table is a Church Ordinance, not a Christian Ordinance/*.

Many, perhaps even most, evangelical churches no longer recognise this truth, and so they fail to guard the Communion Meal.

The truth is more than merely a fine point to be debated among theologians; it speaks of our understanding of the congregation of the Lord and whether the people of God are competent to serve God under the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord.

The teaching testifies to the work of the Holy Spirit among His people.

The second truth that is frequently neglected among evangelical churches is that */The Lord’s Table is an Ordinance, not a sacrament/*.

The act of communion is not a sacrament nor is it sacerdotal, though a disturbing number of evangelical Christians tacitly treat the ordinance as though it did confer grace.

Too often, the people of God hold the view that partaking of the Meal will make them, if not acceptable, than more acceptable to the Risen Son of God.

Consequently, I have observed even parents defending the practise of giving the elements of the meal to their children, all the while professing their deep offence when challenged about their practise.

The third truth, critical to a biblical understanding, speaks of the autonomy of the local congregation and the obligation for the congregation to guard the Lord’s Table.

The issue relates to the discipline of the local congregation.

Though seldom exercised among contemporary churches, */exclusion from the Lord’s Table is the most serious means of judgement that a church can impose/*.

Undoubtedly, ignorance of the teaching about the Lord’s Supper underlies the failure of modern churches to exercise discipline.

These truths demand examination and call for application within a Christendom that professes obedience to the authority of the Word of God while practising a form of spiritual anarchy.

Join me in exploration of Paul’s instruction of a church that had failed to honour the Lord, though it would have professed to understand these truths.

*The Communion Meal is an Act of Corporate Worship* — “When you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.

For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.”

Establish in your mind the truth that the Communion Meal is designed to be an act of corporate worship.

This means that it cannot be sacerdotal; neither can the Meal be a sacrament.

I have introduced two terms that are not commonly used outside of a theological setting.

These two words are related, sharing the same root.

Nevertheless, the terms demand clarification, if for no other reason than they are tossed about casually by people who should know better when referring to the Communion Meal.

The first word to be defined is “sacerdotal,” an adjective that implies something quite different from the reality of biblical practise.

To speak of an act as being sacerdotal is to indicate that the particular act is restricted to being performed by a priest or a priesthood.

However, Scripture implies that the Communion Meal was given to the churches as an act of worship by the members of the churches.

In practical terms, this means that the congregation of the Lord may designate whom it wills to preside over distribution of the elements.

The congregation functions as guardian of the rite in question.

Though I believe that we are responsible to maintain the dignity of the institutions of the Faith, nowhere are we commanded to formalise the acts in such a way that every move is choreographed and precisely defined.

In referring to maintaining the “dignity” of the institutions of the Faith, I do not want you to imagine that I intend to introduce stiffness into worship.

I speak of honouring the One who instituted the traditions through holding the acts in their proper place.

I want worship to be fruitful, meaningful, honouring the Lord Jesus who is glorified through worshipful participation.

Though sacerdotalism is prevalent throughout much of Christendom, it really has no place among churches that profess to adhere to the Word of God as the sole rule for faith and practise.

There is no function within the church that cannot be performed by any member of the Faith Community designated to perform that action by the congregation of the Lord.

The other word that is frequently used concerning the Lord’s Table is “sacrament.”

Though many evangelicals speak of the Meal as a “sacrament,” Scripture implies that it is an ordinance.

To speak of the Communion Meal as a sacrament implies that the Meal confers grace in some manner to the participants.

The sacramental view holds that those participating are made more holy or perhaps they are made more acceptable to the Lord of the Table.

However, to speak of the Meal as an ordinance implies that it is an act instituted or ordained by the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ.

Professor Tom Nettles, in a discussion of a document that excited great interest in the church world several years ago, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” wrote in response to a question of whether evangelical~/Roman Catholic dialogues might have positive results, “[T]he Anabaptist view of baptism as an ordinance for believers, symbolic and non-sacramental in character was rejected as heretical [by the Reformers].

