Communion: A Memorial Meal (1 Corinthians 11:18-34)

Jim Osman examines the significance of communion in 1 Corinthians 11:18-34, emphasizing its role as a divine institution and a memorial meal that symbolizes the unity of believers. He highlights how the Corinthian church’s misuse of the Lord’s Supper reflected deeper issues of division and selfishness. The focus is on understanding communion’s true purpose and ensuring its observance worthily. The communion significance is essential for the church’s unity and reflection on Christ’s sacrifice.

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Jim Osman

Pastor-Teacher, Kootenai Community Church

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The expository preaching ministry of Kootenai Community Church by Pastors/Elders Jim Osman, Jess Whetsel, Dave Rich, and Cornel Rasor. This podcast feed contains the weekly sermons preached from the pulpit on Sunday mornings at Kootenai Church.

The Elders/Teachers of Kootenai Church exposit verse-by-verse through whole books of the Bible. These sermons can be found within their own podcast series by visiting the KCC Audio Archive.

Sometimes what is done in religious circles as part of religious services and rites can be very confusing for those who are on the outside. It can be very odd-looking, and that is certainly true with the two ordinances that the Lord has given to His church, baptism and communion or the Lord's Supper. You think about how odd it is just to observe a baptism service if you are not familiar with the symbolism or the substance of what is being portrayed there. If you just came from another world and you showed up on this world and someone were to invite you to church here and you came here on a baptism Sunday and saw what we do, you would think, OK, so here's a group of people that once somebody is convinced to think the way that they think and believe the way that they believe, once they acquire a convert, they dip them in water? That seems odd, doesn't it? Shave their head, purple robe, what else do they give them as part of that conversion ritual? It would just seem odd, but for those of us who are on the inside of that who have seen it and heard it explained and we understand it, it's part of our life, it's part of our tradition and our upbringing, it's not as odd because the symbolism, the substance of baptism is not lost on us.
But then communion. So then we gather together without anybody present and we recite His words while we eat bread and drink juice or wine, depending on where you're at, and we say, “This is My body. Do this in remembrance of Me,” and then we eat that and then we say, “This is the blood of the new covenant. Do this in remembrance of Me,” and we drink that. That seems like a very odd ritual. And with both communion and baptism, the significance of it, the symbolism of them, the meaning of them can be lost on those who are not part of the group, as it were. And it's not just possible to be lost on those on the outside, it's also possible for Christians, well-meaning believers, to be uninformed regarding the meaning and significance of those events and what they really portray.
Having finished Hebrews, I have an opportunity to preach a few messages here before we start our next series. And this is one that I wanted to revisit. I preached this several years ago. In fact, this morning I was thinking, when was the last time I preached—we spent a whole Sunday just on communion? And I remember—for those of you who were here back then; this would be the OG group—it was when we were in the school cafeteria and we were facing the wide wall and not the narrow wall because we switched directions. You remember that? And that was before we took a year off to leave the school while they were doing some renovations. So this would have been 2010 or earlier that was the last time we spent a whole Sunday just talking about communion.
Now, it falls to us every month when we celebrate communion for me to remind us of the significance of it. We talk about the symbolism of it. There's a warning that accompanies partaking of communion, but it's also good to spend a little bit of time, at least I think an entire service at least probably every couple of years. And I think I'm going to do this more often since we grow, and then you look at how many people were here since the beginning of Hebrews, it makes me realize I can never assume that everybody here understands everything that we're doing. So it'll fall to me to be a little bit more diligent in talking about communion at some greater length more often than just once every fifteen years.
Some of you have been taking communion for years. You grew up in a church. You understand the symbolism of it. You understand the significance of it. Nothing is lost on you. However, others may not have any understanding about it. There may be others here who've seen it done once in a while. Maybe you went to a church. They never explained the significance of it. I've had people attend here who hear us do communion and they hear the warning that I give about partaking in an unworthy manner, and they have said to me, “The previous churches that we were in never warned us about partaking of communion in an unworthy manner. They never issued any kind of a stern warning about what that involves and never explained it. Just every time we got together and sort of felt religious emotions, we partook of communion. It was part of the service. And it would symbolize this one week and this thing the next week.” Maybe some of you come from a church background like that.
Or maybe some of you are familiar with the Catholic Mass because you spent years going to Catholic Mass. And then you come to a service like this and you see us Protestants do what we do, and you think, OK, the Protestants have just removed all the smells and bells from the ceremony and they do it, but it's just kind of a toned down thing because they have less time to do it and they don't like to kneel down, stand up, kneel down, stand up. Protestants don't like to exercise that much. So maybe that's how you do communion. And so you've just sort of done your own little twist on it without even really thinking about why it is that we do what we do and the significance of it.
So today, we're going to turn to 1 Corinthians 11 and we're going to spend this entire time talking about communion and what it is. The title communion or the word communion is how we most often refer to this ordinance. Communion simply means participation in something that is common to all. It describes something that involves a mutual participation or a mutual sharing in something that is common. It's from the Latin communis, com- meaning with or together and unus meaning oneness or union. And as believers we have a participation when we partake of communion in something that we all share. We all have an equal place at the Lord's table and so we commune or we come together and participate together in the same thing all as God's people. This is also called the Lord's Table or sometimes just the table. That comes from 1 Corinthians 10:21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” So this communion is sometimes referred to as the table of the Lord.
