For *I* received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread,
Paul answers the Corinthians' disorderly meals by going back to where the supper came from, and he names his source. Two questions follow: why did the Lord give this to a man who was not in the room, and why tie His memorial to the night of betrayal?
Paul was not in the room the night the Lord gave the supper. He could have asked those who were there. Instead the account came to him from heaven.
Thinking about this special revelation adds to the seriousness of the subject. Paul, the chief of the apostles, was not in the supper room with the eleven before the crucifixion. But the Lord spoke to him directly from heaven, so that he heard from His own lips in glory that those who loved Him were to keep this supper.
The way it reached him shows how much the Lord values it, and who He meant it for.
Does this not show what the Lord thinks of the supper, and how He values our remembrance of Himself and our answer to His love? His own heart of love, which brought Him down into death, gives this revelation to Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Jews might otherwise have said that the supper was only for Jews, since it was tied to the Passover. But the Lord gives it to him as a distinct and direct message to the Gentiles.
Paul received a special revelation about the supper, but not about baptism. Commentators see a reason for that.
It is interesting to notice that Paul received a revelation of the supper, not of baptism. He was baptized like anyone else, and not even by an apostle, in case anyone twisted that into making him dependent on the twelve apostles. He was baptized by a simple disciple, Ananias… But the supper is the memorial of Christ, and especially of His death, and it is now bound up with the body of Christ… Paul was the chosen vessel who would make known the mystery of Christ and the church. So it seemed good to the Lord that he should receive a special revelation of His supper, the standing sign of its unity and public witness of its communion.
The Corinthians' table had gone wrong. Notice how Paul corrects it: he does not argue with them.
The only remedy for disorder at the Lord's supper — even in the days of the apostles, note — was to go back to the original institution: its spirit, its meaning, its orderly simplicity. Paul did not argue on the subject. In verses 23 to 27, he simply goes back to what the Lord Himself had instituted… Any "order", however grand or beautiful to human eyes, is disorder in God's eyes if it is not God's order.
Two things in the verse repay a closer look: the name Paul gives Him, and the night he names.
The revelation came to him about "the Lord Jesus" — not Jesus only, but the One Who is the exalted Lord in the highest place in glory. When was it? On "the same night in which he was delivered up" (as it should read). That is a much wider thought than the rendering "betrayed", which limits it to Judas' treachery. What does it involve? That was the hour when everything in man's heart came out, when all the wickedness of man rose to its height. There was the treachery of Judas, the weakness of Peter and of His disciples, the hatred of the scribes and priests, the cruel mockery of the soldiers, and the unrighteousness of Pilate, who three times protested His innocence and finally gave Him up to be slain. Behind it all was the power and energy of Satan.
The Lord chose that night on purpose, and the choice carries His message.
No tongue can tell how the Lord felt the betrayal of one of His own! He felt it keenly; but, feeling it, He took the bread and there and then instituted the Supper. What did that mean? To me it meant this. You may not be able to trust anyone else, but you may trust Me. If treachery springs up in this inner circle, who can you look to? My love will not fail you… In days of darkness and nights of treachery and betrayal you will find Me always the same.
With the cross hours away, His attention was not fixed on His own ordeal.
We might have thought that the work the Lord Jesus was about to do would have filled all His thoughts and taken all His attention. But no; He thinks of the love of His disciples, and longs to draw that love, so ready to wander, back to Himself, again and again.
- Received — Paul got the supper straight from the Lord in glory, not from the eleven who were there. The source shows how much the Lord values it.
- Revealed — the Lord revealed the supper to Paul, not baptism. Paul carried the truth of Christ and the church, and the supper is the standing sign of that unity.
- Reaching — it came through the apostle to the Gentiles, so no one could call it a Jewish rite tied to the Passover.
- Remedy — the cure for disorder at the table is a return to the original, not argument. Order that is not God's order is disorder in His eyes.
