THE KING’S BUSINESS
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lack. Doesn’t this seem incredible in a Christian church? But, is it essentially dif fe ren t from what we see today? It is true we do not hear men saying today, “Don’t touch that peice of bread, I brought that,” but we do sometimes hear professed Christians saying, “Don’t sit in that pew, I rent that.” In some churches “each one taketh before other his own pew (supper),” and “it is not possible to eat the Lord’s supper.” Well might Paul ask, “What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this, I praise you not.” He had praised them in other things but not in this. But even yet Paul does not bid those who were grieved at this state of things to come out from among them and set up an assembly of their own. Nor does he for a moment sug gest that the church in Corinth, though so fallen, was “the camp” from which loyal followers of Christ were to go out bearing His reproach (Heb. 13:13). The organ ized church (even one so fallen as the church in Corinth) is never in the New Testament the Christ-rejecting camp from which believers are to come out. The Christ rejecting camp is the Israelitish system after it has rejected its Messiah. Friday, Nov. 23 . 1 Cor. 11 : 23 - 28 . The apostle Paul received directly from the Lord Jesus, the truth about the Lord’s supper (v. ,23, cf. Gal. 1:12; Acts 22:17, 18; 2 Cor. 12:1-4). How important the Lord Jesus must regard the Lord’s Supper to make it a subject of special revelation to Paul, when the fact of its institution was already known by the apostles who were present at the institution. The time in which the Lord Jesus instituted “the Lord’s supper,” “the same night in which He was betrayed,” gives it a tender interest. There is something remarkably touching in the way the Lord Jesus “gave thanks” over that bread and wine that spoke of His own death. For what was He giving thanks? For His own atoning agony and death. The bread represented His body that the next day on the cross was to be given for them. As in the Old Testament sacrifices, those
who offered them ate of them (to set forth in a figure their appropriation to them selves of the benefits of the death of the animal) ; so we eat the bread to set forth our appropriation to ourselves by faith of the atoning benefits of the death of Christ. We do it all “in remembrance” of Him. Jesus was leaving His disciples, He knew the human heart and how readily we for get, and He would have us remember Him and especially His atoning death, the supreme manifestation of His love; there fore, He left the Lord!s supper as a keep sake, like a ring that the lover puts upon the finger of her whom he loves, that when soever she looks at it in his absence, she may remember him. The Old Testament sacrifices brought sin to remembrance. The “Lord’s supper” brings Jesus to remem brance and the perfect atonement- that He has made for sin, once for all. The Revised Version properly omits the word “broken” from verse 24. The body of Jesus was not broken' (John 19:32, 33, 36), it was “given” for us (Luke 22:19). The bread is broken in the “Lord’s supper” simply that it may be distributed, but we each par take of the whole, unbroken Christ. The cup “is the New Testament in My (His) blood,” that is, it is as it were the parch ment upon which the new covenant of pardon through atoning blood is written. We read this covenant when we look into the cup. The wine tells us that the cov enant is dedicated with the blood of Jesus (Heb. 9:18-26 R. V.). However often we drink this cup—and the clear implication is that we should drink it often—we should do it in remembrance of Jesus. How the lov ing Lord desired to be remembered by His people. In eating the bread and drink ing the cup we are proclaiming the Lord’s death, so the Lord’s supper is not merely a memorial, it is a proclamation of the aton ing death of Jesus Christ. We should keep up this proclamation of our Lord’s atoning death till He come.” When He comes, we will no longer need the memorial for we will have Himself. The Lord’s supper looks back to the cross and forward to the
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