It is sometimes referred to as the Lord's Supper. That comes from the reference in 1 Corinthians 11. Since you're there, you can look at verse 20: “Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper.” And then from there, he gives instructions on the Lord's Supper in the rest of a good portion of that chapter.
Less commonly, and I think especially in our circles, it is referred to as the Eucharist. That is a transliteration of the Greek word eucharisteo, which means to give thanks. It's the word that Luke uses in his account of the Lord's Supper on the final night of our Lord's life in Luke 22:19: “And when He had taken some bread and given thanks [that's the word; He gave 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.’” So it's referred to as the Eucharist, though Eucharist is kind of more tied to the Roman Catholic view or the Mass of things. It's less frequently used, especially by us in our theological circles.
Communion is one of two ordinances that is given to the church, the other being baptism, which we'll recognize and celebrate here in a couple of weeks. We don't recognize marriage as an ordinance or last rites or any of the stuff that typically is referred to as sacraments or ordinances by the Roman Catholic Church. We recognize those things that were ordained or commanded by Christ, which is the Lord's Supper and baptism. And then we observe those two things because we see them modeled and observed in the New Testament. So we have examples of people doing those two things. And then we have instructions on those two things in the New Testament. So the Lord ordained it, we see it done in the New Testament time, and then we have instructions on it. This is why we don't do foot washing as an ordinance, where we sit around and wash each other's feet on a Sunday morning. There are churches that do that. We don't believe that that is an ordinance that the Lord commanded us, though He did that. He didn't command it to be done. We don't see it done anywhere else in the New Testament, and there's no instructions about the symbolism of it or even why we should be doing it or how it should be done. So we don't observe that. We observe these two, communion and baptism.
Now in the Corinthian church, as with nearly everything else they did, what they practiced was corrupted and sinful, characterized by selfishness and pride and division. And so Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 is taking aim at correcting some things that had gone horribly wrong in the Corinthians’ observance of communion. And as a result, we get some great instruction in this passage about what communion is and the significance of it and how it is to be done. And this makes me grateful, by the way, for the Corinthians' complete debacle. If anything good came out of that, it was the fact that the apostle took a good portion of a chapter to really address the significance, and if it weren't for that, if it weren't for 1 Corinthians, just imagine how depleted our knowledge of what a communion service really looked like in the first century would be. We get a tremendous amount here, and we're going to tackle the entire passage in one Sunday, and you know that this is more text than you are accustomed to receiving on a typical Sunday morning. We are going to go through verses 18–32. That's the passage we're going to cover this morning.
We're going to notice four features. First, in verses 18–22, Paul offers correction for their problems, the problems with their communion. And then second, he gives a pattern for them to follow in verses 23–25. Third, he shows them the purpose for communion, or you could actually say the picture, what it is that communion pictures or portrays in verse 26. And then finally, he commends some prudence before they proceed with it, verses 27–34. And when you have a good outline and it is alliterated like that, you have to recognize it and give props to whoever came up with that. And I think that was me because I don't remember getting that from anywhere else. So first, beginning with the problems, the problems with their communion, then the pattern, then the purpose, and finally the prudence.
Let's look at the problems beginning in verse 18. We'll read together verses 18–22 and then we'll back up and kind of walk our way through the passage. Verse 18:
18 For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it.
19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper,
21 for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk.
22 What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. (NASB)
Now, there's some indications there of what an early communion service in the first century would have looked like. It involved a meal. In fact, later on in the New Testament, Jude 12, it is referred to as a love feast. They would come together and it would basically be like a potluck, and the closest thing that we have to doing this in our congregation is on our annual meeting Sunday, where after our service, we break down, we set up tables, we enjoy a potluck together, and then we partake of communion as we discuss church business. That's probably most akin to what an early communion service in the first century would have looked like. They had a love meal where they would bring together their food, they would eat, and they would share that, and then they would fellowship together and then partake of communion together as part of that feast. And they called it a love feast. In fact, Jude 12 describes false teachers, and he talks about those who were “hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted.” It's just a scathing rebuke of false teachers. The false teachers came in and they were enjoying communion amongst the people of God, and there Jude refers to it as a love feast.
The term love feast seems like an odd way to describe what was going on in Corinth because the problems that existed are described in verse 18: “When you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you” (vv. 18–19). In other words, there's these factions and divisions in the church, and this manifested itself in all kinds of different ways. And you hear about this throughout the Epistle actually. In 1 Corinthians 1, in verse 10, Paul says,
10 I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. (1 Cor. 1:10–11 NASB)
Divisions, factions, and quarrels. In fact, some were saying, we find out in chapter 1, some were saying, “I'm in Paul's faction; I belong to the Pauline group,” and others were saying, “I belong to the Apolline group, Apollos’s sect,” and, “I belong to Barnabas,” and, “I belong to Silas.” They were dividing themselves up amongst who had baptized them and who had been their teachers, who had discipled them, who had led them to the Lord. And almost everything became not only an excuse for division in the church but also an opportunity to display that division. So you have in chapter 6 them going to court against one another. You have them abusing their liberty without considering one another in chapters 8 and 9. They have the misuse of spiritual gifts, in which they stood up and the most prominent gifts were displayed, and people oohed and aahed over the public demonstration of the gifts, and they were trying to one-up one another so that the most spiritual with the most dramatic and sensational gift would have preeminence among them. This was what was going on inside of the church. And then you have the lack of love, critiqued in chapter 13, where Paul describes what real love would look like, and it would have put to rest all of the divisions and schisms and factions within the church.
