Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Scripture is clear and definite on the subject of the Lord’s Supper. The words are as distinct as possible, “As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.” Again, “This do in remembrance of Me.” We remember Him in death — the basis, center and spring of everything to us. The apostle calls attention to the fact that it was in the same night He was betrayed that our blessed Lord, in His thoughtful, unselfish love for us, instituted the feast, and this is full of touching interest for our hearts. But as to the feast itself — its significance — its object — its place, Scripture is most precise: “ye do show the Lord’s death,” “Do this in remembrance of Me.” We remember a Christ who was dead; we call Him to mind in that condition in which, thank God, He no longer is. All this can only be by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no need to enter into sensational details; indeed such things are most offensive to all true spiritual feeling. We cannot keep too close to the actual, perfect language of Holy Scripture.

It is quite true that the special object in the Lord’s Supper is to remember Him and show forth His death, but John 14-16 clearly proves that after the Supper, our Lord spoke on various subjects. If He did so, surely His servants may do the same. It would be a serious mistake, therefore, to shut out all teaching and exhortation except such as had for its subject the fact of the death of Christ or the circumstances attendant thereon. We believe in this, as in everything else, the Holy Spirit must lead and order. There is always great danger in taking up a certain idea and running it to seed. We most fully enter into the thought of the true nature and object of the Supper itself, but we also believe that when the feast has been duly celebrated, then is a wide field for the action of the Holy Spirit in teaching and exhortation. “Let all things be done to edifying.”

You ask, “If you found a young person who gave you the fullest assurance he was saved, enjoyed peace with God, enjoyed fellowship about the things of Christ, and whose conduct at home showed the power of it, if such an one expressed a desire to come to the Lord’s table, would you receive him or would you keep him outside for a length of time if he were only 13 or 14 years old?” Most assuredly, we would gladly receive such an one and not keep him outside for a single hour. What has the question of years to do with the divine life? How old was Samuel when he first knew the Lord? or Josiah? or Timothy?

We regard your note as being anything but presumptuous, but we must persist in saying we see no foundation in Scripture for a person breaking bread alone. It is distinctly an act of fellowship to the integrity of which the presence of two is absolutely essential.

“Now when the even was come, He sat down with the twelve” (Matt. 26:20). So also Mark 14:17. Again, in Luke 22:14, “When the hour was come, He sat down and the twelve apostles with Him.” Furthermore, Judas is distinctly mentioned as taking part in the feast and asking a question. And then not merely at the passover, but at the supper, our Lord says, “Behold, the hand of him that betrays Me is with Me on the table.” We do not see how anyone can question the fact of the presence of Judas at the supper. His character was only known to the Lord. His fellow apostles did not seem to have any suspicion of him. But then to argue from this case that we ought to allow known evil at the Lord’s table, is simply wicked. To say that we may have traitors at the table is to confess our own weakness, but to say that we ought to have known traitors, is perfectly shocking to any holy mind.

Where is there any warrant in Scripture for confining the Lord’s supper to the first day of the week? No doubt the disciples did specially celebrate it on that day, but it was originally instituted on a week-day. We should rejoice to break bread at any time, provided people were up to the mark for it, and that all the circumstances of the case were according to the mind of God.

“The feast” in 1 Corinthians 5:8 is the antitype of the feast of unleavened bread which, as we learn from Exodus 12, was based upon and inseparably connected with the passover. The bloodstained lintel was not to be separated from the unleavened bread. Peace and purity, safety and sanctity, must always go together.

It would be a strange and miserable application of 1 Corinthians 5:8 to refer it to the matter of having bread without yeast or unfermented wine at the Lord’s Supper. We believe, dear friend, the feast refers to the whole of our Christian life in this world. It should, from first to last, be a feast of unleavened bread, based on the great fact that “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” — a life of personal holiness flowing out of accomplished redemption, known and applied by the power of the Holy Spirit.