Series: Sermons on the Lord’s Table
Title: The Bread, the Wine, the Taking and Eating
Text: 1 Corinthians 11: 24-26
Date: July 1, 2012
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
1 Corinthians 11: 24: And when he had given thanks, he brake it,
and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in
remembrance of me. 25: After the same manner also he took the cup, when
he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye,
as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26: For as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
I. THE BREAD—V24:
this is my body, which is broken for you:
The broken bread represents Christ’s body—in humanity—(Heb
2) which was broken for his people. Christ is the true Bread, the true Manna,
which was typified in the manna in the wilderness. His body broken for our iniquities is the
Bread of Life for sinners starved of all righteous because of our sin.
When we read in Isaiah 53: 5:…he was bruised for our
iniquities…the word “bruised” says very much concerning Christ our Bread
whose body was broken for us. Bruised
means “to beat” as bread corn is ground and beaten by a pestle in a
mortar. Concerning the manna in the
wilderness we read….
Numbers 11: 8 And the people went about, and
gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a
mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it
was as the taste of fresh oil.
Christ the true Bread from
heaven was so made sin for his people, he so bore the sins of many, that with
the iniquities of his people laid on him, God justly bruised Christ for our
iniquities. Our Substitute was broken,
beaten, pounded, ground to powder like as a corn of wheat is bruised so that he
might put away our sins and we might feed and feast freely upon the Bread of
life.
Application: Believer, try to put everything out of
your thoughts and hear Christ say to you personally, this broken piece of bread
represents “my body, which is broken for you.”
·
His
Body Which Knew No Sin
·
His
Body in which righteousness was established and the law fulfilled
·
His
body which bore our sins
·
His
Body which he sacrificed for us
·
Remember
what it cost him to say to you, ‘I will be thou clean.”
·
Remember
what he suffered in his body that you might be justified freely.
II. THE WINE—V25:
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying,
This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it,
in remembrance of me.
The wine represents Christ shedding his own blood by
which he put away the sin of everyone for whom he died.
Leviticus 17: For the life
of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul.
Hebrews
1:…3: when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high;…9: 2: And almost all things are by the law purged with blood;
and without shedding of blood is no remission.
Christ
Jesus shed his own blood--his life for the life of his people--and put away our
sin by the sacrifice of himself—by shedding his own blood.
Ephesians 1: 7: In whom we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of his grace;
Hebrews 9: 14: How much more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living
God?
Salvation
is not in your works—it is in Christ’s blood.
Justification is not by your good deeds—in his finished work.
Romans 5: 9:…being now justified
by his blood,…
Romans
3: 24: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God; 26 To declare, I say, at
this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him
which believeth in Jesus. 27: Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By
what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified
by faith without the deeds of the law.
III. THE TAKING AND EATING—24:
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat.
“Jesus
took bread, and blessed it, and brake it,” he held it out to his disciples and
said, “Take, eat!” When they took it, and ate it the bread became theirs and
became one with them. The taking and eating of these elements
symbolizes our receiving—taking—Christ through faith and living upon him. When Christ speaks to the heart made new and
says, “Take, eat”—his child takes into himself all that Christ is and all that
Christ freely gives.
All
spiritual blessings are of God who blessed us with all spiritual blessing in
Christ when he chose us in him. We
receive those blessings when we take and eat of him through faith.
John 6: 53: Then Jesus said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54: Whoso eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last
day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and
my blood is drink indeed.
All is a gift. We do
not make our own blessings, earn the blessings or deserve the blessings. He even gives life and the gift of faith
before we can receive him. We simply
receive the gift of blessing he gives to us freely by his grace by believing on
him. All is his gift.
Romans 6: 23: For the wages
of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Someone
might say, “I don’t feel worthy because
of my sin.” Was their sin in those
believers at the Lord’s table that night? Yes.
Was any worthiness in them to take?
No. Their worthiness to take was
Christ, who put away their sin and commanded them, “Take, eat.”
So
it is that no sinner can receive Christ by faith who thinks he has made himself
worthy to receive Christ.
Luke 5: 32: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.
Before
any man takes Christ in faith, the Spirit of God makes us examine ourselves and makes
us to discern the Lord’s body.
·
The
Spirit convinces us of sin—we are absolutely unworthy in ourselves
of the least of God’s mercies?
·
The
Spirit convinces of righteousness—that Christ is all our
righteousness
·
The
Spirit convinces us of judgment—that our worthiness—our
complete and full justification and acceptance with God—is through the broken
body of Christ Jesus who died in our room and stead?
The
Spirit makes us to hunger and thirst after Christ our Bread, our Righteousness.
So by his grace, we obey his command and take and eat—we believe—because freely
we have received—of his fullness.
Likewise,
that is how believers observe to the Lord’s Table—let a man examine himself,
discern the Lord’s body. Be sure to get this, brethren. We examine ourselves and truly discern the
Lord’s body when we find all worthiness in Christ, not in ourselves. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
drinking damnation to himself, is not he that partakes of the bread and wine
being a sinner, but he that partakes not owing Christ to be our All—that is
what it is not to discern the Lord’s body.
Nothing in Peter made Peter worthy to take of that bread—it was Christ
who gave it—who was all his worthiness.
So it is with the believer….The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
us from all sin. Sinner, hear the Lord, I pray he make you obey him, Believe on
Christ--“Take”—freely receive him by faith.
A few more things we see in the eating of
this bread—it symbolizes our living upon Christ by faith.
John 6: 57: As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me.
We
live by him daily as you live by the bread on your tables. The manna in the
wilderness that was not eaten, bred worms, and stank.
We
chew when we eat. We take this doctrine
of Christ and we chew on it. We savor
it. We delight in it because it is
sweet—sweeter than the manna in the wilderness.
God chose me freely in Christ by his grace—the more I see my sin the
sweeter that bread becomes to me. Christ
loved me so much that he laid down his life for me, I am seated with him in
glory, never to be separated from him—that is my everlasting meat in this land
of famine. God the Holy Spirit abides in
me, leads me, guides me into all truth, keeps me and shall raise me at last to
be with Christ forever—what a delight to chew over and over.
Food
nourishes our bodies when it becomes one with us. So the believer’s inward man is nourished and
strengthened by Christ our Bread who abides inwardly and in whom we abide.
John 6: 56: He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Galatians 2:20: I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Isaiah
55: 2: Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your
labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
Lastly,
when we gather at someone’s table it means friendship. By faith we have fellowship in Christ.
1 John 1:3: That which we
have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ.
He said, “because I live, ye
shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in
me, and I in you.”
John
17: 22 And the glory which thou gavest
me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and
hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
My
favorite phrase in the whole English language:
Accepted
in the Beloved!
·
Believer,
in the bread—remember his body broken for you
·
In the
wine—remember his blood shed for the remission of our sins
·
In the
taking and eating—remember “the just shall live by faith.”
Luke 12: 37: Blessed are
those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say
unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and
will come forth and serve them.
Amen!