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What Is Communion?By: Joseph H. Murray“I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” 1Corinthians 10:15–17 The question before us is this: does Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, and Luke 22:19 give us a record of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, or is it only an observance of the keeping of the Passover as Jesus said he desired to do before his death? “Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say to him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples” (Matt. 26:17b–18). Mark gives us this account of the same incident: “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover” (Mark 14:12–16). Luke tells us the same thing in these words: “Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed, and he [Jesus] sent Peter and John, saying, go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover” (Luke 22:7–13). It seems to me that what Jesus is doing here is not an institution of anything but an act of fulfilling a ceremony already instituted by God and given to Moses nearly 1,500 years before he was born, as recorded in Exodus 12: “And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as He hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the LORD’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped” (Ex. 12:24–27). Since Jesus said to his disciples, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29); “Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25); and, “For I say unto you, I will not eat any more thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, take this, and divide it among yourselves: for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come” (Luke 22:16–18), we should be interested in what he was speaking of when he said, “new with you in my Father’s kingdom,” “new in the kingdom of God,” and, “until the kingdom of God shall come,” as recorded by the writing of these three: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Before he stopped talking to his disciples on this momentous occasion, he said, “and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:29–30; Matt. 19:28). We see here that those who are accounted worthy to eat and drink in the kingdom of God anew with Jesus are even worthy to judge the twelve tribes of Israel, with whom Jesus had eaten his last Passover with under the ordinance instituted by God to Moses in the beginning. There was no way in which Jesus could eat and drink anew with his disciples while yet alive because the ceremony and ordinance that they were observing was symbolic of his blood yet flowing in his veins that was to be shed and his body yet to be broken. The wine used in the ceremony was a symbol of his blood, and the bread, a symbol of his broken body. Now that this was accomplished in Pilate’s judgment hall by stripes being laid on his back and his shed blood on Calvary’s cross, we need no longer to use symbols. We are now able, through this great sacrifice, to partake of this feast in reality, or “new” as he said to his disciples. Jesus not only said, “I appoint unto you a kingdom,” but he also said this: “fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). To what do you suppose he was referring? He was referring to the one he admonished his disciples to seek, even as he does today, and “all these things shall be added to you” (Luke 12:31). This is the one Paul tells us about: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; [that is, bread and wine] but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17). Only the circumcised are worthy to eat. “And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof” (Ex. 12:48). Therefore, those partaking of the Lord’s Supper in the churches today, that is, taking the wine and the unleavened bread, to be worthy shall have to have natural circumcision performed on them and say that the kingdom did not come at Pentecost or acknowledge the fact that the kingdom did come at Pentecost, “and circumcision is that of the heart” (Rom. 2:29) by the power of God. Some false pretenders of Christianity are endeavoring to fulfill the keeping of the Lord’s Supper (Passover) in the natural and claiming to be partakers of it in the “new” spoken of by Jesus. These groups should adhere to one or the other and not frustrate the grace of Christ (Gal. 2:21). |
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