Well, here in chapter 11, their division was made evident at the Lord's Supper. Look at the rebuke in verses 20–22. “Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper” (v. 20). I mean, that's harsh. Here's what Paul is saying: Call it what you want, but don't call it the Lord's Supper. Because when you get together, what you're doing, you have the juice there, the wine, you have the bread there, you say the words, you do the thing, you have the feast, yes. You have all the symbolism, you have all of the ritual and the rote. But don't call it the Lord's Supper. Because when you come together, it's really your supper. You each have a meal, and you bring your food there, and then you hoard it to yourselves so that after this whole shindig is done, some of you go away glutted, just stuffed to the gills with all the food you brought. Meanwhile, your brother in Christ goes away without anything. The divisions were so severe that they wouldn't even bother caring about one another.
Look at verse 21: “In your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk.” So with both the bread and the wine of that feast, they were glutting themselves to the point where one would walk away absolutely filled and one would walk away having had nothing. One would walk away drunk and another didn't even have the opportunity to partake of the juice. They would grab their own food, clamor for the best of the meal. One person leaves gorged, another person leaves starving.
So he says in verse 22, “Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink?” Notice the brutal sarcasm. Do you need to come here to do that? You need to go to church to do that? Do you have such contempt for the Lord's house, for the Lord's people, and for this ordinance, that if you want to just glut yourself and get drunk, you can't do that in your own home? Now, don't misunderstand this, Paul's not commending getting drunk at home. He's exaggerating something for an effect. Do you show such contempt for the Lord's people that you despise the church of God? Verse 22: “Do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?” Like you wake up on Sunday morning, the Lord's Day, and think to yourself, man, I can't wait to get to church today so that I can walk in with my rib eye and I can sit down in the midst of all those people and glut my entire family on the rib eye while the person next to me who can't even afford a ham sandwich or an egg walks away with nothing. And I'm just looking for the opportunity to twist the knife in that person's side, to get at them and to demonstrate just how much I have and just what I can afford so that we might have the preeminence amongst all the people and it would belong to me, people see I have the best wine, the best meat. Do you despise the church of God? Don't you have houses in which to do that very thing?
See, communion speaks of the unity that we share, the unity that we have, and the union that exists among the people of God, and they took that ordinance, which really portrays our common union, our communion, they took that ordinance and used it as an opportunity to display their divisiveness, their schisms, and their factions that existed among them. What a profaning of the Lord's Supper that was. We have a union and a unity because we have been purchased by one blood through one Savior's one sacrifice. The breaking of that one body and that one sacrifice has purchased His people forever so that all the divides and distinctions that would normally exist in an eclectic blend of people like this, all of them mean nothing. So that in the church of Christ, it does not matter what your skin color is, how much melanin you have, whether you're darker or whether you're lighter. It doesn't matter how much money you have, whether you're richer, whether you're poorer, whether you're royalty or whether you're a pauper, whether you are slave or whether you are free. It doesn't matter what your status is in life, upper class, lower class, middle class. Doesn't matter whether you are a Jew or you are a Gentile. None of those things matter in terms of salvation and that sacrifice. Nobody can say, “I was redeemed by this sacrifice and you were redeemed by that sacrifice.” There's no redemption outside of the one sacrifice. So when all of God's people come together and we remember and reflect upon that one sacrifice and partake together commonly, the one elements that symbolize that sacrifice, we are declaring to the world that those distinctions mean nothing.
That is why, just as an aside briefly, that is why all of the woke mind virus that seeks to divide the people of God in terms of their ethnicity and the black church and white church and this racism and that racism, this ethnicity and that ethnicity, all of that is anathema to God. All of that problem that our society is dealing with is dealt with at this table. You understand what's going on at this table. The black man and the white man walk up and they partake of the same cup because they're redeemed by the same sacrifice. Their skin color doesn't matter. Their ethnicity doesn't matter. Their culture doesn't matter. Their upbringing doesn't matter. Their wealth, their poverty doesn't matter. Their status in life, upper class, lower class. President of the United States and the homeless man on the street, if they are to be saved, they are to be saved by the same sacrifice and they come to the same table. So as often as we partake of this, we are reminded once again, there is a union that the death of Christ has purchased that the world in all of their pagan wisdom can never understand or implement. There is a union that we enjoy that those who are outside of that sacrifice can never understand. They can never duplicate that.
First Corinthians 10:16–17 says, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? [Listen to the language of sharing and mutual participation] Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” And here the Corinthians had turned that service into a display of their contempt for one another. So Paul says you deserve no praise for this. Should I praise you because of this? You get together and you go through the ritual, but Christ isn't there. Don't call it the Lord's Supper. Call it your supper. That would be more appropriate.