- Remembrance — He fixed His memorial to the night of betrayal. In every later night of treachery, His own can rest in a love that does not change.
and having given thanks broke [it], and said, This is my body, which [is] for you this do in remembrance of me.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood this do, as often as ye shall drink [it], in remembrance of me.
The Lord speaks these words over the cup at the end of a meal. They tie a covenant promised to Israel centuries earlier to His own blood. Why name a covenant here, and why repeat the call to remember Him?
The Lord did not drink the cup He handed over, and what He says over it is a command, not a suggestion.
What the Lord lays down is not only a permission; it is also a command... So too with the cup. Supper was ended, and with it the Master's share in the former things. He hands us the new covenant of life and peace, for each of us to accept, in this new and special cup of blessing. The Master would not drink it... But He cannot drink the cup of the new covenant. His blood is not shed for Himself, but for His saints.
Calling the cup a covenant is a figure of speech. The covenant it names is one a prophet had announced long before.
A "cup" is a common picture in Scripture, where the cup stands for what is in it. "This cup," that is, the wine, "is the new covenant in My blood." The Lord is pointing here in particular to the new covenant promised long ago through Jeremiah. God will make it with His repentant earthly people. Then their sins will be put away, and Jehovah will write His laws in their hearts (Jer. 31:31-34). The foundation blessings of that future covenant with Israel are ours now through the blood of Christ.
Jeremiah announced the covenant but left much unsaid. In the upper room the Lord filled in what was missing for the Twelve, His closest disciples.
At last, in the upper room in Jerusalem, the Lord spoke of it to just the Twelve. He spoke of it in a way that showed heaven had not forgotten it... But He added two important things to what Jeremiah had revealed. First, the covenant would rest on the blood of a sacrifice. Second, that blood was to be His own.
The covenant still awaits Israel. The Lord has already shed the blood it rests on.
The Lord's supper then is to remind us of Christ, of His death; not of our sins but of our sins forgiven and ourselves loved. It is in no way the old covenant of condemnation. It is the new covenant: God known in grace, wrongdoing forgiven, and sins remembered no more. It has not yet been made with the houses of Israel, settled for ever in the land under the reign of Messiah. But the blood that is its foundation has been shed, and we who believe, Jew or Gentile, have it in spirit, not in letter... Of this the cup especially is the pledge.
The Lord did not hand out one emblem but two, and their separation is itself the message.
No mystery surrounds this feast such as men delight to import into it. All is simplicity. It is the simple, but touching, memorial of the death of Christ. The bread speaks of His body — Himself. The cup speaks of His blood — His work. The symbols of the body and the blood are separate, speaking of a dead Christ.
The wine is not blood still flowing in a living body.
And so with the cup "after the supper," who could hesitate about what that cup set forth? He Himself says, "In My blood." It is not the blood in the body but apart, separated from it — that is, in death.
The Lord gives the same instruction over the cup as over the bread, and He points to Himself.
Notice how the instruction, "This do in remembrance of Me", is repeated for the cup as well as for the loaf. The Lord Himself is speaking, so He seeks the remembrance of Himself — "of Me." It is very important to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure of this Supper. He is there!
A church can keep the ceremony and still forget the Person.
They had observed the appointed ceremony, but had forgotten Him. They shared the bread and the wine, but the Lord Himself was not before them. They thought only of themselves and of their "own supper".
The verse sets no gap between one Supper and the next.
At the institution of the Supper, the Lord Himself made no restrictions... He laid down nothing about how often to take part. Later He gave a special revelation to the apostle to the Gentiles, and even there He did not fix the gap between one feast of remembrance and the next. His silence on this point tells us with the greatest certainty that He has left it to the love and faithfulness of our hearts.
- Blood — the covenant Jeremiah promised needed a sacrifice, and the Lord said the sacrifice would be His own.
- Cup — the wine stands for that blood, poured out and separate from the body; it sets a death before us, not a living Christ.
- Covenant — its terms are grace, forgiveness, and sins remembered no more, and the cup pledges that its foundation is already laid.
