Is intinction the correct way to do communion?

Because of their importance let us again summarize these thoughts: The Breaking of Bread has two aspects that must be seen distinctively, but not separated from each other:

Permit me to make a practical suggestion here. The wording is clearly “eating” and “drinking”. The Corinthians went to one extreme: they turned the Lord’s Supper into a normal meal in order to satisfy their hunger and quench their thirst. Are we not liable to go to the other extreme by not properly eating and drinking, but simply taking a tiny piece of the bread and only a sip from the cup?

Then comes the question of the order of “eating” and “drinking”. In the gospels and in 1 Corinthians 11 the order is: first the bread, then the cup. In 1 Corinthians 10 it is different. Here the cup is named first, then the bread. Which is the correct sequence, or can we vary it at will? Here, too, there is no express rule or prohibition given, but I have no doubt that the historical sequence corresponds to God’s mind, i.e. first the bread, then the cup. That is how the Lord acted, and Paul reports it as he received it from the Lord. Why should we diverge form that? There is no plausible argument in favour. The reason why there is a different order in 1 Corinthians 10 is that this passage deals with the basis of our fellowship with the Lord and with one another; so it is understandable that the blood is mentioned first. The visible procedure we find in 1 Corinthians 11, which is the same as in Luke 22. We can take this order as our guideline.

Two statements are given as to the bread. One is that the bread is broken, the other that it is eaten (1 Corinthians 10:16; 11: 26). Of the cup it is only said that we drink from it. What is the difference between the act of breaking on the one hand and the eating or drinking on the other? The Lord Jesus took the loaf, He broke it, then gave it to His disciples, telling them to eat of it. Later He handed them the cup to drink from. The Lord’s death is proclaimed by the act of eating or drinking, not by that of breaking the loaf.

But the Supper was not confined to the loaf only. Subsequently the cup also was given. He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood of the new testament." In these words the Lord shows us unmistakably that the particular event in His history to be remembered on these occasions is His death, because there were the two elements, each bearing its witness. There was the bread, and there was the wine. The bread was the body, and the wine the blood. Separate as they were in that emblematical form, jointly they truly set forth the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Q. — Matt. 26:26-27; Mark 14:22-23; Luke 22:19-20. Is it not clear that thanks should be given separately for the bread and the cup? and that reverence is due by doing so at the table? T. M.

A. — Though spirit is far beyond letter, it is sad to allow a slipshod way with the Lord's Supper. Even the Lord Himself, as all three Synoptic Gospels show, teaches by His action what is comely on our part. Nothing can justify irreverence or self-will. We have only to follow Him. As He took bread and gave thanks before breaking it, so He did with the cup. Why should any one depart from His example? Is it not habit, or carelessness?

The Lord’s words ‘this do’ (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24, 25) confirm that, as we remember Him, we are to emulate what He did.

In sizeable meetings, it may (in ordinary circumstances) be necessary to break a large loaf into smaller portions and to dispense wine from one container into several cups for practical reasons. However, in those instances, the pattern established by the Lord (brethren partaking from the same portion of bread and the same cup) is essentially maintained. While we should not tempt God (Matt. 4:7; Luke 4:12), it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which it would become right for us not to follow what the Lord and His disciples did when the Lord’s supper was instituted.

What, then, says the Scripture in reply to your question? We turn, in the first place, to Matthew 26, and there we read, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to the disciples, and said, Take eat, this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it." (Ver. 26, 27)

Again, in Mark 14 we read, "And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them, and said, Take eat, this is my body. And He took the cup; and when He had given thanks, He gave to them, and they all drank of it." (Ver. 22, 23) So also in Luke 22 we read, "And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Ver. 19, 20) The word "likewise" in this last quoted passage implies that our Lord did with "the cup" as He had done with "the bread." Finally, in the first epistle to the Corinthians we read, "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?" (1 Cor. 10:16) "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake, and said, Take eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also 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. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." (1 Cor. 11:23-26)

1 Corinthians 11: 20 – 30: “When you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. ... For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, `Take, eat; this is My body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me´. In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper, saying, `This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me´. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.

The breaking of the bread is in itself no religious act; it represents the putting of Christ to death, and, as an outward act, was consummated by wicked men. But the Lord did break it in the last supper, shewing it was a dead Christ they had to feed on; and hence he who gives thanks breaks the bread. The communion comes after and is on a broken body. The breaking is the killing of Christ, and though absolutely necessary as a figure, because His death was absolutely necessary and is the very point shewn forth, yet the act of doing it is no religious part of the thing which one has a privilege in doing. And as to pouring out the wine, it is done no doubt often, but is no part of the Lord's supper at all. The wine is, in the institution, supposed to be already in the cup, still pointing to the great fact, that the communion refers to an already dead Saviour. The blood is out of the body - "my blood which is shed for you." The act of pouring out would not represent death, because the body is not thus represented, and hence it is not referred to at all. The already shed blood is given thanks for or blessed, already poured out: "the cup which we bless," etc. There is the breaking of the bread as significative of the breaking of His body; but this is preparatory to communion.

We can, of course, think of the Lord at any time, and in any place, but we ought to have the Lord's words written upon our hearts, "This do in remembrance of me." The remembrance is a question of doing. It is not a sacrifice to be offered, but it is an act to be performed. He has definitely said this, and it is not for us to take away from what He has said. "This do in remembrance of me." 'I shall leave this world that does not want Me. I shall return to the place I had with the Father before the worlds were. I want you to raise a memorial to My death here in this world, not in marble, not in costly architecture, not in anything which can be measured by the riches of this world, but by a simple act, of no external value in itself, by nothing impressive in the nature of its ceremony. Do this in remembrance of Me. I call for this act of obedience on your part.'