Now I don't say that in a reproving or rebuking tone. I mean, I might sound—let me back up. That might sound reproving and rebuking because I think that's the tone in which Paul means it, but I'm not saying that in a reproving or rebuking tone toward you. So I want you to understand that. Because I just realized, man, you just sounded like—that was harsh. I mean, it is harsh if you're a Corinthian, but if you're a Kootenaiian, it's not as harsh, so don't worry about it.
Second, he gives them the pattern to follow. Verses 23–25:
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 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.’
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. (NASB)
It is important to recognize that communion is of divine origin. It is a divine institution. Paul didn't invent this. The apostles didn't invent this. The pope didn't invent this. Nobody in the history of the Christian church invented this. This was given to us by the Lord Himself. And Paul uses there the language of passing along a tradition. What I received, I delivered—this is sort of rabbinic language for I'm passing on to you what I have myself received, indicating I think one of two things, either that Paul got this directly from the Lord Himself by divine revelation, or most likely, I think that this was something that he recognized as an apostle coming into the church later than the other apostles that this was a tradition that goes back to the Lord Himself. So he received this from the Lord through the other apostles, and it comes to Paul, and Paul is simply saying to them, “What I'm giving to you is not my own invention. This is what the Lord has given to His church.”
And so he refers there to that final Passover meal with the disciples, where on that last night of our Lord's life, He took two elements of that Passover meal, the bread and the wine, and He singled them out for some unique symbolism that He reapplies to Himself, which by the way, just the fact that Jesus did that Himself tells you that He is speaking Himself as God. God had given the symbolism of the Passover elements. The bread and the wine had their own significance, their own symbolism. Yahweh had instituted that feast and commanded that it be observed in the law. And then Jesus, if He is not God, He is the most egomaniacal, self-centered, narcissistic person who has ever lived because He took those symbols which were hundreds of years old and He says from this point forward, this will remind you of Me. Not the Passover, but Me and what I am doing. That is either the peak of narcissism or it is the voice of Yahweh in human flesh who is reinterpreting the elements of the Passover, taking those two things, and He is bringing it into something new, and He is saying, “You are going to continue to partake of these two things, but from here on out they remind you of something else.”
The bread had reminded them of their fleeing in haste from Egypt. And their partaking of the bread reminded them of that deliverance on that final night when they gathered up what they had and took it out of the house with them as they fled Egypt after the death of the firstborn. It reminded them of God's provision for them in the wilderness when God provided for them after He brought them out of Egypt. And Jesus took that symbol and He said, “This symbol is now going to remind you of a new deliverance. This is My body, which is broken for you.” In other words, He is dying in the stead of that Passover lamb. And now it references His body.
The wine or the juice—and I do think it was wine, and I'll get to that here in just a second. The wine reminded them of the blood of the Passover lamb. And the application of that blood brought salvation from judgment, and it was a reminder not just of the deliverance that came to God's people through the blood of the Passover lamb, but it was also because wine is a symbol of God's provision and joy and rejoicing. It is also a symbol of that as we rejoice in the deliverance that God has given to us. So Jesus took that wine and gave it a new significance. And He said, “This is no longer pointing to, in your minds, the Passover lamb, but this is now the blood of the new covenant in My blood, and so you do this in remembrance of Me,” and applied it again to Himself. He was able to do that because as 1 Corinthians 5:7 says, Jesus Christ is our Passover sacrificed for us. He's the fulfillment of the Passover lamb, the lamb whose blood was shed to provide covering for anybody's household over whom that blood was applied. Jesus is our Passover lamb. The death angel, the judgment of God, passes over us because we are under that blood. And so Jesus applied that to Himself. It is the Lord Himself who instituted this.
And by the way, notice that Paul mentions the night in which He was betrayed. That is significant because Christ Himself, even while He was being betrayed by Judas—as Judas was out setting the stage for His murder, Jesus, while knowing that Judas was betraying Him while He did this, instituted a love feast for His disciples, indicating that everything that was happening that evening was under His control.
It is not just a divine institution. It's a memorial meal. You'll notice in verse 24 He says that we are to “do this in remembrance of Me.” Verse 25, we do it with the cup in remembrance of Him. That is twice that that is mentioned. We are familiar with the idea of a memorial meal or things that we do in memory of somebody. We do this Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Christmas, Resurrection Sunday. We have ceremonies and things that we do, meals that we have, activities that we are involved in which recollect to us something from a long time ago. Communion is one of those things. It is a memorial meal. It is a covenant meal. It is the new covenant. We are to do this to recognize that we are no longer under the law and its threatenings, its punishments, but instead the wrath for our violation of the law has been borne by another. And so now we are in the new covenant. The salvific benefits of the new covenant are ours because of what Christ has done.
The Passover, the children of Israel leaving the land of Egypt, and the Passover sacrifice preceded the making of that old covenant at Sinai. And the making of that old covenant at Sinai was accompanied by a meal. Exodus 24:8 says, “Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’” Same chapter, verse 11 says, “Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.” So at the institution of that first Mosaic covenant, the old covenant, there was the recognition that blood was shed to inaugurate this covenant. And then in and around that covenant ceremony, they met together and they ate and drank before the Lord. Well, the Lord Jesus is doing the same thing here in a parallel fashion, but now it is not a recognition of that old covenant but now a new covenant that He has instituted with us.