- Reach — the covenant itself still awaits Israel, yet its first blessings are ours now through the blood of Christ.
- Remembrance — the Lord repeats it over the cup and points to Himself: never keep the form and forget Him, and keep it as often as love decides.
For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come.
One simple act holds the church's whole life between the cross and the return of Christ: eating bread and drinking a cup. Paul's comment on it raises three questions. What does the act announce? Who hears it? How long does it last?
Two ordinary words stand together here. One writer will not hurry past them:
You could not find two words that mean so much when put together: the death of the Lord. How much is held in this — that He who is called the Lord had died! What love! what purposes! what efficacy! what results!
Those results reach both ways — back to blessings made sure, and forward to a Lord who kept every right through death:
"The Lord's death." Such words invite meditation; they take us back to the past. "Till He come." This carries us on in thought to the future... The Lord had died, but the Lord will return; and He has lost none of His rights by death... by it all our blessings for eternity have been purchased, and are put beyond the reach of uncertainty.
The supper sets before us a death already finished. One writer presses this against any idea that the sacrifice is repeated:
Note well that it is not even a dying Christ, but a dead Christ. Many wrongly teach that His sacrifice is repeated again and again. That is not so. He is a dead Christ: "for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Heb. 10:14).
Yet the One remembered is not the One we now deal with:
We remember what is not present, never what is. And what we remember is in the past... Clearly the Lord's death is not a present thing, but past: "death no longer has dominion over him." We remember a dead Lord. But the Lord we deal with now is living.
The announcement belongs to the gathered company, not to one person speaking. So no one at the table is a spectator:
Whenever the children of God take the Supper as the Lord set it up, they announce together the central truth of Christianity — "the Lord's death until He comes."... The death of the Lord is remembered there. The believers announce His death every time they take the Supper. It is true of those whose voice is not heard in the assembly, yes, even if some were unable to speak.
A proclamation has hearers. One of them is the world outside, and the message is not comfortable for it:
Showing the Lord's death until He comes is not only a memorial; it is a testimony to the world that they crucified the Lord. The church at the Lord's supper publicly witnesses to the world's sin and its condemnation... For it is no less a witness of the patience of God as of the world's sin. So long as the church remains here, the forgiveness of sins through His blood is preached.
Preaching is not the only testimony to that death:
The Gospel proclaims His death and its wonderful results, whereas His Supper furnishes the lasting and standing witness to its reality.
The phrase sets the supper between two events and settles the question of whether it has expired:
The central event in God's history of the world is the death of Christ upon the cross... The next great event is the Lord's second coming. The Lord's supper connects the two, standing between the past event and the future one... The Lord has not yet come, so those who neglect the supper are without legitimate excuse.
The end point is not our death but His arrival. That makes the hope a shared one:
As regards the Lord's supper, it is said, "you proclaim the Lord's death [not, till death, but] until he comes," 1 Cor. 11:26. There is the basis of our common hope — the death of Christ. We go on showing this until He comes again to receive us to Himself. If I think of death, of my going to be with Christ, I am thinking about myself. I shall be happy, but that is not the whole church glorified.
The Lord fixed the end point but not the rhythm. Writers take that silence as trust:
His silence on this point tells us with full certainty that He has left this to the love and faithfulness of our hearts. We answer His own expressed desire by eating bread and drinking wine as often as circumstances allow... In Jerusalem at the first the saints were able to break bread at home daily. In Troas the custom was to gather for that purpose on the first day of the week.
- Announce — the supper is not silent remembering. The whole company declares a death, and every believer at the table shares in it, even without speaking.
- A dead Lord — we remember a finished death, not a repeated sacrifice. The One who died is the One who now lives.
- To the world — the supper witnesses to the world's guilt in crucifying Him. It also witnesses to God's patience, while forgiveness is still preached.
- Until He comes — the end point is His return, not our death. So the hope belongs to the whole church, not to me alone.
- As often as — He set no interval. He left the frequency to our love, and the supper ends only when He comes.