The Lord’s Supper and It’s Proclamation

1 Corinthians 11:26 “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”

Continuing  with my study of the Christian Sacraments, The next lesson asks: How do we proclaim the gospel? One way is to do so exclusively with words, to tell the story of Jesus and what His death and resurrection accomplished. But the Lord has appointed another way to proclaim the gospel that involves words as well as tangible substances and actions. For, as we see in today’s lesson passage, we proclaim Christ’s death when we eat the bread and drink the cup in the Lord’s Supper.

When we consider what happens in the Lord’s Supper, we understand how the supper can proclaim Christ’s death. In the breaking of the bread, we have a visible representation of the breaking of our Savior’s body by the nails that pierced His hands and feet and the sword that pierced His side. The wine poured into the cup depicts the blood that poured from His wounds as He died on the cross. When we taste the bitterness of the wine, we are reminded of the bitterness of God’s wrath that Jesus bore on the cross. Various spiritual truths are conveyed to our physical senses. It is important to note, however, that without the words of institution for the supper and the preaching of the Word, these truths cannot be conveyed. We need at least a basic explanation of what is going on; otherwise, we will not know how eating the bread and drinking the wine in the Lord’s Supper differ from our eating bread and drinking wine at other times. Thus, we see that Paul gives us these words even as He tells us what the Lord’s Supper proclaims.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26  For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Paul explains that in the supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death “until he comes”. This confirms that the remembrance that Jesus says is to occur in the supper is a perpetual remembrance. In other words, the Lord’s Supper is something we partake of perpetually in the Christian life. Baptism, as the sacrament of initiation, is received only once. The Lord’s Supper, as the sacrament of continuation, is received continually until we are in the Lord’s presence, whether we die first or He returns in glory.

In the Lord’s Supper, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death but we are also testifying that this death has benefited us. In the supper, we declare before men and women what we feel inwardly before God. We are testifying that we have faith in Christ, that His promise to cover our sin has taken effect in our lives. If we partake of the supper without faith, we place ourselves in grave spiritual danger.

1 Corinthians 11:27-30 explains that “whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

Over the years, many people have felt themselves free to innovate with the Lord’s Supper, using elements Christ has not commanded or allowing anyone to take it. whether they profess faith or not. Yet to do such things is a serious sin. The Lord Supper is to proclaim the death of Christ. We take the supper seriously because we take Christ and His death seriously. We proclaim Christ’s atoning death for our sins. Jesus died for us. Remember.

Luke 22:19 And he (Jesus) took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”