And the new covenant is inaugurated not with the blood of bulls and goats but with the blood of Christ Himself. He has done what no animal sacrifice can do, namely to pay the full wrath for our sin, to pay the full price that our sin deserved, and to satisfy the justice of God so that we might be not just forgiven, but we might be declared righteous in His sight because of His sacrifice on the cross. Christ is the fulfillment of those sacrifices. So it is a divine institution, a memorial meal, and a covenant meal that we partake of together.
Third, not only does Paul address their problems and provide the pattern, but third, he reminds them of the purpose for which they were to remember this. Verse 26: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). There is a proclamation of the death of Christ in the communion service. We are reenacting what has transpired. We're breaking bread. We're recognizing the crushing of grapes. We're recognizing the shedding of the blood. And Paul says in verse 26 as often as you do this, you are proclaiming His death. We are remembering and reflecting upon and thinking through His sacrifice, the agony of it, the beating He received, the shame, the suffering. And we are in communion proclaiming the significance of that. We're declaring to the watching world, to any unbelievers who are here, we're declaring to them that we have union because of what Christ has done and that His sacrifice has paid for our sin. And therefore, we are recognizing the substitutionary nature of that death, that the death that we deserve to die, He died in our place. And that death satisfied the wrath of God. We have a part in that death and we are recognizing that as we proclaim that death and then take to ourselves the elements of that death, the bread which symbolizes His body and the wine or the juice which symbolizes His blood. We take those into ourselves and we are saying that we are one with that. That death was for us. And I participate in that death by virtue of my faith in Christ.
So we're doing a similar thing in communion that we do in baptism. When we baptize somebody, we immerse them in water, symbolizing our death and our burial and our resurrection with Jesus Christ. And we are declaring that His death was our death, His burial was our burial, and His resurrection is my resurrection, and that what He did, He did in my place as my representative on my behalf so that I don't have to do those things. In communion, we're doing the same thing. We're taking the elements of that death and we're remembering continually that we have a participation in that. All of us together at the same table drinking from the same cup, the same juice, and recognizing the same blood, the same bread, the same body, we're saying all of that was done for us. And we participate in that and we have a share in that. That was for me. Therefore, I take it to myself.
The grapes are crushed and the juice is spilled. And this, of course, symbolizes the blood of Christ, which was spilled for us in sacrifice because we are reminded every time we proclaim the Lord's death that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. This is the way God has established it. Your sin, my sin, demands justice. That justice can only be satisfied before a holy God if the wrath that I deserve is poured out on the head of another, an innocent substitute who is willing to die in my place, and Christ has done that. And so partaking of these elements reminds us that that was a costly death, a costly suffering, a costly substitute, a costly salvation. It didn't cost me anything. It comes to me freely by faith. It cost Christ His own life. And when we partake of it, we are declaring our participation in that sacrifice.
And we are doing so, notice verse 26 says, until He comes. So we're not only looking back at that sacrifice as a memorial, but we're looking forward to His return. We do this thing until He comes. We look back at what He did and we look forward to His coming. He is coming again to judge the living and the dead. And by looking forward and in expectation to that coming, we are implicitly acknowledging our faith and trust in His resurrection as well. He is coming again because He rose from the dead. He has ascended to the Father's right hand where He sits and waits until all His enemies are made a footstool for His feet, and then He will return again and He will rule the nations with a rod of iron and He will set everything right and give us a new creation. And because that is true, we partake of communion, looking forward to His coming, always thinking in the back of my mind—I'm always thinking when I partake of communion, maybe this is the last time we do this. I want this to be the last time that we do this. I want, at least before Election Day, I want one of these communions to be the last time that we do this. Always looking forward to His return, acknowledging that He has risen again and I'm waiting for Him to come back.
There is the looking forward to and the anticipation of a time when we will sit in His Kingdom and we will eat and drink with Him. This is what Jesus reminded us of in Luke 22. Matthew mentions it as well in Matthew 26:29: “I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.” That is His reminder that we will sit and we will enjoy the blessing of food and drink in His Kingdom. And every communion is a token of that. It's a reminder. He's coming again, and we will eat and drink with Him.
There is the promise in Isaiah 25:6–8, “The Lord of hosts [listen to this] will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine” (v. 6). Wine and meat in the kingdom. I'm standing on the promises, “standing on the promises of Christ, my King” (Carter, “Standing on the Promises”). Isaiah 25:6, there's going to be prepared a lavish banquet. Now you say, does that refer to this age? No, it doesn't. Does it refer to the Millennial Kingdom, the thousand years when Christ will reign there? Possibly. Could it refer to the eternal state, a lavish banquet with pieces and the marrow and aged wine? Well, listen to the next two verses: “On this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken” (vv. 7–8). That is the end of death, the end of sin, the end of reproach, the end of tears, the end of sorrow, and a feast with choice pieces and marrow and aged wine. We are going to feast with the King. We're going to sit down in His banquet hall in utter magnificence and we're going to feast with Him. We're going to eat and we are going to drink the choicest of choice delights with our King and we're going to rejoice together and we're going to do this because He is going to raise us to eternal life to live in that kingdom with Him, and communion is a token of what we get on that day.