Baptists are much further from Rome than other evangelicals on ecclesiology and the character of the ordinances.

Paedobaptists of all sorts will come closer to Rome more quickly than historic Baptists; the gravitational pull of paedobaptism always is toward sacramental efficacy.

Like Bilbo Baggins’s ring, it is restless till it reunites with its owner.”[2]

In other words, it is only through jettisoning a biblical view of the ordinances that evangelicals will find theological rapprochement with Catholics and Protestants.

Earlier, Paul wrote of the traditions delivered to the Corinthians: “Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you” [*1 Corinthians 11:2*].

The word “traditions” in this verse is almost universal in modern translations; however, older versions of the Bible used the word “ordinances,” referring to the commonly accepted rites as having been instituted by Jesus or by the Apostles.

Jesus did institute, or ordain, the Communion Meal.

However, the universal and common understanding of the tradition delivered to the churches changed rapidly following the passing of the Apostles.

Professor James Stitzinger writes, “The ordinance of believer’s baptism rapidly turned to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.

The Lord’s Supper shifted from being a memorial for believers to being viewed widely as a sacrament conveying saving grace.

Christian leadership rapidly changed from the offices of elder and deacon to sacerdotalism with the rise of the ‘bishop’ along with his ‘apostolic succession.’

One of the major causes of deterioration was the importation of Greek philosophy into Christian thinking by the Church Fathers.

This attempted ‘integration’ resulted in a complete erosion of biblical theology in the perspectives of many of the Fathers.”[3]

Paul deliberately withholds any commendation for the members of the congregation at this point.

“In the following instruction, I do not commend you,” is his blunt censure of their attitudes.

This is in contradistinction to *verse two* where he wrote, “Now I commend you.”

They were indeed holding to the traditions they had been taught, but they were beginning to pervert them through altering the observances.

What should have been an act of worship had degenerated into a personal observance excluding others who should have been included.

The church had become sectarian in the worst sense of the word; they were deliberately excluding their fellow church members.

In an earlier portion of this letter, Paul spoke of the fellowship aspect of the Meal.

In *1 Corinthians 10:16, 17*, the Apostle wrote, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

At the Lord’s Table, church members confess their unity in worshipful assembly.

When we observe the Communion Meal, it is always to be an act of fellowship as we share as one body in the act.

In several congregations I formerly pastored, sacrament sets were tucked away in the office.

On several occasions, I was informed that it was the practise of former pastors to hold private Communion services for those who were hospitalised.

Admission of such practises clearly indicates that the sacramental view of the observance had grown to prominence within those congregations, primarily because of a failure in pastoral leadership and ignorance of the Word of God.

I should not have been surprised, I suppose, when long-time members of one such congregation were offended because I failed to encourage them to continue holding sacramental views of the Meal.

The Communion Meal is intended to be a communal observance.

This is the intent of the Apostle’s words, “When you come together as a church.”

It is as the church is gathered, as the Christians are assembled as the believing community, that the Communion Meal is to be observed.

No Christian has a right to decide that he or she will eat some bread and drink some juice, calling it Communion.

No Christian has authority to decide to call a few friends or family members and invite them to eat bread and drink juice calling it Communion.

It is a church ordinance in which the Body worships, confessing communally their fellowship in the Risen Head of the Church.

While it is true that central to the Lord’s Supper is worship of our Sovereign Head of the Church, it is nevertheless vital that we understand the importance of the confession of fellowship made through the Meal.

The Corinthians were divided even as they professed unity.

There were splits (“divisions,” literally, “schisms”) internally.

Though they were gathered in one place, they were divided as members of the church chose up sides to form factions promoting competing interests—even at the Lord’s Table.

The people had forgotten that this was a church ordinance declaring fellowship.

The important lesson to take from this is that the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance and not a Christian ordinance.

If it were a Christian ordinance, it would mean that each of us should partake of the meal as individuals seeing participation as a personal act of devotion, which would ultimately lead to factionalism and sectarianism.