So we do this remembering what it is that He has done to purchase our place at that table, and we do this remembering that when He comes back, we're going to feast with the King of kings in a kingdom in resurrected bodies, enjoying all of the delights of a brand-new creation that He has purchased with His own blood. I'm looking forward to that. And I'll tell you something that's even better, He's looking forward to it as well. That delights my heart because that means that He is anticipating that day when He will gather in all of His people, His bride, and He will present us faultless before His throne with exceeding joy, Scripture says, and on that day we will rejoice together, and He will be delighted to see the reward for His suffering, all gathered together, kept safe and secure until the last day, and then He will sit down and He will enjoy that feast with us. You think you're looking forward to that? He is looking forward to that day as well. That delights my heart greatly.
I would love to finish on that note, but that's not the end of our passage. So Paul addresses their problems, their pattern, the purpose, and then he encourages prudence. There is a caution here in verses 27–34, and I usually mention this every time that we do communion. Beginning at verse 27:
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. (1 Cor. 11:27–29 NASB)
Paul warns against participating in communion in what he calls here an unworthy manner, and it incurs a guilt and an accountability, and it requires a sober self-examination. Typically when I issue this warning before we partake of communion, I talk about how you can do this as an unbeliever, how you can do this as a believer. I want to camp on that just for a moment to expand what I think are ways that we can partake in an unworthy manner.
First, to participate as an unbeliever, you are participating in an unworthy manner because you're actually declaring your participation in something that you have no participation in. You're saying, “This was done for me, and I have a part in this, and I'm one of these people,” and if you have no share in that sacrifice, then for you to take those elements to yourself, if you're not born again and you've never trusted Christ for salvation, you're eating and drinking judgment to yourself because you're making a mockery of a sacrifice that you have not availed yourself of. In other words, you have not come to that sacrifice and confessed your sin, and you are still in your rebellion against Him, making a mockery of His sacrifice and insisting that you have a right to yourself and to you and to what you want, and you're going to partake of the elements that suggest that His sacrifice purchased you out of the slave market of sin while you're still living in rebellion to Him? That is to eat and drink judgment. You are heaping up judgment to yourself to do this as an unbeliever. You're taking the elements that symbolize a sacrifice that you still despise and show your contempt for it by continuing in that rebellion while you ritualistically partake of something that doesn't belong to you.
Second, you can partake in an unworthy manner if you are a believer and you do this ritualistically. To treat this as just another religious ritual—I can do this and I do that and we do this; I stand up and I sit down and I do this; I take the bread, I take the juice, and meanwhile my mind is on the roast and my mind is on what I’m doing this afternoon; my mind is on this week or next week or last week or whatever it is, without any self-examination or reflection or prayer. If you view it as just something we do at the end of the service so we can finally get out of here—“He went on long enough and now here we are almost ten minutes to twelve. We still have to do this, and I can tell he's not even halfway through his final point. Now if we could just hurry up and get through this, and if the guys just served the elements faster and we didn't have people slowing it down as they go through, we could get done with this and get out. We’ve got to get to Cracker Barrel before the end of the day.” If that's your view of the Lord's Supper, you're partaking in an unworthy manner.
Or if it's just part of a heartless, ritualistic religion, which is abhorrence to God, it's the very kind of superficial, shallow, idolatrous mentality that is criticized in the prophets over and over again. Isaiah 29:13: “Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” That is a scathing rebuke of the people of Isaiah's day. Same thing can be said if communion is just another thing you do, a tradition that you have learned by rote.
Or if you have a misplaced trust in communion, if you take the elements and you think, “OK, this will make me holy. Really struggled with sin this last week, but if I partake of the elements now, I'm going to have strength to battle my sin this next week.” You're misunderstanding this; you're partaking in a way that is more superstitious. These elements have not purchased salvation for you. They symbolize a salvation that was purchased for you. They don't make you holy, they don't save you. So if you partake of communion putting your faith and trust and emphasis in these elements and not in the Savior that they symbolize, then you have a misplaced faith and a misplaced trust, and the very state of your soul is actually in danger if that's your view of it.
Or if you are a believer who is living in your sin. The purpose of the sacrifice of Christ was to redeem us for Himself and make us a holy people. Titus 2:14 says He came to give Himself and “redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” So how can we remember the sacrifice for our sin while we cling to the sin that cost our Savior His life? So woe to the person who sits here during a communion service or a church service and plots and plans the sins he will commit later in the day and then partakes of communion in the midst of all of that, thinking that you are going to somehow purchase righteousness or forgiveness later on and participate in communion. How can we participate in something that reminds us of that sacrifice for sin all the while we are living in it?
Now does this require some degree of perfection? No. We don't earn the right to partake of communion. Whether you partake of communion is not based upon how well your week went. That's not it. It's not a matter of perfection. It's a matter of penitence. We come to communion repentant. We come to communion confessing our sin, acknowledging our sin, hating our sin, not hiding our sin, admitting our sin, and examining ourselves, not excusing ourselves. So all of the rationalizations and the justifications for our iniquity or our failures of the past week have to go out the door, and instead we sit humbly before the Lord, acknowledging our need and even our unworthiness to partake in something that symbolizes the death of our Lord in our place. So it's not a matter of perfection.
And what do you do if you have missed communion at some point in your Christian life? Or what do you do if you have to pass on the communion for a service? It's OK. Nobody judges you. There are all kinds of reasons why we might not partake of communion on any given Sunday, communion Sunday. But the point of passing on communion is so that you might immediately give earnest attention to whatever it is that is keeping you from participating in communion and deal with that, examine yourself, and then eat and drink of the elements. A believer should never be content with sitting out communion service after communion service after communion service. Never be content with that. If you have to sit out of communion service, OK, deal with it and then come back next time and participate. But never be content with that sin that keeps you from dealing with it.
The answer to partaking in an unworthy manner is the self-examination that he talks about in verse 28. Examine yourself—in doing so then you can eat of the bread and drink of the cup. “He who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly” (v. 29). It's unclear whether what he means by discerning the body rightly there is a reference to if you do not evaluate the body of Christ—that is, the sacrifice of Christ and what He did—if your evaluation of that is not high enough, then you're partaking in an unworthy manner. Or it may be that the apostle is saying, look, you Corinthians are so undiscerning that you can't even look out over your own body and recognize the schisms and factions among you. And that very reason, what they were doing, should have caused them to just shut down communion until they dealt with the sin issues in their own body. And he's saying you're eating and drinking judgment to yourself if you don't judge the body rightly. If you don't—it's one—either evaluate the sacrifice of Christ in the way that it should be evaluated and revered, or that you just cannot even discern that you shouldn't be partaking of communion because of the state of your local church body.
There's a serious judgment that is warned about in verses 29—32. You eat and drink judgment to yourself. For that reason, verse 30 says, some are weak and sick, and a number sleep. The one who mocks this sacrifice eats and drinks judgment to himself. What kind of judgment? Some in the Corinthian church had fallen ill and some of them God had killed because of their sin. This was the chastisement of God upon a church body that deserved every bit of it. God disciplined some of them with physical death and others of them with temporal judgments like illness and weakness. Be clear, the believer does not lose his salvation partaking in an unworthy manner, but the believer courts the discipline of God by partaking in an unworthy manner. You do this bad enough, you do that long enough, you do that persistent enough, and your heart gets hardened to that point, and God will chasten you with illness or even death for partaking in an unworthy manner.
Now does this mean—you're thinking, “I mean, I got gout in my knee and I got a hip that needs to be replaced. Does this mean I'm partaking in communion in an unworthy manner?” Maybe, I don't know. It's also very likely that you're just getting old and you need to have some parts replaced, or you're getting sick. But if I'm ill and something has come upon me and I can't identify any particular sin that I'm dealing with that the Lord is chastening me for, then I can partake of communion, recognizing that just because I'm holy doesn't mean I'm going to live forever and feel good till I die. Well, you can't die if you live forever, but I mean just because I'm holy doesn't mean that I'm never going to die and that I'm going to feel good the whole time. That's not the promise.
Now, naturally there's going to be questions that come up on one sermon on one passage that I'm not going to be able to answer. I'm going to answer a few of them here and these are—I'm going to give these to you quickly. There should be fifteen more minutes that I should give to this, but these questions are in order of ascending difficulty and complexity, OK?
Number one, what is the significance of the bread or the wine or the bread and the juice? They're elements that the Lord used. He instituted them. We're not free to change them up and do Twinkies and Coke or anything like that. These are what the Lord gave, and I think it was an unleavened bread, an unleavened bread and juice or wine that He used. And so we're not free to change those up. There's no magical or sanctifying effect in them. These things do not become the body and blood of Christ once you eat them or when I say magic words over them or you hold them in your hand or when they're in your mouth or anything like that. There's nothing spiritually inside the elements that sort of satisfies your soul or feeds you spiritually in any way. These are symbols of a death that took place. That's what they are.
Second question, could we do wine or should we do wine instead of grape juice? Now, this is one that the first couple of times I preached this sermon, I'd never been asked this question before, but now as more people from foreign backgrounds or perspectives come to Kootenai Community Church, I started getting this question more and more. My answer to this may surprise you. I have no moral objection to using wine in communion whatsoever. I have no moral objection to that. I have read the arguments that say that you should never use wine, it should only be grape juice, because back then they would dilute real wine, which had alcohol in it, to the point where you couldn't even tell the alcohol was in there, and you'd have to drink like eighty gallons of it before you would ever get drunk. I've read those arguments, and I've read the arguments of people who say the only thing you should ever use is alcoholic wine. I'm unconvinced by both of those arguments.
The symbolism of the element is not in the alcoholic content. That's not the point of it. It doesn't matter what the alcohol by volume is of the drink that you are drinking. The symbolism is not in the alcohol. The symbolism is in the crushing of the grapes that reminds us of the sacrifice. So for that reason, we have used juice. I'm content to continue to use juice. If I attended a communion service where they used wine, I would be fine with that. If we had a communion service where we had some trays that were wine and some trays that were juice, I would be fine with that. I have no horse in that race either way.
Next one, who can serve communion? I think it is the role of the elders to lead this in the worship of the church and the church service. And it should be, if it's not an elder, somebody who is recognized and authorized by the elders to participate in that way of leading it, to honor the gender distinctions that are clearly laid out in Scripture regarding leadership of the church and the home, etc. We don't have women participate in serving the elements of communion. We have this weird thing around here. We expect men to step up and be men and to lead like men should lead, not only in the home but also in the worship service. So this is why men do this. Expect you to serve others in leading in that way. And we don't slough this off onto other people to do that.
Do you have to be a member of Kootenai Community Church to participate in communion? No, you have to be a member of the body of Christ. You have to be a believer. That's my main concern.
What about partaking of communion on other occasions, like part of a wedding ceremony or a camp or a retreat or a conference or a concert or a birthday party or a dinner or a small group? You've probably seen or heard this done in various ways at various times. We have in Scripture instructions that are given for the participation of communion in the context of the local church to the Corinthians. I think that that is the context in which communion should be done. To do it outside of that, I think, has no biblical warrant. It makes me very uncomfortable when it is done at a retreat or a camp or a concert or a birthday party, and this is going to get me in trouble with some of you, maybe, even at a wedding. That makes me uncomfortable. Why is that? Because communion does not symbolize a marriage covenant. Communion symbolizes the new covenant. Communion is not intended for two people who feel emotionally in the moment to participate in while two hundred people watch it. It is intended to be part of the fellowship and worship of the people of God when they gather together.
Now, what about my small group? I've got fifteen, twenty people in a small group. Can I do communion there? I'm not going to object to it. There's no prohibition against that in Scripture. If the person who's leading that group is authorized to do so by the leadership of the church and they run that by the elders, I can see that that might be done. I wouldn't do it myself. If I were in a small group and they did it, I would probably, I would maybe participate. I don't know how I’d feel. Maybe if it was a Monday or Tuesday. I'm not sure how I’d feel no matter what day of the week it is. I have no dog in that race either, but I do think that Scripture indicates that it should be done as part of the worship of the larger gathering of the people of God.
Should my children participate in communion? I told you this was getting worse, escalating, right? I made a bunch of people mad with the wedding comment. OK, so since I'm there and I'm not able to tiptoe between these raindrops, I'm going to give you this one. Should children participate in communion? Well, let's go back to our founding, our first principles regarding communion. Who is it for? It's for believers. What is required? A discerning judgment on the condition of the church body, a right assessment of Jesus and His sacrifice, a proper understanding of His cross and the salvation that it affects, a self-examination of sin and a turning from sin and a confession of sin, and a self-awareness and evaluation of one's walk with the Lord. Understanding that symbolism and the significance of it is essential; it is the central aspect of communion. Can a three-year-old do that? Can a six-year-old do that? Can a nine-year-old do that? Can a twelve-year-old do that? Twelve-year-old, maybe?
Then you say, Jim, are you suggesting that children can't be saved? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying children can't be saved. Of course I believe that God can do that. God can grant repentance and faith to anybody. And we're not talking about infants. We’re talking about children, talking about six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve-year-olds. God can grant repentance and they can be saved, yes, but though all the benefits of salvation are available to children, not all the responsibilities of salvation accrue to children. Let me cash that out just a bit. I won't ask my ten-year-old believing child to go confront a grown man in their sin. I expect another adult to do that. I don't expect my ten-year-old to do that even though my ten-year-old is saved. So while children have available to them all the blessings of salvation—forgiveness of sins, eternal inheritance, the righteousness of Christ, etc.—we do not lay upon them all the responsibilities of being part of that believing community. For instance, we do not allow twelve-year-olds who are saved to preach or teach Sunday school or lead worship or do special music or open in prayer or serve communion because there is a level of maturity that is required for people to rightly do certain things that are part of the community of faith. And I think that baptism and communion are two of those things.
You should have no problem, it is no problem to say to a child, “This is not for you at this age. Someday you will grow up, you will be more mature, and you will be able to handle that in a thoughtful, reflective, and more mature and adult way, and until that time, this is for Mommy and Daddy, it is not for you.” It's OK to say that. We do this with children in all kinds of other areas, with all kinds of other things that are far less significant than communion. We say there's an age at which this will be appropriate. This is not it for you. We will let you know when that age is.
Now I'll tell you what Diedre and I did in our family. This was our practice. Our rule with our kids was if you haven't been baptized, you don't take communion. Because from our mind, in our perspective, it was if you're old enough and mature enough to understand the significance of baptism and you are willing to publicly proclaim your faith in Christ in front of people, then you are old enough also to understand what it means to examine yourselves and deal with your sin. And so those two things I think go hand in hand.
Now does that mean that I don't think anybody who is not baptized should take communion? This depends. If you've been baptized as a believer—sorry, if you are a believer who has not yet been baptized but you are pursuing baptism, you want to be baptized, you're willing to be baptized, and you know that's coming up in a period of time, and you want to get some things done, you'd be baptized, that's your goal, and yet we're waiting for you to be baptized, I think you can partake of communion. But if you are a believer who is unwilling to be baptized, then that is sin, and to eat and drink is to eat and drink judgment to yourself because you're doing something that is sin. You're saying, “I'm a believer in Christ. I refuse to obey Him and be baptized, but I'm going to partake in this sacrifice.”
So much of this, answering these questions, comes down to considering how we navigate all of this in keeping with the meaning and the significance of the ordinance, as well as the warnings that are given in Scripture. I think the pattern is simple. The church gathers in unity, expresses that unity through a sober, self-examining reflection on the death of Christ in communion. And we do this with reverence.